La Navidad en Guatemala

The Christmas celebrating here started in the afternoon on the 24th. I began with the ninth consecutive Posada (See video in other posting of a Posada), which is a re-enactment of Jesus and Mary searching for a place to stay. This night for the Posada, instead of processing from one house to another house where celebrations would occur and Joseph and Mary would stay for the night, we went to the Church where after the Posada, midnight mass was celebrated (for the first time, midnight mass was celebrated at 9pm – I was thankful for Padre Victor´s mandate). The service, since there was no priest, was held outside. People brought their candles for light along with hoards of loud fireworks (there only purpose was to make noise), firecrackers, sparklers, and fountain fireworks. Firecrackers or things that explode loudly are used for any festive occasion here – birthdays, independence day, whatever. Sparklers, fountains, and
candles were extra things to celebrate Jesus being born, the light of the world. All these things were used throughout the service with kids constantly running around jumping through fountains of ¨fire¨ or carrying sparklers or gazing where the loud bang occurred. For me it probably was the most distracting service or mass I have been too. I mean, how am I supposed to put my attention level to super (something necessary for me right now while listening in Spanish if I want to understand) with so many giggling kids and pretty lights while a homily is going on? After seeing the kids during the service, I also understood while there was a national campaign to keep kids safe from burns during the holiday season.

So as I said, I did not get much from the homily itself, but a significant thing for me was something that was done when the service ended. Everyone blew out their candles and ceased the fireworks and everything else so that there was complete silence and darkness. Then after a bit, lights were turned on and everything relit as the baby Jesus was brought out to accompanyJoseph and Mary. After a veneration of the baby Jesus, and placing the Holy Family in the Nativity, the celebration ended and moved to the homes where the traditional meal is tamales and hot fruit punch.

The family with whom I am staying killed a turkey for the Christmas Eve dinner, which occurred at 1:00 AM on the 25^th. They also used part of a pig for lunch on the 24^th. Unfortunately for me, I paid my respects by eating everything, almost all which was foreign to my stomach whether because I had never tried it before or because my stomach was now used to the bean and tortillas diet.. Well I paid dearly the next day and I suspect the culprit was the 8 pieces of chicarón, which are deep-fried chunks of pig fat, however I am sure that the factory cookies, turkey, and loads of hot fruit punch did not help.

My plan for the 25^th, Christmas Day, was to go to San Carlos to spend it with Padre Victor and other guests. I still went feeling bad, but I think I visited more with the toilet and my hearty piece of bread, rehydration drinks, and guisquiles (their like thorny potatoes that grow on a vine) were not exactly was I was expecting to eat when thinking about the meal the days before. I was actually really thankful. The people at the Church took care of me very well. Not that I was that bad off, but it was reassuring to have them help me. Plus the Church had a toilet, hot shower, a couch, and even a TV which added that touch of relaxation needed when you not feeling good. By the next morning, I was feeling better, but would not start eating normally til the weekend. I know it will be easy to remember next time not to eat pig in my town again.

Until I talked with family and realized people were together at Gee Gee's or Uncle Ben's or Aunt Deb's or that Charlie and Katie were taking the younger cousins to the movies on Christmas Day, December 25^th did not seem like Christmas. The religious aspect was there, but where was my Christmas Eve mass at St. Pete's? Where were all the family gatherings we have? Where was the cold and the snow and the Christmas songs which I could not find on the radio and missed so much? Most importantly, where was my family? For me, I guess I don't know if Christmas happened. It´s not necessarily something sad or happy, but its as though Christmas was left out of the calendar for 2007 and that I need to wait longer.

Something which did not exactly put me in the Christmas spirit during this time was a surprise I had. It was something for which I was praying I would avoid but still thinking at the same time when it would come. The surprise came after felling something crawling on my in my bed while sleeping and then examining my bed after now being able to sleep from crawling and bites. The bites, though, did not hurt, which made me think it was something like a bed bug of some sort. When I took off my sheets, however, I found hoping tiny monsters – AKA fleas. I spent the day washing everything from my clothes to my bedding, going to San Carlos to buy a bug killer and to wrap my wimpy mattress in plastic, and spraying and thoroughly cleaning my room. Upon cleaning my room, I realized 2 things. There is a lot of dirt and dust that is coming from outside into the room through the space between the wall and ceiling. I also realized other bugs were entering in my room too when to my surprise after and hour after spraying the all purpose killing agent, I found a dying scorpion under my bed. Although I don't really like using this poison, it just might be a preventative spray if I see another scorpion.

Finally, to update you all to where I am today, I´ll let you know how New Years went too.

So after a relaxing weekend where I went off my all-vegetable diet (due to me being sick earlier in the week) to the normal food I was used to eating, I was convinced to go to Lake Atitlan to a tourist town in Sololá for New Years. There nearly all the new volunteers would be meeting to bring in the new year. I hit the road on the 31^st bright and early at 5:30 and made it to Panajachel by 2:00pm. I think I am getting used to long, crammed camioneta rides as I was not that beat afterward. The town was quite warm, warmer than my site which felt really good, and was filled with North Americans and Guatemalans alike.

The evening of the 31^st we had a nice dinner, danced and celebrated and then for midnight some of us went to the lake to watch people shooting of fireworks. I thought this was a much more peaceful option to where we had been where people were lighting off what seemed to be sticks of dynamite. Their explosion was so loud my ears were still hurting the next day. I would call the thing a US quality firework explosion (like what you hear when the big fireworks are exploding in, for instance, Grand Rapids) except that it did not leave the ground leaving those around the ¨bomb¨ deafened.

New Years Day was filled with relaxment including wearing shorts, eating lots of peanut butter sandwiches and oranges (a family from my town gave me 40 to bring on my trip to Sololá), walking the beach and walking through the city and all the vendors, and finally going swimming in the lake. Unfortunately I did not take my camera, but there is a picture of the lake in a previous blog.

Here was the little altar the family made in their house for Christmas
Here is the unlucky turkey with his feathers in the plastic container. To our defense, he was mean to people who tried to enter into the coop.
Here was one of my new friends I found in my room. I found this guy after treating my room for the fleas I had in my bed and then after sweeping the floor. In this stage, the scorpion is pretty close to dead
Here is a picture of the posada for those of you who can view the video.

Here is the Nativity in the Church. No pine trees were used, but they did use a bunch of green plants and flowers as you might be able to see in the picture. This picture is still from before Christmas so Mary and Joseph and Jesus are not in the Nativity
Here is a picture of the church in my aldea
And here is a picture of the Church from the outside
This is one of the tiny school building that is in the aldea. Also in it is the main playing court of the aldea where soccer is played. Soon there will be a basketball rim set up. You can see it resting in the right of the picture. I cant wait as I am the equivalent of an actual good basketball player down here when compared to everyone else. I guess my height might have something to do with it.Here are future tortillas . It is corn dried on the stalk and thrown on the ground in front of the hosue. It only needs to be dehusked and then the kernels needed to be removed from the cob. From there you cook the kernels in water for a day. Then you grind it all with calcium to get your dough to form your tortillas. In the back right, you can see the black plastic wall which represent 1 of the 2 walls I use when bathing next to the pila. Although you can see the actual pila I use, another pila , which is blue, is in the photo on the left.
More future tortillas

Constructing a house -- Instead of using adobe like most of the house, these people are constructing their house with concrete brick. I got to help with some of the work.

Congratulations Grandpa D!

Congratulations my dear Grandpa

For retiring this January two

There is no turning back now

As I already wrote this poem for you

No more meetings upstairs

Where they urge to buy Meijers

No more sleeping in a loading trailer

When during the day you get tired

No more fighting with Bertha

Or other Meijer employees

You’ll pass the days with Gee Gee

Now bothering her as you please

No more frustrations caused by bosses

Like Kent or Dan or Jay

Now sporting events and mowing

Will fill your summer day

You won’t get to go to the circus

And get paid each time you go

But now you can spend your golden years

Watching your grandkids grow



We are proud of you Grandpa

And all the things you do

And lastly not to forget

We sure do all love you

Video - La Posada en mi Aldea

Here is a video of a posada that took place in the village in which I live. It is a reenactment of Joseph and Mary looking for a place to stay before giving birth to Jesus. (See more information on Posadas in other blogs -- just click the word Posada in the list of links on the right of blog screen). In the video you can hear people singing and can see but cannot hear instruments like the flute and the turtle shell which are used to play more traditional songs. Finally you can also here firecrackers, somethings used for any point of celebration

Merry Christmas Video

Merry Christmas!

Primer mes en mi sitío

This Sunday will mark the beginning of my 2nd month in my new site and as an official volunteer. Just 2 more months of what they say are the hardest months of your service.

I think one hard thing here is that by being North American, I am given many stereotypes, one being that I am extraordinarily rich and that literally in the backpack I carry around I have wads upon wads of dollar bills (they have said this almost exactly many times). Because of this there are those who try to take advantage of you when you are buying something since there is hardly ever prices listed. Luckily most people will not take advantage of you and also that I have a pretty good memory for some of the prices. Another stereotype which is not so bad is that I, as a person from the US, have an education and expertise in any area and that I have knowledge or nearly everything. For example, I found myself one day passing by some engineers working on widening the dirt road that I use to get from the capital to where I live (They tell me that in 2 years, there will be asphalt, but I guess they have been ¨widening¨ the road for many years – but actually I believe them and am excite that their at least filling in the giant crevices in the dirt road.). After saying hi, they asked me ¨Hey, you’ll be able to help us with this project if you want.¨ I replied, ¨Well, I don’t really have that expertise.¨ ¨What do you mean? You aren’t an engineer¨ they said a bit stunned that I wasn’t an engineer.

Being the person who is thought to have all the knowledge, I also get asked a mountain’s worth of questions, some funny and some basic:

I heard in a song that the earth has poles? What poles are they talking about?

Korea and Spain are part of the United States, right?

Men and Women both get menopause right?

Sometimes it makes me laugh, but it also makes me become a bit saddened knowing that there are some many people that just have not had the opportunity to have much of an education or one at all.

So since arriving, I have visited lots of families to meet them, see some possible problems they have, and mostly build confidence with them. I also, as you know, accompanied the medical staff from Spain and near have nearly finished my gigantic wooden shelving unit which should hold all the stuff in my suitcases and more. This project to build it, though, was probably the toughest project that I have done so far, partly because I had to haul the freshly cut pine wood up about 1 mile of mountain several times and then stripped the bark off, sanded the wood and cut the wood with a hand saw. Luckily though, there was a person in the village who fell the tree for lumber and gave me the scraps, which were still quite usable, but had bark on one side (see the pictures below).

Also during this time, the small town had its patron’s day fair for the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It was not too big, but nearly the whole town came out and there was lots of food (they made tamales and some soups as well as the typical beans and tortillas), given free to all the people. They had events like the child and dog (which are basically strays except they generally stay in someone’s yard and kind of belong to someone) race and the horse race where some rides a horse as fast as he can past a small loop dangling on a rope. The object is for the rider to pass his pen through the loop.

At the mass, Padre Victor talked about me a little bit at mass and then invited me to a lunch with some of the community Church leaders. I was very grateful for this (and surprised) that he did this because I know it will help people get used to me being here in the community. There are still some children who cry at merely seeing me and there are adults who wont address questions to me when right next to them – they will simply ask another person about me even though I politely say that I understand Spanish and that I would be happy to answer your questions.

Oh also, a little surprisingly, the water ran out or dried up at house that I am living at. Luckily for us, there is water still in the other older building up the mountain, but if that runs out, I imagine we will need to start going to other houses or buying it for awhile. I am told though that this is common during the dry season and that these outages do not last too long. Unfortunately for me and everyone around me, though, I saved my once-every-two-day bucket bath for today. Hopefully for all our sakes, water will return soon.Here is where are some people were cooking tortillas outside on the plancha. They probably made about 1000 that day to celebrate the end of the novena, the nine days of mourning and prayers they do when someone dies.
For the same event, here are some women working on the tamales made from ground up corn mass, sauce, and sometimes some meat (in this case they used mean -- pork!). Then enclose the tamales in the banana leaves which you can also see in the picture.Here is the memorial that the people made for the person that died. Here the people prayed for the soul of this person. As you can see it was full of hand-made decorations and flowers and pine needles (which are used here for celebrations)
Here is a picture of a sunken volcano crater that now has become of beautiful lake, I think called Lake Ayarsa. In the background to the right, you can see some huge volcanoes, 2 of which I think are active.


Here is a picture of much closer to the lake. In it is another volunteer.
Here is a strange dessert I have had a few times. It is a sweet green moosh from a squash type plant. Buried inside are hard shells which are actually pieces of the shell of the fruit which you suck on, and then spit out. In the distance, you can see the latrine I use to, well as one person said down here, to do what only I can do.

Here are some of the planks of wood that are drying after I had cut them to size and removed the bark. In the background is the house that I am living in.
Here is my working station, me, the wood plank, and the machete. I used the machete to cut off the bark. The plank is leaning on an old pila, which is what is used here in Guatemala as the faucet and sink and where dishes and clothes are washed and in my case, where baths are taking.
Here is my room. As you might be able to see, the house is nowwhere air tight as the metal roof is just layed on top of the bricks or adobe (adobe is much more common and this is actually the only part of the house made of brick).Here are 2 picture of my shelving unit almost finished. Its about 7 feet tall, 5 feet long, and 2 feet wide.