September 5-September 20

Buenas noches!

Hello everybody! 

Ethan and I have been two busy beavers these past two weeks.  Here's the run down:

Our good friend Vicky's little sister recently turned 15.  So what does that mean?!  Quinceañera time!  For those who do not know, a quinceañera is a big bash for 15 year old girls.  From my understanding, it is a party to mark the transition from a girl to a young woman.  It was really fun!  There was a ton of dancing, Guatemalan food, and a lot of people.  

Me and a stud from the party.  He danced all night long with all the ladies!

Me with the party favors they handed out.

The following day, September 6, was round one of voting for the next Guatemalan president.  They had elections and narrowed down the options from a bunch to just two.  Now the next round of elections is going to be Oct. 25.  This day is when they should actually elect the President.

We worked all last week--me in the office and Ethan and David in the field.  Last Friday we had a meeting in El Salvador with some people from an organization called M.A.R.N.  The people we were meeting with are taking rainfall data and using it to help determine and warn people of landslide risks.  It's a cool project and we are hoping we may be able to become partners or collaborators with them.  I think it's really funny, we just drove to another country  for a meeting.  No big deal.  I guess that's what happens when you live in a country much smaller than the US and have other countries really close by.  :)  

While we were in El Salvador, we ate SO much and got to see some really awesome things!  Right when we arrived in San Salvador (El Salvador's capital) we went to see a big lake (Lake Coatepeque) in the area.  All I can say is that it was stunning! 

Lake Coatepeque

After we saw the lake we went straight to our meeting.  It was really interesting and Ethan, and I left really excited about their work.

Ethan, David, and Vicky at a meeting with MARN

The next day we went to go check out a volcano!  We went to the top of Volcano San Salvador (also known as Volcano Boqueron).  It was so cool and amazingly pretty.  We could see down into the crater and see where the lava comes out of.  Sadly we didn't see any lava, but it was still really cool.

Me, Ethan, and David in traditional El Salvador clothing.  Also, everyone needs to note the shear happiness on Ethan's face.  Why doesn't he always smile like that?!

Ethan and I at the top of the volcano.

Inside the crater.

After we left the volcano, we had lunch at a restaurant towards the top of the volcano.  This was the view we had of San Salvador.  Gorgeous!

Our view while we ate lunch.

Ethan and David enjoying each other's company while they check out the view.

The turkeys who hung out and chased me in the parking lot.  I had never been that close to a turkey before.  They were rather rude.

El Salvador cuisine is known for a certain dish called pupusa.  Basically, it's a very large tortilla with various foods (ie.  beans and cheese, pork, beef, etc.) stuffed inside of it.  It is usually serviced with cabbage (to put on top) and salsa.  They are absolutely delicious!  We caught a ride to El Salvador from a friend who works for the UN.  He gave us a ride, attended our meeting, and then dropped us off with another friend on his way to Honduras.  We had very limited transportation, so a lot of our meals were what we could walk to or where our friends took us.  Since Ethan, David, and I had never been to El Salvador before, for our first meal we went to go get pupusas.  Then we spent the night at a friends place, and walked to the closest place with food and had pupusas for breakfast.  We then went to the volcano and had lunch at the overlook, where we had more pupusas.  We met up with some other friends that night and they took us to the "best pupusas" in San Salvador.  We then woke up and had pupusas again for breakfast.  Needless to say, we ate a TON of pupusas--every meal to be exact!  By the time we left, I can honestly say we had pupusas coming out of our ears!  Totally worth it though!

Pupusa Meal Number 5 of 5

When Ethan and I arrived back from El Salvador he took me out for a date!  Date night!  When we moved here, he told me there are three places he is going to take me to.  A week in we went to the first place, then last week we went to place number 2.  It was amazing! It was so romantic and had such a cool vibe.  Also, the food was AMAZING!  Probably some of the best food I've had in a long time.  Uttery great!  We enjoyed dinner and then hung out for the rest of the night.  It was really nice.  :)

Date Night!

 During the middle of last week, Ethan was out in the field and I was in the office all day.  When Ethan arrived back at the office he had brought me flowers and a Guatemalan flag.  He hand picked the flowers just for me and the man he bought them from gave him an old plastic bottle to put them in.  :)  They were such a great addition to my desk.  

My flowers and flag.

So, David is a pro baker!  He has told us that he loves it and I asked him to teach me.  So what did I learn over the past two weeks?!  How to make home made biscuits and home made bread!  They both were amazing!  It was surprisingly really easy, and I can't believe I had never tried making it before.  I had never made biscuits before and I had only made bread in a bread maker.  They both were super easy and came out delicious!  We've had biscuits and gravy twice now and shared some (good ole American cooking) with the people running the hostel upstairs.  The bread we made is gone literally 24 hours later.  We ate SO much of it!  I just couldn't stop.  SO DELICIOUS!

David and me with our bread!

A close up of my bread.  Perfection!

While we've lived here there are certain things that I just find really funny--like everything being put into a bag--it just makes me chuckle.  Here are two pictures to try to explain my personal chuckle-humor.  

We were driving on the highway and pass this truck.  Who needs a bus when you can fit the same amount of people in the back of a truck?

We went to the grocery store the other day and found cheese locked up.  I guess they were very serious about people not stealing them.  

 

We had to get some passport pictures taken for our legal documents the other day.  After going to 4 different places (it was obviously much harder than we thought it was going to be) we found a place that could take them.  We walk back to his studio and we see this camera.  Ethan and I were talking about how cool it was that he had such a vintage camera.  Then he has me sit in front of it and starts adjusting it.  It was the camera he still used!  It was awesome.  I had never seen such an old camera still working.  The best part was when he went to take the picture.  He put a cartridge of some sort in the back of the camera (containing the film), then he held a piece of metal in front of the lens, he removed a piece from the cartridge (I'm assuming he's exposing the film), and then he takes the piece of metal that he was holding in front of the lens and removes and then replaces it really quickly.  He did the shutter by hand!  Manually!  Haha it was so great!  

The camera my passport pictures were taken with (front).

 The camera my passport pictures were taken with (back).

We were walking around the city the other day and saw some gentlemen working on the overhead lines.  The picture is really hard to tell, but they leaned the ladder up against the lines overhead and had the man climb up the latter that way.  Who needs a lift of anything when you can just use the cables to hold the top of the ladder?!  Then, yesterday I saw some other men working on the cables and they had climbed up the ladder and where just sitting on the cables while they were working.  No tie-off, no ladder, just hanging out while they worked.  Haha.  It made me so nervous!  

Men working on the overhead cables.

This evening, I should have known something was wrong.  Just like when there are kids around and everything gets really quiet, you know something is going on.  That's what happened this evening.  Our apartment gets rather quite, I hadn't heard Ethan in a while, and I decided it was wise to see what he was up to.  What do I find?  This (see below)...

I don't even know what to say...

Other than that, Ethan and I have a 4 day trip planned starting tomorrow and going through Thursday night.  We are going to go see a volcano here in Guatemala called Santiaguito (located in a town called Xela) for two days and then we are going to another town called Panajachel to look at some landslides.  Panajachel is located on Lake Atitlan.  Ethan took me to that lake when I came down here last summer to visit him and I can honestly say it's one of the prettiest places I've been.  I'm really excited to go back!  We are going to be working with two different organizations and we are going to be looking into some possibilities of partnering with them on some projects.  It's all very preliminary, but we are super excited!  :D

Well, that about sums up our lives for the past two weeks.  We hope everything is going really well with all of our lovely friends and family.  

Love you all!

Saludos!

August 18-September 5

Buenos dias!

Wow!  We are so sorry we have been so absent.  The past 2 weeks have been utterly crazy!  So here is the run down of our lives, complete with pictures!

Two weeks ago we took some Spanish classes.  We got to practice a ton and it really helped.  Ethan's Spanish is pretty good now and mine is getting better.  We both still have a lot to learn, but I'm really impressed how much Ethan's has improved over the past year.  Ethan is able to carry on conversations with people and I definitely depend on his help when communicating.  

At the end of that week, we held our first dinner party!  It was so much fun!  We had several friends come over and bring a dish (classic pot luck style).  It was a lot of fun!  We had green bean casserole, shrimp tacos with pineapple salsa, re-fried beans, nachos, tamales, and apple cobbler. 

The group at our dinner party.  

On August 24, we had our first day at the office of the nonprofit we are working with.  It is fantastic!  We have 4 desks and an entire room that we can use.  The people who work there are so nice and it's just a great time getting to see them.  They are constantly looking out for us and are doing everything they can to help make sure we are taken care of and that we are safe.  It's so nice getting to work with them.  :)

We have also been able to get out to the field for the first time (we've been three times now).  We've gotten to talk to so many people and have heard so many stories.  Some of these stories are heartbreaking, and we can only hope that with what we are trying to do we will, in some way, be able to help.  Ethan has been able to collect some good data, so our mission while we are here is underway.  :)

Ethan collecting data in the field.

Vicky and I are talking to a community member (Right) about her history with landslides.

In one of the communities, we stopped by a house to talk to a lady whose husband died from a landslide.  We ended up talking with her for a long time and hung out with her grandson.  He was utterly adorable!  He sang the Guatemalan national anthem for us and drew "tattoos" on our arms with a pen.  We asked him who was on his shirt and he said "Buzz Lightyear y mi amigo Woody (Buzz Lightyear and my friend Woody)."  He pretty much melted my heart and was as cute as he could be.  He showed us his Buzz Lightyear toy, and he went to the store to get some batteries in order to show us what Buzz does with batteries.  He was so cute! 

Ethan, I, a little boy, and his Buzz Lightyear in a community.

We have also been busy going car shopping.  We are looking into buying a car while we are down here, and have been investigating various options in order to find a good one that we like.  We've gone to several different places and are waiting to hear back from a few.  It will be really nice and so convenient.  We will be able to drive to work (cuts travel time in half) and we won't constantly need to get taxis in order to go to the communities for our field work.  It's definitely a luxury and we are excited to be able to get one.

There has also been so much going on as far as the government.  As a brief summary, the UN created a group called CICIG.  It's purpose was to help investigate the corruption in the Guatemalan government.  What they found out ran really deep.  There have been peaceful protests since calling for the resignation of the Vice President and President. Several months ago the (now former) Vice President resigned and is now in prison while she awaits for her trial. A week or so ago, the President made a public statement saying he was innocent and that he would not resign.  The protests have been continuing and on the 27th, there was a huge protest calling for his resignation.  We read somewhere that there were approximately 100,000 people protesting and there were road blocks all over the country.  Then this past Tuesday, the Guatemalan Congress voted to strip the President of his immunity (so they could start the process of impeaching him), and then he resigned Wednesday night.  On Thursday he sat in a very long hearing to go over the evidence against him and to determine if the he is to be sent to jail while he waits his trial.  After that hearing, they put him in jail until trail starts. It seems like as a whole, the country is very happy.  Tomorrow they are having the first round of Presidential elections and in the mean time a new president has been appointed for the interim.  I am still learning as much as I can regarding everything that is going on, but I have included some really interesting articles for your reading pleasure. Whats really amazing, is that through the all of this, the country has remained totally peaceful. There hasn't been even one single violent action from protesters or others. The safety of others has never been in question. However, Ethan and I are still taking steps to ensure we stay safe by staying home during days with higher amounts of protests.

• http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32882520?ocid=wsnews.chat-apps.in-app-msg.whatsapp.trial.link1_.auin
  
• http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/27/guatemala-president-impeachment-threat-protest
  
• http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/01/americas/guatemala-president-immunity-stripped/index.html
  
• http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/03/437158681/guatemalan-president-otto-p-rez-molina-resigns-amid-corruption-scandal

In other news, there is another new student, David, at Colorado School of Mines who is hoping to do some work down here in Guatemala similar to Ethan's.  He arrived this past Tuesday and we have been getting to hang out and introduce him to the contacts Ethan has made thus far. He'll be here for about a month or so, so it'll be really nice to get to spend some time with him and help him find out what he is going to hopefully be doing his project on.

David and Ethan geeking out over some maps.

I also got to try my hand at making home made tortillas!  It was so hard and completely awesome!  You just take some dough and claps your hands together, and then BAM! you have a tortilla.  Easy enough right?  NO!  It's really hard!  It was a lot of fun though.  I really want to learn while we are here!  So, step one!

Can you guess which tortilla was mine?

Ethan, David, Vicky, and I also went to a park to see part of the Berlin wall a few days ago.  We were waiting for a meeting and had some time to kill, so we decided to stop by.  It was a cute little park that had a great view as well!  

Ethan, Vicky, and I at the Berlin Plaza

Ethan, David, and I at the Berlin Plaza

The wall pieces at the plaza.

So, fun facts about Guatemala time!  Guatemala LOVES their fried chicken.  There is a restaurant called Pollo Campero, and from what we've been told, it's THE restaurant in Guatemala.  Pollo Campero, in my opinion is similar to KFC but it has servers and is a little more than just a fast food restaurant, but people are serious about it.  People will wait for 30 minutes just to get into the parking lot, and once they get into the restaurant they wait for an additional 30 minutes just to get seated.  It's really funny.

Ethan and I at Pollo Campero

They also put everything into bags (going back to the eggs in a bag).  We ordered lunch complete with a drink.  When the food arrived, this was our drink.  Placed very nicely into a bag.  

Ethan with his juice bag.

We recently went to a friend's parents house for lunch.  They said we were having enchiladas.  When we get there, this (see picture) is what we were having.  They were absolutely delicious!  It was really interesting that they were so different from the enchilladas that I have been accustomed to.  It was a hard corn tortilla shell, a mixture of beet and cabbage, ground beef with red sauce, lettuce, egg, and cheese. 

Guatemalan enchilada.

We hope all is well!  Until next time!

Saludos!  Love you all!