More Interesting Beliefs and a Funny

A funny thing happened to me the past week. I was walking down the road while talking with a woman from the group with which I work. As we were approaching the school, we saw a man who was grasping at things in the air and making what I would call very slow-action karate moves. I asked the woman what had happed to him or what was wrong. She said that “He’s a drunk and is already drunk today.” It was only 10:00am but to his defense I do not think it takes much of the local moonshine for one’s socks to be knocked off. I said to the women “It sure is sad to see people who are so drunk like him. They drink away the little money that the family has and waste their day.” She said, “He is usually like this.” I wondered and asked, “Do you see him regularly like this and does he live in our community?” She replied without hesitation, “Yeah, he’s my dad!”
I paused for a second and then apologized for what I had said, but said she agreed with me and had asked him to stop his drinking habits.

Another interesting thing happened just two nights ago when we had a complete lunar eclipse (how beautiful it was). Prior to the night of the eclipse, I gave many explications as to why an eclipse occurred and spread the word that one was coming. I figured it was something noteworthy since the next one won’t come til 2015.
That night after dinner, I watched it from the start to its climax when a ring is formed around a dark moon. Well as I was watching the eclipse and the moon was more than halfway covered by the Earth’s shadow, I noticed that someone in the house was banging on a pot. I just ignored this though because I was so focused on the beauty of the clear sky, almost free from light pollution, full with billions of stars, the shooting stars, and of course the moon.
After getting done talking with a friend, I realized that the whole community was making a racket. People were banging pots, hitting their tin roofs, smacking boards, and doing whatever else to make noise. The usual tranquil nights filled with the occasional squeal of the pig, bark of the dog, and crow of the rooster (we have a special rooster which enjoys crowing more than just at dawn) was now transformed into a festive, fantastically loud affair. I myself was impressed with the banging because it was not just a few soft taps for a few minutes; it was a good 60 or 70 hard beats for over an hour.
I soon asked what was gong on hypothesizing that it had something to do with the eclipse – it certainly did. People were making such loud noises to ward off the sea monster which was attempting to eat their moon. They believed that this beast was going to eat the moon and leave them without light for the rest of their nights to come; thus they made the noise in hopes that they could scare the animal to save their beloved moon.
Along with this belief that surrounded the eclipse was another. The people believed that the water was made impure or dirty because of the eclipse and that people could not bathe in this water for about 2-3 days. Since I have been playing basketball every evening along with working during the day, I passed on not taking a bath. I felt it was the best interest of everyone if I were taking my bucket-baths.
I should point out that not everyone completely believed that an eclipse was occurring because a beast was attempting to eat the moon or that you could not bath. These were beliefs more held by the older population. Why many may not have completely believed, they certainly still did act upon these older beliefs.



So I think as I had said before, one of my the things I am donig right now is making compost piles with the group of women in my aldea. Hopefully from here, we will be able to start making compost piles in the yards of all the women so that they will have some good soil to work with when the rains come in May. Here is a picture of the area we would use for the compost pile before we started putting all the ingredients in. We had to make this fence like structure because the dogs and pigs run free eating and destroying what they can.
Here are 2 pictures of some of the women of the group watching as one waters down the all the dried leaves and green leaves and manure we put in.

(HT) (2) The Basics of Guatemala

How do I explain the thousands of things that I have experience and come to know about Guatemala. I think the best way that will reveal a bit of Guatemala will be from my writing on topics not specifically on Guatemala but on, for instance, what my typical day is like or holidays that take place here or similarities and differences that I have seen between the US and Guatemala. I’ll be sure to do this for you all, but first I thought I would try to give a little foundation to my writings.

Before you start reading though, maybe one thing you might want to do is write a page about what you know or think you know about Guatemala or countries in Central or South America for that matter. Some questions you could answer:

How do I think the people live? Do they live in chaos, in dire poverty, in the middle of no where, on paved streets with lamp posts? Do they houses or cars or televisions or microwaves or ovens?

What do I think that they eat or better yet how do they get their food to eat?

Are their cities like the US?

What is the land like? Is it a jungle or something different?

What language or languages do they speak?

What is the history of Guatemala?

What do I think the daily activities would be for the average Guatemalan?



These are some things that I would recommend to think about before reading by very brief writing on Guatemala. I certainly did not answer all of the questions above, but hopefully, as I said, they will be revealed in later writings.






Guatemala is a country of about 13 million people. Compare that to the estimated 1 million Guatemalans in the US (about 7% of their population). The country is made up of 22 departments, something comparable to what we call a state. (Here is a link to an a map of all the departments in Guatemala. Hint, department is departamento in Spanish. http://www.inforpressca.com/municipal/mapas_web/guatemala.php). I live in the department of Jalapa, which is located in the SE section of Guatemala near the countries of El Salvador and Honduras. The area where I live I would describe as an area similar to the Eastern Front of the Rocky Mountains. The land is mountainous, is rocky, and has a lot of clay. With the physical conditions of the land as well as with the people who dress up in cowboy boots and hats and big belt buckles, I am often reminded of the Wild West you see in Western movies. The weather is usually pretty temperate ranging from 65-80 degrees during the days. Usually people are pretty surprised that I do not live in the “jungle.” The fact is there are very hot areas at lower elevations and even much more cooler areas at higher elevations. One place even boasted of having snow at the beginning of the year after a strong cold front swept through. I though, definitely have not had snow and am enjoying the current dry season which lasts from November to May each year. The land where I live is used primarily for 3 different crops: corn, beans, and coffee. The coffee is nearly all sold while the beans and the corn represent the basic diet of the people down here and represents my diet too. Before coming, being from the Midwest, I certainly enjoyed my slice of meat and thought that I would starve if I did not eat meat at least one if not twice a day. Now, I am almost a vegetarian. Here, meat is an extravagance for the small aldea (name for a very small town in Spanish) in which I live and is usually only used for holidays. Along with the beans and the tortillas (which are made by grinding up the corn) I eat all kinds of vegetables. The small aldea I live in holds about 500 families making up 3500 people. Families here are on average, quite big, with 10-12 kids. Actual family size is a bit smaller, though, for various reasons, one of them being is that sons or daughters leave to find a job in the capital city or the United States.

The history of Guatemala started as the Mayas moved into the regions of Guatemala and created their communities and centers. The prominence of the Mayas can be seen by their impressive structures throughout Guatemala. The Mayas of Guatemala and Native Americans of the US are similar in the sense that as they moved to different areas of the country, they formed separate groups with their own languages or dialects and with their own traditions. This is why today there are other languages recognized and spoken here along with Spanish.
The Spanish began to come in the 1500’s leading to a purging of Mayan culture for a European culture. Mayans lost their lands and were used by the Spanish as forced-labor workers. This enslavement continued up until the 1900’s when only then the law requiring the Mayans to work 180 (I am pretty sure it was 180 but could not find the exact number – either way it was a lot) with out pay or even without giving food. Only in the past 1-2 years was discrimination against the indigenous here made illegal.
During the 1940’s and 50’s when plans were made to begin redistributing land to the indigenous people from whom it was taken, president and the government were overthrown by a military group backed by the US. It’s a long story why this happened, but basically some of the lands were owned by US companies like Untied Fruit Company which harvested bananas. This company asked for help from the US claiming the Guatemalan government was communist for redistributing the lands. Thus the CIA for possibly this reason and more, backed the overthrow of the government.
Following this overthrow lead to civil unrest which still exists today as well as a civil war between the indigenous and the government of Guatemala. Only in 1996 an official peace and cease fire was signed.

Here are some blurbs I read that I thought would be useful on Guatemalan History. They are listed by topic

Guatemalan Civil War

The government of Colonel Arbenz Guzman attempted various land reforms in the early 1950s, but was overthrown by a US-backed invasion led by military opponents of Arbenz. The country then slid into a state of almost perpetual civil war between a series of right-wing military governments and various leftist guerrilla movements: a major figure during this period was the former general Efrain Rios Montt, a self-styled evangelist who as army chief of staff and (briefly) president during the 1970s and 80s presided over a vicious counter-insurgency campaign whose savagery was exceptional even by the standards of the era and the region. - http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/Guatemala/History

“In February 1999, the country's Historical Clarification Commission blamed the army for more than 90% of the deaths or disappearances of more than 200,000 Guatemalans during the 36-year civil war. In many instances, the army committed genocide against entire Mayan villages, the report concluded. The three-member commission blamed the United States government for supporting right-wing regimes even though it knew about the atrocities being committed by the army. An earlier report by the Catholic Church revealed similar findings. During a short visit to Guatemala in March 1999, US president Bill Clinton said his country had been wrong for supporting the Guatemalan army. “ - http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Guatemala-HISTORY.html


Mayan and the Spanish in Guatemala

The Mayans were dominant through much of Central America from the fifth until the eighth century when their civilization declined and a variety of other ethnic groups moved into the region. Europeans arrived in the 15th century, and Guatemala was one of the territories overrun by the Spanish conquistador Cortés in the 17th century. Pressure on their empire during the early 19th century forced the Spanish to concede independence to their American colonies, principally Mexico, into which Guatemala was briefly incorporated in 1822. Subsequent plans to fuse the countries of the Central American isthmus were equally short lived. Guatemala enjoyed comparative stability, punctuated by brief periods of upheaval, under a series of dictators who were content to keep the country under a quasi-feudal regime underpinned by a small clique of land-owning families. - http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/Guatemala/History




Below I included some links to learn more about Guatemala. The first 2 are on the history of Guatemala. The last is more on the current statistics of Guatemala.

http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/Guatemala/History


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Guatemala

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gt.html

PS Sorry for the short delay. The city which I was in to use the internet had its power shut off for some hours due to the national power shortage occuring in Guatemala.

Little Things, Big Deals, & Seeing What You Wish Were Not There

What a week I had. I started the week going to the NGO’s office for the monthly meeting. The meetings were not that much more successful than the last ones.

Learning from my past experience, I arrived 40 minutes early just in case they were more whims of leaving early. Unfortunately, instead of beginning at 8:00am and only waiting 40 minutes, we began at 10:00am. The topics started out interesting; they were on sustainable agriculture and gender situations in Guatemala. The meeting, though, too quickly moved from this into analyzing each region’s project expectations, goals, and plans. This certainly can be a good thing, but we spent hours upon hours discussing tiny miniscule thing. Things were repeated over and over. And I was bewildered that after a 7:30pm dinner, we quickly returned to the meeting til 10pm! Although it is not custom in Guatemala to criticize a boss, I let him know how I felt (after all, I needed to tell him to get out my frustrations so that I could at least sleep the few hours I had).

The next day was the same chatter, but at least we got done at 5pm.

I have asked others if they experience the same thing. Unanimously, I am told that Guatemalan meetings endure for countless hours and involve long discussions, but rarely get much done. I am sure it is not true for all cases, but as for mine, I feel it is true right now.

On Wednesday when I was returning to my site, I had something happen to me that would be frightening in just about anyone’s life. It will probably be something I won’t forget; I will probably see the scene in my head clearly for years. It may have an effect on me or it may not. Really though, I believe that real change, that of mind and heart, comes over time from the small things we do and the small efforts that we make in our lives that build up to something meaningful and impactful. No one has any idea the impact that we have and will have on people through our day-to-day little things. So I guess there is not much to this in itself, but either way, it is something that is affecting me right now on the surface of things.

I was on the bus which I caught just as it was leaving. I quickly went to reading since I had early on trained my stomach and mind to be able to read to occupy the usually long bus rides. About 45 minutes into the trip well into my NY Times section, my favorite section which comes in the Sunday paper here, I heard a loud popping noise coming from the front of the bus. I lowered my paper and raised my head to see something that right now is engrained in my brain. I saw a gun and someone who was firing it repeatedly at the bus driver. I can see over and over again in my mind the bus setting and the gun, as though it were a still frame. I realize I would be a horrible witness because I have no idea neither what the shooter nor his accomplices looked like. I was just shocked. It was not real for me at first. It was as though I had fallen asleep or were watching a movie. I happened so fast that in that entire time, I did not even blink let alone move.

Once the person left with the 2 others who were driving the motorcycle (that is how the shooter got on the bus while we were moving along the highway), someone quickly took control of the bus which was still moving downward on the highway. I am ever thankful that the bus kept moving straight and that no curves were coming up on the highway. The bus was stopped and everyone quickly fled the bus. As I passed the front, I saw the driver hunched over with blood all over. I wanted just to run, but I had not where to go since we were not near a city from what I could see and were stuck in a part of the highway between a wall of mountain and a drop. Furthermore, I had the fear that if I ran away, that there was the chance of running into the assailants. So I stayed with the rest waiting for the police and ambulance. I was trembling and in a state of shock.

Then the bus driver started to move. He was still alive. With a shot in the head and the chest and probably elsewhere since he received 5-6 shots, he was sat down. After seeing this and gaining a little composure, I looked at some of his wounds and tried to tell him and the person helping him to put pressure on the wounds. The advice was not really heeded, but the ambulance arrived soon after while he was still alive.

I reported the incident to Peace Corps who offered me whatever they could: someone could pick me up, I could talk to a counselor or another person from the staff, I could stay at the office or Antigua, etc. With everything they offered, I just took the next bus out; I feel safe in my site and there was little chance I was going to turn around heading back toward the capital city from where the violence stems.

I took a Pullman, which is an older coach bus, back to Jalapa. It was the first time that a bus I had been on had a TV and played a DVD. I cannot tell you how much this little things helped calm myself. It’s another reason one of those things that, I believe, is more than just a coincidence.

I got back to my site just fine and spent the week with the women’s group making a fence for our group compost (a fence is needed because pigs run freely through the area and eat and destroy everything) and with the schools planning how I would world with them throughout the year.

I later learned that the shooting was the cause of businesses fighting against the mafia/gangs here. The mafia, or whatever they are, impost taxes or dues on all the businesses that operate in the capital. The tax paid is to insure that the business wont be “bothered” by the mafia. Well this bus company along with others stopped paying so this mafia started to shoot bus workers like the ones on my bus (They were 2 workers. I was told the bus helper who collects the money was killed first.) and most were killed.

To me, I am happy it was a big deal for the newspapers which meant to me that this level of violence in the 2nd most violent nation in all of the Americas was not normal.

On a lighter note after having a bit of a stomach ache yesterday, I was served stomach soup – just cow stomach and broth. What better way to get rid of stomach pains! The stomach looked like a morel mushroom on one side. Since the family rarely serves meat, I certainly could not pass it down. It was a bit like eating a thick rubber glove. I did not eat that much of the stomach though and asked for more of my staple saying “¿Puedo tener más frijoles, por favor?”

(HT) (1) Welcome

Hi everyone at Holy Trinity,

I am excited to working with you all and to have the opportunity to share some of my experiences while living as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala.

Now I certainly am not the most talented writer, in fact you could probably use my writings in English class for your grammar exercises. My hope, though, is that you are able to grasp even just a smidge of what life is like for others outside the US.

First before we start getting down to some of the deep stuff, I’ll explain a bit about me.

I am a Grand Rapids native and went to Sts. Peter and Paul. Back then, centuries ago, I even had the same principal that you have right now, Mrs. Kryger. After grade school I went to West Catholic and then Michigan State University. While at MSU, I studied physiology, a degree more commonly used to get into medical school. A year or more before graduating, I looked at all my options to decide what my next step would be. I prayed, talked them over with family and friends, and tried to listen to my heart. Through a long period of discernment, I realized I was most passionate about dedicating some time in my life to serve others who have not had the blessings I had had in my life. Thus, I joined the Peace Corps, an organization funded by the US Government that sends volunteers all over the world to countries who are asking for help. In late August I went to Guatemala, a country in Central America just below Mexico and began 2.5 months of training on things ranging from Guatemalan culture and Spanish to the work that I am doing right. I work in a program called Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition. My work down here deals with working in rural community in the department of Jalapa (it’s like a state but they call them departments down here) trying to combat the malnutrition that is in the town. I moved to this town about 2.5 months ago (making my total stay here so far 5 months) and have used these past months to meet the people of the community, gain the confidence of them, and adjust to my new living environment.

So the technical goals of my project are to improve the nutrition of a designated number of families through teaching and sharing and motivating in how to raise a diversified vegetable garden, how to raise chickens, and how to get the most nutrients from the food and resources that they have available. The idea is to improve the family’s nutrition without having them spend more money and to teach them activities that are culturally acceptable and easy to understand and repeat so that they can continue to do these same activities long after my tour as a volunteer is done. A change such as that in anyone’s life is challenging to do; I only hope I start to improve some aspect of these people’s lives, the people with whom I am living and working side by side.

Besides my main reason for coming that I already mentioned, another goal of mine was to learn. I wanted (and still want) to learn about different cultures and what it was like to live outside the US in poverty. I wanted to learn another language and learn to see things from new perspectives. I wanted to learn from my fellow townspeople on things that are important to them in their lives and other knowledge that they wanted to pass to me. In a way even though I don’t have any tests or homework, school has not stopped for me; I am just in a different type of classroom.

I hope this help you all in understanding what I am doing. Feel free to read the last 5 months of posts on my blog to see what I have been doing. On the right of my posts is a huge list of words which represents a lot of the topics which I have written about. Also, to help you know which posts are specifically meant for you all, I'll put (HT) in the title and put the number in paretheses as well so that the posts can be kept in some kind of order.

Also, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them and try to answer them. You can email them to me at joenaitis@gmail.com. It usually takes me about 2 weeks to reply since I have no internet access in my community.

Take care and hope you are all enjoying the cold!

Faith in Practice and Manure

Two weeks ago, I spent the entire week translating for US doctors who came to help people for 2 days in San Carlos Alzatate. I was only planning to help for 2 days, gut they needed help (in translating) so I stayed with them when they went to a nearby community in Jalapa.

I have to say I also stayed with them longer because I was having fun. I worked in just about every “department” they had except the OBGYN unit. For the dentists, I helped tell where the pain was and how many teeth they wanted pulled. Just in 1 day, 1 of the 3 dentists pulled alone 107 teeth! Sadly teeth hygiene and care is really poor here. All the junk food from the places like the US came, but the good habits for teeth did not. The teeth they pulled were all cracked with some teeth only having a root remaining in the gums. The rest of the “good” teeth were spared. It was quite interesting to see from many such a different perception on teeth. For many of these people, adult teeth were something that you had and you lose, just like your baby teeth. Thus, there were no qualms about getting front teeth or canines or whatever out.

Seeing all the teeth pulled and the litocain injections done in front of me for a day was definitely not my choice thing to do, but I was able to calm my nerves after a bit and learn a lot about dentistry through my thousands of questions I asked the dentists.

In the pharmacy, I filled orders for the patients and then explained to them how to take the prescription. Unfortunately for me, I will be known by the pharmacy staff as the person who cleared the pharmacy area with just one fart. I blame the doctors for feeding me 3 meals with all kinds of American junk food. The good news, though, that after that occurrence, my stomach felt a lot better.

I also translated for a pediatrician and general medical doctor relaying the patient-doctor conversation. This was certainly the most challenging part, not only because it required all the knowledge of Spanish I had, but because I listened to and saw all the heath problems that the people were having. Sometimes we were only able to treat symptoms giving temporary relief, but among the 1700 people that came through, the group found 110 people who needed surgery (something serious like having a hernia or needing a reconstruction of the penis and urinary tract so that urine did not leak out) and referred them to Antigua where surgeons will come to perform the surgeries.

That weekend was the official welcome party for al the volunteers of the Oriente (the east of Guatemala) who came in the fall. It was a chance for all the newbies to meet everyone in the area. Part of the activity included hiking a volcano whose top had sunken to form a lake. The lake was beautiful and cold… Maybe I’ll be able to get some pictures from a friend to post later on.

While hiking I had something very fortunate and fortunate happen to me in the same instance.

When we started our hike, we began going up a road and were playing catch with a football. Apparently at some point from the start, my necklace broke and it with my 2 medals of St. Joseph and Mary dropped to the ground. I hiked up and went swimming without even noticing something was missing. On the way back down when we were almost to the end where we’d catch the bus, I wandered to the other side of the road and soon spotted something shiny. I picked it up and found it was my St. Joseph medal. Not much later, someone else found my St. Mary medal. We never found the chain, but I did not leave sad; the medas which are gifts from past teachers, were the most valuable things. To not realize that I had lost my medals and to still encounter them by chance 5 hours later on a walked path by many, to me, is more than just luck.

Finally, this past week I spent constructing my compost pile as a model for the women’s group with which I am working. I gathered all kinds of leaves of certain nutrient-filled plants and gathered sacks of manure. Just picture me with a machete and baseball cap carrying corn sacks of this stuff through coffee fields and dusty paths and roads. As they say down here, I earned my tortillas and beans that night.





Here are some links of pictures and a log that the doctors from Faith in Practice put on the website. The first 2 are links directly to pictures of yours truly, but you should be able to browse them all. The third is the log that someone wrote of the 4 days that they were here. Below the links are some pictures that were emailed to me from a doctor.



http://www.faithinpractice.org/gallery.php?page=7&trip=169


http://www.faithinpractice.org/gallery.php?page=10&trip=169


http://www.faithinpractice.org/triplog.php?tripid=169&view=View

Here is a picture of me, with a current and past volunteer of the Peace Corps, on the bus to the place where we would be helping that day. I know I have said this before, but as you can see, the buses are old US school buses. These buses are part of the reason why pollution is so bad in the capital; Guatemala receives all the old buses that run inefficiently and that are not permitted to be used in the states.
Here's a good picture of a kid we helped and his mom. The kid can't walk (his mother carries him like he is right now in the blanket wrapped around the mother) nor talk and has daily seizures but just one look at his face and it just makes you want to smile right with him.

Here are some of the Guatemalan volunteers that helped too. The one in the center is quite the inspiring person. After being helped by this same organization in removing a huge tumor from behind his nasal region, he has spent the past 5 years getting trained to look for people who might need surgery as well as actually organized the trip to San Carlos and the other community.

Here are 2 kids from the other community that we worked in. There, as you can tell by how the kids are dressed, it is quite cool at times during the day and cold at night because the place is so high up in the mountains.