Officially a volunteer and Feria time

Okay so Im reposting the last blog since some people couldnt read it. Theres also some new random stuff throughout and more new stuff at the bottom if you keep scrolling. Sorry about the screwiness....gotta love using the internet in Guatemala.

I’m officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!!! We had our swearing in ceremony at the ambassador’s house in the capital on Friday morning. It was a lovely ceremony, all in Spanish, with all of the host families attending. There was coffee, mini sandwiches, and brownies following. I said my tearful good byes to my family, and headed back to Antigua to celebrate with my fellow volunteers. Early Saturday morning I took a 6 hour bus ride to Xela, the second largest city in the country where we spent some time during field-based training. Randomly I ended up going with my friend Becca from Olympia who happens to be in Guatemala at the moment. We survived to bus trip with a family of five crowded in the school bus seat next to me all throwing up into the same plastic bag. It was quite tragic, all were very feverish and the bus was so crowded two of the little girls kept laying there feverish headed in my lap. Had a good time in Xela, visited a Guatemalan friend who goes to the University there, ate a yummy pasta dinner, listened to some live music with a glass of red wine, and headed out to my site at 6:30 the next morning. Traveling is always an adventure here. While there was no one throwing up next to me on the way back, I did have to wait three hours in San Juan for a microbus. Evidently I had missed the last camioneta because I was waiting where they usually come, but that day there was a procession and the streets were closed and the buses were on different routes. After almost panicking that I was going to have to spend the night there, I called my counterpart who called the guy who drives the micro and found out that he was on his way still and I hadn’t missed the last ride back. I finally made it to my site at 8 pm after almost 14 hours of travel. Whew. Public transport is wonderful, cheap, but unpredictable.

Yup, here I am at my new site now. It's good so far, my house is awesome…my own little “casita” with four rooms above a family compound. It came with a couch, love seat, chair, bed, and some random kitchen stuff. There is a bathroom just outside my door which has a shower and a toilet. To the side of that is the pila, the water containing device with spaces on the sides for washing clothes, dishes, teeth, etc. The house was sort of decorated in a way with lots of Jesus paraphernalia on the walls and a wooden cross with JC above my bed. Other random decorations like a Winne the Pooh poster that says “Te amo” and various stuff animals and other tacky knick-knacks. But I’m trying to make it my own. I’ve made a nice collage of all the cards I’ve received on the wall next to my bed and posted all of the photos I brought from home. On Sunday night I fell asleep to the singing from the evangelical church nearby and was awoken various times by firecrackers. In the morning there is an abundance of loud wild bird calls and various children’s noises.

The family is very nice so far. There are a ton of people who live there...they didn't even know how many when I asked. There is the matriarch who had 12 children. Three died, and three went to the US, so six live there. Then they all have children and grandchilden. It’s fun and chaotic but I have my own space, so that's good. So far I’ve been eating my meals with them just to hang out and because I haven’t bought a stove yet. My first night there was a birthday party for a three year old boy who is adorable. So there were a bunch of family members over and I realized a bunch of people I had met last week were all family. Well, everyone in town is connected somehow.

I’ve started giving English lessons to one of the little girls in the house who is 8. She’s really smart and really eager to learn. She comes up with all the vocabulary words that she wants to learn, especially animals and fruits. After the first evening of about a 2 hour stint, she requested a test the next day. Okay, it you want I told her. Its really cute.

I shared the box of Applets and Cotlets that I brought with me with the whole family. They were a big hit and the box was gone in no time. The cotlets were the favorite of everyone.

The whole family helped me to go buy an armoire. It was quite the adventure. The furniture shop is like 2 blocks away, but everyone came in the family pick-up. After the bargaining was done I got a beautiful handmade wood stained armoire with four drawers and a hanging space with a full length mirror for less than $100. Everyone helped to get it up into the truck and hold on to it for the short journey. Then all the kids piled out with a drawer in hand and we sweated our way up the flight of stairs to get it into my room. A fun mini adventure.

The town is cool, very small, so it's also awkward with knowing what kind of greeting to give people (hug? kiss? shake hands?) it could be any of those. It's also hard finding the things that I need for my house since its all confusing and stores only care specific things so you kinda have to go around searching. I’m just trying to take everything an hour at a time because I'm in a different mood every hour, depending on what's going on. Its hard being the new kid in town, especially when you're so different.

Work is interesting....I work in an office with all guys and its hard to find my place. Especially since this is all taking place in Spanish, which is good, but way harder when you're trying to work. The town’s feria in honor of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, their patron saint, is the first week of December. Thus, every activity in the Municipal Planning Office has to do with planning these activities and there isn’t much work related to anything else going on. Already the central park is filling up with a ferris wheel, trampoline, food booths, and carnival games in preparation for the festivities.

Using the example of another municipality that started a Municipal Women’s Office, we’ve been trying to adapt that to El Chol. So this morning we went around to various institutions trying to get data , such as women’s participation in voting, to justify wanting to start the office. It’s slow going, and data isn’t readily available, so we have to wait for some people to get back to us. So then we decided to look at women’s participation in the COCODEs (community development councils). All of the registration information is in a big book, hand written. So we’ve been going through that to create a digital database of the registered COCODEs and the gender of the participants to assess the situation. So that turned into a whole other project.

I also adapted a letter requesting to get the ArcView GIS program for El Chol which I’ll send to a company in the capital to request the program from the company in the states. This process is supposed to take 4-6 months. Argh.

Another afternoon I went with my counterpart and another co-worker to an aldea (outlying small town) for a COCODE (community development council) meeting. This community is only accessible by foot on a fairly steep winding path that took about an hour to get to. We gathered at the local primary school that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere but the hike up was absolutely gorgeous. We had to step around lazy cows and the pies they left behind. The views of the green covered mountains and corn fields are stunning. At the meeting I watched the process of them prioritizing projects for their community. “Which is more important, creating an accessible road, or making structural improvements to the school? Okay, which is more important, making the road or getting flushing toilets?” and so on it went. It was great to see this community democracy in action. The other purpose of the visit was to conduct a community diagnostic, kind of like a census. So I interviewed people about their demographics, education levels, type of housing and access to water and electricity, and their assessment of municipal services. It still is hard to believe when you talk to people who only finished second grade and for example one person who had children when one was 8 years old and in second grade and the other was 11 and in first grade since ages don’t necessarily correspond to grade levels like we’re used to.

I went around with one of my co-workers to give invitations to participate in the towns Culture Night as part of the feria. The neat part was that every house we went to, we were invited in to sit down and have a little chat inside the house. People are so cordial and nice. I can’t imagine a random person showing up to my door in the states and me inviting them in to sit on my couch. It was cool to see the insides of a bunch of houses and meet more people from the community.

Thanksgiving was fabulous. A group of 20 Peace Corps volunteers went to the US ambassador’s house for a splendid meal with all the traditional festivities. The mashed sweet potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake were especially delicious. The ambassador and his wife were very gracious hosts. There were a few other people associated with the embassy that were there as well who were interesting to talk to about their jobs. It was a day of luxury as we strolled through the gardens and lounged by the heated pool in the beautiful Guatemalan November sunshine around 75 degrees. It was great to see my fellow volunteers again after having been in site for a week and to hear about everyone’s diverse experiences so far. It was nice to decompress and compare notes of what everything is like.

I headed back to my site Sunday morning and made the trip in about 6 hours from Antigua. This week I only had to wait 2 hours in San Juan for the bus. Transportation sucks.

Okay, so the Feria is in full swing. The quiet sleepy town has turned into a raging carnival and commecial extravaganza. Everything is for sale in the street...kitchen wares, blankets, clothes, hats, tacky toys, candy and tons of food. Its quite festive. There is a giant ferris wheel that goes ridiculously fast but you get a great view of the town from the top. Im getting really good at fooseball cause we play like every night. No one works in the office this week because there are activities all throughout the day. One evening was the crowning of the princesses of the Feria where one of the little girls I live with participated. Its basically a beauty pagent with elaborate costumes, scenery, music and fanfare. Very interesting. There have been activities such as pushing motorcycles that are turned off, motorcross, slingshots, various soccer tournaments, various other races, and yes, a triathlon which I participated in yesterday.

For the triathlon I was one of three total participants and the only girl. But the whole town came out to watch. We swam in a river that was 10 meters across and one meter deep back and forth a bunch of times for a total of 100 meters. The bike was all uphill up a rocky dirt mountain road for three km. I had borrowed a crappy mountain bike from someone and the chain fell off part way through. Still, I won the bike part cause the other two guys had to get off and push. The whole time there was a car with a loudspeaker behind me blasting reggaeton and giving the play by play. They called it an international race since I was participating and kept commenting {and here we have Caty McKee, la norteamericana!{. One guys passed me on the 2 km run, which was also uphill in the mid day heat. So I got second place, won 200 quetzales which is like 25 dollars, and beat one of my male co-workers who wasnt too pleased about it. It was hilarious.

Its nice to have this week for the feria to hang out and get to know a lot of people in the community at all the different events. And its nice to not being in the office. I finally bought a gas tank for my stove and have started cooking for myself now which is nice. Although its hard to get certain things around town, mostly good cheese Im missing.