Monday, October 27, 2008

Last week of training!

With training coming to a close in less than a week, I’ve become rather restless. (To be exact, training will culminate in a brief swearing-in ceremony this coming Friday at the Ambassador’s house in Guatemala City). The past few weeks have flown by, leaving little time to socialize with my host family and community in between site visits and additional training sessions. In about a week I’ll have to leave the town and the family that have been my home for the last two and a half months.

Amidst the anxiety of this transition, we’ve also had several unique opportunities, such as lunch with the Ambassador to Guatemala at the training center as well as a brief introduction to Kaqchikel, the prevalent Mayan dialect in my new site.

Six out of my group of thirty are headed to heavily Kaqchikel sites, so I fortunately did not have to brave it alone. Although, the absence of some of my peers might have encouraged better pronunciation, keeping in mind the guttural nature of most of the words. True story: one of my friends accidentally burped during class that day and her teacher thought she was actually speaking Mam, another Mayan dialect.

We were lucky enough to have a well known bi-lingual education advocate who also happens to be a Mayan priestess for our short lesson. As you might have guessed, the first try was a little rough. But, see if you can pronounce a word spelled with apparently arbitrary vowels and apostrophe marks formed from an alphabet of thirty letters. Here’s a quick example; our first phrase to learn was “xkaq’ij’ka.” (good afternoon, in case you were wondering). So, as you can see, there’s a reason this language had never been written down. But, as our professor assures us, “It’s easy! Especially compared to that crazy English of yours.”

I'll be an offical volunteer the next time you hear from me!
Until then..

Monday, October 20, 2008

Velorio and Cepelio

I’ve just gotten back from a very eventful week at my permanent site, where I will install myself the morning of Novemebr 5th, following the long awaited election. Before leaving for site I had two days with my future counterpart, Marvin at the training center along with all the other volunteers and their counterparts. Marvin is twenty four and runs the SID office in my site, while simultaneously finishing his thesis to graduate from a university in the capital. He’s going to be very interesting to work with, no doubt. He was nice enough to drive down from Chimaltenango so I could move my things to site without having to brave the chicken bus with all my worldly belongings.

Once we arrived I was met by the volunteer who I’ll be replacing, who graciously showed me around town, introducing me to several of her friends in the area, all of which first asked her if I could speak Spanish and, when I answered yes, asked me if I spoke K’akchiquel. So, although Spanish is the official language, it looks as though I’m going to have to start taking K’akchiquel lessons to relate on a more personal level with the residents of my town.

After arriving on Tuesday, I attended a day long meeting at the office (where we normally only spend one day a week, with the other four in the field) and was introduced to all the Promoters who work for SID in their various communities surrounding the municipal center. My office is all men, which I think will be a blessing in disguise. My predecessor is also a woman, and always enjoyed her job and her work environment.

After meeting with some friends in Tecpan, the closest city, I returned home to a very sad occasion. While I was away, the abuelita in my house, Aura's grandmother, passed away. She passed away on Friday night around 11PM and by Saturday morning when I walked up, the entire street in front of my house was canvassed with plastic chairs and tables, ready to receive visitors. The entire house had been taken over by the velorio, or the nine day mourning ceremony. For these next nine days, various events will take place in my house to honor her. So, from yesterday morning to next Sunday, people will continue to stop by at all hours, day and night, to pay their respects. Meanwhile, according to velorio tradition, my family offers them food and snacks every few hours for the entire nine days, not to mention a never ending supply of coffee to keep them awake. So, for these next nine days hopefully I can offer some kind of help.

Today we’ll be walking the entire distance from the house to the church (almost a mile) in a group of over 300, preceded by a banner and flowers and followed by a 5 person band playing hymns. After the church service we will proceed uphill to the cemetery to complete the cepelio, the day long procession surrounding the funeral. It will be a very solemn time for sure, but it really is a wonderful send-off.

Until next time..

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Site Assignment

At last, I’ve been given my permanent site! And, although it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, it’s pretty close. I’m going to be stationed in one of the four sites in Chimaltenango(the closest department to my current location), as I mentioned before, each of which are 30 minutes – 1 ½ hours away from each other. My site is a town of 22,000 people that lies 20 minutes north of the commercial center of Tecpán, Chimaltenango.

As for my assignment, I’ll be working in the office of an NGO called Strategies for International Development, dealing specifically with the advancement of the local coffee market.

So, to get you up to speed, here’s my thirty second summary on the coffee market down here: Coffee farmers are very proud to produce such a fine, world renowned product (Guatemalan coffee is ranked third in quality worldwide). The trade is often kept in the family and passed down with the land for generations. The farmers harvest their coffee crops, that is, what’s left of what thieves have stolen, and generally sell to a middle man, either a coyote(basically any guy with a phone and pickup truck) or a beneficiary(an organization of glorified coyotes with a fancy name). These middlemen severely undercut the market price of coffee when they purchase from the small scale farmers and then go on to sell it to a large exporter in huge quantities. Although the coyotes and beneficiaries are paying very little, the system is rather stable and farmers generally have friendly relationships with them. Most farmers lack information sources and current data and thus, very easily trust the word of their middleman. So, you can see the issue. There is an extreme discrepancy in the value of what farmers are producing and the compensation they're receiving, mostly being scammed by their own countrymen. Not to mention the fact that coffee is in such high demand that none of the good stuff stays here - a typical coffee farming family won't even consume their own product.

Once I begin work, I will be assisting them in forming a cooperative, a very crucial step for coffee farmers down here. One of the major obstacles will be fighting the image of corruption in groups and getting the farmers in the organizations to begin to trust each other. Forming a coop is the only way to win legitimacy and pull in the market down here, and I'm guessing that will be my main task for at least the first year.

Additionally, I'll have the opportunity to work with various women's groups and a group of pomegranate farmers. So, as it turns out, this really is a job, not just a paid vacation with complimentary spanish classes. More to come after my site visit next week!

Until next time..

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

I'm freakin out, MAN!

I've had about six cups of coffee today and I don't anticipate being able to sleep tonight, so I’m trying to find anything and everything productive I can do. Currently I’m catching up on several weeks’ worth of news in Antigua; apparently there's a financial crisis snowballing out of control? This is news to me.

Amidst all this tension surrounding the site assignments, my fellow trainees and I have been looking for escape mechanisms left and right. As opposed to integrating ourselves completely, several of us have reached a point where the commercial and trivial things that have come to characterize the states have become comforting, to the point that they offer a temporary refuge from the immersion with which we are faced.

For example, on Sunday, some Marketing friends and I got together, and before long, I found myself sitting around a bonfire, holding a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, eating mashed potatoes and salad, while listening to country music on someone’s iPod speakers. I can’t put into words how therapeutic that was. Now, with less than 24 hours until the announcement of our permanent sites, I really have nothing more fitting to say at the moment than, I'm freakin’ OUT.

Expect to hear from me tomorrow concerning my site!
Until next time..

PCV Site Visit

 

 

 

 
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Volunteer Site Visit

I’ve just returned from my PC Volunteer Site visit, for which I traveled to a site not far from my home department, near the city of Chimaltenango, or as a friend calls it, “Dirt-mal-tenango.” (“Tenango” is a Guatemalan suffix that means, “place of”) Needless to say, the city itself is not particularly scenic. Just a fin little tid-bit; I’ve also heard the title “Gringo-tenango” thrown around to describe several tourist hubs and most recently a friend of mine told me of his plans to found “Deffet-tenango,” in honor of himself.

Anyway, from the city of Chimaltenango, a fellow marketing trainee, Barbara, and I traveled to a smaller town about 45 minutes away by chicken bus to visit a volunteer stationed there. Mackenzie, the volunteer, received us upon arrival and showed us around the town a little before we settled in for the evening to cook a leisurely dinner and enjoy a pirated movie on her laptop. We even had popcorn, talk about luxury…

The following day we accompanied her to the office of her host country agency, Strategies for International Development, or SID, which works with community leaders in the area to develop the sales and promotion of coffee, among other crops. There we observed a meeting held among her two counterparts and various promoters employed by the agency which offered us a peek into the inner workings of the Guatemalan business culture. The meeting, like most meetings regardless of size or intimacy of attendees, began with a one to two minute introduction from each person present, give or take a few minutes depending on their seniority in the group. Throughout the meeting, it seemed as though the same message was often repeated countless times, only blatantly rephrased and stated slower to reiterate certain points. Being very American, thus time and efficiency oriented, it was a little tough to endure.

After the meeting and a lunch, where a sizeable bottle of rum was shared among the attendees (not including the three of us), we traveled to a nearby aldea, or small village, where we met with a women’s group also associated with SID, to make jam. Now, at this point I’ve only been at the jam business for a few weeks, thus my routine is a little spotty and my proportions are never consistent (I assure you, this jam thing is a very complicated science). But these women looked at us as if we were holding the key to the Smuckers family recipe vault. In two short months, I’ve found myself in this position multiple times, and the scary thing is, it gets remarkably easy to repeatedly feign wisdom.

After the first session with the women’s group, we worked up the courage to go back without our volunteer guide, and it went just as well the second time. After finishing with the women’s group, we returned to the town and attempted to visit Chimaltenango (the department's capital) to fill some down time, but got horribly lost by boarding the wrong chicken bus, which was headed to a different, far-out aldea. With painfully full bladders riding on what promised to be a consistently rocky road for at least two more hours, Barbara and I were saved by the ayudante of the bus, when he arranged a ride back to the town for us with a friendly pickup driver. Lesson learned; always ask where the bus is headed. We returned home to Mackenzie's house, humbled.

The visit was a great peek into the life of a volunteer, and I’ll be able to give more information on my own site when I get it this Wednesday, October 9th.

Until next time..