Friday, July 24, 2009

Eight clowns and a gringa go to El Chol

As they do from time to time, the communities in San Juan Sacatepéquez en route to El Chol were protesting, this time against a cement factory that one of the biggest companies in Guatemala wants to put in their town. The company says it will bring jobs, the community says it will only bring pollution. So they blocked the roads and protested several days in the town and in the capital. Consequently, there was no transportation to El Chol for several days. I was coming back from Antigua and was trying to figure out what I would do to get back. My site mate called me and informed me that a group of clowns were coming to El Chol to do an educational act about HIV/AIDS and since they didn’t know how to get here, it worked out perfectly that I would show them the way and they would give me a ride. But as it goes, they left late and then there was a landslide on the route they were taking and they ended up super late so I was waiting in the town of San Lucas for six hours for these clowns. There is only so much coffee you can drink at one café and I think the security guards in the commercial center I was waiting at were a bit sketched out by me wandering around so much for so many hours. I guess it was worth it though since I got a ride and was well entertained the whole time. That is how the amusing thought occurred to me that I, the gringa, was in a van with eight clowns. They clowns were all university students and lots of fun. In El Chol they gave their presentation complete with one of the clowns in a giant condom suit and we played some great pickup basketball and soccer games in the park the two nights they were there.

As part of our work in the Women’s Office we go out to the communities where we are invited to various types of workshops with them. We went to the community of San Francisco to do a self-esteem workshop with the women there. It was a small group but went really nicely. We all sat in a circle and did various types of activities to get conversation going about self-esteem. For example, having them write their name (or draw a picture) on a piece of paper and tear off pieces for situations that they share of things that have happened to them to hurt their self-esteem…then do the reverse and have them put the puzzle back together with examples of situations that have helped their self-esteem not only to increase awareness of the effects on their self worth, but also to recognize the effects of their own actions on the self esteem of others (like the huge problem of gossip in small communities). For these women, to some no one has even mentioned self-esteem to them before and with so many factors going against their feelings of self worth, including poverty and the machismo society they live in, it is an essential topic that forms the base of citizen participation and community development.

Recently I also conducted a training for a group of women in the Trapiche Viejo community on HIV/AIDS. It went really well, considering the challenge of adapting the activities to a group of mostly illiterate women. I used lots of props like to show the three methods of transmission, (blood, mother to baby, and sexual) I constantly referred to a syringe, a baby doll, and a pair of panties that I would hold up and wave around. This elicited lots of laughter, but I hope it was effective to get the ideas across. We also did skits of applicable situations to make the topic seems more real to them. This was actually the second time we had attempted to do the workshop (which had been asked for when we conducted our community diagnostic) but the first time it started raining so hard that you couldn’t hear a word I was saying over the noise the raindrops made on the tin roof of the school. This time it didn’t start raining til near the end, so I almost finished the workshop with them being able to hear me. I think that working with women’s groups on this topic is almost the most challenging because in this society they are the ones with the least amount of control or perceived control over their lives, especially their sexuality. Sexual promiscuity among men is culturally accepted and even promoted, but a wife telling her husband to use a condom may cause many problems in the relationship where women have mentioned that their husbands become very suspicious. It is difficult to answer the questions that arise that have to do with these types of cultural barriers because so much of it has to do with much more basic issues of machismo, self-esteem, trust, and communication skills. It is good to start getting these topics out into the open, especially in the rural areas where women have never received any kind of orientation of any topic relating to sexuality or HIV/AIDS and as we also emphasis, values begin at home so it is up to them as mothers to educate their children on these topics.

The Women’s Office hosted our Second Conference of Women Leaders on June 25th which was another big success. We covered the topic of community development and the System of Development Councils and an invited psychologist talked about women’s rights, and a representative from the Ministry of the Economy gave a motivational presentation on recognizing themselves as businesswomen and promoting small income generation economic activities. The women got into groups and came up with ideas for simple businesses that don’t exist here but could do well, such as a floral shop or a cake shop. The event was a big success and ended with a nice lunch provided by the muni.

In following with our goals of training women in various topics and promoting small income generation projects, we were planning a course to train a group on how to make cheese, given by the national vocational training academy (INTECAP). There are many families that have cows, and in the rainy season there is grass for them to eat, so they give milk, and various women know how to make one kind of fresh cheese. But they only know how to make one kind so the idea was to train women who didn’t know how to make to learn, and for those that already know, to perfect their skills and learn how to make other varieties to sell here. We tried to tell everyone about it, both in the urban and rural areas and we posted signs and information everywhere. The Women’s Office Coordinator and I both had high interest in learning as well, but unfortunately we didn’t get enough people signed up to bring the instructor in from the capital.

We received the opportunity to participate in a project to build houses for single mothers at very low costs, essentially with all the materials provided and they would just have to pay for the labor. So we got 25 women listed as beneficiaries for the project and they had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get all the paperwork done and everything. It has been very difficult to coordinate since the project came from the Women’s Commission from the Departmental Development Council which we as the Women’s Office participate in, but there are many different government institutions involved and various other political players that have made executing the project a mess of politics and red tape.

We continue to work with the Municipal Council of Children and Adolescents (COMUNA), except now on our own without the help of the NGO that had been promoting the project. We got the group together and I helped plan the agenda, did some team building activities, and did a training on the System of Development Councils for the kids. We then created an action plan which they rehearsed, and then presented at the following COMUDE meeting.

In the Municipal Development Council (COMUDE) we reorganized the commissions for the second time with the hope of them sticking. The idea is that the City Council is organized into the same commissions so that each member is responsible for a certain one, and then leads the same one as part of the COMUDE where other NGOs and civil society participate. We did a training with one of the NGOs to orient everyone again on the work of the commissions and elaborate their yearly work plans (June isn’t too late to start, right?)

Municipal newsletter was done for the first time done without me when I was away for Peace Corps activities. I was thrilled to come back and see it actually printed and photocopied and being distributed while I hadn’t been there. It was nice because I have been very involved in the production of every issue since I got here so it’s nice to see that the people I have helped train now do it themselves. There is some hope for sustainability in the muni!

The beginning of July started with the All Volunteer conference which is the only time all year when all Peace Corps Guatemala folks get together first for a professional development conference of networking with NGOs to work more effectively in our sites, and then focusing on life after PC with resume writing, grad school grants, etc. Kelly and I took advantage of the opportunity to pay our host families in Alotenango a visit. It had been awhile, but we were welcomed warmly with open arms as always and made me sad to think that I’ll only have a few more opportunities to visit them before I go. Just great families.

My best friend Jesse came to visit again!!! We had an awesome time hanging out and doing cool stuff. She was there for the annual Peace Corps 4th of July party complete with an American style BBQ and lots of American hip hop played, resulting in a great dance party as we all celebrated our American-ness. Go America.
Then we made the trek out to El Chol again and she accompanied me to the CODEDE meeting, the Departmental Development Council meeting in which all the municipal mayors from the eight municipalities of the department of Baja Verapaz were present in El Chol hosting the event. In sum it was a long boring meeting, but important to be there as our housing project for single mothers was discussed and people put in their two cents about how it shouldn’t be politicized and the governor responded how it wasn’t being. Hmm. They also discussed all the projects that are being executed with funds approved by the Council and how all the 2008 projects are behind schedule and requested more time to finish them, and the 2009 projects haven’t even been started yet. No surprises there. Anyway, it was a rather amusing meeting because there was a scheduled protest by all the people in El Chol with motorcycles who were upset about the new law requiring them to wear a helmet and vest with reflective symbols with the license plate registration. It is a law attempting to reduce the amount of crime that takes place with assaults from motorcycles (mainly in the capital), to allow the police to easily identify people, but many people are against it (especially in the rural areas). So they were expecting a big thing and brought the army in, I’m not exactly sure if it was for that purpose or to keep general calm since it was a meeting of lots of important people, but either way the soldiers were patrolling the perimeter and keeping a good eye on things. It was a generally jovial affair with music playing, tamales given out upon arriving for breakfast, chicken salad sandwiches for a snack time, and seafood stew complete with a whole crab for each person for lunch and beers for the men that wanted to partake. The municipal employees, who haven’t been paid in four months, woefully ate their missing salaries.
Our time in El Chol continued well, Jesse came with me to my English classes and my soccer practice. All the girls remembered her from the previous year and were excited to see her again. In general people (me included) thought that it was pretty cool that she liked El Chol so much that she wanted to come back. People are pretty proud of their town and like that foreigners like it. We participated in a reforestation project that my site mate had organized where students from various schools planted around 2000 trees on lands surrounding town. There is so much deforestation that happens here in consequence of firewood being the main source of cooking fuel, that projects like this are so needed. It was cute cause they did a march through the town before the planting with each kid holding their sapling tree so it was a powerful image with a couple thousand kids parading through the streets holding up banners and carrying the saplings. The day of environment continued with a cultural night in the market with the usual fanfare of loud music and the whole town coming out to see what the excitement was about. The kids did some really clever skits relating to the environment and there was a magician too from Guate who entertained to their delight.
The next day we made the long journey to the town of Lanquin, Alta Verapaz where if you look at a map, it doesn’t look like it´s that far from El Chol, but it took us almost 10 hours to get there from the time we left my house at 5:00 am, including time we stopped to get coffee in Salamá and eat in Cobán and such, but still, a long trip. We went to see the famous bat-filled Caves of Lanquin where the river is born inside the caves. It was a rather physically challenging excursion as we had to shimmy our way up and down through the caves and not fall on the slippery surfaces, including one move where we had to cross this cavern with a full body reach to the slippery rocks on the other side. The caves are used by the Keqchí people for ceremonies and such and there are altars with candles inside. Thankfully I felt my claustrophobia under control and Jesse kept her fear of heights at bay as well. The really cool part was that right at dusk, the millions and millions of bats make their exodus into the night to hunt for food so as we stood in the pitch darkness, there were all these bats flying all around us. Pretty crazy. The next we did the tour of Semuc Champey. We started the day by swinging off a high embankment into the river off a rope swing where we had to swim out quickly to avoid being carried off by the current. We then got inner tubes and went tubing down the river a ways. Then we went in some other caves where we had to wade through water up to our waists and swim in some parts holding candles for light. At some parts we had to climb rope ladders and pass under a waterfall that was there inside. Finally we spent the afternoon swimming and lounging in the teal blue series of pools that are Semuc Champey where a surging river splits and part goes underground, and the rest tranquilly passes over the series of clear pools perfect for wading and swimming. It is a stunning natural beauty. Dinner at the hostel was delicious with good chats with other travelers from all over the world.
The next day we went back to Antigua and stayed at this awesome refuge in a little village above Antigua where our room was in a tree house. That´s right, the structure was built around the bed up in a tree. It was very rustic, but comfortable with the most stunning view of the villages surrounding Antigua in a green valley and the three volcanoes surrounding it all. At night there was a lightning storm between the volcanoes that lit up the sky. All in all it was a great trip with the BFF.

One of our friends, the woman that does the cleaning in the muni, invited my site mate and I over for dinner at her house as a goodbye for her. She is a woman that I admire very much. She is a single mom and works so hard to pay off her Habitat for Humanity house and bring up her three kids who are so well behaved, smart, fun, respectful, and insightful. I love going to her house cause we always have a good time and I love watching their family interactions. That night we played the card game Uno which got quite exciting.

This year I am so much more aware of the seasons and corresponding agricultural activities. The corn is getting tall, everything super green and pretty and looks all tropical-like because of the rains.

1 comment:

Adele said...

As much as we are excited for you to come home, I know you will have a hard time leaving El Chol when the time comes. You have done so much...many things that will make a difference to the community and especially the women long after you are gone. We are so proud of you! Love you!