Places May Change But Memories Stay Forever!

When you share special moments at one specific place, the scenes are recorded in your mind like a movie.  Every time you visit or pass by this place, the memories come back and you have the opportunity to live them again. You remember persons, noises, smells, and tastes.  The place is the setting and helps refresh your emotions and experiences.

Today I passed by Kilometer 18 of the Road to El Salvador.  Suddenly, it all came back to me.  The place was different, but the memories were in my mind and heart.

Eleven years ago, Jamaril Club & Spa was conveniently located at Kilometer 18 of the Road to El Salvador Road.  The Club had more than enough parking spaces to accommodate its members.  It was unique in Guatemala.  You had to buy a membership and you could select the following:

1. Over 10 fitness classes, towel service, beautiful wood lockers, a steam room at the locker rooms and massage therapy rooms, and the most complete training and cardio equipment for your fitness classes.

2. Use of six luxurious pools.  They were all heated and open all year long for lap swimming, free swimming, and swimming classes. 

3. The Club offered Tennis and Golf classes.  My grandpa chose Golf classes and I liked to see him with all his equipment.  I used to stick my dolls in his bag.  He explained to me that I should not do that because his bag weighed more and he played for a long time.

4. The Club provided child care. In that area, babies from 4 months to 3 years old received attention.  They encouraged them to explore and discover the world of movement and senses.  My parents used to take my little sister while they worked out.

The Club developed a concept for every child. They had a Baby Club, Petit Club, and Mini Club.  Each one included several activities and adventure games.  For me, the most important and most fun area was the playground.  My grandparents and I liked to go to the playground because they could relax while I was entertained.  It included different designs of painted houses, sand pits with mini excavators, seesaws, slides, springy jeeps, and swings.  My grandparents used to sit on the benches with picnic tables.  At the playground they served hot and cold drinks, a variety of sandwiches, shakes, ice cream, cotton candy, and popcorn.  My grandpa usually ordered Supreme Cheese Nachos with Roasted Chicken.  We visited the Club every weekend.  There was always something exciting awaiting us. 

One morning, my parents went to work out and it was closed.  The Club shut down on a weekend without warning.  They saw a fence installed around the site with signs that read: “Private, Keep Out”.  A statement on the entrance to the Club read, “Jamaril Club & Spa is now closed”.  My parents came home very disturbed.  How did this happen! My mom called my grandpa and told him about the signs.  He was the titular member, but he had not received any notice regarding Jamaril’s imminent closure.  When all the members found out about the situation, they were disappointed and furious. This meant they would lose the investment they made in the Club.  Around fifty people employed by the Club were out of a job now.    

The bad news continued to spread around.  My grandpa said that he was not only a member of the Club, but an investor as well.  He lost a lot more money than the price of a membership. He felt so sad.  He had trusted dishonest people.  At that time, I did not understand what was happening.  I just knew that the place where I enjoyed going was closed forever!  Remember, this happened ten years ago, I was only six years old.

The dishonest owners had sold the building and the land and left Guatemala.  The new owners ignored the financial situation of the Club and their statement was the following: “Our negotiation was legal and clear”.   Six months later, they divided the Club in three areas and sold it.  My family knew that was the end.  We all supported my grandpa and decided to get over it and not mentioned it anymore for my grandpa’s sake and health.  If one of you experienced a similar situation, you would understand how bad the family felt.  We had a strong relationship and were very close.  My family always focuses on the good things, learns lessons from the bad things, and never gives up!

The Club was transformed.  Now you can see a prestigious gym, two luxury condoms, and a school.   I have friends who live in that neighborhood.  When I was invited to their houses, I did not see the new constructions as we drove by, I could only think of the many happy, amazing, and special moments I lived there.  I shared and enjoyed a lot of memories with my family there, especially with my grandpa, who has passed away.  At this Club, my grandpa and I created one of the most unique special places to connect with each other no matter the difference of age.

At this place I spent a wonderful time during my childhood with my dear grandpa. If you have lost a grandparent you can understand my deep sad feelings for him.  The Club was definitely not there anymore, but my memories and my grandpa’s love will always be in my heart.  I love you Grandpa!     

A Lesson of True Unconditional Love

Hi guys! It is amazing how easily you can refresh your memory while looking at old pictures.  I took one of my yearbooks, began glimpsing at the pages, and found my 7^th Grade classmates’ pictures.  Suddenly I remembered what happened that day and more thoughts kept coming to my mind.  That is why, today, I will share with you a very special story about two extraordinary girls who I was lucky to meet four years ago.  They are very important people in my life and I hope I am able to transmit my admiration towards them to you by the end of this story. 

A Lesson of True Unconditional Love

The transition from Middle School to High School is never easy.  When I began 7^th Grade I believed the world was mine.  I was not daddy’s little girl any more, at least that was what I thought.  I decided Middle School was the perfect time to introduce the new me.  I was thirteen years old, officially a teenager.  I began 7^th Grade with dreams as big as the Universe, such as making new friends, continue being a successful straight-A student, spending hours at the mall with my friends, or watching comedies and scary movies. Maybe even meeting a handsome, sensitive, and intelligent boy who would make me feel unique.  I had a great group of friends.  That year we had five new students in our class.  One of them was María José.  She seemed happy, smart, and with good manners.   I introduced myself to her the first day. My friends and I invited her join us at recess and she asked us if we wanted to meet her twin sister, María Fernanda, who was in the other class.  So she came along and joined us at recess as well.  I was happy I had met these two girls because they made me laugh all the time. They were tall, thin, with curly black hair, and big blue eyes like the sea. They were identical but at the same time so different.  María Fernanda seemed fragile, weak, and pale.  Sometimes I worried when I watched how Ma. Fernanda lost energy during the day.  I remember that many times we sat during recess without her because she didn’t feel well and her parents had to come and pick her up in the middle of a class. She always missed at least one day of school every week.  My others friends and I suspected something was wrong, but we never asked.  Our friendship grew stronger.  I liked going to the movies with them or to their houses.  One day, my friends and I were sharing stories about sad things that happened in our lives. One of them talked about her parents’ separation, another friend commented that she had a bad relationship with her mother, and Majo and Mafer, as we usually called them, told us that Mafer had a disease in her kidneys.   They told us that she had to go to the hospital for a treatment and that is why she did not come to school sometimes.  I was sad to hear the news because they were good, loyal, honest, intelligent, and kind persons.  They always gave me good advice on how to solve my problems with my younger siblings.  They believed if one used sweet and kind words, one could obtain better results than if one used rough and offensive words.  Now I understood why they were so close… they did not know how much time they had left to share together.  The following year, Mafer’s situation was even more complicated.  She needed to go to the hospital more than usual. Her kidneys stopped responding to the dialysis treatment.   Majo looked so sad.  We cried together and prayed for her. Next week Majo came to school.  I was happy because I thought her sister was better.  Majo was very quiet.  When I approached her and asked about her sister, she said that she needed a kidney transplant and explained that the doctors ran tests on both of them and found out that she was a perfect match to be a donor.  I was shocked!   I could not believe it!  Why did she have to do that? She was a healthy young girl.  Why did she agree to do that? I thought her parents were irresponsible risking her daughter’s life.  The doctors said that for patients who are experiencing organ failure and are in need of a transplant, finding a living related organ donor was the best way to get a transplant without an extended waiting period.  This was the only hope for Mafer and her family wanted to give it a try. I wished I had never done what I did. I asked her why she had to do that.  The doctors never guaranteed that the surgery would save her sister’s life, and what if she died.  Her answer opened my eyes and I was embarrassed of what I felt.  She said, “If I die, I would not feel anything anymore and I would die doing the right thing.  But I could not live knowing that I could have saved my sister’s life; I cannot refuse giving her the opportunity of having a good life, as I had.  It was then that I decided to keep my mouth shut and support her.  I admired her unconditional love for her sister and was grateful with her because she had given me one of the most important lessons of true love.  I understood that sometimes one’s siblings may seem like monsters and one can get upset with them, but one should never say cruel things like “My life would be better if you did not exist or you should die!”  Words like those only bring you apart and drown love.  Teenagers who have to experience these awful situations and watch a young relative die due to a terrible disease such as cancer, diabetes, leukemia, etc. grieve their loss.  Thank God nothing terrible happened to my friends.  The surgery was a success and my friends recovered quickly.  The following year I attended a different High School.  We do not see each other as often as we did before, but we keep in touch on Facebook.  They are happy, very healthy, and continue being very close to each other.  I tell them I will always admire their unconditional love for each other.  Now, I want to ask you this…  Would you do the same thing for a sibling?  That’s a good question, even for me!  Take your time to give this a thought.  Look for me next week when I write another entertaining story.  Until then!

Hard Work and Magic = A+

Today I am going to talk about a Childhood event. I know I had a lot of childhood memories that in some way change my life but the one i want to share with you is: 

When I was in third grade, I did very well in my classes, especially in Math.  I did all my homework and had good studying habits.  However, when I had to express myself in front of my classmates, I froze because I was very shy.  Miss Gladys was my Language teacher.  She was a demanding teacher and she wanted to prepare good narrators.  In my first and second presentation, I got a C.  She explained to me that I spoke too low, always used the same tone of voice, and my face did not express emotions.  I knew things had to change if I wanted to improve from C’s to A’s. 

The second bimester I was ready to face the challenges of Language Class.  Miss Gladys thought that we needed to continue with our narrations. She asked us to investigate the meaning of a legend and choose one to share with our classmates, using our imagination to involve the audience in the story. I am a mystery and ghost story fan, so legends were a very interesting topic and I wanted to learn more about them.  Eight years ago, we didn’t have internet service at home like we do now, so I had to consult books. Thank God my grandfather was a man who loved to read and therefore he had many great collections of books.  One of them had six volumes and the title was “The Street Where You Live”.  It was about Guatemalan legends.  These short stories were about supernatural situations that happened in certain places.  I chose some titles that I liked and my favorite was “The Man without a Head at the General Cemetery”.  The story was about a poor man who worked at the Cemetery as a bricklayer. He closed the holes of tombs.  He was a hard worker, but was liked to drink liquor, and every afternoon he drank with his Godfather.  One day, they drank more than usual.  It was raining really hard and he fell on the floor and landed close to his Godfather’s truck.  When his Godfather turned on the engine and drove, the tire cut off his head and died.  His head rolled down and fell in a drainage.  The next day, they found his body, but never found the head, so they buried the body without his head.  Since then, people who visit the General Cemetery say that they have seen his body walking between the tombs looking for his head.  So now I had the opportunity to prove that I could be a good narrator.  Suddenly I remembered how I froze before.  I needed to accept that I had a problem expressing myself when people stared at me.  I gave it some thought and then decided to solve the problem.  I would use distracters to use while I was narrating the story.  One of the solutions was to wear a mask.  Just like a little 8 year old girl, I thought that way no one would recognize me, that I would be invisible…  Yeah, right!  I was happy and started writing the story just as I would tell it to my classmates.  I decided to buy a scary sound CD and recorded a tape with a sequence of sounds of terror to play while I was telling the story, such as steps, doors opening and closing, heartbeats, meows, wind, rain, thunder, etc.  The day of my presentation, my mom came along and helped me cover the windows with black pasteboard.  She put on a witch costume and put white make up on her face and black make up around her eyes… she looked terrifying!  My classmates came in the classroom and sat on their chairs.  The room was dark and my classmates looked at my mom and me with surprise. 

My mom turned on the tape recorder and we heard a loud and scary laughter and I began telling the story very confidently.  I walked around the classroom, moved my hands when I knew a scary sound was about to be heard, and spoke with a strong tone of voice.  When I ended the story, I was very proud of myself.  Miss Gladys and my classmates clapped, and when everyone thought the story was over, my father came in the classroom wearing a white sheet and a straw hat.  He said in a frightful tone of voice:  “Where is my head??!!” and took his hat off and threw it.  My classmates started screaming and laughing at the same time.  When Miss Gladys gave me back my essay, I saw a big red A+!  I was so excited about getting my first A in Language Class.

So this is my story and I hope you enjoy it and I write more the next week.

The Amazing Project..

I decided to write this blog not because I am a creative or professional writer, but because it was my literature project. In the beginning, I thought the same thing you are probably thinking right now... How boring! However, now I am really enjoying it. So I hope you enojoy reading my childhood memories just as much as I enjoy sharing them whit you, and please let me know your thoghts!