So one major thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that in between the search for tiramisu and the actual party, I went to Skype Brian from my professors’ house which has internet access. While I was chatting with him, my favorite professor Devva, whom I’ve described before, was seated nearby so I invited her to meet my fiancé. Both of them were equally as excited to see each other, and I was even more excited because here were two of my favorite people in the entire world getting a chance to meet face to face. Thank you Skype! I don’t think you can get a real sense of what or who Devva is just over the phone. You have to see her expressions, her mannerisms, her enthusiasm, and her entire demeanor to understand why she is like no other person you’ve ever met. She danced on the camera, patted my nose, and was just amazing. Later Brian told me he could tell why I am so enthralled by her, and he was equally as thrilled to meet her. He invited her to our wedding, which is a huge surprise considering our limited space, but I really hope she can come.
Our Gero and Disability Studies groups took an early morning private shuttle to Guatemala City to meet a class of OT students who attend San Carlos University. On the way there, our driver stopped on the side of the road to “pick something up.” That “something” was his buddy who needed a ride to somewhere, so he joined us. Very interesting…
We arrived at San Carlos University’s Cultural Center, off campus from the actual school. We later learned that the OT program is part of the psychology school and this week, the students took over the building in protest, because there are too few teachers for their classes. Our morning consisted of presentations by the San Carlos OT Program, the our program, then a woman from Peru who said things about reintroducing people to the work environment. Devva was upset because the woman told us about an “innovative” program they had that you just punch in people’s abilities after they’ve been disabled and then a recommendation for a job comes out of the computer and that’s what the person gets to do for their new career. Initially, I thought it was a cool idea, then she mentioned how dehumanizing it was to assign a person a career without their input. On second thought… I think I agree with Devva.
Upon returning to Antigua, we went eat lunch at a place called Sabe Rico which has some of the best food ever. I had a a curry chicken sandwhich and watermelon juice with ginger and lemon. We loved it so much, we decided to go for dinner. Before though a group of 6 of us gero girls went shopping in Antigua to a cute indoor market called the NimPot. It’s got pottery, jewelry, textiles… an indoor swapmeet with everything. We returned to SabeRico for dinner and our OT Practice supervisor joined us with Dr. Perkinson (aka Peggy), Devva, my old housemate Erica, and Lisa from Disability Studies. It was equally as delicious, and I’m not at all embarrassed about going there twice in 5 hours.
