Guatemala Day 2

In the morning, we had our Spanish placement tests. Considering I've never once in my life studied Spanish, I think I did pretty well. The test was almost entirely verb conjugations with a couple saber/conocer or ser/estar sprinkled in. I knew how to conjugate like 10 verbs in first person only (LOL survival Spanish learned in the last 2 days...) but I circled the correct verb when I had to choose between saber/conocer and ser/estar. Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself haha.

I lasted longer than I thought for the oral portion of the placement exam as well. I kept the conversation going for almost 10 minutes and managed to tell Jose-Carlos (the proctor, who is really funny and personable) that I understood what he was asking but didn't know how to respond. <-- wow I'm so cool I can't believe I knew how to say that without ever studying Spanish

Anyways, I finished waaaaaaay before anyone else and ended up just sitting around waiting for other people to finish. A few of us wandered over to Parque Central to find a snack, but I had to walk Elizabeth back to the school for her oral exam before I managed to get anything to eat. Oh well, I'm sure there'll be a next time.

***

Once everybody finished, Elizabeth and I went back struggled to find our homestay. I knew which street it was on (and my sense of direction was confirmed by the various dog poops we saw on the street lol), but for the life of me could not remember which door... We walked back and forth a couple times and finally found it (it was farther down the street than I remembered). It was a great relief when my key successfully clicked open a somewhat-maybe-kinda familiar door, but the respite was brief for, when we walked in, two unfamiliar faces greeted us. I think they knew who we were though (or at least they knew that two strangers were coming to live with them) because they didn't question us when we said hello, walked through the courtyard, and into the house.

***

After lunch, we went back to the school where Ellie met us and took us on a short tour of Xela. She kept saying how Xela has a very small-town feel (even though it's the second largest city in Guatemala), but I'm not sure if I believe her. Even though we only walked through the main parts of town, it seemed pretty humongous. I think I'd know how to get back to most of the places we visited, but only by following the exact path she took us on. Otherwise, I don't know where anything is in relation to anything else... I won't bore you with all my pictures of random buildings but here's a few highlights:

Elizabeth, in the same homestay as me

This is the lovely Ana doing some push ups... just kidding. She thought the ground looked like chocolate so I dared her to lick it. She did, but I failed to capture the actual moment. No pics so I guess it didn't happen

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nice view of Xela from one of the windows of the theater

Obligatory group photo

Not pictured: chocobanana that only cost 1Q (~US$0.13)

***

After our tour, we went to our first salsa class! Not much to say about that besides the fact that we only had 2 leads (Jaeho + the teacher) and that I am so incredibly bad at dancing. Videos to come...

Guatemala Day 1

Everyone arrived in Guatemala today and we took a private bus from Guatemala City to the 2nd largest city, Quetzaltenango (more commonly known as Xela). I apologize for all the blurry car photos I'll be posting. I wish I knew how to capture these beautiful moments better...

Most important elements of this picture: Don Lucas's (one of our drivers) forehead in the rearview mirror and part of Ellie's (our group's coordinator from Somos Hermanos) head seen from behind. These two dealt with answering/translating my many many many questions about Guatemala's politics, history, health system, etc. for the entire 4 hour car ride.

Leaving Guatemala City and quickly entering the rural landscape

Random landscape 1: one of the few non-blurry photos I have

Random landscape 2: because horses

At one point, we came across a little artisan market on the side of the road so we decided to stop and take a gander...

Clay things, etc.

Obligatory photo of elephant thingamajiggers I found in the market!

Some of us wandered off a little bit and found this awesome view of the hillside!

They literally farm every square foot of land possible. I find it so mind-boggling that this super fertile country has the 4th highest rate of malnutrition in the world. That's the amount of corruption and exploitation there is here...

So this is an example of some campaign publicity. Because of the high rate of illiteracy in the country, political parties (not a dual party system like in USA btw... there can be upwards of 10 parties in each presidential race) are each associated with a color and a simple drawing (I'll try to get a better picture later). Lider is one party (red) and UNE is another (green) - they seem to be the biggest ones - at least in the areas we've visited - because they're the only ones I've seen. But according to the lovely Don Lucas and Ellie, most political parties are on the right half of the spectrum and there's only one that's on the left at all: URNG. URNG is basically a union of all the different guerrilla groups that existed during the 36-year Civil War (more on this later)

And, 4 hours of politics later... we are entering Xela!

My first glimpse of the city

As soon as we got into the city center, we were dropped off at our Spanish school and picked up by our host families. Nidia is Elizabeth and my host mom but I'm not entirely sure who's who in the family because there are so many people! It also didn't help that we weren't properly introduced to anyone because the other Somos Hermanos* kids (the six-monthers, as we call them) were having a huge dinner party. Basically, Gabby and James are recent grads who live with the same host family, but they invited all the other students before they left for El Salvador for two weeks. Gabby cooked us an Italian feast (cheese and prosciutto followed by spaghetti and meatballs and stuffed mushrooms then homemade tiramisu and two types of apple pie a la mode. Everything was delicious and I wanted to talk to all the six-monthers about their program but alas, I retired early due to my introversion and tiredness from traveling.

*You can learn more about Somos Hermanos here, but in short, it's an immersion program in Guatemala that helps participants not only build their Spanish language skills but also gain a deeper understanding of cultural sensitivity and humility, especially as health care providers. Fun fact: it was founded by 2 USC students under Dr. Quinn's guidance (who also happens to be the professor who runs this PWP as well as PWP Oxford!)

For now, enjoy the view from the roof of my homestay!

Guatemala Day 0

So a couple other people and I arrived in Guatemala a day early (just to get settled and everything) so we got an extra day to explore Guatemala City!

The street outside of our hostel, Dos Lunas.

We went and visited an artisan market... I was a little busy looking at the merchandise so I don't have very many pictures... There were some hilarious tourist-shirts that said "Guat's Up?" (I am probably the only person that thinks it's funny but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Preeyam and Ana

A handmade carving. I liked how they even etched in the reflection!

After our short stop at the artisan market, we walked over to the zoo:

Some of the animals were in mixed(...?) cages. Whatever works, I guess!

And some of the animals weren't in cages at all!

Obligatory elephant picture. It was quite happy after releasing its bowels and bladder in front of a large crowd.

And after the zoo, we visited the National Museum of Modern Art:

The front of the museum (from the steps of the Natural History Museum right across the courtyard) + some goofy friends

As some of you may know, this isn't my favorite type of art, but it was interesting to say the least. There were some weird stuff. I didn't notice the sign at the entrance that said "No fotografía" so I got in trouble like halfway through the museum... Not pictured is the special collection of clichéd quotes on glass bottles containing what I can only assume was mercury. Yep. Guess that's not hazardous or dangerous or anything... Also not pictured is the really intense painting of Judas and Jesus and the rest of the Holy Trinity and Hell and a satellite and angel/demon girls and the entire universe... Needless to say, it was pretty weird; even after one of the workers gave us a very in-depth explanation (after hours, mind you. We foreigners get a special kind of privilege, I guess), I was still not entirely sure what the painting meant. Like I said, Modern Art... not really for me.

Madre y niño (unnamed artist)

This piece of art was important to me because the focus of my paper in Oxford was maternal health in Nigeria. I chose to study Nigeria because it's such a diverse country and I thought by studying what works and what doesn't work in different regions might help figure out an adaptable, sustainable solution for all parts of the world. It was only logical, then, that I choose maternal health as my topic of research for Guatemala. My specific focus is on ethnic/linguistic disparities (the two are very interconnected) when it comes to maternal and infant health (because, again, the two are so interconnected) in Guatemala. I've already read a lot about the topic, but I am excited to learn and see more in depth the underlying issues about health in this country!a

Problems Without Passports: Health, Disease, Language and Culture in Guatemala

I spent Summer 2015 in Oxford with another USC Problems Without Passports program called The Biology of Tropical Diseases. While we were there, we learned about some of the most pressing global health issues and general public health theories. It was really cool because not only were my classmates very insightful, but we got to work with the leading health professionals at Oxford University - each were the world's leading experts in their respective fields, some of them were inventors of the most promising Ebola and malaria vaccines, etc.

Anyways, this year, I was given the opportunity to take everything I learned in Oxford (and since then) and apply it to Guatemala. I'm not entirely sure what to expect from this trip, but I hope to come back with some basic ability to converse in Spanish and a bit more knowledge about a different corner of the world. I leave today, Friday, May 20 and will be back Sunday, June 12. ¡Hasta luego!

26-28 septembre 2014

WEEKEND IN BORDEAUX -- NOT (to be explained later)! I was pretty excited for this weekend excursion, and not just because I got to miss a day of school. However, it wasn't as fun as I expected it to be. I showed up 15mn early to the train station, which required me to wake up at 7h (I am a college student; this is never okay). What they didn't tell us was that they had told us to meet an hour and 15mn before our train departed just in case. As you can imagine, I was not pleased. Whatever, I got over it. It was my first time riding a train so I was very excited! Unfortunately, I slept like 99% of the 3 hour trip because I had to wake up so early (okay, maybe I'm not over it).

Day 1 - 26 Septembre 2014

Once we got to Bordeaux, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, grabbed a quick lunch (we all ended up eating at the same restaurant somehow haha), and got a tour of the city!

View from the hotel

We went on a walking tour and of course we saw fancy churches

We also went to a museum of local/regional history. Wine from Bordeaux has been renowned for centuries! The English actually invented barrels specifically to export it back to the UK... Hence the barrels and other nautical things.

They had a bunch of scale models of ships. It's like a ship in a bottle except the bottle. And it's a lot bigger...

Please note just how awful French architects were... The bottom arch is not centered. This actually happens quite often lol

I love these small European streets.

I mean, just look at them!

Um... no significance to this building, really. I just thought it looked nice haha

Justine and I went out for dinner and then met up with her friend, Vincent, and his girlfriend, Mao. They were really cool and I'm glad I went out with them!

We also saw a cool street performer... I didn't catch it on video but she's really good with the crowd haha

Day 2 - 27 Septembre 2014

Rendez-vous was bright and early. Instead of being able to explore Bordeaux more, we were shipped off to Arcachon for a 2.5 hour walking tour. As beautiful as it was, I was tired and the tour was really long...

This city is split into 4 neighborhoods named after the seasons. These are some houses in Summer.

Our tour guide and lots of greens.

We walked up this huge hill and this is the view! Wow!

There's also this huge metal tower that was designed by, you guessed it, Gustave Eiffel (this was before he was cool, wow Arcachon how hipster of you). It's known as the "Eiffel Tower [of Arcachon]." How misleading...

The view from the top!

The view from the top!

Me at the top!

...I'm really bad at taking panoramas haha...

Once our tour FINALLY ended, we had an AMAZING lunch by the beach. This was salmon and risotto.

As much as I love salmon, the dessert was what made this lunch great. So. Good.

After lunch, I just chilled on the beach and, unfortunately, reattained my farmer's tan that I worked so hard all summer to get rid of :( The sun here must be really strong or something because it's usually impossible for me to tan... Anyways, men in speedos, girls in bikinis, women with bare breasts. You know. European beaches. Yay...

We finally got back to Bordeaux and we went out for dinner.

Steak (which was just whatever) and unlimited fries.

UNLIMITED FRIES. (also derp)

Day 3 - 28 Septembre 2014

This really was The Trip of THE WORST PLANNING EVER. Met up bright and early -- again -- to go to Saint-Emilion. Very charming city but giving us two hours to explore this tiny city and then taking us on a walking tour of it was probably not the best idea...

You know what else wasn't the best idea? Wine tasting at 10AM on a Sunday morning. Yea. That happened.

Luckily (or maybe not so), we only got three glasses with this much wine.

AKA three sips of wine for me (just to be polite). Everyone was super disappointed because they were expecting some fancy Napa Valley stuff. I'm pretty sure this was free because most wineries give free dégustations (in less bougie terms: samples).

I got a stomach ache from drinking wine on an empty stomach -_- so I ate. I always eat.

And this cute kid sat next to us. Look how stylish he is!

Then we tried le canelé which this region is known for. It was... gross.

So here are some streets...

And wine cellars...

So cute!

Yea everything is about wine basically.

Oh and this church.

It was built into a monolith...

Strange art gallery where I got in trouble for taking pictures. This cat makes me think of Miyazaki's "The Cat Returns"!

Funny? Sassy? Creepy? Imagine if these were all weeping angels...

Here's a view of the city! (or village? I'm not sure what's the right word...)

And right outside the city limits are some vineyards!

Yaaay vineyards (read: Yaaay wine)

This was my first weekend excursion with ACCENT. I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped because there were too many tours and too many places (we barely spent any time in Bordeaux itself!) but I guess I can't complain because France. Yes, France. Just France.