Becoming Guatemalteco

Things are good here. i´ve gotten accustomed to working at the restaurant at this hotel. Its in a pretty beautiful spot. and although i didn´t come to be a server, its been cool getting to know the area, the employees that work here, and the tourists that pass through. plus my spanish is getting real good (my english a little worse). Some of the volunteers that I´ve talked to say that the worst part is working at the hotel, but I´ve quite enjoyed it. Work is like a really long Spanish class. And when I´m not at work, there really isn´t that much to do. The river is fun to swim in, and I´m almost done reading the biography of Che. I´ll be happy to finish that book and get it out of my backpack. It could probably fuel a fire for three days its so long. I´m also grateful to my brother for convincing me to bring a guitar at the last minute. Great call Jon.
Its been a little over a week since i´ve been here. pretty crazy. feels like longer. i took a tour of the orphanage yesterday. wow. its pretty cool. the kids seem awesome and i think its going to be pretty amazing being with them. i hadn´t been there even ten minutes and I was surrounded by beautiful little boys and girls wanting any sort of attention; to be picked up, talked do; swirled around, tossed the ball. I´m still not sure what i´ll be doing, but i think i might be an `orientador´ for the big boys (yrs. 11-16). that would mean i sleep with them, wake them up in the morning at five to do their chores and make sure they shower, and then send them off to school. then i´d hang with them from eleven to one while they eat lunch, and then after school for a bit before they go to bed. i´d have most of my day off, which would be give me time to explore the jungle, read, lay in a hammock, nap, read more, play the guitar, chase some chickens, and nap again, in that order. the boy´s house is actually pretty nice. way nicer living conditions than the volunteer house, where all the rest of the volunteers that teach classes sleep. it seems like it could be nice (its all relative really), but none of them take the effort to clean the rooms. so i´m kinda hoping that i do get that position to stay with the kids. There house is right on the river with some nice hammocks, and a rope swing off one of the decks!
it was a crazy experience just to be at an orphanage in guatemala, let alone one that i will be living at for the next couple months. I think it hit me while I was there that I´m in this for a little while, and so to try and get comfortable.
i did laundry by hand for the first time in my life today. It took a long time and was very tireing. I´m not very good at it, and I think I´ll end up ruining all my clothes I brought. I guess they smell better though. I think I´ll probably just wear as little clothes as possible and do laundry more often. I´ve never really thought about how much swish swashing work the washing machine is doing back home.
I also bought a pillow today, and a pillowcase. The pillow case was I think a little over 8 quetzales ($1.15) and the pillow maybe 24 quetzales. i´m really excited to replace the Iron Springs Brewery sweatshirt I´ve been using as a pillow for the past week with something that hopefully serves its purpose. Although I think the sweatshirt has been giving me good dreams about decent beer, something that doesn´t exist down here.
What else. For the past week I´ve been craving these tacos that are on the restaurant menu. Every time I try to ask for them though, they say they can´t make them, even on the days that the special is tacos. Today a guest at the restaurant didn´t eat their order of tacos, and as I bussed the dishes into the kitchen, I set them aside. They were an order of tacos chinos (eggrolls). I ate them later and they tasted so good (is that gross?) There was chicken inside, the first meat I´ve eaten here since a disasterous episode with a hamburger last Friday that ended up with; well, I´ll just stop there. And sure enough, not thirty minutes later, I was feeling sick. No breaks at this restaurant with the meat I guess. On the good side though, I bought some peanut butter and jelly and bread at the store in town and am having some decent lunches. My six or so choices of free meals on the restaurant menu (not including meat choices, which i don´t even look at anymore) are getting a little old, to say the least, so the pb and j is a good mix. plus, living in a land where you can get three avocados for about a buck is like heaven on earth to me. i´ve taken lots of pictures, and promise to send them soon.
The orphanage could use more volunteers if anyone is interested in quitting their jobs and moving to guatemala... but that´s just a crazy idea.
chris