“Once there was a way to get back homeward…”

Today is the very last day before I have to come back to reality for real.  Not for fake like last time.  I’m in Managua today with an afternoon flight tomorrow, broke, tired, and with a little bit of maybe dyssentary, or traveler’s diarrhea or something; i don’t know.  It would be so cool to return to the U.S. with traveler’s diarrhea.  Especially since between 1030pm when I arrive and four oclock the next day when I fly to Kansas for the big family reunion, I have to move all my boxes and crap out of Adam’s apartment across to Line’s in Coolidge Corner, down four flights of stairs and then up four flights of stairs (very narrow stairs).  And then run to the airport with my huge backpack on the T cuz I can’t afford to take another cab. 

God I’m poor.  Anyways. Last I wrote I split off from amit and meg for a couple days and went to this maternal health center called Casa Materna in a town north of Managua, called Matagalpa.  A beautifully cool town in the hills.  Casa Materna is  a house run by women in the area where pregnant women who are too young, too old, too poor come for a few days before or after they give birth and get pre/post natal care, healthy food, exercize, psycological consultation and a break from their work in the home.  It is
mostly women from el campo, most of whom have lost a child or more already.  It is totally free for them, run purely on donor support and the women only have to bring a little bit of food from their farm. 

The first day I came I met with Dona Chilla, the midwife at the Casa and she showed me maternal massage and we sat and talked for a long while.  I couldn’t understand much of what she said but I tried my best.  I had a little Casita to stay in all to myself with a kitchen, bathroom, cable tv, and all, and cooked all my meals.  It had been too long. The next day I got roped into leading 21 pregnant women in pre birth exercizes.  Why on earth did they think I could do that??  I was just abandoned with lots of pregnant faces looking at me to coordinate an exercize program, so I came up with some stuff and we all had a good time.  Then I spent the rest of the morning in consultation with the nurse, while each of the girls comes in and gets a checkup.  They check blood pressure of momma and baby, pulse, talk about what pains/discharges they are having, and if they are new they do an ultrasound and check weight etc.  I got to see some twins in the ultrasound.  I learned so much even though half the time I couldn4t understand what the
nurse or the patient was saying.  Learn by doing.  They’ll probably cover all this stuff in Midwifery school so I’m not too worried.  I watched a video about maternal health with them, and cut some watermelon, and helped make ice cream and tried to talk to some of the ladies for a while.  There are two girls there that are there that are 16 and one that is 15 and they look 12.  It was so weird to see their bellies full of a soon to be born child.  It just seemed so unreal even though it is pretty normal. 

The next morning, I rode in the Ambulance with a couple girls who were in labor.  I can’t figure out what they feel about doin that with no husband, no family or friends around.  They seemed uninterested and unphased by what was happening to them.  People respond to the coming of a child so differently.  While at the hospital, one of the ladies that came with us had an infected C Section scar.  Sans anethesia, or pain killers, the doctor ripped open her stitches and expressed a brownish red liquid from the would, cleaned out the infection and packed it with guaze, meanwhile urging “Tranquilo mujer!” as she moaned quietly and pulled at her hair.  She was hardly making a sound and he acted like she was throwing a fit.  I started to get really queezy and lightheaded as I saw gauze strip after guaze strip being pulled out of the wound soaked in that liquid.  It was the first time I’d ever seen the inside of a person before in real life. I got really dizzy and had to sit down, meanwhile the nurse was paying more attention to me than she was to the girl who was getting the work over.  I really hope I am able to acclimate to this because I am gonna be one crappy midwife if I can’t look at blood and stuff without passing out cold.  Overall the experience was excellent.  I’d really love to return someday.

The last few days have been calm.  I went to the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua.  It’s a big volcano floating in the Lake.  Pretty sweet.  Saw TONS of howler monkeys acting like I was filming them for the Discovery channel.  I dont want to come home because I don’t want to have to start worrying about things, but I am really ready to see some family and try to start putting together the life that I wanted post IHP.  I think I may be more ready to return this time.  I’m not sure.  I feel like this final entry is so much less emotional than the other.  Maybe it’s the diarrhea.  Maybe it is that I am tired and actually ready to sit still for a while.  Even though that won’t happen because I’ll be in 4 different cities in the next 3 weeks.  I’m not sure what I saw on this trip, or even what I did.  I got to spend 8 weeks in a region that a year ago I could only dream about.  I got to do it with two people that I love and respect.  And most importantly, my experiences and observations here will inform everything I write and study from here on out.  I have such an intimate context on which to draw for when I talk about this place now.  Central America is a place of beauty and fear, and deception and simplicity, and the source of so many questions that I would kill to have answers for.  From the edge of a lake, and a petroglyph in a jungle, and a chicken bus window, and the homes of those who helped us and from the hands of those that fed us, I saw a place that will fascinate and haunt me forever.

Until the next one,

Adios,

Amor,

Andie

1 - As stated

 An email I wrote to Amit today.  A little different insight into what I´m up to.  

I am in Matagalpa after a delightful taxi ride where the driver talked about how dangerous Managua was the whole time and a 3 1/2 hour bus ride on which a mal intentioned man kept telling me how a man has to pleasure a women as well as a woman pleasuring the man when you go to hotel and ¨bang bang bang¨ No this isnt enough, you´ve gotta do more than that, more than just the boom boom boom.  His cousin fell in love with a white girl.  He says they are muuuuuuuuuuuuy amable. He wants to fall in love with a gringa.  Oh we´re both single? He says. How nice. Tienes hijos? Marido? Soltera? Amor es rico x10 he says.  Hand on leg. Hand on leg. Hand on leg. Amor es rico.  I say…I don´t want to talk about love anymore thank you.  End of convo.  He falls asleep.  Guy opens window from outside and cracks me in the head with the handle.  I survive the blow. I arrived in Matagalpa, got a 6 cordoba taxi to the city hall with 10 minutes to spare. 

I met Susana, who is, the most, delightful woman ever.  She is so sweet.  We went to store and had some juices.  Mine, called La Bomba, had broccoli, carrot, cucumber, lettuce, parsely, 10 other veggies.  It was delicious.  We are going to the Casa Materna at 2:30.  I am very excited but already getting tired of speaking spanish.  She said something about a north american girl being there so maybe she will speak my tongue.  Susana is a spanish lady who came here 8 years ago, had a baby a year later in the campo with 2 midwives and left her husband.  She does maternal massage and reiki and all and I really enjoyed talking to her.  Got into CAFTA, the education system, a society of consumption.  I don´t know exactly what I´ll be doing except probably following the nurses around but we´ll see, but as far as I can tell, I´m welcome.  Those idiots, our friends from Central, said Matagalpa was a tiny town.  Try a half million people.  The town is not gorgeous but it looks like the hills are. 

No andes mamando

Andie

Final Leg.  Nicaragua.  We arrived a couple days ago I think, maybe more, maybe less.  Heat makes you forget things.  Right now I am in Masaya, Nicaragua - a town famous for its 2 huge artisan markets and its exceptionally beautiful lagoon.  Amid constant threats of the iminent doom for a tourist in Managau, we decided not to stay put.  Its raining and it smells delicious. 

The conference was excellent.  Tons of people came out to the farm for the three day event, students, business owners, ngo officials, campesinos, even this American chick who works for a BU study abroad program.  The first two days were spent teaching people the process of making biodiesel from start to finish, including quality testing, safety etc.  The final day was a series of presentations by conference attendees about their personal projects and forum for discussion of concerns, questions, and how to maintain communication.  The conference really demystified the whole process for me.  Everyone at the conference got to make their own biodiesel in old coke bottles which made the whole thing so much more tangible, and intelligeable.  We left the farm shortly after and after much discussion, research, contemplation and a few bad moods, we decided it would be best to leave our ducks at the farm with Argentina, the cook.  Argentina really loved those ducks and asked us specifically, before we even said anything if she could buy them from us if we didnt want to take them.  She was even wearing an apron with two embroidered ducks on it.  We knew it was right when she wanted to show us how well they swim by plopping them in the communal water well, much to the disgust of the biodiesel crew.   So we sadly left them there, knowing it would be cruel to make them spend hours more on buses in the travel basket, considering they are doubling in size every week.  We also werent sure that we could get them in the states, so this was probably our best bet.  Guatemalan ducks in Honduras. I miss you Tinamit.

We left early from the farm and made our way, after 11 hours of transit to El Salvador to visit Evelyn.  IHP itself couldnt have constructed a better 3 day visit.  Never have I gotten to see so many angles of a place in such a short time.  We stayed in Evelyns fathers old home which is now being rented out to a family of three, Margo and her two kids.  She is the mistress of a man who has another wife and family who knows about Margo.  Apparently this is very common.  Evelyns mom took us to the countryside to her childhood home where we got to talk to people who were there during the Guerilla War in the 80s.  We met a woman who hid behind a tree and watched her entire family killed by the government.  Now it doesnt sound so cool when I also say that we ate some new fruits we never tried and had the best chocolate covered bananas of my life.  That night we went to the Fair in Santa Ana.  How to describe the fair…

We sloshed around in mud from booth to booth eating 4 different foods fried 20 different ways, and then went on the oldest fair ride in fair history.  I am shocked to still be alive.  Amit screamed like a little girl.  We then went to Wonder Boys Circus, the greatest spectacle the world has ever seen.  Zorro threw knives at plump women,  clowns gave performances that would shame the industry, and 16 year old boys dressed in drag and did a loosely correographed dance that ended in some male parts on Amits leg that were anything but welcomed.  It was glorious.  Two dollars well spent.  Margos baby daddy came with us and drove us home in his souped-up prelude.  The next day we went to Lake Qualtepeque, and paid 5 dollars for an embarrassing 200 meter -boat ride.  Beautiful lake but no Atitlan.  We ate some beans and tortilla and beer in someones back yard for lunch.  I cut my finger on Megs antique knife and bled all over the beer.

Anywho.  We thought Margos boss, Tito, was just going to give us a ride to San Salvador to catch a bus to Managua that day but he ended up picking us up in his Nissan Land Destroyer and buying us a fancy hotel room and taking us out for a 125 dollar meal.  Hard to do in El Salvador.  We got to see San Salvador  from the windows of his SUV, an exact replica of the most wealthy parts of LA.  I could not believe this place.  Ferrari dealerships, malls with elaborate fountains.  More opulent than most things Ive seen in the states.  Who knew.  Laundered drug money Tito said.  

So after throwing up for most of the bus ride to Managua, we are here with little direction or plan, and any direction we do have conflicts with the desires of each other…so confusion and lots of it.  I miss the mountains and the view and the sense of understanding. 

Abrazos,

Andie 

9! Best of the Trip So Far!  (gifts have been purchased.)

Honduras.  Muggings.  Gropings.  Scamming.  Duck Poo.  Honduras is a beautiful beautiful place…if you are nowhere near any tourists because when you are things get rough.  After a couple weeks with the biodiesel crew, we split off and headed for Honduras after another invigorating night at Lake Atitlan.  My 3rd visit and god willing not my last.  We spent A LOT of time on buses which the ducks did not enjoy but we put them in the showers of the rooms we occupied along our way (even when communal) and man does it smell after we do that.  They seem to like showers though.  I usually try to clean it up well but on a couple of occasions we´ve had to split quick and the clean up job is less than adequate. 

We went to Tela, a city on the Carribean Coast.  Ugly beach.  Ugly town.  LOTS of mosquitos.  I really wish we hadn´t wasted a moment there.  Amit and Meg got mugged on the beach.  I hope his parents don´t read this…  Our negative experiences in Honduras have been fully redeemed by our current local.  We met back up with the biodiesel crew 3 days ago on a finca in Sula Santa Barbara which is just a couple ours east of the Guatemalan border.  We are having a biodiesel conference here starting tomorrow and people are coming from all over to partake.  We are staying with an NGO called Sustainable Harvest and this particular site is a farm in the mountains which is absolutely gorgeous.  The weather is warm but beautiful.  The people who work here are amongst the kindest I´ve ever met and the food is delicious.  The place is completely full of the most adorable children I´ve ever seen.  It is such a calm and peaceful place to live and work.  We haul up all the water we need from the spring which has really got me thinking even more so than before about water usage.  You really start to reconsider the need for a 15 minutes shower when you know what it feels like to haul 7 gallons of water up the side of a mountain.  It is amazing how little we need and how much we use.  I really wish we´d come here sooner.  Our ducks LOVE it here and all the people here love them too.  This sounds almost unfathomable but if it turns out that we can´t get them on the plane then we may leave them here.  It would be the safest thing to do but I´m still not ready to commit to it.  It seems like an omen that the last name of the cook´s family is Hernandez.

BIRTHDAY!  Wednesday was my 21st birthday and I certainly didn´t expect to spend it climbing around ancient Mayan ruins or eating a pink marshmallow frosted cake given to me by a Honduran man I befriended only one day before with a lit cigarrette in it as a candle, but I did!  It was a wonderful day, thanks mostly to Amit who has truly been the most wonderful friend ever in every way and really made my birthday what it was.  He slept through the alarm at midnight to wake me up and then slept through the alarm that was supposed to wake us up to leave for the Copan ruins.  But he got me up at 630 and we missed the bus but hitched down the mountain and then took a couple buses to the ruins.  It was a beautiful ride and I was thrilled to get to ride a bus without having to worry about my pack.  We met up with Meg and our friend Tanner at the ruins who had split off a couple days before so that they could spend more time in Copan, a cute little town near the ruins.  We  were walking around the ruins thinking we´d never find them and I idly called out ¨tanner¨ just for the hell of it and sure enough he responded.  We snuck into some tunnels and got kicked off and Tanner dropped his nalgene bottle down the side of an ancient pyramid and we watched ton of huge red macaws take flight.  Not a bad day.  We headed back to Sula with some rum in tow, Botran of course, and then Jacobo, the guy who runs sustainable harvest got me a beautiful cake and some form of alcohol that comes in a plastic bottle.  I think it was supposed to be rum.  The night was pretty low key.  Amit gave me lots of wonderful presents including a bag of doritos and another present that he lost and should hopefully find sooner or later among other things =)  It was a beautiful day but I sure did miss seeing my friends and family.  Plans for Vegas will be made.

So I spent yesterday cleaning veggie oil out of a chicken bus to get ready for the conference and the morning searching for 2 liter plastic bottles for the conference attendees to make test batches of biodiesel in.  Not bad.  I´m covered in mosquito bites and have surrendered myself to DEET.  The conference ends the 18th and then off to Nicaragua or El Salvador to visit Evelyn.  I´m not sure I´m gonna be ready to come home.

 2…things are running…quickly

Andie

We are now official members of Team Biodiesel!!!  I have no idea what day of the week it is or on what day we met up with them but I am pretty sure it was a few days ago and that we are here today wherever here is.  

 Ok so now for some actual information.  We are in Xela, Guatemala, a town with more Pollo Camperos  (KFC central american style) per capita than presumably any place on earth. We are staying in a hostel called Casa Argentina where some freakin gringo assholes keep stealing our food.  An entire block of mozarella cheese, two things of yogurt, an entire loaf of bread, jar of jam and can of olive oil.  God knows what else was stolen that we haven´t even noticed yet.  Some suspect the campesina ladies that keep doing our dishes behind our back.  I know better.   Upon discovering a complete lack of skill for anything related to construction of alternative energy sources, Meg and I have decided to do what women do best…cook and ask for money.  So we´ve been going to the market everyday and buying food and then we cook meals for 8 with one pot, one knife and occasionally 3 forks, while sneaky little gringos dart in and eat whatever they can get their grubby hands on.  It rains every night around the same time and gets super cold and I have no jacket other than a knit pink zip up which up until yesterday had duck poo on it….will explain.

Before we talk about ducks.  Let´s talk about biodiesel and more importantly our biodiesel buddies.  So the crew was driving down in a school bus fitted with beds but a couple of them are foreign so they couldnt get accross the border so 3 of them flew down to get started.  They all either go to school in oregon or washington or are from oregon or washington or something.  We´ve got Ben who likes to shove incredible quantities of food in his mouth at any given time and at lightning speed, Curt, who is a lingerer and whose flip flop we found in the duck box last night for some reason, and Joe, the most aryan looking Jew I´ve ever seen.  They are really great and nice but GOD do they love biodiesel.  Speaking of.  I should mention something about the project.  So they are building small scale biodiesel processors to be given to small indigenous communities to help them assert their autonomy in producing their own energy.  Right now Amit and this guy Tanner who we randomly met who had tons of blueprints for solar technology in his pockets are building a solar box to heat the oil so that even the production can be done purely with renewable energies.  By the way, biodiesel is diesel fuel made from veggie oil, and the processors modify the oil so that it can be used in any diesel oil without congealing and stuff.  They are also writing a book on how to make/use/love biodiesel etc.  Soon we will go to Honduras  in the bus where a conference will be held for people and communinities interested in and working on biodiesel to come together and share wisdom and drink a lot.  Their project is truly amazing.  It is the most comprehensive, well put together thing I´ve ever been a part of and it freaks me out that they are all the same age as me except Tanner the solar dude who is 19!  Ah! What  the hell am I doing with my life.   So I´ve been fundraising, translating, cooking, and trying to get the biodiesel kids out of internet cafe for two seconds a day.  They work so hard allllll the time.  I think its time for a vacation.  We might also work on some vocab lessons to help them build off of the 4 words they know…duuuuuuuuude…….niiiiiiiice……siiiiiiiick………………fur suuuuuuuuuure.  Maddening.

Oh yea.  Ya thought the 3 gallon jar of pickles at the sack and save was the best impulse buy ever, try two baby ducklings!  So we went to a market called San Fransisco Del Alto or something like that and after enjoying hours of walking around in the first gringo free  (i said gringo free not mormon free) market I´ve ever seen, we happened upon the livestock market at which time we encountered baby ducks.  Naturally, we bought some.  We grappled with the idea of buying a duck for a good 15 minutes, and then bought two.   Their names are Dada Tinamit and Dada Hernandez Javier Loka mitrananda.  They are of course Margies.  They are named for the hospitable and the intriguing.  We bought some food, and a ducky traveling case and then got home to do some research on our new pals only to discover the total inadequacy of our ability to provide care for them.  But we are trying our best.  Amit is gonna download a duckling playlist I wrote for them last night because they really love music.  I think Tinamit actually shed a tear when I played Freebird.  I´m really excited to have my first pets!  They are gonna live with Amit when we get back on his farm.   Yet, for some reason, it didnt occur to us until a day or two in that at some point THEY ARE GONNA GROW INTO FULL DUCKS! CRAP! How the heck are we gonna travel around Honduras with two full grown ducks?  We´re gonna need a bigger carrying case.   Anywho, they are doing well, pooping a ton as I believe they should.  

The rest of the lake was excellent.  We met some hilarious israeli dudes and went for a 6am swim…not with the israeli dudes, and stayed in Panajachel for a night where we ate some uruguayan food, aka pasta, tofu parmesan and a veggie burger.  We also read aloud from the Alchemist in an attempt to discover our destiny which I guess Meg will never find cuz she doesn´t seem that interested and completed our complete list of countries by letter of the alphabet after realizing around J that we ommitted Brazil, Egypt and some other crucial countries.  Oh how I long for the good old days before biodiesel.  The bus with the rest of the group is supposed to roll in today but I am skeptical, and also very excited to see what new souls Fortuna has brought Meg and I for our evening discussions.   As for my thesis….nothing to report.         

2.5  Jamie….2.5   good as can be expected.

Proud mother of 2,

NandieBee

In the past few days I have basically done my Guatemala vacation over again.  It has been almost maddening that everything I am seeing and doing reminds me of something I did with Andy or something funny that Noah did.  The rest of my day in Antigua was lovely, with a visit to some freinds that I made last time I was there.  We were still staying with Amits family friends, i.e. constantly avoiding their adorably collosol 3 year-old Arun.  At one point he affectionately attacked us with a garden spade.  You could here his foot steps pounding down the hall while in pursuit.  Ive never seen anything so cute and so terrifying.  The margies did a guided meditation and a dharma shakra for us one night, where we sing ¨baba lam ke va lam¨or ¨love is all there is¨ to the tune of anything, like yellow submarine and black magic woman and sing and dance.  It was good fun and cool to see what Amit is all about.  We went back to Antigua that morning and I took Amit and Meg to the church I visited the day before, hence carrying on the tradition of an IHPer getting kicked off of the top of a centuries old cathedral.  I never thought it would be Amit and not Zeno.  We cruised around the market for a while searching for a new Chigari, Zenos dino sidekick and then tried to get this lady to make some quesidillas which turned out to be tiny adorable tortilla sandwhiches.  I left Antigua that afternoon sincerely hoping again that I would return soon

The next day we hopped the chicken bus to Lake Atitlan and naturally ate at the same cafe we did last time.  We met up with Amits family friend Benjamin, in San Marcos, a small village on the side of the lake.  We discovered when we got here that San Marcos is a hippie yoga/massage retreat area, and that Benjamin had sort of founded the place and owned arguably, the nicest hotel here.  We got an incredible room here with a gorgeous loft surrounded by jungle and birds and mango trees.  If we know anything about the hospitality of the margies, this shouldnt cost a thing.  How I constantly manage to end up in these ridiculous accomodations alludes me.  We also have a resident cat who got his head stuck in a popcorn bag this morning and almost fell off the loft.  He is a very kind cat, yet unnamed.  He brought us a lovely dead bird to decorate the patio last night.  We went on a walk last night and ended up going for a swim in the lake.  If youve never gone swimming at sunset in a lake surrounded by mist-covered volcanoes, I highly recommend it.  It is really cool cuz the lake is full of pummus  stone which floats on top of the water, so you are swimming around in rocks.  The water feels amazing and the reflection of the mountains on the water makes everything seem to glow a greenish blue.   As with any hippie commune, we are eating food like pancakes and pizza which is nice.  We were gonna go have a swim at sunrise but in case you didnt know sunrise is freaking EARLY so that didnt work out…maybe tomorrow…ha!  

So not unlike IHP, I guess this all probably sounds like a big vacation.  But dont worry, we are actually going to start doing stuff soon.  The biodiesel group should get in to Quetzaltenango, the site of our project, tomorrow, so we will leave the lake in the morning and head over there to meet them and find out what we´ll be doing for the rest of our time in Guatemala.  Im pretty excited to see what they are all about and try to get an idea of the direction my research will take.  Meanwhile, Im trying to read up on my Central American history for context.  Im not speaking enough Spanish.

Loving LA,

Andie 

I´m back in Antigua!!! Actually at the very same computer from which I wrote my last Guatemalan blog!  It is as beautiful here as I remembered but it is not the same without Andy, Zeph, Noah and Zeno at my side.  I´m being swamped with amazing memories. The optometrist that fixed my glasses with that glue, baking soda concoction is right next door…

I landed yesterday in a swamp of people searching, rather aggresively, for their loved ones.  I found my loved ones and mistakenly thought Amit´s friend Dada who came to pick me up was a porter who I dismissed indifferently with a ´no gracias´ before he could offer me a shuttle bus to antigua.  Oops.  We spent the day riding around in the back of his truck doing god knows what.  I was reminded of my disliking for Guatemala city.  It is like an american wasteland with chain restuarants and chain stores and boxy buildings only more dust and more diesel.  Amit´s family practices a religion, or I suppose a spiritual way of life called Ananda Marga, which from what I understand is a sect of Buddhism, and they have friends who are Margies kindof all over the world so the Margies took us in and we stayed with them last night.  Dada loaned us his truck yesterday, which we discovered during a torrential downpour did not have windsheild wipers so getting to this house where we were staying  in total darkness on windy mountainous roads turned out to be even more adventurous than that prospect alone.  The family we stayed with lived in a beautiful house about 10 miuntes outside of Antigua.  They were so welcoming.  They fed us well and then one of the sons approaches me with a tiny little puppy and says¨You would like this.¨ Boy was he right.  I guess he gathered that from my love for his floppy little ferret that I got to play with.  He was like a little bean bag with feet and a nose.  Adorable.  I woke up this morning and had no clue where I was.

Amit and Meg are hiking a volcano today and considering my fondess for hiking (not a fan) I opted to spend the day roaming Antigua.  I took a chicken bus here this morning and climbed around on the ruins of this old church.  (Climbing on it is actually allowed unlike when Zeno did it).  Then I went and watched some chubby Guatemalan kids play soccer by the bus station.  I got so excited when I saw the top of Agua, the volcano that watches over Antigua, and was euphoric as the bus turned in to Antigua´s gates.  I still can´t believe I´m here.  I guess because just a week ago, Guatemala was just a twinkle in my eye. 

I don´t know exactly what we are doing for the summer yet.  The biodiesel crew arrives this weekend in theory so I should know a little more about the project soon.  I feel freakishly like I´m still on IHP.  Denial is proving to be a much better coping strategy than actually trying to deal with the trip being over.

Jamie:  A FOUR on the plane…Not sure why.

Amazed, 

Andie