From the List of Awesome Stuff: The Champagne Party and Upcoming Events

The List of Awesome Stuff includes once-a-month activities that we host. Upcoming events include:

January: Two-Night stay in IRTRA
February: Double decker party-boat ride across Lake Atitlan
March: 1-Day, 10-location Cantina (Transalation: Local Drinking hole) Crawl
April on-ward: Ideas pending (recommendations welcomed)

This weekend, for December's event, we hosted a Champagne Party in our apartment. The ladies decorated the apartment in with burning candles, wine and champagne bottles with flowers, light finger foods across the apartment, strawberries for the campagne and a fire out in the back yard. That's right kids, we do have some class.

A few of the 50 us who were there brought out our Sunday best, rocking ties, some ladies in dresses and heels. Though not a terribly great feet, this is probably one of three times I have found reason to wear a tie in my 16 months in Guatemala. So didn't require everyone to rock it though, as we didn't want to invite accusations of being super fresa. We are trying to maintain our credibility it our Guatemalan homies out here.

Picture from the festivities are pending. The only things of particular note is that the party also served as a surprise despedida for a friend who is ending close to three years in Guatemala. Que le vaya bien... That, and the other wonderful find that someone decided to make use of stray sock once they apparently realized that we had run out of toilet paper. One of the wonder gifts you can always count on running across the day after hosting a get together. Nice.

Lastly, today marks 16 months of my search to become increasingly Chapin.

Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is Xela Lopez.

The month of November was an absolute whirlwind. It was kicked off with my birthday on the 5th, which with much thanks to my roommates, friends, and the cantina (local drinking hole) across the street from our house, was celebrated in style. We had a house party on the 6th (sidenote: our couches are STILL outside from this) and then my mom and brothers arrived on the 9th for a two week visit to Guatemala. They were the best guests I could have asked for as countless times I had to run off and do something work-related while I left them to explore Xela, the Lake, and Antigua on their own. Jamil and I picked up a group of Habitat volunteers on the 19th (the "Reflections" group aka best group we have had!) and were with them about ten days (including sharing an amazing Thanksgiving dinner with them), and were back in Xela this past Sunday night just in time for the annual Habitat Spiritual Retreat which ended Wednesday afternoon. Today I am proudly not going in to the office (which of course means I was awake a 5:30 am) and it feels like the first day all this month where I have a moment to gather my thoughts... and unpack!

Maybe you were all a bit surprised to find the words "Spiritual Retreat" in my first blog entry. Definitely not something you would expect myself to attend. Although not completely my scene and at times I feel a bit uncomfortable when the clapping and singing has gone on for longer than thirty minutes, it overall is a really nice event that Habitat puts on as a way to thank the staff for another amazing year of work. For most of the employees, a vacation throughout the year is almost impossible as the jobs, although fulfilling, can be quite demanding and consuming. This retreat is one of the only times over the year that everyone is together with no work burdens and can simply share time together. Having said that, we were sad that Josue, more commonly know as "El Patron" (a blog entry on him will be coming soon...) was not in attendance because of work he had to take care of in his area called Solola.

Two highlights for me from the retreat sadly (but not surprisingly) have nothing to do with the Pastors and the speeches we listened to. The first night was the "Cultural Night" where each affiliate is supposed to give some sort of presentation whether it is a skit, a song, a dance, something along those lines. One department was waiting for the music to begin for what could best be described as a terrible attempt at mouthing the words, when I thought it was an opportune moment to go and quickly say bye to a friend sitting a few rows in front. I got up but the music was taking longer than expected to start. Someone on seeing me get up said loudly, "Vamos Ellie!" and in true Guatemalan style (when in group settings here, you often might be confused and think you are back in high school, or even elementary school. EVERY time a cell phone went off at this retreat, half the group would loudly say, SHH! which in my book, only makes it that much louder and distracting.) everyone joined in and before I knew it the entire salon was chanting, "Vamos Ellie!" I did not handle this well and could only shake my head to clarify that I was not going on stage to join them, and sat in the first open seat I could find. It was pretty hilarious though. This moment, however, was definitely topped when after dinner Jamil and I discovered the play ground. We decided the see-saw was a good choice and quickly realized it is a lot more dangerous than we remembered. This didn't stop us from jumping up each time it was on our side, sending the other person practically bouncing out of their seat. Practically bouncing out until Jamil actually flew and landed pretty much on top of me. Once I knew he was ok and had no injuries, we had one of those laughs that makes your stomach hurt and you have tears pouring down your face. All in all a really great retreat.

I should mention that recently added to the List of Awesome Stuff was next year at the retreat Jamil and I want to show up to the final dinner in formal wear, aka myself in a ball gown and Jamil in a suit/tuxedo, preferably accompanied by a hat and cane. Let the Paca shopping begin!

*For anyone in need of a reggaeton song, may I suggest "Danza Kuduro" by Don Omar. (Diwy, this might be the new Nina Bonita!)

List of Awesome Stuff: 1st Installment - the Jams

This past week, Ellie and I have constructed a list of "Awesome Stuff". It is a list of random, unambitious goals that have occurred to us of late. There are goals that, if we manage to achieve them, simply make life a little more awesome. The first item on our agenda of Awesome Stuff is the memorization of jams.

We select one song per week (English or Spanish) that we commit ourselves to memorizing all of the lyrics to by the end of the week. This week's jam (Spanish: una rola) is called "Tocarte toda" (English: Touch all of you) by Calle 13. Don't worry - we will give you weekly updates on what la rola de la semana is. We will also keep you updated on whether we actually achieve our goal. And if you are up for participating in the weekly jam challenge yourself, check out this week's lyrics.

Keep your eyes pealed for the 2nd Installment of the list of Awesome Stuff.

About Reflections

Aside from our day to day responsibilities in the Habitat Guatemala national office (to be detailed at another time), Ellie and I also work in the field with our international volunteers, serving as guides and translators for them over the course of the week that they spend building cinder block homes here in Guatemala.

Of the about 15 teams of international volunteers I have worked with since February 2010, Habitat for Humanity Affiliate Ourtowns has, hands down, been the most outstanding. Aside from their high spirits, high energy and high impact that they have had to date on the work of Habitat Guatemala, they also - like Ellie and I - enjoy a couple of cold beers ("bien frias") after a hard day's work.

The fine, constructive euphemism that they developed for their daily post-work drinks were daily "reflections" - a time for them to look back on their hard work over course of the day, enjoy the good company of their team members and also - a chance to get a little tipsy in the afternoon. The title of this blog is in appreciation for the HFH Ourtowns affiliate, the week we spent with them and our shared value of respect for happy hour. May our reflections over the course of our next year in Guatemala be abundant and profound - never in short supply.