ONE YEAR IN GUATEMALA!!!

So yes, at the end of August I completed one year in this beautiful country. For a multitude of reasons that day was a bad day full of frustration and disappointment, but besides that day everything has been going very well. I still am very happy with my decision to be here and have never taken a serious thought to wanting to come home early. I feel very comfortable and integrated into the community, I've gotten into a routine at work, and enjoy myself with a variety of other activities. I don’t feel like I’m changing the world or making any major institutional changes in the municipality, but there are little things that I have done that I think have helped in their own little way and relationships that I have built with people that I think speak the most.

To celebrate our one year anniversary, my training group all got together at Fuente Georginas, a natural hot springs outside the city of Xela in the western highlands. It was great to see everyone and catch up and spend some time together. The hot springs were awesome…the perfect temperature for the chilly weather at that altitude. It was sprinkling down rain so it made a cool atmosphere with the steam rising out of the pool made with natural rocks, surrounded by lush green forests. We stayed overnight there in cabins complete with the necessary fireplaces, so after it closed to the public in the evening, we had the place to ourselves. We all brought food to BBQ and grilled veggies and sausages and had quite the feast. The whole experience was enchanting!

It’s been awhile since I've had an update, I apologize, but it’s a good thing that I've been busy. Here’s a hodgepodge of what’s been going on in the past couple months…

El Chol was the host of a gathering of preschool teachers in the department of Baja Verapaz. They all got together for workshops and curriculum work and of course, an election of the queen of the events. There was a big community gathering in the market to watch the festivities. They put together a big stage with a giant strawberry as a backdrop and cartoon character hanging down. There was lots of pomp and circumstance with the bringing in of the flag, singing of the national anthem, various speakers giving the welcome, etc. There was a candidate from each of the eight municipalities in Baja Verapaz who paraded themselves about in “fantasy outfits”. There was also a dance done by some of the preschool kids dressed up in traditional garb with these wooden masks that are used for the ceremonial dances. The highlight of the evening was the “burning of the devil” where someone dressed up as the devil dances about with firecrackers strapped to his back shooting off in all directions into the crowd. That’s another one of those things that’s really cool, but would never be allowed in the states. Imagine all the fire codes broken and lawsuits waiting to happen. That’s why I love Guatemala.

The other day I was invited to a friend of mine’s birthday party. As is common here, it was a sort of prayer session, but this was special since there was an invited group that played live marimba music and put on a religious service. It was quite the interesting experience…I sat there in a chair outside for three hours before I had to excuse myself and go home. It was a Catholic service, but seemed Evangelical as there was lots of singing with hands raised in the air, crying about Jesus, and people being cured right there on the spot. Seriously, three hours sitting there feeling out of place, under a tent while it was pouring down rain…I didn’t even stay long enough for coffee and tamales. It’s always nice to be invited to things but sometimes it turns out not quite as expected.

The other day for my English class I brought the movie Juno to watch with them, as an exercise in listening comprehension, of course. I brought bags of popcorn, someone brought soda, and we had a merry time. They thought it was cool that I had the “original” DVD since here originals are almost unheard of since there is such a strong pirating industry. Some of the pirated versions are straight copies of the originals and they are actually pretty good, while other are literally filmed in the movie theaters and are off centered and have babies crying and heads walking across the screen.

In the month of August I had the wonderful visit of Jesse and Nate! We had such a good time it was awesome to show them around this lovely country and share my life here with them. I picked them up at the airport and we spent a few days in Antigua where we climbed the Pacaya Volcano (the one I climbed during training where you can walk out on the lava fields and roast marshmallows), visited a coffee farm and museum, went and saw the Mayan/Catholic saint of Maximon where the bus ride there was so crowded we were literally hanging out of the bus door, enjoyed various typical Guatemalan cuisine, went out dancing, and shopped around in the market. Then we traveled out to my site, enjoying all the forms of transportation that Guatemala has to offer. In El Chol they visited my office, we took a tuk tuk (three wheeled mototaxi) ride to bask at the river, watched the plucking of a turkey and two chickens that were living at my houses (thank goodness I don’t have to wake up to turkey squabbles anymore), watched Jesse suffer as she received chicken heads in TWO meals in one day, went to the school in Los Jobos where the women I live with work and read them some stories and played soccer with them at recess, attended a prayer session at my house for the senor’s birthday, Jesse attended soccer practice with me, they came to my English class with me, watched a community event of traditional dances in the elementary school, and made lunch of peanut sauce stir-fry at my house with coworkers. Then we traveled to Panajachel on Lake Atitilan and went to an awesome cross dressing party at a hostel. On the way back Jesse had her passport stolen on the bus out of her purse, so then we spent our last day at the American Embassy in Guatemala City getting it replaced. That was a strange experience to be at the embassy with all the Guatemalans lined up there trying to gets visas to go to the US and all the American couples getting passports for the Guatemalan children they were adopting. It gave me a funny feeling. But overall the trip was incredible! It was so much fun to get to hang out with them and share everything with them!

I’ve been getting involved with HIV/AIDS education projects. Peace Corps received a grant from USAID to conduct a series of education workshops for teachers so that they can be trained to give it to their students, as HIV/AIDS education is now mandatory in the schools by law, but not very often enforced. I’ve given a few of these workshops now at other volunteers’ sites. The biggest one was in Pachalum, Quiche where almost 120 teachers and youth participated in the event. They are four hour long workshops that are full of participatory and interactive activities complete with a condom practice with plantains. Each community and each group is different, but overall the participants have been very receptive. They ask good questions that sometimes make me chuckle to myself such as when an older woman asked what the purpose of flavored condoms was. Recently I co-taught a workshop with my site mate in the high school in El Chol that went very well. We asked the doctor from the Health Center in town to speak during the workshop, which turned out interestingly. He basically started reinforcing all bad gender stereotypes by essentially celebrating and joking with the guys about how promiscuous they are. When he left this led to a productive conversation about gender roles and stereotypes. The high school kids are a really good and a wonderful group to work with.

I’ve continued going into the high school to give workshops on citizen participation. Most recently we did the cycle of a project and how to do a community diagnostic and project prioritization. I had them break into groups according to the diagnostic we did for El Chol and the projects they prioritized to write a project profile for the hypothetical projects. Hopefully we will have them replicate the process out in the communities.

Now that we’ve been here for one year, the new group of Municipal Development volunteers has arrived. It’s strange that my group now finds itself in the role of the experienced ones who help out with training. The group came to visit me in my site two weeks after arriving in country to get an orientation of the work and life of a volunteer. They had the opportunity to see my office and meet my mayor, counterpart, and coworkers. I shared with them about my work and they visited my house and I showed them some pictures of my experiences here.

I am the new Municipal Development program representative for the Peace Corps Gender and Development Committee. So I helped give a workshop with the trainees at the Peace Corps training center on gender awareness and how it fits into our project. It went well and started lots of good conversations, such as when we did the activity where we brainstorm “As a man/woman in Guatemala/US I can/cannot do….” Machismo and conservative gender roles present such a huge barrier in the work that we do in our communities, it is essentially to be aware and well versed in these issues, as well as prepared with strategies to confront these challenges.

Okay, that’s all for now even though there’s a lot more to update on. Stay posted for the telling of the experience of Independence Day!