Project Cookstoves Video
I know you’re like, “Look, Pamie. Your essays were great. But when do I get to see you in Guatemala trying to be all Anderson Cooper, but eventually just having to use your inhaler?”
By the way, I made a $400 donation to Project Cookstoves for one cookstove on behalf of pamie.com. If you feel like spreading some holiday cheer their way, any little bit helps.
It’s Not That Scary: The Guatemala Stories (Round Up)
Here’s the place to get all of the links for the five-part essay on my recent trip to Guatemala.
- Part One — Getting to Solola
- Part Two — Faceplants and Toilets
- Part Three — “A Different Kind of Gringa”
- Part Four — There Will Be Blood, and It Will Be Weird
- Part Five — All Smiles
- About Project Cookstove (I wrote this, too!)
- Flickr pictures
Good Neighbors Project Cookstove
It can be said that most of us take our kitchens for granted.
We think of the kitchen as a gathering place, the room where our families start and end each day. This is where stories are swapped, homework is scribbled, meals are cooked, bread is broken, secrets shared– our lives unfold inside our kitchens, each and every day.
It is the center of our homes, the heartbeat of our families. It nourishes us. It comforts us. It’s even there in the middle of the night when we can’t sleep.
It’s Not That Scary: The Guatemala Stories (Part Five)
We spent our last two nights at Senor Robin’s, the only high-rise apartment I know where the roosters still wake you at four in the morning. The second to the last day we went out to visit a school in a breathtakingly beautiful place called Patzicia, where we hung out with the kids during recess and I was reminded once again that I really don’t know enough Spanish.
It’s Not That Scary: The Guatemala Stories (Part Four)
tampons/pamprin
I really wrote all of that stuff before so I could tell you this, my favorite story from the trip.
Okay, look. We’ve been through a lot together, you guys. So here is where I tell you that I was two hours into the road trip to Solola, at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, in a caravan where I still hadn’t learned everybody’s name, when I got my period.
It’s Not That Scary: The Guatemala Stories (Part Three)
baseball cap / bandanas / combat boots
Despite my fall, I was dressed rather appropriately for the amount of hiking and manual labor that was ahead of us. At one point we were met by one of the Good Neighbors Guatemala staff, a tiny Korean girl named Genesis, who was in skinny jeans, a scarf, boots with heels, and other fancy clothes. I admired her ability to dart around the dirt floors, carry cinder blocks, and take down notes in ball point pen on the palm of her hand so that she can help with a future installation of a cookstove.
It’s Not That Scary: The Guatemala Stories (Part Two)
iPhone / Camera / Video Camera
People who know me at all right now are probably asking themselves, “Okay, fine, Pamie. You went to Guatemala. Now skip to the part where you fall.”
First of all, how dare you.
Secondly, it’s right here.
It’s Not That Scary: The Guatemala Stories (Part One)
“You’ve only known these people for a week?! Pam, you are so brave!”
“Some would call it ‘crazy.’”
Even saying I’d known my traveling partners for a week was being a bit generous. We’d had two meetings over that week, and a few frantic emails on my end. Total amount of time I’d known these people before I left the country with them: about three hours.
Goodbye, sweet kitty.
From the best I can tell, the only reason a girl turns thirty-five is so the cat she’s had since college can pass away. It’s happened to too many friends of mine this year, and now I guess it’s my turn.
Guatemala Bound
Heading out in just a couple of hours. I’m supposed to possibly have Internet service, and I’ll try to tweet from my phone just to show I’m totally still alive.
Latest Comments