A Chapin Thanksgiving

This Thursday, I celebrated Thanksgiving in Peace Corps Guatemala style! A while back, my friends and I decided that I would host Thanksgiving in my site, due to my larger living quarters and proximity to the city of Huehuetenango (Huehue – “way-way”). Slowly, the numbers grew, and my Thanksgiving ended up with 11 other PCVs from the department of Huehuetenango and 1 from the neighboring department of Totonicapan. I was able to buy a frozen turkey in Huehue (the Maxi Bodega store had three. Obviously not too many people celebrating Thanksgiving around here!) and asked Doña Reina, the women who prepares all the snacks and lunches for our women’s meetings to cook it, since I lack an oven and any knowledge about how to make a turkey.

Thanksgiving Day started out in typical Peace Corps Guatemala way…first, I had just returned from a nice sweaty run with my new running buddy, and my water was cut off because a pipe had broken. Normally wouldn’t be a huge deal, except I didn’t have a drop of water stored in my pila and twelve people were on their way to spend the night at my house. So I ventured into the market, praying that the water would return when I got home. Thankfully, it did, around 10 am. Of course you can imagine how much I was freaking out, not just about not being able to shower that day, but not having running water and cook, flush the toilet, etc. on a day that 12 people are staying over would have been a disaster. Then, my credit card was denied at the store. I went to the bank, still in a panic, thinking that someone had gotten hold of my credit card number, but in actuality, I had just spent all my money for the month! (Crisis averted…kind of)

Back home, finally bathed and able to start cooking, I made the filling for the sweet potato pie, put it in a glass pie dish, and set it inside my Peace Corps oven (a box constructed of metal sheets that you place over the burners on your stove). The first time I tried to use the oven to make brownies, I filled my entire apartment with thick smoke and burned the brownies to a crisp. This time, I managed to avoid almost burning down my house, but instead I heard a big “POP!” noise, looked inside the oven, and saw that the glass dish had cracked and that pie filling fell all over the stove. But alas, I scooped up the surviving pie filling, put it in a smaller aluminum pan, and kept it cooking in my toaster oven. It turned out really delicious, and luckily nobody swallowed any shards of glass. And oops, while the pie was cooking, I forgot to take the plastic plates off the top of the toaster oven, and they turned into warped Frisbees that looked like one of those disaster art pieces in a modern art museum.

Then, it was time to pick up the turkey from Dona Reina’s house! We arrived, and she told us about the variety of special condiments that she used to baste the turkey, including the apple juice and garlic that I gave her, and then with her own special touch: wine, pepsi, pineapple juice, soy sauce, I can’t even remember what else. I must say the turkey looked and smelled delicious, but then we start to carve it with my vegetable chopping knife and discover that it is – still uncooked inside. But as we PCVs are such creative and flexible people, we whipped out the frying pans and pan-fried the rest of our turkey!

Nothing else went wrong the rest of the day and we really had a beautiful Thanksgiving. The food that everyone made was awesome, and until almost 2 am we ate, laughed, played guitar, and drank beers on my rooftop. I called my parents and brother earlier in the day, and although I was sad to not be with my family, I couldn’t have asked for a better Chapin Thanksgiving or better people to spend it with.

The next morning, I woke up at my normal 5:45, unable to go back to sleep despite having slept for only three hours, made blackberry-strawberry-banana-chocolate chip pancakes for everyone, and watched Home Alone (dubbed in español – however still a great movie!)

Despite being far from home, I definitely have plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving – having not yet gotten any amoebas or stomach viruses, great family and friends who are so supportive of me, and the opportunity to work here in this amazing country where I know I will have a challenging and inspiring two years and an awareness of the privileged life that I have.

I hope that everyone had a nice holiday and ate lots of pumpkin pie for me!

Thanksgiving dinner spread
A "thankful for" toast before we all ate
Peace Corps volunteers get creative when the can opener breaks
Playing cards and eating Guacamole
My Peace Corps oven

Feasting on our delicious dinner
Getting ready to carve the semi-uncooked turkey

My kitchen!
My living room. Note the fake couch/bed and concrete block shelves :)
My bathroom
My room
My rooftop; with the pila (or washing machine, I guess you could say)
The mountains surrounding my town. Note the faint "Chiantla" written with white stone in the mountain, wanna be Hollywood style
With the other Chiantlecas at the literacy training
With new friends at literacy training. Maria, the one on the left, rocked a puma jacket with her traje (traditional costume) every day
Teaching syllables
The women at our Dia de la No Violencia event
The Muni marimba playing at our Dia de la No Violencia event
March through the streets
The stilt walkers that accompanied us on our march. The quetzal costumes don't have much to do with preventing violence, but it at least got everyone's attention
Inside our community room
The registration table. For women that can't sign next to their names, they use the inkpad to stamp their thumbprint.

Although many days in the office and many evenings at home have consisted of doing nothing – literally – I feel happier with every day that passes here in my site. I feel like I am, for once, learning to relax and take things a day at a time, which is easier said than done, especially coming from Washington DC where sometimes, things feel anything but relaxed! But poco a poco, as they say, I am meeting people in my town and finding things to stay busy. I just finished my second week of literacy training (and am now officially able to teach!), which has been very interesting in some ways (like learning how to tie together the teaching of letters with important themes for women in rural areas, like domestic violence) and NOT interesting when discussing things like inverse syllables. Regardless, I’ve met some great people through the training program and it’s been a nice way to jump-start my service. Everyone is super curious about the gringa who is going to teach how to read and write in Spanish…they ask me some really great and funny questions, like why I always carry my water bottle with me. One of my new friends told me that it looks weird; I was laughing hysterically when she said that. They’re also super surprised at how I’m able to write well in Spanish, which I try to explain to them is easier than writing in English because the words are spelled exactly as they sound; there’s no “there-they’re-their” or “two-too-to” kind of rules that make it hard.

I’m also going to start volunteering with a youth association here in my town, which will be great because I miss working with teenagers. The staff at the youth association has asked me to give them English classes, not something that grabs me necessarily, but if they are asking and willing to commit to learning than I am definitely happy to teach – plus it’s a good way to make friends! And I began running again in the mornings, with one of the men on the municipal city council, which has been great. He has showed me some beautiful areas to run, although running through the mountains I definitely feel the altitude and lack of oxygen hit me pretty hard, but vale la pena! (It’s worth it!) Definitely beats running in circles around the soccer field.

In my office in the muni, we planned an event for the Día Internacional de la Lucha de la No Violencia Contra la Mujer (International Day of the Fight for Violence Against Women Day…or something like that, it’s a mouthful). A bunch of women from the communities of Chiantla came to attend a presentation on violence against women, and then we did a march through the streets with signs. It was a really fun activity, especially because violence against women is a huge problem here, and many of the women traveled from really far away communities to take part in the event. See, the department of Huehuetenango is broken up into various municipalities, including the one in which I live, and the municipalities are broken up into smaller communities. However, most of the 100+ communities of my town are in the mountains and as far as 3-4 hours away. So it’s great to see community leaders participating in these outlying areas, which lack good transportation and many basic resources.

In other news…
- I told my office coworkers that I wanted to have them over for dinner one night. They asked what I was going to cook, and I said, pasta probably. They asked me in a giggly whisper if it was really true that there is a kind of pasta called “penne” (pene means penis en español)
- The volunteer who I replaced gave me a bed, stove, and many other household things that she was using in a temporary apartment before heading back to the US. Once she left, I had to move the stuff over to my apartment. I asked my coworker to help me get some guys in the muni to move everything. She ended up getting the men, including one of the police officers, along with the municipal ambulance, to move my stuff. On a Monday workday morning. Talk about a good use of public resources!
- I opened an egg carton while making breakfast one morning and there were feathers stuck to the egg. Food just doesn’t get fresher than that!
- As you may remember in a previous blog post, my host aunt was wearing a shirt with a funny English saying on it (“my boyfriend is out of town”) Since then, my training group and I have been keeping a “Best Of” T-shirt with stupid English sayings list (Guatemalans buy these shirts for really cheap at used clothing stores, and pretty much never have a clue what they say). Some of my favorites since the aunt/boyfriend t-shirt: “Proud to be Irish” (worn by the young woman who used to babysit for the kids in my hose family’s house); “World’s Best Dad” (worn by my favorite store owner…a female one); and most recently “You’re Better Off Without Me” (worn by a very stocky guy at one of our community meetings). My friends texted me the other day with a good t-shirt sighting: “Do I look like a f---ing people person?!”…I think that one takes the cake!!
- And finally, my best friend Becca was the first to book her trip to come visit, which will happen during Semana Santa (Holy Week) in late March. I can’t wait!!

Two Weeks in Site

I am about to enter Week Three in my new home and community. Still adjusting, but I feel very calm and content here. I just returned from a quick overnight trip to Xela (pronounced "Shay-la") which is Guatemala's second biggest city. Ten other PCVs from my training group went to celebrate my friend's birthday. It was a great 30 hour trip, consisting of catching up over many beers, wandering around the central plaza, eating a big Mediterranean dinner, and dancing at a fun disco until they shut the place down - plus a visit to Hiperpaiz, a huge Walmart-ish store where I started buying Thanksgiving necessities and some more things for my apartment. Although I saw my training friends only 2.5 weeks ago, it felt like much longer, as we discussed our sites, jobs, and flea bites.

Many of us in the Muni program are having similar experiences in the sense that we aren't doing much of anything at the moment. This was something that other PCVs had warned us about, especially starting a job right before the month when all the Guatemalans begin Christmas vacation. My work experience thus far has pretty much consisted of sitting around the Municipal Womens Office and killing time with my two colleagues who work there. I have learned some really interesting things about how Guatemalans in the muni approach their work, and their reasons for being there in the first place - often having to do with political favors. I should also state that the purpose of the Municipal Womens Office is to promote and protect womens' rights in my municipality. And my two colleagues ("tecnicas") in the office do not necessarily exhibit this mission in their own backgrounds and personal lives...one of them was married and pregnant at 14 years old, and now is only 21 with two adorable little girls. She got her position in the muni because she is the mayor's goddaughter. The other tecnica is in her late 20s, and found the job in the muni after her husband made her quit her pharmacy job in the city so that she could work closer to home. I have really enjoyed getting to know these women, who will be my colleagues for the next two years, but have to admit that they are seemingly ironic choices for a Municipal Womens Office. Without over-generalizing, I feel that people in the US often accept low paying jobs in NGOs or public service because they value the mission of their work. Whereas here, these low paying jobs are not necessarily occupied with people who strongly believe in a cause, but rather just need something to pay the bills - even if their paycheck barely allows them to do that. On the other hand, the office coordinator, who is also my official counterpart, is extremely motivated and dedicated to her work and community. Overall, everyone in the muni has been super nice and welcoming to me, which is encouraging despite the lack of work.

BUT on Tuesday, an exciting opportunity came up very randomly. I was sitting in the office reading the newspaper horoscopes with one of the tecnicas, and she tells me that in a few minutes, a meeting by CONALFA (Comision Nacional de Alfabetizacion - National Literacy Committee) was to be held in the muni community room. So, we go to this meeting and I learn more about how this literacy program works: the organization trains individuals in communities to give literacy classes within their communities. At the lunch held afterwards, I asked some of the CONALFA reps if I would be able to one of those people who teaches how to read and write, even though I just moved here and don't know a community group with which I could work yet. They seemed really surprised and even more confused as to why this gringa is here in Huehuetenango, but said "Sure! Training starts today and goes all week". Given that not a whole lot was going on, I jumped on the opportunity, and spent the entire past week in intensive training. I am thrilled to be taking on this project, because it goes along perfectly with the goal of my Municipal Development program: citizen participation. How can citizens actively participate if they cannot read or write? The other reason I'm really excited is because this actually makes me feel like I will be DOING something, and something concrete that will no doubt benefit people. Being here in Guatemala has allowed me to begin to understand some of the problems in this country, and also makes me wonder how much I could realistically accomplish in two years. Despite having a master's degree in international affairs and development, I definitely doubt my knowledge and abilities sometimes, questioning how much I can really do to help people here. But teaching an illiterate person how to read and write is something that will no doubt change someone's life and open many doors and opportunities for them. As one of the trainers said this past week, people who can't read or write are, in a sense, blind to the world around them; dependent on other people and with very limited opportunities. It makes me think of the times I've walked around Chinatown without a clue of what the signs or menus say - and that inability is something that 85% of the women in my municipality struggle with.

Plus, being the third muni volunteer in my site, the last of the three-volunteer cycle, I want to put extra focus on sustainability in everything that I do and think about what my community will be like at the end of my two years when it no longer has the presence of a Peace Corps volunteer. Training people how to read and write is something that will impact them for their lives, and won't change, no matter who the next mayor is or what natural disaster comes along next - other aspects of my job are more vulnerable to these variables.

I've also really enjoyed the training because it's allowed me to get to know Guatemalans from all over the department of Huehuetenango, from many different communities and indigenous Mayan cultures. It's strange to think that soon I'll know how to teach people to read and write in a language that isn't even my first language, but also something that will make my service really unique, plus having had the opportunity to make new friends out of this experience, who have invited me to visit their communities and asked when they can come see me in mine.

So overall, things are going great in site! I'll be sure to include some photos of my new house/town and funny stories in my next blog post :)

The Next Step

I arrived to my site on Saturday. It feels very strange to be in the place that I'll be living for the next two years without knowing anything or anyone more than a handful of people in my town, where to buy food, and where to pick up the mail. It is a funny feeling in a way that Peace Corps has spent the last two and a half months training us, yet we all just showed up to our sites and feel like we don't have a clue - what we should be doing at our first few days at the municipality, who will our friends be, what we do for lunch during the working day, what our evenings and weekends will be like. BUT at the same time, we are now entering the "real" part of the Peace Corps experience - as a friend said, the "babysitting phase" (training) is over. And now is the part for which we came to this country in the first place. So with the same leap of faith that I came to this country without knowing anyone or much of anything about the way of life here, how to speak "Guatemalan", or how anything about the municipal government works, I am now here in my site feeling clueless in a different way but with the same motivation and excitement that brought me here to Guatemala.

On Thursday of last week, we had our swearing-in ceremony in which we became official Peace Corps volunteers! We all got dressed up for the first and probably only time and went with our host families to the Ambassador's residence where we had the ceremony. The swearing-in was really short but actually very nice. We each received a diploma for finishing training...which let me tell you was NOT easy. Not that training was hard in the sense that the things we learned were really hard, but just a rigorous schedule, and complete lack of independence, which was probably the most challenging part for me. We had to stick to a curfew, live with a host family, and be under Peace Corps' watchful eye for 10 weeks. But it was definitely a lot of fun at the same time. Saying goodbye to my host family and my town was sad but I felt very ready to leave. It's funny how one forms relationships with people, like my favorite chocolate fruit seller lady and the internet cafe guy, and how those small relationships make one feel so at home somewhere. But I know I'll be back to visit P-town whenever I have to go to the Peace Corps Center for meetings, medical appointments, etc.

The evening of swearing in, my whole training group stayed in Antigua and went out to celebrate. We had a blast, especially since it was our last night all together before we went off to our various sites. I ended up getting really sick - not from drinking, not from food poisoning, but from dehydration! We went to a few bars where I only had a few drinks, but then went salsa dancing for three hours in a very hot and packed bar. Needless to say, I found myself throwing up a few hours later, completely convinced that I had food poisoning, I felt so sick! How embarrassing to tell everyone, No, I am not hungover, just did a little too much salsa dancing the night before. After two full days, I finally feel better. Salsa dancers, beware...

Now that I have been here in my site for three days, I've been moving, unpacking, and cleaning like crazy. I absolutely love my apartment. It is comfortable, super conveniently located, and private. It is so nice to feel like I have a place to call home, especially after living with a host family for ten weeks. Cooking my first meal for myself again was so liberating! I am lucky enough to live in a town with a pretty large daily market, so I can buy fresh produce daily. One of my favorite things about the apartment is that I have my own rooftop area, where I hope to eventually have some fun parties, but it's also a nice space to lay on the hammock outside, AND conveniently air dry my laundry! Yesterday I hand-washed clothes for two hours - if you're ever looking to spice up your workout routine, I'd strongly recommend it!

Shaking hands with the Ambassador - I'm officially a PCV!

With my host mom Esperanza at Swearing-In

Our goodbye party at Chepe's house (my Spanish teacher)
At the pool in my friend's town...enjoying the last few days of training with my fellow trainees. Note the huge waterslide in the back!
In Mam class (a Mayan indigenous language spoken in Western Guatemala). My municipality isn't indigenous but we all went to a class for a day anyway!