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