End of training, beginning of service

I am now officially a volunteer. Time flew by after site visit. Actually, it was only five days or so, which really isn’t that long a period of time. My site visit went really well. The volunteer my partner and I are replacing is great and she welcomed us into her home, which will one day become either my home or my partner’s home. We walked around town a bit and got to know some of the families she was friends with. We also visited the host families with whom we are living now that we’ve moved into our sites. The mornings were all made up of visits to schools. We are working with 20-21 schools in two different municipalities, many of which are rural schools. We visited around 18 of those schools in the three days we had to do so. It was a bit overwhelming, but none of the directors ran us off of school grounds, and some were really enthusiastic to start working with us. We already have a meeting scheduled through our counterpart, the supervisor for all of the schools (primary, secondary, etc.) in the two municipalities, to meet all of the directors, after which our work will begin in earnest. My site seems like a really nice community full of really nice, welcoming people.

The end of training was interesting. On Monday we were supposed to have a session at the center in Santa Lucía, but there was a transportation strike and all of the roads surrounding Guatemala City and Santa Lucía were blocked, so people couldn’t get to the center. Basically it was like having a snow day. I finished reading the seventh Harry Potter and started reading a new book (“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Fadiman-a really interesting book about the interstices between medicine and culture, something that has really interested me for a while) and played a little bit of soccer with some Pastores and Las Carretas friends. That evening I cooked eggplant and pasta for my family. I made tons of pasta because I couldn’t pictures how much four bags would turn out to be (there was a deal-buy three get the fourth free-so I bought four), and I ended up making over twice as much as we needed. I also “made” sauce, using tomato paste in a bag and mixing it with a little bit of water and adding some fresh veggies-tomatoes and some really delicious, juicy yellow and orange bell peppers-and some garlic. The meal went over pretty well and everyone was stuffed after eating (I was worried I wouldn’t have enough food). Then Tuesday was a long day at the training center, followed by a shorter day on Wednesday. Wed. was our last day at the school and we were all pleasantly surprised to find that the teachers had indeed (for the most part) made Rincones de Salud (Healthy Corners). My teacher went all out making an entire back wall devoted to health, winning her first prize. She had a little game to check the status of the kids hygiene and had a little spot for their toilet paper, as well as little cups for their tooth brushes and paste. Another teacher had plastic bottles to hold everything, taking our advice to use recycled materials. It was impressive. I’m going to miss the first graders. Later on we went to the hot springs in San Lorenzo as a treat from the mayor to thank us for our work in the schools, then on with Spanish presentations in Santa Lucía.

Thursday was swear-in, the day I officially became a Peace Corps volunteer. The ceremony is usually held at the ambassador’s house, but he was in El Salvador for a mass for Archbishop Romero so we had the ceremony at a nice hotel in Antigua. The sub-ambassador for something (I don’t remember his title) was there to give us the oath (which is pretty much the same one that Biden took when he was sworn in as vice president) and we got little diplomas. There was a nice reception afterward and we took lots of photos. Then we were finally free from the training rules that made us feel like we were back in middle school. I spent the rest of the day and the night in Antigua, eating lunch at a nice restaurant, drinking some good wine and eating hor d’oevures at a nice bar/café. That night a bar had a reggae concert for us and I went and found a dance club with salsa with a friend. I even had some time in there to watch half of Forrest Gump. It was a great night. Then the next morning I went with a group of twelve or so to the beach at Sipacate, about two hours south-west of Antigua. It’s amazing how drastically the scenery changes into tropical the further south you go. There were palm trees, coconut trees, lots of green. It was really beautiful. The beach itself is a black sand beach, so it’s really hard to actually walk on the dry sand. The water was a really nice temperature, so that was nice, but the sand got everywhere. I’m still finding sand in my hair and under my nails. Overall, it was a really nice way to spend the afternoon.

Saturday was a big day. I got up early and headed out, lugging a giant red bag, a heavy backpack, and a small tote. I’m pretty used to riding on camionetas now and I actually enjoy it, especially on long trips when I can just sit and look out the windows because Guatemala’s scenery is so beautiful. But lugging 70+ pounds of extra weight makes it much more challenging. I caught a bus that was heading to Panajachel (on Lake Atitlán) and took it to Cuatro Caminos. Now this was nice because I bypassed Chimal for the most part, which is kind of the armpit of Guatemala and lots of people get robbed there. So I was pretty happy with myself for just randomly finding the one bus a day that goes direct from Antigua to Pana. However, things started going downhill once I transferred to another bus. I wanted to keep my transfers to a minimum just so I wouldn’t have to keep getting my huge red bag down from the top of the bus and then finding someone strong enough to hoist it on top of the next bus. I found a bus that says Xela and the ayudante told me that it went directly to Xela (I made sure to ask because some just take you to Cuatro Caminos, where you have to transfer again), so I got on and wedged myself in the back between two women with small childrens. One girl feel asleep on my shoulder, which was a little sunburned from the beach, so the two hour trip wasn’t the most pleasant, but I was happy envisioning myself getting the Xela, finding a micro to my site and then finally getting to the family with whom I will be living. It turned out, however, that the ayudante lied to me and dropped me off in Cuatro Caminos and I had to find another bus to the city. So I found a bus and they told me it was going to Xela. I was a little wary after the last problem, but I figured that most buses would probably go to Xela. Plus, the guys had run across a busy street to come and recruit me to their bus, taking off with my backpack when I told them I was going to Xela, so I really didn’t have another option. I even asked if we were going to the terminal, and the guy said we were, so I was sure things would be ok. However, this bus was not going to the terminal and I got off in the middle of Xela in a part I had never been to before. There were micros there and I asked them and none were going to my site, but one said they were going to the terminal, so I got on that one, once again lugging my giant red bag and my heavy backpack. However, this micro was not going to the terminal, so again I got off, though this time I was in a more familiar part. A really nice ayudante from a micro helped me find my way, even stopping the van he was in to tell me exactly which way to go to get the right micro. I had to lug the giant bag on my back, the backpack on my front, and the tote on my shoulder for four blocks or so. I’m sure I was a site to see. Eventually I found a micro that told me it was going to my site and indeed it was and I finally got to the house I will be living in for the next three months. One thing I learned from this escapade is that things are not generally as they are said to be and never take a Guatemalan ayudante for his word. Amazingly I kept my cool throughout and didn’t even yell at any of the guys for lying to me.

The family I am living with now is fantastic. It consists of a mom, a dad, and three kids. The oldest is a daughter, Dora, who is 16, then there is a 10-year-old girl, Jaime, and a 6-year-old boy, Gabriel. There was also a 7-year-old cousin hanging out when I got there and I spent most of the beginning of my time here with him, hanging out in my room and watching t.v. Yes, I have a t.v. in my room (something I never had growing up) and I have around 80 channels, much more than the ten or so my parents have at home. So far in the short time I’ve been here I have seen Thomas the Tank Engine, Baby’s Day Out, Sid the Science Kid, old school Blue’s Clues with Steve (I’ve been watching a lot of stuff with my younger host siblings) and lots of other random movies in Spanish, a news program from Los Angeles in English and some old school music videos on VH1. It’s interesting the mixture of random things there are on t.v. I am looking forward to having CNN in Spanish and in English. I haven’t really kept up with any news lately and I really miss knowing what’s going on in the world.

The family has been super welcoming in the one day I’ve been here. The kids often drop by my room to hang out and we drew some pictures yesterday. The younger boy and his cousin both told me they want me to stay forever. So at least I’m off to a good start here in my site. I have all next week off because there is no school due to Semana Santa. It will be interesting to see how Easter is celebrated here because it’s the biggest religious holiday in Guatemala. Plus I’m looking forward to spending more time with my new host family.

Happy Easter and hope that spring is finally coming. Take care and I'll update again when I get a chance.

Two Years in Xela

I finally got my site assignment and I'm going to be living in the department of Quetzaltenango in a fairly sized city in the Western highlands. (I know I had the name of a city up earlier, but Peace Corps rules prevent me from actually posting the name of where I'll be so I am editing it out-Sorry!) It’s about 200 kilometers from the capital, which is probably between 4 and 6 hours by camioneta, depending on how many stops, how fast it’s going, etc. It’s pretty close to the city of Quetzaltenango (Xela), which is the second city of Guatemala, so it will be nice to know that all of those resources are close by. About 5,000 people live in my town itself, while another 15,000 live in the many aldeas and surrounding area. More than 90% of the people are of indigenous background and they speak Quiche quite a bit there, so I will probably get to learn a Mayan language. I’m really excited to start my work there and to begin to live in and work with the community. We meet counterparts in Xela on Monday, then on Tuesday afternoon we will be visiting our sites for the rest of the week. I will move there probably around the 27th, after we all swear-in and just in time for Holy Week.

The weather here has been pretty close to perfect lately. It really has been like spring every day, reinforcing Guatemala’s nickname as the “Land of Eternal Spring.” Sometimes when I wake up it’s a little chilly, but it usually warms up quite nicely as soon as the sun comes out. The heat here isn’t too bad because it’s not too humid (for the moment-this might change once it starts raining in April/May). There is usually a really nice, gentle breeze blowing through to cool things off. Then at night, it is perfect sleeping weather-cool but not cold. It has rained a few times, a sign of what’s to come, but otherwise it’s sunny every day.

Things have been going well. I visited some organizations with my free time these past several weeks. We’ve went back to the school last week after a long break due to training activities and the strike that’s been going on. The teachers who work at the schools run by the Ministry of Education are striking because they haven’t been paid in a while, and though my school is run by the muni, two or three teachers are paid by the Ministry so they were all striking in solidarity with one another. Lucky kids had a whole week off-hopefully they’ll be able to go back this week and pick up where they left off. This week we had two training sessions with teachers, one about the Healthy Schools program and one about hygiene. They were good sports about sitting in uncomfortable desks for an hour watching the gringos talk in imperfect Spanish. They even participated in our activities, planning sample health lessons and singing some of the songs we have for the kids. I also taught a mini lesson on clean water because the school now has an EcoFiltro for the kids to drink water from. The kids get it and I’ve seen them using the filtered water to drink, though some drink right from the tap causing a spread of germs. You win some you lose some I guess. We also went on home visits to four of the kids’ families on Friday because there wasn’t any school that day due to a free medical clinic held for the community at the school. It is definitely important to know where the kids are coming from and what many of them are facing at home. Healthy Schools is a great program because it really does work to make kids healthier in simple ways, but when kids come from homes where there isn’t a lot of water or where there is only a mother providing for six kids without a father figure, things get tough. I’m just going to try to stay as positive as possible and focus on solutions rather than getting stuck on the obstacles and problems many kids in Guatemala face.

The celebration leading up to Holy Week and Easter has started. There are prayer/procession events every Friday night. I saw the statue of Jesus and the small procession pass in front of our house on Friday and it was really simple and beautiful. There were a bunch of people following the statue holding candles and singing hymns. Then there was a larger procession in Antigua this past Sunday and some people in my family were involved in carrying the figures (I think), but I didn’t go because I was invited to go to my friend’s house for lunch and then play soccer with all the kids in the area (which was a lot of fun). Anyway, I’ve been going to church most Sundays with my family and it’s been interesting to see how Catholicism is here in Guatemala. We usually go to mass at the town’s church, which is pretty small. Some Sundays there aren’t a lot of people in church, but this past Sunday the priest was blessing those who were sick in the congregation, so more people showed up for that. The church is pretty simple-there are a bunch of pews on two sides of a central aisle leading up to the front of the church, which has a statue of the Virgin Mary and another of a beheaded man (John the Baptist?), as well as the altar and then the table where the priest stands throughout the service and the lecterns on both sides where the priest stands to deliver the sermon or the members of the congregation stand to read from the Bible, recite prayers or sing. Then there’s a saint on one side. There are also particularly bloody statues of Jesus on both sides of the center of the church which I sat right beside this past week. Then one week I went to San Francisco, a large church in Antigua. It is a bit more ornate and there are a lot more people, but I was still the only gringo sitting through the service (though there were a bunch more wandering around because the church is a bit touristy for its ruins and the tomb of a saint). According to my guidebook, the church dates back to 1579, but I’m not sure how much of the original building made it this far, especially because of the large earthquake that hit in 1976. Anyway, it was interesting to see the differences between this church and the one in Pastores-the priest splashed holy water on everyone who made their way to the front, there were people selling candies and food right outside as well as people selling religious artifacts in a bookstore on the side of the church, there were random people wandering around during the service. Apparently my host mom likes to mix up religious experiences, so we’ll see if I get to go to any other churches in Antigua.

It’s a little awkward for me in church because I know I stand out. I don’t really participate in the service because I don’t really feel like I should, like it would be sacrilegious or something since I’m not Catholic. I stand when everyone stands, sit when everyone sits, and even kneel at some point during the service, but I don’t sing (I don’t know the words), I don’t receive communion, I don’t chant the prayers (again, I don’t know the words), I don’t even really pay attention to what the priest says in his prayer because after five minutes or so, my mind starts to wander (it’s a little difficult to process everything he’s saying when he’s talking fast, and one of the priests talks pretty fast). So I don’t really get much out of it, but I go because my family seems to like that I go and it’s sharing a part of their daily life with them (since I’m left out of a lot of other things). Religion is pretty important here, whether the family is evangelical or Catholic. Though the fiestas I have seen thus far haven’t seemed really religious, they have been based off of something religious. Moreover, the church is a central meeting place and some guy shares community information at the end of the service. Also, the bells ring to inform the town if someone has died.

So things continue to go well here. I’m not sick of tortillas or beans yet, so that’s good. One of my bags is packed and ready to move out to Xela and I face the daunting task of trying to figure out what I will need here during my last week and what I can leave in my site when I visit next week.The weather is getting hotter so I'm looking forward to spending some time in the cooler climate of the Western highlands. I'll let everyone know what my new home is like after I get home from the site visit. Take care!