Church music, bedbugs, and technology failures

My Peace Corps Training Director (who is from Minnesota, by the way - woop woop) gave us three warnings about life in Guatemala on our first day in the country, three major annoyances we were likely to run into within the first day. His list was the following:
-dogs
-roosters
-fireworks

Every day and night there are street dogs barking and living out their feral lives, and the theory that roosters only crow at the break of dawn - "a complete myth," in the words of my Training Director. And fireworks are likely to be exploding at about 5 am if it's anyone's birthday, if it's a religious holiday, if it's a national holiday... or even just if the sun's going to rise today. You get the idea.

However, I would like to submit church music, bedbugs, and technology failures as candidates to be added to that list of hurdles to overcome. I´m sure there will be many more, but there are already some stories behind these three new submissions...

The little pueblo I moved to last weekend is very Mayan. Most women still wear the traditional hand-woven skirts and embroidered blouses, and most people speak or at least know a bit of the local Mayan dialect Kakchiquel. However, they are also very devoutly religious, either Catholic or Evangelical (which is anything Christian other than Catholic). Hence, people go to church a lot, often early in the morning, so the churches blast orchestral music at 5:00 in the morning to wake up the faithful, who then go attend mass. Oy. But I'm learning to sleep through it. :)

Actually, that first weekend I put in a lot of time with God - I think I'm good for the next month or so. We did indeed go to mass at 5:30 Sunday morning, but I was unaware of the uniform of the traditional skirt and a head-covering for all the women. I guess I already stood out as a big tall white person... Later that day my entire extended host family (including aunts, uncle, cousin, grandparents) crammed in a small van and were driven about an hour away to a different church where masses are said for the sick: my host father's father has tumor, and there is no money for tests or treatments or hospital stays, so instead they are relying on prayer and herbal remedies. Although my host family is devoutly Catholic and I was told we were in a Catholic church, there was no priest and there was a lot of speech-making from congregation members going up to the podium. The big salsa band would play a few numbers between speeches, and occasionally there were periods of free-speech worship where everyone would praise and sway all at once. At one point they asked the sick man (my host-grandfather) and his family to come kneel in front, and the congregation crowded around and were wailing and praying, even speaking in tongues. All in all, this process lasted three hours and was on one hand fascinating. I felt like I had quite an opportunity to learn about a different worldview, and partake in a pretty unique experience. On the other hand, it´s hard not to feel fatalistic when the family of a man with cancer swears by dandelion tea and the prayers of the faithful to cure him. Guatemalans are tenacious people.

Anyway, on to my second submission to the list of Guatemala downers: yes, I had bedbugs. Or fleas - we haven´t really decided what the bites actually are from, but they seem to have originated from my bed. In any case, my fellow Peace Corps Trainees were certainly giving me a wide berth for about a week, and as all my clothes and bedding were in a continual stage of being washed and then taking at least a day to dry, I found myself suddenly shy on blankets and blouses... shoot. But never fear: plastic-wrapping my bed, Raid-ing my room, slathering myself in hydrocortisone cream and bug lotion thrice daily, and consuming certain vitamins to make my blood less yummy to the buggies, I swiftly had this nasty little hygiene problem taken care of.

Lastly, a downer with a light at the end of the tunnel. I bought a cell phone about a week ago, being the only option I had to call home (as there is no international call center here in my pueblo). Lo and behold, I get it home, charge it for six hours, and it didn´t work. A brand new cell phone!! But this too was a relatively easily resolved issue - wasn't nearly as complicated as my Spanish professor suspected. He doubted that the tienda in Antigua where I bought it would be able to replace it or fix it, since the model came from the distribuidor in Guatemala City, but thank goodness they saw the rationale in replacing a brand new phone that has never been turned on and never used, without having me pay extra. (I mean, that does make perfect sense...)

So, there's my list. And the stories that go with them. This post is a bit delayed, and a bit lacking on photos, but I'm working on it. Here's one: it's actually from my second day in the country, when I was staying in the same town as the PC HQ. Not there anymore, but.. it's still a pretty picture. :) Hope you all are well, and happy.

Sunset over one of the volcanoes from the Peace Corps HQ office outside Antigua. It's a pretty beautiful spot, huh?