Ending April

I can't believe it's almost May! Time really has already been flying here and I've been pretty busy with work. I’ve finally started visiting schools with my partner and the school visits have been going well so far. We are meeting with all of the teachers to tell them about the program and give a brief overview of the “Profile of a Healthy School,” with the eight steps toward fulfilling level one of certification. We also visit every classroom and present ourselves to the students, telling them a little about where we’re from, our families, what we like to do, etc. Working with the schools however will be quite a challenge because we are working with 21 schools in two municipalities and all the schools have different challenges that they face, different needs that we have to address. The smaller municipality has six schools and five of them lack water right now (they only get water in the community once every couple of weeks). One community has worked by itself to find water, so that school is going to get water, and even a handwashing station, hopefully soon. But the four that have no means of finding water for the time being rely on students to bring water and fill buckets and other containers on the two days or so per month when there is water. It will be challenging to try to get kids to wash hands and brush teeth when water is so scarce, but we’re going to do what we can. We started working with these schools first partly because we thought we might have an opportunity to apply for water projects (which is not the case anymore) and because they lack the most out of the schools because water is so crucial. The kids have been great-they’re just really open to new people and are always interested in hanging out with you, sometimes just talking, other times putting puzzles together, playing basketball, etc. Meanwhile, teachers seem more “clique-ish,” and seem less open to us (though some are super nice and seem really interested in working with us). I’m not so naïve that I thought that we would be welcomed with open arms and fanfare at every school, but we are bringing a program that the government of Guatemala has specifically asked for and we’re implementing a program that the government will hopefully mandate country-wide in the near future, so these schools are kind of getting a nice head start. However, in general so far the directors have all seemed on board with the program and most of the teachers also seem willing to work with us.

Guatemalans are extremely generous people. We have been given snacks and meals aplenty though we’ve just visited seven schools so far. At one school they serve lunch to all of the students once a month and they changed the lunch for the day we were visiting and gave us a ton of food (way too much-I don’t know how they expected two non-obese females to eat a plateful of rice, tomato sauce, a chunk of meat, and 6 tamales each). Then another school organized a really nice snack for us, complete with fancily folded napkins and delicious arroz con leche. The kids even buy us snacks and share their snacks with us. Regrettably though, I can usually tell by how dirty their hands are that they don’t yet practice healthy habits and this makes accepting the offered peanuts and chips a little difficult. I usually do my best to pretend to eat it.

One really frustrating thing that has really been getting to me lately is the lack of direct communication. Communication is much more indirect-people often don’t tell you what they are really thinking in order to spare your feelings. This is partially because people have notions of how interactions work out and how people will behave, so they are able to read behavior in other people and therefore don’t have to be as direct with what they’re saying. Instead of having the other person know exactly what they mean in a clear, direct way, they worry about saving face and not insulting anyone. I have learned to use indirect communication myself, but it’s frustrating sometimes to have people not tell you if there’s something wrong or if they don’t like how you’re doing something. People don’t like to say no to you, so they will go out of their way to make something happen or they will say yes and do nothing about it. When people tell me what they think I want to hear, I’m not getting the information that I really need. If you ask for directions, if they don’t know where the place is that you’re going, they’ll tell you some type of directions rather than telling you that they don’t know. Because communication is so central to everyday life and to my job, it adds a whole new context to my dealings with people because I always have to second guess what they’re saying. It’s also common to use a third party, especially in my family. My host sister will see me do something, like eat a banana, and instead of asking me why I’m eating, she’ll tell my host mom that I’m not getting enough food at mealtimes (which is not the case) and I’ll see my portions increase. It’s kind of like she’s “telling” on me to her mom, who is the one who confronts me and makes the changes that she perceives as in my best interest. Small talk is also big here. If you don’t say “Buenos días” or the appropriate phrase to people you know, they’ll think you’re angry with them. Some days when I’m exhausted and cranky for some reason, I still have to act all nice and cordial with people so that they don’t think I hate them. I’m not saying that this style of communication is wrong-I think the way people care about one another’s feelings is much kinder than how blunt Americans can be sometimes-but it certainly is frustrating sometimes.

Yesterday I went to the zoo with one of the schools for a field trip. Xela has a fairly small zoo with some animals, like monkeys, a leopard, lots of birds, and giant rabbits, along with a really giant playground for kids. I was hoping to go off with some of the kids to explore the zoo, but their teachers dismissed them and everyone, from the younger preschool aged kids to the older sixth graders, scattered all over the place. I couldn't tell the kids from my school from the kids from the other school, so I just ended up walking around with Yuna, my partner. Today has just been a day to relax. I cooked some lunch for my family and just read through some articles on hygiene from the UN that I had saved up. I have Monday off next week because some of the teachers are in training sessions, so I’ll catch up on some reading I’ve been putting off. There are so many materials for Healthy Schools that sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in information.

Take care everyone. I hope no one's stranded in Europe. It's crazy to hear about a volcano causing so many problems. Enjoy spring!
Christie

Easter and On

It’s been a pleasant couple of weeks here in site. It’s still weird to be split up from the group and not having my life mimicking that of others, but I’m doing my own thing and I’m happy with it. My first week here was Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is the biggest religious celebration here in Guatemala. The month leading up to the week before Easter is full of processions and prayers, mainly on the weekend. I feel like I’ve mentioned this before, but my favorite part are the alfombras, really elaborate “rugs” made out of flowers, fruit, sawdust, sand, and other items that the parade floats and those carrying them walk over. Hours of work go into these alfombras, but it only takes minutes to destroy them and make them a blurry mess of trampled stems and flowers and mixed up sawdust. The important part is in making them, which is usually a family affair and also shows one’s love for God. My new family got together, aunts, cousins and all, with my host parents and sister to make a rug on Friday morning for Good Friday. We all got up around 5:00 to make it before it got really hot and sunny out. The day before I had gone with my host mom and aunt to the market in Xela to buy some palm fronds, flowers and coroza (not sure how it’s spelled) to make the rug with and it took us a while to find what we wanted because there wasn’t a whole lot left. We used the palm fronds to make the base of the alfombra, and we made a flower basket out of sawdust and coroza and put flowers in it. It was really pretty. I walked around to see the other rugs in the area and there weren’t a whole lot. Apparently over the past couple of years people just haven’t cared enough to make alfombras for the procession of Jesus and Mary. However, there were some really elaborate ones by the church that the youth in the community had put together, including a really beautiful one of Jesus carrying the cross made out of sawdust. The procession set out from the church at noon or so and my family waited for it by our alfombra. This procession was much more elaborate than the previous ones I had seen in Pastores and Antigua. There were actors portraying Jesus, the guards, the thieves, the women in the crowd. When the procession got to the corner where we were waiting, they stopped for the actors to portray a woman offering Jesus water and the guards abusing him. Once it passed, we joined the procession and walked up to the Calvario, stopping at little shrines along the way to recite prayers, thus making the procession move fairly slowly. Once we got to the Calvario, the same actors then reenacted the crucifixion, even putting the thieves and Jesus on crosses. It was hard to see because tons of people had shown up and everyone had umbrellas opened because it was really sunny out, but I got the gist of what was going on. Later on we followed the Jesus statue to the house where it will be for the next nine days until it returns to the church. The family that is hosting the statue had a large lunch for us. Good Friday was a lot more interesting here than it ever was in the U.S. That night there was another mini procession of a float where Jesus was in a coffin to symbolize his death that would on Sunday become a float with a risen Jesus on it to represent his resurrection. There was also a Maximón effigy that is a pretty interesting tradition around here. Maximón (or Saint Simón) is a pagan saint that smokes and drinks. There was an effigy of him sitting on the sidewalk on Friday in a hat and clothes with a cigar in his mouth and signs around his neck. He represented Judas Iscariot and later he was burned, but I couldn’t find where he was being burned so I missed it. Holy Week also meant eating lots of sweet bread, hearing lots of evangelical churches’ services late in the night and lots of people just hanging out because there was no school throughout the week and most people didn’t have to work later in the week. There was no mention of an Easter bunny or Easter candy. I miss the candy part but not the bunny.

Other than the craziness that was Holy Week, it’s been pretty tranquilo here. I love the weather in this area-it’s nice and cool in the evenings and in the morning and it gets pleasantly warm during the day. It has also started raining nearly every afternoon, a sign of what’s to come in the rainy season. I’m just looking forward to having less dust everywhere. I’ve gotten into Xela a few more times. On Monday I went in with my partner, Yuna, to see the NCAA final game with some other volunteers. Then on Wednesday I went again in the morning to get some food from Hiper Paiz (which is the Guatemalan equivalent of Wal-Mart-I even think it’s owned by Wal-Mart). On Friday morning Yuna and I had our first meeting with the directors of the schools we’re working with the talk about the program and what we’re hoping to accomplish and to set up a schedule for visiting the schools in the next several weeks. It was a successful meeting and everyone seemed ready to accept us as a part of the schools over the next two years. They were participating and seemed like a happy, fun group of people and we have 21 school visits scheduled through the end of next month, so we’re ready to get started working. To celebrate Yuna and I went into Xela to get a nice lunch from the Indian restaurant (SO good-I can’t believe I have quality Indian food twenty minutes away), to explore the bookshop (tons of used books in English and in Spanish), to find the Mennonite bakery (again, SO good and something I never would have expected to find close to me-I got some cupcakes for my family and a chocolated-glazed, cream filled doughnut, which I never expected to find in Guatemala), and to explore La Democracia (a large market, much like the streets of Kampala, where you can find stores or stalls selling pretty much anything you need, from animal feed to socks, underwear to food). I really like Xela-it’s a big city, but it’s more tranquilo and safe than Guatemala City but offers pretty much the same mix of things. There is a nice theater that has productions on the weekends, several clubs that have live music, places to dance (and to learn), lots of restaurants and bars, two malls, a Mennonite bakery and a place to buy good cheese, and even a zoo. It will be fun to explore more over the next several months when I can and I’m finally starting to find my way around, at least from the central park to the bus terminal and mall. Though living close to a city is what I didn’t want from my PC experience, and I know I’m going to spend more of my money on food and other things because of it, it will be nice to have it close if I need to get away and I’ll learn how to budget myself.

I’ve also been spending lots of time with my family and just hanging out around town. The kids always want to do something, whether it’s drawing, playing cards, or playing computer games. Then there’s the t.v., which we watch together sometimes, though I often see what’s on at night before going to bed. Instead of CNN in English, I just have Fox News, which I still refuse to watch, though I might break down soon because watching CNN in Spanish gets frustrating sometimes. Seeing Glenn Beck yelling about something just made me angry-I’ll just need to avoid it around 3 or so when he’s on. Yesterday I went from watching Fuego en la Sangre, the really horrible telenovela that is finally ending, to watching Jeopardy (so happy to find it on here), to watching Borat (which made me realize just how bad globalization can be sometimes). I also cooked for my family the other day, making tuna fish casserole (my host sister had commented about how she loved tuna), which was very well received. If I can find eggplant I’ll try making that again. I’m excited to be on my own and cooking everyday, though I’m sure I’ll have less energy once I start visiting schools next week.

That’s pretty much all I have. Once I start school visits, I’ll probably have more to write about. Until then, I’m just relaxing and getting everything organized and ready for working with the schools.