The Reign of Chaos

Chaos is the perfect word to describe the situation we are currently living in Guatemala City.
Just in the past week so many horrible things have happened that its hard to believe we have to keep on standing.
The things we hear, see and read every single day are just enough to make anyone feel helpless and vulnerable and simply frightened.

Impunity in this country has reached a level that seems unbelievable. This has become a city were around 15-17 violent deaths are reported EVERY DAY. Now any day can be your last day, you just pray the Lord to keep your loved ones and yourself and leave your home with the huge weight of worries hoping to see them all safe when you come back.
Since the start of year 2009, more than 30 bus drivers have been murdered, that is without counting the victims of the lost bullets in the shootings. Amongst these innocent people we can now count a 2 month old baby boy that was hit in the abdomen by a lost bullet and died that same day in a national hospital. I am happy to say at least one of the men that caused this deaths were captured. But here that can't be much of a consolation since most of the criminals are released 1 or 2 days later. After paying a certain amount of money they remain free on bail.
What kind of sick authorities do we have? Allowing murderers, rapists, drug dealers, thiefs and kidnappers walk out of jail as if they had done anything wrong?

We have heard so many times of people calling the police to report a robbery, a kidnapping or any kind of criminal activity and either the police never shows up or if they do they come too late. We all wonder if they actually care a tiny bit about the safety of the nation or are they as the rest of the people in the government just worried about how they are going to get their pockets filled with money?

All of this has left us living a collective psychosis, we are afraid to drive our cars with the windows open or even ride a public bus because there reports of 200 robberies EVERY DAY.

We no longer trust anyone else besides our family members because we no longer know if that person is going to kidnap you later or break into your house to steal or if you can get into a fight with they could send assassins to kill you or somebody else in your family. Could they do that? In a place were they have found entire families killed and women chopped in pieces, teenagers shot dead when they were going home after church... with no suspects... I think they could.

A couple of weeks ago a teacher was brutally murder by his students, he work in a detention center for teenagers. They were pissed off after an inspection and the teachers always waited a couple of days so the interns would calm down, but this time some of the teachers decided not to wait and entered the place to do their jobs. After a few minutes they found themselves trapped in the middle of a riot. The prisoners had said what they were capable to do and under the lens of the media they chose their victim, first they hit him to death and then opened his chest, took his heart and intestins out and they threw them against the gratings... and that is not it, after they did this they DANCED around the body!

The police later said that the ones that comited this atrocity are 20 year olds that belonged to some of the worst gangs ("maras"). What are this men doing among 13 to 18 year olds? What are they learning from those psycopaths?

What kind of savages are we raising? Aren't they supposed to be rehabilitated in these places?

How can this be happening? How much longer are we going to have to take it?

Then the president shows up on tv and in the radio blamming the past governments and saying there are organized crime groups trying to destabilize HIS government instead of offering reassurement or at least one good plan to stop this horrible violence.

Believe me we are not going to stand this for much longer. Guatemalans are used to be stepped over by the ones with power but we are being pushed to our limits and we can not stand watching 2 month old babies or anyone else dying victim of drug cartels of whatever it is that is causing this chaos.

Pacific marches are being organized and everyone is finally starting to raise their voices in the hopes of PEACE for Guatemala. We are not giving up, we are not going to bend because of the fear or intimidation anymore.

If you are reading this PLEASE pray so Guatemalans can finally find some peace and hope and for the ones whose lives were taken.

Karaoke Contest!

So it all starts last week, last Monday to be exact, my mom and I were coming back from my grandma's house so I was changing the radio station and a karaoke contest came on but it was just finishing, as you might know I LOVE TO SING! My mom told me we should call and I said yes. On tuesday I did the call and sang... and a few minutes later I hear the radioman saying my name! I was the winner of the day!!
Men! I was so excited! you should have seen me jumping around in the living room LOL!
So I was supposed to go to the radio station for a live karaoke contest with all the winners from the rest of the days. And that was not it... there was going to be some special judges to pick out the week's winner... it was a national group (VERY FAMOUS IN GUATE AND MY FAVORITES!)... MALACATES TREBOL SHOP! OMG!!! I couldn't believe it!

On Friday, I dressed up nicely and though I was nervious I really wanted to win a new LG Karaoke system with 1800 songs!!!
So my mom and I were the first ones there. Then 3 other girls showed up, (I have to mention they were so young! it was a little bit embarrasing but I didn't care, they were very nice).
We had to sing 3 different songs each, Malacates was there (well only 2 of them because the rest of the guys were not in Guate... the singer was there and that was enough for me HA!), not many people in my family were listening but I was so happy and excited to be there, it was one of my dreams coming true.
And at the end.... I WON!!!! Jesus Christ I was sooo happy! I made my momma and my family proud and that felt so good!
Now ... on to the pics and video!!

this is me, when I found out I was the winner of the day! :)


these are the other contestants and the guitar man of Malacates Trebol Shop


My turn to sing!

I think my mom was even more excited to meet him than I was! LOL


And this is me! the proud winner with her favorite Guatemalan Band!
They are sooo nice! and Páez (the one in the stripes shirt, he's the singer) is sooo handsome :)

One Year Ago...

Around this time of the year...My mom and I headed to the Westin to place my beloved Angelina in her mom's arms.

I remember it just as if it was yesterday. My heart was in pieces, the day before I just couldn't stop crying! As I didn't want to scare the hell out of Angie I hid in my bathroom crying for a long time but then it was bedtime and as I always put her to bed she wanted me there, she wouldn't go to sleep with my mom. So I came out and I hated that she had to see me like that. Seriously I COULDN'T STOP CRYING!

Anyway, we had already planned to meet with my dear baby's mommy before the actual date of the pick up, so Angie would have more time to know her new family and it would not be so traumatic. Well, dr. montiel gave us a little extra help, and everything turned out to be not so much of a secret as it would have had to be. He actually advise the agency to do exactly what we had planned to do, because according to him, Angie didn't manage new experiences very well. He said she got stiff and cried a lot.
Well, the truth is Angelina is a very smart baby and every time she had a dr. appointment she knew she was going to get a shot or a not so pleasant time with him. In little words that man scared the Hell out of her every time! Of course she would react like that! + She only did that when she was around him and not with any other person.

At the end, everything went incredibly well and Angie bonded great with her mommy and there was not one tear in the first day, that day she came home with us, the next day was the hardest of all, she would have to stay with her mommy forever.
And guess what? She did GREAT! She didn't cry at all, stayed with her mommy and played with her in the pool and eat very well. My heart was hurting but I was so happy because now I knew for sure she was going to be ok.
Somehow my mom and I managed not to cry (too much) in this whole time. To me it was truly God's hand because we were devastated.

In the third day, I had to leave due to a field work in a remote village in Puerto Barrios, I know, that came in terrible timing and of course I didn't want to leave.
This is another reason I believe God was right with us, otherwise it would have been just way too much for me to handle. I still called the hotel room everyday to check on my sweet baby. And yes, I did cry in those times but anyway Angie wasn't looking at me. Every time she was calm and just being her perfect self and that made my family feel a lot better.

To this day, we miss her as if we had to say goodbye just yesterday. And we thank her mommy sooooo much for letting us have some updates and pictures. That is just priceless and it can fill our hearts with joy.
My mom and I are determined to get our visas somehow and visit her as soon as possible. We really want her to know how loved she was here and that in our hearts she is and will always be our beloved baby girl forever.

In this one we were waiting in that little living room in the lobby for her mommy and Marielena to show up. (Did you know the agency or maybe just Marielena doesn't allow the foster mother or foster families to be in this area? Man! You could get some very bad stares or words if you were there). Can you tell we have some very fake smiles?

This is my beautiful baby girl just before we left the house. We picked this dress for her on that special day. She looked so darn cute! The shoes stayed off until the last minute lol

p.s. it took me almost a week to be able to post this. At first the tears wouldn't let me and then it was hard to find time to sit and type and look up for the pictures :s

Living in the city of FEAR

Well, once again I must say what a lousy blogger I am.
The past days have been chaotic, lots and lots of things to do, places to be... just so many things there is not enough time!
First of all I had two big exams for this week (yesterday and today) and so I became "book face" once more and along came the lack of sleep which can make me really fussy.
Good news is that as far as I know most of my answers where right and I will have some decent grades.

On other things, I want to say a belated Happy Women's Day! to any wonderful women reading this post anywhere.
This past weekend was nothing but heartwrenching, there where so many people killed! The police found 2 young girls dead, one was found burned and the other was cut in pieces and the body parts where in plastic bags in a large area.
3 bus drivers were shot and died. I have to mention this is something that has become somehow common in GC. Only in the first 3 months of 2009, more than 20 bus drivers have been murdered in the same circumstances. So everytime you get on a bus or someone close to you gets on one you can only pray and pray that he gets to wherever he/she is going safe and sound (though they might get safe it doesn't mean they didn't get robbed while in the bus!)
It is very frightening to live this way. Robberies happen everywhere now, we are literally afraid of driving in our cars with the windows open because the robbers now drive motorcycles and use the red lights to point guns to the drivers and take their stuff away!!
There were also 5 police chasing incidents all over the country the drug cartels are trying to get the control of the country to pass drugs! There are dozens of people dead because of this, there have been several masacres in the past months.

Besides all of the mess we have to live with here, summer is here and that also means that fires are a threat in many parts of the country. AND from sunday to this day we have had 3 earthquakes!! (I HATE EARTHQUAKESSSS!!) According to the newspaper there have been 17 earthquakes since sunday but only 3 where sensitive all over the country.

Anyway, I just keep praying and praying that this violence ends very soon because it can't get any worst than what it is. When there are teenagers killing people just to be accepted in a gang or just because they are going to receive a meal or clothes in return something is seriously wrong with the society.