Yesterday, I had my blog entry all mentally planned, and even knew how I wanted to start it. But then today, I was in a pickup riding behind a bus, and a crate of chickens fell off the top of the bus and crashed onto the ground. Obviously, the ayudante (bus driver assistant) did not do too good of a job (or at all of a job) tying the crate down to the top of the bus. The chickens were squawking like crazy and feathers were flying all over. It was a rather comical and disturbing scene. Yet, typical Guatemala. Nothing ever really goes as planned, but it does all work out okay!

It has been an extremely fun-filled and adventurous past few weeks. First, with the 10-day visit of my parents, which was very fun. They arrived in Guatemala City and we spent the weekend enjoying Antigua, including a tour of a coffee farm coincidentally called “Filadelfia”, visiting a butterfly conservatory, trying traditional food, seeing pre-Easter/Holy Week processions in the street, enjoying restaurants I’d never normally have money to eat at, and marveling at the McDonalds’ beautiful gardens and tableside service (fast food in Guatemala is expensive to eat, unlike in the states, and it is a status thing to be able to eat food here, hence why the nasty greasy establishments are super high class here). Then, they spent five days in my town, which was a great experience. The Chiantlecos and Chiantlecas that I’ve come to know in my 4.5 months here embraced them warmly, and my parents were able to get a taste of my daily life: buying produce in the market, working at the muni, dodging crazy drivers, washing clothes in the pila, napping on my rooftop hammock, taking the bus up the cumbre, bucket bathing when the water gets cut off, etc. Finally, we spent the last leg of the trip at beautiful Lake Atitlan, where we stayed at the most gorgeous hotel I’ve ever been to in my whole life. It is cut right into the mountain on the lake, and up a steep hill – every room has a spectacular view of the lake and volcanoes, and the food was awesome. I really appreciated my parents’ visit and effort to come to Guatemala, and how open-minded they were about everything they saw here. It was definitely a test of my patience at times, and I felt a complete parent-child role reversal…I’d constantly be like, “where are you going? Who are you talking to? What are you saying? Why are you getting off the bus? Sit down right here!” Plus, having to read the menus, translate everything for them, I feel like it was definitely an interesting dynamic.

Right after my parents left, we celebrated International Women’s’ Day. This day is something I barely knew about in the US, but throughout all Guatemala there were celebrations for women – and with good reason. The women here have it TOUGH – not only because their lives are difficult in their daily labors, but also how they are so devalued in society. Here in Chiantla, we did a parade through the streets, a motivational talk to our women’s groups leaders, and had a nice little concert. The following day, there was an event in Huehue city that was also really nice. In the US, I take my liberties as a woman for granted and most of the time, barely even notice a gender difference or inequalities in gender. But it is really important to recognize that most women in Guatemala, and the world for that matter, do live with tremendous discrimination and deserve a day (or every day, for that matter) to celebrate their gender, and contribution and importance in society.

Two weekends ago, I visited one of the most incredible places I’ve ever seen in my life: Volcan Tajamulco, which is the biggest volcano in Guatemala and the highest point in all of Central America. Seven other friends were also crazy enough to want to hike the thing and spend the evening on the top (and three of the seven were crazy enough to be doing it for the second time!). As much as I love the outdoors, I have very limited camping experience, but this will be hard to beat. We hiked from the base of the volcano up to the top, reaching an altitude of 13,850 feet. I felt like I was literally gasping for air the entire way, and could barely take more than baby steps the whole time…probably the reason that it took us 5 hours to hike what is the equivalent of two miles. However, the views at every single point during the hike were absolutely breathtaking. Seeing the surrounding mountains and villages, and finally reaching a point where we were looking down on a layer of puffy white clouds, and FINALLY, at four in the morning, when we woke up to hike the rest of the summit in the pure dark, we saw the sunrise and the entire landscape of Guatemala and the neighboring part of Mexico, and a dozen of Guatemala’s spectacular volcanoes off in the distance. Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen to my brain, but I could feel tears forming when I thought about where I was standing at that moment and how opportunities to do things like climb the highest place in Central America make the whole Peace Corps experience totally worth it when I am frustrated with work, missing home, and craving some good pad thai.

In fact, there are many times that I am still surprised about how different my life is here and how I’ve changed with respect to that. An example: recently, a neighboring PCV’s brother was visiting, and she wanted to make a trip to a spot in my municipality called Laguna Magdalena. This lake is situated in the mountains, three hours from my house in the centro urbano of my town, on a very steep and rocky unpaved road. We drove three hours there and three hours back in the back of a pickup truck, and spent a total of 1.5 hours at the actual lake. Now, three hours is the distance driving between Philadelphia and Washington DC, a trip I did very often, and I would get so antsy and impatient to just “get there already”. I cannot imagine ever having driven home to PA from DC just for a 1.5-hour visit! But here, it feels like not a big deal at all.

I have a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks, including the arrival of my best friend Becca next week, then Fiorella and Alex soon after, the beginning of rainy season which means my water probably won’t get cut off so often, work being rather busy lately, and a half marathon which I just signed up for in the city of Coban. It is a nice 700 meters below my town in altitude, so hopefully it will feel rather easy despite the fact that I’ve been a huge exercise slacker lately.

Finally, I’d like to make a shoutout to Tricia, another Huehue PCV who just returned to the states to have knee surgery. Tricia – we miss you and can’t wait for you to recover and get back soon!



Mayan ruins in my town that I recently saw for the first time
The bus ayudante putting the fallen crate of chickens back atop the bus

International Womens Day celebration
School girls in the Chiantla International Womens Day parade
My mom with my counterpart Rosario's adorable baby boy

Mom and Dad at the luxurious gardens in...the McDonalds in AntiguaaView from halfway up Volcan Tajamulco

On the top of the volcano, watching the sunset. The view shows all of Guatemala's volcanoes in the distance, surrounded by a sheet of clouds
As the sun rose, the shadow of the volcano on which we were standing was cast onto the sky below
So glad to finally be at the top (and freezing!)
After a bit (or few hours) of hiking, we were above the cloud line looking down below on it

At the base of the mountain, about to begin the adventureAnd at the end, exhausted and excited for a shower, but thrilled to have finished it and spent the weekend on top of the highest point of Central America!

Reconnect

I just returned from six entire days away from my site, which felt like a short eternity (I know that’s an oxymoron, but whatever). On Tuesday, my entire training group reunited in good old Santa Lucia Milpas Altas (the town where the Peace Corps Guatemala Headquarters is, between Antigua and Guatemala City) for “Reconnect”, which is when Peace Corps brings us together after three-ish months in site for, yes you guessed it, reconnecting. We shared our successes and frustrations in site, which at first I was afraid would just turn into a day-long session of complaining, but in actuality it was a really nice day that left me feeling energized and hopeful about things that have frustrated or stressed me out at work and about Peace Corps life in general. I found myself appreciating my training group friends more than I ever had before, as we were able to offer each other good advice and support, and commiserated about things that drove us crazy about Guatemalan society and working in the municipalities (Disrespectful men yelling catcalls on street? Check. Corrupt and unsupportive mayors? Check. Lazy and unwilling coworkers? Check. Firecrackers going off at all hours of the evening? Check.) In the same room where we’d sit every Tuesday during training for the first two and a half months of Peace Corps Guatemala, the place where we were bombarded with information about parasites and diarrhea and bus robberies and the Guatemalan civil war and “being culturally sensitive”, my fellow Muni PCV gave a wonderful speech that made me reflect a lot on my service thus far and how I’ve changed since arriving to Guatemala. During training, all I could often think about during our various sessions was what my future in this country would be like. Now that I’m in my site and working, that question still remains but with a lot more things certain. I’ve definitely become more independent, patient, and appreciative of relationships, whether with my family or friends back home or here in Guatemala. I feel like I can at times be harsh on myself about how much I’ve accomplished so far (or not accomplished), in terms of work, cultural integration, etc, but as my friend noted in his speech, we have only completed 14% of our service, so we have to cut ourselves some slack too.

Without a doubt, the best part of Reconnect was the PACA t-shirt contest. You may recall from previous blog posts my explanation of how Guatemalans buy used clothing from the US at very cheap stores called PACAs (I don’t know what it stands for) and how you often see Guatemalans wearing t-shirts with ridiculous English phrases on them, and they don’t have a clue what the shirts say. So a few months before Reconnect, I emailed my whole training group (30 people) that we should have a PACA t-shirt contest and whoever had the most ridiculous shirt would win a prize (my delicious chocolate chip banana bread). Well, I was thrilled that people got really into it; I’d say about half my group was sporting the shirts on the day of Reconnect. The best part is that during training, Peace Corps is always lecturing us about dressing professionally - not wearing flip flops to the Center or to work, dressing conservatively, maintaining ourselves looking clean and well-groomed (easier said that done, especially for my friends without running water), etc. So the fact that we all show up with these shirts saying things like “Stop Picturing Me Naked” and “Looking At A Memorable One-Night Stand” was pretty hilarious. Everyone submitted two votes, and the winner was one of my fellow Muni volunteers, who found a black shirt with a hot pink unicorn that said “I’m Horny”. See photos for more fun t-shirt entries :) (I'm posting the link to my facebook album with the pics because my internet is too slow right now to upload them to the blog - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2187359&id=7400486&l=1d4cd8b2dc)

After Reconnect, I had some meetings at the Peace Corps center and doctors appointment in Antigua, which made it convenient for me to stay around Antigua all weekend and spend way too much money and enjoy the company of some friends. Then, I headed to the beach for the weekend in the southeastern part of the country. We rented a really nice house close to the beach and enjoyed some pool/sun/extreme laziness for the weekend. This particular beach is not at all touristy, so we were pretty much the only ones there, which was great. But you know how leaving your home always makes you appreciate it? Well, despite how awesome the beach weekend was, I really appreciated Chiantla after being there. I used to think I wanted to live in a hot site, but this part of the country was over 100 degrees and humid, so it made me thankful for the weather that I have here in the mountains. And although I’ve been suffering from fleas pretty much since I arrived, I really appreciated my fleas after being devoured by mosquitoes all weekend. Plus, after traveling 11 hours by bus/micro/boat/taxi made me really happy to be home in general.

So that’s the latest for now. I’m happy to report that things are still pretty busy at work, and that my parents arrive in Guate this weekend, which is very exciting. I hope that you all are doing well back in the states! Please continue to keep me updated….it really makes the distance feel a lot shorter :)

Six Months Already!?

I can't believe that I have been in Guatemala for six months now (well, on Friday, I will have arrived in country six months ago). It's amazing to think of how much I've learned and how much my life has changed since I arrived here, but also how much I still have to do/learn/accomplish during my time here, which is really flying by (although some days sitting in the office here, I wonder if I will even make it until lunchtime!) 21 months left to go now... :)

I recently started my literacy classes, which are going well. After Wednesday, my students will have learned all the vowels :) Some of the women have had some schooling, and others absolutely none. There is an older woman in my class who can barely hold a pencil. But she and all the others are trying so hard, which really encourages me as well. The literacy program teaches by means of a socio-political method, so that the students learn about important themes along with the letters. For example, I taught the letter "A" by discussing "A for Amor (love)" and what constitues a healthy relationship. And the letter "I" for "Igualdad (equality)" and discussing equality in gender roles. It is really nice to feel like I am "doing something", as compared to many other days during which I literally sit in the office and the women gossip and read the newspaper.

Another fun distraction in Chiantla has been the Feria, which is formally a week long, but there are still vendors and rides even though it ended over a week ago! The Feria is to celebrate the Virgen de Candelaria, who lives here in the Chiantla church :) and all week there are food vendors, games, rides, music, and fireworks going off every night (every night, ALL NIGHT, I should say. It was reallllly annoying) I enjoyed lots of street food, like milkshakes, french fries, pizza, churros, tacos... and went on the giant ferris wheel once which was a terrifying and exhilirating experience.

The best part of Feria was: on Saturday, my boyfriend and I went out for a jog, and this guy starts running alongside next to us, and telling us that on that Tuesday, there would be a 12 KM race, which they do every year on the most important day of Feria, and that they needed more women to enter in the race. Even though I have not been running hardly at all since New Years due to cold weather and laziness, I decided to give it a shot, for lack of better things to do on my day off :) So on Tuesday morning I show up to run, there were only two other females in the race of about 25 participants. The flag went down indicating the start, and everyone took off sprinting. Well, being the "seasoned runner" that I am, I figured they would all run out of energy after a few minutes. That was completely not the case - I was behind the entire time, lost sight of everyone, and the only one that followed me was the muni ambulence guy, who had to follow the last person in the race. So after a little over an hour, I came across the finish line, where the race directors and all the participants were waiting for me to finish so that they could conclude the race. But the best part was that despite finishing the absolute last place, I won THIRD PRIZE for the womens' category!! This included a 50 quetzal cash prize and a huge boost to my self-esteem - plus a good story to boot. And 50 quetzales (about six dollars) may not seem like a lot, but it's enough money for me to eat a nice dinner here, or travel on the bus to Antigua, or spend a night at Lake Atitlan, so it was kind of a big deal!

So what else...I recently found a sweet pool in my town, only 15 min away, which will be nice now that the weather is warming up a lot. I also had a party for the Superbowl with other Huehue area PCVs, which was fun. We pigged out on lots of junk food and watched the game with Spanish commentary. Since I never cared too much for football, it was disappointing that the Guate channel aired mostly Mexican commercials, so I couldn't even enjoy those like I usually do. But it was fun to hang out with everyone regardless. This month will be much busier with work, travel to Antigua for meetings at Peace Corps, a weekend beach trip coming up, and my parents' arrival at the end of the month!

This blog post is dedicated to 1) Fiorella and Alex, who booked their tickets to come visit in April, 2) Aaron Weiss, who is always demanding more frequent blog entries, and 3) Alaina, Stefanie, and Aaron, which whom I video-chatted with this past weekend. A great way to keep in touch and it's FREE - so anyone who has a computer and camera and/or microphone, let's make a date!



On the Feria Ferris WheelKeeping on the family tradition of Superbowl wagers
View of the Cuchumatanes mountain chain from the top of the Ferris Wheel
The kids of the women of my Literacy class. They decorated posters of the "letters of the day" while their moms looked in the newspapers for the letters to identify and circle
Feria treats for sale
The inside of the church with a million candles lit for the Virgen de Candelaria
Selling candles outside
My race number and prize money!

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Despite pressure/encouragement from friends and family back home to update my blog regularly, I am disappointed to just now have my first post of the New Year. It’s not for lack of things to write, but more because of pure laziness. I think that the chill and tranquilo Guatemalan lifestyle has definitely infiltrated my way of life, making me lazy about mostly everything; bathing, cleaning my apartment, washing clothes, exercise, cooking. I’ve even been too lazy to watch TV lately. But besides being completely “huevona” (chapin for “lazy”) these days, life is pretty great. I had a wonderful New Years, which I spent at beautiful Lake Atitlan, a crater lake surrounded my mountains and volcanoes - one of the must-see places in Guatemala. The main town on the lake is called Panajachel, but the lake is surrounded by lots of little towns that you can travel back and forth by public boat (kind of reminded me of Venice in that sense, except replace the well-dressed Italians with gringo hippies and Kakchiquel-speaking Guatemalans). A bunch of my training-group friends and I stayed at an awesome hostel in Santa Cruz La Laguna, which was a great place to relax, catch up, and eat good food. Unfortunately I was feeling rather ill the whole time, but the trip consisted mostly in laying around in hammocks anyway, so I couldn’t have chosen a better place to have a fever and respiratory infection for four days, plus it prevented me from drinking = big money saver! :) It was definitely strange to be in a place where there were so many tourists, after living in Huehuetenango for 2.5 months now where the only gringos I ever see are other PCVS, college alternative break-ers, or missionaries. It made me angry when we would get overcharged for things like food and boat rides at the lake, but also makes me realize how much I’ve gotten used to standing out, when back in a situation where I blend in with other people who look more similar to me (or according to Guatemalans at least!).

Right before we rang in 2010, I had my quarter-century birthday in Guatemala! It was a very nice and low-key day, and in the evening, I celebrated my 25 years of existence on earth with some other PCVs and ladies from the muni and local NGOs, with a “fiesta de traje” (potluck). Many thanks to everyone for the phone calls, emails, and well wishes – it all meant a lot to me!

Last week, I coordinated an activity that will for sure be one of the highlights of my service. It was a camp for 30 adolescent girls called GLOW (Girls Leading Our World, or “Estrellas de Hoy”, en español). GLOW is a Peace Corps global program, and the volunteer that I replaced in Chiantla had been working hard to organize a camp that wasn’t able to take place during the timeframe that she was still here, so it was one of the first projects that I jumped into when arriving in site. Given my previous work with youth, it couldn’t have been more of a perfect project to get involved in, so I feel really fortunate for having fallen into it. Nine other PCVs came into Chiantla to assist with implementing the camp, and we conducted workshops dealing with self-esteem, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, citizen participation, small business development, nutrition and exercise, among others, and with fun activities like a scavenger hunt, t-shirt tie-dying, talent show and of course, campfire s’mores, which none of the girls had ever done before. We invited señoritas from all over my municipality, including girls from really rural communities in extreme poverty – it was shocking to me that two of the 16 year-olds who attended had never even been to the Chiantla town center before. The camp was a huge success, minus the fact that it was three of the coldest days I’ve felt in Guatemala, and we were able to reach the girls on some very important issues. Something that has shocked me in Guatemala, especially in rural areas, is how females are so de-valued in society. Machismo, in displays of cat-calls and such on the street is one thing, but families pulling their daughters out of school and getting married at very young ages is a completely different story. Through workshops and games, we were able to communicate to the girls that women are not born to “tortillear” (make tortillas) and have as many children as their husband thinks they should have, that a man controlling the family finances and demanding to receive all income is a form of domestic violence, and talked about subjects that are not taught in any public spaces, like how the female body works and forms of contraception. It made me feel really good that the girls were comfortable to ask questions openly, because they never receive any type of health or sexual education in school – things like “Is it OK to bathe with cold water when on your period?” and “Can having sex when you're pregnant make you have twins/become double pregnant?” En fin, it was a really great experience and I am looking forward to continuing to developing a relationship with the girls who participated and helping them to conduct their own workshops and projects in their towns – part of their responsibility for now being “Estrellas de Hoy” after the camp ended. And hopefully, I’ll be able to help other PCVs do GLOW camps in their sites too!

Now that the camp is over, work in my office is starting to pick up. We will soon begin our “trabajo comunitario”, or community visits, to our women’s groups and training them on various things (citizen participation, domestic violence, how to apply for development projects like water tanks, etc). We will also be doing campaigns to get the women to register to vote, which I am really excited about. Another big project coming up is planning a “jornada medica” (medical mission) for a rural community that lacks access to medical services.

Chiantla is also in the midst of preparing for Feria, which takes place in two weeks. It will be a weeklong party and celebration of la Virgen de Candelaria. This past Sunday, the first event took place leading up to the commencement of Feria, which consisted in a flatbed truck parading the Virgin through the streets of the municipality, followed by a bunch of men dancing in costume. It was a truly remarkable and entertaining experience. There are few words to describe, so just enjoy the photos and video clip!

Please keep the emails and blog comments coming, it is really nice to know people back home are actually reading!


La Virgen de Candelaria, on the back of the truck
People literally hanging off the muni to watch the dancers
Chapin Michael Jackson!
More costumed dancers

GLOW Campers and PCVs
GLOW Camp Talent Show
Learning how to properly put on a condom (on a banana)
The girls in my bunk! They pushed the beds together at night because it was sooo cold!
Roasting marshmallows.
Giving the Domestic Violence workshop with my counterpart
Ice Breaker activity
With other PCVs at Lake Atitlan, watching the sunrise...definitely worth waking up at 5 am!
Beautiful volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlan

We Gringos Will Do Anything For a Good View

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of climbing Chachaj, the highest mountain in the Cuchumatanes, the mountain chain surrounding Chiantla. It started out as a fun Saturday afternoon idea with some other Huehue area PCVs and ended in (somewhat) disaster – but an unforgettable time nonetheless! We had just left my house in the Chiantla town center to catch the bus going up the Cumbre (note photo of my fellow PCV friend below, who ended up standing next to a turkey the whole way). When we reached the destination, it was rather cloudy, but we figured that the worst that would happen is that our view just wouldn’t be as good. Well, we were quite wrong. We were minutes from the summit of the mountain when boom, the cool clouds that had just been whizzing by our heads started pouring on us. And since it neeever rains in December, we were far from prepared. Three of us found ourselves falling behind the others, since we were trying not to fall on the slippery rock and mud, and when we reached near the bottom, we realized we were lost. In the Cumbre. Where houses and people are few and far between. So, we continue down some muddy roads, as it continues to rain and then begins to hail, trying to figure out how to get back to the main road. We finally approach a house where someone was home, and this nice old lady points us in the direction that we wanted to take. I waited thirty minutes for a micro, and an hour later was back home, still soaking wet. It was about an hour and 5 cups of hot chocolate before I felt completely defrosted, but it was definitely a Saturday afternoon that I won’t ever forget. And I really do look forward to hiking Chachaj again on a clear day – I hear the view from above is spectacular!

This past week was Christmas, and I must admit that I did not have the best holiday. First, I was feeling homesick and missing my family. And my plan to celebrate with my host family did not quite work out. See, I live in an apartment within the property of an elderly couple. My host mom/landlady is totally sweet, but half deaf and somewhat “losing her marbles”, so to say. Before the holiday, I had joked that I should remind them that they invited me to spend Christmas, but in reality I should have acted on that, because they changed their plans last minute and forgot to tell me. So, I spent some time with them on Christmas Eve and then was pretty much flying solo on Christmas Day. I did enjoy some 12:00 midnight fireworks on Christmas Eve and spent most of Christmas Day reading and watching DVDs, so it wasn’t the end of the world. And the next day, when the family returned to Chiantla, I had a nice three-hour lunch with them that made me feel a lot better. But thanks regardless to all my family and friends back home who wished me happy holidays and sent me fun surprises in the mail :)

Two days prior to Christmas, the municipality had its annual party, which was an interesting experience. The lunch for the 200 muni workers started very “hora chapin”, about two hours late, and they brought out bottles of rum before they served the food. I was staving at this point, and that rum hit me pretty hard. But it came in handy when I won the raffle and had to go up to the mic and give a mini speech in front of everyone! It was pretty terrifying but worth it for the awesome plastic sippy cup and Tupperware container that I won.

A few days after Christmas, this really nice couple in my town who are great community leaders invited my counterpart and me to participate in the annual donation delivery that they do through their church. This year, the church had selected a community of Chiantla that is high up in the mountains and really difficult to access. Going up the road to the Cumbre, sitting on bags of corn and stuffed animals, was a treacherous adventure. We were in the back of a very old pickup, which was completely stuffed and quite low to the ground because of the heavy load. Halfway up, on a particularly steep uphill, the truck got kind of tired and we started rolling backwards. While my life began to flash before my eyes, luckily one of the guys in the truck was a little faster to think on his feet and jumped out to quickly put some large stones under the back tires. This literally happened six more times before finally reaching our destination, but by then I was getting accustomed to the feeling (not really, but I didn’t freak out quite as badly). The drive took about three hours, one and a half of which was on a very rocky unpaved road, but it was really beautiful. This community up over the mountains looked somewhat like how I’d picture Scotland to look – lots of herds of sheep, really green land, few trees, weird giant rocks sticking out everywhere. The sky was gray and misty the whole time because we were literally at cloud level. There were about 150 people waiting for us when we arrived in the community and we immediately began sorting the trashbags of donated items – beans, corn, clothing, shoes, toys, etc. I was put in charge of the little boys’ clothing, which was really fun. Some of the kids would cry when separated from their mothers and forced to come over to my area where I gave them pants, a sweater, and a t shirt, but they always left with a huge smile and very confused look as to who is this stranger with white skin and light brown hair who just shoved a “Grandma Went to San Antonio, Texas and Brought Me Back This T-Shirt” shirt into my hands? Flat out donations do not quite fit into my definition and goal of sustainable development, but it is without a doubt incredibly gratifying to hand out clothes, food, and toys to people who literally have one pair of shoes.

I am excited that in addition to Becca coming in late March, my parents also just booked their tickets for either that same month. I can’t wait to show all my visitors my beautiful town and experience some other parts of the country with them!

Wishing all my friends and family a very happy and healthy Año Nuevo!

Pushing the loaded truck up the hill

The kids in the back of the truck happy with their new toys. Although they thought "Barnes & Noble" was a strange name for the teddy bear
Apparently the whole West Virginia Mountaineers team decided to donate their shirts, lucky for the men in Tunimá Grande
With my mountain of clothing for niños
Line of families waiting to receive their donations

With my colleague Gloria and our Christmas baskets from the muni
Red and green rice crispie treats, my christmas gifts to people in my town
Before the hike/pouring rain began
Barrett with the turkey on the bus

Video clip - the cloud whizzing past us on our hike

I’ve been in my site for a month and a half now, and there's definitely not one specific emotion to describe how I feel here. Every day, I see or experience something new, beautiful, gross, challenging, mind-opening. I’ll describe one of my early morning runs from last week as an example:

I met Don Manuel outside my house at 6:15 and we begin running up my street on a new route that he is showing me. We then started up a very large hill that leads to the Cumbre (summit) of the surrounding mountains.
Beautiful- The view from even a short distance uphill was spectacular, looking down on my town and even further down on the city of Huehue covered in a layer of clouds and surrounded by more mountains.
Gross- The exhaust coming out of the trucks and buses that whizzed by. This is something unavoidable on all streets in all parts of Guatemala and one becomes accustomed to holding their breath when the camionetas drive by, but gasping for oxygen while 2000 meters above sea level and running up a mountain, I couldn’t help but breathe in the disgusting exhaust fumes!
Challenging- Seeing a large goat with its limbs tied together, on top of a microbus as it headed up the Cumbre. The microdrivers show no mercy even when there’s 30 people packed into a space designed for 15, and the situation was no different with this live goat on top of the vehicle as the driver ignored the speedbumps and sharp turns. The awful sounds that the goat made and just seeing it on top of the bus made me feel so sad and sorry for it, despite knowing it was to become a good meal for someone, it is still something that is hard to look at and accept in a certain sense.
Mind-opening- A woman breastfeeding her baby in the back of a crowded pick-up truck. The candidness with which women breastfeed in Guatemala is something that surprised all of us upon arrival to the country and usually never surprises me anymore, except that this particular woman was so squished into this truck and managing to hold on and feed her baby at the same time. Quite impressive.

The month of December has actually been rather busy, which is surprising because all PCVs warned us that not a single thing gets accomplished during this month, as everyone is either mentally or physically on vacation and preparing for the holidays. I’ve kept occupied by working with my office on the 2010 Annual Plan, which will include some exciting projects and initiatives, like voter registration campaigns and medical missions, as well as starting up my English classes, and helping another PCV with a kids’ environment camp in her site.

I’ve only done a few English classes so far, but the turnout of interested students has been really good and it’s actually been really fun. As I wrote earlier on, teaching English was something I was not thrilled about doing, but this particular group that I’m working with (the staff of a youth development NGO) is showing so much interest and motivation that it’s very easy for me to want to be doing this. Plus, I think of how learning another language changed the course of my life…I distinctly remember my first day of Spanish class in seventh grade, repeating over and over, “Me llamo Cara. Como TE llamas? Como SE llama?” Luckily I eventually moved on from the “my name is” stage, but if I had never learned Spanish, the last ten years of my life would have been completely different – what I studied in college and grad school, where I studied abroad, the jobs I’ve had since, and of course, the Peace Corps.

The environment camp that I helped with was in another PCV’s site in Huehuetenango. It was really fun to see another volunteer’s site and to help with the camp, which can only be described with one word: pandemonium. Please see the video link if you need more proof. There were 50 kids expected, ages 6-12, but 71 kids showed up, ages 3 and up. The objective of the camp was to give the kids who are now on vacation from school something to do that would occupy their time and teach them about different important themes related to the environment…one day was the forest and animals, another day was trash, another was water, etc. There were crafts, lessons, games, and even snacks related to the environment theme of the day. The kids were adorable but trying to get them organized, paying attention, not hitting each other, etc. was an arduous task. They were literally climbing the walls, stealing each other’s crafts, throwing water at each other…it makes me exhausted all over again just writing about it. Although overall it was really fun to participate and a good test of my patience :)

People have been asking me to describe my daily routine here, so here it is: I wake up at 6 and either go for a run, or convince myself it’s too dark/cold/early to run and go back to sleep. From 8-1:00, I am in the office or at a meeting or training, although stop at 10:00 for refacción (snackbreak) without fail, and then from 1-2:00 is lunchtime and I head home to eat or go to a comedor for a quick and cheap meal. From 2-4:00 I am back in the office waiting for the time to pass, as it seems that nobody really likes to work in the afternoons. After work, if I'm not doing English class, I usually run to the market to buy food, or I take advantage of the sunlight left in the day to wash clothes on my roof. In fact, I’d say that doing laundry takes up a really good chunk of my time here. To think that back in DC I would wash clothes every two or three weeks, and even then complain that it took me two hours to wash four loads of laundry! Then I make dinner, watch whatever crappy dubbed movie is on TV, go online, read, clean, etc. The pace of life here is so much more relaxed and tranquilo than in the states and more than DC especially, where everyone is constantly stressed out and running around. Although sometimes the slowness of things here can drive me crazy, I feel more relaxed and stress-free than ever before. I feel like my life prior to arriving here consisted of squeezing as many things into one day as humanly possible – work, exercise, happy hour, errands…no wonder even laundry day felt stressful!

I recently had the opportunity to attend a quinceñera (a “sweet fifteen” I suppose you could say) for the daughter of my friend’s counterpart in Todos Santos, another Huehue town which is famous for its Feria on All Saint’s Day and traje tipico (traditional dress). While women in indigenous communities in Guatemala almost always wear their traje, it is not common that men maintain the traditional dress, and Todos Santos is one of the few towns where men do still wear traje. The party was fun, with more people squeezed into this house than one would think humanly possible, and tons of tamales and meat and potatoes cooking in the largest pots I’ve ever seen. There were easily 100 people there. It was an interesting experience to be in an environment where everyone around me spoke Mam, the native Mayan language of the town. It made me feel thankful in a certain way to be living and working in a town where everyone speaks Spanish as the primary language, although Todos Santos has such a rich and beautiful culture that is unique to indigenous communities.

With the Christmas holiday around the corner, Chiantla is dressed to the nines for the festivities, with ridiculously tacky lights and decorations hung everywhere. It’s funny to see decorations of snowflakes and snowmen in a place where people have never seen snow in their lives, but I suppose without them, it wouldn’t really feel like Christmas! One thing that is so prevalent in the US during this time of year that has been absent in Guatemala – which I don’t miss at all - is the over-the-top consumerism. While street vendors are selling annoying musical lights on almost every corner, the annoying advertisements, sales, and pressure to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list don’t exist here. I feel that the reason is because Guatemalans are generally very religious and observe the holidays with more of a sense of family (and food – everyone obsesses over their tamales, typical Christmas food), plus they don’t have the extra money to spend on lots of gifts.

I'll be spending this Christmas with my "host" family (I live in an apartment on their property. We haven't had a close relationship but they are super nice) and then New Years with a bunch of other PCVs at Lake Atitlan which I am super excited for. Wishing everyone back home very happy holidays!!!

My wonderful counterpart Rosario and me with our little Christmas tree in the Oficina Municipal de la Mujer
The most adorable girl at the San Sebastian Environment Camp
The last day of environment camp, being smothered with hugs

The view coming down from the Cumbre early in the morning, above the level of clouds and seeing volcanoes in the distance. Amazing!
The boys at the quinceñera anxiously awaiting their cake
Cooking lunch in the world's largest pots
Most of Todos Santos headed towards the party


Chaos at Environment Camp...