As the new year started, I continued to have soccer practice with my group of elementary school girls. One day I received a call from the Departmental coordinator of Physical Education inviting our group to represent the department of Baja Verapaz in the National Physical Education Games in Chimaltenango at the end of February. I guess he was talking one day in the departmental capital to one of the city councilmen and that’s how he found out about my group and got my number. Anyway, it’s a big honor and a really cool opportunity for the girls to go play with kids from all over the country and leave this town, some of them for the first time. The Ministry will be covering the costs of transportation, food, and organizing lodging in a school there, so it makes the trip possible for kids that wouldn’t be able to pay. So in the meantime I've been doing all the logistical organizing to make this trip possible. It hasn’t been easy. Of course the girls were all for it, it’s a matter of convincing the parents to let them go. Getting permission here is tricky, whether it’s a child from a parent or a wife from her husband. So I made official notes with the information and an invitation to a parents meeting and delivered them door to door to twenty houses of girls who had come out to practice with the help of one of the girls in my house. Only about seven parents showed up (I needed 15 girls) so that wasn’t quite enough. I was about to scrap the idea right there and think that I was crazy for even trying, but one of the moms said that she would go around with me and muster up more interest. So I made more house calls another day with her and little by little we got more parents on board. After the fourth meeting and several more house calls to confirm with parents who didn’t come to the meeting, but whose daughters said they got permission. During these meetings we picked the other two responsible adults who will be going with us as chaperones. Then came all paperwork, nagging the girls and their parents to give me copies of their birth certificates, going to their school on several occasions to get a letting from the director for permission and proving that they attended that school, figuring out uniforms, taking their pictures and getting them printed for their ID cards. It was REALLY annoying and I had to keep repeating the mantra in my head of how great of an opportunity this is going to be for them. I was having several conversations a week with the coordinator who had invited us about the logistics and requirement. Well the week that I was going to turn the paperwork, he called for a list of the names and birthdates and informed me that the girls who were born in 1996 couldn’t go because they would turn 13 this year, even though during the event they would be 12 during the event. This was a very important detail that he had failed to mention to me earlier, so I had to have a sad conversation with two of the girls telling them that they couldn’t go anymore. Then I had parents upset with me because their daughters were upset. Then a girl who was cousins with one of them then told me that her mom wouldn’t let her go if her cousin wasn’t going, so I had to make another house call and go in and drink coffee and eat stale bread while I explained the situation. So anyway, the trip is for this weekend....wish us luck!!!
So the other weekend I had the privilege of attending a ceremony to inaugurate the project of introducing electricity in the community where I bake bread. The project was one of the projects done with financing from the System of Development Councils approved at the departmental level. When I first came to El Chol, I had met the super smart female community mayor and she told me that “ya mero” (very soon) they would have the project finished. Well, 14 months later it happened. I had intended to walk there (about an hour) but got lucky and caught a ride in the back of the mayor’s pickup as he was heading out of town and made our way to the rural village and on the bumpy dirt road barely hanging on around the curves. We got there and there was the usual loud music blasting from big speakers from the sound system that had been brought by the local disco company which runs all the events in town. Good thing they finally had electricity to hook them up with. Kids were selling bags of peanuts and acidic unripe mango slice with lime and salt. In the school they did a ceremony where the municipal mayor and community mayor gave words and they did various competitions and games with prizes. The event culminated in a lunch that they gave everyone in attendance, which was quite the crowd with everyone from the 18 family community plus the invited people from town. A common pork dish in orange sauce with rice that had been bubbling all morning in huge caldrons over open fires in the patio of the school was served with tortillas. (I thought about making a joke about where were the electric stoves? But then thought that might not be very appropriate). It was a cool event to participate in because it was a huge deal for this community to have executed the project and ever cooler that it was done by a female leader. There are few opportunities for the people of rural communities to get together and celebrate so it was a unique opportunity for them to get dressed up, leave their houses, and share a meal with each other and people from town and have the honorable presence of the municipal mayor too. They were very proud of themselves and it was a merry event and having electricity will obviously make a huge change in the community.
I am continuing with my English class from last year, now my “intermediate” group and I’ve started with another beginning group with about 15 students all between the ages of 18-25. They are a great group and several of them have either been in the states or have studied English before and know a fair bit. This continues to be an activity that I thoroughly enjoy and look forward to. For Valentine’s Day I did an activity with candy hearts from the States where each student drew a few and had to write love letters in English using the inspiration from the candy heart messages. It was pretty cute and there was lots of giggling.
In January my site mate and I finished our world map project and finally painted the names of all the countries in Spanish, touched up a few areas, and added the acknowledgements. We did a teacher training before the kids started classes and gave the teacher a packet of information with explanations of some of the games that you can play with the map and then we played some of the games with them. For example, we did one where you play music and dance over the map and when the music stops, you have to freeze on the country that you are on and then read the name of the country and state the continent that it’s on. Some of these teachers had a hard time naming the continent they were on, which reinforced for us the importance of this project in the familiarization of geography, not only for the kids.
At the beginning of February my family here in El Chol observed the one year anniversary of the death of the señora’s dad. There were several evenings of prayer sessions followed by the compulsory coffee and tamales and lots of family members and community member in attendance. I continue to be impressioned by the rituals surrounding death here.
Ripples of the bad state of the economy are being felt in rural Guatemala and it is the hot topic of conversation. Lots of people from here who had gone there illegally to work and making their way back since they can’t find work. Most of them were working in construction, and since there isn’t a lot of new house building going on right now, they’re coming back. And those that are staying aren’t able to send back remittances as they used to. This situation has significantly affected the household incomes here that were highly dependent upon that cash flow. Money is tight everywhere, for everyone. People talk about how they have high hopes in Obama to improve the situation since there is a lot of blaming the United States for financial problems here.
There were a few weeks where it actually got pretty cold here at night and the early mornings, even though the days were warm and sunny. The thermometer on my alarm clock registered as low as 57 degrees in my house at night. It was strange to be wearing a fleece and socks to sleep in and still be cold and to wear sleeves to work in the morning. It seems that cold snap has passed and is now more like 70 at night and 85 in the day. Things are dry and dusty since the rains won’t come again til May. Keeping the house clean and dust free is an impossible task and traveling out of town covers you in a thick layer and the joke made every time is how everyone arrives “canche” (light-haired).
Valentine’s Day is hugely celebrated in Guatemala…not just boyfriend/girlfriends, but in any social situation. Families and church groups go the river and have picnics, every level of school does a gift exchange event, text messages and emails are sent to everyone in your address book, offices have celebrations. In the muni we did a gift exchange by drawing names of the person you had to get a gift for and sharing a snack Monday afternoon. It was cute since there are few opportunities when all the employees that work in the muni get together, about 15 of us. We all gathered in one of the offices and each person had the opportunity to give words about what Valentine’s Day (“Día de Cariño” or “Day of Caring”) means to them. This is all taken with utmost seriousness and is not considered cheesy or appropriate for giggles, as I was inclined to stifle. There were lots of hugs and everyone applauded and gave whoops of surprise as one by one we gave our gifts for the intended person. We then drank cantaloupe juice and ate guacamole on large tortilla chip rounds. It was special to be a part of.
To celebrate Valentine’s Day on the actual day, I gathered with some of my Peace Corps girlfriends at the Lake at one of their houses. It was a much needed respite and chance to catch up with the girls. We were hanging out at the dock and met the Guatemalan volunteer firefighters that work in that town who were receiving a training from some firefighters, coincidentally from Lynnwood, WA. While they were learning how to do water rescues, we went for a swim and ended up being practiced on as their “victims” by getting us up onto a board and pulling us into the boat. It was pretty hilarious with the Guatemalan firefighter about half my size who himself couldn’t swim without the bulky lifejacket, hefting two of us onto the board as the American firefighters called out instructions in broken Spanish. But he had a smile ear to ear after completing his feat. There was applause from the boat and from the dock and the rest of my friends where keeled over in laughter. It was a great day and worth the total of 16 hours of chicken bus travel time for 12 hours of waking time during the visit.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
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…
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…
Monday, December 1, 2008
AIDS, mid-service, legalizing groups, world map, English clausura, Thanksgiving, feria…I´M COMING HOME SOON!!!
In mid-November our Peace Corps HIV/AIDS committee put on a National HIV/AIDS workshop where various volunteers and their counterparts participated from all over the county in a two-day workshop at the Peace Corps office. The event was a huge success. The idea is to train counterparts not only in up-to-date and accurate information on the subject, but to give them lots of tools and participatory activities that they can use in their communities to replicate the knowledge. I was in a group of rural health workers, so their knowledge was pretty good and we were able to focus on strategies of how to implement the activities in their communities. Since they were from all over, it was a good opportunity for them to discuss their common challenges and share stories as well. Some pretty horrifying things like how in one community there is a microbus full of adolescent boys that leaves every Friday evening for a city where in a certain establishment you can show your student ID and get a discount on the prostitutes that frequent there. There is a long way to go here in HIV/AIDS education. There are lots of cultural barriers that present themselves the complicate the challenge, such as many parents who don’t want any sort of sexual education in the schools and teachers can lose their jobs and be run out of town for touching on these subjects. Or for example as one neighbor put it to me in El Chol, it is the responsibility of the government to make public the list of names of HIV positive people so that everyone else can avoid them and live in peace. As I said, there´s a long way to go. Our committee had a really good productive meeting with the Peace Corps Guatemala Country Director to discuss a future vision for HIV/AIDS work here.
Right after the AIDS workshop my group had our mid-service conference to mark the one year of being in our sites. It was a very productive full day with lots of reflection on the work of the past year and making plans and sharing resources for the upcoming year, which generally seems to be the most productive time in your service. We also had our mid-service medical and dental check-ups which I was relieved to find out that I’m good and healthy and that a sugary diet didn’t leave me with any cavities, and I've somehow managed to avoid or fight off all the bacteria, fungi, parasites, and bugs that one might encounter here.
The other week I had a super busy workweek, definitely the busiest I've had my whole time here. We did the interviews for the Women’s Office coordinator, which I conducted and led with the presence of the two city council members. I was super pleased with two of the women that we interviewed and would be very pleased to have the honor of working with them next year. The only problem now is that I want to have a written contract before the call is made to offer them a job. Work is hard to come by here; there aren’t an abundance of job opportunities. But my coworkers in the muni haven’t been paid in four months and I don’t want to offer someone a salary that is not going to appear. So we are still in negotiations. We also had a meeting with the women’s commission to make advances in the Política Pública that we are creating. And also for our monthly interinstitutional meeting I invited some community leaders to do an analysis of the COMUDE, but there was a bunch of activities happening that day and the mayor was there, with a meeting planned for the same time, so we were having our meeting, when like 15 people showed up in the middle and sort of joined in and there was lots of confusion and then we all crammed into the mayor’s office to meet with him and it was all very stressful and confusing. And I didn’t get the opportunity to hammer out the details of the coordinator of the women’s office, so I have to wait til the next time the City Council meets, which who knows when that will be since we are now in Feria time.
My counterpart called me the other day to tell me that there was a group of women in one of the communities that wanted to organize themselves into a committee and asked me if I would go. So that Sunday afternoon I met up with the woman who had called the meeting and we walk up (and up and up) to the community, which is only accessible on foot. There were about 18 women who showed up, plus all the babies and children in tow. They wanted to legalize a group because only legalized groups can receive projects or benefits. It is a very formal process here in Guatemala to organize and legalize a group…you have to a have a meeting where the representatives are elected, you have to HAND WRITE an official version of the acta (the meeting minutes), in an official book of actas, which everyone has to sign (or put their thumbprint for those who can’t write their name). The official book of actas has to be authorized by the mayor and the municipal secretary, and then the group has to apply to receive an official stamp they have to put on all their documents to make them official. It’s a very exact process. So we went through a voting process, which was difficult because no one wanted to take on an official position and many of them didn’t know how to read and write. Finally we finished the voting process and the COCODE president wrote the acta for us, which took a full hour in which everyone had to linger around for so they could sign their names (or thumbprint) after it had been read. A very interesting experience. So then a few days later the women went to the muni to get their book of actas authorized, at which point it came to attention that the women elected as treasurer couldn’t read or write, which is kind of important for that position, so they couldn’t get authorized yet, and will have to have another meeting to put someone in her place that can read and write.
We are almost finished with our world map project. All the countries and oceans have been painted, now we just need to write the country names and thankyous to the contributors. Having never done a project like this before, we had absolutely no idea how much paint we would need. The hardware stores in town donated everything that we asked for, but we didn’t ask for enough. So we went back and asked for more and were donated a little bit more, but ended up having to front a bunch of the money. The teachers contributed a bit too, but it was still more than we were expecting. It was totally worth it though cause it turned out so cool! Next year when classes start again we are planning on going and teaching some of the games you can play with it. It’s also nice to have done one thing here where you can physically see the results, which is admittedly very satisfying.
I finished up my English class for the year and gave a final test on which everyone did well. We had a clausura (closing ceremony) at my house since they like to do ceremonies for everything. We ate pizza which was for sale for the feria and I baked a cake with homemade chocolate frosting. As is custom, I gave a speech, thanking everyone for their participation and encouraging them to keep studying. As is custom, I gave them each a diploma certifying their participation. They are very into the diplomas here; when you go to apply for a job you have to include with your CV photocopies of all the diplomas you have received for participation in any classes, courses, or trainings and these count significantly towards consideration for hire. I myself have already acquired a neat little stack of them for random one-day trainings and such. As is custom, each person gave some words of thanks to me and to God. It was actually all quite touching and made me feel really good for having taken the time and effort to do the class all year. Being a small group of nine who completed the course, we all got really close. I hope that everyone continues to study next year with me.
Everyone here knows that in the US we celebrate Thanksgiving or “Día de Acción de Gracias” (“Day of Action of Thanks”) and it is interesting to explain the history of the tradition and the irony of it. I made sure to tell the family that I live with that on this day when we pause to give thanks for what we have in our lives, that I include them in my thoughts of thanks. Despite being away from home and missing my family, Thanksgiving Day here was exquisite. We gathered together about 20 of us volunteers and slaughtered a turkey. We really killed a real turkey. One volunteer had purchased it three weeks before Thanksgiving and had been taking care of it. We improvised how to kill it, pluck it, clean it remove all the entrails, and cook it. We had to tie its feet together, pin the wings back, and tie a piece of string around its neck to stretch it out to make sure the machete hit the right spot to cut off the head. The volunteer who bought it was attached, but was also the one to make the fateful hack with the machete to cut off its head. We all screamed at the moment since it was flopping around everywhere and blood was squirting out. Everyone was yelling “Grab it! Grab its legs!” There was quite a bloodstain on the green grass. The headless flapping of the wings eventually ceased, the bleeding from the neck slowed to an occasional drip, and the legs were hacked off with a few more machete swings. We dunked it in a pot of boiling water to open the pores to remove the feathers easier, as we have all witnessed done with chickens in this country. My site mate did most of the organ removal; she was literally up to her elbow in turkey butt. The whole event was all very dramatic and a bit emotionally draining. We all had studied biology/anatomy in high school or college and had a slight idea of what we were doing and some people group had done it the year before and had a bit of experience. We basted it with a delicious basil rub, cooked it to a safe 180 degrees. It turned out delicious and no one got sick! The rest of the food was amazing too. Everyone brought their family´s favorite recipe and went shopping for specialty items in the capital. Someone’s family mailed down a bunch of goods from the States to make the event just like home, including canned cranberry sauce, Stovetop, and Hershey’s chocolates. The boxed wine was not lacking and before eating, we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for, including the two Guatemalans who were present with us. It was a special and memorable Thanksgiving.
It’s feria time! In Santa Cruz El Chol, the titular town fair is in honor of the Most Holy Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception from December 1st – 9th. During this time the town completely changes and becomes busting with commercialism, loud music everywhere and firecrackers going off whenever. The days packed full of competitions, soccer tournaments, and cultural events. The streets become blocked off and impassable with so many tents put up selling food and goods. The central park is filled with two Ferris wheels, games, and foosball tables. It’s the time to take advantage to buy new clothes, kitchen utensils, toys, pirated CDs and DVDs, household items, furniture, and knick-knacks. The festivities are kicked off with the election of the queen of the feria, essentially a full on beauty pagent. It is a big formal event where they build a stage in the market and the entire town comes out to watch. It started at 8 pm, and finished at 3:30 am. Seriously. Each of the candidates has her “fantasy outfit” consisting of some sort of glittery bra and mini skirt and large head piece made with cardboard and feathers, then there is the evening gown, a group dance, and a speech. The group dance has very sexually suggestive choreography and the coverage of the skin is minimal. There is lots of whistling and cat calling from the men drooling from the upper levels of the market. It is a very merry event, and no one seems to have any problem with the social messages that are being conveyed. The following day was the inagural parade in which the members of my office were put in charge of decorating one of the pickups that carried the pageant contestants (a carroza). We started working on it several days before with a western theme, complete with a giant horseshoe made out of PVC pipe and wire, paper cactus, and fake bales of hay made out of all those boxes from the care packages you’ve been sending me being put to good use. So after a late night watching the election I got up at the crack of dawn to help my compañeros finish the carroza. The parade was high class with participation of school bands, dances, acrobatics, horses, morocycles and of course the carrozas. The feria was inaugurated in the blazing sun at mid-day with speeches and lots of course firecrackers. For the dances that take place, it is customary to wear new clothes, so I shopped around and found a new top to debut.
So excited to come home! It’s so soon! Can’t wait to see everyone!!!!
Right after the AIDS workshop my group had our mid-service conference to mark the one year of being in our sites. It was a very productive full day with lots of reflection on the work of the past year and making plans and sharing resources for the upcoming year, which generally seems to be the most productive time in your service. We also had our mid-service medical and dental check-ups which I was relieved to find out that I’m good and healthy and that a sugary diet didn’t leave me with any cavities, and I've somehow managed to avoid or fight off all the bacteria, fungi, parasites, and bugs that one might encounter here.
The other week I had a super busy workweek, definitely the busiest I've had my whole time here. We did the interviews for the Women’s Office coordinator, which I conducted and led with the presence of the two city council members. I was super pleased with two of the women that we interviewed and would be very pleased to have the honor of working with them next year. The only problem now is that I want to have a written contract before the call is made to offer them a job. Work is hard to come by here; there aren’t an abundance of job opportunities. But my coworkers in the muni haven’t been paid in four months and I don’t want to offer someone a salary that is not going to appear. So we are still in negotiations. We also had a meeting with the women’s commission to make advances in the Política Pública that we are creating. And also for our monthly interinstitutional meeting I invited some community leaders to do an analysis of the COMUDE, but there was a bunch of activities happening that day and the mayor was there, with a meeting planned for the same time, so we were having our meeting, when like 15 people showed up in the middle and sort of joined in and there was lots of confusion and then we all crammed into the mayor’s office to meet with him and it was all very stressful and confusing. And I didn’t get the opportunity to hammer out the details of the coordinator of the women’s office, so I have to wait til the next time the City Council meets, which who knows when that will be since we are now in Feria time.
My counterpart called me the other day to tell me that there was a group of women in one of the communities that wanted to organize themselves into a committee and asked me if I would go. So that Sunday afternoon I met up with the woman who had called the meeting and we walk up (and up and up) to the community, which is only accessible on foot. There were about 18 women who showed up, plus all the babies and children in tow. They wanted to legalize a group because only legalized groups can receive projects or benefits. It is a very formal process here in Guatemala to organize and legalize a group…you have to a have a meeting where the representatives are elected, you have to HAND WRITE an official version of the acta (the meeting minutes), in an official book of actas, which everyone has to sign (or put their thumbprint for those who can’t write their name). The official book of actas has to be authorized by the mayor and the municipal secretary, and then the group has to apply to receive an official stamp they have to put on all their documents to make them official. It’s a very exact process. So we went through a voting process, which was difficult because no one wanted to take on an official position and many of them didn’t know how to read and write. Finally we finished the voting process and the COCODE president wrote the acta for us, which took a full hour in which everyone had to linger around for so they could sign their names (or thumbprint) after it had been read. A very interesting experience. So then a few days later the women went to the muni to get their book of actas authorized, at which point it came to attention that the women elected as treasurer couldn’t read or write, which is kind of important for that position, so they couldn’t get authorized yet, and will have to have another meeting to put someone in her place that can read and write.
We are almost finished with our world map project. All the countries and oceans have been painted, now we just need to write the country names and thankyous to the contributors. Having never done a project like this before, we had absolutely no idea how much paint we would need. The hardware stores in town donated everything that we asked for, but we didn’t ask for enough. So we went back and asked for more and were donated a little bit more, but ended up having to front a bunch of the money. The teachers contributed a bit too, but it was still more than we were expecting. It was totally worth it though cause it turned out so cool! Next year when classes start again we are planning on going and teaching some of the games you can play with it. It’s also nice to have done one thing here where you can physically see the results, which is admittedly very satisfying.
I finished up my English class for the year and gave a final test on which everyone did well. We had a clausura (closing ceremony) at my house since they like to do ceremonies for everything. We ate pizza which was for sale for the feria and I baked a cake with homemade chocolate frosting. As is custom, I gave a speech, thanking everyone for their participation and encouraging them to keep studying. As is custom, I gave them each a diploma certifying their participation. They are very into the diplomas here; when you go to apply for a job you have to include with your CV photocopies of all the diplomas you have received for participation in any classes, courses, or trainings and these count significantly towards consideration for hire. I myself have already acquired a neat little stack of them for random one-day trainings and such. As is custom, each person gave some words of thanks to me and to God. It was actually all quite touching and made me feel really good for having taken the time and effort to do the class all year. Being a small group of nine who completed the course, we all got really close. I hope that everyone continues to study next year with me.
Everyone here knows that in the US we celebrate Thanksgiving or “Día de Acción de Gracias” (“Day of Action of Thanks”) and it is interesting to explain the history of the tradition and the irony of it. I made sure to tell the family that I live with that on this day when we pause to give thanks for what we have in our lives, that I include them in my thoughts of thanks. Despite being away from home and missing my family, Thanksgiving Day here was exquisite. We gathered together about 20 of us volunteers and slaughtered a turkey. We really killed a real turkey. One volunteer had purchased it three weeks before Thanksgiving and had been taking care of it. We improvised how to kill it, pluck it, clean it remove all the entrails, and cook it. We had to tie its feet together, pin the wings back, and tie a piece of string around its neck to stretch it out to make sure the machete hit the right spot to cut off the head. The volunteer who bought it was attached, but was also the one to make the fateful hack with the machete to cut off its head. We all screamed at the moment since it was flopping around everywhere and blood was squirting out. Everyone was yelling “Grab it! Grab its legs!” There was quite a bloodstain on the green grass. The headless flapping of the wings eventually ceased, the bleeding from the neck slowed to an occasional drip, and the legs were hacked off with a few more machete swings. We dunked it in a pot of boiling water to open the pores to remove the feathers easier, as we have all witnessed done with chickens in this country. My site mate did most of the organ removal; she was literally up to her elbow in turkey butt. The whole event was all very dramatic and a bit emotionally draining. We all had studied biology/anatomy in high school or college and had a slight idea of what we were doing and some people group had done it the year before and had a bit of experience. We basted it with a delicious basil rub, cooked it to a safe 180 degrees. It turned out delicious and no one got sick! The rest of the food was amazing too. Everyone brought their family´s favorite recipe and went shopping for specialty items in the capital. Someone’s family mailed down a bunch of goods from the States to make the event just like home, including canned cranberry sauce, Stovetop, and Hershey’s chocolates. The boxed wine was not lacking and before eating, we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for, including the two Guatemalans who were present with us. It was a special and memorable Thanksgiving.
It’s feria time! In Santa Cruz El Chol, the titular town fair is in honor of the Most Holy Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception from December 1st – 9th. During this time the town completely changes and becomes busting with commercialism, loud music everywhere and firecrackers going off whenever. The days packed full of competitions, soccer tournaments, and cultural events. The streets become blocked off and impassable with so many tents put up selling food and goods. The central park is filled with two Ferris wheels, games, and foosball tables. It’s the time to take advantage to buy new clothes, kitchen utensils, toys, pirated CDs and DVDs, household items, furniture, and knick-knacks. The festivities are kicked off with the election of the queen of the feria, essentially a full on beauty pagent. It is a big formal event where they build a stage in the market and the entire town comes out to watch. It started at 8 pm, and finished at 3:30 am. Seriously. Each of the candidates has her “fantasy outfit” consisting of some sort of glittery bra and mini skirt and large head piece made with cardboard and feathers, then there is the evening gown, a group dance, and a speech. The group dance has very sexually suggestive choreography and the coverage of the skin is minimal. There is lots of whistling and cat calling from the men drooling from the upper levels of the market. It is a very merry event, and no one seems to have any problem with the social messages that are being conveyed. The following day was the inagural parade in which the members of my office were put in charge of decorating one of the pickups that carried the pageant contestants (a carroza). We started working on it several days before with a western theme, complete with a giant horseshoe made out of PVC pipe and wire, paper cactus, and fake bales of hay made out of all those boxes from the care packages you’ve been sending me being put to good use. So after a late night watching the election I got up at the crack of dawn to help my compañeros finish the carroza. The parade was high class with participation of school bands, dances, acrobatics, horses, morocycles and of course the carrozas. The feria was inaugurated in the blazing sun at mid-day with speeches and lots of course firecrackers. For the dances that take place, it is customary to wear new clothes, so I shopped around and found a new top to debut.
So excited to come home! It’s so soon! Can’t wait to see everyone!!!!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Dia de los Santos, elections, kickboxing
So for All Saints Day, we went to go visit one of my good friends in the town of Todos Santos Cuchumatans in the department of Huehuetenango. It is a very indigenous town in the Western Highlands unique in the fact that everyone that lives there still wears the traditional form of dress, including the men and youth. As a result of the 30 year bloody civil war, lots of people, especially men stopped wearing their traditional clothing. But in Todos Santos it is so cool to see everyone still wearing it. The men wear bright red striped pants and everyone where these small hats with a blue and red band. It’s like the whole town is in uniform. It’s fascinating to see how the youth adapt their clothes by wearing the pants super baggy, ripping the shirts, attaching patches, or wearing Metallica shirts with it. They speak the indigenous language Mam, although most people speak at least a little Spanish it is difficult to communicate. It is SUPER cold there too. It’s clear in the morning and then around noon the clouds roll in and it’s super foggy. Since there is no indoor heating of anything here, you see your breath all day long. You layer many sweaters, and they’re not enough and the water is so cold to wash your hands it burns. November 1st is their feria so there are lots of people that go there for their famous horse riding event, which consists of a bunch of very intoxicated men riding back and forth on the dirt road that goes out of town on a stretch about 200 meters. All day long. Not racing. No winner. Just riding. Every so often one of the guys falls off and there is a big “oohhh” from the crowd. This year the first woman ever participated in the event. She was also intoxicated. The whole event was so interesting. I felt like I was in a whole different country…it’s a different world out there on that side of Guatemala. It was quite the trek to get out there from my site and many uncomfortable hours of chicken bus riding. On the way back, some guy was throwing up on the micro. The driver got really mad and stopped and kicked him out, but demanded that he clean it up first. We were in the in middle of nowhere, so the guy went off into the bushes on the mountainside and collected some yellow wildflowers, which he then used to clean up his own vomit. Priceless.
The elections here were big news! For the days leading up to it, people would greet me with, “who’s gonna win?” and the days following with jubilant comments about how they were pleased with the results. It makes you realize that these elections were not just for our country, but the whole world was really hanging on them. I went to a prayer session the day after for the birthday of one of the señora´s sons who is in the States, and the woman leading it gave a long prayer for Obama that God give me wisdom, courage, and strength so that he would lead our country and the rest of the world in an honorable way. It’s funny to step out of context and think that in some small rural town in Guatemala there are elderly women praying for our soon-to-be president.
My site mate and I are deeply involved with our World Map project now. We are painting a map of the world the size of the entire basketball court in the elementary school in the town. So far we have measured everything out, painted the background all white, and draw the grid lines from which will guide how we draw it all in. We got a bunch of the students from the high school to help us and it looks like its going to turn out really cool!
After meeting with the mayor and a couple members of the City Council again, we finally have begun the process of contracting the coordinator of the new Municipal Women’s and Youth Office to start working in the beginning of January! Yay! A year in waiting and it looks like it’s going to happen! So in order to announce the position, we hand wrote in permanent marker a bunch of posters to put up around town, in the fashion that any important information is disseminated in El Chol. I’ve have lots of women come up to ask me about the job, even one woman came and tracked me down at my house at night while I was washing dishes in my pajamas to ask me about it. Next week we’ll sit down and review the applications and call people in for interviews. I hope this all comes together.
Since the women in my family all have high blood pressure and cholesterol, they are trying to get into working out. So the other day I brought down one of my exercise DVDs that I figured out is dubbed in Spanish and we did a kickboxing workout. It was hilarious! Of course all the kids joined in too. Everyone is extremely uncoordinated but had a great time anyway bopping around and kicking and punching the air at will. Oh I wish I had a video of them to show…
The elections here were big news! For the days leading up to it, people would greet me with, “who’s gonna win?” and the days following with jubilant comments about how they were pleased with the results. It makes you realize that these elections were not just for our country, but the whole world was really hanging on them. I went to a prayer session the day after for the birthday of one of the señora´s sons who is in the States, and the woman leading it gave a long prayer for Obama that God give me wisdom, courage, and strength so that he would lead our country and the rest of the world in an honorable way. It’s funny to step out of context and think that in some small rural town in Guatemala there are elderly women praying for our soon-to-be president.
My site mate and I are deeply involved with our World Map project now. We are painting a map of the world the size of the entire basketball court in the elementary school in the town. So far we have measured everything out, painted the background all white, and draw the grid lines from which will guide how we draw it all in. We got a bunch of the students from the high school to help us and it looks like its going to turn out really cool!
After meeting with the mayor and a couple members of the City Council again, we finally have begun the process of contracting the coordinator of the new Municipal Women’s and Youth Office to start working in the beginning of January! Yay! A year in waiting and it looks like it’s going to happen! So in order to announce the position, we hand wrote in permanent marker a bunch of posters to put up around town, in the fashion that any important information is disseminated in El Chol. I’ve have lots of women come up to ask me about the job, even one woman came and tracked me down at my house at night while I was washing dishes in my pajamas to ask me about it. Next week we’ll sit down and review the applications and call people in for interviews. I hope this all comes together.
Since the women in my family all have high blood pressure and cholesterol, they are trying to get into working out. So the other day I brought down one of my exercise DVDs that I figured out is dubbed in Spanish and we did a kickboxing workout. It was hilarious! Of course all the kids joined in too. Everyone is extremely uncoordinated but had a great time anyway bopping around and kicking and punching the air at will. Oh I wish I had a video of them to show…
Friday, October 17, 2008
Gifting, gordita, prayer sessions, frustrations of work
The nature of gifting things in Guatemala is very interesting. People here are very generous, even if they don’t have much themselves. There is a strong custom of gifting things and inviting people to eat, meaning that you will pay for them. I’m getting used to this system, but there are subtleties that take a little while to catch onto since they are different from how we do it in the states. Generally, if someone is wearing something pretty, like a pair of earrings for example, saying that you think it is very pretty is kind of like asking for them to give it to you. In Spanish it is better to say that “those earrings look nice on you” because saying “I like your earrings; they are pretty” means that you want them to give them to you. I learned this awhile back when a girl who is part of the family came to visit and I told her that her earrings were pretty, as is a common compliment that we give in the US. She promptly gave me a pair of identical one of a different color that she had bought, even though I protested she insisted. I get a lot of people commenting on the silver rings that I wear, telling me how pretty they are and asking me to gift one to them, so which I have to refuse because…they are my rings. Another example of generosity, if we’re working in the office, and someone leaves to go buy something at the store, they will generally get something for everyone without asking, just to be nice, even if it’s just a lollypop. We often take turns going to buy chocolate covered frozen bananas. If you’re eating something in front of someone else, you always offer them some, and they will always accept, even if they don’t really want it, just to be nice; whereas in the US, we would probably decline just to be nice, even if we wanted some. This is uncomfortable sometimes, especially when it’s a kid offering you some sort of sticky candy that has half melted in his dirty hand. One time I was waiting for the bus in San Juan with a woman from town who I kind of knew, and she went to buy some roasted corn on the cob that was for sale on the street, and asked me if I wanted some, so I accepted and knew that it would be impolite to offer to pay for it. Oftentimes random fruits and vegetables are gifted to me, like when one lady stopped by my office the other day to give me a pound of green beans, or when my soccer girls give me handfuls of jocote fruits or a giant lime the size of a giant orange. Whenever the women that I live with make something like corn bread or tamales, them always save me one. I’ve adapted to this too and since I bake frequently in my house, I always make sure to make enough to give some to the family. It’s a nice thing.
Along with the having to accept food that is offered to you and food being such a part of social customs, comes the gaining of weight with the cuisine here being carbo-heavy and relying heavily on pig lard, vegetable oil, and salt. It’s not necessarily seen as bad to be overweight here, and definitely not rude to comment about it. Even though I consider myself to be a normal height and weight in the states and maintain an active lifestyle here, I’m much bigger and taller than most people here, including lots of men. But coming from US culture, it still stings when people comment about my size. Last week when two of my coworkers made comments about how Katy was getting “gordita,” - little fatty - (which is not an insult and is often used as a term of endearment), I had to hold myself back from getting really annoyed at them. When the truck that I was riding on one day slid off the side of the road and we had to get towed out, they were calling for the heaviest people of the group to stand on the back bumper to give it weight to give the tire traction. And of course they called the gringa to go stand on it. These instances grate on me and take a lot of internal rationalizing to not let them bother you.
I went to another prayer session recently at the house of some of my friends for the one year anniversary of when their younger sister who had special needs passed away. I rather enjoy going to these events, since they are an opportunity to see lots of people from the community and share in a common purpose and share food together. They are not somber, formal events, but rather relaxed informal gatherings. Everyone is happy to see everyone and despite the reason for the gathering, everyone is in good spirits. People come late and leave early, and younger kids dart around playing between the adults seated on chairs and benches. People bring flowers (usually plastic ones) that are placed on an altar with candles, incense and a picture of the deceased person and sit together for about an hour while some women leads the praying/chanting/singing of which they are all familiar. Afterwards there is always some sort of snack and hot beverage, this particular evening there was chicken salad on tostadas and on rolls with hot chocolate made with cinnamon. It is common for people to take the snacks with them wrapped up to go to eat the next day or give to a family member at home. These events exist usually for birthdays, deaths, anniversaries of deaths. A nice Guatemalan custom.
There is a government institution in Guatemala in charge of upholding human rights. They have been active in El Chol organizing youth groups and promoting that youth know about their rights. So they organized a Fair for the Recognition of Youth Rights here in which they asked the participation of various institutions. So I was in charge of organizing the stand for the municipality on the subject of citizen participation, which is one of the main focuses of my project. I designed the content and the interns in my office helped me to make some posters and some games for the kids to play. On the day there were group of 15 kids that came in six rotations so I gave them a short presentation on participation and the System of Development Councils, then they played some interactive games to which we gave them candy for finishing the puzzles.
Working in Guatemala is frustrating. Working in the muni is frustrating. Here’s a little anecdote that captures pretty well the types of frustrations that are faced here. Days and days can go by without anything really to do. Then all of a sudden, a bunch of things all happen at once. One particular Thursday there were four work-related activities going on that I wanted to participate in. One, the monthly COMUDE meeting which I have never missed one and I don’t like to since you hear about everything that is going on. Two, a training on the GIS ArcView program. Three, one of the city councilwoman and I received an invitation to go to the capital for a two day convention on a Thursday of representatives of the Commission 9 (Family, Women, and Youth) part of the COMUDE, given by one of the NGOs active in El Chol. We were planning on going, but then two days beforehand, on Tuesday, three women representatives from the Presidential Secretary of the Woman (like the National Women’s Office) stopped by my office to tell us about an assembly they were hosting for the same day the other meeting was for in Salamá, the departmental capital of Baja Verapaz (activity number four). This meeting was supposed to be a gathering of ten women leaders from each of the eight municipalities in the department of Baja Verapaz to create a network of female leaders and elect representatives to the CODEDE, the Departmental Development Council. Baja Verapaz has a female governor (politically appointed position, but still cool), and she was gonna be there with representatives from different sectors that support women’s issues. So in talking to the city councilwoman, we decided that it would be more beneficial to go to that meeting, considering these contacts would be good for the women’s office that we are supposedly opening in January of next year. Of course the invitation was dated for ten days earlier and they weren’t able to get them to us til two days before the event, expecting us to get the notes to the ten female community leaders to the different rural communities in next day. It seemed like such a great opportunity that we made the effort. They had left five of the notes with me, and five of them with another community leader to distribute. So I had to coordinate with her but she is very busy and hard to track down and doesn’t really answer the phone. So I found her late Tuesday afternoon and we made the plans to go, put together the list of participants and she said she would arrange the microbus to take our group. It’s a delicate line that you have to tread on since all of these things are very political and personal, in terms of whom to invite, who get along with or doesn’t get along with whom, and all that nit-picky stuff that I know exists all the world over, but I feel is especially heightened here. Right afterwards I made the appropriate phone calls and house calls to invite the women. One I couldn’t get the phone number for so had to track down the microbus that was going out to that community and give the note to a random neighbor for her to pass on. On Wednesday I called the community leader to try to confirm the microbus, and she didn’t pick up the phone all day. I was calling and calling and she didn’t answer. Meanwhile the participants are calling me to confirm that they are coming, so I tell them to be there at 6:00 in the morning on Thursday to leave to be there by 8:30 when the meeting started. I don’t get a hold of her until 7:00 Wednesday night when she finally answered my site mate’s phone call and told her that she wasn’t able to go and that the bus wasn’t working. Well then I freaked out not knowing what to do, with all these women planning on making the effort to come down from their communities to attend this event. So I called the public microbus driver so see if by any chance he could take us and wait for us, but since the roads are so bad right now because of the rain, mud, and landslides, he told be he wouldn’t be leaving until 7:30, which would mean we wouldn’t get to Salamá til 10:00, late. And that to come back, the bus would be leaving at noon, which wouldn’t give us hardly any time at the meeting. So that option was out. I then called the coordinator of the women’s office in Granados, because I knew they were going and had a microbus and would be passing through El Chol. But she told me they only had room for two people and would be passing through at 5:00 am. There were no other options and I had no choice but to call them all and tell them that we wouldn’t be able to go. I was able to get a hold of everyone, except that COCODE president from the community that I go bake bread in. That community doesn’t have electricity, so the charge on her phone had run out. I was calling her all evening, sent a text message and everything but she didn’t get them. I was worried because she is an awesome woman who is super sharp, intelligent, and participatory and I knew that even though it rained all night, that she would still come. I barely slept all night worrying about this and I sent my alarm for 4:30 Thursday morning to try to call her again as she would be leaving her house, but still her phone was dead. So at 6:00 I rolled out of bed and went down to meet her in front of the muni. There she was, waiting there all by herself, dressed in her nicest homemade pink blouse and skirt set, and a thin sweater, soaked from the rain and sweat from the walk into town. I apologized profusely explaining the circumstances to which she was completely understanding. No matter how many times she told me not to worry about it, I just felt so bad, knowing that she had to ask permission from her husband to leave, spent all day the day before grinding extra corn for her absence, getting up before dawn, and walking for an hour in the darkness down the slippery muddy path from her house into town in the rain all alone. So we went to the market and I bought her breakfast of pinol and atol and she charged her phone in the muni before walking back home. I went home to shower and get ready and bought some lollypops for her to take back with her to give to her three year old daughter named Katy also. As far as the other activities were concerned, it turned out that the COMUDE meeting was canceled because the mayor called it off last minute, I couldn’t go to the ArcView training since they were gonna go on a motorcycle (which we aren’t allowed to ride anymore) but then they ended up not even going anyway because the roads are so bad, and it was too late to travel to the capital for the other convention. So there were four events planned for that Thursday that I wanted to go to, and it resulted that I ended up that none of them turned out and I spent a long boring day at the office frustrated, sad, and disappointed, playing some Spider Solitaire and listening to it pour down rain outside. Ugh. The whole day I was in a funk…questioning if I can really do much of anything here.
Along with the having to accept food that is offered to you and food being such a part of social customs, comes the gaining of weight with the cuisine here being carbo-heavy and relying heavily on pig lard, vegetable oil, and salt. It’s not necessarily seen as bad to be overweight here, and definitely not rude to comment about it. Even though I consider myself to be a normal height and weight in the states and maintain an active lifestyle here, I’m much bigger and taller than most people here, including lots of men. But coming from US culture, it still stings when people comment about my size. Last week when two of my coworkers made comments about how Katy was getting “gordita,” - little fatty - (which is not an insult and is often used as a term of endearment), I had to hold myself back from getting really annoyed at them. When the truck that I was riding on one day slid off the side of the road and we had to get towed out, they were calling for the heaviest people of the group to stand on the back bumper to give it weight to give the tire traction. And of course they called the gringa to go stand on it. These instances grate on me and take a lot of internal rationalizing to not let them bother you.
I went to another prayer session recently at the house of some of my friends for the one year anniversary of when their younger sister who had special needs passed away. I rather enjoy going to these events, since they are an opportunity to see lots of people from the community and share in a common purpose and share food together. They are not somber, formal events, but rather relaxed informal gatherings. Everyone is happy to see everyone and despite the reason for the gathering, everyone is in good spirits. People come late and leave early, and younger kids dart around playing between the adults seated on chairs and benches. People bring flowers (usually plastic ones) that are placed on an altar with candles, incense and a picture of the deceased person and sit together for about an hour while some women leads the praying/chanting/singing of which they are all familiar. Afterwards there is always some sort of snack and hot beverage, this particular evening there was chicken salad on tostadas and on rolls with hot chocolate made with cinnamon. It is common for people to take the snacks with them wrapped up to go to eat the next day or give to a family member at home. These events exist usually for birthdays, deaths, anniversaries of deaths. A nice Guatemalan custom.
There is a government institution in Guatemala in charge of upholding human rights. They have been active in El Chol organizing youth groups and promoting that youth know about their rights. So they organized a Fair for the Recognition of Youth Rights here in which they asked the participation of various institutions. So I was in charge of organizing the stand for the municipality on the subject of citizen participation, which is one of the main focuses of my project. I designed the content and the interns in my office helped me to make some posters and some games for the kids to play. On the day there were group of 15 kids that came in six rotations so I gave them a short presentation on participation and the System of Development Councils, then they played some interactive games to which we gave them candy for finishing the puzzles.
Working in Guatemala is frustrating. Working in the muni is frustrating. Here’s a little anecdote that captures pretty well the types of frustrations that are faced here. Days and days can go by without anything really to do. Then all of a sudden, a bunch of things all happen at once. One particular Thursday there were four work-related activities going on that I wanted to participate in. One, the monthly COMUDE meeting which I have never missed one and I don’t like to since you hear about everything that is going on. Two, a training on the GIS ArcView program. Three, one of the city councilwoman and I received an invitation to go to the capital for a two day convention on a Thursday of representatives of the Commission 9 (Family, Women, and Youth) part of the COMUDE, given by one of the NGOs active in El Chol. We were planning on going, but then two days beforehand, on Tuesday, three women representatives from the Presidential Secretary of the Woman (like the National Women’s Office) stopped by my office to tell us about an assembly they were hosting for the same day the other meeting was for in Salamá, the departmental capital of Baja Verapaz (activity number four). This meeting was supposed to be a gathering of ten women leaders from each of the eight municipalities in the department of Baja Verapaz to create a network of female leaders and elect representatives to the CODEDE, the Departmental Development Council. Baja Verapaz has a female governor (politically appointed position, but still cool), and she was gonna be there with representatives from different sectors that support women’s issues. So in talking to the city councilwoman, we decided that it would be more beneficial to go to that meeting, considering these contacts would be good for the women’s office that we are supposedly opening in January of next year. Of course the invitation was dated for ten days earlier and they weren’t able to get them to us til two days before the event, expecting us to get the notes to the ten female community leaders to the different rural communities in next day. It seemed like such a great opportunity that we made the effort. They had left five of the notes with me, and five of them with another community leader to distribute. So I had to coordinate with her but she is very busy and hard to track down and doesn’t really answer the phone. So I found her late Tuesday afternoon and we made the plans to go, put together the list of participants and she said she would arrange the microbus to take our group. It’s a delicate line that you have to tread on since all of these things are very political and personal, in terms of whom to invite, who get along with or doesn’t get along with whom, and all that nit-picky stuff that I know exists all the world over, but I feel is especially heightened here. Right afterwards I made the appropriate phone calls and house calls to invite the women. One I couldn’t get the phone number for so had to track down the microbus that was going out to that community and give the note to a random neighbor for her to pass on. On Wednesday I called the community leader to try to confirm the microbus, and she didn’t pick up the phone all day. I was calling and calling and she didn’t answer. Meanwhile the participants are calling me to confirm that they are coming, so I tell them to be there at 6:00 in the morning on Thursday to leave to be there by 8:30 when the meeting started. I don’t get a hold of her until 7:00 Wednesday night when she finally answered my site mate’s phone call and told her that she wasn’t able to go and that the bus wasn’t working. Well then I freaked out not knowing what to do, with all these women planning on making the effort to come down from their communities to attend this event. So I called the public microbus driver so see if by any chance he could take us and wait for us, but since the roads are so bad right now because of the rain, mud, and landslides, he told be he wouldn’t be leaving until 7:30, which would mean we wouldn’t get to Salamá til 10:00, late. And that to come back, the bus would be leaving at noon, which wouldn’t give us hardly any time at the meeting. So that option was out. I then called the coordinator of the women’s office in Granados, because I knew they were going and had a microbus and would be passing through El Chol. But she told me they only had room for two people and would be passing through at 5:00 am. There were no other options and I had no choice but to call them all and tell them that we wouldn’t be able to go. I was able to get a hold of everyone, except that COCODE president from the community that I go bake bread in. That community doesn’t have electricity, so the charge on her phone had run out. I was calling her all evening, sent a text message and everything but she didn’t get them. I was worried because she is an awesome woman who is super sharp, intelligent, and participatory and I knew that even though it rained all night, that she would still come. I barely slept all night worrying about this and I sent my alarm for 4:30 Thursday morning to try to call her again as she would be leaving her house, but still her phone was dead. So at 6:00 I rolled out of bed and went down to meet her in front of the muni. There she was, waiting there all by herself, dressed in her nicest homemade pink blouse and skirt set, and a thin sweater, soaked from the rain and sweat from the walk into town. I apologized profusely explaining the circumstances to which she was completely understanding. No matter how many times she told me not to worry about it, I just felt so bad, knowing that she had to ask permission from her husband to leave, spent all day the day before grinding extra corn for her absence, getting up before dawn, and walking for an hour in the darkness down the slippery muddy path from her house into town in the rain all alone. So we went to the market and I bought her breakfast of pinol and atol and she charged her phone in the muni before walking back home. I went home to shower and get ready and bought some lollypops for her to take back with her to give to her three year old daughter named Katy also. As far as the other activities were concerned, it turned out that the COMUDE meeting was canceled because the mayor called it off last minute, I couldn’t go to the ArcView training since they were gonna go on a motorcycle (which we aren’t allowed to ride anymore) but then they ended up not even going anyway because the roads are so bad, and it was too late to travel to the capital for the other convention. So there were four events planned for that Thursday that I wanted to go to, and it resulted that I ended up that none of them turned out and I spent a long boring day at the office frustrated, sad, and disappointed, playing some Spider Solitaire and listening to it pour down rain outside. Ugh. The whole day I was in a funk…questioning if I can really do much of anything here.
Friday, October 3, 2008
The rainy season continues...world map...oatmeal scones...
We gave another AIDS workshop in the department of Sololá. It went really well. It’s interesting to see how different communities react to the topic. For example, this was an indigenous site where some people speak Kachikel, so when we did the activity “Lenguaje de la Calle” (street language) people used some words in Kachikel. We stayed at a volunteer’s house and I got to meet some volunteers that I didn’t know. It’s always fun to share experiences and common frustrations and hear about the situations in people’s various sites. I continue to be impressed by the fascinating people that join the Peace Corps and what they have done in their lives. That weekend there was a group in Panajachel celebrating various occasions, (including my birthday). We went out dancing that night and I think I burned a million calories, but replaced a few with some late night street tacos on the way back to the hostel.
The trip back to my site was long and rainy. The clouds cling to the peaks of the surrounding green hills and settle in the low valleys. Along the sides of the highway run rivers of mud that look like chocolate milk and cut away at the road. The roads are in really bad shape now and covered with giant potholes from all the water running under them. The sights on the side of the road have become commonplace and I don’t much notice them as anything notable anymore…kids carrying loads of firewood bigger than they are, women carrying water on their head from who knows what source, guys carrying 100 pound sacks of corn on their backs with a strap around their forehead, old men sitting on cinderblocks chatting with bottles of illegally manufactured potent liquor, boys playing soccer on the road with goals marked by tree branches, and little girls in brightly colored woven skirts with big brown eyes and dirty faces peering out from tin shacks.
When we were only five km from El Chol, the micro I was on turned to the side of the road to avoid a passing car, and got stuck in the mud on the side of the cliff. I was the only one who yelped, so then everyone laughed at me. So all the passengers had to pile out, careful to not slip in the mud on the steep slope into the rickety barbed wire fence. Then we had to wait in the darkness in the rain for a pickup truck to come from town to pull us out and it made it a nine-hour trip home from the lake. I’m ready for rainy season to end – ready for my clothes to dry, ready for the mold to disappear from my walls, ready for my roof not to leak, ready for the water from my faucet not to be brown.
My site mate and I are starting a project to paint a world map on the basketball court of the elementary school in town. Geography is not a strong point here, it’s not like there are maps and globes in the classrooms, so we think it will be a good way for kids to see the countries of the world and orient themselves within it. And having it on the basketball court you can play those games where you call out a country and everyone has to race to that country, like we always played with the states back in elementary school. It should be fun. We have a template in squares, so you just measure the lines on the court and paint accordingly to the squares. We’re gonna have to get all the kids together to clean the area first and try to pick off the stuck-on gum and get them to participate in the painting as well.
The latest baking adventure in La Ciénega was oatmeal scones, which turned out superbly. The way that the clay oven works is that you put a bunch of firewood in there, let it burn down to coals, and then push them out. The only problem was that since it is the rainy season and has been raining a ton recently, all the firewood was wet, so it took a long time. Then to make the second batch, we had to burn a second pile of firewood and wait for that to become coals to bake the rest. In all we baked 110 scones. I brought the photos that my dad had printed out of the lunch we had when they were visiting and gave them the pictures that they were in. They were thrilled since they have very few family photos. I also showed them the pictures of my family when they went to Lake Quinalt and a bunch of new photos of my niece, which they loved and asked for me to give them some again.
We continue with our monthly inter-institutional meetings to coordinate with the NGOs that work in El Chol. There was little presence at the August meeting, so we came to the conclusion that the development professionals needed to be reminded of the meeting with a text message a couple days before. So I did that for the September meeting and there was more presence, but still not everyone. This is very frustrating. We have also started taking notes at the meetings to keep track of what we talk about and document our agreements and obligations. It was my turn to write the last meeting notes and it’s funny, that to create a five page single-spaced document in Spanish doesn’t even faze me. I still have my counterpart review it before I send it out, but my Spanish is definitely gotten a lot better. I have to say, becoming fluent in Spanish is one of my proudest life accomplishments. So I sent it to all the email addresses that everyone had given me, and about half bounced back. When I asked at the meeting if the rest had received the document, not one had checked their email to open it. Not one! Text messages are definitely to mode of communication here, email is not. And now the signal at the good internet café in town is down “til November” to remodel, whatever that means and the other internet place in town takes about 30 minutes just to open your hotmail account.
The trip back to my site was long and rainy. The clouds cling to the peaks of the surrounding green hills and settle in the low valleys. Along the sides of the highway run rivers of mud that look like chocolate milk and cut away at the road. The roads are in really bad shape now and covered with giant potholes from all the water running under them. The sights on the side of the road have become commonplace and I don’t much notice them as anything notable anymore…kids carrying loads of firewood bigger than they are, women carrying water on their head from who knows what source, guys carrying 100 pound sacks of corn on their backs with a strap around their forehead, old men sitting on cinderblocks chatting with bottles of illegally manufactured potent liquor, boys playing soccer on the road with goals marked by tree branches, and little girls in brightly colored woven skirts with big brown eyes and dirty faces peering out from tin shacks.
When we were only five km from El Chol, the micro I was on turned to the side of the road to avoid a passing car, and got stuck in the mud on the side of the cliff. I was the only one who yelped, so then everyone laughed at me. So all the passengers had to pile out, careful to not slip in the mud on the steep slope into the rickety barbed wire fence. Then we had to wait in the darkness in the rain for a pickup truck to come from town to pull us out and it made it a nine-hour trip home from the lake. I’m ready for rainy season to end – ready for my clothes to dry, ready for the mold to disappear from my walls, ready for my roof not to leak, ready for the water from my faucet not to be brown.
My site mate and I are starting a project to paint a world map on the basketball court of the elementary school in town. Geography is not a strong point here, it’s not like there are maps and globes in the classrooms, so we think it will be a good way for kids to see the countries of the world and orient themselves within it. And having it on the basketball court you can play those games where you call out a country and everyone has to race to that country, like we always played with the states back in elementary school. It should be fun. We have a template in squares, so you just measure the lines on the court and paint accordingly to the squares. We’re gonna have to get all the kids together to clean the area first and try to pick off the stuck-on gum and get them to participate in the painting as well.
The latest baking adventure in La Ciénega was oatmeal scones, which turned out superbly. The way that the clay oven works is that you put a bunch of firewood in there, let it burn down to coals, and then push them out. The only problem was that since it is the rainy season and has been raining a ton recently, all the firewood was wet, so it took a long time. Then to make the second batch, we had to burn a second pile of firewood and wait for that to become coals to bake the rest. In all we baked 110 scones. I brought the photos that my dad had printed out of the lunch we had when they were visiting and gave them the pictures that they were in. They were thrilled since they have very few family photos. I also showed them the pictures of my family when they went to Lake Quinalt and a bunch of new photos of my niece, which they loved and asked for me to give them some again.
We continue with our monthly inter-institutional meetings to coordinate with the NGOs that work in El Chol. There was little presence at the August meeting, so we came to the conclusion that the development professionals needed to be reminded of the meeting with a text message a couple days before. So I did that for the September meeting and there was more presence, but still not everyone. This is very frustrating. We have also started taking notes at the meetings to keep track of what we talk about and document our agreements and obligations. It was my turn to write the last meeting notes and it’s funny, that to create a five page single-spaced document in Spanish doesn’t even faze me. I still have my counterpart review it before I send it out, but my Spanish is definitely gotten a lot better. I have to say, becoming fluent in Spanish is one of my proudest life accomplishments. So I sent it to all the email addresses that everyone had given me, and about half bounced back. When I asked at the meeting if the rest had received the document, not one had checked their email to open it. Not one! Text messages are definitely to mode of communication here, email is not. And now the signal at the good internet café in town is down “til November” to remodel, whatever that means and the other internet place in town takes about 30 minutes just to open your hotmail account.
Monday, September 22, 2008
COMUNA, work, Independence Day!
So one of the NGOs that’s active in El Chol has started a project to form a Municipal Council of Youth (Consejo Municipl de la Niñez y la Adolescencia or COMUNA). The idea is to teach kids about citizen participation and civic responsibility by having them go through an election process of electing a Municipal Council made up of kids that mirrors the process that adults take part in. The kids made three political parties with candidates for Mayor and Government Plans and then they have to register to vote, have an election day, and then the elected council will participate in the adult-run COMUDE and make proposals to the City Council. As one of the goals of my project of Municipal Development is increasing citizen participation, I've been getting involved with this process. It’s a huge logistical undertaking for the NGO to coordinate 18 schools that are participating, all the teachers, and over 600 kids. They have brought them all together for general assemblies, in which transportation, snacks, and lunches have to be provided. I facilitated one groups of kids when they were creating their Government Plan to run on. We looked at each of the sectors of health, education, environment, recreation, etc. and discussed the problems and realistic solutions in these areas. This whole project is awesome in theory, but in practice it has been rather difficult as it presents a logistical and organizational challenges. Last Sunday all the kids and teachers got together for a forum to present their Government Plans and respond to questions and next week the voting will take place. After the committee is elected, hopefully the kids will participate in the COMUDE meetings and that their opinions will be taken seriously.
So back in February we created nine committees as part of the COMUDE, which are technically required by law and correspond to the committees that the City Council has. However, none of them really function, or rather, we have a list of names on paper that pertain to each committee, but they never meet and never do anything. Well, I’m part of the committee for the Family, Women, and Children (Comisión IX) and we’ve been getting support from an NGO to create a polÌtica p·blica…kind of like a document of needs and short and long-term goals in the sector of youth. We have monthly meetings where we learn about the legal basis that protects kids and promotes their rights, we broke up into sub-committees to do research on various sectors relating to health, education, recreation, etc. with youth, and hopefully soon we will be using this needs assessment to decide on priorities, wrap it up in a pretty little package of a document, and then get the prioritized projects into the budget, and hopefully coordinate with the kids who are elected to the COMUNA so that they have their say and we come with double force to the City Council. We’ll see…
In July we printed our fourth Municipal Newsletter and in September we printed our fifth. They have been going really well and gotten very positive responses. I created an anonymous questionnaire to get some feedback on them, and handed it out during the COMUDE meeting when we distributed the newsletters. Everybody wrote good things and gave me some suggestions for future topics. Recent topics that I have written about include: Get to know the Municipal Code, What are Municipal Incomes, the Formation of the COMUNA, and the printing of the costs for every project executed by the muni in 2008.
At the end of August my good friend Juan Pablo, the civil engineering intern from the University of San Carlos in Guate in our office who was doing his internship here for six months, finished his time here with us. With took the afternoon off and had a nice traditional going away party for him with chicharrones (fried pig skins complete with bristly hairs on some pieces), tortillas, guacamole, salt, rum and cokes, and durenguense music. He will be missed. But we got another civil engineering intern from the USAC, this time a girl! So I’m not the only girl in the office anymore, which is a relief. She’s a lot of fun and buena onda so it’s been a nice change.
A while ago I was taking a shower in a hotel at Lake Atitlan. I was enjoying the experience as the water was incredibly hot and the bathroom was getting very filled with steam. Then I realized that the steam smelled funny and that I could no longer see through it, as which point it occurred to me that it was smoke, not steam. Well I was all soapy at this point and figured I¥d just try to rinse off real quick, but then all of a sudden flames started shooting out of the calentador, the water-heating device connected directly on top of the spout. I immediately turned off the water and started screaming and ran out of the bathroom all soapy in my tiny travel towel to which my friends found hilarious. Only in Guatemala would a shower actually catch on fire.
The other weekend I rode my bike ride to Granados, the next town over about 10 km away down the mountainous dirt road to visit another volunteer who lives there. We had a nice time catching up and sharing the joys and many frustrations of this strange life we live here and chatting about grad schools, careers, and what might come next. We made two boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese that she had gotten from the states and ate them both. Delicious. The next day I left to ride back to El Chol and about half way back the sky opened up and I got caught in the heaviest rain that I've seen since I've been here. I arrived home soaking wet like I’d just gotten out of the shower, except covered with mud too and my family got quite the kick out of it. They just think I’m crazy for the things I do sometimes….as it would never occur to them to ride a bike to Granados, especially if it were raining.
Yesterday I went on a walk with my site mate up the mountain here in El Chol. It had been stormy all day, but wasn´t at the moment. As we were walking back down, a bolt of lightning struck right in front of us! I seriously saw it hit the ground right in front of us. We both screamed and grabbed hands and hurried home. It freaked me out so much. I´ve never been afraid of being struck by lightning, but now that I almost died, I am.
So…INDEPENDENCE DAY! in Guatemala was September 15th, celebrating their liberation from Spain in 1821. It was quite the festivity, as most celebrations in Guatemala generally are. They don¥t just celebrate the actual day, but for days leading up to the lead as well. Different communities have different traditions, but in El Chol there were a series of Civic Moments in which the pre-school, primary school, middle school, high school, and teachers put on performances of traditional dances with traditional costumes in the park and then sold all different kinds of typical foods. Each group had their own day on the days leading up to the 15th. These performances were complete with the burning of devil, being someone dressed up in red with a mask with fireworks strapped to them that shot off in all directions. The food for sale was delicious with dobladas (corn dough stuffed, folded, and fried), chuchitos (corn dough cooked in corn husks), tamales (corn dough cooked in a big green leaf with tomato sauce and a piece of pork), bushboles (corn dough cooked in greens), chepes (corn dough with whole black beans), elotes (corn on the cob), atol (hot sweet beverages, sometimes made out of corn), tostados (toppings on a large round tortilla chip), panza (cow stomach), torejas (sweet bread cooked in eggs and honey), ejotes (green beans), pinol (tortilla soup-esque), frutas en conserva (preserved fruits in syrup), caldo de gallina (chicken soup).
In addition to the civic moments, there is the tradition of the schools going on field trips to run and bring the Torch of Peace, kind of like the bringing of the Olympic Torch. It’s a cool tradition because the kids get to travel around their country and for many kids, it’s the only opportunity they have to experience different places outside their community or department. For example, the middle school kids went to Livingston, the GarÌfuna community on the Caribbean coast and one of the elementary schools went to the Biotopo Quetzal a rainforest nature preserve. I had the honor of going on two trips: one with an elementary school to a water park and another with the high school to Panajachel.
I went on one with the elementary school Trapiche Viejo where the mayors wife is the director of the school so she went and the mayor went, in addition to some of the teachers that I know. We met at 2:00 am to get all the kids on the two full school buses that went in addition to a microbus with the rest of us to go to the awesome water park of Xocomil (Sho-co-mill) in the Pacific coastal department of Retalhuleu (Rey-tal-lu-lay-oo). We got there at 10:30 am and played all day on the water slides and wave pool. This place was seriously better than Wild Waves at home. The kids loved every minute of it, even though most of them were too scared to go on the water slides, it was so much fun to enjoy myself in the water (this is the Peace Corps?) and to watch the kids having such a good time. The park being a tourist attraction, there were people from all over Guatemala there and the unwanted attention from guys and adolescent boys for being foreigners walking around in bikinis was a real annoyance. That night we stayed in a dormitory in a multi-sport complex that felt a bit like a homeless shelter with a long room filled with blue metal bunk beds, gross mattresses, dirty bathrooms with no toilet seats (typical because evidently there is a shortage of toilet seats in Guatemala), and tons of women and children laying out towels and sheets to sleep on in the stuffy heat. But it was all part of the experience and we made the best of it. Fell asleep absolutely exhausted at 9:00 pm to get up again at 4:00 am to go to see the ocean. Went to Puerto de Champerico by 6:30 am when it was already super hot. Got coffee and breakfast (eggs and beans, what else?) at a beach hut restaurant in the sand and lazed in a hammock while the kids played in the super dangerous ocean waves. Only one kid had to be rescued from the undertow by some surfer dudes. I was surprised to see how they did no head counts, never set meeting times or places, but somehow everything worked out. They started running with the torch from there, and a number of kids and teachers ran a few kilometers in the mid-day sweltering heat, carrying the Guatemalan flag and sign from their school and blowing whistles the whole time. Everywhere there are walking vendors selling flags of all sizes and these plastic whistles to make sure that every kids in Guatemala is capable making the most noise possible. Now that is patriotism. They got back on the buses, which are also decked out with Flags, and we made our way back to El Chol. We started running again in Granados at about 10:00 at night and both my site mate and I were given the opportunity to carry the torch for a bit. It¥s a funny site with a mob of kids running with matching t-shirts, headbands, all kinds of Guatemala adornments all blowing whistles like crazy and the buses following behind with horns blaring the whole way and crowds cheering everyone on. The kids take turns running and carrying the torch like a relay. We showed up in El Chol with motorcycle and tuk tuk escorts around 11:30 that night to a welcoming crowd and tons of firecrackers and more blaring horns (this is a loud country). We ended at the school where they had speeches, sang the national anthem (I think officially the longest in the world), gave everyone snacks, and then had a marimba dance. I went home to prepare for the next field trip, went to bed around 1:45 am, slept about 45 minutes, and got up to leave for the next trip.
With the high school kids we met at 3:00 am to all leave on one school bus to go to Panajachel on Lake Atitl·n. Even though it was super early in the morning, all of them were so excited to be going they had lots of energy. There was loud pumping music and giddy screaming the whole way, although in my state of exhaustion I slept through most of it. We arrived at the lake later that morning and Hannah and I had a serious need for good coffee, so we went to our favorite cafÈ owned by our South African and New York couple friends. In the mean time, the group left on a ferry to go visit the traditional town of Santiago across the lake, so we had to find a lancha to get us over there to meet back up with them. That evening the kids wanted to go out on the town to go dancing, so we went out and played a semi-chaperone role, even though some of the students are our age. We had a lot of fun dancing with our students and seeing them enjoying themselves outside of small El Chol. The next day (the 14th) we took off around noon and made our way down the inter-American highway towards El Chol. The whole way were other school groups carrying the torch so traffic was completely snarled and every vehicle had Guatemalan flags plastered all over it and it. The kids were actually running on the highway with trucks passing them and everything. Everyone was madly honking in both encouragement and frustration, not a day to be traveling for any reason other than to be carrying a torch. It was the craziest in Chimaltenango, a major town on the highway that you have to pass through no matter where you are going. There were tons of crowds lining the highway and we were crawling along at the pace of the runners. As is the tradition, everyone throws water at the runners and at the buses, we’re talking bags of waters, buckets, and hoses. It was chaos with the mucic, the whistles, the screaming, and the water coming from every person in every direction. The doors and the windows of the bus were open, so we weren’t spared the soaking. The ayudante of the bus kept filling up a bucket and chucking it around inside the bus so everything was soaked, including all of our backpacks. The kids inside the bus were also spraying Coca Cola and orange soda to top it off. Nuts. It was literally like we’d been swimming with our clothes and our shoes on. We made it to San Juan Sacatequez around 5:00 from where they started running. It took seven hours to run the 47 kilometers (28 miles) back to El Chol, going super slow and freezing cold from being wet so long. It was a strange mix of horrible suffering from being tired, wet, cold, bored, and going deaf but also just sheer amazement of the kids energy, patriotism, and excitement and just how cool it was to be witnessing such a unique cultural experience. There were kids running the whole way with the torch. I took my turn and ran for a good 5 km. It was a cool experience running with that energy down the dirt mountain road in pitch darkness with only the light of the moon. Every so often you’d get surprise water thrown at you from the darkness by someone on a hill above or a house behind the trees. As we got closer to El Chol, there were people from there waiting on motorcycles to accompany us back and when we finally arrived in town after midnight, all of us running at the end, the whole town was there to greet us with cheering and more firecrackers. There was a stage set up in the central park and again, speeches (the mentioned the participation of the Peace Corps volunteers) and hoopla. The torch was presented to the mayor and there was a live band, tamales for the whole town, and several drunks stumbling about. People stayed and carried on til 3:00 am, which I could hear all of it from my house nearby.
The next day was Independence Day, the parade of all the schools started at 9:00 am with each group of kids in uniforms or costumes, some behind pickups with large speakers blaring music, others in school bands complete with drums and chimes. After the parade, my coworkers and I handed out 400 copies of the latest municipal newsletter to everyone in the park. After that, we handed out snacks of cookies and juice to the hundreds of kids who had participated in the parade, as it was mid-day and super hot by that point. In the afternoon there was a soccer tournament for men, and one game for women in which I played and we won 3-0 and I scored a goal!
Overall the Independence Day events were lots of fun. It’s so interesting to see how other countries express their pride and patriotism. Kind of like everything in Guatemala, it was long and drawn out, but super interesting and made me feel good to be able to be a part of it all with the community.
So back in February we created nine committees as part of the COMUDE, which are technically required by law and correspond to the committees that the City Council has. However, none of them really function, or rather, we have a list of names on paper that pertain to each committee, but they never meet and never do anything. Well, I’m part of the committee for the Family, Women, and Children (Comisión IX) and we’ve been getting support from an NGO to create a polÌtica p·blica…kind of like a document of needs and short and long-term goals in the sector of youth. We have monthly meetings where we learn about the legal basis that protects kids and promotes their rights, we broke up into sub-committees to do research on various sectors relating to health, education, recreation, etc. with youth, and hopefully soon we will be using this needs assessment to decide on priorities, wrap it up in a pretty little package of a document, and then get the prioritized projects into the budget, and hopefully coordinate with the kids who are elected to the COMUNA so that they have their say and we come with double force to the City Council. We’ll see…
In July we printed our fourth Municipal Newsletter and in September we printed our fifth. They have been going really well and gotten very positive responses. I created an anonymous questionnaire to get some feedback on them, and handed it out during the COMUDE meeting when we distributed the newsletters. Everybody wrote good things and gave me some suggestions for future topics. Recent topics that I have written about include: Get to know the Municipal Code, What are Municipal Incomes, the Formation of the COMUNA, and the printing of the costs for every project executed by the muni in 2008.
At the end of August my good friend Juan Pablo, the civil engineering intern from the University of San Carlos in Guate in our office who was doing his internship here for six months, finished his time here with us. With took the afternoon off and had a nice traditional going away party for him with chicharrones (fried pig skins complete with bristly hairs on some pieces), tortillas, guacamole, salt, rum and cokes, and durenguense music. He will be missed. But we got another civil engineering intern from the USAC, this time a girl! So I’m not the only girl in the office anymore, which is a relief. She’s a lot of fun and buena onda so it’s been a nice change.
A while ago I was taking a shower in a hotel at Lake Atitlan. I was enjoying the experience as the water was incredibly hot and the bathroom was getting very filled with steam. Then I realized that the steam smelled funny and that I could no longer see through it, as which point it occurred to me that it was smoke, not steam. Well I was all soapy at this point and figured I¥d just try to rinse off real quick, but then all of a sudden flames started shooting out of the calentador, the water-heating device connected directly on top of the spout. I immediately turned off the water and started screaming and ran out of the bathroom all soapy in my tiny travel towel to which my friends found hilarious. Only in Guatemala would a shower actually catch on fire.
The other weekend I rode my bike ride to Granados, the next town over about 10 km away down the mountainous dirt road to visit another volunteer who lives there. We had a nice time catching up and sharing the joys and many frustrations of this strange life we live here and chatting about grad schools, careers, and what might come next. We made two boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese that she had gotten from the states and ate them both. Delicious. The next day I left to ride back to El Chol and about half way back the sky opened up and I got caught in the heaviest rain that I've seen since I've been here. I arrived home soaking wet like I’d just gotten out of the shower, except covered with mud too and my family got quite the kick out of it. They just think I’m crazy for the things I do sometimes….as it would never occur to them to ride a bike to Granados, especially if it were raining.
Yesterday I went on a walk with my site mate up the mountain here in El Chol. It had been stormy all day, but wasn´t at the moment. As we were walking back down, a bolt of lightning struck right in front of us! I seriously saw it hit the ground right in front of us. We both screamed and grabbed hands and hurried home. It freaked me out so much. I´ve never been afraid of being struck by lightning, but now that I almost died, I am.
So…INDEPENDENCE DAY! in Guatemala was September 15th, celebrating their liberation from Spain in 1821. It was quite the festivity, as most celebrations in Guatemala generally are. They don¥t just celebrate the actual day, but for days leading up to the lead as well. Different communities have different traditions, but in El Chol there were a series of Civic Moments in which the pre-school, primary school, middle school, high school, and teachers put on performances of traditional dances with traditional costumes in the park and then sold all different kinds of typical foods. Each group had their own day on the days leading up to the 15th. These performances were complete with the burning of devil, being someone dressed up in red with a mask with fireworks strapped to them that shot off in all directions. The food for sale was delicious with dobladas (corn dough stuffed, folded, and fried), chuchitos (corn dough cooked in corn husks), tamales (corn dough cooked in a big green leaf with tomato sauce and a piece of pork), bushboles (corn dough cooked in greens), chepes (corn dough with whole black beans), elotes (corn on the cob), atol (hot sweet beverages, sometimes made out of corn), tostados (toppings on a large round tortilla chip), panza (cow stomach), torejas (sweet bread cooked in eggs and honey), ejotes (green beans), pinol (tortilla soup-esque), frutas en conserva (preserved fruits in syrup), caldo de gallina (chicken soup).
In addition to the civic moments, there is the tradition of the schools going on field trips to run and bring the Torch of Peace, kind of like the bringing of the Olympic Torch. It’s a cool tradition because the kids get to travel around their country and for many kids, it’s the only opportunity they have to experience different places outside their community or department. For example, the middle school kids went to Livingston, the GarÌfuna community on the Caribbean coast and one of the elementary schools went to the Biotopo Quetzal a rainforest nature preserve. I had the honor of going on two trips: one with an elementary school to a water park and another with the high school to Panajachel.
I went on one with the elementary school Trapiche Viejo where the mayors wife is the director of the school so she went and the mayor went, in addition to some of the teachers that I know. We met at 2:00 am to get all the kids on the two full school buses that went in addition to a microbus with the rest of us to go to the awesome water park of Xocomil (Sho-co-mill) in the Pacific coastal department of Retalhuleu (Rey-tal-lu-lay-oo). We got there at 10:30 am and played all day on the water slides and wave pool. This place was seriously better than Wild Waves at home. The kids loved every minute of it, even though most of them were too scared to go on the water slides, it was so much fun to enjoy myself in the water (this is the Peace Corps?) and to watch the kids having such a good time. The park being a tourist attraction, there were people from all over Guatemala there and the unwanted attention from guys and adolescent boys for being foreigners walking around in bikinis was a real annoyance. That night we stayed in a dormitory in a multi-sport complex that felt a bit like a homeless shelter with a long room filled with blue metal bunk beds, gross mattresses, dirty bathrooms with no toilet seats (typical because evidently there is a shortage of toilet seats in Guatemala), and tons of women and children laying out towels and sheets to sleep on in the stuffy heat. But it was all part of the experience and we made the best of it. Fell asleep absolutely exhausted at 9:00 pm to get up again at 4:00 am to go to see the ocean. Went to Puerto de Champerico by 6:30 am when it was already super hot. Got coffee and breakfast (eggs and beans, what else?) at a beach hut restaurant in the sand and lazed in a hammock while the kids played in the super dangerous ocean waves. Only one kid had to be rescued from the undertow by some surfer dudes. I was surprised to see how they did no head counts, never set meeting times or places, but somehow everything worked out. They started running with the torch from there, and a number of kids and teachers ran a few kilometers in the mid-day sweltering heat, carrying the Guatemalan flag and sign from their school and blowing whistles the whole time. Everywhere there are walking vendors selling flags of all sizes and these plastic whistles to make sure that every kids in Guatemala is capable making the most noise possible. Now that is patriotism. They got back on the buses, which are also decked out with Flags, and we made our way back to El Chol. We started running again in Granados at about 10:00 at night and both my site mate and I were given the opportunity to carry the torch for a bit. It¥s a funny site with a mob of kids running with matching t-shirts, headbands, all kinds of Guatemala adornments all blowing whistles like crazy and the buses following behind with horns blaring the whole way and crowds cheering everyone on. The kids take turns running and carrying the torch like a relay. We showed up in El Chol with motorcycle and tuk tuk escorts around 11:30 that night to a welcoming crowd and tons of firecrackers and more blaring horns (this is a loud country). We ended at the school where they had speeches, sang the national anthem (I think officially the longest in the world), gave everyone snacks, and then had a marimba dance. I went home to prepare for the next field trip, went to bed around 1:45 am, slept about 45 minutes, and got up to leave for the next trip.
With the high school kids we met at 3:00 am to all leave on one school bus to go to Panajachel on Lake Atitl·n. Even though it was super early in the morning, all of them were so excited to be going they had lots of energy. There was loud pumping music and giddy screaming the whole way, although in my state of exhaustion I slept through most of it. We arrived at the lake later that morning and Hannah and I had a serious need for good coffee, so we went to our favorite cafÈ owned by our South African and New York couple friends. In the mean time, the group left on a ferry to go visit the traditional town of Santiago across the lake, so we had to find a lancha to get us over there to meet back up with them. That evening the kids wanted to go out on the town to go dancing, so we went out and played a semi-chaperone role, even though some of the students are our age. We had a lot of fun dancing with our students and seeing them enjoying themselves outside of small El Chol. The next day (the 14th) we took off around noon and made our way down the inter-American highway towards El Chol. The whole way were other school groups carrying the torch so traffic was completely snarled and every vehicle had Guatemalan flags plastered all over it and it. The kids were actually running on the highway with trucks passing them and everything. Everyone was madly honking in both encouragement and frustration, not a day to be traveling for any reason other than to be carrying a torch. It was the craziest in Chimaltenango, a major town on the highway that you have to pass through no matter where you are going. There were tons of crowds lining the highway and we were crawling along at the pace of the runners. As is the tradition, everyone throws water at the runners and at the buses, we’re talking bags of waters, buckets, and hoses. It was chaos with the mucic, the whistles, the screaming, and the water coming from every person in every direction. The doors and the windows of the bus were open, so we weren’t spared the soaking. The ayudante of the bus kept filling up a bucket and chucking it around inside the bus so everything was soaked, including all of our backpacks. The kids inside the bus were also spraying Coca Cola and orange soda to top it off. Nuts. It was literally like we’d been swimming with our clothes and our shoes on. We made it to San Juan Sacatequez around 5:00 from where they started running. It took seven hours to run the 47 kilometers (28 miles) back to El Chol, going super slow and freezing cold from being wet so long. It was a strange mix of horrible suffering from being tired, wet, cold, bored, and going deaf but also just sheer amazement of the kids energy, patriotism, and excitement and just how cool it was to be witnessing such a unique cultural experience. There were kids running the whole way with the torch. I took my turn and ran for a good 5 km. It was a cool experience running with that energy down the dirt mountain road in pitch darkness with only the light of the moon. Every so often you’d get surprise water thrown at you from the darkness by someone on a hill above or a house behind the trees. As we got closer to El Chol, there were people from there waiting on motorcycles to accompany us back and when we finally arrived in town after midnight, all of us running at the end, the whole town was there to greet us with cheering and more firecrackers. There was a stage set up in the central park and again, speeches (the mentioned the participation of the Peace Corps volunteers) and hoopla. The torch was presented to the mayor and there was a live band, tamales for the whole town, and several drunks stumbling about. People stayed and carried on til 3:00 am, which I could hear all of it from my house nearby.
The next day was Independence Day, the parade of all the schools started at 9:00 am with each group of kids in uniforms or costumes, some behind pickups with large speakers blaring music, others in school bands complete with drums and chimes. After the parade, my coworkers and I handed out 400 copies of the latest municipal newsletter to everyone in the park. After that, we handed out snacks of cookies and juice to the hundreds of kids who had participated in the parade, as it was mid-day and super hot by that point. In the afternoon there was a soccer tournament for men, and one game for women in which I played and we won 3-0 and I scored a goal!
Overall the Independence Day events were lots of fun. It’s so interesting to see how other countries express their pride and patriotism. Kind of like everything in Guatemala, it was long and drawn out, but super interesting and made me feel good to be able to be a part of it all with the community.
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