Happy New Year!

The 2008 El Chol feria was a huge success. This is the event that the entire town looks forward to the whole year. The extended week long celebration was intense, super fun, and tired me out. The feria basically exists of various elements: the religious aspect of which is the reason for celebrating which consists of processions with the Virgin Mary, vigils in the church, people hosting “Ave Marias” at their houses, and the arrival of traveling pilgrims; the commercial aspect of people coming from all over the region to sell their wares; the competitive aspect with many opportunities for participation in athletic competitions; the entertainment aspect with the election of the queen, a rodeo, motocross, and cock fighting; and the community aspect of it all getting people out of their houses and into the streets for shopping, the parade, the four nights of community dances. I participated in many of the competitions that took place such as:

Campeonato de futbol feminino. Women’s soccer tournament. Our El Chol selection made up of mostly middle school and high school girls won first place of the invited teams from Rabinal and Granados! Big trophy.

Triatlon. Triathlon. For my second year participating in this event, I came in second place again of a total of three participants, being the only woman. The guy who won was the same guy who beat me last year. But this year the prizes were better and I won 500 quetzales, the equivalent of my rent for a month or just over 60 bucks. In the days before the race everyone kept asking me if I was ready to compete. Just as last year, the race consisted of a 100 meter swim in the river in waist deep cold water coming off the mountain, a 3 km bike ride all uphill on a dusty dirt road, and a 2 km run on that road arriving into town. I was ahead during the whole bike part and the little van with the loudspeakers was giving the play by play announcing that Katty McKee was leading the race. We were accompanied by plenty of motorcycles and friends cheering us on. In addition to the cash, I won a glass trophy with the emblem of the national beer.

Tiro con honda. Slingshot contest. It was the first time in my life shooting a slingshot. Out of my ten chances, I didn’t hit a single bottle.

Motos empujadas. Pushed motorcycles. A challenging event where in pairs you have to push a motorcycle (turned off) around the perimeter of the soccer field. I did this with my site mate and we thought we would dominate the event, but came in last of the three women’s teams. The winners felt bad and gave us their medals donated by the national beer brand.

Other exciting events that I witnessed included gatos asustados, scaredy cats, where people bring their cats and tie a string around its neck with a metal ring which is attached to a string between two poles. They then set off firecrackers and watch the cats go running, and the first to arrive at the other side wins. Cruel. The cock fighting was also rather disturbing but fascinating to see. It was the first time in my life to see such an event and I didn’t stay very long. The razor blades that they attached to their talons slicing into the other bird and the owners giving the avian equivalent of CPR was just a bit disturbing for me. Jaripeo, the rodeo, was pretty awesome. One crazy thing they did to entertain the crowd during the breaks was the “The most applauded table” where they offered free beers to the first four volunteers who came forward. The contest was to see who could finish the beer first, without getting up from their seat at the table that was set up in the middle. They then released the biggest, meanest bull into the pen and it went trampling over the four guys in the middle. Being stupid and drunk, they didn’t even move and all got trampled. Luckily we didn’t see anyone die or and serious visible wounds, but those scenarios were in high probability. Imagine the lawsuits in the States.

The community dances were incredibly fun and for two of the nights they brought in live Ranchera bands which were pretty good and made for a good atmosphere. In all it was a very enjoyable feria, but sad to think it was my last one here. It’s funny cause the first year in your site, every event and activity is new and exciting and then the second year it’s hard thinking that it will be your last time doing or celebrating each thing.

Right after the feria I went home to the states, which was glorious. Despite the unusual snow storm (record since 1955!) I thoroughly enjoyed my time at home with family and friends. I was reminded of all the things that I missed and had grown accustomed to doing without and it made it even more difficult to say goodbye and think of another year away.

It was nice to come back to friends and “family” and in Guatemala. I spent new years at the beach on the Pacific coast in Monterrico. It was nice catching up with Peace Corps friends, making new friends, and transitioning back into Guatemalan life.

Coming back to El Chol was very nice. I was greeted with a swarm of kids from the family as soon as I stepped off the bus and it was good to have that “coming home” feeling on both ends of my journey. The señora had a tamale ready for me which she had saved, knowing the strangeness that we don’t eat tamales for Christmas in the U.S. and wanting to make sure I had mine. I relished distributing gifts and trinkets to everyone from the states and they were quite thrilled with what I had brought them. Everyone I saw on the street was glad to see me and asked where I had been since they had noticed that I hadn’t been around.

We’re getting back into the swing of things at work. My counterpart, the coordinator of the Municipal Planning Office is no longer working here so we are awaiting the appointment of the new coordinator. While I was gone a técnico for children and youth was hired who will be working with us in the almost formed Municipal Women and Youth Office. (He was actually one of my students last year when I was giving citizen participation workshops in the high school). We started the year off well doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of our office that I think was good and honest and then moving on to an annual operating plan for 2009. It was a good way to start things off and I hope that we will stick to what we say we will do. 10 months to go…