Visits to the Villages

Last week we completed our delivery of the coffee dis-pulping machines, taking two full days to load up the machines (they are by no means compact), and all eight of us (myself, my counterpart Marvin and the six promoters who work on behalf of SID; Chepe, Efrain, Diego, Samuel, Miguel and Emeliano) in the villages into one small pickup truck. Luckily, I was graciously given a seat in the cab with Marvin, whereas all six promoters and up to four coffee dis-pulpers at a time were stuffed into the truck bed. Although the farthest village was only about 15 km away, it took up to two hours to get to each one, because of the awful condition of the roads; there were certain stretches of trails that were hardly passable on foot, let alone in a vehicle. This really made me think about the accessibility of the far reaching communities from the town center and logically, the availability, or lack thereof, of transportation to and from each one, which directly restricts the flow of information, goods and, most importantly, opportunity. But I digress.

Arriving in one community Wednesday morning, we were greeted by several members of the board of the local organization of coffee growers (and soon to be coffee processors). One of them, to whose house we had arrived, welcomed me to town and quickly started conversing with Marvin in Kaqchikel. When he finished, Marvin turned to me and told me in Spanish what the man had requested. Apparently he had received some boxes that had arrived labeled in English that he needed my assistance in translating. Feeling very excited at the opportunity to actually apply tangible skills, I agreed and allowed him to lead me into his house so I could tackle the challenge.

Once inside his house, he held up what looked like an inhaler, accompanied by a package of pills with a matching label. He handed me the instructions and explained that he didn’t know what they said and therefore could not sell it, because he didn’t know what it could cure. I was unsure what he meant at first, but when I looked around, I saw that he had at least 5 large boxes full of these inhalers and other types of prescription drugs that he had just received from the states. There must have been about 15 different types of drugs in those boxes. And now, the only obstacle between him and the profit was an application for the product.

As you can imagine, I was a little overwhelmed when he continued to place various bottles, boxes and even capsules in my hand to have me translate their purposes and uses. Not knowing what to do, I ended up calling the Peace Corps nurses, who suggested that I play dumb and politely point out that the medications were past their expiration dates, which they all were. In the end, I told him that since I was a marketing volunteer and did not recognize any of the medicine he had, I was not qualified to prescribe it for their respective ailments. Although he was visibly disappointed, he understood and we were fortunately able to move on to the coffee training smoothly.

Aside from visiting the communities to deliver the dis-pulpers, I’ve also begun visiting villages on my own to start to assess the situation of various community organizations. I have two such organizations with which I’m planning to share my time, one which is just starting out (¨just born¨ as they call themselves) and another that is already pretty well established in a village about 5 km away from the first. I visited the first yesterday, and while there we visited various coffee plots, while strolling around the village and intermittently snacking on oranges and breadfruit we picked along the way. Today I visited the second and was greeted by several members of the board along with the coordinator. Although I was initially excited about all the potential work to be done, I was put to work typing up a survey that had been done of the village’s primary school, which wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting. I have to start somewhere I guess.

This weekend, we have our Christmas party for SID. The partner office about two hours away (which also has a marketing volunteer) has arranged for a day of festivities, feasting and dancing – they rented out a dance hall for the night. This being my first official company Christmas party, it promises to be pretty exciting. While I pictured it going a little differently, perhaps with cheesy mistletoe, fake snow and a poorly dressed Santa Claus for starters, a few dozen Guatemalan men with a taste for homemade liquor, a roasted pig and hours of dancing definitely doesn’t sound too boring. I’ll report back.

Until next time..

Back from Thanksgiving, On with Work..

So, I’ve decided it’s a good idea to maintain this blog for several reasons, (maintaining some semblance of English, transmitting my experiences to others, the list goes on..), but most importantly it reminds me to keep track of time and date. Over the past few months I’ve made the transition from the U.S. to Guatemala, arriving only to relocate within mere days. Once I finally started to get comfortable in my training community, after three short months I had to move again. Now in my third, and if all goes according to plan, final site, I’ve completely lost all track of the seasons, holidays, and even days of the week for that matter. I think this may have something to do with losing touch with the things that used to punctuate my daily schedule in the U.S.; visits with friends, regular doctor’s appointments and marathons of No Reservations on the Travel Channel to name a few. So, keeping this in mind, it felt like Thanksgiving snuck up on me, because I hadn’t really looked at a calendar in a while, but I must say, it was a welcome surprise.

I had arranged to meet a group of friends from my training class at Lake Atitlan, a volcanic crater now filled with water and flanked by the 5 or 6 volcanoes responsible for its creation. The shores of the lake, which measures 8 miles in diameter at its widest spot, are peppered with quaint towns each boasting a different unique population. Panajachel, the biggest city on the lake, is known as a tourist destination, thus its Guatemalan nickname “Gringo-tenango,” or, place of white foreigners. San Pedro la Laguna, the second largest town on the lake, is home to a sizeable hippie community, but is off limits to all Peace Corps volunteers, for some reason or another.

One of these towns, Santa Cruz la Laguna, had a number of small hostels right off the dock where we were able to get cheap rooms and a Thanksgiving meal, complete with turkey (my friends said it wasn’t bad), stuffing and, I kid you not, cranberry sauce. After a great Thanksgiving dinner, we got to enjoy each other’s company, Kayak, boat around the lake and explore Panajachel a little more. Having never heard of Lake Atitlan before arriving in Guatemala, I was amazed at how much I had been missing.

Having just arrived back in site, we’ve gotten into the thick of things with the coffee season right around the corner. Today we began to deliver artisan machines that remove the flesh of the coffee bean to initiate its processing. As I learn the process better, I hope to share it here; although I’ve only been here for a few short weeks I already have a newfound appreciation for the coffee I drink.

Aside from work at the moment I’m in a very intensive process of decorating my new house with Christmas adornments and drowning out the barking dogs and marimba music in the neighborhood with Bing Crosby and the Love Actually Soundtrack. Although I lost track of time before Thanksgiving, I’ll be sure to be good and ready when Christmas gets here!

Until next time…

 

 

 

 

A slow start..

As of last week, I officially started work with my host country agency, Estrategias para el Desarrollo Internacional (Strategies for International Development), an NGO based out of Washington that deals specifically with coffee farmers in impoverished areas of the world. As for what these ¨Strategies¨ are, I´m still not quite sure. I´ve been following around my counterpart for the better part of three weeks now, trying to learn anything and everything I can in order to get a better grasp on what´s going on here. In the absence of intensive work, which I´m told will come once the coffee harvest gets going, I´ve been taking Kaqchikel classes, spending time with my host family and looking for familiar cues that tell me its ok to commence Christmas preparation. (Of which I´ve found plenty, and thus launched full force into Holiday season)

This past weekend I got the opportunity to attend a Guatemalan wedding in the department of El Quiche, which borders my municipality, but lies about two hours away by conventional travel methods, i.e. chicken bus. The man getting married was a friend of my host sister from her studies in Wisconsin. We were accompanied not only by several other alumni of the program, but also by her host parents from Wisconsin who recently relocated to a nearby village in Chimaltenango (my home department). We rode the bus up to the capital city of the department Santa Cruz del Quiche and then took a jalon (standing up in the back of a pickup with five to ten others) to his town about twenty minutes away. Once we arrived we were ushered in and welcomed with soup and coffee while a church service was taking place in the backyard. The actual wedding service began later that evening, to which we walked en masse from the house.

Obviously I noticed several differences between their traditional wedding and the standard American wedding, but there were several in particular that I wanted to share. Before walking to the church, the bride and groom prepared together, each one smoothing the other´s creases and picking pieces of stray fabric or lint off each other. The bride wore a similar veil and tiara of sorts, with a white beaded guipil (traditional shirt worn by indigenous women) and a traditional corte (long, belted skirt). The cue to depart from the house was a preset series of bells sounded from the town square, and once we arrived at the church in our group of around seventy five, we weren´t to enter the church until the last chime of the series was heard. The music once we huddled into the sanctuary was provided by a local band playing religious marimba music, which I’ve found take the place of hymns in all church services. After the groom and his best man took their place at the altar, the bride timidly strode down the aisle to this music and was met in the middle of the aisle by the groom who took her hand from both parents.

The service proceeded like any other regular mass, with the Father talking about the eternal kingdom, the past liturgical year in the church and the importance of tithing. The actual wedding took up a mere ten minutes of the actual service, neatly inserted between the sermon and the offering. Meanwhile, the bride, groom, best man and made of honor in enjoyed it from front row seats.

Once we got back to the house, the bride and groom stood in front of a table to receive gifts from a long line of family and friends, after which the groom delivered a speech to the crowd in Quiche (the local Mayan dialect), Spanish and English. After a light supper we got a chance to talk to the groom more during which he shared the story of how he had met his wife after returning from the states and how he was required to ask for her hand in marriage through a series of visits with her parents. Apparently he only had to ask once, whereas the typical series of requests is between two and four visits, where the suitor is subjected to interrogation on qualifications as a spouse, financial standings, and future plans by parents and family members. (Not to mention he´s expected to bring gifts every time).

After the low key reception, we spent the night in the capital city of Quiche where the groom had arranged a room for us and then headed back to Chimaltenango. Since getting back, I´ve been listening to Christmas music, daydreaming about stuffing (with Thanksgiving only a few days away) and watching Christmas movies in Spanish (I recommend Elf). I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and hope to be in touch!

Until next time..

A few minor adjustments..

This first week and a half in site has been pretty calm and uneventful, although that’s not to say it’s not noisy. I’ve found that the noise principle is taken to new heights in my new site, if it were even possible. For example, some loud noises that would normally scare us, being the hyper-conscious, terrorist fearing Americans that we are, such as [questionably] personal fireworks, are set off at the beginning, middle and end of every mass at the Catholic Church I attended on Sunday. They hold three services every day.

Aside from acclimating to the noise, I’ve also found that my entire town has a very distinct smell; Corn. The shrimp sequence from Forrest Gump comes to mind: corn being harvested, sun drying corn, roasting corn, corn being milled into mash, corn being boiled, corn being grilled, mash being made into tortillas (black, white and yellow varieties each have a distinct smell), even corn cobs being burned to fuel the fires over which the majority of people cook in their kitchens.

Running through the town several times a week has not only allowed me to classify each of the distinct corn smells, it’s also allowed me to get to know the gente (people) better. Most of the time I don’t realize I’m stocking up on future conversations when I run, because I’m used to zoning out when I run in order to pass the time, and like I said before, decompress. But here, I have to stay alert: I must never be too out of breath to offer a “Buenos días” to anyone I pass. No exceptions.

Regardless if I see someone on my path or not, they usually know if I ran that day, which is to be expected in any close-knit small town. Monday, I walked into Kaqchikel class around 8:30 after an early morning run and my teacher greeted me with “Good morning! My brother saw you running this morning.”

Along the same gossip lines, my Kaqchikel class whispers to me that my host mother’s husband is her second, and my host mother whispers to me that my Kaqchikel teacher is a single mother and no one knows who the father is, with a cautionary finger to her mouth. Somehow I’ve already been drawn in to the vicious gossip circle, solely by being conspicuously white. But now I’m the first one doing the math when I see a recently wed couple with a newborn. From what I gather, shotgun weddings are quite common.

Until next time..

After a short few days in site

After having a wonderful swearing -in ceremony at the Ambassador’s house and a fun filled night of celebration, I write to you now from my new site! I had a somber goodbye with my host family from Alotenango, and took a bus from there to Chimaltenango where I caught the direct bus to my site. In all, the journey was about 2 ½ hours. I arrived to meet the volunteer whom I will be replacing and almost immediately moved in with my new host family. While the living conditions are not that much different from my previous host family, the family speaks about 75% Kaqchikel (which I have yet to learn how to pronounce correctly). The family has six children ranging in age from 12 to 31, and a limitless stream of cousins, aunts and uncles coming through the house at all hours of the day. In the short few days I’ve been here, I’ve already been reeled in to playing many a game of soccer, Scrabble (yes, that’s right, scrabble) and a Guatemalan version of Sorry. But despite the lack of quiet time, the family is quite accommodating and extremely gracious. I’ve already begun to get comfortable.

After arriving in my permanent site, one thing I’ve noticed that does not differ from town to town is a Guatemalan’s apparent entitlement to make noise, regardless of time, place or appropriateness. After observing for about three months, it is my solemn belief that from an early age, it is ingrained in a Guatemalans that it is his inherent right to blast music, maintain roosters in small quarters or emit whatever possible racket he may feel the impulse to make or foster. That said, I have not gotten too much peace in site as of yet, but I’ve been able to run which allows me to decompress a little.

Tomorrow I will begin classes of Kaqchikel, so I can understand what the women are saying around the stove (which is, by the way, where we eat dinner after we make all the tortillas). I have yet to master the art of tortear (Spanish, for ‘to make tortillas’ ), but I’m in no hurry to do so, because I’m still using this as an excuse when someone suggests I go on a date with their son/brother/cousin, etc. My normal line is “Oh, but Señora, you know I’m no good at making tortillas, no Guatemalan would ever take me!” with which they never argue.

Until next time..

Swearing In

On Friday morning, I walked briskly to the bus with Colin, Miguel and Paula (his host parents) to make it to Antigua on time, because we had been told by Peace Corps that it was of vital importance to arrive on time. Once in Antigua, we met with Jaime, who had just gotten off work at 7:30 AM, and all got onto a bus that was waiting for us to take us to the Ambassador’s house in Guatemala City. Arriving in Guate, was an adventure as always, keeping in mind stories like one of the PC nurses having her watch stolen off her wrist when she had her arm out the window during rush hour, especially in such a large group.

We pulled up to an relatively unmarked white wall in the middle of the capital and it wasn’t until I got off the bus and inspected my surroundings that I noticed the small plaque bearing the seal of the US government. We were greeted by the training director and the Guatemala country director among other staff and made to enter the compound in single file, through a narrow door that wouldn’t permit more than one at a time anyway. Upon entering the beautiful front lawn, we were greeted in the entrance by the rest of the PCGuatemala staff and the ambassador and his wife themselves. They alone led us through their home to the back lawn (also gorgeous) where chairs and tents for the ceremony had been set up.

After taking countless pictures and exploring the massive back yard (with swimming pool, tennis court and an expansive lawn) we began the ceremony. In front of the Ambassador and his wife, our host families and the PC Guatemala staff, we each took the oath required of all government employees (which my mom remembered she’d had to take upon entrance into West Point) and were called up one by one to receive diplomas verifying completion of training. All in all it was a very emotional culmination of these past three months of training and, most importantly they had real cookies and brownies as a snack afterward.

I have to say that the coolest part of the ceremony was unplanned. The wind was particularly fierce in the capital that day, even inside the ambassador’s immaculate complex. About ten minutes into the ceremony, after having been thanked for his warm welcome, Ambassador McFarlan whispered into the country director’s ear. He stood up, and said in Spanish, “Speaking of a warm welcome, does anyone need a jacket or sweater? Some of you must be freezing.” There was a little hesitation, and several people looked to their neighbor as if to ask each other if his offer was sincere, and then about three hands went into the air. After about three minutes, he returned with several jackets and sweaters (my favorite, a particularly feminine indigenous from his service in Paraguay, he gave to our elected trainee speaker, who kept it on for the remainder of the morning) handing them out to anyone who looked cold. That little touch of hospitality took the formality of the ceremony down a notch, but it was awesome to see someone with such a prestigious position who was so considerate and down to earth.

Until next time..