Febrero loco

It was right around the end of January when I started mentioning my upcoming birthday to locals. It's not that I was hinting at anything, but it just came up in conversation; my dad was coming to visit and both of our birthdays would fall within his visit. Besides, I definitely didn't need to give anybody more reason to question my single, no-children status. "Twenty-five?!" they'd say. "Twenty-five and you're all alone?" When I did speak of it to my closer local friends, they almost unanimously replied, giggling at their own hilarity, "Entonces eres loca, verdad?" ("So you're crazy then, right?")  I was missing something. So I asked Olga what she meant. "We say that people born in February are crazy, because February is the crazy month." Wonderful, I think, yet another thing to make me the crazy gringa. "February," she explained, "is the crazy month because the weather is so unpredictable. Some days it's very hot, some days it's cold and rainy. You never know what you're going to get. Also, February is known as the month of love, because everybody's falling in love, celebrating Valentine's Day. It's a crazy month." Hi, nice to meet you, I'm love-hungry and bipolar, just like the month of February.

Dad the ladies-man with the Tzibal women

This year, Olga's theory is holding up. Things have been crazy this month, myself included. Time has been flying faster than I can track it these days, in a whirlwind of work, play, and COS paperwork. My mind is constantly being tugged in all directions. My handy-dandy "focus on the now" mantra doesn't really work when I'm being forced to plan my post-PC future while simultaneously looking back on my service in order to write up my site reports. I came down with gripe (the flu) despite the fact that I'm NEVER sick in Guatemala (stomach issues aside). I'm stressed and I can feel it. Time is slipping through my fingers like the proverbial sands in the hourglass, and I feel like I'm on the verge of an ataque de nervios. Plus, as a friend so kindly pointed out, I'm now closer to 30 than I am to 20.

Dad's new retirement plan

Dad's first jumping shot

Backing up a bit, the beginning of February was a delight. Papa Gdalman came to Guatemala for a visit and we had a grand old time. Dad is a super low-maintenance traveler, so I didn't really do much planning for his trip (not that I would have had the time/energy to do so otherwise). In Antigua we stayed at the budget hostel that I usually stay at with PC friends, wined and dined at favorite PC restaurants and bars, took a chicken bus ride to Pastores (the Guatemalan hub of leather-working) where I placed an order for a fabulous pair of custom-made cowboy boots ("I'm not a cowboy-boot kinda guy," Dad claimed), and did a lot of bumming around the market. Then we hopped on Caesar's shuttle (we lucked out and got a private ride, if you don't count the tables he was transporting) and headed up to Coban where we spent Super Bowl Sunday in a slightly shady hotel before heading up to beautiful Campur. On Dad's birthday I dragged the poor guy up the the mountain to Tzibal to meet the women's group, see the bottle school, and eat a special Kak'ik birthday meal. He sat patiently through the women's group meeting and afterwards posed individually with about 15 of the women who were just over themselves with giddiness (apparently Doña Margarita got a little frisky during her photo op and grabbed his derrière). He remained unfazed when we jumped in the back of a pick-up to get back down to Campur in time for my English class, or when I showed him how to heat up his bucket-bathe. He fearlessly gobbled down street-food (Doña Ana's tayuyos) and practiced the little Q'eqchi I taught him on local families. He was a trooper, and it was a great visit. Happy 60th, Dad!

Dad took off on the morning of my birthday, but I enjoyed my day anyway. After the market I spent the afternoon reading and napping in my hammock, and that evening headed over to Pastora Isabela's house where they threw me a party complete with chicken stew and a beautiful chocolate birthday cake from Coban. After they sang the birthday song to me in three languages (English, Spanish, and Q'eqchi) Isabela gifted me a gorgeous hand-stitched huipil. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

My very yummy birthday cake!

That same weekend I headed to Lanquin to meet up with some PC friends to celebrate Alison and my birthdays and despedir (say goodbye to) Evan and Winfrey. It all pulled me back to the reality that I have mere weeks to wrap up my life here and move on. If only I had a clue what it was that I'm moving on towards..

Celebrating in Lanquin.