New Old House

Moving weekend went pretty smoothly-due partly to the fact that i don't have that much stuff, but mostly because of unsolicited help from my host brother, counterpart and other co worker from the muni. I only moved a few blocks, and was valiently moving boxes and bags one-at-a-time, having been shamed into doing so by the mormons' move-in process the day before.. seriously, these guys showed up with another mormon-mission-couple, on foot, with several rolly suitcases in one trip, then with mattresses and other assorted furniture the next trip, and as far as i could tell that was IT! This left me feeling optimistic that I, too, could move all my belongings all by myself...

Luckily, thanks to the grace and hospitality of my Guatemalan friends and family, I was saved from two full days (maybe more) trekking back and forth and meanwhile parading all my worldy possessions in front of the inquiring eyes of my neighbors.... A couple car trips and one pick up truck haul later, I have all my stuff here. *phew* Quickly, I had to move because.. well I'm still not too sure, but I have moved from a big, cold house with little privacy and mean neighbors, into a cozy two bedroom apartment with an enclosed patio that is connected to my ex-host family's house...I think this is going to be good.

The instituto here, which has an applied learning based grade school, middle school, and high school and where I occasionally do presentations, activities, etc. is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year-and as such are having a big celebration at the beginning of august. Yesterday was the preliminary selection of the 'beauty queens' of the event and I was asked to be one of the judges... Now i don't support the whole concept of beauty pageants, but in central america its like, a big deal, and i couldn't say no. So i went, watched 14-17 year olds parade around in high heels and dresses, do a dance, make a speech, then parade around in their choice of sports wear.... I had a good laugh there because, as you may already know, they play One sport here and One sport only-FUTBOL! So, the beauty queens each had to choose a different sport, and the announcer introduced each like "Rosmary is dressed as a golf player, a sport that isn't practiced so much in Guatemala but in the United States they play it" "Claudia is dressed as a cyclist, a sport that isn't practiced so much here but in Europe they totally ride bikes" etc. Of course, it was Freezing Cold yesterday afternoon; intermittent rain combined with icy wind made for some shivering scantily clad would-be beauty queens. Reminded me of all those winter water polo and swimming events, a different kind of competition all together.

So it was an eventful weekend altogether. Back at work today, to see what all the week brings. Guiding a school visit to the park on Thursday. Planning an HIV/AIDS education and prevention workshop for next week at the middle school. Hoping to install interpretive signs in the park sometime this month.

Until next time...