Arrival in Calderas / 7 November

I have an hour of internet each week and so am endevouring to write some stuff for everyone to see!
I cant work the punctuation so well for these keyboards so please excuse my posts! I do like good spelling, grammar and punctuation but just cant for the time being!

ok so! I am living in a little village on the side of the volcano acatenango, called Calderas.

I am living with a 69 year old traditional midwife {Dona E} who has 8 kids who all live close by. 4 live on the same property and there is always a tribe of kidlets running around. One of her daughters is also a midwife.

I met her in Antigua,which is a beautiful wee town, jumped in an old ute that says 'jesucristo, rey de reyes' and started up the mountain on a road which would test anyones pelvic floor!


Here are some photos of around the place so you can get an idea.

I am and have been overwhelmed with the poverty> sick animals, animals roaming around the place, kids playing with rubbish and knives, intense smells as there is very little drainage and the water used just runs on the ground,....

I do, however, have a light in my room for which i am very grateful {although the power went out in a thunder and lightening storm the other night}

There are a whole host of birds which roam about {not for you ruthie!}

have a look see....

our water / we have running water for some of the day so when we dont we have to put it into these contaners...some houses in the village dont have water

the kitchen

the yard

the birds

my room

Bienvenidos

Welcome to my blog: katrinaropata.blogspot.com

The title is courtesy of the lovely Trish and is a tribute to all those who have said 'You're not in Guatemala now, Dr. Ropata' - which is more or less everyone who has heard I am off to Guate :)

I hope to keep you all updated with my adventures :)

La Cuidad de Guatemala/ 4^7 of Nov

This is my first destination in Guatemala.

I met up with Claudia who did an exchange to Freyberg High School in 2006 and lives here :)

Tis quite big - although most places are compare to Palmy - consisting of about approximately 2.5 million people (about the biggest city in Central America * care of wikipedia)

From the plane:

I can tell I was in Latin America as soon as we were on the road. There is some absolutely lovely M.I.L.K kinda scenery - old buildings, statues, people going about their daily life. Claudia drives (which is on the left side of the road) and driving here is certainly an experience! People seem to obey traffic lights, however, which is always a plus!

Claudia and her dad despaired over how I would try Guatemalan food, not eating meat. Did have some tamales, frijoles and platano for tea though :)

Once again I am struck with how such poverty and such wealth can coexist so closely. We visited a huge mall (apparently the biggest in Central America) which is flasher than the Plaza (well how the plaza was).

I'm loving being around Spanish again, although they seems to speak very fast! Have a lot to learn but I can understand a whole lot more than when I first arrived in Buenos Aires two and a half years ago. Was looking in my passport and two years ago on the 3rd of November, Ruthie and I crossed from Chile to Argentina *amazing* how time flies. And I still can't believe we did it!

Ill probably be going to Antigua tomorrow to meet up with the midwife...i'm sure that is when the real adventures shall begin!

El Vuelo / 4 nov

¡Ya llegué!

So I flew from Palmerston North to Auckland to Fiji to Los Angeles to Panama to Guatemala! In more or less one piece :)

Highlights of the trip:

- seeing Julie and Julia about three times

- having a 'hot breakfast' of four broccoli florets and one half tomato as the vegetarian option (should've taken a picture!)

- making pleasant small talk with a lady beside me on the plane who then asked if i was 'soltera' and then followed with asking for my address so her son can invite me to Ecuador :p

Not so highlightable:

- sitting next to a girl who was clearly not coping with the LA flight and had to go to the bathroom (with her emesis bag) every half an hour

- getting a wee bit jealous of people who seem to cope very well with flying and hop off the plane looking as fresh and put together as when they boarded! I certainly did not manage this (bra ditched in Fiji ;) )

- feeling a little overwhelmed with LA airport - each level is actually like a whole nother builing with roads, cars and buses! Thankfully had 12 hours to find where i needed to be :) I ventured to the visitors help desk to ask where I actually needed to be to check in for my flight. The lady said that I had to clear customs first (which i had done to be able to access the USA and aforementioned help desk) and then asked if I was going to Fiji (where I had arrived from). She then proceeded to find someone else to help when she didn't know the airline I was departing with...phew! Turned out I actually only needed to go up a couple of levels to the departure level, and along to terminal 6 :)

- body feeling a wee bit confused with all of the different time zones! And sleeping on a plane is just not the same as lying on a bed...

I was oh so pleased to see Claudia's familiar face on arrival in Guatemala City!

Packing and Proud! / 3 nov

I have just finished packing my {one} bag!

I have always thought, particularly for trips to Wellington for block course, that you actually need the same amount for three days as for a week. SO I utilised this principle in that what you need for three months should be about what you need for a week.

This is very difficult for my 'just-in-case' way of thinking but it has worked.

I have successfully crammed all i need into my bag:

And, included in this is chocolate, lollies and licorice to fulfill the requests of several kiwi's in South America.

It totals 19 kilos which i can just manage to lift and can carry on my back :)