Day 11 - Red, White, and PURPLE

Do excuse the tardiness of this post. I still do not have internet at home, but I assure you it actually was written on the Fourth of July.

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Happy Fourth of July! As I’m sure you could guess, Guatemala does not celebrate US Independence Day, and despite the large expat population at Mayan Families, the Fourth of July was just another day of work.

The day started with more preschool computer classes with Paolo. I think that even in two weeks my Spanish has already improved. I’ve got the lesson with Paint down pat as long as the kids don’t get too crazy with what they want to draw, in which case Paolo steps in with an English translation for me if he can think of the English words.

I’ve got enough Spanish to converse between classes, but I probably sound like a child speaking because I have the option to take forever to speak correctly or speak at a normal conversational pace only using present tense. I naturally stick with the present tense option to keep the conversation flowing. Proper grammar will come with time and practice.

Today marked my last preschool science class explaining density. It definitely was my best lesson; I didn’t have to stop to ask my translator Audrey for any words. But today was also Audrey’s last day of work, and next week marks a new session with a new set of vocab words! I might have to run it through with Paolo Monday morning to make sure that even with my poor Spanish it all makes sense. Next week the students will get to build their own Cartesian Divers! The kids are excited, and I think the teachers are looking forward to getting all of the water bottles out of their classrooms and moving on to a drier lesson. The next section…DC motors!

Here's an arbitrary picture of the beautiful Guatemala to break up all these words. I certainly didn't take enough pictures this past week.

Angelica in the Education Department let me know that this evening they were getting together a group to play soccer at a nearby indoor field. I’d been trying to get in on a game since I arrived, but the games were cancelled and moved at least three times. I was very excited to have evening plans to take my mind off of the distinct lack of fireworks. Today was my first Fourth of July out of the United States, and going from good food, family, and fireworks to work and not much else was a big adjustment. So I committed to meeting them in the evening and getting in on the game. But there was a slight catch. I didn’t pack any sweatpants and “covered shoulders, covered knees” is the rule of thumb for women around here, evening while playing soccer. So after work I set out on what turned out to be the most difficult quest since I’d arrived: finding sweatpants long enough for a 5’9” chica in a town where the median height is very probably below 5’0”.

After three stores with plenty of sweatpants options had nothing near long enough for me, I decided that regardless of cost, color, material, anything, if I found a single pair of sweatpants that were long enough, I was buying them and going straight home.

So naturally the next store that I stopped in had ONE pair. One single pair of sweatpants that were the right length. And they were the most vibrant purple sweatpants I have ever seen. They are blindingly purple. As in the things around them start to look purple because the material practically oozes deep purple into the air. I would post a picture if I had one, but I didn’t want to clog my camera lens with that ridiculously thick color. And I have some pride left.

I really hesitated. I really considered continuing my search in some other store. But then I really considered how much less fun soccer would be if I didn’t have time to eat dinner beforehand, and I bought them.

I probably overpaid. I probably will not ever ever wear them once I’m back in the US. But all I needed was one pair of sweatpants for eight weeks of soccer that actually fit. And I found them. And right now I have them hidden in my suitcase, so that I don’t have to look at them, but in the end… they were so worth it.

Soccer was a blast! It was definitely my kind of game. They didn’t keep score, they didn’t even keep the same teams throughout, but every woman out there was playing as hard as she possibly could. I was the only gringa on the field, and I think that they underestimated me at first, but after stopping some pretty hard drives down the field from the other team, they started to accept that Guatemalans do not have a monopoly on good female soccer players.

The hour was over much too quickly, and the buzzer rang for the next group to take the field. I was so exhausted I could barely even speak or comprehend Spanish. My good friend Lydia even walked past her house to the start of my street because I was having so much trouble understanding the directions they were giving me for how to get home from the field.

But it was a good kind of exhausted. It was the kind of exhausted where the only energy you have left in your body is going to your face, which can’t stop smiling. It was the kind of exhausted where you are panting so hard from running that you can barely breathe, yet you spend all that precious breath laughing at yourself stumbling through Spanish sentences. It was the kind of exhausted where you forget all about the lack of fireworks on the Fourth of July, go home to a relaxing (though short) shower, and write all about it on your laptop under your covers before falling into a deep, warm, comfortable, happy…sleep.