English Archives - Ra'Co Life

January 30, 2015December 28, 2018

Iza’s Wonderful Abuela

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vcex_image_grid grid_style=”default” columns=”3″ title_type=”title” thumbnail_link=”none” lightbox_caption=”true” custom_links_target=”_self” img_width=”9999″ img_height=”9999″ image_ids=”3595,3594,3578,3582,3581,3583,3580,3586,3585″][vcex_spacing size=”30px” class=”” visibility=””][vc_column_text]We have had the best week. My mom arrived last Thursday and it has been a week of fun, games and a gazillion and one presents.

This woman is amazing! It is her 3rd time here in 9-months and the last two times she has come with a broken foot. With all our stairs it has not kept her down or frightened her away from coming. Two nights ago she even hobbled up the hill to Kurt’s studio all by herself (and this is not an easy feat… it is a vertical mountain climb). She never complains and she is thrilled to spend any second she can with Iza. At home she has another two beautiful granddaughters the same age as Iza and I know it is hard to be away from them when she is here… so it is pretty special we get to have the time with her.

Iza is happy as can be with her grammy by her side. She is learning more English and spending time with activities. And with my mom’s direction, Efrain has been a building frenzy creating a gorgeous easel and 2′ square puzzles. I think next up is a toy chest and more blocks. One amazing gift – a freakin’ Melissa & Doug Dollhouse. Can you believe she brought it in her suitcase? Iza and her friend Amy have been loving it and playing with all the dolls and the house regularly. It is wonderful.[/vc_column_text][vcex_spacing size=”30px” class=”” visibility=””][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row id=”” visibility=”” css_animation=”” style=”” center_row=”” tablet_fullwidth_cols=”” min_height=”” bg_color=”” bg_image=”” bg_style=”” parallax_style=”” parallax_direction=”” parallax_speed=”” parallax_mobile=”” video_bg=”” video_bg_overlay=”” video_bg_mp4=”” video_bg_webm=”” video_bg_ogv=”” border_style=”” border_color=”” border_width=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” margin_left=”” margin_right=”” padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” padding_right=””][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”3579″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” alignment=”none” link=”http://www.racolife.com/product/schleich-world-of-nature-farm-animals-series-3/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Last time she came my mom had made Iza the most beautiful farm. She sewed a ‘farm purse’ out of fabric and filled it with premium farm animals from Schleich. Amy loves it as much as Iza does and yesterday she came up to me and asked if she could borrow some of them to play with and bring them back another day. When her mom and I looked into her bag to see what she had taken, it was the whole set![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row id=”” visibility=”” css_animation=”” style=”” center_row=”” tablet_fullwidth_cols=”” min_height=”” bg_color=”” bg_image=”” bg_style=”” parallax_style=”” parallax_direction=”” parallax_speed=”” parallax_mobile=”” video_bg=”” video_bg_overlay=”” video_bg_mp4=”” video_bg_webm=”” video_bg_ogv=”” border_style=”” border_color=”” border_width=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” margin_left=”” margin_right=”” padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” padding_right=””][vc_column width=”1/1″][vcex_spacing size=”30px” class=”” visibility=””][vc_column_text]My mom and I are very similar in appearance these days and all the locals love to point it out. It is rare to see white hair on the lake, it is not really that common in the Mayan Community, and she is striking. It is fun to watch people watch her.

We have been to the market and the fabric market and this weekend we head to Antigua and her husband Drew will come to meet us for the next week. It is going to be fun! We have a huge agenda for the next week and I am looking forward to playing ‘tourist’ in a place I love to be.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

November 14, 2014November 14, 2014

Internet in Guatemala, What!?

Let’s just say that the lack of internet in my life has provided me with one of the largest life lessons; “stress doesn’t make it any easier.” Exercising patience is my new motto.

For the last 2.5 months I have not been able to really work. As the primary bread winner for my family, and living in a foreign country with limited opportunity to network, relying solely on my existing contracts and relationships, I require internet for my survival. We require internet for our survival.

1 month of that time was at Casa de Joyce in San Marcos and it was a frustrating mess of dropped and inconsistent service. We had upgraded the service to the highest package available, but it was rendered useless over the last month (other than a few sporadic uploads and downloads here and there) during the rainy season. This was expected, but also wildly frustrating. (I should note that we are lucky TIGO 3G works regularly and were doing a lot of work from our phones by using it as a wifi hotspot).

Then we moved to Patziac. For a monster set up fee and a monster monthly fee, we were under the impression that we would actually be able to get some level of service. How wrong we were.

So, about a month ago – about 15 days after being patient – I started reaching out to Mayanet, who is our service provider and documenting every time the internet went out. We had about 3 days one week without internet, 1 of those days due to power outages at our house. The last 2-weeks have been an in and out series of “power outages” in San Pedro (I quote it because we look out the window and there are lights, but apparently our internet has its own power?), and a series of other excuses why we don’t have internet:

Reason 1: The weather (i.e. clouds) are interrupting the signal
Reason 2: A pinch in a wire bringing internet to San Pedro*
Reason 3: Power going out in San Pedro, “The infrastructure in San Pedro is messed up and old”
Reason 5: The backup system he installed and we paid for (meant to kick in when the normal internet goes out) runs out of money
Reason 4: He doesn’t know

Below is an overview of where we are to date. We have spent everything on the left and are committed to the Monthly Payments. Do we move forward with the new Pana Plan? Do I follow through with the My Plan? For a reference, here is what we are paying in monthly rental costs, improvements, etc. so it seems absolutely insane to virtually 3x that cost by adding in a permanent internet structure. But, it is one idea, and may end up being our only one to get consistent service.

The below portrait is a visual of what our gorgeous house is going to end up having added to it, in order to support our internet need that Carlos has outlined through the Pana Plan. It is terrifying and locks us into this property. But it is a very intriguing and interesting visual.

While I am not an expert, for shits and giggles, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I called TIGO and had a fantastic conversation in English with a sales rep there. We discussed some opportunities and it might be a potential to work out a situation with the TIGO company.

Funny story though: We don’t have an address here, so when the rep asked me what it was, I had to explain that we are our own little space, no street address, no street, etc, we have a walking path and water! So, he asked me for my coordinates. If you are planning on coming for a visit, you can now search by coordinate:

Area de Uso Multiple Cuenca de Lago Atitlán
Nahualá
14.731739, -91.226821

Casa de Patziac
Jabalito y Tzununa
Panajachel, Solola

Hell yeah. Surviving in Guatemala!

*I complained so much and Mayanet called the internet provider so much that the company Claro (yuck) actually ended up looking into the problem. It was effecting tons of people. What?! No one seemed to have a complaint except me? Crazy! I guess people just expect intermittent internet service in emerging countries.

September 20, 2014October 6, 2015

Baby Learning to Speak, Constant Noise

The talking will come and I will do my best for patience. And for now I dream of bedtime and the hours I get to have filled with free thought.

Truthfully, the noise is killing me. Kurt is not a talker outside the house, but here I get the sole pleasure of hearing all his random thoughts, ideas, and music sounds as he invents some kind of song. I love all of it, provided those were the only sounds I heard. Iza is a constant babbling mess of sound bites – some Katchiquel, a few choice Spanish or English words, and some bizarre noises acquired from Baby Einstein. I can’t think straight for the majority of the day; my head is literally full of this endless stream of thoughts which are not my own. I often find myself at the end of the day wanting to literally cover my ears and jump into the lake to have a single moment of silence.

It is possible, I may have been like this as a child, but as an adult, I am not much of a talker inside the house. I use this time to be pensive, and I am very mindful of the time I have outside of work; the simple, rare moments that I don’t have to communicate with clients or vendors. I can just exist in solitude and not have to respond on command.

Children do not understand this need, and I get that. I have to remember that this learning phase of speaking is frustrating for Iza as well because she desperately wants to communicate, and life is very confusing for a child learning 3 languages. A little research shows a delay in speech when multiple languages are learned at the same time – I suppose she is trying to make sense of all the different words she hears, that mean the same thing;

Monkey’ and ‘Mono’ both make the “ooo ooo ahhh ahhh,” but Mama says its ‘Monkey’ when she talks to me, and Kati says its ‘Mono,’ Papa says it is ‘Mono’ and ‘Monkey’ depending on the moment. Which one do I say?

June 28, 2014December 28, 2018

Sick Baby, Fungus on Walls, No Gas, No Drinking Water: Awesome Morning.

I just returned home on Saturday afternoon after a full week of work, a crazy overnight of travel and a 3-hour car ride which included a funeral procession for 4.5 miles to an even bigger and more exciting weekend of issues.

For starters, when Kurt and Iza greeted me at the dock I quickly realized how bad Iza really was. She had lost about 5lbs since I left. She was pale, almost green and definitely not herself. She had a fever of 102+ and wasn’t eating anything. When we got up our trail to the house I looked around with fresh eyes…. there was this weird wall mold/fungus coming off all the walls. Kurt went to take a shower but the water was freezing, so we pretty much went right to bed to make sure we could get some sleep. In the morning I went to make tea and the stove wouldn’t turn on. The drinking water was kicked, so I just started to cry. Pretty pathetic, but I had almost hit the end of my rope – baby crying, exhausted from travel, thirsty, throat closing in… recipe for disaster.

After Iza woke we decided very quickly that she was sick enough for the Hospital. I went online to research and found a great hospital on the other side of the lake in Santiago. The number on the site listed an American number so I called it and Dr. Larry answered in Maine. He was home, but he frequents Santiago as it is a hospital he founded. So, with his advice we went.

We first went to Pana where I had an absolute meltdown and cost us an extra 2-hours in my mania. When we got to Santiago it was nearly 1pm and our Tuk Tuk driver asked us if we wanted him to wait. We said, “no” (although we should have said, “yes”). After walking up the walkway we kind of realized we were absolutely in the middle of no where. Walking up to the door it was was locked to the Emergency Room and immediately we got discouraged, but we didn’t really know what else to do, so we waited.

Shortly a nurse showed up at the door. She welcomed us and opened the door, showing us to the infirmary to Bed 3. There were 4 beds. (I am familiar with an infirmary from High School at Mercersburg. When you got sick you were sent to the infirmary where you had to be in a shared bed space which is far too similar to an army infirmary… totally depressing. You can just imagine 35 sick soldiers lined up on either side of the room. I think I went to the infirmary 2x in the 4 years I was there and 1x was to say goodbye to a friend who got kicked out for smoking pot.) Around us were a series of American-style equipment and books. Lots of tools and familiar mechanisms. I have to say… definitely a sign of relief from us both. The doctor spoke very very little English, but he had some Tz’utujil and Kaqchikel which are Mayan languages as well as fluent Spanish. Needless to say, we made do. We had to.

It turns out, after nearly 5 seconds of testing that Iza has an ear infection. So ridiculous that this had gone on for nearly 8 days at this point. Completely unnecessary. We got medicine and we were on our way. Of course we were in the middle of no where, so we grabbed the first Chicken Bus we found and headed into town.

1 issue down… like a MILLION to go. Stay tuned.