Bombas Bombas Everywhere (Or, Absolute Silence is Hard to Come By)

So, I’m currently in Guatemala, where I plan to spend the next two years and three months. I haven’t updated this blog in a while, so here’s a quick update of the last year or so. After spending time abroad and my internship in D.C., I settled back in at Kenyon and finished up there, graduating in May with a BA in both International Studies and Spanish. Facing a tough job market and also thinking about what I really wanted to do with my life, I decided to do something I had been thinking of for quite a while: become a Peace Corps volunteer. I started the application process in November/December 2008 and was finally given an assignment a little less than a year later. A little over a week ago I packed up my things, said good-bye to family and friends, and found myself on a plane for DC, where I spend a day of orientation, followed by another plane ride to Guatemala City.

So now that I’ve caught everyone up, here’s what I’ve been up to for the past ten days of so. First of all, it definitely feels like I’ve been here for more than ten days, which I take as being a good sign that I’m comfortable here and that I’m adapting fairly well. This post is going to be a long one because a lot has happened. I guess I can stick to first impressions and spare everyone the boring details of what we learned in orientation, which health problems have been addressed by the medical staff here, and how to say “cool” in Guatemalan Spanish.

Now, how to begin. So one of the first things I guess I’ll mention is that there are fireworks everywhere. This is on my mind because they are going off even now, in the middle of the day. Sometimes I can hear fire crackers, but other times they give off these huge booms that make it sound like someone is firing a cannon into the village or something. I arrived at my homestay two hours before a big festival started, last Saturday. The town I am living in, Pastores, was celebrating el convite, a festival that is related to Epiphany in some way (which is the explanation I think I was getting from my host mom). Basically, the whole idea of the day was for some people to dress up in costume, with many men choosing to compete in the fiero competition (cross-dressing), where one guy was dressed like a woman and another like a man to make a pareja. There were also people randomly dressed with crazy masks on, as well as others with outfits that didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Everyone who had a costume would dance in a circle surrounded by normally-dressed people, who just stood there and watched (myself included). There was live music for them to dance to, provided by musicians on a giant truck with loads of huge speakers. The truck would move around the pueblo, even making it to neighboring pueblos, plug into the electricity somewhere, and start blasting this music for the costumed/cross dressing people to dance to. The band would play three songs or so and then move on to the next stop. I followed the truck for maybe two circuits of this. It was pretty incredible how it could maneuver (barely) through the skinny streets around here. Later on there was a parade of kids dressed as religious figures, including someone playing Issac with Abraham about to sacrifice him, and some recreating the birth of Christ. Then that night there was a grand finale I went to with a fellow gringo and his host family, which was also attended by much of the pueblo. There was more dancing and this time there were tons of fireworks. It was pretty crazy because people had fireworks coming out of these homemade staffs or sticks of some sort that they were carrying around. A bunch of guys, for example, were dressed as wraiths and they had sickles with fireworks shooting out of the top. Coming from a society like the U.S. where we value personal safety and all, it was interesting to see these random drunk guys with masks on shooting fireworks into the air and occasionally into the crowd. The thing about the fireworks here is that they don’t really provide much of a show. I think instead that they are revered for the amount of noise they make. From day one here I have heard at least one round of fireworks going off during the night, which is apparently how Guatemalans celebrate birthdays. And then there are the occasional ones going off during the days that you really wouldn’t be able to see with the sun still out.

On the topic of festivals, Guatemala has a lot of them. Some are on a national level, while many others, like the convite and the one I will talk about next, occur in individual towns or regions. Sunday was another restival, this time el rezado, which is some religious celebration concerning the Virgin Mary. They crazy thing about this festival was the costumes that people were wearing and the dance the costumed people performed for the pueblo. Again there was a huge truck with giant speakers and assorted musicians. The people dancing were dressed in these huge costumes with giant platform shoes and really big costumed heads. There were pairs of most characters, with, for example, two Yoshis, two of the kid from the movie “Up”, four bears dressed in military fatigues, and one Stewie from “Family Guy” leading everyone else in the dance. Again the people were going from one stop to the next to perform the same dance over and over again, so they would rest for maybe twenty minutes between dances. The dance they performed was choreographed and it was pretty entertaining. They performed two different dances to two different songs and all together it took a good half-hour to finish up, by which time I’m sure the people were ready to get out of their costumes, though they were again on to the next stop. The religious part of the festival came later when a statue of a female saint (I think-it was Santa something) left the church to the sound of these really loud bombas (fireworks) lit by guys in the street. There was also confetti and a band to lead the statue to its next stop, where more fireworks went off. When the statue returned to the church much later that night, there again were fireworks. Then the next day when the statue returned to someone’s house where it will spend the next year, there were more loud bombas going off. Then Friday night was another festival of sorts with more fireworks and my host mom placing incense in front of her nativity set. I don’t really know where the fixation with fireworks comes from, but it’s certainly a huge presence here.

Other than fireworks, there’s plenty of other noise. There are always dogs barking and roosters crowing. Some people have dogs for safety reasons, but the most common dogs around are the ones on the street, which I feel so sorry for but pass by without petting in an attempt to not get rabies. Friday night was the first night when I just lay there and didn’t hear any noise, and it felt weird. Soon enough though a rooster got confused and broke up the silence.

I’ve already had two families here in Guate. Upon first arriving, we were quickly shipped out of the capital (too dangerous) to Santa Lucía Milpas Altas where the Peace Corps Guatemala headquarters is located. We all had homestays in the surrounding area. I was living with two parents and four siblings. The youngest girl, Fernanda, was 7 and we played soccer and took a walk around the community while I was staying with them. The family was living in a small compound, with an opening to the street, a courtyard area to hang drying clothing, a wash room with a pila (where you go to get water and wash stuff), the room I was staying in, the parents’ room, the living area with t.v., tables to eat at, kitchen, a small bathroom and a door that led to the kids’ rooms. There were lots of rooms, but they were all fairly small. The dad owned a nursery and sold plants, while the mom owned a salon next to the house and cut hair every so often. The kids were all in school. Most people were paired for these homestays but I was one of the lucky few who got to start out alone. Things were fine though and my Spanish came back surprisingly quickly. I was even feeling confident enough to accompany my entire family to church. They attend an evangelical church a short walk from the house and it was a pretty interesting thing to experience my first night in Guatemala. Two of my host sisters and two others were dancing while my host brother was playing drums in a band with two other people. After maybe an hour of this music and dancing, the pastor got up and gave a sermon. By this point I was freezing and my host mom kindly took me home. The service went on for the next several hours so it’s probably a good thing I left so I could go to bed early. Evangelical churches have gained popularity here since missionaries came during the eighties. Many evangelical families attend church or Bible studies most nights, and that’s what my family did, though sometimes it was only a meeting for women or for men. Anyway, I went home and got into my long underwear. Though Guatemala is usually considered a warm country because of its location closer to the Equator, in the mountains it gets pretty cold at night (though not quite to the point of freezing). Houses here don’t have heating and this leads to pretty cold temperatures inside as well as out, so it was a pretty chilly first night (as well as second night, and third night, and so on).

After a few nights in Santa Lucía, we were all placed in groups according to Spanish level and project assignment and were sent to live in different communities. My group is in Pastores, a pueblo fairly close to the city of Antigua that is known for its cowboy boots. My group is pretty great-there are five of us and we are getting along pretty well at the moment. Pastores is a really nice town. There are between 14,000 and 18,000 people living here (depending on who you ask) and people are really friendly because everyone knows each other and most people living here grew up here. It’s a bit warmer here than in Santa Lucía-the days usually get into the 70s, though the nights get pretty cold, into the low 50s. After the first two days here and the ensuing fiestas, things have quieted down nicely and I don’t go to sleep listening to loud music pulsing through the walls (usually). My family is a middle-class family. The mom teaches mecanografía (typing) to people from the house while the dad works for the Ministry of Education in Antigua. There are three kids, one who is eighteen and just graduated from high school and is probably going to be starting at university soon or else to start working as a teacher. The two younger kids are, I think, 9 and 11 and just started the school year on Friday. They are pretty cute together because they’re either collaborating on something, like making boats out of newspaper, or are picking on each other, like often happens at the dinner table. Everyone is really nice and I’ve been hanging out with them as much as possible, which generally includes meals and watching an occasional t.v. show. People tend to spend a lot of time descansando (relaxing), which leads to people isolated in their rooms. At least I brought a lot of reading material. The house is pretty nice. There is an open courtyard/garage in the front, where the family parks their car and hangs laundry to dry. Then up a few stairs is an outdoor kitchen and the nativity scene (not sure when they take them down around here-all of the Catholic families still have theirs up). Then inside the house is the dining room and a family room with a t.v. and a stereo. Then further back in the house are the bedrooms-all of the kids have their own rooms. Then in the very back is where the main pila is. Most families have this and it is where most of the washing takes place-it’s a faucet and a container with water, surrounded with two raised platform-like areas, one to wash clothes and one to wash dishes or hands. There are more clotheslines, a washing machine and a chicken tied up (not sure why it’s there-it wasn’t there when I arrived, but mysteriously showed up a few days ago). Then up stairs above part of the house is the mecanografía classroom, another room that is closed up, and then my room and a bathroom. My room is nice and it’s pretty big-it’s larger than any of the bedrooms downstairs-but it’s kind of isolated from the rest of the family. It’s nice having my own bathroom though, and because we have running water and a nice shower with hot water, I consider myself lucky. No more bucket showers and pit latrines for me (at least for the moment). Also of interest are the pets. My family has a parakeet, Lola, a few turtles, some fish, and a dog, Luna. The dog is really cute and really fat. When I got to the house last week, I thought for sure that she was pregnant, but my host mom and sister took her to the vet and the vet told them that Luna is just psychologically pregnant. With this interesting development, of which I am somewhat skeptical, we apparently have to wait for her to pretend give birth and then she should lose the weight. We'll see if there are any puppies, real or phantom, in her future.

In Pastores we are taking Spanish class together four days or so a week. Our teacher, Chepe, is really great and has been taking us to do stuff rather than just sitting around learning verbs and stuff because we are at an advanced enough level. Spanish class has consisted of some grammatical stuff, but it has also consisted of going to Antigua and walking around, going to the market in Chimaltenango and eating at the Pollo Campero there, and learning how to cook tamalitos and tortillas at his house and then feasting on them and drinking Guatemalan beer. I’ve also been hanging out with my compañeros, whether it’s been going to Antigua, walking around Pastores, or hanging out at someone’s house playing cards. And it’s only been a week of classes and life in Pastores. As you can probably tell, things have been going pretty great and I am enjoying life here in Guate, but I know that once I’m on my own in a more rural area things will probably be much different.

Food-wise, I’ve been eating pretty well. The diet here consists of a lot of rice and beans and tortillas. Fortunately I like this food, and this is likely the food I will be eating nearly every day for the next two years. I’ve also had lots of potatoes, some noodles made either with a tomato sauce or with soy sauce, some vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, etc.), lots of bread, and some good fruit. Tea is a common drink, as is coffee which I don’t drink (which most people find weird). I’ve also had some good juices, like jugo de mora and pineapple juice. Avacadoes are also quite easy to come by, which has been great.

I’ve been traveling a little bit around the area where I am living. The buses are really cheap and go everywhere in Guatemala. I am fascinated by transportation wherever I am living and things are no different in Guatemala. Chicken buses really are the way to go (though they can sometimes be a little dangerous). They are cheap enough for everyone to use so you can find a good variety of people taking the buses around. Essentially, they are old school buses, some of which have been painted bright colors, which are touched up every now and again to keep in running condition. I am living just one town away from Antigua, which is gringo-central and has lots of nice places to eat, shop, and just hang out with my fellow gringos and watch some futbol on the big screen. They even have a McDonald’s and a Burger King, as well as Pollo Campero. We went to Antigua to buy cell phones and there’s a really nice grocery store there, which will be nice when I want to cook something for my family. There is also a pretty nice bar/restaurant I’ve been to a few times. I also went and walked around another day to see some of the colonial-era churches and other structures that are still standing around town. Unfortunately, though, gringos have pretty much taken over the place and things there are too expensive for the typical Guatemalan.

I think this is enough for now. I’ll have to go to the internet café tomorrow to post this up. Internet is surprisingly fast here so I shouldn’t have too many problems. Internet is also cheap, so maybe I’ll try to catch up on some news and write some e-mails. If anyone wants to write letters, they would be very welcome. My address here is:

Christine Dutko, PCT
Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps
3a Calle 6-48, Zona 1
Santa Lucía Milpas Altas, Sacatepéquez
Guatemala, Centro América

Note: Packages should not be sent here but to the Antigua Peace Corps office, the address of which I don’t have. I will try to post that another time (not that I'm expecting packages or anything).

I hope everyone is doing well and is keeping warm in the U.S. Que todo vaya bien!