A Month-Long Christmas and Other Happenings

There are three big topics to cover in this blog post. Let's start with the one I am sure is on everyone's minds: Christmas!

I am for sure in the Christmas spirit. This is my first Christmas not with my family so I may have gone a little overboard with my cookie baking, but at least I've been able to exercise some self control as far as eating the cookies. I went up the hill to deliver several dozen cookies (cut-outs and almond bars) to my old neighbors and on my way to the second house I heard Vince Guaraldi's version of Greensleeves from A Charlie Brown Christmas being blasted from one house. That put a smile on my face.

Christmas celebrations so far have been interesting. The decorations in the malls and stores have been up for months now. There have even been Guatemalan Santas sitting in giant red chairs in the two malls near me. Christmas music is blasted and Christmas movies are left on as everyone goes about their normal, everyday business. For the past month I've also been enjoying my own mix of favorite Christmas music, including some Vince Guaraldi, Chipmunks and Sufjan Stevens.

Right before Advent season started, there was a week of little (and big) diablos running around chasing people and whacking people with sticks. On the night of the 7th, many families piled up some trash in front of their homes, placed a homemade devil on top of it, and lit it all on fire. This is the tradition of "quemando el diablo" (burning the devil) that happens every year. Burning the devil and trash signifies getting rid of all of the bad of the year before so as to have a fresh start on the next year.

A month ago the Advent season started and my family procured an Advent wreath, something they've never had before. I'm not sure where it came from or whether it is common around here (I don't think it is), but we've been reading devotions together every Sunday night before dinner for the past four weeks. Tomorrow will be the last one as we light the white candle in the center of the wreath. A few weeks ago, my host dad drunkenly put up the Christmas tree and arranged the nativity scene around the tree and my host sister's 'shrine-like area (not really sure what else to call it) in the dining room/former kitchen. There are actually several different nativity scenes involved. Baby Jesus won't be laid out with the scenes until Christmas-right now Mary and Joseph are just standing there waiting. Another Christmas tradition involving Mary and Joseph is the posada, during which a parade of people, some of them holding large statues of Mary and Joseph, march around town bringing the couple to one house or another, asking for a room in the inn (I think-it's what makes sense to me). And my host brother and sister took part in a Christmas pageant, which was really cute. My host sister Jeimy was a shepherd and one of the Magi. Gabriel was a shepherd and a prophet.

Then there are special foods. Marshmallows are a popular buy, as are ready made shortbread-like cookies. This morning we prepared the paches and this evening we will eat them with a fruit punch drink called ponche, which is pretty good. I've inserted my own traditions into life here and have been baking away. So far, I have made gingerbread men, chocolate peppermint cookies, chocolate peppermint biscotti, sugar cookie cut-outs (I found Christmas cookie cutters in a store in the city), and almond bars. Some of them I made with my host family and others I made with a volunteer friend and her host family. Cookies really aren't that hard to make and I am hoping that my showing them how to make them may start something new. The kids are looking forward to helping make some chocolate chip cookies to leave out for Santa tonight (yup, they believe in the whole Santa thing, which has been interesting for me to experience again after so many years of not worrying about Santa and his elves).

As for today and tomorrow, tonight at midnight (and a little before) everyone will go out onto the streets to burn some firecrackers and some will set off fireworks. Tomorrow, much of the same with visits to family members to bring them paches (my host mom is making 75-80 of them) and wish them a merry Christmas. And my town has a convite so many will head to the center to watch a group dance around in masks for hours.

On to topic number two, violence. I fortunately haven't been a victim of any violent crimes. But the problem is that violence is on the rise here in Guatemala as well as in the neighboring countries of Honduras and El Salvador. After fifty years of working here in Guatemala, the program's future is up in the air. In Honduras, they are even going as far as pulling all of the volunteers out for a 30-day administrative leave to see what they can make of the situation. What we do know is that the Peace Corps has suspended future training groups from coming. My partner and I have been working on training materials for the past couple of weeks-we were super excited to help train the volunteers who were to replace us and our fellow group members. But this will no longer happen. On my end of things, what really sucks is that my schools will no longer have a volunteer to work with to motivate them to keep going with Healthy Schools. The recycling program we also have in the works will also likely somewhat die out without us as the connection between the NGOs helping with it and the schools. While we've been focusing on keeping things sustainable, we are still in the beginning stages of our program in our schools, so there's no telling what will stick and what won't. This whole situation also really sucks for anyone who had been planning on coming with the training group to Guatemala in less than two weeks, people who had already put their lives on hold to be ready for two years of service. If any of you are reading this, I am so very sorry you will not get to know this incredible country and call it home for two years. Please know that Peace Corps is simply acting to keep you as safe as possible.

And last topic: law school. I finished up all of my applications in November and have already heard back from four schools. The big news for me is that my top choice, Berkeley, admitted me so I may very well be moving to California in August. University of Michigan, which was also one of my top three choices, also admitted me. (The other two I heard back from are George Washington University and Georgetown, both also possibilities.) I will need to visit some schools when I get home to figure out where exactly I want to spend the next three-four years. Wherever it will be, I am excited to start the next phase of my life, though it will be strange settling down again after two years in this completely different world.

And that's pretty much all for now. There have also been some convites with people dancing around in huge, elaborate costumes and with men dressing as women, as well as some conversations in English with a girl studying to be a bilingual secretary. And once January hits (2012 already?!?), school will start back up and we will have the giant task of figuring out how to train schools in maintaining the program and progressing with it without a volunteer present..

I hope that everyone has a happy and healthy Christmas! God's blessings during this season!

Merry Christmas Eve Day!

It's been a while. I know. I guess I got caught up in vacation time and despite not having anything super concrete to do, I found myself just as busy as ever with new activities.

I promise to write a nice long blog post on recent developments here in Guatemala and in my own life. Lots of exciting things, both good and bad, have been going on. Hopefully this will keep you reading my blog despite a long time since my last post.

The reason I don't have time this morning to sit down and write for a while is because I can hear some movement through the house. This means that my host mom is up and making paches. Paches are giant tamales that Guatemalans eat on Christmas Eve (and other special events) and it happens to be my favorite food here in Guatemala. I am going to go down and help her out. But here is an article I found on NPR about this food I have come to love: Pride and Prejudice: For Latinos tamales offer up a delicious serving of both. I personally love all versions of tamales (minus the sweet corn ones I've had once) that I eat pretty regularly here. My favorites would be paches and tamales con chipilin (a type of greens), or even chuchos, which are tamales with a piece of beef in sauce in the middle. Every tamale is like unwrapping a gift, which may be a big reason of why I love them.

Anyway, just wanted to share a little bit of what I will be doing for Christmas-helping make and then eating these delicious tamales. I'll be back later with more updates and maybe some photos.

Dando gracias

Okay. It's Thanksgiving. I am not really doing much to celebrate it here. I did explain, somewhat inarticulately, to my host family what this holiday is all about. My host mom thought this was our Christmas and seemed surprised when I told her we celebrate that as well. I said something about pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing food and being thankful for not dying.They looked at me like I was kind of crazy, but it made sense to me.

So, I have a lot to be thankful for, something I've been pondering with Thanksgiving looming (like everyone else, I'm sure). I'll keep a running list up here throughout the day.

1. I am thankful for my family. My mom and dad and sisters have always supported me and my crazy treks around the world. I know my mom worries about me constantly and I feel bad for causing her grief, but she knows this is what I love so she's okay with it. And my dad worries as well but not quite as much as mom. And I don't like that they worry, but it shows that they care.
I am also fortunate enough to have a great family here in Guatemala. They have helped me a lot over the past few days in moving all of my stuff from my house up the mountain to their house down in the center of town. My host mom braved the spiders and dust and helped me tidy things up and asked her cousin to help us bring the bigger things down the hill in his pickup truck. This whole ordeal would have been a lot worse if it weren't for them.

2. I am thankful for my friends. My friends have made life more entertaining and more bearable and are always there for me. I haven't had to unload too much drama on them because my life is fairly drama-free, but I know they would be there. I am also fortunate to count on friends who are so engaged in the world and in helping people and who inspire me to be the same.

3. I am thankful for my health. I have always been healthy and this has made my life immensely better, especially travelling in parts of the world where having a weak stomach leads to weeks of intestinal issues. Especially seeing what my host family has gone through this year with diabetes, hydrocephalus and heart problems, I feel very blessed to count myself in good health.

4. I am thankful for my faith. This has also helped me immensely here in Guatemala. I honestly feel as if God is looking out for me and I can tell that he has been answering my prayers. Surrounded by so much poverty and so many difficulties in life while finding that people remain faithful, this has been inspiring to me. Some people might think this is a little crazy, but my faith is stronger than ever. This is due in part to some of the volunteers I have been fortunate to live near and the church here in my neck of the woods that is fantastic, for which I am also thankful.

5. I am thankful to be doing something I love. I'm not getting paid, so it's all the better that I love my job. How many people can say they would gladly work in a super frustrating and thankless job for two years without getting paid? It works so well for me because I love what I do. I love working with the kids and teachers, visiting schools, talking about health issues, giving workshops, helping out with projects, coordinating with NGOs, helping other volunteers with camps or youth group activities, sharing cultural activities, etc. I joined Peace Corps not really knowing what I was getting into, dreading possibly teaching English or working with teens rather than kids, and when I found myself working here in Guatemala with Healthy Schools, I can truly say everything exceeded my expectations.

6. I am thankful for having internet now. My first year and a half in country without internet went well enough, but having it now has made a huge difference in staying connected and getting work done (as well as applying for grad schools). All of the files we are sent from Peace Corps are accessible through internet or from a disc. My teachers and directors sometimes communicate with me through e-mail. I've been limiting my use, but it's there when I need it.

7. I am also thankful for my computer. I spent three long months last year without a computer and it was pretty hard. A lot of Peace Corps work gets done on a computer. All of the files we are sent from Peace Corps are accessible through internet or from a disc. My teachers and directors sometimes communicate with me through e-mail. Again, I get a lot more work done with my computer, typing up notes, looking up activities and lessons, writing letters and other documents, as well as storing my photos so that they don't disappear if my camera disappears. Not to mention movies and music. Since my MP3 player went missing with my friendly neighborhood thief, this is my only access to my favorite tunes, which will become increasingly important as Christmas draws nearer and I need more and more of my favorite Christmas songs.

8. I am thankful for books. These have always been around to keep me sane, especially when my computer crapped out and when I didn't have the internet to keep me occupied. I spend more time reading books than I do on my computer, so these should probably rank above computer and internet, but they aren't necessarily crucial to my work. I am also sharing my love of reading with my host sister Jeimy. We're reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire together in Spanish. So I'm thankful to share this wonderful thing with her (and hopefully inspire her to keep reading when I'm gone).

9. I'm thankful for having 25 years here on earth. I've been blessed with lots of opportunities to really get out there and get to know other people and places and learn from many diverse experiences during my (almost) 25 years of life. With some of the crazy things I've been through, sometimes I'm surprised I've made it this far, but I'm looking forward to whatever the next 25 years (or however many) bring.

10. I am thankful for the 'luxuries' of running water, electricity and indoor plumbing. I remember back when I applied to Peace Corps and requested Africa thinking that I might very well be living in a very rural place with limited or no electricity, no running water, and a hole in the ground. While in Uganda, I experienced this and it was a little tougher (lugging water is hard work!), but I was fine with it after the initial shock wore off (pretty quickly). But having all of these make life so much easier and more pleasant. Sometimes I miss my hole in the ground and having running water of course leads to lots of waste, but I am thankful for having access to these things. And now I have a t.v. in my room! And access to a washing machine (though I will miss washing my clothes by hand sometimes)! Despite a lack of privacy and control over my life, moving back in with my host family does have some advantages.

11. I am thankful for pumpkin pie. This is the one Thanksgiving food I will be eating today courtesy of the Mennonite bakery in the city. I am also thankful that my friend Amber and I snagged the last two. My host family will hopefully enjoy at least this one tradition from Thanksgiving. I am also thankful for all other types of food that I enjoy, some of which Guatemala provides in abundance (fresh fruit and veggies, caldo de res, fried chicken, Tortrix, tortillas, and tamalitos, among lots of others).

12. Home Alone in Spanish. Enough said. (Yay cable!)

Life in the Centro

I'm almost all moved in with the host family. Just a few more bags and boxes to get from my house. My host mom, brother, sister and cousin all came up with me to my house to clean up stuff and pack stuff away. I thought they were just coming up to help me carry stuff down but my host mom went to work and started putting stuff in bags and cleaning up stuff. The two volunteers who lived in the house before me left a lot of crap for me to sort through. I'm a little embarrassed for how messy my family probably thinks I am after seeing the disaster that was my house. I have been saving plastic bags to stuff into bottles to make eco-ladrillos (eco-bricks) with to contribute to someone making a bottle project. I have also been saving all of my recyclables, so lots of glass and plastic bottles, paper and cardboard. From the way my house looks, I kind of look like a crazy pack rat. But all is a bit more orderly now. I found some stuff that got a little damp during the rainy season and was growing some pretty gross-looking mold, so it's nice to not be breathing that in anymore. And now I'll just have to get settled in a much smaller area than I am used to.

 And for my first night back here living in the center of town, I am greeted by the lovely, dulcet tones of children screaming "Que muera el diablo!" (something along the lines of "Die devil!"). I got some of the story from Jeimy, my host sister, which is that this week some teens dressed up all in red are passing through parts of the center of town following the cries of "Que muera el diablo" and hitting the people screaming this with sticks. My host siblings and cousin were of course half-terrified and half-excited for the eventual arrival of the diablos at our house and kept screaming from behind the bars in front of the store. Yes, I suppose they are cowards, hiding where the devils cannot get to them, but I wasn't about to go on the street to be beat with sticks either. Interesting tradition. Other than the screaming, there are a lot more noises here that I was once used to but I have been spoiled with country life where dogs bark and roosters crow, but cars and trucks only pass de vez en cuando. Here there is lots of honking and motors running, as well as the sound of motorcycles speeding by and people talking loudly on the street. It will probably take some getting used to, but hopefully I'll be able to start sleeping again.

On apples and (kind of) breaking and entering

A week ago, I had the most delicious apple ever. Really, it was amazing. Best apple I've ever eaten. And then today I ate an apple and it was awful. Probably not the worst thing I've ever eaten, but pretty bad. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't finish it, but I only finished eating it to get my daily dose of fruit. This is kind of how my experience in Guatemala has been-some days it's increcible, amazing, happy, best days ever. And some days it is awful-I'm sad, disappointed, depressed, sick, tired, etc. One of those bad days happened on Monday. Let me tell you about it.

Monday started out fine. I got up, I was feeling good, the sun was out. I didn't have much to do, just a visit to the superintenden and a local NGO we work with. Things have slowed down considerably since the school year ended. I've helped out with some camps here and there and we are coordinating with an NGO in the city to think up how to start a recycling program, but things aren't quite as busy. So I was taking my time on Monday. I had some laundry to do, some lunch to make, some dishes to wash. Finally, once 2:45 rolled around, I I decided to head down and work a little. I went through the normal routine of closing doors and locking up. But I forgot my sweater in my room right as I was about to walk out of my house. So I went back into my house, puttered around my room a little. Once I was in the hallway again right outside my room, I heard someone come in my back door. I thought that it was the owner of my house, who has never entered before without knocking, but I of course wasn't thinking this at the time. I heard this mystery person walk to the door between my kitchen/living area and the hallway and put a key in the lock. Since I still thought this was the owner, I figured I would open the door, greet him and then head out (it would be awkward to just be standing in the hallway when he came in and not open the door for him). So I open the door and freeze. I don't exactly know what I saw because things moved so quickly and I froze. What I remember seeing is a kid running out the back door, which was open. He was probably about 4 foot 8, maybe between 12 and 14 years old, straight back hair (I of course didn't think of all these crazy details until everyone started asking me about them). I didn't get a super good look because my automatic reaction was to freeze and kind of deny to myself that this was happening. A few moments after opening the door and the kid running out I went to my back door and looked to see if I could see anyone, but the kid was long gone. 

This was kind of an unexpected but also expected encounter. I mean, I knew something was wrong. About three weeks ago I had noticed some money missing. The doors were all locked, nothing else was misplaced, just the money was gone. So I just thought I was going crazy and misplacing stuff. I even entertained the thought that I was sleepwalking. I mean, I had been losing some sleep while applying to grad school, so this didn't seem too far-fetched. But then about five days later, I noticed that one of my USBs was missing and I knew that I had it after the money was gone because used it. Once again, I thought I was crazy. I didn't think much of it because the doors had all been locked, my computer and Kindle were still around. And then I found out exactly what was happening, something that didn't even enter my thoughts beforehand. Someone had the keys to my house, both the outside and inside doors. It wasn't breaking and entering, not really. This kid would sneak in, unlock the doors, take stuff from my room (which is where all of the stolen things were before he took them), lock up after himself, and slip out. I normally have my money hidden throughout my house, but on this one occasion, I had been saving up money to give to my host family so it was sitting on my dresser so I wouldn't forget it. I never thought that someone would break into my house because the two previous volunteers who lived in this house never had a problem and I hadn't either up until this point. This house has five good years behind it with no problems. Now, no one else from Peace Corps will be able to live here because of this incident. I'm just glad he didn't dig a little deeper into my things to find my passport because that would have caused even more headaches. 

The next few days went by, lots of questions asked, skeptical looks all around. I thought it might be my neighbor's son, but he was acting nonchalant and actually opted to stay in the room and talk with me and his mom rather than hide in front of the tv, and I had seen him right after it happened and he didn't act worried or sketchy in any way. A few people from Peace Corps came to help me deal with talking with the neighbors. The kid left behind one of the keys he was using and we went to the owner to see if he was missing any keys (he is the only other person, supposedly, with keys to my house), and he was missing the one key we found. That seems a little suspicious. I had trusted everyone so much and I found myself not really knowing what to think. I also realized that the kid must have been watching me to know when to come into my house. Before leaving, I close the door between the kitchen and my hallway and lock it and then, shortly afterward, I head out. The day I caught the kid, I had waited around maybe ten-fifteen minutes more to take care of some stuff, get a sweater, etc. This is of course speculation because I can't question this kid, but it seems logical because I hadn't caught him beforehand. And of course no one say anything.

So now I'm moving out. My host family says they are happy to have me, and I have been spending more and more time with them lately, so it will be fine. It's just quite a pain to figure out what to do with furniture, trash left over from two generations of volunteers, my recyclables. Then there's the fact that I'm moving into my host sister's room. Since she died in September, the room has been empty. My host mom claims that they were trying to get my host grandmother to move in there (she didn't want to) so it's no problem. It will be a little weird living in her room and kind of becoming another daughter again (my host dad really does introduce me as his hija to people sometimes), especially when Christmas comes up and it's my family's first Christmas without her. But I will do what I can to lighten the mood and keep the kids happy. I already bought some stuffed animals for the kids to hang on the doorknobs. It will be difficult moving from my own pretty nice house to having a small room and not cooking my own meals. But I will enjoy having company, having access to a washing machine, not worrying about creepy security situations. I've been thinking of pro-con lists since to make myself feel a little better about the whole situation. I will hopefully finish moving, for the most part, by Wednesday. Until then I'm still sleeping in my house-I put extra locks on the inside of the doors so no one can get in. I just can't leave the house because I don't know if this kid has the key to the front door. But my valuables are moved out so no worries about a passport going missing or my computer being stolen. It will be sad to not buy from my favorite store up by my house, no more free guisquiles from the owner of my house, I won't see my favorite neighbors as often, I won't be able to bake as often or walk around my house in shorts with my legs unshaved. But I will beel more secure and won't lose anything more.

But really, this sucks. I just don't feel safe anymore and I feel like I can't trust any of my neighbors, which is not a great feeling. I really felt safe in my house, it was the one place where I felt 100% safe. I would always say hi to my neighbors and talk about the weather or life in the US with them. I would make cookies and drop them off with Dona Estela for her four kids. I would walk up the hill with the kids who would continuously ask me questions about words in English. Now I can't greet people without wondering if they know the kid or were involved in his crime. I know this is illogical, but my brain is kind of in overdrive with suspicions and all. And since no one has any idea who this kid is (how could no one have seen him-he was entering my house in daylight? I guess the back door hides most of what he was doing, but still you could see him go around the side of my house to get there.) The stress has led to me eating more than usual (that's what stress does to me) and not being able to sleep. This was further compounded by the fact that the night after finding this kid in my house, I went to listen to some music after lying awake for three hours and found that my MP3 player was also gone (item number three to be missing, which happened between Thursday and Monday because I last listened to it Thursday night). Benedryl works some of the time, but I don't like feeling drowsy the next day. Hopefully the sleep will improve once I move in with the host fam. And the next week will be full of moving my things little by little from my house and cleaning up after myself. My host mom will be out of town so I can't really move the majority of my stuff in until mid-next week (I took two trips today with clothes and books), so my planned trip over Thanksgiving and for my birthday will not happen, but I plan on treating myself to some Indian food to celebrate my favorite holiday and 25th birthday. And I am rewarding/comforting myself now with movies and popcorn. Tonight: While You Were Sleeping, an old favorite I haven't seen in years. Not to mention slowly making my way through a bottle of cheap wine.

All is well, but my life has taken a rather interesting turn and I will keep all updated on my new(ish) life with my host family. I'm just glad that the kid didn't kill me in my sleep or attack me when I found him. And that I am not going crazy and misplacing everything. Ariel, one of the Peace Corps safety and security officers, did mention that it did kind of make sense, finishing up my service where I started, with my host fam. And my Spanish will improve at a faster rate. It's sad that I feel violated and all, but I won't let this one crappy incident keep me from enjoying the end of my time here in Guatemala. 

It's harvest time

Right now I can hear the kids outside my window, talking to each other as they husk the corn and throw it into baskets. Their parents, meanwhile, are in the field behind my house, cutting down the stalks and gathering the corn. Luckily this year it didn't rain and ruin the crop so it's looking like it will be a good year for corn and hopefully tortilla prices will go back to being 4 for Q1 rather than the 3 for Q1 that it is now. Also luckily, the weather has been gorgeous these past few weeks-sun shining, clear blue sky, a little on the hot side, a light breeze blowing through the corn stalks. The color of the corn turned from green to golden several weeks ago, and the golden color will disappear from the fields to become the brown of the soil. This is how Guatemala will look until I leave in March, which is a little depressing but I feel fortunate to have seen so many beautiful sites here up to now. Right now I'm going up to the roof to check on my clothes to see if they have dried, which they probably have since the sun is so strong lately.

New president

By the end of today Guatemala will have a new president. Unfortunately, most people I have talked to agree that there really isn't much of a viable option. It's sad to think that people have no hope for the future and are pretty resigned to the fact that there isn't a leader out there to bring the country out of insecurity and poverty. I guess we'll see what happens over the next four years and have to hope for the best. I'll update when we know who it will be.

Update: We have a new president here in Guatemala. The fireworks started going off half an hour ago or so. And the winner is, of course, Otto Perez Molina of Partido Patriota. Here's an article (in Spanish).

Another update: Here's a NYT article in English, with some interesting facts. It appears my host mom was among the 50% or so of Guatemalans who did not vote, largely feeling that choosing between the two candidates was a "choice between two deadly diseases." I sincerely hope Molina proves everyone wrong and manages to improve the security situation (with money from who knows where) while maintaining human rights standards and tal vez righting some of the wrongs of the past.

Caterpillar Coats and the Cold

I love (kind-of) alliteration. I am surprised I still know what it is. I need to get back in the "school" mindset. It's going to be a challenge. On to life in Guatemala.

Even the caterpillars are fluffing up and moving inside to avoid the cold. I am watching one right now make his/her way around my room, moving within a two square-foot space between the electrical cord of the computer, a belt on the floor, some aluminum foil and a receipt. (I haven't cleaned in a while so there are a few items scattered about the floor.) The caterpillar especially seems to like it under the receipt on the floor-I guess maybe it's a little warmer there? Hopefully it won't try to crawl into bed with me, like a spider tried to do last night.

It has been cold enough here to warrant an advisory from the government, along with the setting up of some centers in the city for people who do not handle the cold very well. It got down to about 6 degrees (Celsius of course) last weekend, which is around 42 degrees for those in the States. In a place where heating does not exist and houses are very poorly insulated (with huge gaps under the door and surrounding the windows that let in all the cool air), that is cold. Luckily I have plenty of warm pajamas and a nice wool blanket and down comforter on my bed, so I stay warm.

School is officially done. All of the teachers were at the superintendent's office today to turn in their paperwork. The only school activity I still have left is a pizza party with the "Healthiest School of the Year" on Thursday, which will be fun. On this past Friday, I was the god-mother to a graduating sixth grade class, so got to attend their graduation ceremony (as well as a ceremony for the preschool graduates). As the god-mother you have to buy them a little gift, so with the teacher and principal who were also god-parents we bought each student a scarf, something that will come in handy as the temperature continues to drop. In return, I got another plate for my collection. This one is pretty, with pink ribbon and butterflies. I may try to get it home if I have enough space in my luggage. The sad thing though is that this was the principal's last activity with the school. He is retiring and turned in all of his papers today. He was one of the best principals and was one of the first people we met when we moved out here to start work. The community and kids will miss him a lot, but he will still be around. He even joked about running for mayor and didn't completely dismiss it as a possibility.

Speaking of going home, that is coming up pretty rapidly. I can't believe that we are already down to under five months. The weeks fly by so that will seem like no time at all. I made lasagna and apple pie with my host family last week and my host mom started tearing up when we were talking about how soon I would be going, which just made me sad. I am going to try to stop thinking about it for now and just go on with things like I will still be here forever, but it will become increasingly more challenging as the weeks and months fly by.

Just Another Beautiful Day

We had the third day in a row with sun and it was marvelous! I took the opportunity, with no clouds in the sky to portend coming rain, to do some laundry so now I have enough underwear and clean sheets to get me through the next couple of weeks. I ran out of pillowcases last week and have been using a shirt--that's kind of how desperate the situation was getting. I also got my daily fill of Vitamin D (and then some).  It was warm and sunny, birds were singing, kids were out playing. I think I've just been spending too much time in my house. There may be more rains coming Monday, but until then I plan to spend time on my roof eating and cleaning more clothes so that I won't feel like too much of a zombie if I'm locked up in my house for another week. And I went into the city and bought some groceries and treats to reward myself (I know, it's a silly selfish thing, but I really have been living off of pasta and rice for a while now and needed a hamburger to get a protein fix). I brought some bread to my host family and played some UNO with the kids. Then back to my house to work on grad school applications. It's been a good day and hopefully tomorrow will also be a bright, beautiful day.

As for work, we haven't been able to do anything. The government issued a 30-day 'state of calamity' because of all of the damage done to roads and bridges and, as part of this, has cancelled classes. Teachers went in anyway this week to administer tests and today I saw quite a few in the center of town turning in paper work and going to a meeting. It's safe to say that my work here is done as far as this year goes. Next week I have a closing ceremony for a sixth grade class and a meeting to discuss trash management in town with an NGO that is interested in supporting some type of program (yay!), so I still have stuff to do, but it's more laid-back. The school year will apparently start on January 9th next year, but will probably end up being pushed back a few weeks or so. I guess we'll see.

That's all. Just want to let everyone know that the rain is gone (for now) and that I didn't go too crazy holed up inside. Hope all is well and that everyone who can is enjoying the fall colors. This will be my second year without the colorful rolling hills of Gambier or raking up leaves in the yard during fall break. I guess we'll see where I am next year, hopefully somewhere with some color.

Hope it's not Agatha all over again

Oh tropical depression. You just couldn't stay away.

It has been raining since last night and thus everything is wet. The dogs, the birds, the towel I had drying on my roof. I woke up several times last night to the sound of rain just being dumped on my roof and the water is starting to saturate through my ceiling. The city is thoroughly flooded, the fields are full of corn stalks falling over, and people are holed up. But in my town, people are out and about for one reason: the bridge. Yes, the bridge, which has sketched me out many a time, has collapsed. I only heard about it when our pastor's wife called to tell us we were on the news for having a collapsed bridge. So I put on my raincoat and my rubber boots and headed out. Luckily the torrential downpour part was over and it was only drizzling.

It is probably not a good sign when you are walking across a bridge and the presence of a car will make it shake a bit, but it's even worse when a fair bit of rain will make it collapse. Everyone was up and about around the bridge. Yuna and I got into a conversation with some women from one of the aldeas we work in who asked about who we were, what we were doing here, etc. Just casually chatting on the edge of a fallen bridge. The police had an unofficial line up around the condemned part of the bridge but people (including moi) were crossing it to get a better look. I wasn't quite as brave as some people, who were continuing to cross the other lane of the bridge right past the part that fell. My theory is that both lanes of the bridge were likely constructed in the same way. If one side has given out, it is logical to think that the other side is also likely to be structurally unsound. But finally the police and firemen, who had just been standing around with the rest of us, decided to take on some responsibility and ushered everyone behind the official police tape they found and put across the entire bridge. At this point it got boring just staring at the bridge and the water rushing below. The river had grown quite a bit and it looked similar to how it looked during tropical storm Agatha last year. But no worries for me. One bridge has collapsed, but the other seems to be in decent shape, so I can still get in and out of town.

Most of the shops were open as usual and everyone headed into the center to buy up everything after staring at the bridge for a while. The eggs were disappearing pretty rapidly, but everything else seemed to be in good supply and the prices weren't all jacked up.

As always, some people assured me that the worst was over, while others claimed that they had heard that the rain will last until Saturday. Peace Corps has us all on standfast of course, so I won't be heading out of here for the next few days. I guess we'll see how things turn out. So if you hear about Guatemala on the news, just know that I am fine and dry here in my fairly structurally sound house. And pray for those who were not so lucky. One of my neighbors had problems with their roof so they braved the rain to put a tarp up, while another house in town apparently collapsed and tons of mud got in. Also pray that tropical depression 12E (weak name if you ask me) will move through here quickly.

School's Out

Today was the last visit of the year and it was a really great visit to close things with. It's at one of the better schools and the teachers seemed a little peeved that we were taking time out of this last day before finals to talk to the kids about handwashing, but once they saw our fun activities, they seemed to gladly take part. And the kids were respectful, even the older kids. Usually I don't enjoy working with older kids as much as with younger kids because the older ones are disrespectful, don't participate, just stare at you like you're crazy. But these kids participated. And there is one boy in particular who I remember from my first visit to the school a year and a half ago and who has always talked to me, asked me how to say things in English. And now he's off to middle school next year, so it was nice to say bye to him because I won't likely see him next year. And now 200 kids or so know why handwashing is important and will hopefully think before the next time they eat about what they have on their hands.

The past couple of weeks have been really good weeks. For one, I've spent quite a few days with fast internet (though that has slowed down once again), so I was able to watch some youtube videos and download and listen to my favorite NPR podcasts. One of the towns I work in had their fair so I marched in the parade with one of the schools dressed in the traditional shirt and skirt (huipil and corte) worn here. It was fun despite how slowly everything was moving and teachers and kids alike loved seeing me dressed in the clothing they wear all the time. And the school visits have gone pretty well. The one school that I was really not looking forward to surprised us and the visit went super smoothly. This is the largest school I work in with 23 teachers and over 700 kids, so it is usually difficult to get everyone on the same page, but the teachers all did their part and the kids for the most part were well-behaved. Again, the older kids, the sixth-graders, were super respectful and when I told them that I would miss them, I really meant it. I sometimes get a little choked up with the kids that I remember from day one in the schools who are going on with their studies, but I know full well that they will likely not go on to do much due to the unemployment that plagues Guatemala. But at least they value their studies and many of them will go on to middle school (if they can afford to). And, the director at this big school surprised us by telling us that she had called the recycling company we've been promoting to the schools and they were going to come by and pick up all of their recyclables (bottles, glass, cardboard, paper). And the school is constructing 8 faucets for next year. It's amazing what people can do once they have some motivation or even just the basic information about things. So now I will leave Guatemala knowing that at least my worst school has accomplished something really great.

Break won't start right away. We won't have any more school visits, but there are a few schools that we were not able to visit so I may head up to them and at least say goodbye to the teachers for this year. I've also been asked to be the madrina (godmother) of a few sixth grade classes, so I will attend and participate in their closing ceremonies at the end of the month. And then, in November, the break. It kind of stretches before me as kind of an empty few months, but I'm sure that the things I plan on working on will soon morph into big projects requiring much of my time. Plans as they stand now are to work on a sex-ed curriculum, perhaps work in a neighboring town's library and learn more about the process to start help one of my towns to get a library started in their community, planning a workshop on planning participatory lessons and activities to give to some government workers and our teachers next year, and finish up grad school applications. There are also trainings for volunteers to work on and possibly helping write/edit a manual.

So that's all for now. The rain continues to fall, so I'm going to sign off now and make myself some nice, hot atol to enjoy with some biscuits and enjoy a book before turning in early. Feliz noche!

Catching Up: A Sad Story

I had lunch today with my host family. It's the first time I've eaten with them in a while. But it was different. There were only five of us at the table. And now, finally, I can write about what's been going on in the past several months. It's a sad story, so sorry for getting everyone down, but it's probably been one of the most powerful experiences I've had here in Guatemala, and it will probably be one of the few things from here that I will remember for the rest of my life.

I think I've written about my host family before. I lived with them my first three months in site and have spent quite a bit of time with them since moving into my house. We eat together, bake together, go into the city together, pasear together, play UNO together. They really have become my family here in Guatemala. I honestly think living with them permanently wouldn't have been bad if it hadn't been for my host dad's drinking problem.

Anyway, my host mom is the sweetest woman ever. She's in her early forties and will go out of her way to help anyone out. She has spent her whole life sacrificing for her family-working all day to make enough money to send the kids to private schools, cleaning the house and washing the clothes, helping the kids with their homework (or rather, doing their homework and projects for them at times, as is the norm here), making all of the food. No one really helps her out so she literally runs herself ragged from before the sun comes up to after it goes down. She confides in me a lot because she doesn't really have anyone else to talk to about her husband's alcoholism or her worries about her children's future. The family is heavily in debt and she is always worrying if they will have enough to pay the debt collectors that come every week. But somehow they always make it.

So one day in April I stopped by their house after a long break and her husband tells me that the youngest has been in the hospital. He apparently had developed juvenile diabetes. My host parents weren't sure what to do with him since this was a whole new thing to them. They had to give him insulin injections twice a day and completely change his diet. They also took him out of school for fear that he would continue to eat the junkfood and sweets that make up most Guatemalan children's snack. They had a lot of trouble getting his sugar to stabilize, finally figuring things out after attending a workshop for parents of diabetic kids at the hospital in Guatemala City. I am happy to say that now he is back on track and they are planning to enroll him in the local school next year. He doesn't fight the injections and he has accepted his changed diet.

In May, my host mom's mother had some heart problems (not sure how bad they were) and she ended up moving into the house with the family. Over a month she regained strength and actually became an extra set of hands to help around the house. She's a really sweet woman and it's been good to get to know her better since she now lives in town (instead of in the city).

Then in June, right before I went back to the States for a visit, I stopped by the house. My oldest host sister had been having problems with lightheadedness whenever she moved and with really intense headaches. My host family finally took her to the doctor in the city and they diagnosed hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. Since they couldn't take care of the condition near my site, they scheduled a date for doctors in Guatemala City to operate on her brain and install a shunt to drain the liquid and relieve pressure on her brain. I stopped by before leaving, knowing that brain surgery is no joke but believing that things would still work out. And I was right. I tried calling while in the States to see how the surgery had gone, but my host mom's phone had died and I didn't have another number. So I somewhat hesitantly visited their home after getting back to site, but there was my host sister, head shaved, doing well. Her vision was slightly blurred in one eye and her speech was a little stalled, but she looked good for someone who had undergone brain surgery a week and a half before. But things slowly started changing. A few weeks after surgery she developed a kidney infection and was on strong antibiotics. Slowly she started losing her vision, so my host parents stopped her antibiotics and took her back to the doctors in Guatemala City, who operated again. Before I knew it, her vision was gone, as was her ability to move, speak, or really do anything. My host mom, of course, was extremely distressed. I tried to comfort her as best as I could, simply hugging her whenever I saw her or cooking food. I didn't visit very often. I just can't express how hard it was to see this sixteen-year-old I had known for being a funny, hard working, and just normal teenage girl (and honestly the only person who ever helped my host mom out around the house), just lying in bed, unable to communicate the pain she was in or do anything for herself. My host mom dedicated all of her time to taking care of her daughter, feeding her through a feeding tube, washing her, giving her pain medication injections, talking to her (the doctors said she could still hear us), giving her oxygen when she needed it. And I noticed one good thing to come from this tragedy-my host dad stopped drinking. He was there for his family, helping out with his daughter, keeping the store open so the family wouldn't go completely bankrupt. It was also incredible to see the community support the family. Everyone knows the family because they own a store right at the entrance into town and my host family has lived here for generations. Everyone brought by food, people donated medicine and the equipment necessary to keep my host siste rat home, her friends from school dropped by nearly every day to talk to her and pray for her. Thus the family was somehow able to cope with the tragedy that just snuck up on them out of nowhere.

After being at home for a little less than a month, they had to take her to the hospital. My host mom called me from the hospital on September 5th to tell me that she had passed away. We talked for about three minutes, me kind of stuttering out whatever comforting words would pop into my mind, and I just kind of sat in my house that night. This wasn't an unexpected outcome. I had talked to my mom and dad about it and they told me that it was unlikely that she would live long at home. I just wasn't expecting it to happen so soon and I wish I had been there more to visit with her and to spend more time with my host parents. I've been trying to make up for it and have spent quite a lot of time with my host family, time that I will always remember-going to the funeral, marching with the procession to the cemetery in the pouring rain, walking back from the cemetery with my host mom, visiting the tomb again the next day with the whole family, attending some of the prayer ceremonies Catholics hold for nine days after the death. The hardest thing for me to see that got me to tear up every time was seeing my host mom and host grandmother in so much pain. They would have never thought about losing a daughter/granddaughter so early in her life. It is also hard to see the younger kids, knowing that this is something they will carry the rest of their lives. They took the whole progression of events very well, but since they're so young they probably don't know what to think or feel yet. It will be especially hard on my other host sister, who is twelve now but still doesn't like to sleep alone. She shared a room and a bed with her older sister until recently. I asked about how she was doing, offering to sleep over if she was taking things badly, and my host mom told me that she was surprisingly doing fine. Hopefully she will continue to be okay.

And then today I stopped by to say hi and drop off some food, and ended up staying for lunch. My host mom is better now-she was able to joke around with her kids and me at lunch-as is my host dad, who hasn't been drinking, and my host grandmother, who is traveling around different parts of the country with her friends. We talk about her daughter a little, especially about how good she was at drawing (her sister wants to be an artist now) or how well she could play the trumpet. There will always be a little shrine for her in the house where her family will remember her as she was in good days. We will go to the cemetery on All Saint's Day to paint the tomb in which she was laid to rest blue, her favorite color. And the family will keep on plugging away, always remembering the daughter they lost.

Whew. Sorry for the emotional roller coaster. I haven't really been able to talk/write about it before now and I've been up and down a lot this past month, but I'm back to normal now. Anyway, what should we all take away from this story? I know it's cliched, but live every day like it's your last. You never know when some rare brain condition will sneak up on you and take you out of commission. And be thankful for your health. And (in what may be a weak/inappropriate attempt at humor), never undergo brain surgery in Guatemala. Also, please pray for my host mom and dad, that they will continue to remain strong and will not lose faith in this difficult time.

Cold, cold, cold

I'm just in the updating kind of mood lately. So here's another post with some thoughts.

I've been confined to the house a lot lately (self-imposed confinement). I think I've spent three weeks out of the past five with a cold, two different times with the same symptoms of stuffy nose, sore throat. This time though I've had a little fever (that goes away pretty soon after it comes up) and a gross cough. I blame it, like most Guatemalans, on the weather. It's been raining and everything is still damp from when the rainy season started months ago. Some of my clothes have gone moldy and I'm sure there is mold hidden away in my house, like where the rain seeps in from my roof (but luckily doesn't quite drop on top of me while I'm sleeping) or where my faucet is leaking away in the kitchen. I know that the mold probably should keep me out of the house, but when I'm sick I don't really want to be anywhere other than in my bed, surrounded by my books and listening to the music collection that has gradually built itself to include 10,900 songs.

Luckily, though, the rainy season will soon be over (or may last until November, as many Guatemalans have sadly explained to me). But this means that cold is coming. I love cold weather. Fall and winter were always my favorite times of the year back in the States. Though we don't get fall colors here, we do get the dropping temperatures and frost on the ground in the morning. And there is no heating in the house, so I feel the change in temperature much more acutely. But I don't mind. It gives me an excuse to wear extra layers of clothing and listen to Christmas music more often.

Things here have been busy. The school year will be over in three weeks, so we are trying to get one last visit in  with all of our schools. Lately we've been doing an activity with the students to explain hand-washing. Our teachers have been great with implementing a tooth-brushing schedule for after the kids finish eating snack, but they haven't quite figured out the hand-washing thing. At one school they were so proud to show me that they would brush their teeth and then wash their hands after, completing the healthy habits we asked of them. I tried to explain that no, we wanted them to wash hands before eating snack, but they nodded their heads and said "Sí, Seño" just to placate me while looking at each other in confusion. So we are explaining in every classroom, with all the teachers present and helping us out, why it is important to wash your hands. One of the skits we use in the lesson is of someone with diarrhea leaving to go to school without washing their hands after using the bathroom. We shake hands with everyone using glitter as the "germs" spreding from one hand to the other. Asking kids what is on a hand after using the bathroom, it takes a little while for them to get to the fact that there is poop on their hands, and when they get it there are giggles all around as Yuna or I explain, "There is poop on your hands. Que shuco!" Then we go to eat a tortilla covered in red glitter to represent the poop that makes it from our hands to our food. No one likes to eat a tortilla with poop. We are also using this opportunity to teach teachers about using dynamic activities during lessons to teach kids in more creative ways. Guatemalans are super creative, but they also don't like to think outside the box because they've never been taught or encouraged to do so. Lessons are generally dictated to students or written on the board, and often involve mountains of busywork. Education here needs a lot of work, but once education improves, so will everything else (health, business practices, science, innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, etc.). Anyone interested in working on this for the next 30 years or so? Apparently there is a good head of the Ministry of Education, but she is likely to be ousted when the next president makes his way into office. Asi es.

Some food for thought that my boss brought up: Should I stay for a third year? I love my work here, but I'm also excited to go back to school. I hate making huge decisions like these, always afraid I will make the wrong one in the end. There are a ton of things to consider and I'm taking some time now and then to think about it, which is hard with everything going on right now. I would appreciate any thoughts or prayers as I contemplate what the next year will hold.

That's all for now. Maybe in my attempt to escape finishing up my personal statement tomorrow will lead to another update. Feliz tarde!

Just a thought

Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy.

Today I felt pretty normal. I visited one of our preschools, so it was a good day (the younger kids make my job way more fun). I stopped by my host family's house to drop off some food and my host mom cried, but it was a normal cry instead of a sad cry (but that's another story I will eventually get to), so that was an improvement. And my clothes dried before the rain came. And, I bought a ton of veggies in the market: onions, tomatoes, green beans, carrots (really giant carrots), and spinach, and to balance out my diet a little I took advantage of the dwindling apple season to pick some slightly bruised but hopefully still delicious apples. I had a nice conversation with one of my neighbors walking up the giant hill (we chatted about the weather, of course). I cooked a nice stir fry with some tofu I bought in the city on Saturday (who knew I would find fresh extra-firm tofu in Guatemala?). And I settled in for some work, reading and cleaning, like any normal afternoon.

Just now, though, I was going to fold my clothes (I was too lazy to fold them when I had first taken them down from my roof) and I noticed one of my new shirts was missing. I don't normally pay a lot of attention to clothes, but this shirt was one I had just bought on Saturday to replace my super-raggedy black shirts that have gross white pit stains. I layer a lot because it is normally cold here in the morning, so I was happy to find a nice black shirt in good shape for less than a dollar. This morning I went to wash some clothes, along with this shirt, and didn't notice it was gone until just now putting my clothes away. I searched everywhere, retracing the few steps from my roof to the rooms I inhabit in my house. I searched through my dirty clothes hamper, the clothes hanging up around the house to dry, the kitchen, the bathroom, the roof again. Nowhere to be found. I even checked to see that the clipped off tag was in the trash to reassure myself that I didn't lose it on the way home on Saturday and that it indeed did exist this morning. The tag was in the trash can, where I left it this morning, but the shirt was nowhere to be found.

This bugs me because a similar thing happened last week. I had just washed a few things, including this blue shirt that I've had for ages. I have really good memories of things I've done in this blue shirt-helping out at a minga in Ecuador and shopping in Otavalo, walking around dusty Uganda, attending a Mayan ceremony here in Guatemala and burning a little hole in the bottom with one of my lit candles. This shirt has literally been everywhere with me because it's a really nice shirt, made with quick-dry material that is super light. And it just disappeared from my roof. I thought that maybe the wind blew it away, but that has never happened, and it was never dry during the period it was on my roof (one of those lovely rainy periods when my clothes stay wet for days), so it wouldn't be floating around. I can visualize it hanging on my clothesline with two clothespins holding it in place. And one afternoon I went to take the stuff inside to try to dry it, and it was gone. The same thing happened quite some time ago but I didn't think anything of it. Yet again I thought this one shirt had just flown off the roof, but recent events have led me to believe that my clothes are either disintegrating or there is someone behind these disappearances.

I don't really know what to think. The only way to get on my roof is from my neighbor's house. Do I knock on their door and ask if someone has been sporting some new clothes lately? I don't want to start problems up, especially with only six months left. Or maybe since there isn't much time left, it wouldn't matter if my neighbors thought I was framing them for stealing clothes. I guess I'll see if anything else goes missing and I'll have to be more careful with my favorite clothes, maybe only drying them inside. Again, my clothes don't matter all that much to me, only that most of my clothes are in pretty bad shape and when something nice goes missing, I definitely notice it. And I feel like maybe I just imagined everything.

Just wanted to share the newest strange happenings here in Guatemala. Hope all is well. Happy Wednesday!

This just in...

The awful mayor of my town LOST in the elections!! I am so happy for the people of my community--hopefully they will finally get what they deserve, which is a mayor who doesn't squander all of their money and spend all of his time paseando everywhere but here. I don't know much about the new mayor, but he has got to be an improvement because you can't get too much worse than now.

And, there will be a presidential run-off election in November. And Congress is divided more fairly than people were saying. Maybe things won't be too bad for Guatemala after all.

Out with the old, in with the new?

Today is an important day, not just because it is the tenth anniversary of September 11th. Of course I have mused over what that day meant for me then and what it means for me now. I remember a brief article I wrote for the local newspaper's high school page about how we all came together and worked to fix things and to never forget. Then I remember watching a documentary on the attacks and how it was all a big conspiracy with my host family in Ecuador on the anniversary of the attacks in 2007. And now here I am in another country and honestly, things going on here have taken more precedence that Guatemalans likely hardly realize that this is a day of remembrance in America.

What's going on here in Guatemala? Read this article for a hint. If you're not here, you probably haven't really heard of it, but there are some pretty big elections going down here. Guatemalans have been going to the polls since this morning to vote for president, congressperson, and mayor. Let's start with president.

There are three front-runners for president. One is a former military general who held onto positions of power in intelligence and the military during Guatemala's 36-year civil war/internal conflict. Another is a doctor with little experience. And the third is an older intellectual/scientist who was originally born in Switzerland. This has made for an interesting race. The next president of Guatemala faces increasing violence, a growing presence of drug gangs, and neglected health and education sectors. According to polls, the former military general will likely win and implement a program of "mano dura" policies (strong hand), which have been attempted in other countries to fight violence but have failed. It is also unclear where the money will come from to increase the police presence and improve security. Guatemala does not have much of a tax base so money for programs is very limited. I really think anyone other than the former military man is a better choice for Guatemala, but it seems unlikely that they will be able to build a strong enough voter base. A majority is needed to win, so a run-off election is likely to take place in November. Honestly, most of the candidates have similar positions on everything and aren't offering any concrete, realistic, practical solutions for Guatemala's many problems, so it seems unlikely that anything really new will be taking place over the next four years, no matter who wins.

As for congressional elections, I really have no idea what is going on. People don't seem to care much about this election. I honestly don't really know what congress does here in Guatemala.

And as for mayor, I have been praying the last nine months that our current mayor will not win again. I have yet to hear anyone say anything good about this mayor. The roads are full of potholes that grow by leaps and bounds. Schools end up paying for their own projects with the support of the parents, with NO support from the municipality. I went to turn in a request for funds from the muni and explained that I would simply be happy with a letter explaining that the muni didn't have funds so that I would have something to turn in with the grant application I was writing, but they kept telling me to come back within 15 days, at which point they would stall even longer. One school has been constructing bathrooms for the past 2 years, waiting for the muni to pull through and pay for the toilets, which they promised at the beginning of the project. Yes, the mayor did pave a road last year from the center of town through three different communities, but that is it. We only have one health center/post. For a big community, we lack things other communities, many of them smaller, have-library, computer lab, functional women's office. Other than the road, he hasn't done anything else in the time I have been here. And it took forever for him to finish the road. Meanwhile, he skims money off the top to build hotels on the coast (as well as one huge hotel here that no one ever stays at, partially because there isn't anything here and partially because it's an expensive Q100 a night). The mayor is never around because he's always passing time away from town. To actually meet with him, you essentially have to be in the right place at the right time. I don't know much about the few men running against him, but I do know that we really can't get much worse. Unfortunately, because his party was paying people to put up signs or paint their houses and was giving out food, it looks like he might win. The mayor in the other community I work with has been the complete opposite: he has managed to extend potable water coverage to almost the entire municipality, he has installed drainage, built projects (sometimes more than one project per school) in 5 of the 6 schools in the municipality, built a new health post, and is always around. He's a fantastic mayor, but he's also super old and is not running. Someone who is currently working under him is running, but he is losing, but a former teacher is apparently winning, so there is a possibility that things will continue to go well in this muni.

I'll keep people updated as to what happens as far as politics goes. The polls closed an hour ago, so what happens now is that one member from each party running in the election meets in a room and they count the votes together. This is a pretty transparent way of doing things, if only there wasn't the opportunity to stuff the ballots before the counting begins.

People have been hanging out all day. The firecrackers will begin as soon as someone is reported the winner. It will shortly be legal to buy alcohol again so the drunks will be out in greater numbers. Luckily, I am safe at home, ready to settle in for the night. Tomorrow should be another interesting day. I suppose I should just be thankful that the noise will be a little more tolerable now that cars won't drive around blasting propaganda.

How to Keep a Room of Pre-schoolers and First-graders Occupied Here in Guatemala

Here are some ideas. They all seem to work well when used for very short periods of time before switching to another activity.

1. Ask them how they are, what they're doing, what their favorite foods are. When they start staring at you with blank looks on their faces, move on.

2. Revise hygiene. The second go around was met with pretty emphatic no's by many of the kids, so this only lasted a few minutes.

3. Sing a song. The Itsy Bitsy Spider works well, especially with keeping the kids occupied trying to figure out the hand movements. Also Con Un Cepillo. They might not quite get the movements and all, but at least you're wearing them down little by little.

4. Start talking in English. They will laugh for a few moments at how silly you sound, and then get bored again.

5. Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes also worked pretty well. Slowing up and speeding down was a winner with the kids.

6. Ask about all of the parts of the body. They love it when you tell them to touch their pompis (butts).

7. Make a train and go in circles around the room. Caution with having them walk backwards-the domino effect is likely to take place and take out a few kids and desks along the way.

8. Eventually demand that the teacher come back and take control over her class again, then move along with the scheduled activity.

Any more ideas are welcome for activities to do during classroom visits while waiting for a teacher to show up.

I love my job. The kids cheered me up after a rough week.

Expect a post in the next day or so about elections!

Am I really worth it?

I read an article recently about how a Congressman is rallying fellow democrats and returned Peace Corps volunteers to campaign against budget cuts. Peace Corps receives about $400 million, and some republicans in Congress would like to cut this budget by $26 million. Meanwhile, the Peace Corps budget, including the $40 million increase Obama has proposed, accounts for 0.01 percent of the U.S. budget. Read more about the situation here.

I couldn't sleep thinking about this, especially after reading some of the comments people were leaving at the bottom of the article. (One comment reads: "Typical moonbats. Stop caring for people who won't care for themselves. Simply bomb those countries out of existence and all the problems are solved. The Army and the Navy get work and we rid the world of bloodsuckers; win-win.") It pains me to see people showing such unconcern for the well-being of people in other nations. I just want to express some personal thoughts and maybe convince some people to take a stand for peace and rally behind the Peace Corps.

The U.S. is a great nation. I am usually proud to be an American and realize how fortunate I am to have been born in the States. I have especially come to see how much of a blessing it has been since moving here to Guatemala. I received a decent public education, enjoyed a well-stocked library, ate food and took medications that were likely inspected and approved by some government agency, sent mail without worrying about if it would make it to its destination, could count on the fire department to respond in an emergency in a timely fashion, etc. all thanks to having a government that can provide for my well-being. Guatemalans and other people living in developing nations can't count on these things. (Just a note-in saying 'developing nation' I don't mean to imply anything about inferiority. I'm simply using a translation of what some Spanish speakers from these countries have used with me-un país en vias de desarrollo). Many don't have access to roads, electricity, water, etc. Why are they in this state? Is it because they are lazy? Are they ignorant of how to advance? Do they just not care?Well, that's not really the case. Guatemalans are some of the hardest working people I know. Women literally work all day. They have to gather wood, some have to travel to collect water, they make all three meals for their families, they constantly wash clothes and clean the house, sometimes they work in a store or sell in the market. Guatemalans also generally have an idea of where they want to be (typically they envision a life like the Americans they see on the television screen) but they aren't always sure of the many routes to improve their life (or the danger of living like an American). Moreover, their government doesn't have the capacity as ours does to help out with the process. And yes they care. Parents want the best for their children. Parents will sacrifice everything so their child can have a better, easier, happier, healthier life than the one they have led. They scrimp and save to send kids to private schools in hopes that it will help them in the future, and when that doesn't happen (because there are no jobs), they despair again and continue looking to immigration as the only way out. Development is so multi-faceted and complex, I don't really have the space (or the attention span) to spend a long time explaining it here. I myself don't even know that much about the topic-mainly I know what I have witnessed in my time abroad and what I have read in books or talked about in classes. There are many reasons a country gets left behind and people find themselves without things we take for granted every day. Perhaps there was a bloody civil war, or ethnic tensions that led to a regression in the living situation of people. Perhaps one president was overthrown and a military general took his place and started persecuting a group of people, leading to terror and lack of progress in society. Maybe it's geography-a country that falls victim to several tropical storms/hurricanes a year or faces other natural disasters (mudslides, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes) frequently. Whatever the reason, let's not blame the people for their situation. In fact, in some cases our own beloved America is to blame. Especially learning the history of Latin America, one will hear of the countless times our government/military (are they one and the same?) intervening in democratic elections to replace a government who perhaps wasn't super friendly with U.S. interests with a government who would actively repress many in his country to favor U.S. interests over the interests of his own people. Or also to suppress an uprising led by the people against a government they did not support so that a government that favored the States would remain in office. U.S. intervention has happened in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, etc. I don't have time to give the specifics of each instance, but feel free to look it up on wikipedia or in a book. I'm not going to say all intervention is bad (though it almost always is), but in many cases our past leaders contributed to impeding the development of these countries. And don't even get me started on the carbon footprint of the U.S. versus that of Guatemala and countries in a similar situation. People here almost always take public transportation, don't buy as many packaged products, don't watch as much t.v. or sit in front of a computer as much, don't buy new clothes every month, etc. Yes, there are ways in which Guatemala contributes to climate change and contamination of the environment, but our own impact as consumer-oriented Americans is much, much larger. And who is suffering more for the climate changes we are seeing, who is more vulnerable? In America, we can take a few hits and keep on going. In Guatemala a few years ago, there was a drought and corn didn't grow as well, so people went without food. Last year there was too much rain, so again corn crops were destroyed and some people had to do without. Chronic malnutrition here is already high, and I imagine this just gets much worse when changes brought about by climate change ruin corn yields. Some of these changes are natural, but I think we're beyond calling climate change a theory and to the stage of accepting that it is indeed causing changes in our world today.

Here are a few questions I have been asking myself throughout my service, and moreso lately.

What do we owe people living in other countries? Should we help them lead better lives? Should we spread ideas and encourage them to implement their own ideas or motivate them to demand improvements in their well-being? I believe that we should look out for our fellow global citizens. Yes, maybe I am an idealist who is too in love with the world. But I was taught to help those who are less fortunate than me. Peace Corps has given me the opportunity to do this. I hope that people can show love over selfishness and it harms me to see that so many people refuse to believe that promoting the well-being of people is worth the money. Also, it's not always about altruism-helping people can help us too. For example, here in Guatemala people burn their trash, all the time. These chemicals are moving into the atmosphere and help add to the chemicals released from wood-burning fires throughout the developing world. If people are taught how to properly dispose of trash, which types can be burnt and which no, how to use stoves/cooking techniques to use less wood (all things that Peace Corps works on), this would improve the lot for the rest of us.

What is my impact? I don't mean to brag, but with my partner, I am directly impacting the lives of 5,630 children (I just crunched the numbers) who we talk about health and revise hygiene with, in addition to the 250 teachers and directors we work with on a daily basis. I have also talked to hundreds of parents, and have worked to support other volunteers and the NGO in town with workshops to educate more teachers or students about things like HIV/AIDS, trash management, environmental degradation, etc. Not everyone I work directly with will change their lives. Some kids won't brush their teeth no matter how many times I tell them it's important. I mean, I am just a crazy gringa. But I think it's a bargain that the image of the United States sending help to Guatemala is being spread to all these people for the low price of under $4,000 a year. Spread that around the 300+ million people who live in the States and that is a very low contribution. I know I'm only one volunteer and there are thousands like me who have finished their time or who are currently working or in the process of applying to be a volunteer. But when you look at the impact this $4,000 is having, the U.S. government is spending less than $1.00 per person per year to improve the lives of these people.

Is what I am doing sustainable? In other words, is this a good investment that will last past the end of my service? That's a tricky question. I am fully aware of sustainability and do what I can to make my work sustainable. Peace Corps is facing severe budget cuts, and we already know that we won't have as many people working in my program in the future, so the reality is that volunteers won't always be here to lead these programs. This is why I work more with teachers than with students. I motivate the teachers, show them how to actively teach health education, encourage them to implement their ideas and use their creativity to build a healthier school. I have also been able to pinpoint leaders in each school, teachers who have taken a very active role in Healthy Schools and who are truly implementing changes in their classrooms and schools. I will rely on these teachers to continue my work when I am not here. At the beginning of this year, teachers automatically knew that they had to have their rincones de salud up and needed to start practicing habits. Lots of people found their own ways to fund projects without even telling us or asking us for money. I truly believe that if Peace Corps had to pull out from Guatemala tomorrow, the project would keep going to some extent. Some schools would probably stop doing what we are asking them to do, but the majority, I believe, would continue to fight for a healthier school. So yes, I believe that at least some of the work I am doing here is sustainable.

Why not make it private, non-profit based instead of supported by the government? Well, I don't know a lot about running private NGOs that would be able to work on the scale that Peace Corps does. Also, why shouldn't our government help other nations? Also, many NGOs have failed at development work and aren't really doing a better job then we at Peace Corps are. Also, Peace Corps helps benefit the image of the U.S. abroad. Some Guatemalans believed that Americans were snobby and suffered from a superiority-complex, but we are trying to show that we aren't all mean-hearted people out only for our own good. This can help ease tensions when negotiating trade or other multi-national agreements. It also leads less people to participate in violence against the States or Americans abroad. I can honestly say I would feel safer traveling in a country where Peace Corps participation has been widespread because we do send a positive message to people that we do care about their well-being. Not all Peace Corps volunteers present a positive image, but I think most of us do. If the work we are doing would be privatized, I don't think the U.S. would get the same image boost.

What to cut if we don't cut Peace Corps? Another hard question. Who is less deserving? Which programs are not effective? Or, how can we raise more money? I strongly promote raising taxes of the richest Americans or at least improving the taxing system to more fairly tax the richest. They receive huge tax breaks that they do not need. I know, I know. They worked hard for their money, why can't they keep it? Well, the simple fact is that many people making millions of dollars are taxed at a lower rate than the rest of us. See an article in the New York Times written by Warren Buffett recently for more details. Also, defense can probably be cut. Even just a little bit would go a LONG way to reduce our debt. In the article I reference in the beginning of this blog post, it is mentioned that the entire Peace Corps mission in Sierra Leone costs the same as sending one soldier to Afghanistan. $700 billion to build more nuclear weapons? Is that necessary? Is that something we really want? I know deterrence worked during the Cold War, but $700 billion? That's a lot of money. I know promoting peace and human development doesn't work with most crazy warlords, but is building a giant nuclear arsenal really how to deal with the problem? Also, I support our troops. I know they still lack important equipment to promote their safety. But what are we accomplishing still fighting in this long, dragged-out war? We have already wasted so many lives and so much money on fighting and haven't seen much from this heavy cost. Reduce our military presence and save a ton of money that can be used for peaceful means of promoting peace and democracy.

Phew. My hands hurt and my head is fuzzy. These again are just some thoughts. They might not be well thought out because I was kind of running on rage and now I'm just exhausted and ready for bed (not to mention I have a cold). Sorry if I insult someone or say something that really makes you angry in response to my anger. I just wanted to give my perspective on things. If you feel as strongly about Peace Corps being a worthwhile investment as I do, write to your Congressman and tell them not to cut our budget. I already have my letter typed up (and it wasn't in a fit of rage) that I will send out the first chance I get.

Thanks for making it through this large post. I'm sure there's a lot that I want to mention but that my brain is refusing to think of right now. Hopefully I won't regret writing this in the morning and I hope it doesn't sound too angry/unrealistic/etc. Maybe I am just too much of an idealistic hippy after all. I apologize for any grammatical mistakes, misspellings, etc. I also apologize for not doing the proper research to complement this article-I am simply lazy and tired. And feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts. As always, I hope life is going well and I wish you a "feliz fin de semana" (Happy weekend!).

Photos of Mayan women

Here's an article with some great photos from the Associated Press: Vintage box camera portrays Mayan women. One of the girls pictured is from my town. Though the black and white photographs are really quite beautiful, it doesn't show the beautiful colors of Mayan women's dress. But I think that sometimes the vibrant colors distract from the face, which is the centerpiece of each photo here.

Just wanted to share it with you all. Have a great afternoon/evening!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!

Well, not really. I'm not athletically inclined enough to score many goals. But one thing you have to do at least once while living in a Latin American country (or pretty much anywhere in the world where fútbol is king) is play a game of soccer with some kids. I've done this a few times while here and every experience is different. You don't need a real soccer ball or a net. All you need is something passing as a ball and a few sticks to serve as markers for where the goal will be. The field can be anywhere there is some open space. It doesn't have to be flat or free of cow pies. And I found myself playing soccer today, and failing pretty miserably at it. But it was fun and the kids enjoyed having a silly gringa playing worse than they were playing. I made a very few good plays and aimed the ball toward the goal a few times (it almost went in once!) but didn't manage to make any goals. My team did win though, and the score was pretty lopsided (12-1), but that's probably because the teams were pretty lopsided. I was on the team with the girls, but we also had two of the better boy players and outnumbered the boys two to one. I was actually leaving the school when I saw them playing and they asked me to join. Now this wasn't a normal soccer game. No one played specific positions, there were no offsides calls or rules against tripping people. The boundaries of the field were also not specified-a corn field to one side was pretty clearly stipulated as one boundary, but the other boundary moved into a cow's grazing territory as well as a dropoff of about half a foot from the rest of the field. But I figured things out pretty quickly. My first attempt to move the ball to our goal was pretty disastrous. One of the boys on my team called out 'Seño' and since I was the only Seño around I received the pass from him pretty gracefully, but the field sloped down to our goal and I misjudged just how steep this slope was so I kicked the ball and tripped myself up, falling on my right leg and rolling onto my stomach, getting a nice grass stain down the side of my pants in the process. But we all laughed at the funny, clumsy Seño Cristina and went on our way. They were a little more wary of passing me the ball after that incident though. The game was interrupted several times. There was one freestyle gymnastics moment, when kids asked if I could do a somersault or a cartwheel and were impressed when I could. There were several incidences of girls chasing boys and vice versa when one would make a comment that would upset the other, which would end in a tussle in the grass and cries from the others of "Beso, beso!" (kiss, kiss!). No kisses were exchanged though. There were also several incidences when the ball would fly into another game that was going on, or when the ball got caught under the cow feeding in the middle of our field. Three times the girls essentially stopped playing to ask me how to say some things in English. There were also two episodes of unexplained crying (coming from the boys of course). And then the end of the school day interrupted us and, an hour after my intended exit from this community, I made my way back up the hill (this is one of the several schools I go to where you have to walk uphill both ways) and then back down to catch the bus to the center of town. It was an awesome way to end the visit.

Sorry if this post is a little disjointed. I was trying my hand at a little stream of consciousness while recalling this memory. Just wanted to share my fun experience of the day.

Dairy Queen in Guatemala?

Yup, that's right. DQ is coming to Guatemala!! Although they are opening 15 stores by 2015 and will unlikely open one in my area in the next year or so, I can still hope, right? I don't usually go for fast food but there's something about being here in Guatemala that makes me crave McDonald's or Wendy's all the time. Maybe it's the lack of meat in my diet, or the fact that cooking for myself has gotten kind of old, perhaps because quickly prepared mass quantities of food really is delicious. I was super happy to know I will living within a 30 minute trip of a Wendy's, but Dairy Queen would just be so much better. When I was home in June I stopped at Dairy Queen at least twice to get Blizzard cravings out of my system, but there are still days once in a while when I can't help but think of some delicious soft-serve mixed with bits of a Heath bar or Reese's peanut butter cups (am I making anyone hungry?). I may soon be able to drag myself into the city to enjoy some delicious DQ soon, though I am a realist and I fully realize that a Dairy Queen will probably open near my site the week after I COS. Oh well. At least it will be a win for Guatemala.

A good start

Just read an article from the BBC about a recent ruling against four military officers who took part in a massacre during Guatemala's "armed conflict" (which is what they call it here). These four men received life in prison (terms of over 6000 years, or 30 years for each of the 200+ people who died during the massacre). This is a good start to bringing about some justice and hopefully will show that people will not be exempt from standing trial for human rights abuses that happened decades ago. Hopefully the impunity can end now and a more open dialogue can start up, beginning with the current presidential candidate ahead in the polls, Pérez Molina, who was a member of the military in the 1980s and 1990s. I guess we'll see what happens, but this is good news for Guatemala.

That's all for now. I feel some gripe (a cold) coming on so I should probably try to get some extra sleep to try to fight it off. Feliz noche!

An ending, some trash and more rain

Last week was super busy. That's going to be my excuse for why I haven't updated in a little while. I had three workshops, traveled to three new places, and visited my largest school (23 teachers, 770 students). But everything went pretty well.

Before I get to updates about my life, I am just going to go off on a mini tangent and talk about something that has been part of my life for thirteen years now, more than half of my life. That would be Harry Potter. I remember reading the first book in sixth grade after my science teacher recommended it. I loved it. I don't even remember my first reaction to it other than pure fascination with this whole new world of magic. I loved fantasy and magic-The Hobbit was probably my favorite book at that point in my life, or perhaps the Redwall books, or maybe Tamora Pierce books. But Harry Potter totally gripped me in a way a book had never done before. I can't claim that it made me love reading-I was already in love with books. But it made me think about things, discuss details, learn more about an imaginary world. In high school, after The Half-Blood Prince came out, my friends and I met to discuss it. What were the other horcruxes? Was Dumbledore really dead? Was Snape good or evil? The final book came out the summer before my junior year of college and I got the book the day it came out in the mail from Amazon and devoured it within ten hours or so. That kind of ended it for me. There were still movies to come out, but the movies never meant much to me. I would read the books over and over again while I would watch the movie once or twice and be done with it. I did see the first half of the final movie here in Guatemala, dubbed in Spanish unfortunately, and it was pretty good. So I guess I was looking forward to the final movie, mainly just to see the screen representation of something that I really loved. I didn't think I would love the movie, but I did. Maybe it was my emotions running away with me, maybe it was reliving the satisfying end to this incredible series, maybe it really was a good movie. The movie really brought it all to a close of sorts for me. I will continue reading the books and there's always the hope that J.K. Rowling will write more books based around this world, but I have to accept that this might be all there is. I laughed, I cried, I called a good friend long distance to talk about it after it was all over. And then I went on with my life. The bus broke down on the way home so I got home late and walked up the giant hill in the dark. Then I had dishes to do, a house to tidy up, a different book to work on. It's been a great thirteen years and I'm looking forward to the day when I can introduce Harry Potter to my kids. That's all I really have to say on this subject. Yes, I know I'm 24 now, long past the years of adolescent fandom and obsession over silly things, but I really feel like I grew up with Harry. So humor me a little and don't judge me for gushing one more time about this. I won't mention it again in this post.

So on with the real world. A super pilas NGO works out of the center of my town and we've been working together on trash management stuff and on writing a new environmental education manual for middle school teachers. They asked us to help with a workshop focused on trash management, water and forests on Monday and Friday with teachers from three different school districts in my department. It was the second in a series of four, and the first taller (workshop-sometimes I just write the Spanish word because it sounds better to me, so sorry if it gets confusing) had been run by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN-Ministerio de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) and apparently it, like most other workshops teachers attend throughout the year, was very boring. So Helvetas/Probosques, the NGO, asked us to prepare an activity for trash management. We had a few activities that we used in a workshop for our teachers in June so we did a trash timeline with the teachers. The first part of the workshop involved touring the local river to see what condition it was in. I wasn't surprised to find trash everywhere, inside the river and along the riverbank. Parts of the river were orange due to chemical runoff from the fields-farmers often receive free fertilizers at the beginning of planting season. Despite the obviously poor conditions of the river, women were washing their clothes in it, children were playing in it, cows and sheep were drinking from it. So we talked about how the river used to be, how it is now, and how people want to see it in the future. Then we had the timeline activity where teachers used trash they had collected from the river and had to guess how long it takes certain types of trash to decompose. Then lunch and two pretty boring powerpoint presentations by people from MARN and some other place. Friday was the same except the people from the government didn't show up, even though they were the ones in charge of the workshop, so I got to do more stuff with the group. And there was no electricity, so the people with powerpoint presentations had to improvise and actually gave a much better presentation.

Overall my experience with this workshop has shown me both good and bad ways about going about teaching other people. Sometimes the most educated people don't really get it. It was super frustrating when the two women who planned everything out didn't even show up for the second day of workshops. The NGO we're working with is fantastic at thinking about sustainability. They work with a municipality that will sustain an office focusing on environment and only stay with this office for a few years before pulling out their support. They know that they can't use their resources forever to support offices that the mayor should be paying to support, so they don't. However, they were paying for pretty much everything with this workshop-snack, lunch, supplies, diplomas. And they supplied most of the personnel on the second day. What will happen when they're gone? I'm not sure. Our 'Oficina Forestal' seems pretty set up with two people working there and their own office space. We'll see if they continue functioning once Helvetas pulls out next year.

The people with degrees who were from the ministry presented all this technical information to teachers of first and second graders. With an educational system that emphasizes regurgitating what you're taught, these teachers are not going to take this information and create a new lesson with it, especially since many of them slept through the presentation. So what we included, kind of without telling the ministry people, is for teachers to think a little more critically and come up with their own activities to do with trash, water and forests. We'll see what they come up with at the next workshop next week.

I also traveled to a neighboring town and helped a fellow volunteer give an HIV/AIDS taller to some middle schoolers. Peace Corps Guatemala receives some money for these workshops and they're a fun way to talk about sex with kids who really have nowhere else to ask questions. The curriculum has some space set aside for talking about the body and puberty, but most teachers are too uncomfortable with the subject to talk much about it. However, the workshop really needs to include a component talking about body parts and puberty, something that I will probably work on with some other volunteers during vacation from school. I also don't really understand why we get so much money for HIV/AIDS education here when the incidence is really quite minuscule. Other STIs are much more prevalent and more of a problem, as is teenage pregnancy. I just think we need to change our focus in this area.

And then I also traveled up to another volunteer's site in the mountains. We have this big grant we're applying for through the Ronald McDonald Foundation and it's been quite a process. Volunteers with Healthy Schools had the opportunity to choose schools that needed water projects and fill out applications with the principals of the schools, which they turned into the four of us who are on the Project Advisory Committee for Healthy Schools. I received fourteen applications, all of which I had to go through and make sure we had all of the correct information, photos, maps, contracts, etc. I've been working on this since May-ish when we visited some of my schools for a trial run about how the application process would work and just now sent the last batch of photos to the people who are the mediators between us and Ronald McDonald. Now we'll see whether or not they want to help fund 60 water projects in Guatemala. Five of my schools are in the running so it would be fantastic to get these funds and at least leave these projects for the next generation of volunteers.

So that was last week. The exhaustion didn't hit me until around 2:00 today. This week isn't going to be nearly as busy-just school visits and possibly an activity with one of my favorite schools on Friday.

Today was one of those days when the rain comes early and soaks clothes that were just about dry. That's the disadvantage to working in the morning-you often get home too late to take down clothes that were drying. So since I had no visit today, just work from home, I hung everything up and the rain managed to sneak in and catch me by surprise. I don't really know how my clothes will dry because I have school visits the rest of the week and hanging stuff up inside doesn't work because it's too damp inside my house. I guess I'll just hope that there is one sunny afternoon coming up soon.

I think that's it. I'll probably think of something I forgot to mention in an hour or so. Thanks for reading and have a great afternoon/evening!