A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through

June (A Haiku)
Pounding on the roof,
Drowning out all other noise.
Rainy season’s here.

Every once in a while Guatemala just totally takes my breath away. Sometimes it’s in a good way, like when the bus rounds the curve in the road on my way home, and all of a sudden you can see my beautiful little town among the green hills. Sometimes it’s in the frustrating way, like when the little kids in front of me on that same bus throw trash out the window onto those gorgeous green hills without a second thought. Sometimes it’s just in the out-of-shape, out-of-breath way (you try hauling a huge thing of water up a steep hill to your house in the pouring rain with sweaty, slipping hands and tell me it didn’t take your breath away).

The point is, life here is a life of extremes. For whatever reason, and I really still haven’t figured out why, here in Guatemala the tiniest victory feels like a world series ring, and even the smallest set back can seem like a fatal blow. It doesn’t take much more than a load of laundry for me to feel accomplished for the day. But it also doesn’t take much more than a burned out light bulb to send me into fits of despair.

The weird part is, I’m not usually that person. Not at all. Back home I am slow to celebrate my successes and rarely sweat the small stuff. It’s a funny juxtaposition, being overwhelmed by little things like washing dishes and grocery shopping while living among (and attempting to address) huge problems like domestic violence, poverty, corruption, discrimination, women’s rights. But, on the bright side, I think that Guatemala has taught me how to be a little more proud of myself, even (maybe especially) for the little things.

Moving on from the goopy, self-reflectiony stuff, the house is coming along pretty nicely. It is still pretty much heaven for me to have my own totally private space. The rainy season has definitely hit full-on and most evenings it rains so hard on my tin roof you can’t even hear yourself think, but I just put my “rain playlist” on full blast (although at times the rain drowns out even that) and enjoy the rhythm. It’s not the cliché “pitter patter” rhythm- actually it sounds more like a band of battling snare drums, but it’s soothing in its own way. My roof in the main room leaks, but since I have no furniture it doesn’t really matter (Aha! An upside to living on the salary of a volunteer). Next mission is a hammock and some mirrors.

Other than that, life is boring (I mean, as boring as a “life of extremes” can be, I guess) and I am counting the days until the big Fourth of July party (8) and Su-b comes to visit (1 month from today!). July has always been one of my favorite months, since it’s got the best day of the year in it- my birthday. The only month that might be better is October for baseball playoffs. And I think this year I’ll have even more reasons to love it so much. I’ll keep you all posted-

the view from my house =) (it's the only picture of the place that looks like anything...)

And I’ve got myself a new mantra, it says: don’t forget to have a good time.

MINE. (A Haiku)
It needs a paint job,
and it's completely empty.
But this house is mine! =)

I know, I know, I’m way overdue for a blog post. Things have been so busy here, though, and not even with anything interesting enough to post about. But, here are the most exciting things that have happened since the last post:

1) I got to go home! Well, not home home, but to New York. Jenna managed to convince me to come home for Memorial Day and surprise Catie and Cash (thus the lack of excited countdowns pre-trip) to stock up on my best friend love for the year... It was such a great trip, and exactly what I needed. Before my trip I stayed with my training family for a couple nights, since they live closer to the airport and I hadn’t seen them in a while. It was so nice to hang out with them again, and Wilson is so big! I gave him a baseball glove a friend from the states sent, and he was thrilled, although all he really wanted to do with it was put it on his head.
2) I got a house! FINALLY. It’s not the fanciest place (honestly, it’s kind of a dump), but it’s mine and that makes it awesome. It’s about a block from my host family’s house, so I’m still in the center of town, but it’s not on the noisy main road. And, the best part is, there are outlets everywhere!!! In my old room there were no outlets, which meant no fan, and nowhere to plug in my computer. But now I have a whole house of outlets that are all mine =) I’m slowly but surely starting to clean it up. My bedroom is coming along quite nicely, but the kitchen is pretty sparse. And a big thanks to my dear mom who has undoubtedly passed on to me her fear of gas stoves. I have the stove, but have yet to get up the nerve to connect the gas. It's too darn hot to cook, anyway.

3) I got a nasty bug bite! I went to the medical office, and I’m not going to die or anything, but it’s still gross: I don’t even want to think about what the bug looked like that made that mark, especially since I’m pretty sure I got it in my house.

In other news, when I got back from my trip I was informed by my counterpart that one of our communities had held their elections for the board of their women’s group. The goal for the year is to get our women’s groups organized and self sufficient, since CODEFEM’s project is supposed to end this year and we would like for them to keep working even if we’re not around. So, electing a board was a big step for the group. Unfortunately, my counterpart reported that at these elections the women had selected a man for the president of their women’s group. I guess we still have work to do.

I have a feeling the next couple months are going to fly by, since we’re already half way through June (how’d that happen??). The end of the month is the big Fourth of July party with all the volunteers in the country, and then in July Su-B is coming for my birthday! I still can’t believe she’s actually coming. AND, I’m officially coming home for Christmas! A HUGE thanks to the Beasty family for their miles! You guys are the best and I can’t wait to see you in six months.