1st week in Comintancillo

Below is the blog update. A few other things, 1 please please please send me updates about you lives too, 2 i attached some pics or ruben and the kids and the view of comitancillo so check those out, and please foward this on to people I forgot to add so they dont kill me

Hey all, it’s been a while since I posted so there is a lot to tell. For the sake of not writing you a novel, I’ll do my best to keep it short. Last time I left you we were in Antigua and were taking a 4 am bus to Xela. We decided to stay up all night... we thought we would catch some of the night life in Antigua. Mike was the only one who managed to stay up the whole time. Kevin and I grabbed about an hour of sleep. We jumped a micro bus to Guatemala City and then took a bus from there. The bus we took was definitely from the 1970’s paintjob still intact. The ride took about 4 hours with all the traffic. The roads here are... interesting. Anyone can use them, including donkeys and golf carts. We reached Xela and spent the day resting, we also met a friend of mikes for dinner who had been traveling through Central America on a motorcycle (f-ing crazy). That night I also had my wallet stolen, luckily it was my 2 dollar Wal-Mart wallet and there was only cash in it. Xela is normally a pretty safe city but things like that still happen.

We left Xela the next day for San Marcos, the largest city closest to Comintancillo. We grabbed a “chicken bus” which is very true to what they actually are. These buses are old school buses that have worked their way down from the schools of the US to Central America. Most of them are pimped out with crazy paint jobs and Mercedes Benz symbols on them, however there were some that had not yet been pimped and still had the yellow paint jobs with black letters from their old school districts. I actually saw one from South Bend (shout out to Dave and Krystal). You literally had to jump on these buses as there moving and you sit 3 to a seat. Nice thing is though they literally cost nothing; 10 quetzales which is about 1.50 US. The AMMID (the organization we are working with) coordinator, Ruben, picked us up in San Marcos and drove us to Comintancillo. The road to Come is no better than a one lane dirt road, but I still saw freaking Chicken Buses on them.

We arrived in Comintancillo in the evening. Comintancillo is bigger than we thought, it has over 60,000 people (bigger than Archbold... sorry Dan). Most of the inhabitants are subsistence farmers that live in the hills surrounding the city center. We are at about 9,000 feet elevation. We are living in a big concrete box with two windows and a door called La Granja. It has one light bulb and a power outlet which is better than I expected. It is used for the volunteers working with AMMID. It is part of our host family’s farm. Their house is a two room shack were we will eat most of our meals. The host mothers name is Dona Hilda. She is no taller than four feet and speaks very slow deliberate Spanish which is much easier for me to understand. She has 6 children but only 2 live with her, Irvine who is 13, and Georgina who is 10. Irvine is shy, but is usually our guide around the city. Georgina is the complete opposite and is always following us around. They love to play cards and I was able to teach the “ir de pesca” (go fish) and “lucha” (War). They really can’t get enough and are always asking us to play.

We came for one of the best weekends, the annual celebration of the Virgin Mary. It was a three day festival with a huge market, giant parade, fireworks, and soccer tournament. We caught several soccer games which were a joy to watch. They played on a giant dirt field with absolutely no grass, yet it didn’t seem to bother the teams. We watched the parade which consisted of each school with their students doing special dances. The funny thing was is that a lot of the dancing was to American music. I must of heard the theme song from Night at the Roxberry 15 times. Sunday there was supposed to be a huge procession and fireworks, unfortunately I spent the whole day and most of today in bed with dysentery. I’m not going to lie, it really sucks to have and having to use an outhouse is well ... no fun! Hopefully this will only last another day. I think I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel. We start work later today working with rocket stoves in a small community in the mountains. We met the only other person in Come who speaks English, Jason, today. He is the Peace Corp volunteer who we will be working closely with for the next ten weeks. It’s nice to have him, because while my Spanish is getting better, I am still sure I talk like a 5 year old. That’s all for now. I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer. For all you Cleveland fans, I am truly sorry... not!