Tamale Day aka 3 Week Aniversary

The three week mark. Today was tamale day again. It’s my favorite day of the week.

I spent the morning doing a community exchange with another group of trainees, in which we visited their town for an hour, then they visited our town for an hour. I also got my first taste of a choco-banana today. That makes two delicious food-things that I ate today. The choco-banana costs Q 0.25, which is about US $.03. Yes, three cents for half of a perfectly ripe and delicious banana dipped in chocolate, frozen, and served on a stick. I must find a location in which to buy these marvels in my town. I spend the afternoon making tamales, making tortillas, reading, and napping. It was all-in-all a wonderful Saturday.

My accomplishments as of today: I can now, regularly, make circular tortillas without holes in them that are the proper thickness. I can read a page in my book, in Spanish, and understand the gist of it without needing to consult my dictionary. I can have a conversation about a current event and be competent enough to understand the main points about what is going on and even ask a few questions. I can walk around my town at dusk and run into somebody I know or recognize and have a conversation with them.

Tomorrow I will eat tamales for breakfast.

Photos: January Part 1

Business Class

I have learned more about business in the past three weeks than in the rest of the past 23 years of my life. And it’s all really interesting and very applicable stuff. Every Thursday we have technical training for half the day, where we learn how to do the more hands-on part of our job. The first three tech sessions were about acquainting oneself with the town, how to run an effective meeting, and how to get the most out of employees or people and organizations you are working with. I feel like everything I learned I will actually use - in my next few years in the Peace Corps and in life.

First we learned how to do a FODA (SWOT in English: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) where we list characteristics of a group of people and/or individual contributors in each of the four columns. As David says, “don’t go camping with somebody who can’t pack his own bags!” First we’ve got to know the abilities and disabilities of the people we’re working with to make sure we’re not getting in over our heads.

Next we learned how to make a community map and seasonal calendar - both tools specific to each town, completed with the help of many town members. With these tools we are able to see the points of interest, danger, and important happenings of the town from the perspective of those in the community.

We learned how to draw a solution tree, where one works on a problem with the input of the group. One person writes a problem down on paper; this is the “trunk”. Then asks the group to brainstorm different causes (roots) and writes them down. Then asks the group for effects (branches) and writes them down. An idea that would cut down a branch is a short-term solution to the problem, and an idea to chop off a root would be a long-term solution. I like this whole strategy because it’s not one person coming up with a magic solution to a problem, but the members of the community figuring out together, with a little organizational help, their own doable solutions to their own problem that they think is important.

We also learned how to fill out a Product-Market Matrix, which consists of a 2x2 matrix containing
1) existing product/existing market
2) existing product/new market
3) new product/existing market
4) new product/new market
We learned how to partition the aspects of our current project into the matrix and from there figure out where to go next.

Finally, today, we learned how to make a POA (Plan de Operacion Annual) or an Annual Plan and budget. We also learned the five Ps of a good business: Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Public.

I feel like this crash-course in business was really interesting and really helpful, and it’s making me more and more interested in the science of business. Business is all about human behavior and how that behavior changes due to various other weird things. I like science. I like human behavior. However odd and unpredictable it may seem at times, I think this is something I could really get into.

Self-Worth

Today was a full day. We met at 8:00 this morning in front of the Muni building in my town, where we were supposed to be picked up by David, our technical trainer, to go visit our friends in a neighboring town to trade information and skills. However, Guatemalans run on a completely different clock than normal people and we didn’t get to our final destination (a 20 minute walk maximum away from my house) until 9:30. “Hora Chapina” is what it’s called here. It frustrates me because I’m always prompt, and now I understand one of the reasons why it’s so hard to get anything done here, although I do admire the “time is not the only important thing in my life” attitude.

We learned how to make an A-frame for measuring the incline of a trail, because our neighbors’ project is to construct a nature trail for their tourists. Then we dragged them over to our town and took them on a tour of our “basurera”, the location where they take all the trash and compost and recyclables to be dealt with. I learned a lot of new and interesting things this second time visiting the basurera. 85% of all garbage collected in my town is organic waste which can be composted. 10% are recyclables like plastic bottles, paper, and aluminum or other metals which can be classified and sold, and only 5% actually gets torched. But that 5% is still pretty major; it’s enough garbage to keep a fire burning so hot 24/7/365 that not even a heavy rain cools it down enough to put it out. I don’t even want to imagine what happens in all the other towns who don’t separate their organic waste and who set everything on fire.

In the afternoon we had another meeting with the “Red de Mujeres”, the group of artisan women whom we are helping with their fair. This meeting was much more productive than the last and hopefully the next will be even better. The women have only one interest: selling their goods. What we are trying to do is educate them to understand that really their objective is to make money. They can still sell their goods to accomplish this, but their time would be better spent doing other things also like giving classes on weaving, classes on cooking traditional foods, and the like.

They don’t really understand the concept of Cultural Tourism, but I think I did a pretty good job of explaining it to them today. I asked them (all in Spanish, of course), “what do you teach to your daughters when they are 6, 7, 8 years old?” They responded “to weave, to make tortillas, to cook traditional dishes, to clean”. I told them that those are the types of things tourists who are interested in the culture of a particular area want to learn…well, save the last one. They might buy a shirt or a trinket, but what these women teach to their daughters, so that their daughters can then teach their children: that is culture. People are interested in buying experiences. So long as they can take a picture to remember, share, brag, whatever, cultural tourists are interested in buying experiences.

In the future, when I have a better Spanish vocabulary and a better grasp on the grammar, I would like to explain also how little money they actually make on their woven goods based on how much time they put in to them. They can still sell their woven goods, but if they offer services like classes on various things, they can make more money while putting in less time and resources. This is one of the topics the Mayor of our town touched upon during our meeting last week. He said that educating the women gives them more self-esteem. They need this sense of self-worth. If you don’t think your time is worth as much as your husband’s, if you don’t think you are as useful or as intelligent, if you don’t think you have as much to contribute to your town or family than you are a self-fulfilling prophecy. When these women start to value their own time and realize that they do have intelligent thoughts and do have a lot to add to the well-being of their community, that is when progress begins.

I would love to be a part of this progress. I know that I only have another nine weeks at this site so I won’t be able to play a huge role, but just to see the women start to value themselves and become more outgoing would be wonderful. And really, the same phenomenon occurs all throughout Guatemala. I’m sure that when I arrive at my two-year site I will encounter the same mindsets and problems that I’m finding here. But it really is a nice change of pace for me to have an interesting topic to be pondering. I enjoy pondering - sometimes I think maybe I do it too much. It drives me nuts when I can’t come to a conclusion. But usually after writing enough, or talking with enough friends, and especially after reading, I get through the thought process with a decent end-thought. I like having a thorough but succinct response/answer to a major problem or quandary. It makes me feel intelligent when I can clearly explain my beliefs on a given topic.

Guatemala City, and, my experience with Sarcasm

Guatemala City has everything you may ever need in three places walking-distance of each other: Hyper-Paiz, a Wal-Mart type of store, Tikal Futura, a mall, and Mira Flores, another mall. Yes, there are two incredibly large malls right next door to each other. Why? I’m not sure that question really came up during the entire construction process. I’m not quite sure Guatemalans understand that question at all most of the time, or at least, think of it as a worthy question to be asking. Why are you feeding your three-year-old son coffee for breakfast? Why are you building a second artisan market in town when you first one isn’t getting any business? Why do you blast out-of-key music from the church loudspeakers at three o’clock in the morning? Why do you always cook food for 50 people when you know you’re only going to sell it to 20? These are just a handful of the many why questions I would like to have answered in the next two years. Anyway, the mall was just a mall, the food wasn’t that great, and the whole trip to Guate was a huge energy-vacuum for me. Luckily, I arrived home relatively early and had some time to recharge before watching the Blue guys and Red guys fight on horseback once again.

I feel extremely lucky that I get along with my family members so well, and that they are some of the very, very few Guatemalans who know what sarcasm is and are willing to have that kind of fun with me. I’m also glad that my Spanish is finally at that level where I can understand more of the jokes that are going on at my expense and can come up with some type of intelligent retort. I think they find it even funnier that I can give it back. I bond much more quickly with people who have my sense of humor; it’s feels more natural to have a good time with them and just plain easier for us to understand each other.

This is how I feel about my host-sister Miriam. She’s 30, so a bit older than I am, but isn’t married (yet, but she will be in December) and doesn’t have any kids so she’s the closest I have to a peer in the household to hang out with. I think she likes having me around too. I get the feeling that usually when she’s at home she has work to do, as do all the other women of the house, and there isn’t so much time for chit-chat as they’re all doing different things at different times. When I’m home, the only thing I can contribute fairly well to is the cooking of the dinner, which is usually what Miriam does. I’m not much help at making tortillas (yet), which is usually what Doña Esperanza and her daughter-in-law Sophia are doing in the evenings. So, I think that I’m one of her main outlets for friendly chatting which I really like. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, she’s really patient with me and my attempt at Spanish, speaks slowly and annunciates which makes all the difference, and has interesting stories to share and likes to hear the stories that I have, too.

I was talking to a person in my group today about what type of two-year site we would prefer: isolated, big city, small pueblo, no electricity or running water, or the works. I realized that the things I like most about this town I’m in now are the friendships and the proximity to everything. I hang out with the people in my group in my spare time because we have fun together. I like the fact that I can walk down the block to buy a dozen eggs, walk the other direction another block and buy fresh cheese, or walk down four blocks to buy meats and fresh veggies. All I really want in my two-year site is the ability to make those kinds of friends that I like hanging out with, and the proximity to all my necessities. I can deal without hot water. I could probably deal without electricity. But I think without a local support system I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

This is why I’m trying so hard to improve my Spanish. I know that it will come naturally in time just by living here, but the more comfortable I am speaking the more outgoing I know I’ll be able to be and the more easily I’ll be able to converse with the locals and form relationships. I also think that it’s important to have a meaningful conversation with somebody in order to really get to know their personality, and I’ll never be able to have a meaningful conversation without a much more advanced grasp on the language. And at two weeks in, with nine more to go in the training process, truthfully I’m feeling pretty good. Except for that time that I ate cheese before bed, I’m all-in-all feeling really good.

Photos: Fiesta

Photos from our town's fiesta "El Dulce Nombre de Jesus"

Friday through Monday January 22-25 2010

The photos are in exact opposite order (that is, the first one is on the bottom and the last one is on top)

Fiesta: Day 2

Day two of my Pueblo‘s fair “El Dulce Nombre de Jesús”. There were a couple more dances, though none really as strange as the ones yesterday. One looked like musical chairs, and in these chairs sat children dressed like either a cowboys or different jungle animals. There was an MC in the middle telling jokes, and everybody was laughing, but I couldn’t understand a thing because he was wearing a mask and mumbling. Another dance consisted of children dressed up in costume and elaborate masks (of course) putting on a type of play complete with sword fighting, a princess, and death. I didn’t really understand the message of that either. Then there was another “baile de los abuelitos” but this time adult men dressed up as old ladies dancing a choreographed dance in the street. There was also again the Looney Toons dance with the giant heads.

At night though, the crazy stuff started. Once it got dark, some guy ran up and down my crowded street with a large cardboard thing on his head. Affixed to this cardboard were a lot of fireworks and firecrackers, which he or someone else would light, and subsequently frighten all the people in the crowd and make them sprint away for their safety. He also started firecrackers in the street and basically ran around like a crazy person. But, it was all part of the fair. A little later there was a procession down this same street with another float depicting Jesus’ birth. At the end of the float route was a wooded edifice that was to be lit on fire. Or so I was told. It wasn’t so much of a fire as it was a stand to hold mountainous amounts of fireworks. I’m amazed how many people are willing to get so close to that stuff, and I’m starting to get used to the fact that there really aren’t many or any regulations regarding safety and all that in this type of small town.

After the fireworks I wandered back to the town’s central park, met up with a couple people from our neighboring town, and watched the marimba orchestra play on this huge temporary stage that was built especially for this fair. It was at least a 12 piece band, with four on the marimba, the national instrument of Guatemala, a few on horned instruments, four singers/dancers, some people on percussion, and I bet a couple more on strings and other stuff I couldn’t see due to the crowd. Everybody showed up for this. Nobody danced. At least not until the very end, and even then very very little, but it was fun anyway.

Also tonight was the drunken riders on drunken horses, and it was much more apparent today than yesterday how smashed the riders really were. The streets were so packed, but every time the horses galloped by people sprinted and shoved to get out of the way because the horses were obviously out of control. I never actually though I was in any bodily harm tonight, but I do know what it feels like to be charged at by a horse and it’s not fun.

I have already made my decision that I must return next year for this fair…and the year after. It was so interesting to see the time and effort put into this weekend, considering my experience with the people of this town and their lifestyles and capabilities. It takes a lot of my brainpower to try and rationalize exactly why they do what they do, but I think it comes down to: these people understand that the point of living is to be enjoy it. And putting their money into elaborate parties every once in a while is certainly a great way to enjoy oneself, hang out with friends, eat good food, and be incredibly well-entertained for a weekend. And for the rest of my life because I took some great pictures that will always put a smile on my face whenever I look at them.

Fiesta: Day 1

Guatemalans know how to party. This afternoon I had the best time of my whole two weeks. Today is my two week anniversary here at my training site and I celebrated it with: children dressed up like “abuelitos” (grandparents) or old people, men dressed up as women, children dressed up as cartoon characters with incredibly large heads, and drunk guys riding horses while re-enacting a Christian history. Yes, this all occurred in my small, conservative, and rather poor town.

The day started with Spanish class in Antigua, the touristy city a half hour camioneta ride away from home. We walked around the town, got a tour of a small Jade factory, and then went to the market to try different fruits. We didn’t find much that was interesting so we went to the paca instead. The paca is basically a really really large market of second-hand clothes shipped over from the US. Most of the stuff you have to sift through to find something nice, of your size, and that you would actually wear. The same with shoes. But I found one vendor who is really organized with their shoes, and respectively more expensive, but it was worth it to find two pairs of new shoes in my size. This was my first real experience in haggling. My pair of Asics started at Q350; I told her I could pay Q250. She upped it to Q275 and I said I needed to think about it and that I may buy another pair. I found a pair of Keens and she said they cost the same, Q350 but would give them both to me for Q500 total. I told her I only brought Q450 (which was the truth) so I could either buy one pair, or both for Q450. It worked and I walked away with both pairs of new shoes for less than US $50 total. I’m pretty proud, especially because anything having to do with talking about money makes me incredibly uncomfortable. And now I actually have a pair of tennies to play basketball in.

Next comes my favorite part of the day. I returned home around 1pm to a really good lunch, and as soon as I finished this oddball of a parade began right outside my front door.

First came the “baile de los abuelitos”, dance of the grandparents. Kids of the young teenage years dress up with old-people masks, canes, and dress and then dance a well-choreographed dance up and down the street. A pickup truck, complete with streamers and banners and the works, precedes them blasting music from speakers housed on the truck bed. People crowded the sides of the street and alleyways to watch.

Second came the cross-dressers. The men go all out for this. Think of those guys in high school or college that you know put weeks of effort into their Halloween costume, makeup, and the whole act. Then narrow down that thought to the guy who did all that but would only dress up as a women. Then imagine at least 50-75 of them from teenagers to at least mid-centurions all dancing in the street, also following another tricked out pickup truck blasting music. I could not stop laughing. It was so weird, but also really interesting to see this from a conservative small town that really should not be blowing its money on stuff like this. Oh yes, and they also had a fake Michael Jackson casket complete with cross-dressing pallbearers.

Next came the Looney Toon parade. Kids dressed up like your regular cartoon characters, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Yogi Bear, etc… with really really large heads. They also had a choreographed dance which they performed in the street, again to music toted by a pickup. Some of these kids really had rhythm, and all of them got really, really in to it. It didn’t hurt that all the costume heads were stuck in the grinning position, which just made it look even more like they were really enjoying themselves. Though I imagine wearing that head for the entire day would get a little hot and humid.

Oh yeah, these dancers, all three groups of them, danced these same dances which lasted at least 10-15 minutes, at least five or more times during the day.

Next came the float parade. All Christian themed. Actually the whole day was ultra-Christian themed (not a surprise as basically all town events are centered around the church). They had kids dressed up as angels, temptations, wise men, the Virgin Mary, Jesus at various ages in his life, and way more. Boy I hope I’ll eventually be able to upload pictures.

Then came the faux sword fights on horseback. Two teams: blue and red. Blue are the good guys, the people that are declaring that there is only one god. Red are the bad guys, who are declaring, as I understand it, that there are more than just one god. Obviously in this town the blue guys win. But it is portrayed by these different people, I think ten in total, dressed up in costumes and masks galloping horses up and down the street shouting proclamations, sword fighting each other, and just putting on a show. I have heard that in some towns there is a horseback sword fight that occurs after both the riders and the horses get drunk. Now that I would like to see, though I think it may be rather difficult to get a horse drunk. And I don’t think I would really approve of that anyway.

Later in the night all the first three dances occurred again, all the while bombas (firecrackers) and fireworks were going off in the central park of the town, people selling street food and fair food, and finally some sort of procession went through the street and into the Catholic church. That was more or less the end of day-one. Tomorrow there will be more, as well as more dancing during the night. We all waited up late tonight for the dancing because us gringos are used to Friday and Saturday nights being the nights to party. But apparently Guatemaltecos party on Sundays. So great, I have one more day of weird and interesting happenings to look forward to.

My Avocado Man

Jokes that happen here in Guatemala tend to linger. There is no idea of telling a joke, having a laugh, and then being over it; no, it’s your joke for life. Today at lunch I was helping to make tortillas (which I am really not very good at yet), though I can make smaller ones that are circular, don’t have holes in the middle, and have round edges. As I was making them one of the customers, who also happens to be the host-mother of one of my group members, told me that here in our town, it is said that once a woman can make tortillas she is ready to be married. So now all the women around me are ready to marry me off! I know it’s a joke and it was really funny because I played along with it for a little for laughs, but now they bring it up every chance they get.

I also told them that avocados are my favorite food, which is quite true, and I figured if I mentioned it a few times that they would provide for me a plethora of avocados which grow here and are fairly cheap and delicious. Sometimes I get avocados. But now the joke is that I need to find a man to marry, but he has to have an avocado tree in his yard. Every chance these women get they bring it up that I’m looking for my avocado man. It’s funny. And at least they’re not joking anymore about throwing seeds at me whenever I speak poor Spanish. This too will pass I’m sure for some other odd and only slightly embarrassing joke on the gringa.

Before lunch, and on a more professional note, I met the mayor of our town, the “Alcalde”. He seems like a really intelligent man and I was quite surprised that throughout our whole one hour meeting I could actually understand most of the things he was saying, at least enough to give a little input. Basically his idea about what the town needs boils down to education. Educating the children to think for themselves and to understand why it’s important to think about the future rather than just the present. Educating the women to give them more self-esteem which will allow them to interact better with customers, as the major source of income for many women in this town is selling their hand-woven goods to tourists. Increasing self-esteem in the female population will also decrease domestic violence, increase awareness about family planning, and will basically allow them to live happier lives. The Alcalde’s ideas were that increasing education leads to increased health which leads to a better quality of life. He had a very terse and convincing way of explaining all this; he really impressed me.

In the afternoon we toured the town’s compost pit which is quite unique; only three towns in all of Guatemala separate their organic and inorganic garbage and mine is one of them. We learned about “lombricompost” in which they compost all of their organic waste using earthworms. They burn all of their inorganic waste, including plastics, and are hoping that we can help them think of a better way to get rid of it to better the air quality in the area. All we could really think of on the spot is what we do in the US: landfill. But landfills here are just trash thrown into a natural valley and eventually covered over with dirt. That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. So now, in addition to our project with the Artisan women, we will be working on some trash management plans as well as educating the local schools about this and other environmental education topics in general.

It’s shaping up to be a busy following nine weeks, especially seeing how the past two just flew by. But I’m really glad that this training project is going to include something that I’m actually interested in rather than just learning about business and marketing.

Red de Mujeres

Today my group had our first meeting with the group of ladies we will be working with for the fair; the “Reina de Mujeres” or the “Red” (net). We came prepared with a bunch of questions, all nicely translated into perfect Spanish so we wouldn’t stumble upon our words so much, and we got a lot of blank faces in return. They are just all so shy, timid, unsure, and very soft-spoken. I’m sure it takes a lot of time to build a business relationship with someone, especially a foreigner that doesn’t really speak your language very well, but I was not expecting this. I don’t even have the energy to write about how the meeting went I’m so overwhelmed. Part, actually most, of my job here is to assist and teach and train more than actually do. It’s good to know that all I really have to do is facilitate the organizing process, and it’s going to have to be up to the Red to put in some effort if they want their Artisan Fair to succeed. But I want it to succeed also, for them and for me, to know that I can actually be of use in a field other than a science.

In other news I’m playing more basketball than I have since my first year of high school. Everybody in my group likes to play, most of the Peace Corps people in our neighboring town like to play, and many have host-family members that come along also. Most of us are pretty good or can at least hold our own, which makes for some fairly competitive games most of the time. The only thing is that the natives here they like to play half-court (while a full court game of fútbol is going on at the same time on the same court by the way) but you don’t have to clear the ball past the 3-point line with each change of possession. This basically makes it a rebounding game and because I’m 5’6” with my shoes on, I don’t put up that many points. It’s still a lot of fun and a pretty good workout if I play hard. Though I have gotten pegged by a rogue fútbol which was only a little painful but a lot more surprising.

Individualism vs. Collectivism, or, Why they are both the same.

Today my group and another group visited a real live Peace Corps Volunteer (we’re all considered “trainees” right now) to see where she lives, what she does, what she eats, who she knows, and how she interacts with the townspeople. In all honesty, she seems like a person that I would just not get along with. We learned a lot of great stuff and she did give us some really helpful tidbits of information, but there were so many things about here that I thought, if I had to be around her five days a week, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. No big deal. I’m usually that way with females. It was a little hard to be the only person in the group a little disappointed at the whole “visit a Volunteer” experience, as everybody else seemed to be having a great time. I missed having my family cook lunch for me. Today we ate at this restaurant that was the favorite of this girl, however, all of the food was either fried, American white-washed, or tasteless. Our technical trainer David asked me how I liked the food, as he was sitting next to me at lunch. I replied that it honestly didn’t do much for me. I couldn’t tell how he took my reaction. But it was the truth so there’s not much else I could have said.

I also learned today that I’m going to have more say on my two year site and assignment than I previously thought. We have at least three personal one-on-one meetings with various Peace Corps staff between now and that assignment, and I have already submitted a two-page resume and another two page aspiration statement. Those things along with the meetings and the talk time I’m getting in during training I believe will help them match my personality and skills well with a town and a project. I just have to keep thinking that it’s in their best interests to put me somewhere where I’ll be happy and give me a job that I’m interested in and qualified to do. They have invested so much time and money in me as a worker so far that it really behooves them to do their best to keep me (and everyone else) from dropping out early, and they’ll do that by making sure I’m a good fit with my site and project.

Tomorrow I’m going to the market in Antigua, tourist metropolitan center of the area, to look for a guitar. There are two trainees in my neighboring town with guitars who jam all the time and I want to be included. I also want something besides reading and writing these journal entries to occupy my free time. During the night time my family members just sit around watching telenovelas on TV, which I can do for about 10 minutes, but since I can’t really understand them anyway and the acting is just so wretched, I usually excuse myself around 9/9:30 to go to my room and read or do homework.

Today’s homework consisted of a quiz to see where on the spectrum of “individualism” and “collectivism” one falls. Basically they wanted to know if you are the type of person who does things for the good of yourself or for the good of the group or community. I’m an expert on this subject. I think about it all the time and have an incredibly logical, and incredibly wordy, reason for answering exactly as I did. Out of ten questions, 9 answers were individualistic and 1 was collectivist, and that one question I was on the fence about. I was then asked to write about why I fell where I did on the spectrum. It’s the whole altruism vs. selfishness debacle all over again.

In short, I believe that everyone does what they do for themselves. It’s evolution; it’s Darwinism. But often, either consciously or subconsciously, what’s good for the self is often good for others too, and this is nearly always true when we think of others people’s ability to remember. Doing something nice for someone in your community is bound to come back to you. I believe people do good things for each other because they expect it to be reciprocated, and often this is not a conscious decision. I was actually unable to answer the question because, as they define collectivist in the book, I am 100% collectivist. But as I scored on the test, I’m 90%-100% individualist. I don’t really care to be categorized and I’m okay with being a little confused and annoyed by the dumb quiz because I know exactly what I believe, I’m open minded to changing that based on new input, and I am nice to and help out the people around me.

One Week Aniversary and Reflection

Yesterday marked my one week anniversary with my host family. I have to say that everything is going a lot smoother, easier, and more comfortable than I had really imagined. I have only two things that I would change if I had the choice. One, I would like my guitar. Two, I would like a hot shower. But that’s about it.

The weather is a lot warmer after my first three nights so I’m not freezing anymore, and the days are all really warm, sunny, and very pleasurable. There is so much to do during the day that I’m never just sitting around being bored and that really makes the time fly by quickly. A typical day for me now

7:00 - Wake up, have breakfast, and tidy my room
8:00 - Spanish class
12:00 - Lunch
1:00 - Spanish class
3:00/4:00 - Work on project with my team or do some other activity with them
6:00/7:00 - Come home and talk with my family and usually help them cook dinner
7:00/8:00 - Eat dinner
9:30 - Head to my room to read, write, do homework, and eventually sleep.

That’s basically my Monday-Saturday, though on Saturdays we don’t have any Spanish class in the afternoon so there’s a little more free time.

Today, Sunday, I got to sleep in a little more, had breakfast with my family, then headed to the market with them. I worked with my group for an hour and a half or so and then had lunch with my family. After lunch, my group members and I went to the neighboring town (a 15 minute walk away from my house) and went swimming in their pool. The pools really neat, they are man-made but naturally fed by mountain spring water and there are three or four different pools all on different levels, because they were built on an incredibly steep slope. Also they had one waterslide. A straight shot down. This isn’t your average boring, slow, waterslide that you go down in an inner-tube. This is a straight shot down a rather steep grade, which forces water up your nose as you land in the water below. It is also rather shallow where you get spat out so I always ended up hitting my feet and back on the ground. I’m glad I did not go head first.

As we were walking to the pools, we also got invited to play a little basketball later with the host-brothers of one our group members. That was really fun. There were five of us gringos and only three Guatelmaltecos, so I played on the other side to even out the females. We won. Even though the gringos had an average of 6-8 inches on us. They play best two of three games to 21, but they have one strange rule: you cannot win a game on a two point shot. You have to win the game on a free-throw. When one team reaches 21+ points, they shoot a free throw. If they miss, we play it out. If one team misses four free-throws they are demoted back down to 11 points. The game is called “21”.

Another thing I’ve noticed about the life here is it takes forever to get anything done. If I tell a friend I’ll meet them at 3:00, chances are that we’ll both be at least a half an hour late because we’ll find somebody to talk to on the way who monopolizes our time. And the people walk really slowly here. I’m so used to walking being a mode of transportation - how can I get myself most efficiently from point A to point B? Walk fast! Of course. But here, no. Walking is just as social as anything else. There are people to walk with and chat with, people to say hello to on the way, and things to admire en route to destination. And everything in this town is so close that walking slowly isn’t really a waste of time. I like it, but it’s definitely going to take a lot of time to get used to the slower pace of life.

My family members have the best sense of humor. Even with the language barrier, we are able to have jokes and sarcasm and just enjoy laughing with each other. Today, after buying fruit from the market (two new types for me to try), I sat down with the Mother, Father, and their only daughter at the table peeling and snacking on the fruit. Both types had very large seeds that came out clean after you sucked on them and spat them out. Each of us had collected a sizeable pile of our own seeds on the table in front of us and someone, I don’t know exactly who, started throwing seeds at each other. We’re talking about two 50 year olds and a 30 year old and me. Somebody suggested that, as a punishment, every time I say something that is not in perfect Spanish, somebody should throw a seed at me. It was hilarious how much fun they (and I) were having laughing with each other and at me. Miriam, the daughter, brought it up again tonight while we were selling food outside their house, but because we didn’t have any fruit seeds, she threatened to throw a doblada at me (a tortilla with potato inside, folded over, then deep fried). It was hilarious.

I’m so glad I got this lucky to have a family that is patient with me, is willing to have a little fun with each other and me, and especially a family that cooks food that I actually like. I did try a type of food today that I really didn’t like: atol with banana. Atol is a very popular drink here that is basically hot rice-milk that actually has a substantial amount of rice granules in it. I don’t like Atol much, but I can take a little bit of it, especially if it’s cold outside. This banana atol was gross. I’m soooooooooo not into bananas in liquid form. I told her that but that I was also willing to try it. “Voy a probarlo” is my “dicho” or saying, here in Guatemala. “I will try it.” I was very upfront with here about not liking it. I gave it a few sips and said I couldn’t finish it. She didn’t seem offended and I honestly don’t think she was. If anything, it probably reinforces the fact that when I say I do like something she makes, I really mean it because she knows I’m willing to be honest. And I really have liked everything else she’s made, save the fried chicken. Too greasy and a little undercooked on the inside.

As a recap of the week, I’m a lot happier and more comfortable than I really expected and that is making the transitioning process incredibly easy. It’s great now showering everyday and having that be acceptable. It’s great wearing the same clothes a few days in a row, or a least a few times before washing them, and having that be acceptable. I’m not the cleanest of persons so I really don’t mind how dirty things are here, and I like being around other people who aren’t bothered by that sort of thing. I like small towns, and I like having all my friends live just a few minutes away. I just hope that when I get to my two year location it will be just as great as here.

Cultural Fair, Tortillas, and Bees

Today my group members, Spanish instructor, and technical trainer all met with three people from our town that will be helping us during the next few months. We (all five of us Peace Corps Trainees) are living together in a small town, and part of our training is to do some type of project. All the groups in different towns have different projects to accomplish based on the need(s) of their town. Our project is to organize a cultural fair to attract tourists, promote the Mayan heritage and culture of the town, and to help the local women artisan groups to sell their hand-woven goods. I feel very unqualified to perform such a task, but it will be very interesting learning how the business side of things works, and also to interact with women’s groups in a machismo culture.

The people in my group are really fun and interesting people, and we all have varied backgrounds, though it is easy to see where each person’s experience will come in handy for this project. Hillary has a Master’s degree in something having to do with business and finance, and a few years of work experience as well. Stacey has a Bachelor’s in forestry and environmental studies, and has experience with birds. Alex has a degree in environmental studies and has experience in conservation and has also done volunteer work overseas. Chad has a degree in business and has experience in outdoor and environmental education. Finally there’s me, with a degree in ecology and experience in environmental education and management of natural lands. None of us really have much experience in cultural matters or the like, but we’re all pretty jazzed about having this opportunity to learn something completely new.

The majority of our project, though I still know little about it, centers around organizing a fair to include: selling hand-made goods, dancing, singing, selling of food, Mayan games, music lessons, and anything else we can think of. The idea is to get tourists involved in the culture rather than just buying something tangible. For example, instead of selling fresh tortillas on the corner, we could sell the raw dough (masa) along with a tortilla-clapping lesson, then let the tourists clap and bake their own tortillas to eat. This would bring in more money to the locals for the ingredients and time they put out, and would hopefully engage the tourist more, make their memory of the town stronger, and make them appreciate all the hard work these women put into their lives every day.

On that note, I received my first tortilla-clapping lesson today. I tried (badly) to make a couple last week while I was making tamales and chuchitas, but I was so terrible they decided it would be better to put me to work on something else. Today was better. The first few came out in odd squarish or other weird shapes, with holes in them and uneven edges. I made about 8 of them, and the last two came out okay, in an oval sort of shape, but without holes in the middle. Then we ate them for dinner because they were not fit to sell (my words, not my host mother’s!). We were both having a good laugh throughout the process. I think, even though I’m not that great at cooking anything, she likes having someone around that wants to learn and is willing to try. She said that the last volunteer she had was a little anti-social and didn’t put much effort into assimilating, getting to know the town, getting to know her group members, and just participating in whole. I’ve had a lot to do this past week but I spend as much time as I can around the house with her and her daughter, because no matter what they’re doing, they’re always talking and talking with them (which is much easier than talking with the menfolk and the children) is the best thing I can do to improve my Spanish.

One of the first days of class when I arrived we were asked to write down what our biggest fears were about joining the Peace Corps. Aside from major bodily injury, I wrote down that my Spanish speaking level was my biggest fear, and that I though it would be beyond impossible to ever really understand what was going on. I was really wrong. I do make a ton of mistakes in my speech, but everybody seems to understand how hard I’m trying to learn and learn correctly, and they always take time to help me or correct me or answer whatever question I might have. I can’t even imagine what interesting conversations I’ll be able to have in one more month when our levels of understanding each other are that much higher. Today, I don’t remember how we got on the topic, but my host mother Esperanza and I started talking about bees. I started telling her about the honey bee dance and how they are so intelligent about using that form of communication to convey the location of food and water to each other. She seemed so enthralled, and not at all confused at me telling her that another animal besides humans had intelligence and communication. She agrees with me that it’s important to take care of other animals simply because they have life, just like us, and she also added in that flowers have feelings too. I said I agreed even though I don’t, but it’s close enough. She accredits it to God, that God gave all animals and plants life and that’s why they’re all important. Even though we have totally different reasons, we still believe exactly the same things. It’s pretty cool. I feel better knowing that I’ll be able to relate to a lot of people here on the things that are most important to me.

First Trip to Headquarters

Today I rode my first “camioneta”, chicken bus in English, which is an old school bus from the US, repainted and with a little engine work, and used as the major form of public transportation here in Guatemala. Cost: Q7 (US $.90) to ride from my town to Peace Corps headquarters. I live in a small town with 3, soon to be 4, other volunteers of the same language level, and we are pretty lucky to live very close (as in walking distance) to another town which is also hosting five volunteers, two of which brought guitars with them. The camioneta ride was very crowded; you have to get on early in the route in order to get a seat which we were lucky enough to do on the trip there. On the trip back however, the bus was so packed with three people to a seat and others crammed in standing up. The busses come often, but all are just as crowded. It’s the mode of transport I’ll have to get used to! All I am really worried about is theft. I’m carrying around my camera basically everywhere I go now because one never knows when that perfect photo opportunity will be, and I’m sure there will be plenty in the next couple years. I know the risks, but what’s the point of having a nice camera if it’s going to sit in my room all day? I knew the risk when I decided to bring it and if something happens, oh well. I’ll just deal with it.

Today I also bought my first newspaper in Spanish. I figured that reading would help my language learning even more than the speaking I do in class and around the house with my host family. Books are very expensive in Guatemala, I think partly because they’re not very popular. People don’t have a lot of time to relax, and when they do, they would prefer to do other things. I read one article in the paper about corruption, taxes, and the government. I read the same short article four times and each time I found more words that I needed to ask about or look up in a dictionary. The 13 year old Marvin helped me with most of the words. The weird thing is, even after a whole day in English (today we had classes in English), something just clicked with my Spanish speaking this evening. I was helping Miriam, the daughter, make dinner and the sentences just seem to flow out without much stumbling and dictionary-looking. It was great. I hope to find a bookstore soon to buy a book in Spanish that I know well in English.

Tomorrow we are going into the city of Antigua, which is a huge tourist town, but it has a bank and other shops and everybody in my group has a small shopping list of things that we can’t buy here in our small town. I especially want to find a music store and look at the guitars. I know I’m going to buy one eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, but I want to make sure I get one of good quality so it is probably better to look around before I buy. Even if I’m not happy with the guitars they sell in Antigua I could at least get a handmade flute or other simple instrument to satisfy my musical needs. In Antigua we also hope to buy cell phones which will make coordination with other groups much easier. Oh yeah, plus calls to the US are pretty cheap so, if I feel like it, I guess I’ll be able to call home once in a while.

Where I live the only access to internet is via an internet café that costs Q8 (US $1) per hour, which is pretty cheap, but I don’t use it every day. I also can’t access the internet with my own computer so I can’t use Skype either.

Yesterday we found out what our project is. Every training group has a small project they complete together with their host community during their three months of training. We will be organizing a cultural fair to attract tourists who want to learn about this town of Mayan descent. There will be music and dancing, food, drinks, hand-made goods to sell, art, etc… I was a little put off at first because none of this really has to do with ecology and the environment, but I’m willing to give it a shot. I do hope that when I get placed at my permanent site my job will deal more with nature, but this will be a good learning experience for me. I’ll get to learn about small businesses, marketing, advertising, and I’ll do it all in Spanish. We will be learning more about this project tomorrow and Thursday so I’ll write more about that when I find out more.

Volcan del Fuego

Last night was the first night in my new host family’s house and I slept so good. No roosters (gallos), no firecrackers, no church music, no footsteps from the floors above me. Nothing. I woke up at 7:30 on my own clock and the first thing I saw when I looked outside was smoke coming out of a volcano! This is normal and also really neat, because I’ve never seen an active volcano. I took a few photographs but then everybody sat down for breakfast. I ate two more tamales for breakfast. After, I helped a little with some cooking, but in the middle of cooking my host mother asked me if I wanted to go with her (where? I didn’t know, but I said yes anyway). She put a huge bucket of corn granules, that had been soaked in water and boiled over a fire for an hour, on her head and we walked downstairs and down a few blocks. We came to a small room with a large machine called a “molino” which is used to grind the granules into corn-mush called “masa“. We dumped our bucket of granules into the feeder and then something that rotates pretty fast ground them and deposited them into a receptacle. The old woman managing the machine felt the masa with her hand as it came out and kept adjusting the amount of water being added. We packed the masa back into the bucket and she put it back on her head as we walked back to the house.

After I returned and started cooking a little more, I was invited out for a walk with my host sister Miriam about the town. We met two friends of the family, sisters, who both sell hand-made traditional Mayan clothing and other woven goods in the Artisan center in town. All the things sold there are so beautiful! So many colors and types of clothing and table cloths and purses and wallets. If it is made out of cloth there is probably somebody in that center that sells it. There is also a small museum with around 15-20 wooden manikins dressed up in traditional clothing of different parts of Guatemala. I liked reading the paragraph-ish captions that a few of them had, because reading things in Spanish is sooooo much easier for me than listening. After the tour of the museum we walked a few more blocks to buy some more meat for other things the family would be making and selling later that day. Miriam also took me by the cemetery and “cancha”, or sports field, where people play basketball and fútbol.

We returned to the house and continued cooking a few more things. I also sat downstairs for a half hour or so watching the women make tortillas to sell. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day for them so it makes sense that lunchtime is when they sell the most tortillas. The tortillas made here are simply corn and water (masa) rolled into a sphere and flattened by patting the ball between the two palms of the hand, and cooked on a flat surface called a “comal” underneath which is a wood fire. I try and limit myself now to two tortillas per meal (the diameter of one tortilla is about the length of a normal iPod), but I’m sure in a few months when I’m so tired of tortillas it will be much easier. There’s just something so delicious about eating food that is fresh and handmade and warm.

After lunch, which was “sopa de arroz” y “guisado con pollo”, I met up with one other trainee from my town. I showed him around the Artisan building and down a few other streets as we talked in English for the first time in 24 hours. We happened to run into two other trainees from the neighboring town crashing our territory with their host brothers. We six walked around with nothing particular in mind for the next half hour or so and then all went to our respective homes.

I got another chance to go out even after I got back from that voyage, because I needed to buy a towel and a couple books, and an aunt in the family has a store in town. All the stores in town sell a little bit of everything, so if you need toothpaste, crayons, firecrackers, baby clothing, gum, and lettuce, you could pretty much walk in to any one store and be done for the day. I bought a towel, a blank cuaderno for drawing, and a littler libreta (“little book“) to make my own little personal dictionary. Cost, Q55.50, or, about US $7 at 8 Quetzals per U.S. dollar.

In the evening, we set up a stand outside the house with a gas-powered stove to sell food for dinner. We had tostadas with a variety of toppings, “dobladas” which are tortillas folded over with potato in the middle then sealed and deep-fried, and “pupusas” which is a tortilla, only before it’s cooked, it gets cheese put in the middle. All with a variety of toppings. My favorite was the doblada with a scoop of avocado on top. There was also atoll, which is a sweet rice-milk drink served hot. I don’t like that so much, but maybe if I have another type that is not so sweet it will be better. By the time everybody was done selling the food and packing up it was around 9:30 at night and everybody was ready to descansar and go to bed. Como yo. Ahora.

Tamales

Today is the first day staying with my host family of 3 months for training. I spent all afternoon with Doña Esperanza, her daughter Miriam and daughter-in-law Sophia making tamales and another type of food that has salsa and a small bit of meat inside a cooked tortilla called a chuchito. Then I ate them. Two tomales and one chuchito. The tamales were so good.

To make a tamale first we put two large leaves, probably 30cm and up in length, on a plate with the stems facing opposite directions. Then we scooped a spoonful of corn-mush and a spoonful of salsa onto the top leaf and mixed them together. Then we put a bit of meat in the middle - we did chicken and duck. Fold over the sides of the leaf, and then fold the tip of the leaf over. Stand the tamale up on that end to pack all the good stuff together then fold over the stem part of the leaf, neat like a present. To create a tight seal for cooking, do the same with the second leaf over the first one. Finally, wrap the whole thing with a small piece of reed the size of a piece of ribbon, again tie it like a present, and bake them all together in a pot over a wood fire for 1-1½ hours. ¡Que deliciosas!

In other news, I did not shower today, nor will I for the next three months. No, it’s bucket baths from here on out for me. Actually, I did not take a bucket bath today either. Whoops. The host family that I stayed with for the first three nights in Santa Lucia Milpas Altas had a device in their shower that would heat the water you are about to shower with in a small electrical device affixed to the shower head. Now, normally electricity and water don’t mix (or don’t mix well), but I’ve heard they are pretty safe. I did take two showers there and am happy to say that I have not gotten electrocuted yet. This does not go for another in my training group. Apparently he was not the one to turn the heating device on so didn’t know how to turn it off, reached around the top of the device, and accidentally found a few wires sticking out. He said he got blasted out of the shower. I’m so glad I have others to learn from!

Today I was also asked “eres Catolico, o Christian?” Basically they wanted to know if I was Catholic or Christian. Like anything else was not an option. I said, while trying not to lie flat-out, that I was a mixture. Doña Esperanza agreed, “solo es uno” she said as she looked and pointed at the sky, “solo es uno”. I (tried to, in my broken Spanish) explain that the most important part of church to me was the singing and the community and knowing everybody and making friends. That wasn’t exactly a lie…only the church part. But that’s what I had to do. That’s what we were instructed to do. Lie if they ask us what religion we are. All that really matters to them is that we believe in God. According to our training leader Craig, not believing in God is “an actual physical embodiment of the Devil". Cool. Yo soy Diablo!!! I’m sure they’ll ask me to go to church with them which is fine with me. I’m not scared of religion anymore like I used to be, and as long as I don’t have to sit still for hours, it will probably be pretty cool to go to Mass en español. Maybe they’ll give me a bible to read in Spanish. Actually it would probably be really good for me to read some parables that I’m already familiar with in Spanish, it could only help my language learning.

Vasalvagal

Today, during a health lecture about shots and vaccinations and rabies, I almost fainted. Seriously. First I felt like I had a very very mild stomach ache, then I started to feel light-headed. Then the light-headedness began to get worse so I told the girl sitting next to me that I didn’t feel well. I started breathing more deeply but it didn’t get better. After that my eye sight started to go, which didn’t return 100% for about one minute. As soon as the eye sight started to return, my hearing started to go, though as soon as my sight started to come back I wasn’t really worried anymore because this has happened to me once before when I fell off a horse as a child. As the hearing started to come back, or really at some point in the process (I don’t know because I couldn’t see my own face) I turned extremely pale - “white going on green” from what the nurse said. Crazy! It’s called a vasalvagal reaction, and it happens because the muscles surrounding the arteries clamp down because of various environmental (but really psychological) stimuli. Mine was nervousness surrounding the very unlikely possibility that I would need a very painful post-exposure rabies vaccine. And it turns out that my initial fear was actually unfounded because they don’t do those painful shots directly into the abdomen anymore, just a regular shot in the arm. Or rather, a series of two regular shots in the arm. Big deal.

Well, I’ve always know that normal pain to others is extreme pain for me, so I’m not really surprised that I had this sort of panic-attack-like reaction to the anticipation of pain.

I’m sure I’m going to feel a lot of pain these next few years. I will get bitten by mosquitoes, I will get sick, I will get sun-burned, I may get bitten by a snake or spider or other wild animal. I will get too cold and I will get to hot, I will get too wet and I will be just generally uncomfortable. But big deal, really. It will all pass eventually, and though I may be miserable in the moment I know that it will have to end eventually. That’s what I tell myself whenever I get a cold and I can’t remember exactly how it felt to feel well: “I will feel better eventually”. It is so true. And it will all be worth it.

The Peace Corps people told us all to write down reasons why we want to be in the Peace Corps so we could look at them at a later date when are patience is being tried and our commitment tested. My reason simply was “it is the best choice for me at this time”. Now, this includes a nearly endless list of pros and cons which I may write out eventually, but all I really have to remember is that I have more to learn here, more to gain, more things to experience, more fun to have, more challenges, and more wonderful moments than I could ever think of having spending the next 27 months in the states. This is definitely not to say that I don’t enjoy all the things that I have back at home, nor that I think I’ll make better friends here or anything like that, I just believe that the package deal of Peace Corps Guatemala so far outweighs the package deal of California. And I think that’s all I’ll need to remember when those bad days come.