Rabinal feria, work picking up, collaboration

Last weekend I went to Rabinal, the next town up the road about an hour away, to check out their feria. Yes, I’ve been making quite the rounds of ferias since I’ve been here. What they all have in common are wares for sale, good food, good music, parades, people coming from other places to visit, running into people you know, and a general merry time. Rabinal is famous for its religious brotherhoods that put on dances with elaborate masks that tell stories. I went with a couple other volunteers, so we made French toast and coffee at my house before taking off. To get there you usually take a microbus van, but those leave when they are full so we missed out on the one we’d planned on taking and instead opted for a ride in the back of a pickup (“picop” in Spanish). This pickup, like many, was modified to carry lots of passengers with features like built in benches and bars to hang on to. To get to Rabinal you climb up a mountain and the weather can change really fast so it was freezing cold and raining up at the top, even though it had been sunny and warm when we left El Chol and we were dressed for it.

Like the feria in El Chol, the streets were packed with vendors hawking a variety of household items, clothes, knick knacks, food, sweets, tacky religious paraphernalia, and pirated DVDs and CDs. I took advantage and bought myself some items I’d been needing for awhile such as a wooden spoon and a soccer ball. I got a pirated 3 in 1 DVD of some of the newish movies that are out in the states including “I Am Legend”, “The Golden Compass”, and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” for the equivalent of like $1.25. They are hilariously horrible copies of the movies taped from the movie theaters, complete with heads in the way of the screen, people in the audience talking, and being off-centered with terrible sound quality. But hey, gotta keep up on pop culture stateside. I also got a 2 in 1 DVD of Ice Age and Ice Age 2 for one of the little girls in the family who turns seven this week.

We enjoyed ourselves checking out the dances, which were really cool to see, but it sufficed to watch for a few minutes. It’s funny to see the traditional masks on top of bodies dressed in puma and adidas shirts with nike sneakers. There were a few white tourists sprinkled in the crowd getting their giant camera lenses in for good shots. There was music without much of beat with drumming and a flute type instrument, but they were pretty much drowned out by the ranchera music being blasted from nearby speakers and the other sounds from the crowds. We pretty much just wandered around eating all day long. The list of our gastronomic indulgences includes gringas (quesadillas with yummy marinated meat and a selection of sauces), corn on the cob, fresh fruit smoothies, flan, pinol (a delicious tomato-based tortilla soup-like stew with chicken that Rabinal is famous for), ponche (basically warm egg nog with a splash of liquor), chinese chow mein and fried rice, and churros. Whew.

I made sure to get some exercise after I got home after all that indulging. So I did some exploring to some of the areas around El Chol and went hiking up a mountain I’d never been up before. It was beautiful in the late afternoon with the sun shining low across the corn fields and glinting on the hillsides. From the top I was rewarded with a full 360 degree view of the landscape.

I spent the rest of the weekend sleeping in, washing clothes, baking stuffed red peppers, cleaning my house, going for a run, reading The World is Flat, watching the Sunday soccer games, playing with my new soccer ball, and hanging out.

Work has been picking up in a good way. Monday morning I got up early to go to the departmental capital of Salama for a very productive meeting with the various institutions that are active in El Chol that we set up. I was very pleased with the turn out and the attitudes of everybody. Basically, there are lots of NGOs and governmental organizations that do overlapping work in El Chol, but none of them communicate with each other or very well with the municipality. When they set up meetings in the community, they don’t take into account who else is going that week or what they are doing, so what ends up happening is that people get invited to lots of meetings, they get confused with who is doing what, and they don’t come. So….we’re hopefully going to improve this situation by meeting monthly to share plans and schedules. It was great to hear about the activities of all the institutions and brainstorm about common challenges. We also talked about some of the challenges and strategies for the Municipal Development Council (COMUDE). They are each going to write a blurb about what they do so that we can put them in the next municipal newsletter that I put together to get the information out to the communities. Hopefully we can keep the energy and momentum created at this meeting going throughout the year.

Tuesday afternoon I went out to an aldea (rural community) to visit the community development council (COCODE) there. I have been chatting with the council president, who is a woman, at the COMUDE meetings in El Chol and expressed an interest in getting out to the communities more and she was delighted that I wanted to come. So I coordinated with one of my coworkers who has a motorcycle to get out there (since the muni doesn’t really have transportation). It’s only about 4 km away, but it took us over an hour to get there because the road is so bad. Some parts of just completely loose sand and others are just giant rocks. And this is the dry season. The rainy season it will basically be impassable. I kept having to get off and walk while he tried to get up and down the hills. The whole experience of getting there and back was hilarious and I had a great time and enjoyed the lovely landscape that we passed through. Rural Guatemala is beautiful with dusty paths dappled with animal droppings leading into the trees, mountains of green, corn fields, random cows, dogs, and chickens, silence, streams and fresh water springs, and curious quiet farmers that stare at you.

We arrived at the primary school in the community seven minutes after the appointed meeting time and were the first ones there. One by one they came trickling in and we made small talk about the illegal cutting of trees in the area and about their excitement of receiving electricity the previous week. We started “on time” about 45 minutes after the appointed time. About 15 people showed up, which was a good turnout for a community of 18 families. The cool thing was that the majority of them were women and a few were outspoken and chatty. We chatted about their experiences working with various institutions and the community’s interest in receiving trainings on various topics. I’m going to try to coordinate some trainings on the three big legal documents of the Law of Decentralization, the Municipal Code, and the Constitution. I may also do one on the roles of the COCODE positions. Then it came up that the price of bread has gone up and its hard to get to places to buy bread and the women wanted to learn how to make it themselves. So, it turns out I will be heading back there next week to bake banana bread with them in a clay oven.

In general it was a really good experience, although a bit awkward of course. They were really nice and gave us juice-like drink when we got there and a rice drink before we left. Everyone sat on the ground outside the school for the meeting since it was hot inside and there was a breeze outside, but they made sure to bring us desks from inside for us to sit on even though I protested that I really didn’t mind sitting on the ground. In general I’ve noticed that whenever you enter a room anywhere, people are very eager to offer you a seat and are uncomfortable if you remain standing. So even if you really would rather stand (or sit on the ground), you have to accept. One of the woman also gave me a warm bag of a “snack” as a thanks for coming out there. On the way back to El Chol my coworker and I stopped at a spring to take a break and let the motorcycle cool off and I pulled out the snack baggie of something wrapped in a leaf and he informed me that they were cow livers. I tried them and despite the foul smell, they actually didn’t taste bad and was basically tasted like beef with a weird texture. I gifted them to him though since he really likes them and the thought of eating liver just didn’t quite sit right with me. He got a good laugh out of it.

I’ve noticed the word “colaborar” coming up a lot living in Guatemala. As it sounds, it means “to collaborate” and its frequent use coincides with a culture that highly values community and communal efforts. It was mentioned when the women in the community I visited were discussing getting the ingredients for banana bread together and talking about “collaborating” to gather enough bananas. It was mentioned in the preparations for the feria in organizing each community development council to “collaborate” to take a turn in the security patrols. It was mentioned during the municipal development council (COMUDE) meeting asking community members to “collaborate” with police to report people illegally cutting down trees for firewood. The very function of the community development councils is to collaborate the efforts of the community to take control of their own development as they see fit. Of the course the system has lots of flaws and doesn’t always work in that idealistic way, but the intention is there and there are lots of people working hard (community members, Peace Corps volunteers, and countless other institutions), to strive to reach that ideal. Many other times I’ve heard the word come up. It conveys a sense that everyone is invested in everyone else’s interests and the interests of the community. It wasn’t, “okay, so everybody bring your bananas next week” or “okay, so everybody watch your back during the feria” or “watch your property for people cutting down trees.” It was used to coordinate the collaboration of everyone who had a common interest to work together to bring about the desired results.

Mumbles and Jumbles

Its funny how your perceptions, expectations, and the things that you get excited about change. For example, this morning I put my 5 gallon empty water container out to get a refill from the water truck that comes through once a week. In past weeks it has been replaced in the morning, but by the time I left for work today it hadn’t come yet so I assumed that it wouldn’t be coming today and made a mental note to boil some drinking water this evening. But when I came home for lunch, the filled container was sitting outside my door and I got really excited! The thought of being in the states and getting a moment of joy about how I had water to drink for the week gave me a chuckle.

Similarly, as I was browsing through the Sunday market last weekend, I was overjoyed to have my attention drawn by shouts of “Queso! Queso!” to the glittering squares of a type of fresh, crumbly, salty homemade cheese for sale. I told the senora selling it, as she wrapped me up a piece in a large green leaf, how happy I was and asked how she knew what I was lacking. Usually you have to wait for a different woman who goes around selling this cheese from a basket door to door, but if you’re not home you miss out. Now it’s no Beecher’s Flagship that’s for sure, but I needless to say I was happy nonetheless. It’s pretty good to eat with black beans on tortillas with a bit of chile sauce.

Ah yes, black beans. The equal staple of the diet here along with tortillas. I can’t remember if I recounted my first attempt to cook black beans here. Well, basically I made an attempt but didn’t add enough water and left my house, knowing it takes several hours to cook them, only to come back to a scorched pot and a kitchen full of smoke. The townsfolk got quite the kick out of it. Anyway, this week I made another effort and successfully cooked a pot full of yummy black beans that I’ve been eating off all week. I was quite pleased with myself. It’s the simple things that give you joy.

I experimented with making rice krispie treats. I used the odd margarine, multicolored marshmallows, and choco-krispies since that’s all that was available. The pink, blue, and yellow marshmallows melted into an interesting and not-so-appealing brown mush, but once you mix it with brown krispies it doesn’t matter so much. They turned out pretty good and were a big hit when I shared them with the family and everyone asked for the recipe.

I’ve started teaching English classes to adults two evenings a week after work. The turnout has been excellent with a total of 39 people who attended at least one class and a solid group of about 25 who attend consistantly. Its challenging since it is a large group and I’ve never really taught before, besides soccer camps to kids with is a really not comparable at all. But everyone has a really good attitude and is excited to learn and appreciative of my efforts. It is a bit strange to “discipline” adults and try to get them to be quiet and listen. Also getting Guatemalans to show up at an appointed time is very challenging. If you tell them 5:00, they think it’s still cool to saunter in at 5:30. Here when someone enters a room they still give a loud greeting and everyone acknowledges them, whereas in the states if someone is late they try to sneak in the back and not be noticed. So I’ve told that since the class is free, they need to pay me with punctuality. We’ll see if it gets better. I made a list of useful greetings and phrases and we went over the list with pronunciations and situations to use them. Then I had everyone get into pairs and create conversations from the phrases on the list and then share them with the group. I want the emphasis of the class to be on conversation and how people actually speak since I felt like that was lacking so much when I learned Spanish. Its still slightly nerve-wracking for me to be speaking Spanish in front of a group of almost 30 people, but as I told them it serves as an example that you just have to lose all your inhibitions of speaking, knowing that you will make mistakes, and just TALK since a lot of people (especially the women) are really timid to speak up. So far I really enjoy it.

Last weekend I taught the one of the women in the family how to make cinnamon rolls at the urging of her 6 year old son who had tried them in Pollo Campero. It was her first time to cook with yeast and no one in the familiy had baked with it before so it was fun explaining how it works. Of course it was quite the spectacle again with eveyone interested in the process and checking on the progress while they were rising. They turned out great and everybody really liked them. She tried to make them again on her own later that afternoon, but had used boiling water to activate the yeast which I think killed it, since they didn’t rise. I told her my theory and so she tried again the next day and they turned out beautifully. Her son also wants me to teach his mom how to make pizza so we might do that this weekend if she has time to go to the capital to buy mozzarella cheese.

I’ve gotten out and played some pick up sports this week too which has been really nice. I played basketball in the central park with a group of people, even though I’m terrible we were all about the same level so it was still fun. I also went to kick around a soccer ball with two other girls around my age at the community field. We had to share space with all the boys who were playing and when they organized a game, it was hard to watch and not be included. It’s strange how much separation there is between genders here. It was nice just to get out there and get a touch on the ball since I hadn’t played since I’ve been here. We kicked the ball around and watched the sunset over the hills until it was too dark to see.

While I’m thousands of miles outside the states, I try to keep up as best I can with current issues. I’ve been following the presidential campaign through Newsweek (which Peace Corps imparts to us), the New York Times online, and the Prensa Libre (the national newspaper). It is very interesting to see how one of the hottest election issues, immigration, plays out down here. Probably about 30% of this town is or has been in the states, most illegally. That’s just the fact. And so many people that you talk to want to go. It’s crazy to see so many families split up and to see the direct results of the remittances that get sent back. So much of the economy here is made up of remittances evident in nice motorcycles, houses, computers, etc. that you see about. Every single person you talk to has some family member in the states. When I ask people how many children they have, I then ask how many are in the states. It’s really hard to discuss immigration. People ask me questions, like “why do people in the United States discriminate against Latinos?” when they see the articles in the paper every week about all the deported Guatemalans being flown back; and “All I want to do is go visit my brother. Why is it so hard to get a visa?” It’s hard because people see it as their right to be able to go to the US and don’t understand why it’s made to be so difficult.

Last weekend I went and visited two other volunteers who live in the next department over. One made an awesome spaghetti dinner and it was great to get out and see their site and visit. The next day we went to the capital to go to Hiper-Paiz (the super-mega-uber store half owned by the evil Wal-Mart). I stocked up on goodies that I can’t get in my site like hangers, brown sugar, ground turkey, mozzarella cheese, and face wash to name a few. I also picked up pencil pouches and lunch boxes for the two little girls.

January 14th the new President, Alvaro Colom took office and it all went smoothly. January 15th was the taking of office for all the municipalities. My mayor was re-elected for the fourth time so he didn’t change but there was some changes in the city council and what not so there was a big ceremony in the market. I got there early in the morning to help my co-workers decorate for the event. While gigantic speakers blasted music I blew up tons of balloons for like an hour and a half. We strung them from wall to wall and set up the stage covered in pine branches. It turned out looking quite festive. Lots of people came out to witness the event with speeches, a review of the projects from the previous year and lots of formality of everything. A cool thing is that there are three councilors to the mayor and two of them are women. This is very rare and very cool. That should help get the Women’s Office approved and to receive funding I’m hoping. After the ceremony everyone rushed to congratulate the mayor and give hugs all around and take pictures. A marimba band played and the mayor provided a delicious lunch with beef to EVERYONE who attended. Pretty impressive.

That afternoon I went with my site mate to visit another volunteer who lives about half an hour away to hang out at her feria and attend the dance that night. We had a great time but it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the El Chol feria. The dance was in the outdoor basketball court in the center of town with a live ranchero band.

One of the women in the family has a brand new computer with Windows Vista on it and I’ve been showing her and her daughters how to use it. The 8 year old has some experience and catches on really quick and especially liked the videos of various animals on Encarta. Her mom has basically no computer experience and wanted me to show her how to print off big letters of the alphabet to post in her classroom. I was showing her word art in Word and it was quite the task since I had to show her the very basics of how to type a capital letter on the keyboard, delete letters, and how to click and drag a mouse.

My program director of Municipal Development for Peace Corps came for my site visit. My counterpart’s wife made a super yummy lunch for all of us with carne asada and rice with cheese! (Kraft-knock-off). He checked up on my living situation and we visited the office and met about how things have been going and plans for the upcoming months. We talked about my current projects with the Women’s Office, the municipal newsletter, ArcView GIS, coordinating with other NGOs and GOs, and English classes. He also brought me a mountain bike from the Peace Corps! So now I can peddle about on all the dirt mountain roads surrounding here. The family was all excited when I brought it home and everyone, including the adults, all tried it out and took it for a spin around the block. This morning I went for a nice ride before work.
Just today we set up a meeting with a bunch of NGOs and GOs that work in El Chol to meet in a couple weeks to coordinate the efforts that everyone is doing since up to this point there hasn’t been very good communication among the different organizations. I’m excited for that to be able to get a better grasp of everything that goes on and where I might be able to fit in.

I’ve been reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman here. If you’re not familiar with it, it is an interesting piece of nonfiction about globalization and the factors that have “flattened” the world such as the internet, PCs, offshoring, and outsourcing. It discusses how these innovations have made the world flat by increasing the existence and importance of horizontal relationships in the economy instead of vertical ones. I find it quite ironic to be reading about how advanced technology is getting and connecting the world together and how everyone is rushing around to find their new niche in this changing world economy while I’m bumping along a dirt road on a mountainside in Guatemala. On the one hand it so true and you see the evidence of the shrinking and flattening world with all the connections to the states. Buts its also hard to see the implementation of all that work flow software has to offer when all the official documents and registries for the muni are still handwritten. It makes me ponder…

Soup on a bus, English, weather

My trip back to El Chol from Panajachel on the lake where I had been for new years was a pretty typical Guatemalan experience here. It took me about 9 hours to get back, but it was much more enjoyable since I traveled with another volunteer who lives about half and hour from me. I stopped to buy some groceries that I can’t get in site on the way. While waiting in San Juan to transfer, I decided to go find some lunch and the chicken soup with rice caught my eye. The senora placed the soup in a plastic bowl and put the uncovered bowl in a plastic bag. I thought I would have plenty of time to eat my soup, tortillas, and chocolate milk since I usually wait like one to three hours there for a bus, but of course the bus decided to arrive at that moment and I had to get on. I had to juggle the soup, my backpack, and my large bag with dirty clothes and groceries onto the bus. My avocados got a bit smashed and my (Washington!) apples started falling out from the shelf above the seats since the bag I was using didn’t zip or close. My friend help me scarf the soup before it got too bumpy, I rescued my belongings as best I could, and got a good laugh out of it. So much of the soup had spilled into the plastic bag and I didn’t know what to do with it. Unfortunately, I must confess that I tossed the plastic bowl and bag with soup remnants out the window as most Guatemalans would do, as the situation demanded since there was no where to put the soup bag on the bus. I remarked how Guatemala had a bad influence on me and made me a litterer.

During that ride there was a very strong smell of gasoline the whole time that kept getting stronger. I went to investigate in the back of the bus and found a jug of gas without a lid and only a piece of plastic wrap over the opening. I ensured that it was far enough away from my groceries, which I had moved back there since my apples kept falling out. It was a bit concerning when the driver and the ayudante (helper) lit up a cigarette. To further my concern, the driver and ayudante switched places for what appeared to be a training session for the ayudante. The windy dirt mountain road did not seem to me to be the best training ground. He stalled the motor a couple times and struggled with the grinding gears, but at least took it really slowly.

I made it back in one piece and in good spirits. The family was really happy to see me and there were lots of hugs and story sharing. I gave them the gifts I had got them and enjoyed a cup of coffee and dinner with them. It was nice to see people from around town too and everybody asked me where I had been since they hadn’t seen me around for a few days. It was nice to know that I was missed. It was nice to get back to my house too and feel the relief of “coming home” after a trip. Now I just have tons of laundry and cleaning to do.

I've been preparing to start teaching English classes next week. They will be Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:00 in the municipal library. I went around town posting flyers and talked to a lot of people about it. Already there is lots of interest and excitement and people keep coming up to me to ask details, so we'll see how it goes. I think it will be fun to get to know people and I think people will really appreciate it. However, learning a language is a slow, challenging process, as I am well aware, so I hope people don’t get discouraged and stick with it.

There was a strange change in weather and its been relatively cold here (like in the 50s) with lots of wind. The power went out in the entire country for about three hours night before last. The wind has been kicking up all kinds of stuff and particles are flying around from the trees. Since my house isn’t really sealed, there’s tons of leaves and dust that comes in from under the doors and between the walls and the roof. It just requires a lot of sweeping and creates drafts. My corrugated tin roof was making such a racket I thought it was going to blow off. Its not THAT cold but when you don't have heating and when your shower barely warms up to above icy it feels a lot colder. I’ve been sleeping in my fleece and socks and sleeping bag, plus blankets. I shouldn’t be complaining cause I know it’s a lot colder in other parts of the country right now and in a few months I’ll probably be very uncomfortable in the heat that I am told will be pretty fierce.

Its 2008!!!! And camping...

Well I rang in the new year Guatemalan style. Our gigantic group of gringo Peace Corps volunteers got all dressed up and went out on the town. There was music, there was dancing, there was a countdown en español, there were late night street tacos, and boy were there firecrackers. Ear shattering firecrackers, to be exact. The streets were completely littered this morning with all the debries. I received various text messages from various Guatemalans wishing me a happy new year and God blessing me in 2008.

We all had a lazy morning and went out to breakfast and then sat by the lake for a few hours. I went swimming and it was absolutely delightful. I just had to declare how much I loved life. The water is super blue and clear and quite chilly at first but so refreshing once you get used to it and makes a nice contrast to the heat of the day. Theres nothing like floating on your back in a lake surrounded by volcanoes. Did I mention that the lake is surrounded by really cool volcanoes? I could have sat there all day taking it all in, but my burning skin made me go take refuge from the sun. I did a bit of poking around and shopping. I bought a gorgeous brightly colored table cloth for my dining room table that will add some color to the gray box that I live in. I also got a napkin holder for the family that lives below me and some worry dolls for all the kids. The town is such an interesting mix of wide eyed foreign tourists arriving by the vanful every 15 minutes, Guatemalan tourists from the bigger cities, and Guatemalan locals wearing the traditional clothing of brightly colored skirts and tops. Every day that I´m here I´m still struck by the diversity of the country and how much it changes with such little distance.

So back tracking a bit, I forgot to write about when I went camping in the mountains above El Chol before Christmas. I went with a group of about 12 Guatemalans from my town to spend the night. We brought food and cooked up there after collecting a ton of firewood to last us all night. We roasted marshmallows and heated up tortillas, chicken and beans on our make shift grill that was really the shelf of an old refridgerator. Someone brought a guitar and we sang and a bunch of them knew more lyrics of classic songs in English than I did such as Dust in the Wind and Tears in Heaven. I was pretty impressed. Theres nothing like a campfire and a guitar to bond with people and I had a great time getting to know everyone. There was a really full moon and we hardly needed flashlights to see because it was so bright. From up there you can see the lights of Guatemala City the capital. Its crazy that its so close (90 km) yet feels soooo far. It was so cute because when I told the señora from my house that I was going camping, she prepared me a bunch of tamale like things to take with me. It was very thoughtful and so cute that she was worried that I would be hungry. I woke up at sunrise and snapped a few pictures of the sun coming up with the volcanoes.

Okay, that´s all for now...I´m sure I´ve forgotten tons of details. Its really hard trying to capture the essence of being in a blog. Kind of like trying to take pictures of a sunset...it just never does it justice. But I´m doing very well, missing everyone, and wishing you all a very happy new year!