What exactly is she doing in Guatemala, anyway?

Well, “‘The time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to talk of many things.’” (Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland, seemingly appropriate since in the books she explores the other worlds down the rabbit hole and on the other side of the looking glass…) It’s been almost four weeks of my Peace Corps training in Guatemala, and I suppose now that I myself have a more thorough grasp of why I’m here and what the heck I’m doing, so should readers of this blog. (: My assignment here in Guatemala is Sustainable Community Tourism – a program whole titles over the last few years have evolved through environmental education and ecotourism themes. Hence, my current job description is something like ‘community development worker doing environmental education and community-based/environmental tourism projects to build sustainable incomes and long-term self-determination.’ What does that mean?

For now, it means I’ve actually been assigned a cultural tourism project for these three months of community-based training. Essentially, the very Mayan pueblo in which I live for these three months has enourmous potential to generate sustainable incomes via cultural tourism, especially thanks to its proximity to one of Guatemala’s main tourist hubs. The indigenous weavings here are quite possibly the finest, most detailed and ornate textiles in Guatemala, and the Kaqchikel Mayan culture is still very much alive and well. Kaqchikel is still spoken, traditional meals are still cooked in the old way, and nearly all women still wear the traditional traje (the woven wrap-skirt corte and the huipíl blouse embroidered with the town’s specific design). The pictures below of my host family members weaving depict the set-up and process of these hand-woven beauties.

But for various reasons, this town has so far failed to capitalize on its cultural (and other) assets, and sales of these expensive and time-consuming textiles is real low, leaving lots of women with low levels of education and busy home-lives without income, nor heretofore thought-of options to pursue other ways of earning one.

Cue doe-eyed, novice Peace Corps Trainees.

There are four of us living in this community, and our task during this experiential “crash-course” training in community development is to collect and organize the community’s ideas and momentum into a honed plan for them to then, through the work of a women’s cooperative and the support of the local Municipal government, achieve those dreams. So far that has meant meetings, and quite a learning curve for the four of us! It’s pretty intimidating, a week after arriving in the country, to be charged with leading a Community Diagnostic Meeting (read Public Scoping Meeting or Focus Group Discussion, with some 35 Mayan women and a few Muni government staff). YIKES! But, really , the feeling of accomplishment afterwards is undeniable – and since then our subsequent meetings have likewise been illuminating, and while not always going perfectly smoothly, are teaching both us and our community LOTS about each other, and establishing the foundations of a relationship of trust between us. Not to say there haven’t been plenty of times when we’ve felt totally lost and frustrated, having no idea how to proceed with the task given to us. But I’ve learned that Peace Corps-brand projects only acquire clarity and momentum when one chooses to work at making them clear and energized. There have definitely been “light bulb” moments, and revel in the little victories we do!

Other than this community development project, my time is also devoted to twice-weekly classes at Peace Corps/Guatemala HQ (on medical, cultural, and technical training topics), and daily in-community Spanish and culture lessons with our professor Jorge. Then there’s learning to make the small, thick corn tortillas here (again, see photos!), learning to hand-weave in the traditional way, helping and learning to make traditional Mayan meals, telling and listening to stories with my host family, laughing and being laughed at (so I make mistakes – don’t worry, I’m laughing too, once somebody explains). I’ve met lots of extended family members, I’ve helped with the coffee harvest, I’ve learned the chicken bus system, I’ve bartered my fare with the tuk-tuk drivers (motorized rickshaws which are pretty much riding lawn mowers with a canopy in back), I’ve hiked up a volcano, I’ve directed groups of little Mayan women in funny ice-breaker activities, and felt like they got something out of it thanks to our discussions afterwards. All in all life is amazing here in the Land of Eternal Spring. Thanks for reading!

Silly grin caused by having finally got the hang of the art of tortear - tortilla-ing. :)

Host Mother Doña Irma at left, host sister-in-law Graciela facing camera, host sister Lilian with back to camera.

Photos!

Some pictures!! First, a nice shot from the airplane of what Guatemala looks like: mountains and cerros everywhere, tons of little rivers springing forth, and everthing a lush verdant hue.

Here we are, fresh out of the airport in the capital, about to embark on our first bus ride experience in Guatemala. But not really, because this bus was chartered specially for us from the airport to PC Headquarters - therefore, we were about 25 people (plus a handful of babies, a money-collector, interesting smells, loud music, and a partridge in a pear tree) short of the so-called "chicken bus" experience.

I am pictured here with my first host family, with whom I stayed for 3 days with the two other Trainees pictured here. Consuelo, our host-mom, is the one wearing the pink shirt, and Jarol is her 5-year-old sitting on Maria´s lap. They were a great first host family!

This is my friend and co-trainee Jaime getting dropped off on our irst day with Community-based Training host families. These are the families we´re staying for our 3 months of training, so obviously we all wanted to make a good first impression, and were praying our Spanish would be good enough. I included this picture because I think his face says it all, as his host brother has just barely opened the door...

And next after Jaime it was my turn. After the hubbub of meeting all my family members and getting a brief tour of the place, I snapped a few quick photos to show Mom: my room is ENORMOUS!! my bed takes up maybe 1/20th of it.

...and the ceiling is completely adorned as you see here, with the family altar/devotion space complete with religious mural behind. I was floored by the realization that these were my lodgings for the next three months!

Church music, bedbugs, and technology failures

My Peace Corps Training Director (who is from Minnesota, by the way - woop woop) gave us three warnings about life in Guatemala on our first day in the country, three major annoyances we were likely to run into within the first day. His list was the following:
-dogs
-roosters
-fireworks

Every day and night there are street dogs barking and living out their feral lives, and the theory that roosters only crow at the break of dawn - "a complete myth," in the words of my Training Director. And fireworks are likely to be exploding at about 5 am if it's anyone's birthday, if it's a religious holiday, if it's a national holiday... or even just if the sun's going to rise today. You get the idea.

However, I would like to submit church music, bedbugs, and technology failures as candidates to be added to that list of hurdles to overcome. I´m sure there will be many more, but there are already some stories behind these three new submissions...

The little pueblo I moved to last weekend is very Mayan. Most women still wear the traditional hand-woven skirts and embroidered blouses, and most people speak or at least know a bit of the local Mayan dialect Kakchiquel. However, they are also very devoutly religious, either Catholic or Evangelical (which is anything Christian other than Catholic). Hence, people go to church a lot, often early in the morning, so the churches blast orchestral music at 5:00 in the morning to wake up the faithful, who then go attend mass. Oy. But I'm learning to sleep through it. :)

Actually, that first weekend I put in a lot of time with God - I think I'm good for the next month or so. We did indeed go to mass at 5:30 Sunday morning, but I was unaware of the uniform of the traditional skirt and a head-covering for all the women. I guess I already stood out as a big tall white person... Later that day my entire extended host family (including aunts, uncle, cousin, grandparents) crammed in a small van and were driven about an hour away to a different church where masses are said for the sick: my host father's father has tumor, and there is no money for tests or treatments or hospital stays, so instead they are relying on prayer and herbal remedies. Although my host family is devoutly Catholic and I was told we were in a Catholic church, there was no priest and there was a lot of speech-making from congregation members going up to the podium. The big salsa band would play a few numbers between speeches, and occasionally there were periods of free-speech worship where everyone would praise and sway all at once. At one point they asked the sick man (my host-grandfather) and his family to come kneel in front, and the congregation crowded around and were wailing and praying, even speaking in tongues. All in all, this process lasted three hours and was on one hand fascinating. I felt like I had quite an opportunity to learn about a different worldview, and partake in a pretty unique experience. On the other hand, it´s hard not to feel fatalistic when the family of a man with cancer swears by dandelion tea and the prayers of the faithful to cure him. Guatemalans are tenacious people.

Anyway, on to my second submission to the list of Guatemala downers: yes, I had bedbugs. Or fleas - we haven´t really decided what the bites actually are from, but they seem to have originated from my bed. In any case, my fellow Peace Corps Trainees were certainly giving me a wide berth for about a week, and as all my clothes and bedding were in a continual stage of being washed and then taking at least a day to dry, I found myself suddenly shy on blankets and blouses... shoot. But never fear: plastic-wrapping my bed, Raid-ing my room, slathering myself in hydrocortisone cream and bug lotion thrice daily, and consuming certain vitamins to make my blood less yummy to the buggies, I swiftly had this nasty little hygiene problem taken care of.

Lastly, a downer with a light at the end of the tunnel. I bought a cell phone about a week ago, being the only option I had to call home (as there is no international call center here in my pueblo). Lo and behold, I get it home, charge it for six hours, and it didn´t work. A brand new cell phone!! But this too was a relatively easily resolved issue - wasn't nearly as complicated as my Spanish professor suspected. He doubted that the tienda in Antigua where I bought it would be able to replace it or fix it, since the model came from the distribuidor in Guatemala City, but thank goodness they saw the rationale in replacing a brand new phone that has never been turned on and never used, without having me pay extra. (I mean, that does make perfect sense...)

So, there's my list. And the stories that go with them. This post is a bit delayed, and a bit lacking on photos, but I'm working on it. Here's one: it's actually from my second day in the country, when I was staying in the same town as the PC HQ. Not there anymore, but.. it's still a pretty picture. :) Hope you all are well, and happy.

Sunset over one of the volcanoes from the Peace Corps HQ office outside Antigua. It's a pretty beautiful spot, huh?