Primer mes en mi sitío

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

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

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

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

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

Men and Women both get menopause right?

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

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

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

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

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


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

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