Tidbits

There are more flies and stray dogs here than people, it feels like. The first couple weeks I woke up continually with flies on my face (ick) and went to sleep every night to the sounds of howling dogs. I killed about a million flies by trapping them behind my curtains and squishing them, then left the bodies as a warning. No more flies on my face. Gruesome? Yes? Coincidence? Probably. I cannot do anything about the dogs but I’ve pretty much stopped hearing them. 
Yesterday I went and met with an architecture student who is the brother of a friend of Kirsten’s. The program to be an architect is eight years but you can tell how much more he knew than any of the fifth years I know (No offense, guys). He has built a number of projects with licensed architects, including taking over the design of a hotel that was started and then abandoned mid construction. Very very cool. My projects here are scattered, and, like much of the work done here, pretty unorganized. At the moment I am helping design a Mayan Ball court and basketball court for a community called Xiabaj. The school’s playground was destroyed by Hurricane Stan and AMA has been raising money to rebuild it. This week I have been going to Spanish schools with fliers Kirsten and I made, giving presentations to schools trying to convince students to spend one day this weekend helping level the land for the playground. We’re offering a class in Q’uiche, the native language, a typical lunch with the community, the opportunity to watch and learn to play the Mayan Ball game, and private transportation. So far, no takers. I’m not sure why, as if I were still a student I would love to see what it was like in a real Mayan community as well as try to give back a little. Most of the schools have field trips to the volcanoes, hot springs, the lake, etc., but all as preplanned tourist packages. We’re going to be working on this for three more weekends but I don’t know how much progress we can make without volunteers. The women in the community have been selling their textiles as a fundraiser but have only managed to raise $500, which is a fortune for them but doesn’t even come close to paying for materials and labors. Though since they normally sell a weaving for under ten dollars, I think it’s pretty impressive what they have accomplished. Reading up on the Mayan Ball game has been fascinating, though. They used rubber balls about the size and weight of bowling balls and bounced them back and forth along courts hundreds of feet long using only their hip bones. If it hit the ground, they lost. Also they had to bounce the balls through hoops the size of basket ball hoops six meters high. FROM THEIR HIPS. Can we say painful? The game is an integral part of the Popul Vuh, which is like their Bible and the Odyssey rolled into one book. Or that’s what I can tell from the struggle I’ve been making trying to read it in Spanish. I’m going to watch a demonstration Friday and I promise to post pictures and updates about it after that.
I think Rachel and I are going to start going to yoga every night (after tacos, obviously). That won’t last long, you say? You’re probably right. Last night we tried to order Chinese food for delivery. Well, we succeeded, but I wish I had a recording to post here. I have never laughed so hard. It was a Chinese person who spoke in Spanish, but then changed to English when he realized we were…not great at Spanish. Keep in mind I was using Skype as a phone and he was in a crowded restaurant. So this guy has a Spanish/Chinese accent and a really effeminate voice, and to everything we ordered he would go “WHHHHAAAAAAAATT?????????? You want WHHHAAATTTTTTT?”
Here is a brief summary. Imagine the above stress on every other word.
Me: “I would like to order General Tso’s Chicken.”
Him : “General chicken? What kind of general chicken?”
Me: General Tso’s? No? What about orange chicken?
Him: You want orange chicken? Why would you want orange chicken? Orange chicken? (to others – they want orange chicken?)
Me: Ok….what kind of chicken do you have?
Him: (to others) She wants to know what kind of chicken we have. What does that mean?
Me: Ok nevermind, what about an egg roll.
Him: You want WHAT? An EGG ROLL? Are you trying to be funny? What is this? Egg roll?

It went about like that for twenty minutes, which mainly took so long because he had to relay every hilarious thing we said to the other people in the store. This continued even after he read us the menu, which was about ten items. Not including lo mein, egg rolls, soup, or really anything but types of meat in oyster sauce. What is oyster sauce? I still don’t know. But it was good and was delivered in about ten minutes on bike. Yum.
Anyway I need to go eat tacos, but I felt like sharing that tidbit. 
More later!