New Room!

This is super overdue, but...I moved out of my room which I liked to not so affectionately call my cubicle and into a bigger room right next door. Literally the two doors are inches apart, but there is a big difference in size. I will still be using the same bathroom which has no light that I have to walk outside and across the roof deck to get to. This also means that my rent will be going up substantially from 500Q/month ($65) to 800Q/month ($103), but the PC pays for my rent so I'm more than ok with this.

Since moving in in the end of April I have been eating lunch and dinner with my host family. It is a sweet deal because I was paying them 5 Quetzales a meal / 10Q a day to eat lunch and dinner with them (which is about $1.30 a day for the two meals!)! I know I am slightly crazy for passing up this good of a bargain, but I really want to cook for myself at least some of the time so in my new room I am going to set up a little area that I am going to use as my kitchen with a single electric burner (although my new room only has two outlets so this will take up half of them), some pots, pans, plates, etc. This decision is partially to decrease my tortilla intake and partially to increase my vegetable intake.

There have also been a few too many times when the meal my host family serves is not exactly to my taste. It is considered very rude in Guatemala to not eat something that they serve you so I literally eat EVERYTHING that I  am served. The small portions help when the meal isn't my favorite. Cow hoof soup for example was one meal that didn't quite do it for me, but I still drank all of the broth (I couldn't eat the fat like my host family was doing). Guatemalans also do NOT say no. Ever. So if you need to get a little creative with your excuses if you do not want to do or eat something (hence my lactose intolerance so I don't have to eat the non-refrigerated cheese). For example if you are offered seconds on a meal saying “no thank you” (in Spanish of course) is considered rude and you should instead try something like “how nice, but I am full, thank you.” Or “fijese que I had a big snack or my stomach hurts.”

In no other world would I have been excited to move into this place, but I am so happy about the move! I am working on making it seem more home-y and am going to try and paint over the irremovable dirt and smoke stains on the walls. I do have four big windows which is nice.

To the left is where the window to the kitchen used to be. 

Now it is just cinder blocks...I really need to paint

 

I do have some nice big windows