RAIN!

So, Guatemala is currently experiencing tropical storm Agatha and I happen to be in the west somewhere near the west coast where the storm first hit this morning, though it had rained for the two previous days. It's my first tropical storm so today has been quite an adventure. This morning I moved all of the stuff from my room around with my host mom's help to get everything off the floor because water was coming in from the window. The walls are also wet because the house wasn't constructed properly, so my room is incredibly damp and cold. At least the water stopped coming in the window for the most part because we put nylon up outside. We also spent quite a while dragging up a lot of stuff from my family's store to the house above so that it wouldn't get ruined if/when the water starts to flood the bottom level. Some parts of the muni and nearby Xela have already flooded and people are trying to move things to higher ground. Meanwhile the river is growing rapidly and the muni was using bulldozers to push dirt along the lower sides of the river, so we'll se how that goes. Now the power is a little sketchy, but my partner's internet is working pretty well. Anyway, I don't want to waste more time so I'll update when the power is more stable and I can brave the weather to make it to the internet cafe. Take care!

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day Mom! Monday was Día de la Madre (Mother’s Day) here in Guatemala and it’s a pretty big holiday, celebrated with fire crackers, serenades, parties, and gift-giving. I went to a Mother’s Day party on Saturday which was pretty fun. Only the mothers were supposed to participate in activities. They played games like throwing tantrums and breaking open a piñata. The kids also had a really cute drama they put on where the kids went to school and then came home and the principal had to tell the mom whether the kids had been bad or good. My partner and I also wrote out poems and read them to the oldest women at the party. We also had cake and paches (tamales made with rice and some special seasoning). Everyone was super nice and we now know more people in our community. The celebration continued on Sunday night when a bunch of older kids serenaded some moms in the community, which was followed by firecrackers. This happened around 3 or so in the morning. Then Monday a lot of the kids had the day off from school, which I would think is something most moms would probably not like because it just means more work for them during the day. Everyone gave gifts, had cake, etc. My mom was dressed up and was wearing the necklace and earrings my host sister had given her. It was a pretty good day.

Also this past week I was kind of sick for a couple of days. So I think now is a good time to address perceptions of health and treatment here in Guatemala. I’ve had some pretty interesting experiences with health. One big thing here is always wearing sweaters or jackets if it’s a little chilly outside, because if you don’t then you’ll get sick. Also showering at night will make you sick. Even asking doctors why people here get sick, they’ll tell you that it’s because people have wet hair at night. Sickness is not really perceived as spreading from person to person. Rather, it’s always because of something you ate, exposing yourself to the cold, even eating cold foods on a hot day. I have also heard the thought that worms come about when you don’t get something that you really want-my host brother really wanted pizza and my host mom didn’t give it to him, so now he has worms. So my host brother gets pretty much whatever he wants, when he wants it. These thoughts on health make the Healthy Schools program extra challenging because germs aren’t always seen as the cause of illness so people don’t always understand why you need to wash your hands. Often it’s just up to God to decide whether we are healthy or not, so people don’t really think they need to do anything to preserve their health.

Health care in Guatemala is divided into health posts and centers in smaller areas and then hospitals in larger towns and cities. Health posts in small areas are usually manned by a nurse and a doctor, sometimes more personnel if the town is bigger. I haven’t used their services because the Peace Corps prefers that we go through our medical officers because they have been trained in the U.S. But, I have experienced a Guatemalan hospital, but it was a private hospital (one that the Peace Corps uses) and it was much like a hospital in the U.S. I was there for some tests and an overnight stay for something that turned out not to be serious-I was pretty much the healthiest person in the hospital that night. The nurses were really friendly and the doctor who was in charge of my tests was really nice. He was trained at the University of Michigan so we joked a little about the Ohio State-U of M rivalry. The tests were performed with up-to-date equipment, the food was really good (and I got to choose), and I had a t.v. in the room I shared with another patient. It was painless as far as hospital visits go. Peace Corps took really good care of me throughout the process, I just hope I don’t have any more hospital visits coming up. In public hospitals, you wait a long time to see someone and they often give you medicines. It’s so easy to get medicine here because you don’t need a prescription to go to a pharmacy and pick something up, so pharmacists are always trying to get you to buy something that you don’t really need or get some sort of injection. There are also guys that come on the bus selling different syrups and pills to take to get rid of parasites or to help the nerves and goodness knows where they’re buying these concoctions from nor whether they have any medical background, but people buy their medicines.

I am also becoming more Guatemalan by the day. Last week a microbus passed by heading up to where my partner and I needed to go. It was packed and there was barely enough room to squeeze the rest of us in with no chance of being the least bit comfortable, but we didn’t even hesitate to get on. It was a very uncomfortable twenty minute ride and when I got to my stop, my legs and back were achy, but we got there a lot sooner than we would have if we had waited. I am also adopting different hand gestures, like raising a finger instead of a hand to say something or waving my index finger back and forth to say no. My English is also failing me more often and instead of saying I am hungry or thirsty, I say I have hunger or I have thirst.

As for work, we’re continuing with our first school visits and we’re planning on a training session with all of the teachers (250+ of them!) the end of this month. We’re breaking it up into three different sections, so it will be a bit more manageable. I’m also starting to get ready to paint some of the house where I’ll be moving in the beginning of July. Things are thus moving on pretty smoothly. Not much else to report for now. Hope things are going well as summer comes.

Take care everyone!

Christie

One month down, twenty-three months to go

I can't believe it's May and I've been a volunteer already for five weeks!

It's starting to rain more and the frequent afternoon rains are simply a sign of what is to come-rainy season. Over the past several weeks I have seen farmers in their fields planting milpa (corn plants) that will shortly grow to surpass my height. I am looking forward to the green that is promising to come, but not to the mud that will make my treks to some of the schools more difficult and messier. I need to find some rubber boots to keep my feet and pants dry in the coming months, but at least I already have my raincoat and umbrella broken in.

I figured I might write about my experience working in a foreign country, or at least continue what I started writing about last week with communication. There are so many things that make working here so much different than working back in the U.S. I am staying really busy with work and though it doesn’t always look like I’m working “hard,” a lot of the work I’m doing is just as draining as spending eight hours in the office with an hour-long lunch break. Much like the American concept of commuting to work, the actual task of getting to the school I am visiting in the morning is sometimes exhausting. I have to find the correct bus/micro/person who’s giving me a ride. If I’m traveling in someone’s personal vehicle, things are great. Micros are the second preferred method of travel because I have always been able to find a fairly comfortable seat (though sometimes I’m wedged between two other people barely able to keep my balance on sharp mountain turns). The most uncomfortable method is by camioneta (bus) because I often get onto already full buses and either have to stand or sit in an aisle seat, which is definitely the worst. Many of my schools are in mountainous areas, so the camioneta ride is very curvy. When you’re sitting in the aisle, you have to find some way to brace yourself, especially when you’ve only got half a cheek or so on the seat and you’re trying to hold onto a bag full of stuff. I get some really good leg workouts on the buses, but it just drains me before I even get to the schools. After half an hour of this I’m ready for a nice break but I need to keep on my feet to get to the school itself (sometimes another hike up part of a mountain) and go from classroom to classroom. Lately I’ve been on my feet for several hours at a time with only a short break to have a snack with the school. After four hours or so at the school, it’s time to find a ride back to my site, which is just like the ride up only scarier when I’m going down the mountain and I can start to smell the brakes of the bus. Meanwhile, this whole time I’ve been negotiating everything in a language that I feel comfortable with but that still frustrates me all the time. My Spanish is much better after four months here, but I still can’t fully express what I want to say or understand everything people are saying to me, especially when they’re talking fast or are talking to me on the phone. Then in the afternoon I have to prepare and plan for the coming days. Though our activities in the schools have been the same, we are soon going to start on the next step, completing a diagnostic to know where the school is health-wise and what we need to focus on in the coming two years and then presenting it to the teachers. We are also planning on having a workshop by the end of May broken up into three sessions so that we don’t have too many teachers at the same time. We are also talking to one of the municipalities about water and possibly working with them on finding funding for a water project. There is also a lot of waiting involved in nearly every aspect of my work day-waiting for the bus to come, waiting around the school to start presentations or to have a meeting with the teachers, waiting for the bus to carry us back to town, waiting to have a meeting with our supervisor or city officials, waiting to hear from someone regarding information we need, etc. It would be much easier if I could dictate what I wanted to have done, when I wanted to have it done by, or just do everything myself, but I’m not here to do that. I’m here to work with the teachers and the directors of these schools. It’s just a challenge to realize that things aren’t going to go at the pace you want because work is measured differently here and because standards are different. We’ll see how things go in the next weeks.

I’m just trying to be patient. I know it’s probably weird for the people I’m working with to have a bumbling, demanding foreigner come in and start working with them. I don’t always get the language very well, I don’t understand all of their customs and social norms so I know I probably do offensive things or at least things that confuse people, and I don’t fully understand what I’m doing or how I’m going to accomplish my goals with the project. The next several months will be spent building confidence and getting to know my schools, teachers and directors better, but I know that this is going to take a while.

But not all of my work is hard. Interacting with the kids comes easily because they are always interested in learning more about the strange foreigners in their school. Moreover, they include me in games at recess, buy me snacks and just talk to me, often asking questions about the U.S. or how to say certain words in English. And some of the teachers and directors are really great. Moreover, I know that the work is worth it. I believe in the efficacy of what I am doing and I know that what I am doing will help the kids at these schools live healthier lives.

In other news, I made lasagna today and it was absolutely delicious. The host family loved it too. They're convinced I'm a really good cook, but all I'm doing is introducing lots of cheesy dishes into their lives while they're meanwhile introducing a lot of sugar into mine. There is also a religious 'campaña' in a tent maybe 30 feet from my house and I could hear them singing at 5:00 this morning. Yesterday they were competing with the Catholics in town, who had a procession of the Virgin for some festival, complete with band and fireworks. They passed right by the tent and I could hear both things going on at the same time. Just the level of noise here is astounding and I'm still not used to it, though the few occasions when it is silent are slightly eerie. Then there is the howling of dogs when we have tremors, which is also pretty eerie.

There is never a dull day in Guatemala. Hope life is just as interesting for everyone else!

Best wishes,
Christie

Ending April

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

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

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

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

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

Easter and On

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

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

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

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