Changes and Exchanges

On the work front things are still cleaning themselves out after the ousting of the president in my women’s group. The president also happened to be the person in charge of vaccines and medicines given to the chickens. When the chickens started dying, even though they had vaccines, I began to investigate. Well it turns out that she had been doing some shady practices as well as making some mistakes. She was not only giving the wrong vaccines, but she was also selling vaccines that were already expired making them ineffective and worthless. Over and over she has been told and taught that vaccines don’t last for more that a few hours after they have been mixed and that they needed to stay in the cold, but she continued to sell the vaccines 4 or 5 days after she originally applied the vaccines to her birds without ever having a refrigerator. So you had all these women buying vaccines with the little money that they have, just to have their chickens die. I can’t tell you how frustrated I was for these people. Just one good chicken during the Christmas season can go for about Q100, which is worth at least what you could only make in the fields for 2.5 or 3 days of hard labor. Turkeys sell for up to Q300. The worse part though, is that it comes to find out that my NGO had known about what the president was doing long before the chickens started dying but told me nothing. That is something I just don’t understand here in Guatemala. When people do something wrong, people are afraid to make corrections, criticisms or reprimands. They don’t like confrontations. People normally just say yes to everything rather than saying how they feel. If you ask someone if they will go to your party, they will say yes, even though they have no intention or means of going. With my NGO, this is especially seen in its treatment with the ex-president. Not only was she not reprimanded for her delinquencies as president nor as the person in charge of the chickens, but she was allowed to be elected to the presidency of the entire region. A sad fact that goes along with people not being held responsible for their actions is that only 0.1% of all homicide cases in Guatemala ever even go to court, with even a tinier percent finding a conviction in which the killer goes to jail.
I wish I had supervised this part that the president was doing for the sake of the other people who lost so much, but that is usually the opposite of what I try to do. I am only going to be here for another year and I am trying to find ways so that the projects will continue long after I am gone. To remedy the situation, I held an emergency vaccination campaign. I, with my NGO, started training more people how to vaccinate and we broke up in groups with the women vaccinating where the vaccine was wanted. Unfortunately seeing how some of the chickens had died with the bad vaccine, some already started feeling that the vaccine either did nothing or even provoked the death of the chickens.

But wait, there is good news. First of all, this problem was uncovered and a new system can be setup within the group. And the volunteer who lives in close to me and I had an excellent idea that now has turned into a big success within our communities. I think the idea started when I brought 100 oranges (which cost me less than $4) to a birthday party where the other volunteer lives. Where the other volunteer lives, it is very cool, so cool that nothing tropical really grows. There are no oranges, bananas, loquats, plantains, mangos, limes, lemons, guayavas, and other fruits that I have no idea what the translation to English would be. (On a side note, it is interesting to find fruit that is not imported to the United States and then try to understand why it is not exportable enough to be exported, whether because of taste, hardiness, or whatever.) On the flip, where she lives, things like potatoes, apples, broccolis, cabbages, and cauliflowers grow really well, something that does not grow at all or very well where I am. So we had the idea of doing the exchange. With the help of the priest who is always driving around visiting communities and saying mass, we were able to do the exchange fairly easily sending a few potato sacks full of foods. In both our communities, we have seen the people gobble up their rare commodities. Instead of eating nothing or possible junk, the volunteer in her community has seen kids going around eating bananas and oranges for snacks while in the street. We have done the exchange 2 times now and each time it has gotten more and more popular. We’ll see how the next exchange goes as I am starting to put more responsibility on the women themselves.

On another good note, my NGO held an exposition of all the products that were produced in the communities. My community participated and even made a song about the community which included a couple lines about me - I was pretty surprised and flattered.

If anyone has any good recipes for using zucchini or pumpkins, I would be very grateful if you could send them my way. Liam, the other volunteer who is just about going to leave, gave me the seeds and the plants are really growing well. They are already harvesting the zucchinis. I am hoping the pumpkins will be ready by Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Liam, just the other day we had his despedida, a going-away party. We got up at 5am to start the fire to boil the water to peel the hairy skin off the pig that we were going to kill. Don’t worry; we killed the pig before we did any of that peeling and cutting. We all helped slaughter it in some way, with the expert, a cousin down here, doing the gutting and sectioning of the meats. It was a lot like the cat I dissected in high school; the organs were pretty easy to identify. Pretty much every silly part of that pig was used. The hide, tail, feet, bones, heart, lungs, and ears were all to be for human consumption. Most of the meat, organs, and slabs of fat and hide were deep-fried in the pigs own grease. I was a little hesitant at first since this is what had helped to make my previous Christmas a very un-merry one. But the preparation was good and clean and I made sure I drank plenty of beer and whisky, which I was told was necessary to do when eating all that fat. And thank the Lord that two days later, I am still good. The next time we kill a pig, which is not very often, I am hoping I can get some things together to make some bacon.

The Spanish doctors have left. I did not get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked, especially due to the problems that were going on in my community, but I still did get some nice evenings with them and some days helping them do their exams they did in the villages. One day after finishing the day’s exams, 2 severely malnourished children were found and with the parent’s permission and presence, we all went to drop the kids and their moms off at a place run by nuns. There they get the kids back in good health and educate the parents how to better take care of their kids. The trip was pretty long and bumpy since we had to go to two separate and faraway communities to pick up the kids and the moms. Unfortunately for one of the parents, she got sick nearly the entire time we were driving. My job as well as the job of one of the nurses was to hold one of the kids inside to protect it from the wind (the rest were riding in the bed of the truck). The kid did not make a sound the entire time, which probably was not a good thing. He probably had received so little attention that by now, at 4 years old, he new that crying never worked. The four-year old though, was just like an infant. It weighed maybe 15 pounds and I held it like I would a baby for the entire trip. It did not talk. The only sound it made was an occasional cough. On the way to this center with the nuns, something a bit scary happened. We were pulled over by the police, who quickly saw that two people not from Guatemala had Guatemalan babies in their hands. They quickly began the accusations that the doctors and I were robbing babies. After about 10 minutes of checking the papers of the cars and questioning the parents, they let us go. I was nervous because even though we were not in the wrong, the police here are corrupt. I don’t trust them generally. In a case like ours, they most likely pulled us over because we were in a nice truck and they were hoping to get some “fine” money. And worst of all, I did not have any ID’s on me. But everything did work out OK and when we arrived to the center, where the kids who were there were already in their pajamas. They were so much more full of life than the 2 we were bringing. The bigger ones that could walk ran and gave me a hug. The mothers were still up too chatting with us wondering where we had come from. I think I am going to have to go there another time in the future.

So from the doctors, besides getting some really good meals and Christmas music, I also got their pictures. After looking at them, it made me realize some of the beauty that I don’t every show to you all because I see it every day. So thanks to them, I posted some pictures below.

Oh, winter, which is the wet season, has officially ended, I think. About 3 days ago high winds came in and it has not rained since. This is perfect timing for tomorrow, All Saints Day, when people fly their kites to communicate with their dead loved ones. The clear nights and wind though have brought cooler temperature much like late September to early to mid October in the MI. When I take my cold showers, I feel like I am going into a battle. I have to prepare myself usually by doing some sort of exercises, and then go under the shower all at once, like ripping a band-aid off. I quickly turn off the water, and soap up my whole body, and then rinse off. Thus, there are only two times when the spigot is turned on; I try to greatly reduce the time I under it. When I finish, I come out feeling like great, as though I had just accomplished some feat or victory. I guess that is one advantage of things down here, even things like cold showers make me feel accomplished and victorious in the day.



Here are some of the faces I see every day.

One of the severely malnourished children we encountered.

Cooking corn and making atol, a hot drink that can be made from soy, corn, wheat, oats, or other grains and fruits

A formerly severely malnourshed baby recovering at the center run by the nuns.






Another severely malnourished baby.

This is a picture of typical teeth here. People usually get their teeth pull out, especially the ones in front. So they have partial dentures put in for the front teeth. These teeth are usually colored gold or are decorated with gold figures like the stars you see here.










The one above and below are morning pictures of the landscape not too far away from where I live. How lucky am I

Here´s me helping the doctors by recording weight, name, age, and height of the children that pass by.

This was the pass to get to one of the villages. Let's just say we got stuck there in the truck for a while but luckily as you can see in the picture, the locals got us through it.

Halfway through and the hardest of hills behind

Oct. 8, last week, marked the halfway point of my service and training. I have just 1 year and 1 month that remain officially. As I have said before, if I had to leave right now, I would be satisfied. I would feel happy knowing that I had already made a difference in people’s lives here, albeit small, and that they, the people down here, have made a difference in my life. As the Jesuit Volunteer Corps slogan used to be, I feel too as though I am “ruined for life.” How exactly I am or will be “ruined,” when I get done, that is to be seen. I get frustrated not knowing what my next step will be afterward. I am the type of person that wants to prepare and focus on something to get really good at it. I know what I am doing only benefits me, but I still cant help but feel I am wandering, whether because I am lost, exploring, or both.

The halfway point also marks the arrival of new trainees in the food security program, the program in which I am. They actually came in August as I did last year. Two of them paid a visit to two of us here in Jalapa, one to my site and the other to the other volunteer who lives close by. Just like I had done, they came to see what being a volunteer was like. The first day, we decided to make it a “weekend day” to give the trainees a little break (I remembered how it was when we were trainees). But before you say “Geeeez, that must be nice to just not work whenever you want”, you should know that yes, it is nice to be able to plan out your work schedule. Instead of working that Thursday, we worked Saturday.
So that Thursday, we went to the ecological park here. The owner, a very enthusiastic and innovative man, dropped everything when we asked him if the park were open. He was with us the entire day instead of working at his home where we had found him. We did, somewhat unexpectedly, all the high cables in the forest (I forget what they are called in English, but we used a harness and wheels that hooked onto the cables to glide down) and the wooden bridges like you see in Indiana Jones movies. Afterward, since it was actually the first time that I had got a chance to meet Randolfo, the owner (I had actually talked with him over the phone a few times to organize help for a kid who had a hugely swollen tongue that barely made it possible for him to eat and gave him the threat of choking to death. I believe it was some sort of tumor or cancer.), he showed us around his yard, which consisted of several “running” vehicles that needed just “a little work”. The masses of metal included a ford bus, land rovers, a ’59 datsun, and something that looked like it could have been something similar to jeep wrangler its day. All these things, he brought down here from trips to the US driving to and from Guatemala through Mexico. I got overly excited when he offered to take us two volunteers back home when we complete our 2 years. For me, that would be an amazing trip. I just don’t want to get too excited though since a lot can happen in 1 year and 1 month.

If I can get myself in the routine of it, I am going to try to write something down every 1 or 2 or 3 days, and then post those things on my blog every 2 weeks. It probably won’t help to make my blog very unified, but it might give a different perspective that I don’t normally write about.

Last week, the parents of the volunteer, who lives in my site and is sadly ending his service next month, came down to visit his site. I took some time to go around with them through the site and see some of the local sites, like the lake that his near by. The first night that they came in though, the dad completely, absolutely surprised me. He told me something that later on we would do that I thought would never be possible to do in Guatemala, just absolutely impossible. I thought the only place that I could ever think about doing this was back home, exclusively with my family. I had not even known that it was done in other parts of Michigan, let alone other parts of the country. What he told me was, well, here is how it went. I asked the volunteer’s parents if they had ever played cards and if they wanted to play knowing that they are quite a few good 4-player games. They named off a few, and then suddenly the dad spurted out the impossible. He knew how to play pedro! Pedro. Pedro, I could not believe what I was hearing. When he explained the game, sure enough, it was the same game. Easter hallelujahs went off in my head and I immediately gave him a big hug. The next 3 nights we played pedro (They said they really wanted to play as well, but I think had they not wanted to, I probably would have forced at least one game) and the competition was good, just like back at home. So basically, that was my big surprise for me of the month, or maybe of the year. Pedro in Guatemala. I guess anything can happen down here.