Christmas in Xeul

On Wednesday Maria and y traveled to Xeul. Each time I get out of the city here I am amazed that at 1 km from Xela you find villages where the people literally do have nothing. No running water no electricity... the comodities we are so much used to and we do find here in Xela (ok sometimes they are not so easy to find or don't work, but they exist) are luxury out there.

Here some pics from Xeul:





As you can see, the region is really beautiful but at the moment as we do have dryseason the "polvo" (dirt and dust) is really a problem for eyes and pulmones. Plus you feel dirty all the time as the dust is sticking to your cloths, skin and hair. I hope that the people who live here don't bother anymore, for me it was quite painful to be true. I have truble getting used to the contamination and dust here in Xela, everytime I wash my hands or blow my nose I get reminded about how dirty it is here (not to speak about the color of my white macbook :)) But here in Xela it is nothing compared to the countryside where they have cut down the corn plants now at time of harverst where I really suffered.

Well I promised you some more pictures of the kids who have received their Christmas presents thanks to you!!
Here you go - enjoy!

Santa Claus

Yesterday we spent in Pachaj (the place where I have been working with the kids) and Llanos de Pinal in the hogares comunitarios, it was awsome! But I would say have a look for yourselves... these pictures need no comments!
Thank you all for your contributions, good to know that the kids won't be cold anymore. At the moment we have around 0°C at night, but I was promised that it would be even colder after Dec 20th!

Enjoy the pictures of the Convivio Navideno we had yesterday:
The kids playing


Waiting with excitment for the "surprise" we promised them upon our arrival

Not sure if they should open their presents now or wait until Christmas


The tipical Christmas dinner are Paches (some kind of Tamales but from potatoes or rice). We were invited and enjoyed a delicious lunch in Llanos de Pinal.



Take care and THANKS in the name of INEPAS and all the kids that have received a fleece sweater, pants, a sweatshirt etc.


p.s.: today we are off to the last hogar comunitario in Xeul :)

Communication Problems

This is just to let you know that I have serious communication problems at the moment... well no not in Spanish :), I can not log on to my Skype, Yahoo nor hotmail accounts... don't have a clue what has happened -- account take over? or anything else... .don't know. This is really serious out here as these means are the ones I have to communicate with you guys!!
Well just that you know that I have not disappeared or don't want to communicate with you I leave this note here for all to see!
Take care and hopefully I can resolve this issue soon. The main problem I have is that both my email addresses don't work anymore and I have used them as alternative address for the respective other account... yes I know very funny!!
CHEERS

The Christmas Factory!

Finally I can write on about the charity activities I am supporting here, I know that this is what you all have been waiting for. So on Dec 6th I was actually working for Santa Claus and I tell you this is really hard work!
As you know we I bought chloths for 56 children of 4 different Hogares Comunitarios. I tell you with all the different ages and sexes, it is not so easy to keep the overview, so Fernando and I were pretty proud that in the end we did have the right sizes and colors for everyone. So the next step after sorting out that we had enough for everyone was to turn these bundles of cloths into nice Christmas gifts. Unfortunately Fernando did not show up for the planned christmas presents wrapping. So I spent 5 hours wrapping christmasgifts! I feld like a christmas robot, well I guess Elve would be the right word...

I think I told you that I was sick on Tuesday… yes don’t eat food from the street, especially deep fried pupusas with repollo (not at all recommendable if you buy it at a stand at the bus station!!) So when I arrived at INEPAS on Wednesday I did not know that Maria Antonieta would not show up until later... actually unfortunately things like this happen a lot and there are many times when I don’t know what to do around here. Well anyways, as the office was closed all I could do was to start to make the gifts.


after one hour ...
after two hours ...

Around 10.30 am Maria showed up and I worked on something else as the plan was to wrap the gifts in the afternoon, and hey do we stick to our plans around here ☺

Well all in all I worked for about 5 hours on these gifts, after 4.5 hours and 40 gifts I got some help from other students and volunteers so at the end we finished with the 56th gift at 6pm.



So all is well and Santa prepared, the only little hiccup I have is that on Friday this week one of the mothers of the hogar comunitario in Llanos de Pinal told us that she has 8 more children than were on our list… so I suppose today Santa’s elve is going out to buy stuff again and not to forget the giftwrapping fun I'll have tonight!
Tomorrow we go out to 2 hogares so everything needs to be ready for our littleones! Stay tuned!

Mtfbwy*

the heat of Retahuleu and Champerico

My god time is flying, we are in December and the whole town of Xela is pumping with jingle bells and frosty the snowman... Well Xmas has been sold well here! I don't really get in the mood as it all seems a bit to plastic and with about 25 30° during the day I don't feel like Christmas yet.
Speaking about the heat, on Sunday we have been in Retahuleu for another concert of the Fonda del Che, what a heat there... 35°C min and about 98% humidity. Poor artists who had to play and sing in this heat! As the concert started around 2.30 pm there was no audience, I am sure they where all inside their houses for siesta, who can blame them. Well at the end at around 5 pm some came out to listen to Emilio singing.
Have a look at the crowd:
Heovani, Anabela and Marcos
Emilio, Marcos and Eric practising for the concert
here the whole crowd, that is I think Eric is missing because he was playing.
Btw this was the last concert the Fonda will perform under the patronat of King Express (something like the Guatemalan FedEx), On Monday we had a message that King Express is closing (bankrupt) and Yovani and his friend won't have a job as from Dec 15th on... Great news fro Christmas!!

Here a glimps of Champerico!

It was just great! We arrived late, so no more sun but as the water is about 26°C the full moon was warm enough :)

On the way back out car broke down... I guess the heat and the fact that we were 6 people did not help the old lady..

Mtfbwy
oh, and once for a chance leave me a message too

Regalo de Navidad por los Hogares Comunitarios

In August when my parents came to visit me in Xela, they brought over a big suitcase with great childrens cloths (viel mals merci geit ad Familie Streuli!! tolli Sache) which Maria Antonieta has saved for the Christmas present of 2006. As we did not really have enough for all 56 children of the 4 Hogares we went to San Francisco el Alto today to buy some more so that all the children get a sweater and a pair of pants or a t-shirt.
So if you have donated some money thank you very much, this is the first time I have used some of your donations!
below find some pictures from Nathalie, Celia (Spanish students) and Fernando (Spanish teacher) and myself in San Francisco el alto.

This picture was taken before we hit the market and Nathalie's camera was stolen. The pickpockets also got some 25 Quetzales from my pockets and with Celia they tried it too but she was fast enough to get hold of the hand that was not hers but in her bag... Incredible.




Guatemalan markets are always quite an experience but San Francisco el alto, as one of the biggest ones is really something! So if you ever plan to go don't take anything valuable with you and don't ever walk around with your passport if you don't have a special realtion to the embassy.

This afternoon Fernando and I prepared the cloths to be packed next week, I was pretty glad that we did have enough stuff in the end, because with about 120 pieces of cloths I found it quit challenging to keep the overview. Don't forget that the kids are between 1 and 7... I did not know that something that sounds so easy like: we will buy some cloth for 56 children for Christmas gifts, would be so challanging.

Again thank you all for your donations, I am glad to know that the kids will have some decent cloths for when the "onda del frio" hits us!
Mtfbwy!

daily live in Xela

So I hear you want to read more about what I do? And I received some remarks that you see me only surrounded by men? hmm, how can I change this picture you have now? Well I just tell you what happened in the last few days.

On Tuesday I was invited by Maria Antonieta to join her for a conference of the "Red de la atencion a la victima" (mainly social workers who in the majority are female) and imagine this, it was a workshop about "autocuidado, autogestion". So I learned how I should take care of myself and not only work for others. We did some massaging of our hands, lit some candels and burned some incense, it was really enlightning. Well I am not fair now I suppose, probably this subject is something really new here and they try their best. And in the end I even took away some new ideas for myself and I told myself that I won't work my a** off here but enjoy more. I am not sure if this is possible in Dec as we have so much to do at INEPAS at the moment but in Jan I will relax (I hope).
Here a pictures from the many women that surrounded me this day.

The man in the pic is the guy who held the workshop. Btw we also got tips that there are 101 ways to show your love to your partner next to having sex...

On Wednesday we had a concert of Andine Music in the Fonda, nice for a change. In this picture you see a Swedish Girl singing, forgot her name but she is female ;)


Oh, I did not tell you that I met a great person called Claudia, yes female and Swiss. I spend a lot of time with her too, she is really great and we can speak Swiss German together. I don't have a picture from her because we usually just sit together and chat here in Xela, so not really the picture moments, but I will ask her if I can take a picture and show you my female friend.
So I hope you see I don't only hang out with abusive macho Guatemalan men but do also have some decent female company. Don't forget that Maria Antonieta is a woman too and I spend most of the day with her.
In this sense some very feminin greetings!
Mtfbwy all, men and women!