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!