Monday, October 31, 2011

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.

Friday, October 21, 2011

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.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

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.


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

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!