Field-Based Training

During my six day trip in Huehuetenango, I have realized many things:

- Always bring your own toilet paper.
- The ability to read and write is something that one should not take for granted.
- Cold showers are way worse than bucket bathing.
- When you stay in hotels that cost 35 quetzales/night ($4.35 in US dollars), you really do get what you pay for.
- Colds spread really quickly among exhausted Peace Corps trainees who spent a lot of time together crammed into vans and crowded hotel rooms that cost 35 quetzales/night.
- Guatemala is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places in the world.
- I absolutely cannot wait to officially become a Volunteer (we lowly trainees will swear in on October 30^th!)

I just returned from a six-day trip to Huehuetenango, a department (equivalent of “state”) of Guatemala located in the Western highlands on the border with Mexico. It was a really amazing and exhausting experience. All sixteen of us Muni trainees packed up a large backpack, said temporary goodbyes to our host families, and drove in two vans out to Huehuetanango. We were accompanied by the Assistant Peace Corps Director (our boss, Roberto), our technical trainer, two Spanish teachers, and a driver. The objective of field-based training is to give us the opportunity to visit current volunteers in their sites to learn about the work they are doing; including their work with their counterparts in the municipalities, working with community and women’s groups, secondary projects (like teaching cooking classes, starting a library, hosting a radio show…these volunteers were so awesome!), etc. All these volunteers had just finished their first year in site, or are nearing the end of their two-year service. In the six sites that we visited, we met really amazing volunteers who offered us an enormous amount of advice related to work, housing, culture, travel…from what to do when your married office coworker repeatedly asks you out on dates, to how to get furniture for your house when you get to your site, to how to give nutrition presentations to indigenous women who can’t read and write.

On the 5^th day, we visited a volunteer in her site, and were pleased to find out that we’d be accompanying her to a visit to a women’s group in a rural community within her municipality to give a nutrition talk. After four days of having Muni information pounded into our brains, this presentation was a welcome change. And it was really quite the experience. There were about 30 Mayan women present who spoke Spanish as a second language and we were later told that there were only THREE in the group had ever been to school before – and those three had attended school only until the third grade. The amazing part was observing how this volunteer presented information on nutrition using pictures, games, jokes, anything necessary to get the point across without using written materials. It’s crazy that despite the level of education and number of degrees that one collects, it is so difficult to think of ways to explain elementary things to people in a basic way. Out of the sixteen of us, there are two that have law degrees, nine with master’s degrees, and tons of collective work experience despite the fact that nobody is over 30. Yet, ask us how to give a fun and engaging nutrition presentation without using written words? It seems like such a hard task, which is why I enjoyed visiting this particular volunteer who showed us lots of tools and techniques to present to illiterate populations, no matter what the theme.

Aside from the work aspect of Field-based training, it was also super fun because the group was able to bond a lot more. Although we all see each other a few times a week, it’s hard to find the time to really spend and get to know people (and our 7:00 curfew doesn’t help with that too much). Another awesome aspect of the trip was the ability to eat in restaurants!!! We certainly didn’t eat anywhere too fancy or with too crazy of a selection, but just the ability to go to a restaurant and SELECT what I wanted to order was such a welcome change, after living with a host family for the last six weeks and eating whatever is served to me. While it is also awesome to not have to worry about buying groceries or taking the time to prepare food, this is something that I am getting more and more impatient with and one of the reasons I am so excited to be on my own and to be able to prepare my own food. Plus, this country has so many amazing fruits and vegetables that are locally grown, fresh, and super cheap, I can’t wait to learn more fun things to cook…although Guatemala is entering a rather severe food security crisis because of the economic situation, combined with a rainy season that has been devoid of rain.

Being here has been a constant reminder of how privileged we are, just to be Americans. The fact that we can live and work in the US without worries of getting caught and deported, which is the case of one of my trainees’ families – the daughter of the host mom was living in the US for four years and last week was deported, now back in Guate and wondering how to possibly earn money to support her family. And even as “poor” Peace Corps volunteers, we are so much more privileged than the average Guatemalan. The fact that in one day, we can visit a community group that can’t read or write, and that same night go out to a bar for drinks. Yes we complain that we don’t make much money, but our situation cannot possibly compare. I’m not trying to sound all negative while writing this – but by putting these thoughts to paper (or blog), it helps to reinforce the idea and provide something to look back upon when feeling certain frustrations or discontent.

Driving through the countryside was breathtaking. We were driving up and down mountains with beautiful valleys, lush vegetation everywhere, natural waterfalls, volcanoes…it was definitely a drive that I will never forget! And hopefully one that I will have the chance to repeat many more times, because during the trip, I accidentally fell in love with one of the sites that we visited. I had told myself before leaving P-town that I would keep an open mind to anywhere and everywhere, as to not create false hopes and expectations for myself, but within the first five minutes in this particular site I knew it was where I wanted to be. And hearing the current volunteer describe her work and the things that would need to be done by the next volunteer, my interest was even more reinforced. I expressed this to Roberto, with all my reasoning for wanting to be in this particular place, and he said, “Yes, I can definitely see you being successful here. Or some places in the Eastern part of the country. I think you’ll be happy on October 8^th.” If you all thought I was a nervous wreck before receiving my country assignment, you should see me now! But I definitely do feel faith that I will be placed in the best site for me…after all, Roberto is puro chapin who has been doing this for 27 years, and I have only been here for six weeks.

Overall, the best part of field-based training was the reinforcement in my mind of what I am doing here and why I want to be here. While the whole point of the three-month training is to prepare us to be good volunteers, I have lately felt kind of annoyed with the technical/cultural/language/health and safety grind and feeling like I just want to get out there and work already! But within 4.5 short weeks, I will be in my new home. If only I could control my impatience – I am dying to know where it is!

Some of you have been asking if there’s anything I’d like to have sent from the US, and now I actually do have something – please send me photos!! They are expensive to print here, and all the volunteers that we visited had their houses covered in photos from back home. So if you would like to send me pictures that I can use to decorate my future new home, that would be really awesome : ) My address is at the bottom of the blog page.

Much love from Guate!

(click on photos to enlarge them)

Pointing to Guatemala on the world map project created by a muni volunteer in Huehuetenango
There are some pretty awesome/crazy clouds and skylines here
This photo was NOT taken from an airplane, although that´s what the sky looked like when we drove wayyy up into the highlands at one point.
Beautiful volcanoes in the background
My sitemate Nico and I giving a presentation on Citizen Participation at a junior high school here in P-town

The Beauty of Small Town Living

Never in my life have I lived away from a city; growing up outside Philly, spending a semester abroad in Seville, Spain, and then the last six years in Washington DC, there are some things that you just take for granted with the convenience and access of a city. P-town is one of the smaller training communities (Peace Corps has the 32 of us separated into 8 towns) – there are no restaurants here, no markets, no hair salons, no banks. But there are two internet cafes – the “blue” one and the “up the hill” one. Although the blue one has much slower internet and often sticky keyboards, I patronize it because it is closer to my house and there’s a nice guy that works there who always gives me candy before I pay and leave. This past week, I was in a rush and forgot to take my flash drive with me. I returned the next day to see if it was still there, and explained to Carlos, the internet guy, what I was looking for. He said he would try to remember who had used this computer after me to see if he could get it back. Given that the loss was obviously my fault, I thanked him and made a mental note to add “flash drive” to the list of things that I need Mom to send me. But believe it or not, I show up two days and Carlos had it in hand. He had called each person who sat at that same computer until he found the guilty party and convinced them to return it. To think that the internet guy would bother to pay attention to or know who was sitting where, let alone their names and phone numbers, and then call each one individually to lecture about the wrongness of taking a personal belonging of someone else…I was pretty awed – this type of thing would never happen in a city!

The past few days have been pretty exciting here, mostly because of el Dia de la Independencia, which was on Tuesday. During the days leading up to Guatemala’s 188^th anniversary of independence, many schools have their “entorchas” which are pretty fun and crazy traditions. The kids run through the streets with a lit torch, the national flag, and blow whistles the whole time. We had the opportunity to participate in the entorcha of the elementary school where one of my cousins teaches. My cousin had told me that the kids that attend this school come from really low-income families; the school doesn’t have running water and the local government has to give money to the school to make sure the kids get a snack every day. This fact was pretty evident when we met the kids, many of who wore the only pair of shoes that they own to run the 6 kilometers up a REALLY steep hill to complete the entorcha route from Antigua to their school in El Jato. My three sitemates and I were hardcore struggling to get up this hill, but these 50 kids were so enthused and proud to represent their school; some of them were even running in plastic sandals but with their energy and excitement, they busted through those 6 kilometers in no time! It was a really fun event to experience…and despite the fact that I go running pretty regularly here, I was feeling rather sore the next day!

On the eve of Independence Day, there was a mini parade with a marching band and many more entorchas throughout the early evening. I enjoyed sitting out on the street with my host family clapping for each group running by. On the holiday itself, there is a parade in the morning with each area school presenting its marching band. We have been hearing these marching bands practice since the day we arrived in the country, so it was really cool to see them in action; all these kids marching and dancing and playing instruments. I especially liked watching the younger kids whose instruments were sometimes half their size...they were so cute! The parade went on for a few hours, and there was a shorter parade in the early evening. And of course, one of the best parts of “feriados” is the street food! We concluded the day at my aunt’s house, roasting corn on the BBQ. A recommendation for you all in the US still enjoying your outdoor grills before the season changes – roasted corn with lime and salt is absolutely delicious!

Speaking of food…the dinner that I cooked for my family turned out a big success. My sitemate Alex came over to help me prepare the food, which was super helpful in calming my nerves. (Living alone for two years didn’t necessarily prepare me well to cook for groups of 12 people). I prepared linguini with my sister-in-law’s sauce recipe, a really yummy salad, and garlic bread. They all loved the food! A huge relief, except now they’re asking when I am going to make the next dinner. On Sunday, we leave for our weeklong Field-Based Training trip to Huehuetenango – so I am at least off the hook until we return!

Another cool thing that my trainee group got to experience over the weekend was a traditional Mayan ceremony at a ruins site called Iximchil. Peace Corps arranged for a Kakchiquel (one of the local Mayan groups) priestess to show us what a ceremony is like and to pray for our well-being and protection in the country. It was really cool to see how the ceremony involved a lot of natural materials, like flowers, sugar, leaves, etc. to satisfy the fire, which embodied spirits communicating to us. Something really important to the Maya and Guatemala in general is corn, which has an important spiritual significance, as well as prevalence in the diet. We ended the morning ceremony with a really yummy corn-filled meal – Atol, which is a hot corn drink, blue corn tortillas, and tamalitos (smaller tamales, also made from corn meal); accompanied by some grilled chicken that made a lot of us sick the next day. But, hey, it was a free lunch!

More random comments:

- The larger grocery store in Antigua sells both peanut butter and Nutella, so I am pretty set with the basic necessities for the next two years!

- Many times when clothing is donated in the US, it is sent down to Central America and sold for really inexpensive prices in second-hand stores here. So you see people wearing really random stuff, like a Baltimore Orioles T-shirt (baseball is not at all popular in this country) or a Alabama Ironman T-Shirt (I am doubtful that many Guatemalans have a clue where Alabama is - US states are pretty much known by their location in relation to California, Florida, or New York. My host family knows Philadelphia as the city that is “dos horas de Nueva York”) Last night, my 50-something year old aunt came over wearing a hot pink shirt that said “My boyfriend is out of town”. I told her that I liked the shirt, she asked me what it meant in Spanish, and upon telling her, she was so mortified that her face turned the same color as her shirt!

In front of the Municipal Building, waiting for the afternoon parade to begin

Lots of people in the main plaza
Singing the National Anthem, which is rather long - 5 minutes total!
The parade


An evening entorcha
The internet cafe where I´m currently posting this blog!
My family about to eat the meal that I prepared for them
At the Mayan ceremony in Iximchil
The kids with who we ran the entorcha
Taking off the entorcha through the streets of Antigua

Now almost a full month into training, things are still such a whirlwind. Over the weekend, I was happy to have the chance to spend more time with our trainee group in a casual and social setting, because most of the time when it’s all 33 of us together, it is at the PC HQ in Santa Lucia during our all-day sessions on health, safety, technical, and receiving every shot that you could possibly imagine and I feel like I haven’t really gotten to know people too well yet. (Except that 33 number is now a 32 – sadly one of my fellow P-town sitemates is leaving – we’ll miss you, Michael!) On Saturday, we all met at a very gringo bar in Antigua to enjoy some beers, college football, and gigantic plates of nachos, and on Sunday, 14 of us went to the beach, Puerta San Jose, on the southern coast, about 1.5 hrs away. The beach was awesome and relaxing. It is a black sand beach, thanks to Guatemala’s lovely volcanoes, and the sand gets REALLY hot. Luckily it’s been a little while since my last pedicure so the bottoms of my feet didn’t feel too scorched. This particular beach is really chapin (meaning really Guatemalan) so it wasn’t at all touristy, and interesting to see how most of the chapines (Guatemalans) wear clothes in the ocean instead of bathing suits! This is mostly the women I’m referring to, who wear shorts and t-shirts instead of bikinis like us gringas. But I half expected this, because the public beach in Nicaragua was the same way. We scoped out the cleanest looking beach café to enjoy some fresh fried fish. To think that back during my junior year of college studying abroad in Spain, I’d ask waiters at the restaurants to serve my fish with the head cut off, and now I’m picking the whole thing apart like a pro! (sorry Julie and any other vegetarians I may be grossing out – at least I didn’t eat the eyeball…although supposedly, it’s good luck).

On Monday, we had our first trip into Guatemala City, the capital, since our arrival in country at the airport. The objective of the day was to learn where is the safe part of the city to get off the bus, how to use the PC-approved taxi company, and to see where the US Embassy and PC approved hospital are located. We ended the afternoon at a shopping mall, which was exactly like a US shopping mall, except the security guards have huge rifles…weird. Everyone was excited about the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in the food court, but I was wishing I were home eating lunch with Dona Esperanza after eating a Quiznos sandwich which cost almost double my daily stipend. Guate City is not too impressive of a place, and most of us are pretty scared to go there because it is really dangerous. The PC Safety and Security Officer had told us a scary statistic; that 25% of the country’s population resides in Guate City, but it’s where 80% of the crime is. And with the murder rate eight times higher than that of the US, I don’t think that most of us mind that PC doesn’t really allow us to spend time there! But having the chance to buy some shirts at Zara and eat some frozen yogurt definitely made it a worthwhile day.

Site placement continues to be a topic of conversation among all of us and is something often on my mind lately. The best advice that current volunteers have given us is to not have too many hopes or expectations on where we are assigned, because then we won’t be disappointed. When Roberto, our program director, asked me about my site preferences, like Indigenous vs. Ladino, Municipal Planning Office vs. Municipal Women’s Office, etc., I told him that all I care about is being somewhere WARM. You may not associate Guatemala as a cold place, but in the highlands where many volunteers work, it can get really cold! So hopefully this is a request that can be accommodated – I’ll find out in exactly a month! Before I left the US, I originally felt that I wouldn’t want to necessarily work in an indigenous area, due to the possibility of having to learn another language, but I have really been rethinking this. The indigenous Mayan populations are what make Guatemala really unique and special, as compared to other Central American countries whose indigenous populations were mostly eradicated during the Spanish conquest and colonization period. This may be redundant info to you, but before leaving the US a lot of people seemed confused about this, so just to clarify: indigenous populations refer to groups of people who have roots in the country wayyy before Christopher Columbus accidentally stumbled upon the Americas. The Mayan population speaks languages entirely different from Spanish – in fact, 23 different languages are spoken in Guatemala. I think that something that makes me nervous about the possibility of working in a Mayan community is being able to communicate with people who don’t speak Spanish as a first language, if at all. From what we’ve learned, things take a much longer time to happen here in Guate than at the speed which we’re accustomed to in the US. And I fear that things would be even slower if I have to start learning a new language upon arrival in my site. But at the same time, I think, when else would I ever have the chance to live and work with a rural Mayan community in Guatemala!? So, we will see what happens : ) In two weeks, the 16 of us in the Municipal Development program embark on a week-long trip to the department of Huehuetenango (pronounced “way-way-ten-ango”) which will offer us a lot of insight into the work and lives of volunteers.

Otherwise, I feel like I am still adjusting well and feeling more comfortable here; knowing a bit more of what to expect from daily life and how to interpret different behaviors here. Peace Corps has us do a lot of reading on intercultural and multiculturalism, which is actually really interesting to both understand what Guatemalan culture is a certain way and why the culture of the US is a certain way. An example: Guatemala is more “high power distance”, meaning that people accept that inequalities in power or status are natural; some people have more than others, and those who do have it tend to emphasize it and distinguish themselves. Whereas, the US is more “low power distance”, meaning that people see inequalities in power and status as artificial and those who do have power tend to minimize the differences between themselves and others. So, when I feel uncomfortable about how my host family treats or talks about the woman who comes every once in a while to help take care of the nieces and do the wash, I have to try to be really aware of this as a cultural difference, and know that they are not just mean people, but that these “class” relationships are more or less accepted in Guatemalan society, although they have certainly caused enough problems in the country. But that’s a story for another day…

Next week is Guatemalan’s Independence Day (Tuesday, Sept 15) so feel free to have a celebration on that day commemorating the national independence of my new home! : ) It should be a pretty awesome and fiesta-riffic day, and we are also giving two presentations next week, one to a women’s small business/microlending group and another at a junior high school. So hopefully my next blog will have some good updates. And by the way, feel free to leave comments! I’m really not sure who all exactly is reading this, so I’d love to know more of your thoughts and remarks!

Other random thoughts:

-I can tell that I’m getting accustomed to life here because I no longer have to force myself to remember to throw the toilet paper in the wastebasket, not in the toilet. (The pipes and sewage system here can’t handle paper, so every bathroom conveniently has a trashcan right next to the toilet) I know, pleasant thoughts, right!? We’ve learned that to survive Peace Corps Guatemala, we have to get realllly comfortable talking about bodily functions.

-This weeks’ Health training was on sexual health. Each of us received a different poster stating the necessary steps to putting on a condom, and then we had to put ourselves in the appropriate order. The first poster said, “a quiet evening at home” – you can imagine how the rest goes and how hard we were all laughing.

-My six year old host brother and I have been watching my Simpsons DVDs together almost daily. I’m hopeful that doing so will at least make him learn English!

-This week I saw my colleague from Partners of the Americas, Matt Bond, who now lives and works here in Guatemala. He is leaving soon to go back to the US but it was nice to see a familiar face!

-I offered to make dinner for Dona Esperanza on Sunday, and she asked if the rest of the family could come too. So now I am making a dinner for 12 people and I am so scared. Please wish me a LOT of luck!

The remains of our delicious oceanside lunch
Testing the water at Puerta San Juan

This past week has been so jam packed with training activities, technical workshops, and family things that I’m not quite sure where to start…so, I’ll begin with Adventures in Municipal Development Training. This past Friday, half of us Muni volunteers went with our training director to visit a current Muni PC volunteer in her site, El Chol, in the Guatemalan department of Baja Verapaz. It was only a day trip, but what an adventure it was! We were picked up super early to begin the journey to El Chol. An hour into the trip, at about 7 am, while sitting in the van and wishing there were a Starbucks that we could stop at along the way, we were driving through a valley in between some gorgeous mountains and saw a volcano erupting in the distance. I used to pass the White House every single day when I walked to my office – but nothing can beat seeing an erupting volcano while heading to work! And this three-hour road trip is very unlike long car rides in the US where you often get on the highway and have to invent little games to keep yourself mentally occupied while watching the exit signs whiz by. We were driving up and down mountains on narrow windy dirt roads, dodging stray dogs, squeezing by cars coming from the other direction, and enjoying the most beautiful views. Things got even more interesting when we got stuck in some mud while driving up a small but steep hill. We all had to get out and push the van, and find stones to place under the wheels to keep them from skidding. And yes, I happened to be wearing a dress that day. We finally made it to El Chol covered in mud, but at least with a good story!

Visiting this volunteer in her site was an amazing experience; to learn about all that she has accomplished over the past two years of her service, the challenges she faced along the way, how she was able to overcome them and maintain a positive attitude. Among the many things I enjoyed learning from her, one of the things that I appreciated the most was her “we” approach to everything. Some background- last week, we happened to meet a volunteer visiting the country after serving four years ago. All he talked about were the amaaazing things he did for his host community, and we felt pretty turned off by his arrogant and self-important attitude. Because remember, we volunteers are here to assist and support Guatemalans for the improvement of their communities and country in a cooperative effort. Whereas this volunteer that we visited actually realized some really amazing things but never once placed full credit only on herself for what she did. And really, Peace Corps does not at all want us to show up in a community and just start implementing a bunch of projects. Their approach is “capacity building” – helping people to help themselves. On another note, since this volunteer is reaching the end of her service, one of the 17 of us will be replacing her! This day trip was really helpful for us to be able to visualize what life in site is like for a volunteer; besides hearing about the work she had done, we got to visit her office, see her house, and walk around town a bit. In general, one of the most important things that I think we’re learning from technical training is how to have realistic expectations about what we can accomplish in two years of service. While two years may seem like a long time to us right now, in the larger sense, and especially in terms of the time that things can be done in international development, two years really isn’t much at all.

Here in P-town, my four fellow community trainees and I have started working more with the municipal government for the technical aspect of training, and are going to be working with them a few times a week from now until the end of training. Specifically, we are working with the Municipal Women’s Office (or Oficina Municipal de la Mujer, OMM, which is also the Office of Social Services). This is going to be a great experience for us, because in our sites, we will either be assigned to work in the Municipal Women’s Office or the Municipal Planning Office (or both). So, now is the time for us to practice and learn as much as we can so that we will be ready to hit the ground running once we arrive in our sites. From the short time we’ve gotten to know the OMM, they are doing some great work with very little resources. For example, youth programming, adult literacy courses, HIV/AIDS education days, providing assistance and legal help to victims of domestic violence. I’m really excited to have the chance to work with them and hopefully that the five of us can offer them some good support for the next few months that we’re here training in P-town (remember that for security reasons, I can’t disclose exact locations, but if you’re dying to know, just email me). The OMM also supports community groups, one of which we got to visit on Monday. It is a sewing group that women in one of the neighboring communities started about a year ago to create income-generating possibilities. Basically, the OMM pays for some sewing machines and a teacher to go to the group twice a week to teach these women different techniques that they can learn to create things like curtains, bedding, etc. and then sell for extra money. However, these women still have plenty of challenges that keep them from being able to take full advantage of this group. Like women who have many children and can’t take time away to attend the group sessions (it’s not uncommon for families here to have a lot of kids). Also, they have to have the financial resources up front to put money into buying the fabric and materials, which many may not have available. While I’m not sure how much we will really be able to help groups like this, I am certain that we will learn a lot from them.

Many people have told me that the Peace Corps will make me feel more patriotic. With only three weeks here, that is something that I can already sense. While I fully feel the importance of respecting cultural differences, there are some things that are harder to accept. For example, the blatant “machismo”. In the US, we are taught as children that we can do and be whoever we want, and to never let anyone get in the way of that or tell you that you can’t realize your dreams. But here, things are really different for men and women. The gender roles are really defined and women here not only don’t have as much opportunity, they are expected to fulfill very specific roles and duties. It is something that is difficult to just sit back and see without feeling upset or uncomfortable. But there are also some really amazing things about Guatemalan culture that I really appreciate, especially how much people here value family and familial relations. As I wrote earlier, my entire “family” lives on the same block. They are constantly together; running in and out of each other’s homes, bringing meals back and forth, etc. To people here, the idea of living in a state separate from your parents or siblings, or moving out of your parents’ home before marriage, just doesn’t make sense. While those things are not necessarily things I would believe or want, the underlying value of family is really special and unique here.

An interesting cultural thing that we experienced over the weekend was a town beauty pageant! It was pretty much one of the funniest things we’ve seen yet. It was half beauty pageant and half talent show, which consisted of different groups of youngsters dancing around on stage to reggaeton or marimba music, and some of the teenage girls performing their “talents”, mostly singing. We were too tired to stay for the whole event (yeah, believe it or not, I go to bed by 9:30 here) but it was a really entertaining night, and especially fun to see the community room filled with tons of people, grandparents and small kids alike.

Other comments/thoughts:
- At a meeting last week with the Mayor and community development councils, we learned that there are 19 policemen for the 14,000 inhabitants of P-town. Pretty crazy…
- I am officially in Week Three and have yet to experience any type of stomach illness. With every day that passes and I still haven’t gotten sick, I feel a weird sense of victory.
- I thoroughly enjoy the black beans and corn tortillas so much, despite the fact that they’re present in almost every meal, I always look forward to it! Let’s see how I feel about them a year from now…
- We went to an organic coffee farm over the weekend and I learned how coffee was made, and we drank REAL coffee! See, Guate is rated #3 in the world for its coffee. But ironically, they drink imported Nescafe instant coffee (which tastes like crap). I was told that it’s because coffee producers are able to sell it abroad for higher prices than what people here would be willing or able to spend on it.
- Learning Guatemala-isms is very fun and very necessary. For example, we learned that the phrase “tengo asientos” does not really mean “I have chairs”, as it literally translates, but rather “I have diarrhea”. Who would have known!?