Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Chequenes, Soccer, chicken anatomy, Chiquimula, Los Jobos Feria

I forgot to write about something crazy: Chequenes. Towards the beginning of the rainy season at the beginning of June, there is this phenomenon that these flying bugs, kind of like large juicy ants with wings, fall from the sky in the wee morning hours. There is all kinds of excitement because people collect them and cook ’em up and eat ’em. So back in the beginning of June, I got a phone call from one of my co-workers around 4:45 in the morning. I grumpily answered thinking he was just messing with me or something, and he told me to come down to the soccer field quickly where the chequenes were falling. Really not wanting to get out of bed, but figuring this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity, I made my way down there. There were various people out in the streets positioned under the streetlights for when the bugs fell they put them in plastic sacks. I met up with my coworkers and helped with the collection. They swirl around the street lights in swarms, and then one by one they just sort of fall and land on the ground where you can pick them up by their wings. We collected enough to fill about one third of a grocery sack (that’s a lot). We got a lady who works at the muni to prepare them for us, removing the wings and legs, cleaning them, and the toasting them with lime and salt. Then we got a bunch of tortillas to pile them onto and snacked on them right there in the office (this was when my cousin was visiting and she got in on it too). They actually taste pretty good once you get over the idea of what you are eating. They have a soft crunch and full salty flavor. I wouldn’t want to eat a ton of them, but the experience was intriguing.

So out of the blue all of a sudden there was an organized women’s soccer tournament in El Chol. There are four teams: two from the middle school, one from the high school, and one of teachers. I asked permission to play with the teachers and last Saturday I played with them for the first time. We won our game 1-0 against one of the middle school teams, and I made the winning goal! It’s not the highest level of competition I've ever played with, but we have a good time and it’s so nice to be playing full field real soccer games where I feel like I fit in. There were lots of people there cheering us on, and cheering me on specifically telling me to score (I was playing right forward the first half, and center forward the second half when I scored). It was cool to see the little girls that I coach there watching the game and getting into it.

It’s cute…the girls at my house ask me everyday if we’re going to have practice that day (we practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays). I think that half the girls show up with at least one article of pink clothing. It takes a ton of energy for me to run these practices. There are like 30 girls now and I have to yell loudly to get their attention on the field. Twice now during our practices, a bull has run onto the field, sending all the girls screaming and running. Two men quickly appear, one on a motorcycle and one on foot with a lasso to try to get control of it. Only in Guatemala…that was something I never had to deal with in when I was coaching with Skyhawks. There is such a huge difference between the boys and the girls…when I watch the boys their age play, I am blown away by how good they are and what a good touch on the ball they have. With the girls right now I’m working on not having them stop the ball with their hands. Obviously there has been a huge difference in the ways the boys and girls are brought up and encouraged.

The summer of visitors continues. Two friends from the states that are volunteering in El Salvador came to El Chol to visit me for a weekend. We had a good time hanging out and catching up. The señora brought us tamales, as she does often, for us to eat. We went on some walks around town, they came to my soccer game, and we ate churrascos (tasty grilled meat) from a cart on the street run by a kind older gentleman.

At work the other day we had a great walk down memory lane together watching YouTube videos of cartoons from the 1980´s that we shared in common in our childhood like Transformers, Captain Planet, and Power Rangers. I love it when you find the little things in common.

So the other day I came home for lunch and the señora at the house was standing at the pila cleaning chicken parts. She often is dealing with chickens, casually carrying them around by the neck, about to be killed or recently killed, like it ain’t no thang. I greeted her and asked her with curiosity about what she was working on. She then proceeded to give me a fascinating lesson on the anatomy of a chicken. Back in high school biology we had dissected cats and the organs of other various animals so I had sort of seen this stuff before, but never so casually. She instructed me on the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the lungs, among other parts. She showed me fully formed egg that hadn’t been laid yet and put it aside to eat. I don’t know why, but it seemed weird to me to eat an egg that hadn’t been laid yet and she joked that it was as fresh as they come, which I suppose is true. There was the canal where the eggs pass down with 6! yolks increasing in size from one about the size of a marble to the fully formed egg. It’s crazy to see how they are formed and to look at such an everyday common object in a different way. The stomach was also really cool, she rinsed out everything that had been inside, full grains of corn and a bunch of pebbles. She scraped the toughness well with a knife, which made a loud rasping sound and told me how they were going to eat it. I guess my fascination with the whole process shows that I didn’t grow up on a farm.

I’m happy with the progress of my English class. Right now I have 12 students which is perfect cause you can still do group activities, but I can give them much more individualized attention. Their pronunciation is getting a lot better and their vocabularies have improved quite a bit. We’re almost half way through the materials that I have.

The other weekend a few of us went to visit a fellow volunteer working out in the eastern part of the country in the department of Chiquimula. It’s a bit of a different world out there. The buses first of all are actually really nice with comfy seats, TVs, and air conditioning! The craziest thing was that the ayudante came around to collect trash, which is rather revolutionary since most people just throw their trash out the window without a second thought. In general the people out east are much less conservative and everyone speaks with rather vulgar words. There are hardly any indigenous people and cowboy boots are common. And it’s really hot. We had a fun time all hanging out together on my friend’s patio all day long doing nothing but eating yummy Indian food that she cooked for us, chatting, and reading People and Newsweek magazines. At night we piled into a pickup and went to some hot springs with some of her friends from town (it’s too hot to go during the day). On the way back home on the usual rickety Chol bus, there was a lady who had a basket full of baby chickens that was covered with a cloth. As we were going along, one of the chicks somehow fell out of the basket and hit a little kid on the head, which I found quite hilarious. I also had the bad luck of sitting in the one seat where the window wouldn’t go up while it was pouring down rain. The water came in in droves and got me quite soaked.

It was the feria in one of the rural communities of El Chol, in the aldea Los Jobos. That is the community where the three teachers that I live with teach in, so there were quite involved with the planning of the event. All week long there were activities such as the crowning of the queen of the feria, soccer games, cattle sales, rifle competitions, etc. On Saturday I went with my site mate for the dance where they brought in a live band. We caught a ride in a pickup truck after waiting forever. The road going the 12 km out there is terrible and there were like 20 of us all crammed in standing up in the back of this truck trying to hold on as we bumped along the horribly potholed dirt road under the starry night sky. The truck kept losing power on the uphills with so much weight in it and everyone would have to get out and walk up the inclines. We made it out there in time to grab some food, walk around and soak in the atmosphere. The dance was lots of fun and typical of community dances here. All the mothers attend with their little kids to keep an eye on their adolescent daughters. So it’s super hot and suffocatingly stuffy, and all the moms and sitting in chairs along the sides. There’s always way more guys than girls and the majority of them are drunk. It makes for quite the interesting ambiance. You wait for a guy to ask you to dance (not that you have to wait long with the favorable ratios), so we danced with a few people that we knew. But we didn’t want to keep telling no to the random drunks, so my site mate and I ended up just dancing together the two of us like we would in the states, but is really weird here. So we usually get started at a lot just for looking different, but dancing together drew way more attention. It was rather amusing.

So my training group has been in country almost a year now and just recently we had our first person go home. He´s a good friend of mine and was just done being here and ready to go back and start grad school. I made a quick trip to get together in Antigua with a group of us to say goodbye. Our training group is really close, so it’s hard and sad to see somebody go home. We’re gonna miss you big guy.

The soccer tournament is going well and really fun, even though we lost our second game 0-1. Everyone kept cheering and asking where my goal was…sadly I couldn’t please them. We played against the high school team and they scored in the last minute.

Last Sunday was 14th David’s birthday, one of the kids related to the family. We had a little party compete with tamales, coffee, and cake. I got him a pirated DVD Ironman, which he was quite happy about.

Mmm…the other day was a typical good day…a beautiful bike ride in the morning sunshine, a tranquil day at work, soccer practice with the girls in the afternoon, chatting and joking with the family when I got home, and a nice quiet evening alone at home making a pineapple curry stir fry with fresh local veggies, baking an apple pie, and drinking warm milk as I finished the second season of Scrubs on DVD. I went to bed quite satisfied and so happy to be where I am.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Parents visit and Fourth of July

In the last weeks of June I had the grand honor of hosting my parents in Guatemala. I had a great time showing them my life and my work here, and also getting to see some other parts of Guatemala. After meeting them at the airport, we spent a couple days in Antigua soaking in the colonial atmosphere and easing them into Guatemala. We checked out the ruins, churches, and fabulous restaurants. I hired a guy from my town (the señora at my houses brother-in-law) to pick us up in Antigua and take us to my town. En route we stopped for lunch at Pollo Campero, the Guatemalan fried chicken chain that’s gone international. It’s an institution and sooo Guatemalan. It´s a popular spot for families to go for a treat and oftentimes if people have the money they will bring it back to their families in the rural areas after traveling through a large town. Even though there are a few franchises in the US, they say that it doesn’t taste as good cause there are nutrition standards so they can’t use as much grease. Thus, they also say that flights from Guatemala to the US always smell like fried chicken because everyone brings it to their relatives.

The time in my site with them was wonderful…they got to meet my friends, family, and coworkers, soak in the atmosphere of El Chol, and get a taste of the life I’m living. We all stayed in my cozy little house, them taking my bed and me on the couch. They came to my office bringing smoked salmon and Beecher´s Flagship cheese to share with my coworkers. The cheese was a big hit and I almost cried with happiness upon tasting the lusciousness again. It was cool cause my inquisitive Dad had a long conversation with my counterpart, who speaks pretty good English (I didn’t realize how good), asking him all about the work at the muni in regards to water systems, generation of electricity, and all kinds of other questions. The highlight of the time at my site was a lunch that my parents gave to 60 people from town including muni employees, my English students, women and children from La Ciénega (who had to walk three hours there and back), and members of the family that I live with. The mayor’s wife owns a comedor and hosts lots of lunches and various events so we had it there. It was so neat to see everybody come together and meet my parents. Lots of people dressed up for the event and the kids that came down from the rural community that I usually see barefoot and dirty were all fixed up with gelled hair and decent clothes and shoes. Various people brought gifts for my parents, such as typical handbags with El Chol stitched onto them and a pink knitted shirt for my mom that took the woman months to make. Lots of people wanted to take pictures with them too, which was slightly odd, but cool. We spent an entire evening chatting with the family that I live with after giving the kids coloring books and crayons, which they were fascinated with, and the women little footie socks that I wear that they had always said that they wanted. My mom’s Spanish did quite well, but it was still stressful having to do lots of translating. All in all though, it was just so cool to see my two worlds come together and for people to meet my family and for them to see my life here.

After my site we went to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan and stayed in an awesome colonial hotel. The lake is gorgeous – surrounded by three volcanoes and traditional indigenous towns. It was nice to relax and take in the natural beauty.

Next it was off to Tikal, the largest site of Mayan ruins up in the northern jungle region of Petén. We stayed a night inside the park, sleeping under mosquito nets and listening to the sounds of the jungle outside our cabin, including howler monkeys and countless species of birds. We got up while it was still dark to take the “sunrise tour” to the ruins. Trekking through the jungle heat and humidity in the wee morning hours, we climbed Temple IV, the highest one, to watch the sunrise and the series of ruins appear above the trees slowly through the mist. Impressive. Then we spent the next few hours being guided through the various ruins of temples and pyramids and hearing about the history and the myths. That afternoon we headed to Flores, a very small island town in the middle of a lake, despite being the departmental seat. You could walk the perimeter of the tranquil town in about 30 minutes, but the setting was quite lovely. We spent our last night in Guatemala City and they flew out early in the morning. All in all we had a wonderful time, despite the slight stresses on me of organizing everything and translating, it was well worth it for the memorable experience.

I then went to Antigua for the Peace Corps All Volunteer Conference, the one time the whole year when all 170ish volunteers in Guatemala get together. It was awesome to touch base with all my friends and to meet lots of other volunteers. We had some great speakers give information and opinions on topics such as Municipal Empowerment and Immigration. The next day we had a fabulous Fourth of July party in San Lucas put on by our Volunteer Advocacy Council. There was an American style BBQ complete with American flag toothpicks, a volunteer talent show, a singing of the national anthem, soccer and Frisbee, plenty of American music, and a dance party. There were no fireworks, but we tracked down some sparklers and had a patriotic moment in Antigua. It was a great way to spend the Fourth of July if you have to be out of the country, but for the first time I realized how much I really miss the USA the country, not just the people and places in it.

On the way back to my site, I was on a microbus on the dirt road heading to my town, when the camioneta (big school bus) from my town decided to broadside us on purpose. The two vehicles stopped and the drivers yelled at each other for awhile about not respecting the schedule of when each one left. The driver of the big bus was mad at the driver of the little bus for leaving at the same time and supposedly stealing his passengers and subsequently the money they would have paid him. (Which the driver of the little bus had no control over, since he was just doing what his boss ordered him to do). The driver of the big bus got back in, pulled it in front of our microbus, and then proceeded to back up into us on purpose and smash the front of our bus and then speed away. There was a fair bit of damage to the microbus, everyone was rather shaken up, and the driver of our bus was pissed. He called his boss and the police met us in Granados, another town up the way, where they handled everything. Meanwhile we all piled into another microbus to head back to El Chol and didn’t wait around. Only in Guatemala…

When I got home that Saturday afternoon, there was a prayer session being prepared for one of the women’s birthdays. I sat through the usual incense burning, singing, and recitations with the family and enjoyed delicious tamales and hot pineapple punch afterwards.

I have decided that I don’t like the rainy season. While yes, I am used to lots of rain being from Seattle, the difference here is that it is hot while it rains, the inside of your house is always damp, there are no clothes dryers to dry your clothes, the unpaved streets create massive amounts of mud, the rain falling on the tin roof is so loud you can’t talk on the phone or listen to music, you have to wash the mud off your jeans by hand, lots of roads become impassable, and the umbrella I bought is the cheapest and sorriest excuse for a rain stopping device I've ever seen. Some of my clothes and towels have molded in their inability to dry. Oh yeah, and hurricane risks. The other thing that sucks is that it gets dark at 7:00 pm, while I’m hearing about how great the weather is back home and how late it stays light. I guess the upside is that it stays light til 6:00 here the other half of the year. But in general, I have to say that the rainy season here – May through November – sucks.

chequenes

My Sunday was nice and relaxing…I went for a great bike ride in the pouring rain with a 13 year old kid who is part of my family, watched some of the soccer games, washed clothes, hung out with the fam, and almost finished the seconds season of Scrubs on DVD. I’m also almost finished reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, which makes a good conversation starter on a bus since lots of people are curious about the current politics in the US.

It was back to work on Monday. I updated the work calendar on the white board in our office that everybody references, but nobody upkeeps but me. People don´t really communicate their whereabouts very well, nor communicate when there are meeting, trainings, or workshops. So that´s why I put up the work calendar…at least it helps me out. Things were just as I had left them at the office…there was the familiar smell of cigarette smoke floating from the secretary’s office and the soft rhythmic beat of banda music emanating from my coworkers computers. The ambiance of an all-male office remains the same with their dirty jokes and constant harassing each other about being gay and how ugly one’s shirt is, talk of the latest soccer happenings in Spain, punching each other on the shoulders every two minutes, and seeing who can be the first one to beat this computer game similar to Bejeweled where a frog spits out colored balls and you have to put them in groups of three or more with the same color. Oh and some working too writing project profiles, compiling project studies, and attending to the needs of the public.

I’m finishing up the fourth municipal newsletter to go out next week, updating the database with information I've collected from the different communities relating to water and sanitation, attending various meetings and coordinating with NGOs. There is a big NGO focus on children’s issues so there a fair amount of support for projects relating to youth. One of them is the creation of a Youth Municipal Council in which they will learn about citizen participation by running a political campaign and electing their representatives, just as adults do. Within the COMUDE (Municipal Development Council) there are nine commissions that in theory work on different topics such as health, education, and finances. We are working to strengthen the COMUDE commission on women’s, children’s, and family issues by elaborating a public policy in favor of youth.

Another cool thing that has come together is that I am now coaching a girls soccer team, or at least training a group of girls aged 9-13. I had been observing a group of boys training in the afternoons in the soccer field and thought the participation of girls was lacking. So I talked to the guy who was running it and told him I wanted to train girls. So he told all his boys to tell all their sisters, cousins, and classmates to show up at the field the next day. About 14 girls showed up the first day and we had a good time. We did some dribbling drills, relay races, and scrimmaged. It all went really well and I think we’ll continue training Tuesdays and Thursdays and hopefully play games on Saturdays.