MI Jornada en Guatemala

Farewell

2009-12-19T13:18:00.005-05:00

Well, my time is up down here, at least as a Peace Corps volunteer. I will have been here for 2 years and 8 days short of 4 months. I know that I could not have done it successfully without all the blessings and help I got from the Big Guy and family and friends both here and away. Here are just a few things that I am thankful for:

Letters that arrived all year long, packages (one time even 3 at a time), and other gifts that contained various things such as the ever necessary peanut butter, beef jerky, music, photos, playing cards, How to Guide for Wiring with electric parts, movies, flan, nuts, berries, flea spray, Girl Scout cookies, a painting, holy water, and a scorpion killing stick with scorpion blood on the stick.

Prayers

people making and receiving phone calls, skype calls, and text messages and being available and waiting to do them.

Donations of both money and goods that were given to my community

My visitors! Charlie was the first, and boy was I happy to see him when he came. By his coming, I ended up meeting the nuns in the capital who have become very good friends of mine. Then came Emily for my 2^nd Thanksgiving. Andy and 11 students from St. John Student Parish came down in March for an alternative spring break. Then of course Mom, Dad, Gee Gee, and Katie came down in August followed by Brian in August. Andy made back to back appearances unexpectedly in Sept and Nov. (Andy, you win the Most visits to Guatemala award). Andy acceptingly or maybe forcedly brought home two 50lb suitcases home for me. (Thanks again for schlepping through the US with my stuff.) Finally Beth came in November as well.

The trillion houses that were opened to me where I was given the opportunity to sit at the owner’s table, sleep safely, and share in the family’s time and food.

The people with whom I worked, because first of all, if no one wanted to do anything, what would I have done? I am especially thankful for their patience in trying to learn something new and for looking past my language and cultural blunders and for sharing their time, their community, and their many eggs, beans, bananas, and oranges.

The medical staff that allowed me to participate in 8 medical missions in Guatemala. They gave me nice places to stay, excellent food, and and a conversation that was in English.

The Peace Corps staff, especially the nurses, who helped me through bouts of explosive diarrhea.

The countless people that shared with me their stories about their life

The countless people that shared with me their advice, whether asked for or not, whether right or wrong.

The other volunteers in Jalapa, both of the past and present, including Lauren, Liam, Devin, Dan, Kay, Alene, and Nicole and for all the fun times we had together. A special thanks goes out especially to Nicole who probably did a few to many favors for me as I was making my way home. Without her, I probably would still be trekking across Guatemala tying up loose ends.

David and Julie Sutton, and their kids, who opened up their home in Jalapa to us volunteers whenever we wanted and who was always willing to share a meal and a movie. They were our American family in Guatemala.

Moral support given for making the decision to join Peace Corps (something I am proud to have made), especially from Mom and Dad, and for them doing all those crazy requests I asked them to do for me since I was away and could not do them.

There are countless more things that I am thankful for that I did not list. Basically, I just want to say thank you. Every little and big thing that you all did made my time down here something meaningful, extraordinary, and unforgettable.

I know I am leaving changed, or as some volunteers of the Jesuits would say, “Ruined for life.” I remember talking to someone before I left about why I did not join the military instead of the Peace Corps. Among other reasons, I said that I did not want my experience in the military to change me in the way I thought it could. I remember feeling the same way about working with money. I decided early on that I would not choose a profession dealing with money because I did not think I would like what I could become. For some reason, I felt it could seduce me in ways that I might not later be able to control. I am not saying these are bad jobs, not by any means. I am just saying how I felt in regards to my goals and thoughts.

There are many things I want to take with me, many I can’t quite explain or identify yet. Here are just a few:

For me, relationships and the love within those relationships are what matter with God and with others. Without them, no matter what you do or what your have, everything just seems to have no purpose

Food. I learned a lot about food while down here, believe it or not. I came down thinking that for me I had to have some sort of hearty protein like meat or peanut butter at least once if not twice a day. In my defense, I have quite the metabolism. After living a month at a time with just one or 2 hearty protein meals (by choice) while doing all the physical activity that I did, I learned slowly and in a slightly painful manner that of course, I was wrong. I learned a lot about the US food system, its problems in how we get our meat and vegetables on our plate, and the benefits of eating things grown locally and naturally.

The knowledge of the lack of opportunity and violence and lack of education that occur in others countries and the loss of hope that they provoke.

That the most dangerous job is not being a crab fisherman. It is being a bus driver in Guatemalan.

That you can greet someone with a hand shake, elbow touch, shoulder grab, wrist grab, half or full hug, or kiss on the cheek in the same country.

So as of December 22, I should be resting back at home. That means this is probably the last entry of this blog, though there might be one more to showcase a few last-month pictures. Thanks for sharing in my experience through this blog. I can’t wait to see you all back home or talk to you by phone within country. Merry Christmas!

I’ll end with something written by a friend who suggested I use it to close out my blog:

“Thank you all for faithfully following my life updates. I am no longer going to update you in this method though. I have finished my wonderfully adventurous 2.5 years in the Peace Corps and am now off to fighting evil, slaying dragons, and bringing the bazooka missile launcher back. I am forced to change my name and keep a low profile because I rescued a chicken, 3 salamanders, and some coffee beans from their terrible fate. (I was able to smuggle them to Narnia in a crocodile disguised as alligator skin boots.) From now on, I will only be able to inform you of my escapades when I show up on your doorsteps, hoping to find cover from the ninjas and military misfits that are chasing me. Please pray for me, but whatever you do, don't offer sacrifices to the Antarctica god of alertness (he was hoping for the coffee beans)."

3rd All Saint's Day, but nothing ordinary still

2009-11-05T11:57:00.018-05:00

Well of course I had to slip in something in my last weeks as a volunteer, something that I had wanted to do just about my entire time but something that can only be done on November 1, All Saint's Day. That something was really far away. If I had gone the entire way by bus, it probably would have taken about 16 hours to get there, so I guess you can understand why it was not the first thing I jumped at to do. That something was going to a town called Todos Santos (All Saints in English) in Huehuetenango where rightly so, they have their patronal town fair on Nov. 1. One of the most unique events that they do is on the 1rst, they hold a sort of horse race, though it might better be called a survival run since there is no real race track and there is no winner. It is a pagan ritual they have been doing since old time for the survival of their community. Basically men train and prepare all year long, something verly costly and time consuming, just for one day. On the first, they dress up, as you will see in the photos, in special clothing, different from their already special normal ware that everyone in that town wears. In the morning on a closed off section of dirt road padded with sand about the length of a football field and a half, they race their horse at full speed. They do this for hours. They leave exhausted and sometimes battered from falling off. There are even people who die doing this. Hopefully the pictures will explain even more this special event.

Oh, so I realized I did not explain how I got their. Well on the way up, a boyfriend of a volunteer drove us up. It saved a lot of time, but unfortunately we were 6 people in the back of a small pickup with our stuff. And of course, it has not rained in months, but what did it do, it poured. It rained so hard that when we got to the town we were going to stay in the first night (we stayed about 2 hours away from Todos Santos to break up the trip and because its really cold and a bit expensive to stay there during the festive weekend) they closed off the roads because the main road was flooding and cars going by were pushing even more rain into the houses, or at least that is the explanation that the guy gave us who was so nicely blocking off the only road with his two cars so that no one could get through. We got through an hour later. So we had fun. Luckily the next day got sunny so we could dry everything out. It still rained (though this time we brought a rain slick) the next day going up to Todos Santos, which sits quite high up at 2700 meters in elevation. Surrounding peaks stand at about 3700 meters, so it's pretty cold. The 31st we had a Halloween Party and my sitemate and I dressed up as "Joe"; unfortunately I do not have a photo available. The next morning was the race and guess who was there... the US ambassador. And guess who got a ride all the way to the capital in the ambassador's fleet along with 7 others. :) That gesture certainly was not necessary. He went all the way to drop all 8 of us off wherever we needed to go making sure that we were getting back safely, even though it probably cost him almost 2 hours extra. He even made us brownies! I was even more thankful as the whole way there it poured, and I would have been in the back of the truck in it all. Without saying, I was very thankful. And thanks to you all for paying your taxes.

I'll get to the Nov. 1 pictures, but first, here are some pictures of my last days of work.

My last produce exchange...

Locuats are in season!

fruits and roots from my community
vegetables from the mountain

Group picture before the mountain women leave back to their town with their newly trades fruits and roots.

HIV/AIDS session with the women and nurse of the health center... well, this is afterward. I forgot to take a picture during the session. The women are holding up cards of the role they had to play when we acted out how HIV can enter the body and how it can cause AIDS.

Here begin the pictures from Todos Santos:

Here's me with my sitemate (Nicole's taking over my place), another volunteer and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, Josue (Joshua) is the guy that gave us the ride from the capital to Todos Santos... I thank God for him. As the picture suggests, "Super Delicious Smoothies anyone?"

Fooseball is at all the town fairs

Marimba time... as you can see, the typical dress for the men includes striped red pants and a blue/purple jean jacket. Here only one of the men is wearing the typical hat.

Stray dogs rallying just before the race.

The race....

This person was one of the first people to get injured. Luckily he was not trampled to death.

Proof that I was there.

One of the oficial master of the ceremony. He's holding up horse traffic. Sometimes though the riders get so into it that they just ignore these oficials. I mean to the rider's defense, if I were riding at 100% for hours on end, I would probably daze out a couple of times too.

It's good to know we are protected everywhere. Here you can get a good look at the typical dress of the men including the hat worn by men and women.

I try not to think about if one of the those horses would have come at me... the rickety fency would have protected me for sure.

Another casualty

Typical fair goodies.

The town center and church during the fair

Dinner with the nuns in Alzatate. I ordered pizza, but from Jalapa, but the cook forgot to make it, so steak it was.

The other end of the table.

Current Article on Guatemalan Malnutrition

2009-10-18T19:47:00.005-04:00

Another volunteer passed this along to me and I thought it would be appropriate for you all to read. I guess for me seeing what I see every day, I get used to seing it if that is possible, or at least desensitized. I know in parts, the situation has definitely gotten worse. I don't think it has gotten too much worse in our parts where I live since our crops were not a complete loss due in part to our elevation which helps maintain a bit of humidity through cooler temperatures. But then again, I could be like the frog being cooked and don't realize the slight changes everyday. (You see a frog thrown in hot water jumps out, but a frog put in a cool water and then slowly warmed to a boil does not register the danger and stays put until it dies). So here is the link to the article on the economist website. Remember that I live in Eastern Guatemala.

http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14313735

Training, Again

2009-10-15T13:34:00.019-04:00

Congratulations Charlie on your 9-point buck. Those veggies from the garden finally paid off this year to fatten up this big guy.

This past month, as I knew it would, flew by. It was marked by 2 visits to the beach (one by myself just last weekend as a reward for all the work I had done and one with my entire training class during the independence day weekend before our Close of Service Conference), a 3-day close of service conference (at a beautiful hotel in Antigua) for everyone that was leaving in November, 1 week of field-based training that was held in Jalapa with 3 of those days in the town where I worked, 2 weeks of training near Antigua and the Peace Corps HQ, along with 2 friends (one from the states, and the other from Germany) who went a long for part of the ride for a week or more. The training for me was hard and meant a lot of work, but I loved it. It was fun to showcase my town and groups, give advice to the newbies, and to remember back how it was when I was a trainee. I took lots of pictures, got to see old friends, and do something I had thought about doing since training, bathe in an indigenous sauna. There’s only 30 days left that I am a Peace Corps volunteer. I guess this past month was not the only thing that flew by.

Here the new trainees and I are doing a vaccination campaign in their training community. These 15-day-old duckies were the first to be done.

More vaccinating… we were vaccinating any birds older than 8 days. The vaccine we were using was dispensed by putting a drop in the eye of the bird or in its nostril (if it had a double eyelid like ducks do).
Born yesterday

We usually have spectators, especially children that love watching us.
A rainbow… or just laundry day.
A cute little girl… indigenous girls start early on wearing their typical clothing.
Sometimes the places where we vaccinate do not exactly make our job easy. In this picture, the “ceiling,” covered with a vine-growing plant that produces a prickly like potato, is only about 2.5 feet high.

Jack pot. We had about 130 vaccines left to give but no one else left that we knew of. The vaccine, after being mixed, only lasts 3 hours. We went out to corner when a trainee asks the first person he sees in the street if she had any chicken and if she wanted them vaccinated. She just happened to have 200 and was going to be vaccinating them very shortly. I guess sometime things are just bound to work out.

When it rains, it pours, and the streets are turned into rivers of mud.

This giant looking beehive is actually an indigenous sauna called a temascal. I had wanted to go inside one during my whole service, but in the east where I live, there are none. So in one of the towns where I was doing work for the training I was giving, there were these saunas. With such friendly people and some apple crisp, it was not hard to arrange a date. The temascal works by lighting a fire in the stove in the corner of the temascal. The stove is positioned so that the top of it is exposed to the inside of the sauna. This hot exposed surface heats up pots of water which gives the heat and the vapor. The only thing you need to do is close off the entrance, find yourself a candle, and bring your soap and washcloth. The temascal not only is used to bathe but is also used by women when they are giving birth. In the picture, you can see 2 women helping me prepare the temascal.

Above is what the temascal looks like from the outside when in use.

Below is the best picture I could get of the inside of the temascal. To the bottom left, you can see the white concrete which is the side of the stove. Where the concrete ends, you can just make out the slight outline of a pot of boiling water. The red metal containers to the right are filled with cold water so that you don’t burn yourself while bathing with the hot water. Past the red container is a ledge to sit on.

This is one of the nicest looking meat markets I have seen in Guatemala…

But would you believe that they still have this as their chopping block?

Here’s a group that is working with Nicole and I on a tree nursery. Here they are filling small bags with dirt which will receive the sapling

More bagging

Here you can see the tiny cypress trees being transplanted.

Here are some pepper plants we planted while we were waiting for the citrus trees to come up.

Beautiful sunset while I was arriving to the beach for a quick weekend getaway after working for 3 weeks straight training. At this moment, I am almost to the beach but am on a slender covered canoe-looking boat which is taking me across the mangroves to get to the ocean.

The ocean coastline…it actually is quite clean but looks a bit dirty here because of all the seaweed that was blown up from that past night’s storm. And you guys thought that I was in Guatemala… actually the village I stayed at was called Hawaii. They just continued on with the theme by naming this hotel the way it is.
It is rare to have a sea turtle come up during the day, but the conditions were perfect. It was overcast and there was lots of wind. This girl came up at about 4pm and luckily I had the camera ready. Once the turtle makes the hole and begins laying, you can go right up to it.

Here you can see some Guatemalans taking the eggs right out the back door while poor mom just traveled who knows how long to lay her eggs in the sand. The eggs are very nutritious and believed to have other medicinal properties. Some people even say they help with falling in love.

And if the eggs are not eaten, they may go to a sea turtle refugee just like this. Here the refuge buys eggs for 12 quetzals the dozen.
The eggs that are bought by the sea turtle refuge are then buried in a protective area. Their conditions are carefully monitored, especially the temperature, since as you know different temperatures determine the sex of the turtle. For instance, if the all the nest were all just a little bit too hot, all the turtles from all the holes would come out female. Thus, the workers make sure there are some holes where males will be born, and some where females will be born.

Here the workers are burying the eggs. They’ll spend 40-60 days there before hatching.
These guys are being born. Well actually, there are finally reaching the surface. Can you believe that it takes about 2 days for them to dig there way out after hatching?

Here, a volunteer worker at the sea turtle refuge is releasing the newly hatched guys.

Almost there!

Sun and the wave

Waves here break really hard and there is a big undertow.

Like I said, the waves get pretty big…and it’s not even a windy day.

One of the entrances to the Peace Corps HQ.

The big room where training sessions for big groups are done. Here you can see the new trainees that arrived in August.

Courtyard at the PC HQ…yeah, we got a pretty nice place.

PC grounds outside HQ. The tiny houses used to be where they taught Spanish. Now they are just there. Done below are gardens and a full size soccer field and to the left is a basketball court you can’t see. Would you believe there are even showers here for us? I have never used them, but I betcha it has hot water.

dancing... I liked the shawdow.

The site swap, Coban, and more

2009-09-06T17:03:00.013-04:00

Finally some long promised pictures. No reflections today, just some pictures with comments.

When my friend Brian came down, one of the things we did was go kayaking near Coban, the same area where I ran my half-marathon. Wow is this area absolutely beautiful. I am so glad I made it up there before I leave Guatemala. The river was a bit rough at parts. There were very challenging rapids (hence the helmits) but there was one class 4 or class 5 rapid that was especially hard. It consisted of a rapid that went over a giant raised rock, fell down 3 or 4 meters, and then immediately rebounded up because of a lower giant rock that was immediately ahead of it. The danger especially was the second rock and the raft flipping on it or a person banging up against it after the raft flipped. The guides studied it for about a half an hour literally and came back to tell us it was up to us but that it was dangerous. Since we had the raft with an experienced Guatemalan guide and a former guide from the US who was with us (who thought we could do it), we all said let's do it. We made it through OK, and so did the second raft, but the third raft did not. Instead of avoiding going directly over the dangerous rapid, they went straight over it and all got shoved out. Unfortunately for the person in front, he went right for the rock and ended up parting his upper lip and smashing his teeth back and smashing his nose. My stomach just sank. Luckily we were able to pull everyone in and we got the guy on the road to the hospital. We still finished though, contrary to what my stomach was feeling.

Taking a picture while the guides were studying the rapid

Getting close to that dangerous rapid
Working hard against the currents to avoid all the rocks
Here's all the volunteers that went with us that day rafting.

The next pictures are also of Coban, but when I went in late June for the half-marathon.

Before the race at 6am...I'm ready to conquer this.
After the race.... ummm, I can't lift my legs let alone feel them.
The lone casualty... this was the first time I ever had a blister that caused me to lose my nail.

This apple came in first place. I had the notion that I would eat it during the race but only ended up holding it the entire time so that it could earn a spot in history...the first apple to run a half-marathon in Guatemala, maybe the first in the world?

After the race, it was only relaxation. We went to some natural pools for a swim (and to stretch our muscles).

Where I am sitting, the water was springing out of the mountainside. It was nearly the amount of water that flows in Indian Mill Creek behind my house.

The next set of pictures are when I and Lauren (she is also the one who ran the half-marathon with me) did a site swap. She went to live in my site for a week doing my work and I went to her site for that week. I had already been to her site before and had met many people from there through out product exchanges that we had done many times between our sites, so I fit right in. The only thing I was not too excited about was the cold. I slept in long johns, pants, a sweater, fleece jacket, hat, and scarf with 4 blankets and I did not even sweat. She lives in the highest part of all Eastern Guatemala so of course it is going to be colder. I spent the whole week with an unstoppable runny nose (to my defense I came to her site already sick, I just could not get rid of it at her site). Lauren get's my vote for the iron woman award for Peace Corps. And the thing is, it gets much more cooler in December and January. Her clothes have frozen before in those cold months. And to top it off, it ended up that she had fleas. I got bit a few times sleeping which luckily now does not wake me like it did. I only noticed them when I washed my clothes and found a bugger in my sock. (I have gotten to be an expert and spotting and finding them). I felt bad and thought I had brought them only to find out that Lauren had had them for months but though that it was some other insect out of her control. It is lucky that fleas don't like the cold otherwise they may have really multiplied.

So besides weathering the cold, I got to plant broccoli seedlings, help milk some cows, makes some dewormer, make twice-baked potatoes and pineapple cookies, and give an AIDS talk. Here are some pictures:

Harvesting carrots in Lauren's site. This picture is actually from another time I was visiting her.

Here you can see some of us putting the broccoli seedling into the soil. We ended up planting 2000 that day. Unfortunately for me, I forgot my sunscreen and only brought a winter hat so I end up having to wear my rubber rain jacket to protect me. I did not get burnt, but boy did I get hot. I had to wring out my shirt when I got done just like when I am washing my clothes.Tossing the seedlings into the holes.

Here the person is throwing processed chicken poop into the hole as fertilizer. Processed chicken poop costs 55 quetzales the sack, chemical fertilizer 300 quetzales.

This is what I ate one night: noodles, garbanzos, lentils, eggs, and lots of spices. It actually is good. And when I say one night, I mean every night, since I ended up making a hug pot at the beginning of the week which lasted me til Friday.
Here we are making a dewormer for chickens from moonshine and native plants.
Here's a rare spotting of Jack. I found him up in Lauren's site. Ever since he brought Gee Gee part way up the volcano he has escaped and has been wandering the streets.

Yummy. Fresh, warm milk. I tried milking for a few seconds, but could only get a squirt out. I am sure it takes practice to get a good technique down without harming the cow.
Storing the milk to sell. 1 cup of milk costs 1 quetzal or 12.5 cents of a dollar. I would imagine that these containers sell even cheeper in bulk though. Unfortunately for the farmers, the price has gone way done. The previous president used to buy milk for school children. This lifted the price of milk and got people buying their products. People actually started buying more cows to produce more milk to deal with the demand. Then came along the new president who decided instead of buying milk for school children, he would buy incaparina, a soy drink. It just so happened though that a big backer of the president was also the owner of incaparina. Hmmm. So now there is low demand for milk and a big supply from all the additional cows on the market. So if you studied your economics, you know that low demand and a big supply spell out trouble for sustainable prices. These cows that I helped milk could produce up to 10 L if there were fed with feed. Instead to save money, they are just pasture fed and I think produce 4-6L. I might be a little off with the figures, but the basic point is is that there could be a lot more milk supplied if the price were ok. The crazy part to think about is that areas in Guatemala are suffering from a drought and that there is widespread malnutrition. There are children who are dying. There are many things that could help including milk. Unfortunately, when all your crops fail like in some areas, you can't even pay the 1 quetzal because you get your food and money from your harvests. Thankfully, the public is starting to do something after the story went out that more children than normal were dying. They recently did a large food drive. I just hope it will be enough to last til next year's harvest.
Birthday party in my site. Thanks Betty Crocker.
Here is a picture of the confirmation mass that was held in my site. I would dare say 120 people came from all around to receive the sacrament of confirmation. Instead of having the mass inside the tiny church, it was held outside and a special stage, canopy, and decorations were made.
This critter was fluttering around in the street when I found it.
Baking banana bread using a wood stove. Instead of putting the bread inside the stove, we did it on top. First we filled some sardine cans with water. When the water was boiling, we put the sardine cans filled with batter on top of the sardine cans filled with water. Then, we flipped a giant pot over it all and in 40 min came out moist banana bread!

Running Around

2009-07-24T21:18:00.000-04:00

The end of June came like nothing and that meant my next challenge was knocking at the door – the Coban half-marathon. We did not get to be an official participant, but thankfully that did not exclude us in any way from participating. Some people might be wondering what I did for training. I must sheepishly say that I didn’t technically, and I have my logical reasons for doing (or not doing) so:
There are dogs that bite where I live, and they especially enjoy attacking large, fast moving objects.
Roads are full of rocks and pits. That is not exactly fun on my knees.
I already do a lot of physical activity including riding my bike, walking miles up and down mountain sides, and agricultural work.
I was not running the marathon to get a good time (I would leave that up to the Kenyans); I was there to try something I had never done before and see if I could finish. Just by showing up, I had won. And I’ll tell you showing up was a little hard because I did get nervous even with my sound logic that training was not necessary.

Lauren joined, for the third time, in this joint challenge. She is the volunteer that lives quite close to me. If you’ll remember, the other two challenges we have done together were:
Ride our bikes up the mountain from my site to her site. The altitude change is about 1 km or so.
Ride our bikes to Esquipulas. 13 hours of biking brought us to our goal.

On a side note, we are thinking of a possible 4th challenge if it’s possible before we leave, but we’re still unsure of what to do.

The day of the race was absolutely gorgeous. Nieces of the family with whom I stay with in my site brought us to the starting line (we actually stayed with them too – thank goodness for them since all the hotels were booked). We stretched and warmed up for an hour and then the race started. The Vice President of the country was there at the start to send us off. The race started off slow since so many people were packed together on the narrow street, but once the people started to spread out, I really got to enjoy what I had never enjoyed before in a competition. Throughout the entire race, people of all ages lined the streets clapping, cheering, and giving us much needed water and support. The best part for me was that I stuck out like a sore thumb; this seems ironic because there are many times when it is not so beneficial to stick out. Whenever I went by a crowd, the crowd got that much louder and cheered, “Go Blondie!” or “Go American!” or “Go United States!” At that point, it definitely felt good to be different.

The race overall went well. I physically had the power to run, but toward the end my legs stiffened up (especially in my knees) and I thought that I was running on peg legs. I barreled on though as steady as I could. I finally arrived at the stadium and finished in 2 hours and 17 minutes (The winner did it in half my time!). For me, it was a very proud moment – I had run a competition without stopping. I had completed my goals.

Once the race was finished, it was all about recovering. I stretched and stretched and even was given a leg massage by a volunteer fireman. We walked an hour (slowly) to get back to the house, had an amazing lunch, and spent the afternoon swimming in a river with small falls. I was definitely sore afterward. Walking down stairs or even a descent was dreadful. After 3 days and some anti-inflamatories, though, that was over. The only real casualty I would have was a huge blood blister that was on my middle toe and equal in size to it. It actually worked its way under my toe causing for the first time in my life for me to lose my nail.

The weekend after the race was the Peace Corps 4th of July party, the only time all the staff and volunteers all get together. It marked the 3rd 4th of July in the last 4 years that I have been out of the country. The festivities included a basketball tourney, a soccer competition against the ambassador and staff (it was very unusual for the ambassador to come; he surely is a man that is not too proud to be with normal people who are not high-ups) a lunch with American food, a dance, and talent show. I also got to meet Lauren’s parents who treated us out to an amazing dinner.

Oh, did I mention I also completed another personal goal of mine – growing out my hair for year. It’s cut now, but I have to say that when it was at its peak length, it was not quite bad.

Pot Making from Scratch

2009-05-26T18:09:00.000-04:00

Recently I had the opportunity to be taught by a women in my town how to make clay pots from scratch. Over a period of 3 mornings throughout a week period, we made them. I was so thankful for her patience in explaining all the steps and in helping correct all my mistakes.

So this is from what it all started: river sand, red clay with sand, and dark clay. She had to go about an hour away to get the good clay.

We mixed about 1 pound of red clay, 2 pounds of dark clay, and 2 handfuls of sifted river sand. We add more river sand as we went so that we got the molding clay to be the right consistency. It was at the right consistency when kneading the mixture sounded like the clicking of bubble gum. This was only the beginning of getting hands dirty.

Once the things are mixed together, it was time to look for tiny stones in the mass, one piece after the next.

So this picture leaves out a few steps in between. After we had gotten most of the stones out, we made the mixture into a french bread and then connected the ends. From there, we worked up the mixture so that we started to make the bottom part of the pot. So what you see in the picture above was made but with the top edges resting against the stump. Thus we started with the edges and worked our way up slowly curving it to make the bottom of the pot. I still think it was amazing that we could seal the bottom without lifting up the pot to put pressure with our hands on the other side so that it would seal easily (you see, we could not lift the pot up until the next day). If you look about 3 pictures down, you can see in the background 2 pots flipped over drying. The pots we left exposed except for the rims, which were maintained moist by wrapping them in plastic so that they could be molded the next day. This is where the picture brings us. The next day if the pot dried enough, the pot's rim could then be worked on. In the picture, my teacher is using a corn cob to extend the pot's rim out. After using the corncob, a shoe heel is used to smooth the surface out. (The process of using the corncob and then heel was used several times including when extending out the pot from just the original material when shaped like a french bread connected at the ends.)

Here she's using part of a shoe heel to smooth the pot.

The next three pictures show her working the final touches on the rim of the pot. In the picture below she is using a piece of damp folded cloth to get the right texture and form for the pot's rim

Here she's inspecting her work to see if it's reasonably shaped and even.

Now, using and old metal spoon, the pot is scraped out (only from the day before where it is dry and hard enough) fixing bumps and taking out excess clay.

One of the final touches to the body of the pot is the handles. We made skinny tubes of equal length and then just stuck them on to the side. We then stuck a little bit more clay on for support, but that was it. I thought the handles were going to be really complicated, but I was sure wrong.

Here's my work of art to the right. No one could take a picture of me working on it, though, I did not try too hard myself since my hands were so muddy. After this step, the pot would dry a little more, be scraped at a little more for irregularities and excesses, and then would be given some natural dies (orange and white). Finally we would use a stone to smooth the pot out for good.

On the day that we were to fire the pots, this person had been busy working gathering banana leaves for her horse. The strap she has in her hand went around her head and the rope went behind her where it carried the heavy leaves. All I have to say is that she is tough.

The pots were put over 3 stones (and a broken pot) so that they were not resting on the ground and so that air and heat could get inside them. Then pine bark was carefully placed in between them and around them making almost a furnace.

This is what can happen when it rains when you are firing the pots. Luckily this did not happen to us.

Success!

I have some other random pictures as well:

No this is not an advertisement for the next Batman, it's a friend I found on my bathroom curtain. No Uncle Ben, I did not kill it.

Here is a picture of the road which leads to the community where I work. The coffee plants are flowering masking everything in a sweet perfume of honey. For a week or two, I could not even smell the pig and dog and horse poop which is everywhere.

So this is from a while back. I am not sure if I mentioned it, but I won 2nd place in a mountain bike race in my town. In the picture, I am with the town's elected queens.

Here is some of the family at the restaurant where I used to eat. I'm holding a heart-shaped potato.

Here we're making toothpaste.

Oh Sugar, Sweet Tooth's Paradise

2009-04-18T14:21:00.012-04:00

One day in April, I was invited to watch how the people here processed their sugar cane. I walked 2 hours to this place and spent the entire day with them. Here are the pictures that explain the process.

Above you can see from far away that the oxen are pulling around in circles a large log which cranks around the sugar cane juice extractor.
These 2 pictures, above and below, show much closer how the sugar cane is shoved in and how it comes out completely flattened and drained of its sugary juices. If you look close at the picture below, under the extractor between the log legs of the platform you can see the bucket catching the juice.

Above is where all the juice ends of up: in a giant vat. I think they filled about 28 stardard-size white pails in all. This stuff is cooked and cooked for hours and needs to be continuously stirred so that it does not boil over. After many hours, something like 8 hours of boiling, all the juice fits in the vat and the juice reaches a thickness and consistency where it does not need to be stirred. Soon after, the product can start to be cooled.
Pure gold
Finally, after having woken up at 1am and having started the fire, extracted the juices, and cooked and stirred continuosly the juices, the vat can be removed to start cooling the sugar and start making all kinds of goodies. In the bottom part of the picture, you can see 3 squashes that were put in the vat to cook...ummm, were they good.
One of these goodies involves sticking sugar cane in the hot cooked sugar and having it cool on the sugar cane. Once semi-hardened, the sugar is removed from the cane and then worked in the hands for about 20 or 30 minutes to develop a sweet that is somewhat soft and that is not so sticky that it rips out your teeth.

Working the sugar product into a delicious treat.

Here the last job, is to make the blocks of panela, which are basically like hardened bricks of brown sugar. They load the goopy cooked sugar cane juice while still hot into the wooden containers where they harden. Below you can see about 50 hardening. The last job got done about 4pm. (That would bring the total work hours spent to about 15.)
Even this guy got in on the sugar-licking fun.

The women of the farm where the sugar cane was extracted.

Honduras & Semana Santa in Antigua

2009-04-18T13:43:00.017-04:00

Back at the end of March, I went to Honduras. I took 11 days of vacation to do, of all other possible things, work. I was invited by a Jesuit from the Detroit province to help translate for a medical mission they were going to do. There were medical doctors (One on the trip has decided to enter in the society of the Jesuits this year in September I think. The general age cutoff for joining is 50; he turns 50 a couple weeks after he enters), eye doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, construction workers, and vets. I got about the whole gamut working with just about everyone. The new experience for me was working with the vets and the large animals waiting for the rabies and vitamin shots and their de-wormer drink. The group paired up with a foundation started by a nun. This foundation is impressive. It is taking care of orphaned children and other children separated from their parents by the government, giving classes to the children as well as to teens and adults who would never have the opportunity (people like prostitutes or the other extremely poor of the streets), and has created a whole village for entire families, broken or whole, where they can live in exchange for paying a modest rent. The village is called New Paradise, and rightly so it is. It has schools, water and electricity (which the nun fought to bring in), a brick-making foundry, a hospital, a farm with animals, plants, and fish to eat. Trades are being learned and jobs are being created. All the administrative costs they have are paid by the government leaving all the donated moneys to be used for the peoples in need. Like I said, I was impressed.
After all that work and a show and dance that the kids of New Paradise put on for us, I actually did take 2 real days of vacation. I went to the North Coast of Honduras, which was absolutely beautiful. The 2nd largest coral reef in the world is there, which I did not get a chance to see but hopefully will before leaving. I went to a botanical garden, also the 2nd largest in the world, founded by the United Fruit Company way back when and went to a Garifuna village. The Garifunas are the indigenous Caribbean that live along the coast that speak Garifuna. I guess they look like, for instance, what most people think the people of Jamaica look like. Most importantly though, at the beach I relaxed, played Frisbee with some kids, and swam. It was so hot and the water was calm. The most enjoyable swim I had though probably was in the river of the botanical garden because the river was made of fresh water and was cool, unlike the warm, semi-salty Caribbean. I think traveling by myself really opened me up to the community and meeting new people. I sat and chated with many people, some that I met on the beachside, others from the inn where I stayed, and others from the Palm Sunday mass that I went to. A widow I met there wants me to work for her on her land teaching her how to grow her crops organically. In exchange, she would take care of room and board and we would share any profits made. Living in a tropical paradise is tempting, but it certainly would not be the most secure thing and it is just one of many things that I am looking into because, alas, I am nearly 6 months away from my official close of service date, November 15, 2009.
Some other things I am considering when my PC service gets done are:

I could extend til May 2010 in Guatemala where I would transfer to China teaching English to university students while living in a major Chinese city. In between my move, I would get a paid 30 day vacation with flight to my home of record. It would still be with the Peace Corps which is why it would be considered a transfer.

I could extend for a full year taking up a leadership position among all the other people in my program. I would have to work in a different community part time and the other time I would be involved in training and site visits of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. My boss has mentioned several times he wants me to do it, which is humbling, but I just want to make sure that I want to do it.

I could work for an NGO down here that helps bring medical missions to remote, poor communities in the north of Guatemala. It would involve organizing the wheres, whos, and hows of getting a medical mission to a community utilizing the local health community promoters. It also involves getting people who need more than just some medicine to their destination so that they can receive they surgery or whatever else in the city in which they need it. This job would probably be the hardest to get and I may have to go to Washington DC for an interview. The guy currently doing the job is a good PC friend of mine who happened to have worked in San Carlos Alzatate. I am hoping to job shadow him soon. If I got the job, I would sign 1-year contracts.

Grad school Fall 2010? Still would have to take the GRE though.

So that is where I am along with considering a Fulbright or Teach for All Network job in which I would be teaching English abroad, possibly in Lithuania. And of course I could come home, right?

Let me know what you think or if you have any other suggestions.

The week that I got back from Honduras was Holy Week, which meant a 4-day weekend and a trip to Antigua to see the world famous rugs made from flowers, colored sawdust, and fruits. I got to Antigua Thursday afternoon and thankfully stayed with a doctor friend from the UK. I say thankfully because Antigua was packed with people; I can’t imagine what it would have been like to stay in my normal 3-dollar-a-night place. Good Friday, the next day, we woke up at 2:30am. There were already tons of people out including tourists, people making the rugs in the streets under lights, and people getting ready for the first procession of Jesus carrying the cross that would leave one of the churches at 3:30am. The processions were huge and included the participation of up to thousands of people. They began with Romans in chariots and with drums and others on foot announcing the sentencing of Jesus to death. I am pretty sure the group included Pontius Pilate and King Herod. Then came the processions of people in purple, who carried various statues, some of which were of Jesus being scourged or of Mary or John. The biggest statue and largest platform was of Jesus carrying the cross. I think it took 100 people to carry this massive wooden structure. Behind this was the band and behind them were women dressed in black carrying the mourning Mary flanked by another band. Finally after that came the dump truck and street cleaners which cleaned up the rugs that were made (The rugs were made for the processions to go over and were destroyed when they did so.) so that more rugs could be made for more processions. Processions went on throughout the day throughout the city all the way into the night. After all the processions of Jesus carrying the cross, there were the processions of the dead Jesus with the thousands of participants now dressed in black instead of purple and there were the processions of the buried Jesus. The procession of the buried Jesus that I saw was spectacular since it was at night and the casket they used was elevated on a huge platform, was made of glass, and was lit from inside. I still made time to get away from all the hoopla, though; it got to be a bit much for me considering how I normally spend Good Fridays. I took videos and pictures, some of which are below.

Then on Saturday, I went to spend Easter with the nuns I am friends with. We went to the Easter Vigil and had a dinner afterward, which included the carrot cake I made for them.

People making rugs at 3:00am...talk about being motivated.

This rug is made out of flowers, pine needles, and other plant parts.

These butterflies and the bread basket are made of actual bread (the wings and the rest of the rug are made of sawdust).

The following 5 pictures and the one above are of the procession of Jesus carrying the cross. Above, you can see a few of the hundreds of Romans that paraded the street. These few were at the beginning announcing the sentencing to death of Jesus. Below you can see Pontius Pilate amindst the people in their purple garb. These purple people are people who at one point carry the huge wooden platform which has Jesus carrying the cross. Each church has distinguishing garb that each of its particpants wear so while all particpants will be wearing purple, people in different processions from different churches will have slightly different outfits.

I am guessing the above statues are of St. John and other women friends of Jesus. As soon as the procession goes over the rugs, the street cleaners and dump truck are right behind to get everything off the road for the next procession. If you look in the picture, you can still see the end of the procession in the top center.

Below are 3 videos of the processions.

This was the start of the of the procession at 3:30am leaving the church.

Here you can see the huge platform with Jesus carrying the cross.

This video is of the Romans in the procession; they start out the procession.

The sawdust rug and I... notice anything different with my hair.

Above is the most intricate rug I saw.

More pictures of rugs below:

This rug above boasted having St. Peter's Basilica of the Vatican City

Time for some rest in the park after all the work making the rugs and helping carrying the platforms in the processions. Just to let you know, each particpant that carries the platform that has Jesus carrying the cross pays to do so.
This was part of a "Stations of the Cross on wheels." There were larger than life platforms that moved around on wheels throughout the city.
A veneration of the cross of Jesus while in one of the churches in Antigua

ASB Guatemala

2009-03-21T21:25:00.002-04:00

After all those activities in February, I still had the biggest one of all waiting for me the second week of March. That week, as I have mentioned to you all, 12 parishioners from my student parish in East Lansing would be coming down to my site for an alternative spring break (short for ASB). This was something I had been dreaming and planning about well before March of last year. I knew it would be exciting to have some peers come here and work with me, but I think the most important aspect of them coming down for me was that I would get a chance to share another way of life, culture, and world with them. While they were coming down here to serve others in my community, my goal was to serve them so that would leave with experiences, attitudes, sights, and thoughts that would change them or get them to begin to open up a little more from where they were before coming here. Not to say that some of them did not have experiences like this nor that they didn’t have their minds or heart open to, for example, the poverty in other parts of the world; to the contrary, just coming down here taking a spring break at one’s own cost shows some understanding and openness. I just feel that we can always learn more. I know I am not done, and will never be done while here on earth.

The basic layout of the week went like this:
Sunday: The group arrived after leaving Chicago at something like 2 or 3 in the morning. We went in a bus directly to my site. On the way, we got stuck waiting for construction crews to let us by 2 times for a total wait of about 35 min. That was one of the first lessons of how time is different here. We got to the rectory, where Fr. Victor graciously let them all stay and where, Sandra, the housekeeper, would be graciously making their meals. The only big activity that day was a soccer game with the youth group of the parish. We played on a recently carved out field still with softball size rocks and subsequently, many came down with some slight injuries but nothing serious.
Monday: This day was the only day that I wanted for us to use public transportation and the only day that we really needed to be on time because the private bus I hired from someone in town (Don Elvis… yes his name is Elvis) would not be available. And guess what, we were late, really late. And we missed the buses. So we had to walk. The walk would normally take about 1.5 hours at minimum. It would have probably taken more being a group and since we were carrying a jug of water. Thankfully, the police drove by about 15 minutes into the walk and gave a ride down to the first village from where we could walk up to where we needed to go in about 30 minutes.
We arrived at the Catholic Church in the village where the local church ministers and youth group were waiting for us (now we were the ones that were arriving late) ready with their instruments and speakers to sing some songs and start the activity. The activity would be hard, cutting tires and then flipping them inside out. Luckily we had about 40 other people who were there to do the work with us and who would be benefiting from the work. I think I had said I visited the dump on my birthday to get some tires; with help from the municipal government, my NGO, and my housemate, I was able to bring up 200 tires! That’s a lot. I brought about 130 to my site and another 70 for some other interested people in another site. With the tires, we’d make two things: a container in which tiny gardens could be planted and a gray water filter so that the families would have something with which they could water their vegetables during the dry season. After tricking the group into doing all 90 (I think I said “let’s just do these last 2 here and see where we are.” a few times), we finally finished and shared lunch with everyone else that stayed til the end with us (I think there is something special in sharing a meal, albeit tiny in size). From there, we were invited into 2 homes where questions were asked, stories told, and pictures taken, including pictures of the ASB’ers (the parishioners on the ASB trip) with a calf. We walked back to the church to get picked up; everyone was thankful we had a ride back up to town.

Tuesday: This day was the earliest day that we would have to get up. We would be going to a primary school up in the highest part of Eastern Guatemala to do some dental hygiene presentations in 1st through 6th grades. The presentation included a song (the ASB’ers probably cannot forget the song) and a skit in which people had cutouts of happy teeth and sad teeth. Part of the skit included asking the kids what foods were good for the teeth and then having them give that food to the teeth; if after giving the food the teeth were happy, the kids would know that the food was good for teeth. Especially with the younger ones, I had to laugh doing this. For instance, I would bring out a carrot and ask them if they thought this would be good for their teeth. Some would yell out “NO!” I would then take one up front, ask them again what they thought, and then have them feed the carrot to the teeth. They looked so surprised to see that the teeth were happy. At the end of the presentation, we did a demo on how to make your own toothpaste and handed out more donated toothpaste and toothbrushes. The school seems excited to know how to make toothpaste in order to start having a toothbrushing time after snack time. So after doing all 6 grades and giving the recipe and some ingredients for making toothpaste to the middle school, we started to hike back up (I forgot to mention that the roads were not too good to the school so we had to walk for about 30 minutes to get to it) and had lunch under a shade tree away from the extremely dusty paths (everyone would have black boogers and brown pants that night). We then gathered about 7 sacks of cow poop for our next day’s activity from a person who graciously let us have it. From there, we went to the ecological park I had told you all about before for 2 hours. The owner, who was planning to close the park pretty close to when we got there, let us all come in and explore the park and hanging bridges. He would let all the ASB’ers who wanted go to go on the zip lines. Since these ASB’ers came down here to work, he would accept no payment.
Wednesday: This day we went down to the rehabilitation center for severely malnourished children. We had an opening prayer service with Fr.Victor, the nuns who run the center, and the young women who are there as well. The young women, who were there to help the nuns take care of the children in exchange for the possibility of studying in middle school and high school, would be joining us in the work. Among us all, we split into 4 groups and did random tasks the center needed done. We painted trees, rocks, and walls with lime, we did some landscaping and weeding, we cleaned an area of the yard where a garden would be planted, we took down a huge free-standing wooden stage, and we made a compost pile with the organic debris from our yard work and with the cow poop we had brought. That night, back at the parish, we celebrated Helen Puplis’s grandson’s birthday with all the Guatemalan norms: piñata, firecrackers (I think I scared some people), and cake.
Thursday: Our last day in my site, we spent half of it cutting coffee in the parish coffee fields with about 40 other parishioners. One thing to note is that the driver I had hired, Don Elvis, and his son had accompanied us the whole way participating in everything that we were doing (they did not just wait in the car for us to be finished. Just their presence, not to mention being accompanied by so many people each and every day, really made a difference. We had a goodbye lunch with the priest and Don Elvis and his son (I lit another pack of firecrackers just to make the celebration an official Guatemalan celebration and scared everyone, including the priest) and took off to Antigua where they’d spend their last night in Guatemala
Friday: We went to the volcano, which was awesome as usual, and then did some shopping in Antigua before heading for the airport where their plane would leave at 8:30pm

Phew! What a week.

For now, you'll just have to go on facebook to see some of the pictures

Here is just a side story I wanted to include for you all. I was with a family eating lunch and the mom brought me a rock bigger than the size of my hand and on one side, it was filled with large crystals the width of pencils that had grown. She had found the rock in the fields one day while working. She asked me, “How was this rock made? Did someone put the crystals on this rock?” I replied, “No, the rock was made by natural processes in the ground that take place over a long time.” She asked me again, “So God made it?” “Yes, He did.” I said. She then commented “Well, then it must be true that it takes a long time because God must have had to think a long time to make such a beautiful rock.”

Esquipulas

2009-03-21T14:11:00.014-04:00

Once again, it looks like I’ll be doing a monthly recap. (Boy the months are going by fast). I hope you were able to withstand the not knowing.

So back in a time long, long ago, it was Valentine’s Day, 2009. Our town had its beauty competition to determine the coming fair’s queen as well as had a dance. Hoping to avoid the drawn out competition and go straight to the dance, I arrived almost 3 hours late. I got there and saw them handing out a prize and was happy that the event seemed to be over. To my chagrin, a singer came on stage, which meant the event was not over. As I would soon find out, the first of 7 or so beauty performances had just occurred and that this was the first intermission. Apparently the prize was for best legs or something. After staying for 1.5 hours, I waited back at the house, since I was tired and was sick of standing. I probably would have just gone to sleep had I not made a promise to a girl at the bank that I would dance with her. On a side note, dancing here is not salsa or some more technical dance you might think of; it’s a pretty good bet that if you have 2 working legs you can do it.

The next day, my housemate and I woke up early. I would be visiting her family’s house and they, as I would later find out, would be giving me a surprise birthday party. The surprise, though, was not much of a surprise as there were several breeches. Before leaving, the owner of the house where I lived told me randomly that my housemate would be bringing me to see a surprise. Then, when I arrived to their house early in the morning, (the surprise was scheduled for the afternoon), a tiny 6-year-old niece ran up to me, gave me a hug, preceded to give me a 1 quetzal coin for my birthday, and then asked me where my piñata and cake were for the party. Then the uncle came out himself and gave me a birthday hug himself; the birthday hug is only given for when you are celebrating the birthday. So the surprise was not quite a surprise, but the party was very special. There was a lunch with a slice a steak, avocados, rice, and salad, a cake, and of course the piñata. People here make you guys back home look like wimps when going after the candy. They rush down on their hands to pick up their loot risking their lives not waiting for the person swinging to stop. Oh, it was a fun day, and I have some pictures below to show of it.

That night, I went to Jalapa, to join LAMP doctors and other staff. They would be in the national hospital that week and I was coming to help translate. Their week included free medical exams with free medicine at the hospital as well as in some isolated villages, dental work, work at an orphanage they sponsored, and surgeries. I mainly translated for doctors giving medical exams, which was fun just because I could learn about how the diagnosis was made and how the treatment would help. I did, in my after hours, get to spend an evening with the surgery unit. After scrubbing in and them making sure that I would not faint in the OR, I got to watch the end of a gall bladder removal, several hernia repairs, and the removal of a possibly large cancerous tumor. Just seeing how they stuck the needle in the spinal column to anesthetize half the body was cool. I got a chance to dissect the gallbladder taken out. I had seen my mom’s gallstones, so I had an idea what I might find, but these things were huge and there were so many of them. Some of these gallstones were dime size and were not round because they were so many of them inside the gallbladder (the number and proximity of other stones were deforming the growth of the stones). I was hesitant at first, but after politely asking if it were OK, the surgeons and anesthesiologists were happy to answer my questions. So basically I had another awesome experience and got to see the 2 doctors again who had come in August to help plan all this. After we finished a little early on the last day, I took advantage of the time to visit the dump in Jalapa to organize an activity for the alternative spring break projects I would be doing. The following day, I would go with the doctor’s to Antigua, where I got to stay in the room of some doctors (on the couch) in I think the nicest hotel in Guatemala; it may be in the top 100 worldwide (maybe it was top 1000, but I can’t remember). The hotel is built around church ruins and the environment makes me feel as though I am not in a city anymore, let alone Guatemala.

The next 2 weeks included lots more preparation for the alternative spring break project that I would be doing with parishioners from our student parish in East Lansing. There were some notable events though before their arrival. On Fat Tuesday, there was the first ever town parade; it was tiny. I think the best part of the day was that people cracked eggs filled with confetti over people’s heads. The next day, Ash Wednesday, proved to be even messier. Apparently it is the day to throw ash or flour in peoples’ faces. I bought my pound of flour and stuck it in my pocket just in case someone decided to attack me. Well, I was glad I did. And after being thoroughly whitened, I decided to start an offensive in attacking more people since I could not get any dirtier anyway. I finally headed in at about 8:30pm. The flour in my hair and on my body was gooey and itchy from all the sweat and heat from running around. Let’s just say I spent a half-hour scrubbing in the shower.
Then the day after my birthday (on my birthday, the day after Ash Wednesday, I was invited to a special meal with Padre Victor), I left with another volunteer for Esquipulas, a place to which many faithful make pilgrimages. The city is famous for its basilica which houses the famous Sculpture of the Black Christ. The story behind the sculpture goes that back in the 1600 or 1700’s the community asked for a sculpture of Christ in their image; they got the Black Christ. While the community was bringing the sculpture on foot from Antigua where it was made to its hometown of Esquipulas, miracles occurred and the sculpture soon became famous to where they would have to build a basilica to house all the visitors. Even Pope John Paul II came made a pilgrimage to the site. This year is an especially special year because the basilica is celebrating its jubilee year meaning (it’s 250 years old). To do something special for this special occasion, we decided to go in style, by bicycle. It would probably prove to be the hardest physical thing I had done in my life in one day. We left at 5:30am and got to Esquipulas at 6:30pm. Of course we took breaks, but it was hard. I’ll try to explain some of the trip.
Starting out, we ran into some misfortune; I had left my phone in my room. The other volunteer had a phone, but the problem was that only I had the number to the people that we would be meeting in Esquipulas. After stopping and debating if we should turn around, we came across a man on a bike. I asked him if he knew the owner of my house or his son. He said no, but miraculously sad he knew the number of the son’s wife. With that connection and an extra key to my room, the numbers were gotten. We continued on our way what we thought would be a relatively down hill experience after what friends had told us about the rout. It was… until we got to the part where we would leave the relatively low traffic asphalt road and would choose to go by a safer dirt road (the next coming stretch of asphalt would be full of tractor trailers). We left there at about 12:30 and would spend about the next 4 hours battling steep terrain. At one point in the several times that we were asking directions to make sure we were on the right path and we wanted to know how long it was to get to the other end of the dirt road we were told that it was far away. When provoked to describe how far away was, we were told that it was so far away that he could not tell us. This was not exactly the best for our morale, but at least we had just reached the top of the mountain range at that point and would be going downhill from there until we reached the asphalt. Once at the asphalt within 20 minutes or so afterward we were at our 2nd to last destination, the city before Esquipulas. Per usual, we asked several people what the route was like and per usual, we got several different replies. To explain, for instance, when asking about the dirt road we took, some told us it was about 14km long, others 30km long. Some said there was an incline for about 2km, others for more than half the distance. Others insisted that we would get through the dirt road in no time and that we would be in Esquipulas at 3pm; I think they forgot we were on bike. I think it is funny how we were given so many different answers. It makes me think of the person who feels obligated to give an answer even though he or she may not have a clue in life. Another instance was when we were just before the city where we would take the dirt road. We asked some passersby how far the city was. They told us an hour by bike…we arrived in 15 minutes. Throughout the day, we generally took the answers lightly and tried to get many so that we could get an average and hopefully a good estimate. So again, when asking for advice while in the city before Esquipulas, one person told us that there was about 27km left and that half was going uphill (up mountain might be better to describe). The other told us about the same distance but that the whole way was uphill. We ignored this last person hoping for first response. Well, after going for 1.5 hours more and still going up hill, we found out who was right. The uphill segment seemed endless and we were constantly fooling ourselves hoping that around the next bend there would be the end of the tortuous climb. Less than 10m were left, but there was no way that we could do them and arrive with it still being light. Because it was getting close to where it would be getting dark (6:20pm) and not to mention being completely exhausted and having wanted to quit even at the town before Esquipulas at 4:30pm, we decided for our safety we needed to ask for a ride for the rest of the way. We soon caught a ride and our jaws dropped at how much of more climb still waited for us. But we got there, and went straight to the basilica, sweaty and all to give thanks. We were picked up by our friends, ate, showered, and collapsed in bed. I ended up having so much thirst and hunger that night that it woke me up. I ended up scavenging for any water and food I could find; never had I felt like that before.
The rest of the weekend was very laid back, with more visits to the basilica, a visit to a park and a visit to the original church where the Black Christ was before the basilica was made. That weekend also included a very nice nap. To return, we definitely decided to take a bus. Lauren, the other volunteer who went with me, took some pictures that are below.

It looks like I am going to have put the rest on the next entry including ASB Guatemala.

Pictures of the surprise birthday party thrown for me:

The one who is behind me is the one who helped blow the surprise.

Birthday lunch
Mickey and me

I did not really have a fair chance. Look at the stick in my right hand.

I got to spin everyone else before they hit the piñata.

My cake! It's custom to smash the person's face in the cake... maybe I'll have to bring the custom with me to the US.

I even got some gifts... who would have thought before coming to Guatemala that people could be so kind and generous.

The exchange with Soledad Grande:

My community and the community of another Peace Corps Volunteer help the 2 communities do exchanges of their agricultural products and their knowledge. See previous posts for more info.

The arrival of the women from Soledad to my site

Sharing experiences

Making chicken feed from scratch

The products that the group from Soledad brought: broccoli, cabbage, and potatoes

Products that my women brought: bananas, lemons, limes, sugar cane, squash, oranges, and some tuberous delights

The other volunteer and I leading the chicken dance for a moment of relaxation

The bike ride to Esquipulas:

At the top of the ridge when riding on the dirt road. We were so happy to see the top of that ridge.

Our first site of the asphalted road after being on the dirt road for 4 hours. It was glorious. When we went to the Basilica in Esquipulas the moment we arrived

The basilica during the day
The holy door entrance that was put up for the jubilee year at the basilica.

People waiting in life to pass in from of the Black Christ Sculpture

New chapel for lighting candles...good idea since they just put a new fresh coat of white paint on at a price tag of one million quetzales

We were extremely lucky. We did not have to wait in line because our friends who worked in the basilica told the door keeper our story. We went through the other side and got to see the sculpture without wait or rush.

The Black Christ Sculpture in the Basilica of Esquipulas

Back in the game

2009-02-07T13:35:00.009-05:00

My first week in coming back, I jumped right into work starting off with a medical mission that was in Jalapa. I was happy to help as a translator writing down patients’ problems and sending them to the appropriate doctor. Sometimes it was hard not to laugh when hearing how the people described the ailments: giant balls of fire in the stomach, burning that rises from the stomach to the head where it causes explosions, and eyes that feel like they had nails poking at them. When I think about it though, I am sure we describe things oddly as well.
Along with the help, I had the privilege to talk with many doctors, some who also were medical school faculty and staff. I feel so fortunate to be able to get some close looks at what it is like to go through medical school and at what the life of a doctor can be like. I am still not sure what I am going to do, but their stories certainly help and motivate me. I think the one thing that I do know about myself and how I want to work is that I have the strongest desire or passion to serve others - how I will do that is still unknown to me.
The following weeks have been spent doing lots of different odd jobs. It included visiting people within my groups and having some meetings, two in which we made toothpaste (for 2 different groups). Since the whole world seems to be picking coffee, or at least everyone in my site, part of my time was spent picking coffee. In about 4 or 5 hours, I sadly only picked about 40 lbs, which would go down here for about $9. The normal person with hands much more used to picking, could pick at least 100 lbs during the same amount of time. To my defense, I was going slow to make the job relaxing and to avoid picking off the stem, which houses next year’s coffee bean shoot. The sad story is how little money these people receive for all their year’s work. Most pay rent on their land, pay debts from buying past fertilizers or other chemicals, and have other loans from other necessities that the family has needed (including giant loans used to pay for a family member to get to the US illegally.); they have so little left over that they seem forever trapped in a cycle of barely surviving. Another barrier that I have seen through working in my town is that you are darned if you try to succeed in life, and darned if you don’t. Obviously if a family does not work, whether in the fields or going to the capital to find a job, they won’t be able to endure. The same thing, though, seems to be true for people who are industrious and innovative and want to succeed. When people see that others are getting ahead or making some money, they get robbed, or their things are destroyed or they lives get threatened. To put it plainly, people in my town and probably in other parts, are afraid to work too much, to get ahead too much. So besides burdens like debts or crop failures, there is this fear which looms over ever person. To me, I cannot imagine living like that in the US, the land of opportunity; the loss of hope it causes is just incredible.
OK, so along with that work I mentioned, I was also helping the town board with the scholarships that some of you donated to support students in my town. That work included getting the measurements of all the kids (for uniforms and shoes), finding out what school supplies were needed for each grade, buying the supplies (I think many of you cannot attest my strong distaste of spending a day buying things), and distributing them out. As much as I would have liked to give the parents the money to buy the supplies, not only did everything come out cheaper, but there was no risk that the parents would drink the money or spend it on other things. In all, having 0 administrative costs and a favorable exchange rate (the highest since I have been here) and having no tuition fees (the government deemed them illegal this year) and being able to buy the school supplies at a deep discount (a friend of the priest who owns a school supply shop gave me the discounts knowing what the supplies would be used for), we were able to spend a lot less than expected and we helped 16 students(8 girls, 8 boys) go to school! And the best part is is that there is still about $120 that is left over, which at this point I am thinking will be used for a program done mid-year as an incentive that these scholarship winners stay in school and work to get good marks. One of these students, a girl in 6th grade, has become my personal project I guess you would say. Meeting with this girl’s family often, I was curious to find out that she would not be continuing school this year because her mom could not keep up with all the chores in the house and in taking care of her husband and sons; since this girl was the youngest daughter, she was the only one left to take care of her dad and brothers and do other house chores. Well, I stuck my foot in the matter and talked with the girl if she really wanted to go to school and talked with the mom how she felt. Everyone wanted her to go to school including the student herself, especially since if she passed 6th grade, she would graduate from primary school and could go to middle school. Once in middle school, she could take classes once a week every Sunday, something more feasible for someone with a job or responsibilities in the home like her. So I offered to school her once a week, which both parents and her siblings agreeing to it. With cooperation through a teacher in the afternoon program, if she learns her stuff, she will be awarded her diploma as though she attended 6th grade normally. The teacher, who is not prepared to teach 6th this year (she is teaching 1st through 5th) is going to fudge a rule, by saying that this girl is coming to her class every day. She will still go once a week to class with the teacher just so that the kids know her and to have answered questions that I could not explain, but as I said the teacher will not teach her the materials. So I will be teaching 6th grade, or at least trying to. I am a bit nervous because that puts some pressure on me. I’ll feel good about it when it all works out for her and she graduates in October.
Finally beyond starting 6th grade classes, I have also been planning the Alternative Spring Break that my parish at MSU will be coming down here to do with me in March. I started pestering my parish last year at this time to have a group come down and after careful planning and budgeting we were able to make it happen. As you should expect, I am excited, not only to see people from MSU and St. John’s, but to show more people a completely different world.

The pictures are when I went picking one day with a family from my where I work. In the third picture, we are having lunch in the coffee patch. It's a lunch of champions...beans and eggs. The second to last pictures shows some of our day's work...my basket is a bit empty because I had just emptied it and of course because I picked slowly.

Before the Christmas Surprise

2009-01-20T16:17:00.006-05:00

So I am guessing you’ve noticed the 2-month hiatus that I’ve had from writing on the blog. Sorry about that. I’ll summarize what has gone on and break it into 2 parts. The first will be “Before the Christmas Surprise”

Starting with the week of Thanksgiving, wow, how long ago that was, a great friend of mine came down to visit with me. She spent 3 days at my site to start, all without having any change of clothes since her suitcases did not make her departing plane to Guatemala. Luckily for me and everyone around, she would finally get them on Wednesday in Jalapa where we would find out that the suitcases, which were supposed to be delivered right to my site as soon as possible, would have been delivered the following week, after she would have left. Unluckily for my friend when visiting a family in my site, the family had cow stomach soup to share with us, which is something they rarely afford to buy. Let’s just say the results that night were not that pretty.
So after the 3 days in sight which included participating in a forum against violence toward women and playing soccer with some kids, we made our way to Antigua. The next day, Thanksgiving, we went to Chichicastenango, a beautiful outdoor market, supposedly the biggest in Central America. Besides the market, there was also a Catholic church in which rituals mixed with Catholic and Mayan beliefs were being done. That afternoon, we made it back to Antigua just in time to have our Thanksgiving meal. I made the reservations, not knowing exactly where it would be but knowing that it would be good. Well it ended up being about 20 minutes from Antigua up in the mountains. The meal was served with 60 others on tables and it was great - cranberries, salad, turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie, stuffing and wine. The only lights were from the candles and the stars. The only difficult thing that night was climbing up the mountain side for 20 minutes to catch our ride back to Antigua after having stuffed ourselves.
The next day we went to Volcan Pacaya, which indeed proved its worth again. As we were climbing up, the guide decided to lead us on some old beds because the path was quite slick since it was full of tiny crushed lava rocks. About 10 minutes after we made it to the part where the lava was coming out of the side of the mountain, it began to move a bit faster and started to go down toward where we just had been walking! Isn’t that awesome (Don’t worry, I don’t think it were possible that it could catch us off guard.). We returned to rest a bit and enjoy Antigua until she left on Saturday.
The rest of the weeks leading to Christmas included having another agricultural product exchange with our “sister community,” being sick for 4 days, having an AIDS parade and forum, going to the PC center to get my annual exam, going to the dentist to get 2 cavities filled (something which I had not had in about 7 years – I was a bit nervous for the reason that I had not done it in a while and for the reason that it was being done in Guatemala. I went to an exceptional place though and the dentist even had a camera he could put in my mouth so that I could see my mouth on a screen. I am pretty sure he was not your average Guatemalan dentist.), baking no-bake cookies, and having a Christmas party with my women’s group in which I made chili for everyone. The chili turned out great and everyone liked it. I mean it’s made with beans, come one.
So for this entire time, I was also scheming with my brother who we would pull of the Christmas surprise. You see, he was the only one in the family that knew since May that I would be coming home on Christmas Eve. What we came up with, you can read in the next blog entry.

The neighborhood kids with whom I play jump rope and soccer.

Sometimes there are obstacles on our playing court.

Me in Chichicastenango in front of the Catholic Church. You can see little bon fires, smoke from incense, candles and flowers; these are all part of the mix of Catholic and Mayan traditions that are done here.Thanksgiving dinner, candle-lit over the open sky on plastic chairs The volcano... here you can see exactly where the lava is coming out the side of the volcano.So it just so happened that the last night that Emily was here, that they would start preparing for Christmas by commencing the lighting of the Christmas lights in Antigua . It included decorating the whole park in lights, fireworks, a band, an outdoor video, and this picture above. This picture is of a bull, well actually a man in a metal skeleton designed like a bull. The bull had hundreds of fireworks on it. As we were walking through the park, the bull was lit and then began to run through the crowd spewing fireworks in every which direction. The crowds, including us, of course ran away to avoid a direct burn, but everyone was laughing and enjoyed the spectacle. It definitely reminded me of being in Ecuador.

The Christmas surprise

2009-01-12T22:53:00.017-05:00

What is this Christmas Surprise? Well, it all began in May when I bought my tickets to come home on Christmas Eve and only told one person, my brother Charlie. Scheming for how we would pull it off did not begin til after Thanksgiving, which was partly for my sake since just holding onto the secret for so long was making me partly insane. How did I avoid the ultimate surprise ruiner, that of my parents coming down to surprise me in Guatemala? Well, I told them that I would be going to Belize for Christmas. I figured that with my brother at home, the situation could be controlled, which it was.

So here is how it played out. On Christmas Eve, I left from Guatemala for Dallas, where I had to wait 7 hours for my next flight. The wait was excruciating. I could hardly get to sleep that night as it was. About 45 minutes before my plane left, I called everyone in my family while they were celebrating our traditional Christmas Eve meal at my uncle Hen and aunt Cathy’s house. I did not want to call because I knew I would have to answer all kinds of questions about my time in Belize. They asked, “How long was your bus ride?”, “What is it like there?”, “How warm is it?”, “With whom are you staying?” and other such questions. I had prepared for these questions, though, and had already formulated the answers. I said “It had taken 17 hours by bus and it was a bit cloudy today but was 80 out.” “I was with other volunteers from Guatemala and we were staying right on the beach. It was beautiful.” Besides calling to wish the necessary “Merry Christmas” to all my family members on my dad’s side, I also called because there was a tiny glitch to our plan. It was definitely our weakest point but something that could potentially be easily resolved. Leaving from Dallas at 7:30pm would get me to my hometown at 11:00pm. Taking about ½ an hour to get home from the airport, I was thinking I would arrive to my home somewhere between midnight and 12:30. That was a bit of a problem though as my family, as usual, were going to midnight mass at 10:00pm. It would probably get done a little after 11:30, which would not allow me to get home before my family did. So I had to think of something to buy time. When I was talking with my parents and sister, I asked them to do me a favor. I asked, “Do you think you could do me a favor? Down here in Guatemala, we do all our celebrations at midnight. Some people from my community want to know what it is like at midnight there in the United States. Could you go downtown after mass and take some pictures of the Christmas tree with you all next to it?” Well, they said yes, and with Charlie helping the cause by chatting about things like fog lights with a friend and my dad after mass, my time I needed had been gotten.

OK, so now I am back to me in Dallas. It’s about 10 minutes from departure time and we still have not boarded when they announce that there are some minor mechanical problems with the aircraft, something which can mean anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours. I stayed calm, bought some subway, and came back to find that they would board me and we would take off only 15 minutes late – Thank you God. I got in at 11:15 where family friends of ours waited for me. I tell you, I have to give them once again a huge thanks. There are not many people who want to do that that late at night, let alone Christmas Eve night when most people are in their homes. So they brought me home. They helped bring my suitcase inside and situate some gifts according to what was said in the videos I had made for my family to watch as part of the surprise. So with the piñata and painting in the barn, they left me. I cleaned my snowy tracks in the kitchen and headed upstairs to prepare my small bag of gifts, also something that would play out in the videos I made. I opened my suitcase to find that one of the gifts had been opened by TSA. I hurriedly wrapped it using the same paper and ankle wrap I found in the room. I set the bag out, turned out the lights, and the moment that I sat down in my closet I heard my family walking through the door. Phew! My heart was just pounding. So they got settled and Charlie told them about the video I had sent him through an email and how I had wanted that they watch them before they went to bed. They began the first video, which is just below.

After watching the first video, Charlie runs up stairs, grabs the bag, and glances at me in the closet to make sure I am there and not passed out from the intense suspense that is gripping me. They open their “small gifts” and then watch the second video, which is just below.

So after watching the second video, I hear Katie, my sister, yell “Joey!” because she and everyone else are frustrated that they have to go outside to the cold to see what is out in the barn. They do go, though. Charlie makes sure he is the last one to go out and before he leaves yells upstairs, “Come down, come down, come down” so to let me know when to make my way down the stairs just behind the door to the kitchen without being heard. You see, that is why I had needed my family to go out to the barn, so that I could come down the stairs and position myself immediately behind the kitchen door without being heard.

They find the piñata and painting, which was a surprise for my brother, and then come in to watch the final video in the kitchen. That video is just below.

The part of the video where I ask if they noticed if there were anything in common and I pause, the singer sings the words, “I’ll be home for Christmas.” I ended without saying what the surprise was. When I say, “Because my last surprise is…”, I open the door to the kitchen, walk out, and surprise everyone. Luckily for me and you, my brother stuck a camera in the corner to watch the surprise unfold and save it forever. It had to be split up because of it’s size, but runs from when my family is going out to the barn after watching the 2nd video all the way to when I surprise them. The videos are below.

Well, I tried to put on the 3rd part of ¨The Christmas Surprise¨ in this entry, but was unable to. I had to put it on a different post just after this one. You should be able to get to it at this address: http://joejonaitis.blogspot.com/2009/01/christmas-surprise-continued.html. If not, try looking it up. It is under the title "The Christmas Surprise Continued.¨

The Christmas Surprise Continued

2009-01-12T22:51:00.007-05:00

Well, I tried to tag this video on the other post, but it just would not go. In fact it actually took me over 2 weeks just to post this video. Hopefully the suspense did not get to you and that you were able to find it OK.

The third part of the Christmas Surprise....

Now wasn't that cool!

Mid-service

2008-11-13T14:01:00.011-05:00

Well, it is true. I just got done last week with my midservice conference. That means I have completed 1 year of my 2 years down here. I don´t really have any reflections on it right now, but they might be written soon.

Besides my midservice conference, we also had All Saint's Day festivities as I already told you about. Below are some pictures of it as well as of Liam´s goodbye party (warning-don't look if you don't want to see a pig being killed).

Nov 2 people bring their decorations to mass to have them blessed. The decorations, which will be used in the cemetary, include paper machet flags, paper or fabric flowers (some are dipped in wax making them last long and look almost real), real flowers, and other plastic and paper things.

Here, people are leaving mass with their decorations in their typical baskets.

Here is part of the cemetary where I live. Some parts, as this picture shows, basically consist of a mound of dirt representing where the person was buried with a wooden but sometimes metal cross. You can see marigolds in the right-hand lower corner. They are the traditional live flower used for this day.

Other parts of the cemetary include cement structures. As I mentioned last year, it seems weird to see people standing on top of graves or playing in the cemetary. I played frisbee this year, but off to the side a bit where it was open. I had fun because there were so many little kids that whenever the frisbee went down the side of the mountain (the cementary is on top of a small mountain or big hill), the kids would run and get it. I also made an attempt at making a kite out of paper machet, a small one mind you. One worked great and proved too light and not strong enough for the wind higher in the sky. I probably had it up 100 yds when the wind snapped it in half. The other one was, well, a failure. I tried to make it out of aluminum and plastic. I basically did it because they said it could not be done. I still think it can be done, but they were right that day.

Here I wondered why the graves were not decorated very much. Well it turns out these 8 gravestones are of a family who were all killed at the same time. I was told it was a massacre of some sort, but the person telling me this did not know why it happened. I guess that explains why there is no close kin to decorate the graves.

As I think I wrote about, for Liam's goodbye party, we killed a pig. Here is the first picture of us early in the morning preparing the boiling water to skin the pig.

Hog tie.

I helped with the skinning. Of course it was already dead before this.

I was really impressed how they carved the pig. The stomach was huge (you can see the big white balloon just under the brown liver in the picture) yet we did not spill a thing from the intestines or stomach. For those of you wondering, the organ setup in the pig was quite the same as you would find it in a person.

From pig to pork chops with a special tangy sauce in 2 hours.

This is the vat of fat. We threw all the fat pieces in there as well as various organs. Eventually as the fat melted, it turned into a giant deep-frier, which we then used to deep fry everything, including some shrimp.

It's that time of year again... corn harvest time that is. This corn is being laid out to dry.

One of the gardens we planted earlier on. The bed that looks sparse already had its vegetables harvested.

Changes and Exchanges

2008-10-27T13:36:00.007-04:00

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

2008-10-16T17:40:00.000-04:00

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.

Pictures, Finally!

2008-09-20T20:23:00.005-04:00

This post will mainly just be pictures. I figured you have been missing out since I have not been able to post them for some time. Enjoy.

This picture and the following 3 below are of the Independence Day parade in my town.

These girls are in typical indigenous dress that was once worn where I live but is no longer used. Unlike other parts of Guatemala where large populations speak an indigenous language, I have been told that there are only a handful of people that speak the indigenous language that was once spoken here.

I am not sure why it said pain, but I am sure it is not supposed to mean pain. I dont know how those little girls could impose any pain anyway.

This dancing gymnastics competition, as it was called here, is related to the independence day celebration because this was the qualifying competition in my town. The winner got to go to Jalapa for the Independence Day celebrations. The two photos are actually of the students where I work (my aldea) and I have been teaching English to these students. (On a side note, they will be finishing the school year next week and I will be administering a final exam... how weird is that). The students actually won and got to go to Jalapa where they placed second in the whole department.

Here is a pictue of corn. Wow. Actually it is a success of the work that I am and my NGO have done. If you look at the picture, you can see corn that is bigger to the right and corn to the left which is smaller, yet they were both planted at the same time. The corn to the right only uses organic fertilizers including animal poop and the corn on the right uses chemical fertilizers. Obviously it took more time to plant and fertilize the corn on the left, but the farmer saved some money and has healthier corn. Here is an example of a person who is starting to incorporate this organic method. In the past, he bought 5 bags of chemical fertilizer for his land. This year, he only bought 2 bags and bought 10 bags of chicken poop. Chemical fertilizer is costing about Q300. The chicken poop cost only 20-25Q. (1500-600-250) He saved Q650 this year which is about $85. To me, that is amazing. Now the next goal will get them to produce all of their own ogarnic materials so that they wont have to buy the chicken poop.

These 2 pictures are of the women in the group who have been going around to member's houses making vegetable and medicinal gardens. As you can see, the women are tough and get dirty. In the picture above, they are using pick-axes to loosen the soil.

Just Another Day on the Throne

2008-09-16T19:40:00.001-04:00

The 15th of September here in Guatemala, as well as in other countries in Central America, marks the independence that the Guatemalans gained from Spain in 1821. Some of you may remember this from my reporting last year. In my town this year, as well as last year there were parades and dances and presentations and marimba music. I even got to see the running of the torches, which I had only heard about last year. Basically this is where people from a town or school travel to some distant place in Guatemala or even to other countries in Central America the 14th. They then spend the whole day and sometimes the entire night returning to their towns but with torches lit and running part of the way. Now just imagine the fact that every town and school does this on this day – I think just maybe, it might have been a little more hectic on the highways than is normal. I got to see students arrive with their dozen torches lit as they entered town at 9:30pm. The whole town was waiting in the park listening to music and ready to cheer them on and douse them with water. Whenever and wherever people see groups running with their torches on the road, they throw water, and not just when they arrive to their home towns. Supposedly this is to cool them off, but I think it is more like an excuse to have a water fight.

An aspect about being a foreigner here is that some of us are put on thrones, especially in times of celebration and holidays. Some are invited to special dinners or fiestas, others might even be asked to be in a parade or be a judge for a beauty competition. And I am no exception. Christmas, Easter, and now this Independence Day I have had the opportunity, whether I liked it or not really, to sit on a throne – of course, should I tell you that my throne was made of porcelain. Yes, unfortunately my streak continues. The night of the 14th and the 15th amoebas decided to attack me in full force leaving me without sleep or anything in my GI tract and only with sulfurous burps. I always thought those amoebas looked cool under the microscope… I still think so, but they belong under the microscope, not in my small intestine. Thankfully for me, Peace Corps always has a nurse on call and by 3pm after seemingly constant diarrhea, I was told some medicine I could look for. I needed 2000mg of something called Tinidazole but in my town, being so small, there was only something that looked similar, Metronidazole. The pharmacist told me that it was the same as what I need. Seeing that the later killed amoebas as well and figuring it could be just a brand name for the same medicine, I believed her and took the medicine. Well, the nurse called up the next day to see how I was doing, and I found out that it was not exactly the same. It did kill amoebas, but required a different doses and regimen. Instead of the 2000mg I took all at once, I should have taken 8x less (250mg). Thankfully nothing serious happened; I only woke up with a stomach ache and a little burning from the harshness of the medicine. I guess I’ll have to question a little bit more about my medicine the next time.

As you can guess, work my work has been the same for the most part, but unfortunately, for my part, it was recently converted into a scene from a novela (a Spanish soap opera). So if you want to read something that is completely trivial outside of the bubble here, read on… Information care out that money was missing (over $300) and the president of the women’s group stole it. On top of this, there were people, mainly the president, who were upset with me. The women had been (and still are) bringing one plant each to willing houses to plant medicinal gardens and to work on vegetable gardens. Unfortunately some regularly came well after the work was done, including the president. I said that those who did not show up on time to do at least some work, would drop down 2 spots in the list of homes that we would visit. This put some in a fit. Amidst this tension, the NGO here which helps run the governing body of a lot of the groups here, was secretly training another president and were plotting how to secretly overthrow her. I worked out the problems early on with me by talking with the president many times. The disappearance of money, I don’t think, will probably never be dealt with (It is almost like corruption at all levels here is taken as a given). Elections were held legally and without question, though, after it was realized that according to the group’s bylaws that elections needed to be held every 2 years. The president lost her position and thankfully at the last minute decided to give up her position gracefully.

Finally, two doctors from the US came to Jalapa the other week to plan for their medical trip their group will make in February and I had the privilege of helping them out translating. I think that I am the one that got the real bargain though. I got excellent meals which they graciously paid for and I got to pick their brains for hours asking them about their jobs, medical school and the path to become a doctor, and what kinds of lives they lead outside of their job. These encounters definitely excite me and push me more to consider going to medical school after Peace Corps; but only time will tell for this. Through the doctors, I also got to meet some doctors in Jalapa, including the director of all the health posts in Jalapa as well as the director of the state hospital here. One of them invited me to pass by whenever I had time to see some births, which I think would be quite the experience, as long as I don’t faint or anything. I am excited too for February, when the doctors come because they’ll give me an opportunity to scrub in and see surgeries being performed (as well as give me an opportunity to pick their brains some more). So who would have thought that “running away” from medicine, I would be found by it here in Guatemala?

Stories from the Front

2008-08-17T17:41:00.000-04:00

Well, I thought I would just share some interesting stories that I have had in these days. Hope you enjoy them.

I have to say, I have had a couple good moments that I can name off easily. The other day I got really, above normally smelly. I was making another compost pile with a family who had heard about the wonders of compost and wanted my services. So I went to the next village over with the daughter of the family leading me. I had asked them a week before what they had to use to make it; when they said they had cows, I got excited, which seems pretty strange to be excited about but to me, it means there’s a lot of good material to work with. Well, along with several corn sacks full of green leguminous leaves, banana leaves, and other dry leaves, to make the compost, we hauled tons of cow poop that was nice and fresh and goopy from all the rains. Of course, that goopy poop did not really stay in its holey containers and found itself all over my cloths. The awesome thing though was that no one, including me, was bothered by it. Afterward, I visited another family that I had visited before in the past to follow up on their how their chickens were doing. When I stopped outside the barbed wire fencing and yelled in saying “Buenas tardes” for permission to enter, the little kid of the family saw me and yelled out my name. He immediately came running up to me and gave me a big hug, the first time a little kid had done that to me! So pretty much, that made my day, not to mention that he did it even though I had cow poop all over my shirt and pants.

Another is kind of a weird cultural-barrier success. So I have been befriending a very friendly girl down here. I had just met her 4 weeks ago and really enjoyed being around her, but was trending the water very carefully because of all the assumptions and rules that play out here. Well a bit ago, she invited me to her house to see her town and meet her family (she only works and stays during the work week in the town where I live). Well, this and some other things rang a few bells in my head, namely because many people have told my straightforwardly that if you are invited to someone’s house by a girl, she wants to start going out with you. And considering the other beliefs down here that I have been told, like only a few weeks of dating takes place before getting married and that friends who are girls are not possible in Guatemala (told to me by my training officers), I got a little irked. So instead of being direct, I evaded giving an answer (aren’t I so good at not answering questions) hoping to find out what was going on and to save some embarrassment on both our parts. Well, a whole stew of events happened in a couple days when she brought her boyfriend here for a day and people thought she was cheating on me and that I was angry (It is really sad to think how quickly people came to those conclusions). With all this in the air, we sat down and had such a good talk. And what came out of it was awesome, because all the misconceptions were cleared, including the ones that I had such as that she wanted a boyfriend in me, I learned a lot about this person I had just met, and most of all, I gained a new friend, who is a girl. It probably seems like a strange moment, but it just felt good to do something that seemed culturally impossible to me and felt good thinking about having a new friendship and all the new possibilities that that would entail. It’s funny how difficult things can be made when crossing culture and language barriers, not to mention how complicated things are made when you add me to the mix.

Last Sunday, I started out the morning with a good laugh, thankfully, because it could have been a little different. So I where I am staying, recently the daughter-in-law and her 3-year-old son of the owner moved into the house where I am because the daughter-in-law had her appendix removed. The son is really timid and has been slowly warming up to me, to the point where when I wash my clothes or clean my room, he is right by my side helping me. That Sunday morning, I wanted to show him and his mom how I carried all my cousins back home. I put him on my shoulders and walked around a little bit within the house. I then started to walk toward the mirror to show him how tall he was, but on the way, I heard a big thud against the wall and was stopped from moving forward. Well, I had forgotten that there are parts of the house that still come down really low, sitting only some 5 inches above my head. I quickly looked up and saw the kid ducking covering his head and saying over and over “I got hit.” I felt bad, but luckily the kid wasn’t crying and the mom was laughing.

Finally, when I thought I had finished telling some of the interesting stories, something else happened just today.
Sunday mornings here are similar for here as they are back home in the sense they are usually slower paced and relaxing. I usually go to mass, and then eat some breakfast with something special like a pineapple to really bring out the tiredness you get after eating a good meal. Today was no exception, and I left from where I ate feeling content. As soon as I walked out to the street where the outdoor market was, I saw some people running up between some tin buildings. I thought that was pretty weird what they were doing, especially since there were adults among them. Well I soon found out why within 2 seconds. As I put my focus back on the street and the market sellers ahead of me, I found some very angry toros (bulls) charging through the market right at me. Astonished at the sight at first and unable to move for maybe a second, I managed to quickly jump toward a building away from the street. I watched as the 10 or so bulls went raging on at full force down the street toward the river and then saw the owners running after them a minute later. I soon found out that the bulls were the bucking bulls that were brought in for the rodeo that we would have today. I just could not believe that the owners allowed those bulls to rage at full force (really, they were some angry bulls) through a street made very narrow because of all the vendors that put up their stands to sell things (2 hours later, as I was walking up a mountain, I saw them still trying to wrangle the bulls into the stadium but with little luck since the bulls were still running away up a bank). With as many people as there are in the town where I live on Sundays, which is the day that the market is here as well as the day that people travel to town to go to mass, it is surprising that no one was injured. This is just one of the millions of reminders I get that I am not in Grand Rapids anymore. I guess I don’t need to go to Pamplona, Spain anymore.

Happiness

2008-08-01T00:23:00.001-04:00

I have not written in a while as maybe some of you have noticed, so sorry. My goal is to write every 2 weeks. I’ll see if I can pick up the pace in the coming weeks. The sad part is is that I had this written for a while, but could not post it because of the slow internet.

Work has been the same good old stuff I talked about in the last entry. The one new big thing that occurred down here recently was the 4^th of July, for which all the volunteers got together and had a big celebration with dancing, American food and beer, and even a talent show. It’s not the same as going down to South Haven or staying at Aunt Carol’s at White Fish Lake, but I have to say I still had a lot of fun. When the party was over, we celebrated even more in Antigua, where places had more 4^th of July celebrations with some even having cakes and a piñata of Uncle Sam.

So besides that and my new battle with hopefully just a few fleas in my room, (I just recently found 3 while reading in my chair; I am pretty sure I am bringing them with me from Sabanetas. I was hoping cleaning and mopping weekly would be sufficient, but I guess not. Either way, I am waging an entire campaign now to stop them while they are just starting. After a long day of cleaning, last night, I had no fleas bother me… I slept in just my sleeping bag, but still, I had no fleas bother me.) the only other thing I wanted to write about was something that I think I am starting to learn more about, what it means to be happy. It is nothing new, but just something refreshed and more firmly founded. We all say that happiness cannot be bought, and I think I and many other believe it or think we believe it. I know though, that there are many actions of mine that correspond to something else, something that says, “You can buy something to improve your conditions by gaining more comfort, extra time, more pleasure or whatever, and that these gains will bring you happiness.” For instance, when I have a hard day, I look for my trail mix and dried cranberries to cheer me up. While it might cheer me up, eating them certainly will not cheer up everyone and the cranberries and trail mix are not actually causing happiness in themselves; there are other underlying reasons. When I moved to San Carlos, I became excited to just have a door to my room, to bathe in cold water that came from a shower spigot, and to be able to eat 4 eggs a day. Coming from my aldea, it was certainly an improvement and would seem to follow the old rule I wrote that happiness can be bought. Probably at first this was my natural programmed reaction that having something better corresponds to being happier, but soon after I began to think, “Why am I happy to have 4 eggs a day or a door or a shower spigot?” If I were in the US, would these things give me some happiness? The answer would most likely be no, especially in the case of the eggs which would probably make me grouch at what I were eating. So I asked then, “What is the difference?” Well the obvious difference is that here I am ‘moving up’ and from the US, it would be a move downward. The more subtle difference though is that my perspective has changed. I learned be more happy with fewer things; I was more grateful for the tiny things that I had so easily just taken for granted. So basically, I feel like happiness can be obtained through practice and a conscious effort. If I train myself or learn to be happy when I get something new, why can’t I train myself or learn to be happy with what I have, both concrete things and things like friendship, family, etc. If I make an effort to be more conscious of these seemingly little things I get each day, I will be over flooded. Ordinary days become good days and hard days become something not so hard to bear.

Dirty Work

2008-06-22T18:18:00.000-04:00

Well the big news down here is that I finally moved. It has been something I had been looking forward to for a while. Having a room with a door, bathing in an enclosed place, having a light designated to my room all seem a bit trivial but it is a nice change of privacy and independence. It was a hard decision to move, though, for various reasons. I had originally wanted to live with the only other open room in my aldea, but they tore their house down when I first arrived and are still working on it. Before and after the decision, I wondered if I were a cheater of some sort. Was I supposed to live under the conditions that I was living? Is that the Peace Corps experience? Well, I don’t know…there is no typical experience. I did know, however, that living in my aldea had served its purpose of getting to know the people and their way of life and building their confidence. I knew I could continue working as much or probably more and my living conditions in my new place would be much more conducive to staying healthy. As the first rains came and began to enter in my room through the walls and roof, I finally made the decision. As more than luck would have it, the Spanish doctors were here in Alzatate and offered me their spare time to move my stuff in their vehicle. To me that was quite the generous act. I mean, who wants to move someone during his free time when he could rest or see new sites in the different country he is in let alone do it under normal circumstances back at home. Having done the move, I can not imagine how I would have done it with out their help.

Overall I really enjoyed the doctor’s company. We cooked each other meals, shared different stories and card games, and worked together even though what I did was very limited and meager. It was certainly a nice “up” after leaving home.

Through the doctor’s work, I was able to meet a family in my aldea with whom I had not met, a family whose conditions are probably some of the worst in the aldea. The mom came with some of her children to have one child examined for her niguas she had. Niguas are parasites that burrow into ones extremities like toes and then continue to eat away more flesh all while laying thousands of eggs. The tiny child’s feet were horrible; they were blackened, hot, swollen, and full of those niguas and their eggs. I’ve had one nigua and know what if feels like – I cannot imagine what the tiny little girl was feeling.
After examining the little girl and seeing that her big sisters had the same thing, it was arranged to bring the girls to get them treated. After first agreeing, the next day when we went to pick up the kids the dad had changed his mind and did not let the children go. He conveniently was not there, though, to try to convince again. The mother wanted them to go, but had not way to do so since she told us her husband would and has beat her for not obeying. So along with the beating, we found more serious problems relating with the dad. He was a drunk who spent the family’s money on keeping up his vice. He didn’t like working in the fields, so he didn’t or did very little of it. Thus his family was forced to buy their food but that is hard to do when they is little money to begin with. When I visited with the family I saw the kids looked hungry and gave them my bananas. I asked if they grew any bananas, which grow as easily as a weed, or other fruits – they didn’t. Some of the few fruit trees around the house that the wife had planted, the husband had cut down while drunk. The story seemed almost unreal and really put me in sorrowful mood just seeing the conditions of these innocent kids. It seemed to me this dad was not only not doing good for his wife and kids that were still living (3 kids had already died most likely due to malnutrition), but that he was putting effort into making their lives worse.
With an intervention from the priest, the dad let 2 of his daughters go to the children’s hospital. While this is only a temporary fix, it was certainly needed. A permanent fix will hopefully be on the way. The neighbors will continue to help the mom and the kids and I will do what I can. I’ll stop by to see if any of the conditions improve to let local authorities know and try to get permission from the dad for the mom to grow some things for her kids.

So yes, there are hard moments and days, times to reflect and think how fortunate my childhood was and how those of countless other children in the US are fortunate. Overall, though, work has been good, and there is plenty to keep the days flying. The rains came real late this year, beginning when Tropical Storm Alma passed through at the very end of May. I was certainly looking forward to the rain not only to green the countryside but to move into sowing seeds and planting plants. It makes me feel like when I was a child growing up at home doing work in the garden or in other parts outside dirtying up every piece of clothing. I feel like there won’t be much of my aldea left after I get done with my service since I take so much of it (the dirt) with me when I go back to my house. Still, a large part of my duties, though, is visiting houses and the land they own, which means hiking up and down mountains through forests and planted plots and over creeks. This too reminds me of my time back home spent in the backyard. So while it can be hard, I am having fun while still making an effort to do some good.

Photos from the last blog

2008-05-28T12:18:00.007-04:00

Alright, here are the photos that correspond with the last blog. I hope you all enjoy them.

I want to say thank you to grades 5,6,7, and 8 at Holy Trinity for letting me come to their school and for participating in the presentation I gave. I hope you all enjoyed the presentation and that you were able to have answered some of your questions. Just remember, if you ever have questions, feel free to email me and I will be happy to answer them, though it may take some time for me to answer them. Also thank you so much for raising over $300 so that some kids from my community can go to school next year. You guys made quite the effort, especially considering all the funds came from 50-cent suckers!

I also want to say thank you to everyone who came by to visit me while I was back home this past week, especially considering gas prices and a limited time window. You all made me feel so humbled in doing so. Your support and friendship and love and prayers are the best things that I could ever get and take with me to Guatemala. My time home was amazing, and I have all of you, especially Mom, Dad, Charlie, and Katie to thank for it.

Here are one of the families that made one of their worm composts. I think it is so cool and important that the whole family pitches in to do these little projects.

First the wall was gridded into squares and so was a small drawing of the world. Then we began drawing what was in one square on the small world map into a corresponding square on the wall. I think it turned out well, but the sketch the most precise. Once the painting began, we lost our good boarder we drew and lost some entire islands when painting the Pacific.

Sorry to the people from the Philipines. Your country is present, but I am not sure if you are going to find all your islands on the map.

The map is starting to come along. We 3 volunteers who live in or near San Carlos are tracing the country borders and the kids are filling them in.

The process got to be a bit tiresome, especially since we were in the sun and I had broken my 4th and last pair of sunglasses earlier in the day.

(HT) (6) Catching up

2008-05-07T17:07:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the larger than normal span of time between posts.

I thought I would dedicate this post to a general catching up on what I’ve been doing.

One thing earlier on that I participated in was a chicken conference or I guess it would be better called an exposition on the raising of chickens, but I enjoy calling it a chicken conference. I mean, would I have thought that I would be going to chicken conferences a year ago? I don’t think so. You will never know or be able to predict everything in a year, month, week, or even tomorrow. There are always surprises or changes, fantastic and challenging. We are the ones that decide what to make of them and how to react.
So anyway, the conference, was well, quite interesting. People came from several different communities to showcase their successful chicken practices, all of which were done utilizing the resources that the community had. How do you get rid of parasites in chickens? One community was making their concoction from local moonshine, garlic, marigolds, and other ingredients. How do you disinfect the chicken coops? Well, just make your own vinegar from fermenting unrefined sugar cane sugar blocks and the skin of a pineapple in a bucket of water. It was good for me because there were several new techniques that I hadn’t known. It was even better, though, for the community members I brought along. For those that showcased something, you can imagine it got them some recognition for their creative efforts and hard work. Everyone that came was able to gain an abundance of information and got motivated seeing that “Yeah, these things actually do work.” Besides sleeping on cement floors in 2 large buildings, the other event which brought people closer together and made it feel like a camping or community experience was when we had some musicians play for an evening dance.

Beside the chicken conference, I still haven’t stopped working on the compost piles. It has been pretty challenging motivating people and convincing them that composting and other similar methods are cheap methods to replace their dependence on expensive chemical fertilizers. I have, though, been able to get through to some people and I am hoping that these people will be examples of the successes of organic fertilizers. Below I have some families who recently made their worm composts. This is a pretty big deal for a couple of reasons. One is that people here have such a fear of worms, mainly because the worms you find here are usually not in the ground but in the stomach. There are quite a few who wont even touch these California red worms. The other reason it was notable was because the whole family, husband, wife, and children all helped out in 2 of the 3 cases. Again, I just hope that through the examples of the brave, others will see the rich soil the worms make and the abundant juicy filets of “steak” the worms become when fed to the chickens.

With the grade school I am working with, things are not going too successfully. The children are full of enthusiasm, but the teachers are definitely lacking. Both that and the fact that the teachers can strike without penalty (they went on strike for 3 months last year) and can take weeks off for what I would call weak reasons or no reason at all have made it hard to show up when there actually is class let alone stick to my original curriculum. To give you an idea, last week kids had class for 2 days with the teachers taking of class for unknown reasons to me. This week, they had class on Monday but on Tuesday they came home after an hour saying there would not be class until next week Tuesday. For me, it is just sad because the kids are losing. Luckily, while there is not a private grade school, there is a private and equally affordable middle school in the community. This non government backed school seems to have some higher guidelines, such as the days there are to hold class.

Finally, the other big project the other 2 volunteers and I have been working on is making a world map for the community of San Carlos Alzatate. Just in the days that we sketched the borders of all the countries, it became a town spectacle. People would spend hours just watching us work our artistic magic but saying confusingly that it did not look too much like their town of San Carlos. (We are doing quite a good job, but I just hope no one from another country comes to measure up their country and hope that no one is counting all the islands). When we finished for the day, people would rush over to sit by the map and continue to talk about it some more. Just picture some old small town scene like in Mayberry to picture these men. It’s the most exciting thing that has happened since the arrival of these foreigners. The only hard thing about leaving such a small town is that it will be hard at first not getting so much attention back in the U.S.

Sorry I couldn't post any pictures because of problems with the internet, hopefully I'll be able to
put some up soon.

“There are no ordinary people.” “It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.” – C.S. Lewis

Videos - Good Friday Procession and Mass

2008-04-11T10:39:00.005-04:00

Both of these videos were taken on Good Friday in San Carlos Alzatate. The first one is of the procession which began at 9:30am from the center of town at the church and processed up a mountain while going through the Stations of the Cross. As you can see in the video, there is Jesus being held on a very heavy platform along with Mary and Saint Raymundo, the patron saint of the city, on smaller platforms a little farther back.Here is to where the procession led. It was a place next to a corn field about 150 or 200 meters up from the church. The simplicity of it all made it that much more beautiful and meaningful.

La Semana Santa

2008-04-11T10:21:00.007-04:00

I wanted to share with you all some of my experiences from Holy Week. The pictures below are all of Good Friday and I will let the pictures and their captions explain. (There are also 2 videos in another post of the processions). On Holy Saturday, I went to the vigil mass. The congregation gathered about 1/4 mile away from Church where the Easter candle was lit and then where all the candles of the congregation were lit. We then processed to Church for mass. The mass was just like any Easter vigil mass I had been to back at home, but afterward unlike at home, we had another procession at midnight. We paraded through the streets celebrating the resurrection of Jesus with a marching band, generator for lights, and of course fire crackers and the loud exploding fireworks. I told Padre Victor that had he been in the US doing this, he just would possibly end up with a nice fine and maybe even would pay a visit to a jail cell.

Here is where Holy Communion was kept after it was taken out of Church after the Holy Thursday MassThe start of the procession leaving from the ChurchHere is the first Station of the Cross. As we processed up the mountain, we stopped at each one. The families along the way were in charge of setting them all up as well as the decoration in the street. The flower petal decorations on the street were just a warming up as to what would be coming up in the path. Along the path of the procession, besides having the 14 stations, people made religious works of art out of sawdust, dye, and flowers. It was amazing the work that was put into them only for the works to be gone at the end of the day.

More "sawdust rugs" below and above

Here you can see the procession stopping at another station higher up in the mountain. As you can see, the procession includes a very heavy wooden platform which holds Jesus carrying a cross as well as speakers and a generator. Behind this platform are the band and two other platforms holding Mary and the patron of the city, San Raymundo. In the background you can see the dormant volcano Alzatate
Another station of the Cross.
After finishing the procession, we ended up about 200 or so meters up from the city on a high overlook next to a corn field. Here is where we could have the Good Friday mass.
As you can see, on the ground are more sawdust, and pine needles. Pine needles, as I have said, are used for special occasions as a sign of celebration.
Mass

(HT) (5) Poverty and Illiteracy

2008-04-02T18:51:00.002-04:00

So I was reading the paper this Sunday and found an excellent article that talks about a region in Guatemala that especially has huge issues in poverty and illiteracy. The article highlights why problems such as illiteracy and poverty continue to remain such a big and continous problem in Guatemala. I took me a bit to translate to English... I just hope that I have not forgotten to much English so that you can understand the article. I hope that you all are able to enjoy it.

“Illiteracy and Poverty, the Barrier of Education”

The letters and numbers are simple figures or drawings that do not mean anything for the majority of the women in San Bartolome Jocotenango, Quiche. For them, taking a pen is a complicated task and writing their name, impossible; so is reading a song in church or knowing where to direct the bus to go. They live in a city with the most illiteracy in the entire country, where 7 out of 10 women do not know how to read nor write.

Juana Ramirez says that she does not know very well how old she is, may she’s 20 or 24; she is one of the hundreds of women of the city that never had access to an education and now still do not want literacy courses that the city is starting to give. “I have 3 kids; I cannot go,” she says.

She lives in a small adobe house, and the bed where she sleeps with her 3 kids and her husband is not more than a few branches that hold up some boards, and an old blanket for the cold. She and her family eat tortillas with hot peppers and sometimes eat them with beans.

None of the women of her family learned how to read or write, and for her the only option is to stay in the house with her kids and to wait for her husband during the months he goes to work as a migrant worker in the coast. He has to go to the coast to work because in the village there is no good soil for growing crops, 95% of the terrain is not apt for agriculture there, and there are no more options for work. She hardly participates in the community meetings and she lives practically isolated.

The high index of illiteracy in the city is accompanied with a high level of poverty; 9 out of 10 people there live on the equivalent of $1 a day.

“Illiteracy brings poverty, and poverty brings more illiteracy; it is a vicious cycle,” affirms Hector Argueta, director of the National Committee on Literacy (CONALFA) in Quiche.

He affirms that the situation of San Bartolome Jocotenango is especially complicated inside the department (name for a state in Guatemala). “There is scarcity in services, low productivity; it is as if there were a retreat to 60 years prior,” he says.

Of the 36 kilometers that separate Santa Cruz (which is the region in which San Bartolome Jocotenango is located) from Quiche, 26 of the kilometers are local undeveloped road. It is an obstacle for the kids that go to study in Quiche. “Some of the teachers and doctors did not want to come to work here; it was like a punishment for them to be sent here,” affirms the mayor.

The lack of education of his population has caused some productivity programs to not have the success that was hoped for.

One worker, coordinator of CONALFA, says that she gave capacity building to groups of farmers to begin water systems for their crops, but in the end nothing happened because it was too complicated for the farmers to assimilate the concepts.

In many of the communities, the illiteracy has impeded the commercial growth, because many are not capable of administering sales when quantities grow.

Also, they have had difficulties to find community leaders that have had 6 years of schooling; and it can be counted on one’s fingers the natives of the city that have gone on to study in high school. There are 5 teachers (one only needs high school equivalent to be a teacher), 1 accountant, and one person studying in the university.

The lack of formation has complicated the health problems, because the parents do not realize the gravity of their children, and wait too long to bring them to the health center or do not understand how to give the prescriptions.

They worry that in the community that some cases of HIV have been detected: in the last 2 years four people died, and they fear that those that will get HIV will increase because of the lack of ways to intervene and stop the problem.

The worker of CONALFA affirms that it has been difficult for the illiteracy groups to move forward because many women do not have interest because they believe it is not necessary for them to learn to read and write and many times abandon the classes before ending. But the efforts of the programs of CONALFA have brought very positive results; the eyes shimmer of the people when they say with pride that they can write their name.

Catalina Lopez lives in a tiny village and is finishing her 3rd year of literacy courses. After participating in the course, she changed to a leader of the community and has been able to participate in meetings for women in the capital. “Already I can read papers and I feel content. Now I also have been given a duty in the church,” she says.

Her father died during the armed conflict and her mother did not have the money to send her to school. Only her brothers learned to read and write, with the help of other family members.

Saturday and Sunday afternoon, she receives classes. Next to her is Cecilia Imal, who at an age of 30 recognizes the great difficulty to put together letters, but that she has fought to do it. Now she can help her youngest children with questions on their homework or can buy with more confidence something in the market without being cheated. “Now I can go wherever, it does not confuse me.”

Liberta de Leon has to walk almost an hour each weekend to reach her classes. She is in her second year and tells how she learned how to add, subtract, and make a family budget. She has seen how some of her neighbors did not want to take the courses or have given up, but she insists that she will continue because she wants to learn more and more.

For others, learning to read and write has opened up the opportunity to convert into literacy workers or health facilitators and to earn a dignified wage and more so the recognition of their community.

Desertion is one of the principal problems, and for that they want that the literacy programs offer something more to the users. The goal is to form productive projects, an initiative that the ministry of educations had previewed but in the end did not approve the budget.

The city has wanted to support it and gives funds to organize courses, but they lack resources so that the 500 people that this year signed up for the literacy classes can have an extra course.

The circle of not attending school seemed to break 2 years ago, when a reengineering was done to the educational system. A coordinator for the ministry of education worked very hard to build consciousness in the families and to reduce the absenteeism. “Now, 87% go on to the next grade and before it did not even get up to 70%.”

For them to get the parents to send their children to school, they had to get them all the school material needed because any cost was an impediment. Now, the fight has brought to fruition a middle school. “We managed to retain 25 girls with scholarships, but the money has come late; we need to keep going forward.”

This area is among the top priorities of the government and will be one of the first to receive school funds. The difficult situation of the communities motivate the leaders to ask for help insistently so that San Barlotome Jocotenango stops having the title of being the town with the most illiteracy and being among the poorest in the country.

Article by Gema Palencia, “Analfabetismo y Pobreza, La Barrera de la Educación” Prensa Libre, March 30, 2008

Thanks! and the Fair

2008-03-18T11:51:00.008-04:00

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who chipped in and got something for Charlie to bring down for me. I appreciated everything from the cards, jerky, and clothing, to the thermometers, books, electrical supplies, and especially the pumpkin pie (although it did get smashed quite a bit and thrown across the bus when it slammed on the brakes, it still tasted great!). I had such a fun time with Charlie. Just seeing and hearing him made it so that it was like I could hear and see all of you all back home.

If you want to hear details or see any of the pictures, you’ll have to get on Charlie’s case since he has all the pictures. There are some priceless ones, like of the one with us getting a little close to the lava roasting German wieners.

I posted a few pictures below of the fair that occurred in San Carlos and some shots I took of the sky.

This was a float in the parade through the city.
Here is another float with little knomes. The costumes just make me smile.
Another picture of the parade. I think I especially enjoy the clown costume in the background.Here another volunteer and I are getting ready for the rodeo which would be held. I had to make sure I sported my Wrangle shirt and leather hat.

Here is one of the games at the fair - fooseball tables.
The ferris wheel which I just did not have enough confidence to go on.
Some more games. In this one, you have to roll up marbles to accumulate a certain number a points to get a prize.
Picture of the full moon before the eclipse
Nearly completely eclipsed moon
Morning sky the day Charlie would arrive.