Stephanie Jean

The End?

2011-01-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking a lot about Jerusalem lately. I had originally intended to write one final post to summarize what I learned, how much I grew to love the city, goals for my future, etc. while I was still in Jerusalem or shortly after returning. It has now been exactly one month since I returned home, and despite having plenty of extra time during my Christmas break to reflect I find myself unable to put into words what I don't know how to put into thoughts. Every time I pause to write about the experience I realize that my thoughts and feelings are not fully formed. I have now concluded that my thoughts and feelings about Jerusalem will never be fully formed. I think that's the real beauty of the experience--it's never actually over. The things I learned and the places I went have become an active part of me and not nearly a thing in my past that will be buried with time.

There's a part of me that groans inside every time a friend innocently asks, "How was Jerusalem?" and I, knowing that they don't have enough time or attention span to listen to the detailed answer I would like to give them, reply with a simple "great!" or "incredible!" I worry that every time I give my one-word answer this complex, 4-month-long section of my life becomes cemented in my mind as a simple, one-word experience.

It's hard to communicate what I would like to about the experience. It was completely different than I expected. There are not enough pictures or words to describe how I've changed. But I know that I did. I like to think that I don't need to type out a bullet-point list to prove it, but that it will be obvious in the way I live my life. Maybe that's the biggest lesson I came away with. If people only know I changed because I keep insisting that I did, then I probably didn't actually change very much. Hopefully, the way I live the rest of my life will prove that I am a better person because of the things I've experienced.

And on that note, my friends, I would like to conclude this adventure.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

2010-12-03T10:55:00.000-08:00

was simply delightful. Petra, crusader castles, ancient Roman cities, a polyandrous date, new friends from Lebanon, and of course, King Abdullah and King Hussein. The people of Jordan love their king and after seeing his face everywhere for four days I think I love him too.

And here's a final picture just for fun. It was actually taken in Jerusalem, not Jordan, but I love it all the same.

Welp, Happy Hanukkah everyone!

Gratitude.

2010-11-27T05:32:00.000-08:00

To honor American thanksgiving this week, here is a list of ten things I am grateful for:

1. The beauty of the Galilee.

2. People who build churches with beautiful domes and good acoustics that allow people like me to have extraordinarily wonderful experiences.

3. Sunsets over the Mediterranean that remind you that your life is awesome, even if you are missing your last Galilean sunset.

4. Singing “O Canada” on a small boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee (picture pending).

5. People who are hypothetically willing to hold your hair back when you hypothetically throw up on the bus after hypothetically eating an entire chocolate bar and a package of cola flavored Mentos for breakfast.

6. Christmas decorations.

7. Having an appetite on Thanksgiving (picture pending).

8. Jerusalem flavored ice cream (vanilla, pistachio, halva, and white chocolate).

9. Eating shawermas to my heart’s delight.

10. Sister Killian. This woman is such a gem. My day is always better after talking to her.

Fear of needles: conquered

2010-11-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and family,
I thought that if I told anyone my plan to donate blood today none of you would believe me. In fact, I only half believed it myself, which is why I decided not to tell anyone until it was done. Anyone who is familiar with my past relationship with needles would have good reason to doubt my ability to actually volunteer my blood to be drawn out of my arm. However, I am here to tell you that I, Stephanie Lee, conquered my fear and donated blood today! Special thanks to Jake, who filled my form out for me while I cried, helped me document the experience, and organized the blood drive, to Sister Judd, who was an angel and stroked my arm and told me stories while I was on the bed, and to the patient nurse who dealt with my periodic sobs and shaking. For proof that I'm not lying, here are some pictures:

"Sometimes I don't know if you're talking about antique jewelry or Jewry of antiquity..." --James Peter Grant

2010-10-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, I am still alive, I am still in Jerusalem, and I still love my life. However, I now know more about the history of the Jews, the Old Testament, and the Pan Arab Peace Initiative than I ever knew their was to know. The past month has been both wonderful and stressful. I feel my sympathies being pulled in a number of directions at an increasing rate. It's an interesting experience.

Anyway, in case you think I do nothing but schoolwork, I have included some pictures to prove you wrong. Here are some highlights of the last few weeks:

The city after the first rain

After our last of 24 hours of class in 4 days, 2 (maybe 3? I don't remember) midterms and one paper, I was delighted to find out that it rained. Sadly it hasn't rained since. Apparently Jerusalem is unusually hot for this time of year and I can't decide how I feel about it. I miss fall weather, but I'm also not all that eager to return home to a pile of snow.

Dome of the Rock

After at least 3 attempts, I finally saw it up close!

Snorkeling

Last week our group took a much needed break to Eilat for some snorkeling. Eilat is located on the southern tip of Israel. From the beach we could see Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I'm usually not a beach person, but everything is more fun when you have an underwater camera.

Hezekiah's Tunnel

Fort Night!

Fort? Yes. Smores? Yes. Cool Runnings? Yes. Best night ever!

Olive Pressing

Being here during the fall has many advantages. One is that we are here for olive season. We picked a bunch of olives on the grounds, crushed them, and then pressed them for oil. This is me and Andrew by the press.

10/10/10 10:10 Party in the bomb shelter

We are always looking for reasons to celebrate, and the bomb shelter was made for dance parties. Please note the awesome shirt I bought in the Old City.

Pictures!

2010-10-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from Egypt. In order of appearance there is Sinai, THE pyramids, and the step pyramid of Joser. As you can tell, I am no longer afraid of looking like a tourist.

Oversimplification

2010-09-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Egypt! Unfortunately my lack of sleep and abundance of things to catch up on will force this post to be shorter than my Egypt experience deserves. Also unfortunate is that our internet connection at the center has been especially slow, so I can't even upload pictures if I try.

Our Egyptian adventure actually started in Israel. Our first night we stayed at a kibbutz about a half hour from the Egyptian border. We played in sand dunes and then had some nice meditation time in the middle of the desert as the sun was setting. No description will do it justice, so just trust that it was amazing! The desert experience was followed by a pool party and a barbeque where we ate hamburgers on pitas and sat on mats on the grass.

The rest of Egypt is kind of a blur, to be honest. I don't really remember what happened on which day, so I'm not going to try to get the timeline right and move on to the best parts. Here are some highlights:

1. The Pyramids! I don't think any explanation is needed.

2. Valley of the Kings. For some reason I was under the impression that this would only take about a half an hour, so I didn't bring my water bottle. Two and a half long, hot, and sweaty hours later, I was regretting my ignorance. Luckily when you live in the same building as your professor he starts feeling like your dad instead of your teacher, and you don't even think twice about drinking his water to prevent your dehydration. Despite the physical discomfort, this was one of my favorites. I absolutely LOVED seeing King Tut's tomb, and was a little heartbroken that cameras were not allowed and I couldn't take the "In Memory of King Tut" picture that I was dying to.

3. Waka Waka. Waka Waka will heal the world. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should fix that. Look up Shakira's music video from her World Cup song, and then read the rest of this post. During one of the first days after getting to Jerusalem, one of my fellow students decided to make it his mission to teach everyone the Waka Waka dance. When I asked him why he liked the song so much, he replied with "This song healed the world. Can we please just let it heal us too?" We did. Since we were in Africa, we figured Egypt was the perfect place for our debut. We danced in front of the pyramids, in front of Hatshepsut's temple, and on the bus ride home. We shouldn't have done it at the temple, because dancing there is not allowed, but we forgot. Some security guards came to tell us to stop and get us all in trouble, but after seeing the video recording the head guard reacted by saying "Wow, that's amazing! How did they learn that?" and then he let us off the hook. An awesome video should be coming soon. And by soon, I mean not that soon.

4. Sleeping on the night train from Luxor to Cairo. It was fun, except for the part where we didn't actually sleep and it wasn't actually fun. And the bathrooms were really gross.

5. The Egypt museum. There's nothing quite like staring into the face of Rameses II. I loved the mummies the most, but the rest of the museum was amazing as well.

6. Shopping! That's a lie. Shopping was extremely stressful for me. I don't do well with people yelling at me from every direction and trying to convince me I want to buy their stuff. However, I had one delightful experience in the bazaar. In one of the shops, I found a ring that I really wanted to buy. The guy I was with wanted one for his girlfriend, and he bought one first for more than I wanted to pay. After my friend left, I turned to the shop owner and said, "I won't tell him if you give me a cheaper price." He insisted that no, the price is good for Americans. I smiled and asked Canadians get a better price. He gave me a big smile and pointed to his window where he had at least 6 Canada stickers. He told me about how much he loved Canada, made me take a picture with him in his shop, and then gave me a discount. I love Canada!

Welp, that about sums Egypt up. It's weird that Jerusalem now feels like home. The Jewish holiday of Sukkot just ended, so we got back in time to see a lot of cool things related to that. I'll save those stories for another time. Happy Sabbath!

Ode to Food

2010-09-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Instead of posting about the educational and uplifting activities I have been doing this week, I thought it important to create a dedicatory post to food. For those who know me well, it will be no surprise that I have found a few favorite treats in Jerusalem. Here are a few of my favorite and not-so-favorite ones.

Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.

I know it sounds good, but don't be fooled. I don't plan on buying it again.

Hummus

Our friend Shabon ordered us some free, homemade hummus yesterday with warm, fresh, fluffy pitas. It was by far the best hummus I've ever had.

Shawarmas!

I have to admit that I've been getting excited for Jerusalem shawarmas all summer, and they do not disappoint! This one tasted quite similar to the ones you can get at Eau Claire. Eating it made me a little bit homesick, which is sort of strange since it is a middle eastern food. It's going to be hard for me not to spend all my money on these suckers.

French toast breakfast

I've been trying to resist the french toast, but somehow these delicious treats end up on my plate every morning. It's basically just deep fried bread, but boy does deep fried bread taste delicious. If I come back with a softer stomach than you remember, you can blame these little guys.

Heart of palm and pomegranates

Pomegranates taste a lot better than pomegranate juice, and heart of palm has always been a favorite of mine. I think I've had this exact same salad for both lunch and dinner for the last two weeks, and I'm still not sick of it.

These are a few of my favorite things

2010-09-13T06:59:00.001-07:00

Going to Hebrew University has allowed me to put up pictures! Here are a few of my favorite things I've seen so far.

This is the cool Ramadan chandelier I talked about in my last post.

Cool thing at the Garden Tomb.

Remember that Coldplay song that talks about the Jerusalem bells? Yeah, that's me, right after I played them for the entire city to hear. Cool right?

Jericho!

Wadi Qelt, also known as the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Marhaba!

2010-09-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right. I now speak enough Arabic to give this post a fancy Arabic title. Unfortunately that is one of the only words I know so far, so hopefully no one reading this knows enough Arabic to also know that the title has little to do with the subject of the post.

Anyway, on to more important things. Jerusalem is pretty great. It gets better all the time. I mean, it was cool to begin with, but I feel like as time goes on I get more attached to it. I am slowly starting to understand why everyone who has done this program comes away with an eternal loyalty to this city.

Since the last post I've been able to do a ton of cool things, including:

The Ramparts Walk: This is a cool touristy thing that allows you to walk on top (sort of) of the walls surrounding the old city. My favorite part was counting the satellite dishes on top of people's houses. Actually, that was my second favorite. My first favorite part was knowing that I was walking on the wall surrounding the old city instead of walking down 700 E on my way to school.

Geography Field Trip: This might be the coolest field trip I've ever been on. We took a bus to various look-out points surrounding the city to learn all about the geography of the land around Jerusalem. This is to help us visualize things and also help us understand how and why the city developed the way it did. My favorite part was looking at Bethlehem. I'm so excited to go there!

St. Anne's church and the Pool of Bethesda: A small group of students went here a couple of days ago. The church was built to honor the birthplace of Mary, and has BEAUTIFUL acoustics. Two of our group members were able to sing inside the church and we were blown away by their talent. We weren't the only ones though. A group came in just as our friend was finishing up, and a lady that was in the group followed us out and demanded that he give an encore performance. That was pretty great. So was the pool. They have excavated down about 30 meters to the steps into the pool that would have existed during Christ's time.

Western Wall Shabbat welcoming: Also a treat. I can't wait to visit the wall more times during the day. There was plenty of singing, dancing, and people-watching to be had. I was happy.

Garden Tomb visit: Today we were able to visit the Garden Tomb as a group. It's another thing that I am excited to do more of.

Enjoy all sorts of holidays: This week was both the end of Ramadan for the Muslims and Rosh Hashanna for the Jews. My favorite part was admiring the creativity of the Ramadan lights. One that particularly impressed me was a chandelier made from plastic cups and tissue paper. I would include a picture, but our internet is too slow and it won't let me.

Group bonding: There has been everything from dance parties and soul sessions to watching movies like "Charly" and "Prince of Egypt." I have loved getting to know everyone in this group, and can hardly wait to see how well I know them after a few more months.

Egypt in one week from tomorrow!

Live from the Holy Land

2010-09-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'm here! After two hours of sleep, a minor panic attack, 24 hours of nearly sleepless travel, and a few more hours soaking in the city, I made it! The jet lag has almost worn off, but I think that the three hour accidental nap I had yesterday didn't help much, nor does the virus I contracted sometime in the last 24 hours. The night before last I fell asleep around 11, but my roommate didn't come in until around 1:30. For some reason when she came in I woke up and thought it was time to get ready, so I hopped in the shower and didn't figure out it was only 2 until I was ready for the day. It was funny, in a not very funny kind of way.

Jerusalem is wonderful. Right now it's Ramadan, which is really cool. Actually it might have ended last night. Anyway, for the last few nights the call to prayer has been extra cool, and extra loud at 4:30 in the morning. When we first got here nothing really seemed real and I felt bad that I didn't feel as thrilled to be here as I expected, but as soon as the call to prayer sounded I got really excited to be here. We've only gone into the city a few times. I'm really excited to spend more time there. Today a bunch of us walked to Gethsemane. Isn't it cool that I can do that? Yeah, I thought so too.

Anyway, we're not really supposed to upload pictures here because the internet is slow, but I'll include two just to prove that I'm here. The first is a picture of my first night's sunset over the city, taken from the Jerusalem Center, and the second is of our first day of school.

Jerusalem!

2010-08-30T21:45:00.001-07:00

As you may have discovered already, this blog was once used to record the Lee sisters' trip to Guatemala. Since I didn't feel like creating a new blog, I decided to continue the travel/adventure theme and use this blog for Jerusalem as well. Enjoy!

Recap!

2009-08-30T17:48:00.001-07:00

Alright, I don't know if anyone checks this anymore. As most of you are well aware, Jen and I have been home now for a little over a month. I'm sorry we didn't update for our last few weeks. A lot of crazy things happened, and sadly our attention was refocused and our blog became neglected. Nevertheless, I've been feeling like this whole thing is incomplete. In an effort to give myself and whoever faithfully is reading about our adventures some closure, I'd like to share some of my reflections on this entire experience.

From the beginning, I felt a very strong pull to go to Guatemala. I don't know why. While there, I often wondered when I was going to have that one experience that made me go, "Oh, so THAT'S why I'm here!" Looking back, I can't pinpoint a single experience. However, I have absolutely no doubt that going to Guatemala was what I should have done with my summer. I can't imagine not going, because this trip has become so much a part of me.

One thing I'm always afraid of is that everything that has gone on in the last few months will be nothing more than a blur or a memory. It really deserves so much more attention than that. I want to be able to remember every single detail. I realize that's not very likely, and it kind of makes me want to cry. So, in order to make this experience last a little longer, here are some of the main things I will take away from this summer.

First, the importance of families. It's one of those things I've been taught since I was little. You know, families are the building block of society, one of the most important things you can do is raise a good family, etc. So many problems we saw in Guatemala could really be reduced if more people raised good families. Not to say Guatemalans are the only people that could benefit from that. It just gave me more of a visual of why strong families are important.

Another thing I learned is the importance of hope. The concept of hope has never made that much sense to me. I think when all of us left for Guate, we had this hope that we would be able to change people's lives and make the world a better place, and although we were warned many times, I don't think any of us fully anticipated the real struggles we would fave in attempting this. It seems like one of those monsters that grows two heads every time you cut off one. And eventually, when you start seeing how deep and complicated so many problems are, it becomes pretty easy to get discouraged and lose that hope you started with. As someone in our group once said, "I've suddenly become much less enthusiastic about saving the world." We all laughed, because we all knew exactly what she meant. A few weeks before we left, we had a pretty major safety incident that kind of threw everyone off. I'd rather leave out the details, but I would like to talk about the way this incident affected me. I started to realize what we were actually dealing with. I think it made me reevaluate what hope really is. It's not being naive to the evils or struggles that we face. I think you can fully recognize the difficulty of these things and still have hope. I think that hope comes when you don't let these things discourage you from your fight for good. It's caring about the little things you can do, even if you can't change everything. It's realizing that the moment you let those things stop you is when they win. It's loving humanity and trusting people's ultimate ability to be good, even they seem to choose otherwise.

Which brings me to another things I learned: the importance of agency. Once again, this epiphany came as a result of this incident. We were talking to this man once that told us that as soon as you just give people things without letting them work for it, you're sending the message that you don't believe in them. Which, for me, put our ability to make choices in a completely different light. We have the ability to choose, because we are capable of choosing right, even if we choose not to exercise that ability. But it's just so necessary that we are given the chance, or else no one would actually become what they could, or what they were meant to.

On the topic of service and giving things, I'd just like to comment on the importance of serving your own people. while in Guatemala, there were so many instances where I would just think to myself about how much more effective our jobs would be if we had even more Guatemalans serving Guatemalans. There are so many advantages to this. They understand and can empathize with their people better than anyone, and they can communicate with them on a much deeper level. After thinking about his, I realized that the times my service will be most effective is probably when I'm serving my own people. Not that people should only serve their own communities, but I think I could definitely do more of it.

I think the last thing I learned that I want to talk about is how wonderful and open the culture is there. They are so individual focused. I love the way they greet you with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. They greet everyone individually, and they seriously give the best hugs that make you feel like you've been friends forever, even if you just met them. I hope I can adopt some of this and become more open and loving.

In the end, it was a great experience. Definitely a lot of surprises and adventures along the way, but it was so worth it.

Pictures from the Weekend

2009-07-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the group took the long drive north to Tikal and Semuc Champey. It was incredible! Semuc Champey was beautiful. We spent the Friday night in a small town near the park. We left at 3am on Friday morning and arrived around 10am to our hotel. We put our bathing suits on and crammed all 18 of us in the back of a rickety old pickup truck and drove to the park. Some consider Semuc Champey to be the prettiest place in all of Guatemala, and I would have a hard time arguing against that. It consists of these beautiful waterfalls and pools of green water that you can swim in. The pools are in the valley between huge green mountains. Here is a picture of the pools looking down from a lookout point on one of the mountains we climbed up:

Here is a picture of the mountains around the pools from the same lookout point. It was stunning!

Here is Stephanie floating in one of the pools.

The next day we drove most of the day until we came to a zip line in the jungle. I don´t really know where it was, but it was awesome, and it helped break up the drive to Tikal which was far away. We flew through the canopies of the jungle for about an hour. There were about 12 different platforms to zip line to. I didn´t see much wildlife, just some pretty birds with really long tails. The best part about the zip line was doing The Monkey. The Monkey is going on the zip line upside down. It looked really scary at first, but then we all did it and loved it. Here is a picture of Steph doing the Monkey. She loved doing it and did it every single time.

Here is a picture of our group walking up the ladder to get to the first platform of the zip line:

The next day we woke up at 4:30am to get to Tikal by 6am. Tikal was amazing! After taking my Mayan art class last Fall semester, this place was so interesting to go to. Tikal is huge! There are ruins everywhere, and many mounds in the park that haven´t even been uncovered yet. We climbed two of the largest temples which took us above the canopy of the forest where we could see for miles. We could also hear howler monkeys in the forest all around us for most of the morning. We saw a few Spider Monkeys, Tucans, and we even ran into a giant family of Coatis (these are kind of like raccoon/lemur looking things). Here is a picture of me with Temple 1 (this was the king´s temple - I´m standing on Temple 2, the one he dedicated to his wife):

Here is a picture of Stephanie on Temple 4 overlooking Temples 1 and 2 and the forest around us. They use this shot in Return of the Jedi, except it has a fighter jet flying through it and is supposed to be the planet Endor. Seriously.

We had a great weekend!
We wish we could post more pictures of us in the communities we work in and with the people we work with, but it is not very culturally appropriate here to take pictures. Just know we´re having a great time and are hard at work every day trying to contribute what we can to the developing world. To end, here are some pictures I took outside our van, just so you get a feel for what Guatemala is like. The last one is of me and Steph when we hiked the volcano Pacaya one of the first days I was here.

No pictures today, sorry

2009-06-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! So as always, this past week has been a little crazy. Unfortunately a kid in the orphanage we were doing art and english classes at got swine flu, so the place shut down for a week. Then the next day we found out that they decided to shut down all of the schools in the entire country for 16 days, which has dramatically affected our projects. So, in addition to trying to accomodate the new volunteers we have all been trying to rearrange our schedules, start new projects, and hop on other people´s projects in order to get our hours of work in each week.

Like Jen already described, our house is totally insane. It´s fun having all the new energy and ideas of the new volunteers, but it´s not so fun dealing with the many issues that come with living in a house of 16 girls and 2 guys.

As far as my projects go, I think I´m going to start teaching business classes. Maybe. On Friday me and Vic have to give a presentation to an organization we found yesterday and if they like us, they´ll work with HELP. If we completely butcher it (as I am very likely to do) then we´re cut and they won´t work with HELP again. So we´ll see how that goes.

I decided to start a list of things I will miss about Guatemala, that perhaps I will share on here. Here´s what I got right now:

1. Chocobananos (frozen bananas dipped in chocolate and peanuts...you should try it, they´re delicious!)
2. Chocofresas
3. Burritos at Elmer´s
4. 3 Mangoes for 5 quetz from Pablo (5 quetz=about 60 cents)
5. Squishing 13 people into the back of a truck and driving to villages at the top of mountains in the middle of nowhere on the bumpiest roads anyone could imagine
6. The crazy bum that lives in Chimal and laughs really loudly and creepily every time we walk by
7. Working with the indigenous women
8. Lencho´s!
9. Hearing ´80´s music that wasn´t even popular in the 80´s everywhere
10. Mimo cookies and empanadas!

Anyway, that´s all I´ve got for now. I love this place! Next time I´ll try to remember the cardreader so I can post pictures.

The first three days...

2009-06-13T17:10:00.000-07:00

Hola!
I have arrived in Guatemala, and what a whirlwind it has already been. I live in a house with 16 girls, 2 boys, and 3 bathrooms. As much as our living conditions stink (literally and figuratively), us new volunteers have been informed we are living quite luxuriously. A few weeks ago they didn´t have mattresses or warm water, and the toilets were plugged and leaking. It has been a little bit difficult for everyone to adjust to living and being with each other. After all, the people who came in May are the pioneers and have started the projects here and now we are jumping in trying to see where we fit and taking over what they started. But things are getting better. It was really good to see Steph. She´s picked up a lot of Spanish already which gives me hope at my own abilities!
The first day Sean and Melissa (our Country Directors) gave us a tour of Chimaltenango, the town we live in. We went to the bank, grabbed some food, went grocery shopping at Maxi Bodega, and took a chicken bus home (a chicken bus is simply a school bus painted in crazy colors, decorated with as many Religious symbols as possible, and plays extremely loud spanish music (the polka or circus sounding kind). We came back to our house and then had the chance to decide between several projects to attend. I went with Amber and Leah to a small school 10 minutes away where they teach Sex Ed to grades 4-6. We only needed to introduce ourselves to the children, which was quite the struggle considering the only spanish words I know are ¨comidas¨ and ¨baños¨. I wrote down a couple sentences in a notebook with Leah´s help and said them to the classes, except that for the first class I read them. I basically just said ¨Hello my name is Jennifer. I am from Canada. Today is my first day in Guatemala!¨The kids didn´t really care. They clapped hard for all of us, smiles and joked around. Most of them were just fascinated by our presence.
Yesterday was Friday, and on Fridays we try to do projects together as a group. Our group project yesterday was helping build a house through Habitat for Humanity in a tiny town called Santa Cruz. I spent the day mixing cement, pouring it into holes, tying rebar together, and cementing cinderblocks together. Oh and playing with a little boy named Atel who came out of no where and decided to help us. He was 5 and could probably mix the cement better than me. The villagers were very kind and would make conversation with us as they walked by.
Today was our free day. About 9 of us hiked a volcano called Pacaya. It was incredible! I felt like I was walking the path to Mordor half the time. We walked until there was no grass to walk on anymore, just volcanic rock which had been formed in only 2006. The best part was the gigantic hill which probably stretched about 4 blocks in length just covered in small volcanic rocks (they were very light and soft). We ran and jumped and rolled down the entire hill for about 5 minutes. It was like unto playing in sand dunes but cooler because it was huge and a volcano. Without our tour guide we never would have done it, nor eaten the delicious plants along the way. We didn´t actually make it to the top of the volcano because it emits poisonous gas and would have been impossible to climb anyway, but there was a hot pocket to its side which we climbed and saw a river of molten lava. It was very hot. Some people were even cooking tortillas, meat, and marshmallows on the rocks because they were so hot! It was a great day.
I love the people here. Everyone I have met is so very kind and generous. HELP has several partner organizations we work with, and several other contacts in the city which we trust with our lives. I am amazed by how kind and helpful they are and feel so blessed to know them now. I love how comfortable I feel saying hola to strangers walking down the street. Everyone smiles and are really easy going. I have yet to see someone get upset, which is surprising because if you saw the traffic here and the many times I´ve seen people almost get run over, you would think people would be really angry. But no, both the drivers and pedestrians just laugh with each other at the silly yet deathly traffic mistakes.
Tomorrow is church, and then hopefully some down time where I can finally sit down and soak in this Guatemala thing. I go to bed every night thinking What on earth am I doing here? I hope to find out soon. In the meantime, I miss you all and wish you well!

Love, Jen

Jen has arrived!

2009-06-11T07:27:00.001-07:00

I have arrived safely to Guatemala! More to come later....

Picture Update

2009-06-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

So, turns out uploading pictures takes forever so here are just a few of what´s been going on the last couple of weeks. The first picture is of me at the top of the 3rd highest volcano in central america! It was really windy and cold and completely surrounded by clouds so the view wasn´t all that great, but it was still really cool! Especially because it was the hardest hike ever so getting to the top felt really awesome. The next two are of the first day we made stoves, also my birthday!The next one is of Lake Atitlan, which as you can see is absolutely beautiful! The next two are of the ruins at Ix Im Che, and the last is a small group picture after we went horseback riding! Enjoy!

I´m 20!

2009-05-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Life is so crazy! I feel like I haven´t updated everyone in forever. Days feel like years, but the time still seems so go by fast. I don´t know how that works. Anyway, the past week has been so good! Last friday we went out to San Martin with the mayor and this lady named Adalilah. In the past they´ve worked a lot with Adalilah for doing adobe stoves because she has a lot of contacts and stuff. I don´t really know what her actual job is, she´s like a full-time socialite. The mayor has perfect teeth (no one here does) and a lot of bling. Anyway, we went to San Martin and met a lot of the women there, who seemed wonderful. The mayor started talking though and promised them 6 sewing machines and that we would come and teach them how to sew, which we never talked about. I don´t really know what that´s about, but whatever. Anyway, after they took us to this hot springs place that´s owned by the government. It´s kind of sad actually. there´s so much potential for beauty here, but I feel like a lot of it is just trashed. It really could be such a tropical paradise, and some parts are, but the river and the ravines are seriously covered with garbage, and a lot of the hillsides are completely bare because all of the trees have been cut down. It makes me kind of sad.

Anyway, on saturday we went to Lake Atitlan, which is gorgeous! It´s the place where the Mayans believe the universe was created. It´s surrounded by three huge volcanoes and a ton of little towns that all have their own character. We were going to hike one of the volcanoes but got there too late, so instead we went by boat around to a few different towns and bought some cool souvenirs.

Monday was our first day working on our art classes project! It´s really nice having most of our projects smoothed out. As of right now, I´m going to be teaching art classes and the Madre Hogar orphanage and playing soccer with the girls, working on adobe stoves, and possibly teaching ex ed. I´m not so sure how the teaching is going to go down at the moment with my lack of spanish skills, but I guess that´s the fun of Guatemala, right? Anyway, on monday we started the art classes. Just for background, the Madre Hogar orphanage is an catholic owned orphanage for kids born with HIV. There are 13 nuns that run everything, including teaching school, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc, so as it is they are pretty understaffed. Two girls from our group teach english classes while we teach art, and then in the afternoons a bunch of us get together to play soccer with the kids. During school, some other kids from the community come so the classes are a good mix or orphans and not orphans. It´s a lot of fun hanging out there, although still sad. The kids are wonderful, and pretty patient with me as I butcher their language. Hopefully it improves, but I´m excited about it!

So that brings me to Tuesday, which was my birthday! I have to say, it´s pretty close to the top for most favorite birthdays so far. It was our first day working on the stove project, so we headed out to San Martin to meet Adalilah. Except then she didn´t show up, which ended up being ok. There´s a BYU study abroad group that was supposed to go to mexico but instead came here because of the swine flu and the drug war that we´re taking around with us to some of our projects. 6 of them came to help out with the stoves, which was lots of fun! It was pretty funny though, because it made us all realize how used to this place we´ve become. On the way back from the stoves we got a ride all the way back in a truck. The entire ride is through the mountains and in the middle of the jungle. It´s awesome, it´s kind of like a real life Indiana Jones ride. Anyway, there was one point where we were squeezing through a semi-tight spot and everyone started freaking out about it, but we didn´t even think twice. You just have to learn to go along with it. So yeah, the villages were awesome and the women and kids were totally hilarious. Basically I spent the entire day squishing around mud with my feet and playing. When we got home there was a sign on the door that said I wasn´t allowed to come in until they told me I was allowed to. Sean came out and put a blindfold on me and then placed me in the middle of the patio and told me not to move. I could hear that everyone else was around me laughing, and I was a little scared. Suddenly a bunch of firecrackers went off about 3 feet away from me! It was awesome. Guatemalans really love their firecrackers. Every once in a while we´ll wake up at about 5 am to a bunch of gunshotlike sounds, but it´s just one of the neighbors´ birthdays they´re celebrating with firecrackers. After the wonderful firecracker surprise Veronica brought dinner and we had cake! But not before Melissa shoved some of it in my face. So yeah, good birthday!

Tonight one of the board members for Guillermo´s orphanage, who apparently was an orphan for 4 years of her life but somehow ended up graduating from BYU, is going to talk to us and share her story! I´m super excited about it. So anyway, life is good! I wish I had more time to tell more specific stories, but I guess that´ll have to wait unti I come home. I´ll try to post some pictures soon though. Anyway, hope everything´s going well at home!

2009-05-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

I love this internet cafe! The guy at the front just started playing Betty Davis Eyes, and before it was Mr. Roboto. Sometimes Guatemala is so random. And by sometimes, I mean always. It´s so great.

Anyway, I´m all better! It´s really great. The past week has been a rollercoaster! We´re starting to get everything ready for all of our projects. Last week was slightly discouraging with being sick and still not really knowing what to do, but by the end it started getting a lot better and I was getting really excited about everything. According to the plan we made this weekend, Krysta, Josie, Dana and I were going to go the the Mesoamericano school to teach english three days of the week. We got there today to meet with the Director and found out that there are two American volunteers coming on wednesday to teach full time. They said they still wanted us to come teach still, but we feel like our time would be of more use elsewhere so now that plan is scratched. Tonight we´re going to have to have a big meeting to refigure everything out, so wish us luck! We´re thinking now of teaching at this Catholic orphanage for kids with HIV. They have 50 kids and 13 nuns that run pretty much everything and I guess they are really stressed and need a lot of help teaching so they can do some of their other reponsibilities. Other than that, I think I´ll be working on adobe stoves and possibly teaching sex ed. in some of the small villages surrounding Chimaltenano. It´s really exciting and I think we´re all getting really anxious to start on our projects, even though it´s pretty intimidating and scary.

This weekend was a lot of fun! On saturday we woke up early to go to some Mayan ruins in Tecpan. They were beautiful! It was so nice to get away from the pollution and chaos and be able to wander around and explore. The only bad thing is that my camera dropped on one of the ruins and now the screen is broken, but it still takes pictures. It just can´t tell what exactly I´m taking a picture of, which might make it that much more exciting! After Tecpan we got to go to the Guatemala City temple with the ward we´re attending. Without going into too many details, I´ll just say it was a very eventful temple trip! Anyway, that´s what´s been going on! Adios!

Update!

2009-05-13T11:07:00.001-07:00

I don´t really have much to say right now, but I´m not sure how often I´ll be able to update so I figure I´d better take advantage of being on a computer. Sunday was cool. We went to church where I didn´t understand anything, but I did get a Book of Mormon in spanish to help me study! The people are so wonderful and welcoming. Monday was a lot of fun, we met with a woman named Leti who is amazing and then went to this cool ranch/resort place with Lencho in the afternoon. It was super cool, we got to go horseback riding and on the zipline. It´s normally 30 quetz but because we are a bunch of white girls we got everything, including a game of paintball that´s normally 75 quetz for free! Oh the benefits. That night we met with an organization named SHARE, but halfway through I started getting a headache. That night I got super sick and yesterday I was pretty non-functional (is that a word?). I went to the doctor and found out I have some sort of virus, but I got some medication so hopefully I´ll start feeling better soon! I decided being sick in a foreign country where we can´t flush toilet paper down the toilet is probably one of the worst places ever to get sick. I´m starting to feel better though, and I think my fever is almost gone. Anyway, I´ve got to go. I hope everyone´s doing well!

Hello!

2009-05-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I´m here! I feel like i´ve been here forever, but it´s only been three days. We´ve done so much and been so busy. This place is awesome. I really love it here, although i do miss certain things about home. Like being able to walk down the street without twenty cars honking at you and having people constantly staring. Or being able to flush toilet paper down the toilet. Or being able to use the sink faucet to brush your teeth. Or not being constantly smelly. It´s all good though. I really like the people that I´m here with. We all seem to get along great.

Thursday we got to explore Chimaltenango. We had a little scavenger hunt through the city for a couple of hours. It´s definitely different than I pictured. The roads here are seriously insane. Pedestrians never have the right of way, so you really have to time when you cross the road and just run for it. It´s a little scary getting into the main streets because we have to cross the Pan American highway which is always pretty busy. It smells like exhaust ALL the time. Or smoke. The city just has a lot more commotion than I expected. We can´t seem to figure out people do all day, becuase it just seems like they are either wandering the streets or selling things. Oh well. They´re extremely nice people, minus the creepers. There´s not too too many of those though.

Yesterday was definitely one of the coolest days. In the morning we woke up to the Satan truck, as usual. Funny side story: there´s a ton of cars here with megaphones on top that will just blast advertisements through the streets as they drive down. One of our favorites is the Satan truck. It kind of sounds like a dying cow. It´s advertising for this place called ¨Zetegas¨or something, but over the megaphone it sounds like ¨Satanas,¨ which is Satan in spanish so we call it the Satan truck. It drives around in the morning and at night all the time when we´re trying to sleep. I think our name is quite fitting. Anyway, after getting woken up we went and got breakfast at the Paneria and got fruit at the market. Then a man named Eladio we plan to work with picked us up in his pickup to take us to a small village close by called Cerro Alto. The ride there was super fun, we all just piled in the back and tried to make ourselves comfortable while driving over gravel roads with the biggest potholes I´ve ever seen. Cerro Alto is beautiful. It´s on this mountian and from his house you could see two of the main volcanoes in Guatemala. Anyway, we talked with him about potential projects we can do with the surrounding villages and they all sound soo cool. He is such an awesome guy. He basically has devoted his life to serving his community and all without a profit. He´s been trying to get a team together to help him with some of his ideas so he´s super happy we´re here. While we were leaving this huge group of little girls that were coming home from school just swarmed us. They were so adorable! I wish I could speak to them better, but the nice thing about kids is that they are just happy if you say hello and smile to them.

After Eladio´s we went and got lunch and then made our way to the Guatemalan Children´s Project, an orphanage HELP has worked with before. It´s run by a man named Guillarmo, who is a 25-year-old return missionary. He is also one of the most awesome people I think I´ve ever met. He used to volunteer a lot at orphanages in Guatemala. One day the one he was working for got shut down by the government because they were doing illegal adoptions, and seven of the children he really loved got sent out to a bunch of different ones all around Guatemala. He wanted to take care of them, so he spent 7 months trying to locate all of them. He couldn´t legally take care of them unless he had his own orphanage, so he started the Guatemalan Children´s Project. He focuses a lot on reuniting families, because most of the children´s families are still alive. Ít´s been running for 3 years, and so far I think he´s had 52 kids go through, 32 of which have been reunited with their families. He´s super awesome, and he´s dating a girl from Calgary! I´m excited to meet her, but she´s out of town this week so it will have to wait.

Anyway, that night Guillarmo took us dancing in Antigua! At first I was nervous about dancing with a bunch of Guatemalans, but then I remembered that I´ve got shakes, ha ha! No, but it was super fun! This guy that owns the internet cafe we´re in, Lencho, almost came with us. He´s so awesome! He went to school in Chicago so he speaks really good english, which is nice. But anyway, dancing was a blast and now I can say I´ve been to a Guatemalan club!

So yeah, that´s pretty much what I´ve been up to. I think the hardest thing for me right now is not being able to speak the language, although I´ve been doing a lot better with understanding people. It´s just frustrating because I want to be able to connect with these people and communicate with them, but because I don´t speak their language I can´t ever really show my personality. I probably know the least spanish of everyone in the group. Everyone´s really great though and they always translate for me and make sure I know what´s going on. I plan on studying spanish at night time, so hopefully I´ll get a lot better! I think I will, because I´ve already gotten better. Anyway, I´m going to head out. I hope everyone´s doing well!

Stephanie's Email

2009-05-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

Stephanie emailed our family. This is what it said:

hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I am alive and well! Also, this keyboard is kind of weird so sorry if some weird symbols pop up every once in a while. Anyway, I love it here already! last night me and one other girl got in before the rest of the group. My countr directors were waiting for us, but then we had to wait for everyone else to get there 2 hours later. Luckily for me however, the girl who I came with is half Guatemalan and her dad set up for one of their really good family friends to meet her at the airport and give her a phone and stuff. Turns out the girl forgot to pack sheets so he offered to lend some to her. Because i was there, I got to go with them to his house and drive around the city! It was so cool! the guy works for the government or something and her dad told her that he´s the only person she should trust. His house was incredible. It was on top of this mountain thing that had a perfect view of the city. The house itself was gorgeous. On the way back to the airport he made sure to drive past the temple so we also got to see that! The house we´re in is pretty cool...ish. The kids here are adorable, like kids always are. I´m getting really excited to start on the projects, but for the next day or two we´re mostly just getting aquainted with the area and with each other. There´s 12 of us here for the first wave--two guys and ten girls. The girls are split into three bedrooms on the top floor and the guys are on the main or bottom floor. We´re supposed to have two bathrooms on the top, but a couple of days ago one flooded so we only have one. It´s connected to the bedroom I´m sleeping in, which is kind of unfortunate because at night it took forever for everyone to get through. The beds are very uncomfortable. It´s like sleeping on a bunch of wooden boards with an inch of padding on top of it. My hip was digging into one of the beams last night, which was not very comfortable. I think I might buy a blanket here too because it actually gets a little chilly at night. Also, a pillow, because there aren´t any in the house. Anyway, I should probably go. We´re in an internet cafe and I´m at the tail end of people to use the computers and I don´t want to make them wait. So yeah, that´s what´s going on! Hope you´re all doing well, and I´ll try to email again soon!

Love, Steph

Welcome!

2009-05-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog! We set this up as an easy way to keep in touch and so you can all check up on our adventures in the summer while we're gone. I (Steph) am leaving this Wednesday for Guatemala and am getting so excited! I think I finally have everything I need and am ready to just get out of here. Jen will be coming to join me in June, but until then I might be the only one posting. Anyway, enjoy the blog!