Forever Paisley

Well today is my last day, can´t believe it!! Tomorrow I catch the bus to Guatemala City and then Sunday fly back to Marquette for some rest!! The market was unbelieveable. There were vendors on each side of the street along with a group of them splitting the street down the middle. Along with traditional Mayan clothing there was a lot of Western brands. Tons of ¨puma¨and ¨lacoste¨but I am 100% sure that they were not real. I wonder how they get past international property laws hmm … Anywho there were also women selling tortillas, fruitas, and other foods. Of course the little niños were running around selling candy and newspapers, I even saw one girl selling sample packets of shampoo. I have to say the livestock portion of the market was heart wrenching. My vegetarian status has been taken from serious to never turning back. These poor animals were tied together in groups of five and ten so they couldn´t move. An older man saw the look on my face as I watched a cow get dragged across a market, tapped me on the shoulder, and said ¨no lastiman¨… I decided he was a liar because in English that means ¨they don´t hurt¨, and I think that anything that is squealing that loud must be in some serious pain!! So for my sake if you are eating beef or poultry right now could you please just set it aside for the remainder of this entry … THANKS!!

After the market I had my last visit to the orphanage. The cake I ordered turned out beautiful, maybe my spanish skills are better than I thought. Then again it could have been my extensive use of pointing and drawing pictures. Either way it worked. When I arrived the kids had all made individual cards for me, adorable!! We ate the cake and said our goodbyes. Of course it took me awhile to peel them from my legs, but eventually I went out the door and walked down the 10th calle for the last time. I hope to keep in touch with them in the future, and hopefully the children will find homes of their own.

My last stop for the day was Spanish. We had a short session then she took me to the bus station to get my ticket for tomorrow. Mariela, is her name, she is quite the character. She always laughed at me when I came in complaining about the hissing men in the streets. I am not going to lie that is one thing I am not going to miss. Anyhow we exchanged addresses and are going to write letters … hopefully I can manage to write an entire page in Spanish … I might need some help!!!

All in all I have learned so much here!! There are so many things that I took forgranted before coming here. For instance the lack of a government funded garbage collection here causes it to accumulate in the streets, where I complain about treking in the snow at midnight to make sure the garbage gets out. Many times I would go to take a shower here and the water would not turn on, not because of a problem at the house, but because the whole city was experiencing a shortage. One time I went to an internet cafe and my bill was 3Qs and I only had a 100Q bill. Between the entire cafe and the neighboring electronics store they could not break the bill to give me change. Heres the killer … 100Qs is equivelant to only $12. I could go on and on as I usually do, but the bottom line is that no matter how much you read about a culture/place or how many hours of the history channel you watch, it is impossible to understand it until you experience it first hand. This is the first vacation I have taken where I didn´t come to be a tourist, and I have had a very enlightening experience. When my parents pick me up from the airport in a new car that works, bring me home to a house with water that is gauranteed to turn on, and as I crawl under my massive down comforter it is all going to seem very different. As Americans we are so lucky … and even though my raging liberal self has times where I wish I was anywhere else, in the future I hope not to look past the privileges that we recieve as Americans.

For those that have been keeping track of me thank you oodles!!! Guatemala city tomorrow, Marquette for a week to play in the snow, and then back to East Lansing. See you all soon!!