The Cup is Still Half Full

I cannot believe it but the halfway mark of our 4 months here has come and gone. I cannot remember a time when school has gone by so fast! Its just incredible to look back all thats happened and how little I have written about it on here, sorry! I just put a bunch of pictures on Facebook from our latest trip to Guatemala so make sure to check those out as well as the ones I'm tagged in because my camera broke about halfway through the trip.

We had a few set-backs in getting there. It took us 3 different buses to get us to Guatemala. The first was too small (or we weighed too much), the second broke in Copan, Honduras and delayed us a full day, and finally the third arrived and seemed to work alright for the rest of the trip. God was definitely keeping an eye on us this whole trip, we had many close encounters and some had some scary ones, but nothing serious happened and everybody made it back safe. And looking back many of the encounters we had helped to remind us of where we are, the precaution we need to take and also helped us realized that most of the world is not as safe and cozy as where many of us live in the US.

Guatemala is one amazing country, the majority of the population is still made up of the indigenous people, however tourism is quickly influencing the traditions and practices of these people. We had a chance to visit two small towns on Lake Atitlán that I believe are only accessible by boat. The first was called San Antonio Palopó and the second Santiago Atitlán. The people in each town are still close to their traditions, religions, and way of dress. However, they informed us that even these towns are quickly modernizing with the changing world. Their clothes are handmade garments from brightly colored cloth and each town has their own specific colors for example the first town was mainly red with some blues and greens. The women carry their things for sale on their heads and all the little girls are dressed alike with braids and headbands wrapped tightly around their heads. I wish I had a pictures, but I felt kinda of rude to start taking pictures of them as if they were on display, but they probably would have been fine with it. I got my first taste of bartering here even though the women didn't want to budge much on their prices. After we toured the town a bit and visited a fabric making "factory" consisting of about 5 workers, we returned to the boat to go to the next town. The boat ride was so relaxing in the sun and when you looked around there were 3 volcanoes rising up into the clouds and the mountainsides surrounded the rest of lake. So incredible.

At the second town, we ate lunch and I had my fried fish again, which I guess in central america means the whole fish is fried, eyes, head, fins, and all. But definitely delicious. Then we went to this house that was temporarily housing this saint named Maximón. I thought I was going to meet this old pipe smoking man dressed in traditional clothing. When I got there, I found out that this "saint" is actually a wooden statue of a man dressed in real clothes and had a real cigar in its mouth. On either side of it were two men that were there to protect the "saint." The rest of the house had an odd smell, maybe due to the combination of smoke and the excessive use of candles. There were many other statues in there and a coffin as well, each representing a saint or actually considered a saint. I'm still not sure on that. It turns out that this saint Maximón is central to the specific religious belief of this town. It is a combination of catholicism and some of the Mayan beliefs. Every year Maximón is moved from house to house in a huge procession that goes through all the town and passes in front of the huge Catholic cathedral in the middle of town. Our guide was a young boy of I think 11 years old and he knew everything! He gave us the history of the church and Maximón and answered any question we asked. It was easy to see that the religion in this town is central to who they are, so that even the kids know the traditions and history like the back of their hand. I personally kind of felt uncomfortable when we were in the room with Maximón, I can't really describe it, but I just wanted to leave. Luckily we didn't stay too long, but it was a good thing to experience in the long run. After this we had a while to shop around. This is where I found my love for bartering haha. There is definitely an art to bartering, I would not say I am anywhere near at mastering it, but I'm getting there. For example, another girl on the trip with me, Christa, and I wanted these amazing blankets/bed covers. They were handmade and super cozy. We were looking at them and admiring the colors when a woman came over and said she would take down them for us to look at them closer. I found out this is pretty normal, if you touch something they think you want it and will take it down for you every time. I found a teal/torquise colored one I liked alot and Christa found a royal blue she liked. We asked the price and it was 400 quetzales for each. 400 quetzales is like 50 bucks. Neither of us wanted to pay that, so we kind of hesitated in saying anything. So she said "whats your best price?" Christa said the two for 400. The women then went on and on about the quality and that she couldn't sell it for such a low price. (by the way its just a good selling tactic when they say this) So she suggested the two for 600. We were like ok ok 450. And she said her lowest price was 550. then I looked at my wallet and so did Christa and we realized we only had 480 between us haha. So we were like well we only have 480 with us, we can't spend money we don't have. She didn't believe us, so we started to leave a little bit and said we would come back another time. Pretty quickly she changed her mind and said 480 was just fine. So we landed two blankets almost for the price of one. We felt pretty proud of ourselves at the time. But looking back on it, we definitely could have brought down the price more, but I guess we just have to learn from experience. And its definitely a rush bargaining back and forth, I loved it and didn't want to stop. Sometimes I found myself bargaining down prices on stuff I didn't even want and never ended up getting. Crazy stuff. But here is a list of things I have found to be helpful.

Bartering Strategies
-Don't appear too interested in what you really want, just glance at it
-Buying more than one is always cheaper if you have a friend that wants the same thing
-Make sure to not act desperate or ever say a price higher than you want or think is fair
-After a while, ask what it costs
-Never pay what they ask the first time
-Find a price in your head of what your willing to pay and don't go over it, there are always more vendors
-And never give your max price first, always start way lower
-Don't be afraid to spend a lot of time in one store bartering
-Also don't be afraid to actually walk out of the store to show your "disinterest" often they will call after you with a much much lower price
-Say less than half of what they asked, I personally like starting around a quarter of what they ask
-Sometimes they will act offended and say the quality is too good for such a low price and will go on and on about where it was made and how long it took, but know that this is a selling tactic, don't get emotionally involved or start feeling bad if they start telling stories on how they need the money
-Always take your time in deciding, there is no rush, but don't act too attached
-Sometimes acting rushed works if you seem to really have no interest in buying, b/c that can cause sometimes a quick reduction in price to get you to agree before you leave

However the best way I have found is to have a friend that really wants something and have them go through the whole bartering thing and buy something and just be a bystander. And then just as you are about to leave, show a little interest in that same thing if its what you want and then say o its alright I'm going to go. Often the vendor will yell out a price even lower than what your friend payed to get you to buy it. This happened to Julienne after I bought the blanket, she got offered a price lower than what we payed, haha.

Of course this is just what I do, I'm sure there are better ways, but I have way too much fun w/ it. Well I'm about to go eat dinner so I'll post more later, ¡adiós!