Integration... the long haul

Five months have passed since my last blog post, and of course the temptation to use a blog as a journal is powerful...
But the description of changes in temperature and weather, the litany of events this entire fall and winter season, and in particular the itinerary of the Roske family Christmas visit, would simply bore and drive off anyone actually reading this :)

So instead I want to focus on the fact that technically my time here in Guatemala should be ending with the month of March of this year. My training group of January 2009 has its Close of Service date set for March 26th, 2011. This doesn't mean everybody is forced to go home that day; Peace Corps, if you haven't noticed, is kinda into the whole lack of definition on certain points, so some people have already gone home, some people will leave between now and that day of such significance at the end of March, and some will find themselves hanging onto life here and in their hesitation taking a few more days or weeks to really finish everything up and head home.

And then there are those of us thinking about taking a few extra months to feel "finished up" with Guatemala - twelve months, to be precise. I didn't think it would happen this way. To be honest, I took from my last visit home in July a strong need to be home and partake in life in Minnesota for a while, 8 months or so from then. And here we are, seven of those months down, and I frankly feel some days like I make a better guatemalteca than I do American. Where did that resolve to go home to Minnesota, go?
Well it's not that i just got scared of readjustment, because frankly the call home is still quite hard to ignore, and I’d happily go home to family and friends in a heartbeat. The problem is, a pretty exciting work prospect came up, and seemed like it might make more sense than going home to a lackluster work economy... go home to start looking for a job like this, or stay here for it and save everyone a few plane tickets?

If all goes well, I could be working with a non-governmental organization that works towards environmental sustainability and fair trade practices in countries all over the world. I’d be working for forest conservation, and my daily activities could pertain to some or all of the following: environmental education (with school groups, with community groups, maybe with other industry players like carpenters, etc.), corporate environmental responsibility (marketing and promotion to businesses to reduce their carbon footprint through carbon credits), reforestation (tree nurseries, trainings on proper tree planting, seed collection, etc.), and probably a range of other activities. This environmental NGO is becoming somewhat well-known (ahem, for an environmental NGO…) around the world… maybe you’ve heard of Rainforest Alliance?

If that name’s not ringing a bell, start looking for the little green frog symbol on coffee, on chocolates, etc. That symbol means the production of that good met rather strict organic and fair-trade standards, and its rising popularity and demand is the only way those standards can have a real impact on the global market for those goods that are historically exploitative both in terms of ecology and in terms of labor. What happens when businesses ask for Rainforest Alliance certified products? In the global market, they begin to outcompete products that didn’t take environmental and human rights concerns into account. This is good, right?

But no one can touch topics like this in Totonicapán if they’re seen as a foreign, external influence on a proud, historic, and effectual indigenous community structure. This is the one thing I have… people here know me! They know I came to work in El Aprisco teaching their kids, or they’ve seen me around the 48 Cantones (Indigenous Mayors’ Assembly) events or meetings and know I have good intentions. I love this town… I hope that a regional stint with Rainforest Alliance doesn’t keep me from this pueblo and all the wonderful people in it… Mom, Dad, and siblings know, they met an inordinate amount of those individuals who have made life great for me here.

So I guess I'm one of those crazy ones that has integrated too much. "Integration"... a classic Peace Corps word that has come to take on whole new meanings to me in my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Integration is I guess what happens when a volunteer develops such an identity and a sense of community in their town (or "site", in Peace Corps terminology) that they don't want to leave when their two years of service are up. Integration is I guess donning
traje for special occasions (first, letting the women dress you... then, real integration is knowing how to put it on yourself, and what it means to put it on wrong, haha). Integration is people inviting you to birthday parties, weddings, baptisms, anniversaries, etc. Integration is not complaining when you have pan dulce with café (monotonous sweet bread rolls with sugared-down instant coffee-water) for the seventh night this week. Integration is the ambulatory cheese seller seeking you out, signifying of course that you have now become another steady buyer in his market. Integration is greeting young boys in town you know with their nickname and the secret handshake. Integration is the pick-up drivers who head out of town towards your work knowing you well enough to ask you if you want a ride when they drive by, instead of vice versa. Integration is not really knowing the nearby big city full of gringos very well, because that's not where nor with whom you spend your free time. In short, integration is having gotten so used to a lifestyle...

...that maybe the one you had before gets a little forgotten.