Travels travels

This past week started out great, with a visit to my future site and meeting my counterpart (my Peace Corps' officially assigned coworker) and all the other colleagues in my office, as well as seeing the apartment I'm moving into. I am lucky to be replacing a really dedicated volunteer, as well as inheriting her amazing fully-furnished apartment. It has electricity, hot water, TV, two bedrooms - I got really lucky! I also got to meet the mayor and city council of the municipality. It is a really large municipality and I think that I will definitely have my work cut out for me, but I am looking forward to the challenge. My site is kind of far away from the capital city but in a really beautiful area of the country and also an area where there are a lot of Peace Corps volunteers. Eight trainees of my group of 32 alone are headed to Huehuetenango! So I definitely will be able to visit people in their sites and enjoy some visitors as well.

Unfortunately, I received news from home that my grandmother passed away while I was visiting my site. So I cut the trip to Huehuetenango a day short, took eight hours and six buses to get back to my host family's house, and flew to Boston the next day. I was in the US for three days, two in Boston and one in Philly, and returned yesterday to Guate. It was really weird to be back in the US after two months which feel a lot longer for some reason. But I'm so happy to have been able to go home and be with my family. My grandmother was a really special person and I am going to miss her a lot. Everyone at Peace Corps, both the staff and volunteers, were really nice and helpful which made me feel a lot better. An added bonus of the unexpected trip was stocking up on cold-weather clothing, since my site is in the mountains, it is really chilly at night, as well as seeing my parents, brother and sister in law, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and my friend Stefanie in DC came up to Philly for the night to hang out with me. So overall, a good trip even if it was for a sad reason. And now I'm back in Guatemala with one week left to go of training. I will be sad to be leaving all my training friends but excited for the next step - moving out to my site and officially becoming a Peace Corps volunteer!

Some of you have asked me about receiving mail in my new site - here is my new address! Feel free to send me photos to decorate my new house :)

Cara George
Voluntaria de Cuerpo de Paz
5 Calle 4-12, Zone 1
El Correo
Chiantla, Huehuetenango
Guatemala, Centro America

A week of many highlights

This was a pretty awesome week. I climbed an active volcano, danced onstage at a concert, ran a 10 K with my fellow trainees, and received my site assignment. Pretty sure that Week Seven has been the best thus far. Read on for more details… The title of this blog was supposed to be “The most dangerous marshmallow roast of a lifetime” but too many good things have happened since then to write only about hiking a volcano. Last weekend, my entire training group planned a day trip to the Pacaya Volcano, one of the country’s many active volcanoes but the only one that actually has lava flows. This is something that I’d been looking forward to since before even leaving the US, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. The volcano is just under an hour away from Antigua so it was a really convenient trip. We began the hike up the mountain, along with a bunch of men trying to sell us rides on their horses. It was very green and lush, with a nice view of a volcanic crater lake along the way. We finally reached the top, super sweaty and tired, and saw what my friend Stefanie said “looked like the end of time”. Down below was a valley of volcanic rocks and ash. It was such a weird contrast to see next to this beautiful green hill that we were sitting on. You could see the line of where the lava flows ended and where the green part began. And as we’re enjoying a picnic lunch in this weird beautiful place, cool clouds would occasionally whiz by, making everything opaque and chilly, and then a moment later it would be clear and sunny again. From this point, we began our descent into the active volcanic part; climbing over big rocks formed by the lava and lots of volcanic sand. It literally looked like we were on the moon – all black and no sign of green plant or animal life anywhere. After about 45 minutes of hiking through the moon, we reached a point where the lava flows were. Seeing the lava with my own eyes was such an amazing thing – one of those times when you just feel like you need to pinch yourself and ask, “Am I really here!?!” And it was HOT. The wind carried the hot air off the rocks and at some points we could just barely tolerate the heat. We could even feel the heat below our feet at certain places. Then we whipped out the graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows and began making some pretty awesome s’mores. Our guides showed us how to find small vents in the earth where we could stand close by without feeling the heat as much, and then we used long sticks to put the marshmallows up to the vents. It was definitely an experience I will never forget, and something that I look forward to doing again with visitors! : ) Andrew and Steph, I was especially thinking of you guys during the hike and how much you would love it. AND one of the best parts was this stray dog that accompanied us during the entire four hours. She was sickly skinny but stayed with the group the whole way, even sliding down the sandy mountain and climbing on the lava rocks with us. I fed her about eight marshmallows, probably not the best food for dogs, but she seemed to really like them! This week in my town has been very exciting also because it is Feria! Every town in Guatemala has a patron saint, and the town has a special fiesta called Feria to celebrate the Saint’s birthday. There’s been a lot of live music and fireworks and amazing street food (the best part). Some of my training friends came into P-town to enjoy some awesome French fries, pupusas, churros, and other artery-clogging goodies. There was also a really rickety ferris wheel and merry-go-round which were controlled by an operator manually pushing them to make them move. I feel lucky that we happen to be training during the time of year to enjoy Feria in my town! On Saturday evening, a famous Guatemalan band, La Banda Vega, came to play. I felt rather awkward and uncomfortable in the beginning of the night, going to this party with my host family where everyone dances in pairs, sitting to the side with my host mom. Then some of my P-town sitemates showed up and it became a lot more fun. At one point, one of the singers gave a shoutout to P-town, and then to los extranjeros (foreigners) because a lot of non-P-town residents were enjoying the dance too. I screamed “Wahoo, extranjeros!!” and the singer heard me and signaled for me to come up on stage. So I went and danced on the stage in front of about 200 people while he sang a song. It was a hysterical and frightening experience but definitely made the night that much more memorable. It was also my first time drinking beer in public here in my community, which felt weird but liberating. I didn’t feel so self-conscious about it, considering my aunt woke up on Sunday morning hungover and throwing up. I, on the other hand, woke up and ran a 10 K race! There is a race every year for Feria and I had been looking forward to it for a while. A bunch of my fellow trainees from other towns came to P-town to run as well. Considering at this time last year I was just about to run the Marine Corps Marathon, I should have been more mentally prepared for this 10 K. And even though I regularly go running here, I was not prepared for the complete uphill for the first half. It was really hard but a really fun race too, being cheered on by all these people was a great sense of community and also made me realize how many people I’ve come to know here in this town over the last two months. And the MOST exciting part of the week was Site Assignment Day!! Never in my life had I felt so much anticipation, anxiety, and excitement. Every day for the last two weeks, I have been counting down (and even began the hourly countdown three days before). I had really loved one of the sites that we visited in Huehuetenango but I didn’t want to create false hopes or expectations for myself. Regardless, in my head, I was already living there. So, it was a huge relief and happy moment when Roberto, my boss, told me that I was being assigned to this site!! Roberto had gone to each of the four communities where we Muni volunteers are training, and we were the last. So of course the text message frenzy began each time he visited one of the towns and with each message I received began the process of elimination, so I was pretty sure by the time he showed up to P-town that this site would be assigned to me. On Tuesday, I will be traveling there for five days to meet my counterparts, get to know the office, etc. There have already been two Muni volunteers in this site, so I will be the third of the three volunteer cycle of which the Peace Corps operates. I am pretty excited about this because I am replacing a really great volunteer and will be able to jump start into projects much more quickly. As for my future housing, I will be taking over the apartment where this volunteer currently lives, which saves me a lot of money and hassle, and I should mention that her apartment is absolutely amazing – nicer than my apartment back in DC. It has two bedrooms, so plenty of room for when all you people back in the states want to come visit! A bit more info about my site – it is in the department bordering Mexico, one of the larger municipalities where they place Peace Corps volunteers (population of 80,000), in the mountains, very close to some Mayan ruins, has a famous church for the pure silver Virgin Mary. It is relatively colder than other areas of the country, but I am happy to sacrifice a few degrees for the place that I really wanted; plus, more cold = less bugs! Check out the municipality’s website for some awesome pictures of my new home: (http://www.inforpressca.com/chiantla/galeria.php) Can’t wait for you all see it in person : ) The gringos after the P-town race

The finish line

Guy with some goats crashing the race

On stage at the Feria concert

The end product of marshmellow roasting
Shielding my face from the heat off the rocks
Lava!
The descent onto the moon

I ended up with a mini volcano in my shoes
Some of the group on Pacaya
The awesome dog on the mountain
Where the green ends and lava ash begins
The dog that followed us along the way

Is it site assignment day yet?

We have been tearing our hair out in anticipation of site assignment day. I feel almost as excited and anxious to receive my site assignment as I did to receive my country assignment. While you may not think this would be such a big deal, given that this country is only about the size of Tennessee, the course of my next two years here will be shaped by the area of Guatemala in which I live – and you honestly would not believe the incredible diversity of this country! I could be living in the Western highlands in a Mayan village, out in the East where it is like the Wild West, or in a department bordering the Pacific Ocean. I still am keeping my fingers crossed for a particular site that we visited in Huehuetenango, but I will really be happy with anything, as long as it’s not too cold of a place…only five more days until we find out!

The one thing I am wishing for in my site, besides good counterparts to work with in the Municipality, a non-corrupt mayor, and a place to learn to play the marimba, is to NOT be in a house with roosters as my neighbors! The idea that roosters crow at the crack of dawn to greet the day is a total myth – they really start making a racket at 3 am, wayy before the sun even begins to rise. The roosters at my house are perpetually engaged in a screaming fight with the roosters next door. And Valentin, my host family’s dog, went into my room the other day (very against the rules!), knocked everything off my nightstand, and ate three earplugs. Luckily I have a small stash of this anti-rooster armor packed away and some more on the way from the US, thanks to my mom.

Thursday, November 1^st was “Día del Niño” here, which I was happy to celebrate with my fellow sitemates at my Spanish teacher’s house, where he gives a party every year to his little niece and nephew. There was a big Nemo fish piñata, amazing cake, and “elote asado” (the BBQ grilled corn which I am now addicted to). I brought a box of Jersey Salt Water Taffy and animal squirt guns, thanks again to my mom who sent me more gifts for people, which the kids loved. My teacher said that Guatemalans especially like gifts that come from “El Norte” (the North) because they’re supposedly made better, and are sometimes unavailable here in Guate. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the dollar-store toys were actually made in China, but was happy nonetheless that the kids enjoyed it!

I’ve been bonding more recently with Rodrigo, my six-year-old host brother. I was having a difficult time in the first few weeks because he is extremely hyperactive and his parents let him do absolutely whatever he wants. And it is sad because he is very intelligent but has nobody motivating him or encouraging him to do anything other than watch TV after school. Here, schools operate on a half-day schedule: kids attend from 7:30-12:30, and then go home for lunch and have the rest of the day free. So you can imagine the amount of hours that this kid spends in front of the television daily. Lately we’ve been having “homework competitions” to see who finishes their homework first, and he has “helped” with my homework by coloring in crayon on the posters I make for technical training presentations, and reading National Geographic for Kids en Español which my friend Alaina sent me. For el Día del Niño, I bought him bootleg DVDs at the market in Antigua. Watching “Snow White” in Spanish last night with Rodrigo and my host mom was a very entertaining experience, well worth the 10 quetzales ($1.25)!

While we are all starting to get kind of tired of training, we have also been doing some cool work lately. We are working with a women’s group in the community who are part of a Grameen community microcredit/microlending group. They are all small business owners who receive special loans from Grameen to begin and advance their own businesses. Only women are eligible to receive loans from this institution, as women are typically unable to have access to funds in the same way that men are. Some of them own little stores, others sell atoll (hot corn drink) or tamales on the street. So we did a presentation for them on how to maintain a budget and calendar, and how to beat the competition through location and diversification. We also participated in a fun activity with the OMM (Oficina Municipal de la Mujer – Municipal Women’s Office) which was an event celebrating the culmination of a series of courses that the OMM gave to 30 kids on health, identity, and domestic violence. It was at a really pretty park, really similar to Rock Creek Park or Alverthorpe back home. We played a million different games with these kids, Traffic Light, Hide and Seek, Duck Duck Goose, Cat and Mouse, Sharks and Minnows, Freeze Tag, you name it. It was an incredibly fun afternoon but secretly made me really happy to be a Muni volunteer instead of a Youth Development volunteer!

And in case you missed the last blog post – I’d love it if you want to mail me some photos so that I can display some reminders of home in my future new house! : )

Rodrigo helping me with my poster

Día del Niño - the kids asked for candles to put on the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" even though it wasn´t anyone´s birthday

With some of the kids at their end-of-classes party in an ecological park
My sitemate Bryan and his new six year old friend on the see-saw

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!?