More changes are on the way as the rainy season takes full force here in the altiplano of Guatemala. After a wonderful visit home to Minnesota I returned to the the land of mountains and brilliant weavings a little more homesick than before and with a big decision to make... where to move. As in, I had decided that for various reasons (most work or transport-related, some space and tact-related) it would be better to find a place to live down in the actual town of Totonicapán instead of in my little aldea up the mountain. Seems abrupt, I know... but as of March I had made up my mind and had also received the suggestion from my Peace Corps higher-ups, that I look for a place to live in the pueblo.
Let me pull out a favorite Minnesotan expression here: Uffda! Looking for a place in Toto is NOT easy, and everything is way more expensive than it really should be... land, house, and rent values are higher in Toto than they are in the much bigger and more cosmopolitan Xela, some attributing this fact to Toto's riduculous population density and land demand, and others to the high percentage of Toto youth being in or having been in the states for years making bank and therefore being able to pay those exorbitant prices.
Point is, I searched and I searched, and it took me until just before my trip home to find something I liked, with someone I liked, at a price I liked. Confusingly enough the proprietor's name is Doña Emiliana (just like my previous host-mom). She is a sweet little old lady who now lives by herself most of the time when her married daughter isn't visiting, occupies herself with beautiful embroidery and seamstress work on huipiles and cortes, has a few missing teeth which show with how much she smiles, and jumped at the chance to rent me the room for half the price everyone else was offering me.
Informing my neighbors in the village wasn't easy... mostly I just didn't do it. I told the people who would notice and be a little miffed not having been told, but as I don't live on the main drag in the aldea most people just see me coming to or going from work in the park, which won't change at all. The conversation was had with Arnulfo and Emiliana, my previous host-parents, long ago when I was in the searching phase. But telling my host-siblings was something I put off and put off, not wanting to have them feeling sad or guilty about it. Tonight for my last evening there we will FINALLY make lasagna together, something we've been talking about since I arrived a year and four months ago. Hard to believe that so much time has passed with this family! Their company, guidance, companionship, humor, and acceptance will always be the framework of my memories of Guatemala.
But sometimes change is good. I'm excited to jump in a little more to some aspects of my work without the logistical inhibitions of transport, lack of internet, lack of presence at the office, etc. There's a new compañero at work too, who it turns out will almost be my neighbor, as his house is closeby where I move in tomorrow - he drives, and has been driving the El Aprisco vehicle with my boss Vicky these last few weeks, so someone to share rides with!! No more pickups in the rain! Sometimes I wonder if the inconveniences were really that big a deal. After all this is Peace Corps. But being so close to a big down with connections and resources that could make me a more effective Peace Corps Volunteer, and just preferring to make excuses out of the reluctance to move and start over someplace new, seemed like a poor excuse. Life requires a little courage sometimes, you know?
05 August, 2010
07 April, 2010
Speaking of Easter
It all started with an invite to the beach. Having never been to Guatemala's coast yet, except sticking one toe in on the eastern coast in Puerto Barrios, which is a port and not beach, I was keen to accept this year's Semana Santa (Holy Week) invitation. Guatemala is famous for beaches! What was I waiting for, right? Only one year left here to see all that I haven't seen yet...
So I asked my boss Vicky's permission to go with Luis and his family to spend five days at Monterrico - beaches of black sand and hot, muggy weather - provided I'd be back in El Aprisco for the busiest, craziest days of Semana Santa when the park has the highest number of visitors of the entire year: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Those are hard days to handle in the park for the ridiculous number of Guatemalans who arrive wanting to picnic or barbeque with their families, play soccer, whatever - and when all the El Aprisco staff also wants to be on holiday! My presence there was going to help out the solitary park guard quite a lot.
We left for Monterrico on a Friday morning. And we proceeded to spend the next five days enjoying the sun and the water, and for me it was wonderful to take a break from both El Aprisco and Peace Corps responsibilities. And I managed to not sunburn myself! (mostly)
On Wednesday morning of Holy Week Luis and family piled into two SUVs for the drive out to Xela to visit his dad's side of the family for the holiday. Midday there was a cutthroat soccer game planned to settle the annual rivalry between the Guatemala City cousins and the Xela cousins, and Uncle Alejandro who was driving out with us kept insisting that I should be put in as goalie. See, we had scrimmaged a few times in the backyard with him and the rest of the male contingent of the family, and he seemed impressed, or feigned compliments anyway, about my goaltending skills. So while I had planned for the convoy of SUVs that Wednesday to just drop me off where the road to Totonicapán leads off the interamerican highway so I would get back to Toto that Wednesday, I ended up being hauled to Xela and playing in said heated soccer game (we lost - 20 to 16, but I maintain I was a waaaay better goalie than the other team's - it's that their forwards and midfielders played much better than my team's because they play together on a weekly basis, and a much higher rate of shots on goal means they're bound to get more past me!). But that wasn't all: afterward the whole family convoy, therefore including me, headed to grandma and grandpa's house in a small town on the opposite end of the state of Toto called San Vicente Buenabaj, where his dad and eight siblings grew up.
I was improvising all of this; I had not planned on this part of Semana Santa activities, but was excited to visit Luis's extended family at their home, with aunts, uncles and cousins I had maybe met at family events once or twice. Luis convinced me it wouldn't be that big a deal to hop a bus back out of town early the next morning if I really felt I needed to get back to El Aprisco that urgently!
And it would have been a good idea, hanging out with Luis's family for a bit and heading out of San Vicente as early as I wanted Thursday morning... had the buses been running. Haha!
But lemons turned themselves into lemonade, and had the buses been running I wouldn't have partaken in the family hike and picnic, soccer games and tug-of-war tournament, the town women's league soccer game they loaned me a jersey for:
and the making of "alfombras" the morning of Good Friday:
(a word for rug, this is the Guatemalan tradition with colored sawdust much like Tibetan sand art. Every Lent and especially Holy Week there are periodic processions, and beautiful designs are made in colored sawdust in the streets beforehand, the point being that the processioners walk over the alfombras and usually they are destroyed). Here everyone out helping:
A cool mayan calendar symbol Luis's cousin made, and later when the procession's coming a photo of all the cousins sitting on the stoop waiting for its arrival:
And Friday morning Luis and family brought me back and delivered me all the way to El Aprisco - it was actually Luis's first time seeing the park! - before they headed back home to the capital. And while I arrived a little later than I had hoped, Don Bonifacio seemed to be doing fine holding the fort on his own, and I arrived before the worst of the craziness that Friday. Saturday, well that was a different story... we got a little stressed out by the over 400 visitors that day (in a 13-hectare park most of which is forest! where do they all go??) :) But I guess not everyone chooses to go check out the black-sand beaches on the coast - everybody has their preferences, and now I know mine: I prefer my little forested, mountainous, endemic-bird-ridden corner of the world, and the good news is that other people prefer it too. And keep coming. I hope that much, at least, continues to hold true.
So I asked my boss Vicky's permission to go with Luis and his family to spend five days at Monterrico - beaches of black sand and hot, muggy weather - provided I'd be back in El Aprisco for the busiest, craziest days of Semana Santa when the park has the highest number of visitors of the entire year: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Those are hard days to handle in the park for the ridiculous number of Guatemalans who arrive wanting to picnic or barbeque with their families, play soccer, whatever - and when all the El Aprisco staff also wants to be on holiday! My presence there was going to help out the solitary park guard quite a lot.
We left for Monterrico on a Friday morning. And we proceeded to spend the next five days enjoying the sun and the water, and for me it was wonderful to take a break from both El Aprisco and Peace Corps responsibilities. And I managed to not sunburn myself! (mostly)
On Wednesday morning of Holy Week Luis and family piled into two SUVs for the drive out to Xela to visit his dad's side of the family for the holiday. Midday there was a cutthroat soccer game planned to settle the annual rivalry between the Guatemala City cousins and the Xela cousins, and Uncle Alejandro who was driving out with us kept insisting that I should be put in as goalie. See, we had scrimmaged a few times in the backyard with him and the rest of the male contingent of the family, and he seemed impressed, or feigned compliments anyway, about my goaltending skills. So while I had planned for the convoy of SUVs that Wednesday to just drop me off where the road to Totonicapán leads off the interamerican highway so I would get back to Toto that Wednesday, I ended up being hauled to Xela and playing in said heated soccer game (we lost - 20 to 16, but I maintain I was a waaaay better goalie than the other team's - it's that their forwards and midfielders played much better than my team's because they play together on a weekly basis, and a much higher rate of shots on goal means they're bound to get more past me!). But that wasn't all: afterward the whole family convoy, therefore including me, headed to grandma and grandpa's house in a small town on the opposite end of the state of Toto called San Vicente Buenabaj, where his dad and eight siblings grew up.
I was improvising all of this; I had not planned on this part of Semana Santa activities, but was excited to visit Luis's extended family at their home, with aunts, uncles and cousins I had maybe met at family events once or twice. Luis convinced me it wouldn't be that big a deal to hop a bus back out of town early the next morning if I really felt I needed to get back to El Aprisco that urgently!
And it would have been a good idea, hanging out with Luis's family for a bit and heading out of San Vicente as early as I wanted Thursday morning... had the buses been running. Haha!
But lemons turned themselves into lemonade, and had the buses been running I wouldn't have partaken in the family hike and picnic, soccer games and tug-of-war tournament, the town women's league soccer game they loaned me a jersey for:
and the making of "alfombras" the morning of Good Friday:
(a word for rug, this is the Guatemalan tradition with colored sawdust much like Tibetan sand art. Every Lent and especially Holy Week there are periodic processions, and beautiful designs are made in colored sawdust in the streets beforehand, the point being that the processioners walk over the alfombras and usually they are destroyed). Here everyone out helping:
A cool mayan calendar symbol Luis's cousin made, and later when the procession's coming a photo of all the cousins sitting on the stoop waiting for its arrival:
And Friday morning Luis and family brought me back and delivered me all the way to El Aprisco - it was actually Luis's first time seeing the park! - before they headed back home to the capital. And while I arrived a little later than I had hoped, Don Bonifacio seemed to be doing fine holding the fort on his own, and I arrived before the worst of the craziness that Friday. Saturday, well that was a different story... we got a little stressed out by the over 400 visitors that day (in a 13-hectare park most of which is forest! where do they all go??) :) But I guess not everyone chooses to go check out the black-sand beaches on the coast - everybody has their preferences, and now I know mine: I prefer my little forested, mountainous, endemic-bird-ridden corner of the world, and the good news is that other people prefer it too. And keep coming. I hope that much, at least, continues to hold true.
21 March, 2010
The New Year's news on El Sendero Ecológico El Aprisco!
It's been a few months, and recounting events and reflections thereof may prove daunting, both for me to write and for you to read! But it's been a good winter; the long cold is over, and it's almost back to the (slightly) warmer rainy season.
This winter (which is called summer here, simply because it doesn't rain. Guatemala is still in the northern hemisphere, so technically winter and summer occur at the same time as ours do. People here just use different criteria to label their seasons, haha) has been busy. It has also brought big changes in the park! Last December we received the news that neither the park director nor my counterpart (the education coordinator) would be continuing with us in 2010. My initial reaction was a mixture of relief (they were both rather ineffective at their jobs and seemed to be holding the park back) and alarm (their departure was to leave me with the other trail guide and the two park guards - me, running El Aprisco with no budget and almost no staff??? The last time the park lost a director it took over 3 months to find a replacement!). But I didn't have long to fear. Our parent association took swift action and hired an incredibly competent person who was until this promotion already among the association's administrative team, and who a few years ago had done undergrad thesis work in the park getting a degree in pedagogy. And did I mention she's a woman???
I met Vicky when Kate, the former volunteer, was still here and introduced us. Since then, it always felt comfortable dropping in on Vicky in her office to talk about El Aprisco, our projects there, ideas, failures, frustrations, dreams... she was a source of both inspiration and counsel. Now, she is my new boss.
Having a year under my belt in El Aprisco, Vicky looks to me for judgment calls, new ideas, and technical information on potential projects. She has earned my profound admiration for taking on the challenge of a park left in severe budget deficit thanks to the former director's incompetence and lack of consideration for the park's future once he decided he was quitting. She has taken that reality and transformed it, having already earned us two major grants and going for a third, all in this year's first trimester. This is big news for a little nature preserve dedicated to environmental education - not exactly a lucrative sector of the economy, you might say.
But our environmental education component is not the only one we're trying to grow this year. Our other major attraction can be seen flittering among the pine trees all hours of the day, and makes us a major destination for international visitors with a certain agenda in mind: birders. One of (if not THE) only natural preserve areas open to the public in the highland coniferous forest of Totonicapán, El Aprisco is home to a surprising biodiversity of highland bird species - around 95-100 different species, and about 30 of them endemic, meaning worldwide they are only found in these highland parts of Guatemala. On a birding experience while visiting Uncle Den in Mexico for New Year's I realized what a lucrative operation the excursion seemed to be catering to birders out to see the coastal bird species, and that there should also be interest in and demand for the birds you only find in the mountains! El Aprisco is perfect for birders who want the other side of the coin to the low-altitude tropical-forest species, and it seems that somehow other foreigners have suddenly come to the same conclusion: our birding program has experienced surprising growth in these last 3 months, having received about six groups of international visitors coming solely to see the birds in our forests. Better yet, we've created some community involvement and income generation from this new development, through the hiring of local youth guides from a neighboring family-owned parcel of forest to take our visitors deep into their (considerably larger and more habitat-diverse) forest in order to see a wider variety of highland bird species. It's rewarding watching these young people renewing their interest in their grandparents' knowledge of and intimacy with the forest and its avian inhabitants. This project has become one of generating income, developing youth leadership, and relearning cultural value of the environment. Such exciting stuff!!
To those who have not one iota of interest in birds, this probably all sounds like some mania that makes no sense. And I must admit I didn't used to get excited about birds. But these days on my walks through the forest to arrive at the El Aprisco front gate in the morning, I no longer just hear nature background noise. I hear instead the individual and distinct voices of the birds like they were my familiar neighbors, little personalities I can identify calling to me from up ahead eleven-o'clock according to the face of the clock, from two-o'clock understory level, from seven-o'clock but really distant... like characters in a story. Walks through the El Aprisco forest with school groups are enriched when I can stop in my tracks, tell the kids to listen hard, and act like it's a REALLY big deal what we're listening for... and then watch them get excited about birds when they learn even a little bit about them.
In the end, though, my Peace Corps service is not really about getting kids to learn bird species. Teaching them this stuff is about the excitement they start feeling for being in the woods and knowing something about it. It's about the realizations they come to about the way changes in their society and culture are using up and harming something so beautiful, and that it doesn't have to be that way. It's about showing the youth group members that young people CAN earn more of an income from protecting and sustainably using the environment - being a wilderness guide - than from overexploiting it extracting unbelievable amounts of illegally harvested wood, which is the career path many young people feel is the only one available to them in Toto. Wish me luck. And much luck and blessings to you too as we enter the Easter season. Happy Easter, till next time!
This winter (which is called summer here, simply because it doesn't rain. Guatemala is still in the northern hemisphere, so technically winter and summer occur at the same time as ours do. People here just use different criteria to label their seasons, haha) has been busy. It has also brought big changes in the park! Last December we received the news that neither the park director nor my counterpart (the education coordinator) would be continuing with us in 2010. My initial reaction was a mixture of relief (they were both rather ineffective at their jobs and seemed to be holding the park back) and alarm (their departure was to leave me with the other trail guide and the two park guards - me, running El Aprisco with no budget and almost no staff??? The last time the park lost a director it took over 3 months to find a replacement!). But I didn't have long to fear. Our parent association took swift action and hired an incredibly competent person who was until this promotion already among the association's administrative team, and who a few years ago had done undergrad thesis work in the park getting a degree in pedagogy. And did I mention she's a woman???
I met Vicky when Kate, the former volunteer, was still here and introduced us. Since then, it always felt comfortable dropping in on Vicky in her office to talk about El Aprisco, our projects there, ideas, failures, frustrations, dreams... she was a source of both inspiration and counsel. Now, she is my new boss.
Having a year under my belt in El Aprisco, Vicky looks to me for judgment calls, new ideas, and technical information on potential projects. She has earned my profound admiration for taking on the challenge of a park left in severe budget deficit thanks to the former director's incompetence and lack of consideration for the park's future once he decided he was quitting. She has taken that reality and transformed it, having already earned us two major grants and going for a third, all in this year's first trimester. This is big news for a little nature preserve dedicated to environmental education - not exactly a lucrative sector of the economy, you might say.
But our environmental education component is not the only one we're trying to grow this year. Our other major attraction can be seen flittering among the pine trees all hours of the day, and makes us a major destination for international visitors with a certain agenda in mind: birders. One of (if not THE) only natural preserve areas open to the public in the highland coniferous forest of Totonicapán, El Aprisco is home to a surprising biodiversity of highland bird species - around 95-100 different species, and about 30 of them endemic, meaning worldwide they are only found in these highland parts of Guatemala. On a birding experience while visiting Uncle Den in Mexico for New Year's I realized what a lucrative operation the excursion seemed to be catering to birders out to see the coastal bird species, and that there should also be interest in and demand for the birds you only find in the mountains! El Aprisco is perfect for birders who want the other side of the coin to the low-altitude tropical-forest species, and it seems that somehow other foreigners have suddenly come to the same conclusion: our birding program has experienced surprising growth in these last 3 months, having received about six groups of international visitors coming solely to see the birds in our forests. Better yet, we've created some community involvement and income generation from this new development, through the hiring of local youth guides from a neighboring family-owned parcel of forest to take our visitors deep into their (considerably larger and more habitat-diverse) forest in order to see a wider variety of highland bird species. It's rewarding watching these young people renewing their interest in their grandparents' knowledge of and intimacy with the forest and its avian inhabitants. This project has become one of generating income, developing youth leadership, and relearning cultural value of the environment. Such exciting stuff!!
To those who have not one iota of interest in birds, this probably all sounds like some mania that makes no sense. And I must admit I didn't used to get excited about birds. But these days on my walks through the forest to arrive at the El Aprisco front gate in the morning, I no longer just hear nature background noise. I hear instead the individual and distinct voices of the birds like they were my familiar neighbors, little personalities I can identify calling to me from up ahead eleven-o'clock according to the face of the clock, from two-o'clock understory level, from seven-o'clock but really distant... like characters in a story. Walks through the El Aprisco forest with school groups are enriched when I can stop in my tracks, tell the kids to listen hard, and act like it's a REALLY big deal what we're listening for... and then watch them get excited about birds when they learn even a little bit about them.
In the end, though, my Peace Corps service is not really about getting kids to learn bird species. Teaching them this stuff is about the excitement they start feeling for being in the woods and knowing something about it. It's about the realizations they come to about the way changes in their society and culture are using up and harming something so beautiful, and that it doesn't have to be that way. It's about showing the youth group members that young people CAN earn more of an income from protecting and sustainably using the environment - being a wilderness guide - than from overexploiting it extracting unbelievable amounts of illegally harvested wood, which is the career path many young people feel is the only one available to them in Toto. Wish me luck. And much luck and blessings to you too as we enter the Easter season. Happy Easter, till next time!
20 January, 2010
Es La Temporada
Somehow the translation of “Tis the Season” just doesn’t have the same ring to it in Spanish. No wonder it’s never caught on big here. That catchphrase notwithstanding, there’s actually plenty of common ground in the ways North Americans and Guatemalans celebrate the holiday season. But naturally, I spent this Christmas and New Year’s learning more about the differences: missing traditions from home, learning new Guatemalan traditions, and sharing those things that matter to me most from home with my “family” and friends here. Christmas is supposed to be more about the giving than the getting…but in this year’s cultural exchange of time-honored, close-held traditions, I think both sides felt their lives enriched. And maybe I ended up getting more after all.
My motivation to go to great lengths re-enacting many of those Roske Family traditions here in the Guatemalan context of course stemmed from my feeling their absence. With Thanksgiving long passed, I suffered from severe and unintentional Scrooge-ism: I was not at all in the “Christmas spirit”! Maybe that comes with age, that every year that spirit is ever more sluggish to arrive, but all of my normal triggers were missing this year. I missed the tree, I missed the cookies, I missed the SNOW! I missed the carols, I missed the movies that for whatever reason have been an integral part of every Christmas since childhood (you know the ones – The Grinch, Rudolph, Santa Bear, Sesame Street Christmas and the Muppets Christmas, etc.) So I hummed the carols to myself, plucked them out on my out-of-tune guitar, strung up Christmas lights in my room, poured my heart into making Christmas cards, and made cookies. Lord, did I make cookies! I suspect many Roske family friends reading this have been past recipients of these cookies, these ginger-molasses delicacies from an age-old recipe handed down from the Landwehr/Lodermeier side of the family, and well – you can judge for yourself whether you consider them anything that amazing. But I discovered this year that I am positively a seasonal addict. It is NOT Christmas, I tell you, till there are molasses cookies!
So I went over to another volunteer’s house in a nearby town and three of us (but mostly me) spent an entire afternoon/evening baking cookies in her toaster oven. (Which did not include the long and patience-trying process of frosting them all later, which I chose to do the night the power was destined to go out. Frosting cookies by candlelight isn’t actually that tricky when there are only 2 colors to work with since I only found one food dye! ha.) But there was something about those cookies and the whole love-filled process of their making that I absolutely needed to feel, that took me back all but physically to our kitchen in Minnesota at Christmastime. Rolling out the dough time after time that afternoon with the few Christmas carols we had on our MP3-players filling the air, I was almost home in Collegeville. The cookie-cutters I carefully (and painfully – bandaids!) made by cutting a big tin can into strips and bending them into shapes, were of course in loving memory of the favorite shapes we use every year at home. It all reminded me of watching my father in all his baking-frenzy glory whip out tray after tray, while my mother would inevitably be across the way decorating the gallant 14-foot tree in the living room with over two decades’ worth of commemorative ornaments, every single one with a story behind it and the vast majority the grade school glue-gun-special variety. I missed it all so much, for this is how we commemorate Christmas in Collegeville, how we measure the passage of a year – and the passage of the years. I tried to explain it; and I think Emiliana and Arnulfo understood. Even though they don’t put up a tree in the house at Christmas, they graciously accepted the woodcarved ornaments made by my grandfather that he and I strategically selected last August for me to bring for all the members of my host family. (I was a little worried at first, Grampa, considering they don’t do the tree thing or really any decorations; but the next morning I saw those ornaments hung up on all the doors in the house. :) And they of course LOVED that heaping pile of cookies I presented them. Admittedly, apart from those ornaments I didn’t stress to make commemorative ornaments or anything for all my other friends here… but I DID bring them cookies! No, the fate of those 150+ cookies we made that day was NOT to end up in my stomach. Rather I fulfilled the Roske family custom of decorating and delivering them like Santa Claus to all my friends and neighbors, always with explanation to this or that Doña of why my family does this every year, and how in a way my family back home in Minnesota was, like me, offering this gift in an act of friendship and gratitude. And in the end, the cookies weren’t really that important: explaining the tradition, and the fact that I had extended it to the people closest to me here, was what really mattered.
Now, one Guatemalan tradition for which I definitely needed some explanation was the Posadas. The word itself means inn or place to stay, but this reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for room in the inn was not clear to me at first. Why would we all leave the warmth of our houses at 7 pm every frigid night the entire week (9 days) before Christmas to walk from one designated house to another carrying candles in cellophane boxes mounted on poles? But once I saw how pretty those twinkling lights in their technicolored boxes looked bobbing on up the mountainsides in the dark, like a string of beads as the congregation threaded those well-worn footpaths toward the next house; once I began to learn the lyrics to their carols and share in the smiles on their faces when a familiar one was chosen; once I understood the miniature theatrical production that was done every time we arrived at that night’s assigned house reenacting the plea for hospice and the journey of the holy family, as a symbol of good will and Christmas spirit passing from one human heart to the next… I decided I’m rather fond of the Posadas and will be excited for them again next year.
In Latin American culture Christmas Eve, called Nochebuena (The Good Night), is really the big deal. All this buildup of cookies, ornaments, and posadas happened in my community; Nochebuena and Navidad itself I spent with Luis and his extended family in the capital, Guatemala City. It was so good to be around a family, at this family-focused time of year, especially for someone whose family up until this year has always managed to celebrate Christmas all together at home. But I had made up my mind long ago that I have had many and will likely have many more of those Christmases in Collegeville, and I’ve probably only got two years to experience Christmas in Guatemala. However, this was not the rural-host-community Christmas I think every Peace Corps Volunteer envisions for themselves. The urban Guatemala Christmas is rather different from the rural highlands version, or so I gathered. In the capital we had turkey with gravy and potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner, instead of the typical tamales or paches (seasoned ground corn- or rice-paste with chicken, bell pepper, and red sauce folded and steam-cooked in a banana leaf). At midnight, everybody gives hugs; but in the capital some of the guys either give hugs early or give ’em late because at precisely midnight there were fireworks set off from most every block in the city – we’re talking thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of people over many square miles of city setting off a million fireworks. And with Luis’ house slightly up on the mountainsides around the city valley, we had a great view of all the starbursts looking so tiny so many miles away! I give Guatemalans credit now for knowing how to put on a pretty decent fireworks show (even if extremely dangerous and a monumental burn-up of everybody’s holiday cash!) And in Luis’ house they had a tree – a real, live, lights-n-ornaments, bona fide pine Christmas tree, and for some reason it helped me feel that finally there was some way in which I WAS home. Sadly, the only real contact I could have with folks back home this Christmas Eve was a choppy, slow connection when my parents skyped my Guatemalan cell phone. (Mom said it really helped to hear my voice and for everyone to be able to talk to me, all of them there around the tree opening the presents I had sent home. That it felt more like I was among them. Mostly I just got sad for NOT being there and frustrated that we couldn’t understand each other half the time.) So, once everyone else in Luis’ house had finally gone to bed, in the wee hours after the present opening, the Midnight hugs, fireworks, and ensuing cleanup, Luis and I just sat on the sofa together in the quiet dark lit only by the glow of the tree looking at it mostly in silence, just like I love to do Christmas Eves at home. I told him about our Christmas tree, our ornaments, our games of I-Spy and Find the Pickle. And recounting those stories and basking in the glow, I fell asleep.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Less than one week later I would find myself saying goodbye to Luis as he dropped me off at the Xela bus terminal, after we found the next chicken-bus to the border and he had made sure this bus with his girlfriend on it would INDEED be going all the way to the border, and at a timely hour. Once the bus got going, I noticed the trees change from pines to oaks to palms as I myself shed layers and began to sweat from the heat and humidity. I was headed to Mexico, to spend New Year’s and the week after at my uncle Den’s house. My parents were coming New Year’s Day too, meaning Den, Liz, my parents and I had a week of almost uninterrupted beach-town relaxation. Very different scene from the cold highlands of Guatemala.
It’s a long bus ride from Xela to Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Therefore, twenty-three hours after bidding Luis farewell (thanks in part to border crossings and long bus station waits), when Liz picked me up New Year’s Eve morning in the terminal, I had my doubts about my ability this year to really celebrate the holiday – you’re in Mexico! No parents! But keeping in mind that bus ride, let’s just say Molly’s “New Year’s in Mexico” story contained a lot more yawning and a lot less crazy partying that its title would suggest. Or maybe it’s because I’m Minnesotan and don’t know how to party in Mexico. All is know is, when my parents arrived the next day and the Mexico beach time really began, we all three looked like fish out of water!
But it was pretty special to have made it possible to be with real family for the holidays this year, at least a part. We made so many good memories – seven days of just me and my folks and Den and Liz (how often does THAT happen? or will ever happen again?)…and the beach, and sunsets with margaritas on the terrace of their house, and boogie boarding and waterfront shopping and good food and sunshine… Again, that doesn’t sound very Peace-Corps-ish to me either! I guess I can say I’m no stereotypical PCV. And while part of me wonders what it would have been like to spend Christmas and New Year’s in Toto, it’s nice knowing that even though these are family holidays when I suspected no one in Toto would miss me as I belong to no one’s family, I was indeed missed! I received and had to regretfully turn down so many last-minute warm-hearted invites to come join so-and-so for Nochebuena, c’mon the whole family will be there, you’ll love it! or New Year’s, come down to our house, you can stay over, we’ll have plenty of room and plenty of food, the fam will be so happy to see you! I hope to take them up on the rain check for next year, and in the meantime continue building those relationships in this new year we’ve been given. So happy belated holidays, everyone! Any resolutions, you might ask? Do a better job maintaining the blog. Wish me luck :)
My motivation to go to great lengths re-enacting many of those Roske Family traditions here in the Guatemalan context of course stemmed from my feeling their absence. With Thanksgiving long passed, I suffered from severe and unintentional Scrooge-ism: I was not at all in the “Christmas spirit”! Maybe that comes with age, that every year that spirit is ever more sluggish to arrive, but all of my normal triggers were missing this year. I missed the tree, I missed the cookies, I missed the SNOW! I missed the carols, I missed the movies that for whatever reason have been an integral part of every Christmas since childhood (you know the ones – The Grinch, Rudolph, Santa Bear, Sesame Street Christmas and the Muppets Christmas, etc.) So I hummed the carols to myself, plucked them out on my out-of-tune guitar, strung up Christmas lights in my room, poured my heart into making Christmas cards, and made cookies. Lord, did I make cookies! I suspect many Roske family friends reading this have been past recipients of these cookies, these ginger-molasses delicacies from an age-old recipe handed down from the Landwehr/Lodermeier side of the family, and well – you can judge for yourself whether you consider them anything that amazing. But I discovered this year that I am positively a seasonal addict. It is NOT Christmas, I tell you, till there are molasses cookies!
So I went over to another volunteer’s house in a nearby town and three of us (but mostly me) spent an entire afternoon/evening baking cookies in her toaster oven. (Which did not include the long and patience-trying process of frosting them all later, which I chose to do the night the power was destined to go out. Frosting cookies by candlelight isn’t actually that tricky when there are only 2 colors to work with since I only found one food dye! ha.) But there was something about those cookies and the whole love-filled process of their making that I absolutely needed to feel, that took me back all but physically to our kitchen in Minnesota at Christmastime. Rolling out the dough time after time that afternoon with the few Christmas carols we had on our MP3-players filling the air, I was almost home in Collegeville. The cookie-cutters I carefully (and painfully – bandaids!) made by cutting a big tin can into strips and bending them into shapes, were of course in loving memory of the favorite shapes we use every year at home. It all reminded me of watching my father in all his baking-frenzy glory whip out tray after tray, while my mother would inevitably be across the way decorating the gallant 14-foot tree in the living room with over two decades’ worth of commemorative ornaments, every single one with a story behind it and the vast majority the grade school glue-gun-special variety. I missed it all so much, for this is how we commemorate Christmas in Collegeville, how we measure the passage of a year – and the passage of the years. I tried to explain it; and I think Emiliana and Arnulfo understood. Even though they don’t put up a tree in the house at Christmas, they graciously accepted the woodcarved ornaments made by my grandfather that he and I strategically selected last August for me to bring for all the members of my host family. (I was a little worried at first, Grampa, considering they don’t do the tree thing or really any decorations; but the next morning I saw those ornaments hung up on all the doors in the house. :) And they of course LOVED that heaping pile of cookies I presented them. Admittedly, apart from those ornaments I didn’t stress to make commemorative ornaments or anything for all my other friends here… but I DID bring them cookies! No, the fate of those 150+ cookies we made that day was NOT to end up in my stomach. Rather I fulfilled the Roske family custom of decorating and delivering them like Santa Claus to all my friends and neighbors, always with explanation to this or that Doña of why my family does this every year, and how in a way my family back home in Minnesota was, like me, offering this gift in an act of friendship and gratitude. And in the end, the cookies weren’t really that important: explaining the tradition, and the fact that I had extended it to the people closest to me here, was what really mattered.
Now, one Guatemalan tradition for which I definitely needed some explanation was the Posadas. The word itself means inn or place to stay, but this reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for room in the inn was not clear to me at first. Why would we all leave the warmth of our houses at 7 pm every frigid night the entire week (9 days) before Christmas to walk from one designated house to another carrying candles in cellophane boxes mounted on poles? But once I saw how pretty those twinkling lights in their technicolored boxes looked bobbing on up the mountainsides in the dark, like a string of beads as the congregation threaded those well-worn footpaths toward the next house; once I began to learn the lyrics to their carols and share in the smiles on their faces when a familiar one was chosen; once I understood the miniature theatrical production that was done every time we arrived at that night’s assigned house reenacting the plea for hospice and the journey of the holy family, as a symbol of good will and Christmas spirit passing from one human heart to the next… I decided I’m rather fond of the Posadas and will be excited for them again next year.
In Latin American culture Christmas Eve, called Nochebuena (The Good Night), is really the big deal. All this buildup of cookies, ornaments, and posadas happened in my community; Nochebuena and Navidad itself I spent with Luis and his extended family in the capital, Guatemala City. It was so good to be around a family, at this family-focused time of year, especially for someone whose family up until this year has always managed to celebrate Christmas all together at home. But I had made up my mind long ago that I have had many and will likely have many more of those Christmases in Collegeville, and I’ve probably only got two years to experience Christmas in Guatemala. However, this was not the rural-host-community Christmas I think every Peace Corps Volunteer envisions for themselves. The urban Guatemala Christmas is rather different from the rural highlands version, or so I gathered. In the capital we had turkey with gravy and potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner, instead of the typical tamales or paches (seasoned ground corn- or rice-paste with chicken, bell pepper, and red sauce folded and steam-cooked in a banana leaf). At midnight, everybody gives hugs; but in the capital some of the guys either give hugs early or give ’em late because at precisely midnight there were fireworks set off from most every block in the city – we’re talking thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of people over many square miles of city setting off a million fireworks. And with Luis’ house slightly up on the mountainsides around the city valley, we had a great view of all the starbursts looking so tiny so many miles away! I give Guatemalans credit now for knowing how to put on a pretty decent fireworks show (even if extremely dangerous and a monumental burn-up of everybody’s holiday cash!) And in Luis’ house they had a tree – a real, live, lights-n-ornaments, bona fide pine Christmas tree, and for some reason it helped me feel that finally there was some way in which I WAS home. Sadly, the only real contact I could have with folks back home this Christmas Eve was a choppy, slow connection when my parents skyped my Guatemalan cell phone. (Mom said it really helped to hear my voice and for everyone to be able to talk to me, all of them there around the tree opening the presents I had sent home. That it felt more like I was among them. Mostly I just got sad for NOT being there and frustrated that we couldn’t understand each other half the time.) So, once everyone else in Luis’ house had finally gone to bed, in the wee hours after the present opening, the Midnight hugs, fireworks, and ensuing cleanup, Luis and I just sat on the sofa together in the quiet dark lit only by the glow of the tree looking at it mostly in silence, just like I love to do Christmas Eves at home. I told him about our Christmas tree, our ornaments, our games of I-Spy and Find the Pickle. And recounting those stories and basking in the glow, I fell asleep.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Less than one week later I would find myself saying goodbye to Luis as he dropped me off at the Xela bus terminal, after we found the next chicken-bus to the border and he had made sure this bus with his girlfriend on it would INDEED be going all the way to the border, and at a timely hour. Once the bus got going, I noticed the trees change from pines to oaks to palms as I myself shed layers and began to sweat from the heat and humidity. I was headed to Mexico, to spend New Year’s and the week after at my uncle Den’s house. My parents were coming New Year’s Day too, meaning Den, Liz, my parents and I had a week of almost uninterrupted beach-town relaxation. Very different scene from the cold highlands of Guatemala.
It’s a long bus ride from Xela to Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Therefore, twenty-three hours after bidding Luis farewell (thanks in part to border crossings and long bus station waits), when Liz picked me up New Year’s Eve morning in the terminal, I had my doubts about my ability this year to really celebrate the holiday – you’re in Mexico! No parents! But keeping in mind that bus ride, let’s just say Molly’s “New Year’s in Mexico” story contained a lot more yawning and a lot less crazy partying that its title would suggest. Or maybe it’s because I’m Minnesotan and don’t know how to party in Mexico. All is know is, when my parents arrived the next day and the Mexico beach time really began, we all three looked like fish out of water!
But it was pretty special to have made it possible to be with real family for the holidays this year, at least a part. We made so many good memories – seven days of just me and my folks and Den and Liz (how often does THAT happen? or will ever happen again?)…and the beach, and sunsets with margaritas on the terrace of their house, and boogie boarding and waterfront shopping and good food and sunshine… Again, that doesn’t sound very Peace-Corps-ish to me either! I guess I can say I’m no stereotypical PCV. And while part of me wonders what it would have been like to spend Christmas and New Year’s in Toto, it’s nice knowing that even though these are family holidays when I suspected no one in Toto would miss me as I belong to no one’s family, I was indeed missed! I received and had to regretfully turn down so many last-minute warm-hearted invites to come join so-and-so for Nochebuena, c’mon the whole family will be there, you’ll love it! or New Year’s, come down to our house, you can stay over, we’ll have plenty of room and plenty of food, the fam will be so happy to see you! I hope to take them up on the rain check for next year, and in the meantime continue building those relationships in this new year we’ve been given. So happy belated holidays, everyone! Any resolutions, you might ask? Do a better job maintaining the blog. Wish me luck :)
02 December, 2009
Time flies when you're having fun...
Brittany: “So we’ve got enough stuffing now, and we think this slab of turkey will do fine in the toaster oven, right? …we got cranberries, you brought the pie…”
Molly: “What did we decide about the potatoes?”
Brittany: “Crap, Molly, why didn’t we get that, we were just at the store…?”
Molly: “Well I mentioned it a couple times but, I dunno, I thought you had some other plan in mind, you seemed unconcerned…”
Erin: “It’s cuz you were both lost in all the luxury American foods in that ex-pat grocery store.”
Brittany: “The potatoes you brought aren’t enough?”
Molly: “Britt, I brought 3 smallish potatoes. No that is not enough to make mashed potatoes for five people. And onion, didn’t we say we were going to put onion in the stuffing with the celery for extra flavor?”
Brittany: “Aw man! Why didn’t we remember this stuff before getting in the tuk-tuk?” (= motorized rick-shaw-like taxi taking us from the city-center of Panajachel out to our friend Luis’s house)
Molly: “Maybe Luis will have onion, by some small miracle…”
Erin: “Why didn’t you guys fill me in on the plan, I had no idea we still needed all that.”
Brittany: “Maybe we can get Luis to pick up some onion and potatoes when he comes later…”
Molly: “Sorry, guys…”
Brittany: “It’s not your fault…”
Twenty minutes later, upon arrival at Luis’s house to start cooking:
Molly: “Yeah, so, it is as I feared: Luis has one pot. How the heck we gonna make stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy if we only got one pot??”
Brittany: “Oh no!... Maybe we’ll go ask the neighbor ladies if we can borrow, like we did the last time? Or we ask Beverly to bring a few pots when she comes? In any case all we have to do right now since it’s early is start boiling water for the potatoes…”
Erin: “This is really funny, normally the two of you are not this absent minded. I’m kinda impressed, actually, at how much has managed to slip your minds!”
Molly and Brittany: “Thanks a lot, Erin!!”
And so began the Thanksgiving odyssey of Brittany, Erin, and Molly. Though not the same as the Thanksgivings I treasure in my mind, being away from family and Grandma’s cooking, I am happy to say it all turned out fine and delicious, all crises were solved, and we three Americans were quite satisfied (both emotionally and gastronomically) by the evening’s results. Our two Guatemalan friends, Luis and Beverly, were a bit bewildered by all the stressing out that everything had to be just right; for instance the specific need to eat mush of seasoned old bread cubes, exotic canned berries that aren’t really that much to write home about, and pay so much for a slab of turkey when chicken comes at about one-tenth the price. Then when the meal was about to begin we of course bowed our heads and Brittany lead us in the tradition of everyone saying what they were thankful for, and I suspect Luis and Beverly were even more amused by our strict adherence to a ceremony they probably considered over the top. Britt began in English, unusual for someone so fluent in Spanish, but said pretty much exactly what I was thinking of saying. So when she finished and it was my turn, I gave my thanks in Spanish hoping my lack of something great to say would be masked and made up for with the it’s-not-my-native-tongue excuse. Haha.
For the record, the pie I’d made and brought in its pan two hours on the chicken bus from Toto was by faaaaarrr the best part. Not that I'm bragging...
Thanksgiving topped off, and was a lovely close to, a very, very busy month of November. And October sure flew by without me knowing it, and now that we’ve begun the month of December I realize I am frighteningly close to finishing my first year in Guatemala! Not sure how it happened, but all the same I find myself looking back, giving thanks at this most-appropriate time of year, and pondering which of the lessons Guatemala has taught me over the past eleven months are most important.
The recent month-long visit of a cousin from Canada and her fiancé provided a few of those most-valuable insights and memorable experiences, as the occasion provoked a coming-together of the extended family here like nothing I’d seen. The pair arrived one Sunday culminating the extended family’s two-day efforts here preparing the house and the paches (which are sticky rice tamales with chicken and a red sauce, wrapped in a banana leaf and steam-cooked in a huge pot big enough to bathe a few kids in! QUITE the process!). The aunts who work as teachers had, like the kids, just finished the school year, so in addition to many day-trips with the overseas visitors to the close-by attractions in this country an extended trip was planned to hit the east coast and Tikal, the famous Mayan pyramids in Petén (the jungle-filled northernmost province), among a few others. Despite the fact that it’s a pretty big extended family, they reserved a spot in the minibus for me too! So we all went, 16 of us on this week-long trip to the main wonders of Guatemala, none of which I had seen before – me and 15 Guatemalans! It was so fun! Few are the opportunities to feel as integrated a member of a family as I felt on that trip. Yes, I stood out a bit in appearance, but otherwise I felt like just another cousin on the trip with my aunts, my young cousins, my little brothers and sister – and we saw so much together! Seeing the pyramids and other remnants of an ancient Mayan civilization prompted reflections from the adults on how this was their cultural heritage but that they understood only some of the symbology they saw. Visiting famous caves in Lanquín stirred up conversations later that evening about how many of their uncles or grandfathers or neighbors had according to rumor used caves like those to hide from the forced recruitments or village attacks committed by the military in the years of the guerrilla conflict. In other words, while most foreigners visit these places, marvel at them, and move on to the next scheduled item, my visit to these famous places was undoubtedly enriched by having visited with native Guatemalans. These are people to whom these ancient places matter, have history and meaning and bearing on their current lives, in a certain sense. I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to experience something like that again!
And then I was bit by a dog. Wonderful, eh?
Normally this goliath of a mutt barks and intimidates, hounding my progress on the path that passes his backyard which I pass twice every day, but he's all talk. Or so I thought. Last sunday morning I passed his house jogging, which is nothing new, but I guess his attitude was. I tried my best firm, not scared but not overly aggressive voice, which usually is sufficient, but he lunged for a piece of my quad muscle, sinking his teeth just above my left knee. Wonderful. I stopped to assess damage in front of the next house, once he and his sidekick had turned back home, and the neighbor lady came out and saw the blood running as I rolled up my pant leg. "Ay Diooooooos!" she exclaims. No shit.
The good news is this mutt has his rabies shots! So after treating this big ol' hole in my leg (for which I probably should've had stiches, in hindsight) and trying to avoid too much walking so that it doesn't open up again, I should be good to go. But I guess he got his wish: training for the three half-marathons I've run since July certainly had me going out running quite a bit, but I won't be bothering him running past his house for quite some time now - I won't be running at all till the hole in my leg heals up! So I guess another one of those most important insights that'd make the list would be to start walking with a big stick, or several fist-sized rocks, or a slingshot, or tamales to throw and distract this guy with, all of which are tactics my neighbors have advised me of since the incident. Or maybe the best tactic is e) all of the above.
Hope you are well, Happy belated Turkey Day, and a most blessed, merry holiday season. And remember to keep them neighborhood mutts at bay!
Molly: “What did we decide about the potatoes?”
Brittany: “Crap, Molly, why didn’t we get that, we were just at the store…?”
Molly: “Well I mentioned it a couple times but, I dunno, I thought you had some other plan in mind, you seemed unconcerned…”
Erin: “It’s cuz you were both lost in all the luxury American foods in that ex-pat grocery store.”
Brittany: “The potatoes you brought aren’t enough?”
Molly: “Britt, I brought 3 smallish potatoes. No that is not enough to make mashed potatoes for five people. And onion, didn’t we say we were going to put onion in the stuffing with the celery for extra flavor?”
Brittany: “Aw man! Why didn’t we remember this stuff before getting in the tuk-tuk?” (= motorized rick-shaw-like taxi taking us from the city-center of Panajachel out to our friend Luis’s house)
Molly: “Maybe Luis will have onion, by some small miracle…”
Erin: “Why didn’t you guys fill me in on the plan, I had no idea we still needed all that.”
Brittany: “Maybe we can get Luis to pick up some onion and potatoes when he comes later…”
Molly: “Sorry, guys…”
Brittany: “It’s not your fault…”
Twenty minutes later, upon arrival at Luis’s house to start cooking:
Molly: “Yeah, so, it is as I feared: Luis has one pot. How the heck we gonna make stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy if we only got one pot??”
Brittany: “Oh no!... Maybe we’ll go ask the neighbor ladies if we can borrow, like we did the last time? Or we ask Beverly to bring a few pots when she comes? In any case all we have to do right now since it’s early is start boiling water for the potatoes…”
Erin: “This is really funny, normally the two of you are not this absent minded. I’m kinda impressed, actually, at how much has managed to slip your minds!”
Molly and Brittany: “Thanks a lot, Erin!!”
And so began the Thanksgiving odyssey of Brittany, Erin, and Molly. Though not the same as the Thanksgivings I treasure in my mind, being away from family and Grandma’s cooking, I am happy to say it all turned out fine and delicious, all crises were solved, and we three Americans were quite satisfied (both emotionally and gastronomically) by the evening’s results. Our two Guatemalan friends, Luis and Beverly, were a bit bewildered by all the stressing out that everything had to be just right; for instance the specific need to eat mush of seasoned old bread cubes, exotic canned berries that aren’t really that much to write home about, and pay so much for a slab of turkey when chicken comes at about one-tenth the price. Then when the meal was about to begin we of course bowed our heads and Brittany lead us in the tradition of everyone saying what they were thankful for, and I suspect Luis and Beverly were even more amused by our strict adherence to a ceremony they probably considered over the top. Britt began in English, unusual for someone so fluent in Spanish, but said pretty much exactly what I was thinking of saying. So when she finished and it was my turn, I gave my thanks in Spanish hoping my lack of something great to say would be masked and made up for with the it’s-not-my-native-tongue excuse. Haha.
For the record, the pie I’d made and brought in its pan two hours on the chicken bus from Toto was by faaaaarrr the best part. Not that I'm bragging...
Thanksgiving topped off, and was a lovely close to, a very, very busy month of November. And October sure flew by without me knowing it, and now that we’ve begun the month of December I realize I am frighteningly close to finishing my first year in Guatemala! Not sure how it happened, but all the same I find myself looking back, giving thanks at this most-appropriate time of year, and pondering which of the lessons Guatemala has taught me over the past eleven months are most important.
The recent month-long visit of a cousin from Canada and her fiancé provided a few of those most-valuable insights and memorable experiences, as the occasion provoked a coming-together of the extended family here like nothing I’d seen. The pair arrived one Sunday culminating the extended family’s two-day efforts here preparing the house and the paches (which are sticky rice tamales with chicken and a red sauce, wrapped in a banana leaf and steam-cooked in a huge pot big enough to bathe a few kids in! QUITE the process!). The aunts who work as teachers had, like the kids, just finished the school year, so in addition to many day-trips with the overseas visitors to the close-by attractions in this country an extended trip was planned to hit the east coast and Tikal, the famous Mayan pyramids in Petén (the jungle-filled northernmost province), among a few others. Despite the fact that it’s a pretty big extended family, they reserved a spot in the minibus for me too! So we all went, 16 of us on this week-long trip to the main wonders of Guatemala, none of which I had seen before – me and 15 Guatemalans! It was so fun! Few are the opportunities to feel as integrated a member of a family as I felt on that trip. Yes, I stood out a bit in appearance, but otherwise I felt like just another cousin on the trip with my aunts, my young cousins, my little brothers and sister – and we saw so much together! Seeing the pyramids and other remnants of an ancient Mayan civilization prompted reflections from the adults on how this was their cultural heritage but that they understood only some of the symbology they saw. Visiting famous caves in Lanquín stirred up conversations later that evening about how many of their uncles or grandfathers or neighbors had according to rumor used caves like those to hide from the forced recruitments or village attacks committed by the military in the years of the guerrilla conflict. In other words, while most foreigners visit these places, marvel at them, and move on to the next scheduled item, my visit to these famous places was undoubtedly enriched by having visited with native Guatemalans. These are people to whom these ancient places matter, have history and meaning and bearing on their current lives, in a certain sense. I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to experience something like that again!
And then I was bit by a dog. Wonderful, eh?
Normally this goliath of a mutt barks and intimidates, hounding my progress on the path that passes his backyard which I pass twice every day, but he's all talk. Or so I thought. Last sunday morning I passed his house jogging, which is nothing new, but I guess his attitude was. I tried my best firm, not scared but not overly aggressive voice, which usually is sufficient, but he lunged for a piece of my quad muscle, sinking his teeth just above my left knee. Wonderful. I stopped to assess damage in front of the next house, once he and his sidekick had turned back home, and the neighbor lady came out and saw the blood running as I rolled up my pant leg. "Ay Diooooooos!" she exclaims. No shit.
The good news is this mutt has his rabies shots! So after treating this big ol' hole in my leg (for which I probably should've had stiches, in hindsight) and trying to avoid too much walking so that it doesn't open up again, I should be good to go. But I guess he got his wish: training for the three half-marathons I've run since July certainly had me going out running quite a bit, but I won't be bothering him running past his house for quite some time now - I won't be running at all till the hole in my leg heals up! So I guess another one of those most important insights that'd make the list would be to start walking with a big stick, or several fist-sized rocks, or a slingshot, or tamales to throw and distract this guy with, all of which are tactics my neighbors have advised me of since the incident. Or maybe the best tactic is e) all of the above.
Hope you are well, Happy belated Turkey Day, and a most blessed, merry holiday season. And remember to keep them neighborhood mutts at bay!
05 October, 2009
September news - and there's lots!
Things are just getting fun now. I think the adaptation phase is ending, and I’m finally an integrated member of the community and citizen of Guatemala, making decisions differently than before and feeling like a competent almost-Guatemalan. Stressors are rolling off like water more easily, and I seem more capable of handling curveballs.
Last night was my first night back in my own room since my trip to Minnesota! I might have mentioned that my host parents decided it was the right time to invest in fixing up my half of the house, looking at it as an investment for when their kids will live there, so the walls, ceiling, and floor were completely redone in my room over the past two months. When I left for Minnesota, all of my room’s things got crammed into my little kitchen and my bed on its side in the hallway, while I slept in an extra bed in the main part of the house. It was stressful for a while living in the TV room that leads off to all the other rooms in the house. Meaning that I wake up when they get going in the morning at 5, and was often trying to fall asleep at night with someone working late at the table in the next room, who would then have to pass through my room to go to bed themselves. Also meaning that my bed was the couch for watching TV. I think to some people that sounds terrible, and some people are thinking, that doesn’t sound like a big deal at all… and you’re both right. In a certain sense, it was fun to live in the central hub, because I always knew what was going on and because the family didn’t shy away like they tend to when I hole myself up in my own room to get work done. I think we bonded more since everyone felt as though Molly was really another family member now. And I learned to a great extent how to deal without much privacy. But it was tricky not having private work space (which might speak to the lack of a blog update till now), and with family members constantly around there was no lack of distractions. I feel as though I’ve gotten very little done at home lately, apart from laundry. (Haha, yes the flea saga continues, but I shan’t dwell on that here. :) Some photos of the process: when the construction had just begun...
The finished product when it was still bare...
And now I've moved in! Isn't it just lovely??
But I have to admit that not getting work done may have to do with how busy life has been in the last month. September 15th is Guatemalan Independence Day, and here in Toto there were parades and bands and torch-bearing runs. It’s also the only day my good friend Patty from San Antonio, my training town, has off work. And you know what she decided to do with her only day off? Get on a speeding, overcrowded, noisy bus and come the 4 twisting, uncomfortable mountainous hours to visit me in Totonicapán. (For a few hours, then get in a bus again and make the same trek home the same day!) What a friend! First we watched out for Ixchel and José Arnulfo in the parade with their respective schools, and lots of other cute kids and interesting costumes and floats:
José Arnulfo, my 16-year-old host brother lookin' sharp with his classmates :)
A cool Mayan-Heritage-focused float... there weren't all that many of these actually, I think parades here are so influenced by the North American concept of parades that I see more kids dancing in converse sneaker uniforms and hear marching bands playing American pep band tunes. So this was cool to see.
I liked the flag they're carrying here, because it bears the four colors that represent Mayan cosmovision: they are the "People of Corn", and there is red corn, black corn, yellow corn, and white corn that grows here. These colors represent the blood, black hair, tan skin, and white bones from which Ajaw (the Great Spirit) composed the body of the first human being. Cool, huh?
Toto's Feria was almost cancelled this year due to Swine Flu. So I think somewhere in the negotiations with the Bureau of Health to let the show go on, it was decided that every school would carry Public Health Education statements and tips on avoiding H1N1 contagion. This banner reads "The H1N1 Flu is an illness of the Respiratory Passages" and the lesson went on from there. Haha.
And after all that, Patty and I caught a microbus up the mountain and did the trek to my house - the above picture is Patty on said trek up through the cornfield plots my family has on the mountainside.
We arrived in time to help Arnulfo make the last preparations for lunch, who also had the day off (Emiliana, however, who is a teacher, had school-related responsibilities like the kids). Patty and I started making the tortillas... and I was doing better than Patty! She finally gave up after struggling with the same ball of corn tortilla dough for about 15 minutes, and I told her not to worry about it: when I first came to Toto I couldn't turn out tortillas either because the dough has a different thicker consistency and sticks to one's hands more, making it harder! She laughed and I'm not sure if that comment coming from someone who just learned to make tortillas nine months ago was much consolation to someone who´s been making them three times a day all her life. Haha.
Eventually everybody arrived back home from their various Independence Day festivities just as lunch was ready (Chicken in Orange Marinade, a la Molly et Arnulfo!), so we took a photo of the happy occasion:
Not long after Independence Day starts the lead-up to Toto’s Feria. This is like County Fairs in the States, but instead of separate fairgrounds, the central city blocks just fill up for two weeks lined with covered vendors’ stalls and mobile restaurants who come in from all over the country. There were, however, two designated areas for all the mechanized rides that moved in for the occasion: the bus terminals and taxi stand. (You can see why traffic might have been a doubly complicated issue for those 2-3 weeks, with transit not possible downtown and public transit seriously inconvenienced even at the margins.)
Hugo, my 8-year-old host brother, enjoying one of the miniature, hand-operated ferris wheels...
The most distinctive feature of Feria is the food. The streets were absolutely bursting at the seams with rosca vendors – a rosca is a type of sweet bread that looks like a pretzel but is round, and very crunchy. (You have to douse them in coffee or hot chocolate before eating, says I.)
And peanut sellers flood the city from all corners of Guatemala, it seems… I’d estimate there were easily 30 tons of peanuts in my city in huge 200-pound sacks, being sold from every street corner downtown. And the last very distinct Feria feature are the dulces típicos that also line the streets: sugar whirls and bricks of shredded coconut available all colors, candied figs and yams, peanut and pumpkinseed brittle, various cookies and biscuits, and bricks of nougat, marzipan and apple, all glinting from their shiny wrappings. (That was a surprisingly hard sentence to write – I’ve never tried thinking of how to describe or name all of those things in English before!) I decided to start buying and sampling early on, because there were so many I had to try but NO WAY could I do it all in one sitting!
All of this was leading up to the actual day of celebration, of course. The music concerts in the central plaza had started way back on the 19th but the actual Feast of San Miguel Arcangel of Totonicapán was the 29th of September. In the buildup to the feria there were all kinds of other events and parades, including a half-marathon right here in Toto! (which was on the same day as another ½ marathon in the capital and therefore not many people showed up for the Toto half, and therefore I placed 7th in the women's bracket! Woohoo!) I did roll my ankle three days before the race, but Emiliana's brother is a naturopath of some sort, and through some very painful massage of my ankle, it was pretty much fine the next day, without using any ice! And afterwards my friend Don Nico (park guard and my running buddy), his family, and I went and walked around Toto to enjoy the Feria.
And on the very day of the Feria, we went to visit Arnulfo’s house.
My host dad comes from a more modest background, his mother not having gone to school and his sisters probably having received little. So when we go to visit his family in his parents’ house there’s usually not much of the conversation I understand since they speak k’iche’ and never learned much Spanish. The last time we went to visit was Semana Santa, Holy Week, and I felt like the elephant in the room because I was so different and didn’t know what was going on most of the time. Part of the problem, I later guessed, was that they were all in traje, the corte and huipil that the women wear. So this time… this time, I decided to wear traje, to bring a game to play like cards so we wouldn’t all just sit around bored with them just looking at me the whole time, and to try out the little k’iche’ I know with them. Maybe they’d get a kick out of the gringa’s efforts…? It sort of worked. But mostly only my host mom and siblings played cards with me; I also think it was far stranger for them to see a gringa in corte! Haha. Poco a poco, little by little we’ll get used to each other.
(A side-story to the Arnulfo's family visit: the knife we found there didn't have enough of a blade to slice the chicken we were going to make for lunch, so the grandma cleaned off the machete, and Emiliana and I went to work dressing the 15 lbs or so of chicken with the machete... classic!)
... and this is also an excuse to show more pictures of me in traje! I bought my own last week too. When I wear it, I'll put up more photos!
And in the midst of all this Feria hubbub, I’ve been trying to get a little work done in my park! And at the end of every workday, I’m getting more and more able to identify the progress I made that day and the goals for the projects I have. There have deveinite bumps in the road as far as work is concerned, but overall I love my job. We’re installing a library of ecological books and resources, we got some educational materials printed finally, I’m working on generating a birdwatching tour working to further the training of area youth as guides, and we’re designing interpretive signs for all the stations on our trail. Outside of work in the park, the natural resources board of the Communal Mayors’ Association, called the 48 Cantones de Totonicapán, and I have designed a program working with community leaders toward developing a regional trash management system. I’m well into my k’iche’ classes (although still not near conversational), and take them along with my 14-year-old host sister Ixchel – it’s fun! And while I don’t get to be in the classroom teaching (environmental education in the village school was something I had been pushing for this 2nd semester June-October, but it never happened), I’ve been “working” in the classroom in Minnesota! :) (helps to have a Spanish teacher for a sister, right?) Even though I don’t actually get to be there with her students, Michaela and I have been coordinating on how to integrate lessons on Guatemalan culture into her classes, through letters and activities I write. It’s fun for me, although the time it takes for a letter to arrive from here in an obstacle.
Other than that, I have lately been rediscovering that life here can be fun... I've been visiting other Peace Corps Volunteers and Guatemalan friends in the area with the free time I am garnering out of my schedule. One rainy day I went to have breakfast with a friend from training who lives so close to me, but I had never even been to her town. We sat three of us PCVs just chatting for the better part of the day as the rain came down sipping chai tea (a luxury imported good) and it seemed awfully healthy to do that now and then. Here's to finding rhythm in life. Hope you're enjoying yours.
Last night was my first night back in my own room since my trip to Minnesota! I might have mentioned that my host parents decided it was the right time to invest in fixing up my half of the house, looking at it as an investment for when their kids will live there, so the walls, ceiling, and floor were completely redone in my room over the past two months. When I left for Minnesota, all of my room’s things got crammed into my little kitchen and my bed on its side in the hallway, while I slept in an extra bed in the main part of the house. It was stressful for a while living in the TV room that leads off to all the other rooms in the house. Meaning that I wake up when they get going in the morning at 5, and was often trying to fall asleep at night with someone working late at the table in the next room, who would then have to pass through my room to go to bed themselves. Also meaning that my bed was the couch for watching TV. I think to some people that sounds terrible, and some people are thinking, that doesn’t sound like a big deal at all… and you’re both right. In a certain sense, it was fun to live in the central hub, because I always knew what was going on and because the family didn’t shy away like they tend to when I hole myself up in my own room to get work done. I think we bonded more since everyone felt as though Molly was really another family member now. And I learned to a great extent how to deal without much privacy. But it was tricky not having private work space (which might speak to the lack of a blog update till now), and with family members constantly around there was no lack of distractions. I feel as though I’ve gotten very little done at home lately, apart from laundry. (Haha, yes the flea saga continues, but I shan’t dwell on that here. :) Some photos of the process: when the construction had just begun...
The finished product when it was still bare...
And now I've moved in! Isn't it just lovely??But I have to admit that not getting work done may have to do with how busy life has been in the last month. September 15th is Guatemalan Independence Day, and here in Toto there were parades and bands and torch-bearing runs. It’s also the only day my good friend Patty from San Antonio, my training town, has off work. And you know what she decided to do with her only day off? Get on a speeding, overcrowded, noisy bus and come the 4 twisting, uncomfortable mountainous hours to visit me in Totonicapán. (For a few hours, then get in a bus again and make the same trek home the same day!) What a friend! First we watched out for Ixchel and José Arnulfo in the parade with their respective schools, and lots of other cute kids and interesting costumes and floats:
José Arnulfo, my 16-year-old host brother lookin' sharp with his classmates :)
A cool Mayan-Heritage-focused float... there weren't all that many of these actually, I think parades here are so influenced by the North American concept of parades that I see more kids dancing in converse sneaker uniforms and hear marching bands playing American pep band tunes. So this was cool to see.
I liked the flag they're carrying here, because it bears the four colors that represent Mayan cosmovision: they are the "People of Corn", and there is red corn, black corn, yellow corn, and white corn that grows here. These colors represent the blood, black hair, tan skin, and white bones from which Ajaw (the Great Spirit) composed the body of the first human being. Cool, huh? 
Toto's Feria was almost cancelled this year due to Swine Flu. So I think somewhere in the negotiations with the Bureau of Health to let the show go on, it was decided that every school would carry Public Health Education statements and tips on avoiding H1N1 contagion. This banner reads "The H1N1 Flu is an illness of the Respiratory Passages" and the lesson went on from there. Haha.And after all that, Patty and I caught a microbus up the mountain and did the trek to my house - the above picture is Patty on said trek up through the cornfield plots my family has on the mountainside.
We arrived in time to help Arnulfo make the last preparations for lunch, who also had the day off (Emiliana, however, who is a teacher, had school-related responsibilities like the kids). Patty and I started making the tortillas... and I was doing better than Patty! She finally gave up after struggling with the same ball of corn tortilla dough for about 15 minutes, and I told her not to worry about it: when I first came to Toto I couldn't turn out tortillas either because the dough has a different thicker consistency and sticks to one's hands more, making it harder! She laughed and I'm not sure if that comment coming from someone who just learned to make tortillas nine months ago was much consolation to someone who´s been making them three times a day all her life. Haha.
Eventually everybody arrived back home from their various Independence Day festivities just as lunch was ready (Chicken in Orange Marinade, a la Molly et Arnulfo!), so we took a photo of the happy occasion:
Not long after Independence Day starts the lead-up to Toto’s Feria. This is like County Fairs in the States, but instead of separate fairgrounds, the central city blocks just fill up for two weeks lined with covered vendors’ stalls and mobile restaurants who come in from all over the country. There were, however, two designated areas for all the mechanized rides that moved in for the occasion: the bus terminals and taxi stand. (You can see why traffic might have been a doubly complicated issue for those 2-3 weeks, with transit not possible downtown and public transit seriously inconvenienced even at the margins.)
Hugo, my 8-year-old host brother, enjoying one of the miniature, hand-operated ferris wheels...The most distinctive feature of Feria is the food. The streets were absolutely bursting at the seams with rosca vendors – a rosca is a type of sweet bread that looks like a pretzel but is round, and very crunchy. (You have to douse them in coffee or hot chocolate before eating, says I.)
And peanut sellers flood the city from all corners of Guatemala, it seems… I’d estimate there were easily 30 tons of peanuts in my city in huge 200-pound sacks, being sold from every street corner downtown. And the last very distinct Feria feature are the dulces típicos that also line the streets: sugar whirls and bricks of shredded coconut available all colors, candied figs and yams, peanut and pumpkinseed brittle, various cookies and biscuits, and bricks of nougat, marzipan and apple, all glinting from their shiny wrappings. (That was a surprisingly hard sentence to write – I’ve never tried thinking of how to describe or name all of those things in English before!) I decided to start buying and sampling early on, because there were so many I had to try but NO WAY could I do it all in one sitting!
All of this was leading up to the actual day of celebration, of course. The music concerts in the central plaza had started way back on the 19th but the actual Feast of San Miguel Arcangel of Totonicapán was the 29th of September. In the buildup to the feria there were all kinds of other events and parades, including a half-marathon right here in Toto! (which was on the same day as another ½ marathon in the capital and therefore not many people showed up for the Toto half, and therefore I placed 7th in the women's bracket! Woohoo!) I did roll my ankle three days before the race, but Emiliana's brother is a naturopath of some sort, and through some very painful massage of my ankle, it was pretty much fine the next day, without using any ice! And afterwards my friend Don Nico (park guard and my running buddy), his family, and I went and walked around Toto to enjoy the Feria.
And on the very day of the Feria, we went to visit Arnulfo’s house.
My host dad comes from a more modest background, his mother not having gone to school and his sisters probably having received little. So when we go to visit his family in his parents’ house there’s usually not much of the conversation I understand since they speak k’iche’ and never learned much Spanish. The last time we went to visit was Semana Santa, Holy Week, and I felt like the elephant in the room because I was so different and didn’t know what was going on most of the time. Part of the problem, I later guessed, was that they were all in traje, the corte and huipil that the women wear. So this time… this time, I decided to wear traje, to bring a game to play like cards so we wouldn’t all just sit around bored with them just looking at me the whole time, and to try out the little k’iche’ I know with them. Maybe they’d get a kick out of the gringa’s efforts…? It sort of worked. But mostly only my host mom and siblings played cards with me; I also think it was far stranger for them to see a gringa in corte! Haha. Poco a poco, little by little we’ll get used to each other.
(A side-story to the Arnulfo's family visit: the knife we found there didn't have enough of a blade to slice the chicken we were going to make for lunch, so the grandma cleaned off the machete, and Emiliana and I went to work dressing the 15 lbs or so of chicken with the machete... classic!)
... and this is also an excuse to show more pictures of me in traje! I bought my own last week too. When I wear it, I'll put up more photos!
And in the midst of all this Feria hubbub, I’ve been trying to get a little work done in my park! And at the end of every workday, I’m getting more and more able to identify the progress I made that day and the goals for the projects I have. There have deveinite bumps in the road as far as work is concerned, but overall I love my job. We’re installing a library of ecological books and resources, we got some educational materials printed finally, I’m working on generating a birdwatching tour working to further the training of area youth as guides, and we’re designing interpretive signs for all the stations on our trail. Outside of work in the park, the natural resources board of the Communal Mayors’ Association, called the 48 Cantones de Totonicapán, and I have designed a program working with community leaders toward developing a regional trash management system. I’m well into my k’iche’ classes (although still not near conversational), and take them along with my 14-year-old host sister Ixchel – it’s fun! And while I don’t get to be in the classroom teaching (environmental education in the village school was something I had been pushing for this 2nd semester June-October, but it never happened), I’ve been “working” in the classroom in Minnesota! :) (helps to have a Spanish teacher for a sister, right?) Even though I don’t actually get to be there with her students, Michaela and I have been coordinating on how to integrate lessons on Guatemalan culture into her classes, through letters and activities I write. It’s fun for me, although the time it takes for a letter to arrive from here in an obstacle.
Other than that, I have lately been rediscovering that life here can be fun... I've been visiting other Peace Corps Volunteers and Guatemalan friends in the area with the free time I am garnering out of my schedule. One rainy day I went to have breakfast with a friend from training who lives so close to me, but I had never even been to her town. We sat three of us PCVs just chatting for the better part of the day as the rain came down sipping chai tea (a luxury imported good) and it seemed awfully healthy to do that now and then. Here's to finding rhythm in life. Hope you're enjoying yours.
19 August, 2009
Missing...
Although seven months hardly feels like it merits the reward of a trip back home to Minnesota (when compared to the twenty months that remain), return home I did – the pretense was a close friend’s wedding. I arrived on a Wednesday afternoon to a sister dancing to see me in the airport, dinner at Kay’s Kitchen, ending by visiting with grandparents next door late into the evening. And that right there is a small sampling of the kinds of things I did for those ten days I was home, the kinds of things a true-blue Minnesotan does to… well, enjoy limited time in Minnesota! And it seemed odd, this oasis of all things familiar and comfortable spliced into my otherwise foreign current life. Such a brief and fleeting reality! But a wonderful one. Going home really felt like I just slipped back into myself. I’ve heard it said that culture is like the water fish swim in: we don’t realize we’re in it, until we’re not. Grampa, this one’s for you: I felt like Big Mouth Billy Bass, and someone finally took me to the river and plopped me back in the water!
I think on any adventure there are times when we wish like hell we were home. Kids at summer camp feel like that, no matter how much fun they’re having; Voyageurs trips feel this way; I’d guess most folks serving overseas in the military probably know what I mean. We start wondering what we’d be doing if we were home, making mental lists of the things we miss, maybe pondering the first thing we’ll do when we get there. Yes, I feel like that sometimes here in Guatemala, too. And think, Oh! How wonderful it will be to be home, sweet home! And, well… it was! It was absolutely perfect – or pretty dang close.
But this was the first time in my life that I’ve had that wish granted of going home in the middle of one of those adventures only to hit the trail again, so to speak, and pick up where I left off. And maybe it’s good that we are rarely granted that wish, to abort the mission and return, however briefly, to whatever place or person or state of mind that is “home”- you might find yourself wishing you were still adventuring or, conversely, you may find your resolve to return to the task at hand considerably weakened. I think both happened to me. The time spent with family and friends was so meaningful and filled me up overflowing with gratitude for the blessings I’ve received in my life, particularly the people in it, that I started to wonder what’s the point in abandoning all of this to try and make a life in Guatemala. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wouldn’t it be great to just stay here, and continue to have great conversations with siblings, grandparents, neighbors, old friends, to continue making these great memories instead of only remembering ones from long ago and far away?
I’m no authority on the typical emotional processing of ex-pats or PCVs in specific, visiting home… but I would say that’s probably THE question that they ask themselves when the vacation home comes to a close.
But I’m nowhere near ready to be done with Guatemala! Strange as it sounds, I missed my host family the whole time I was in Minnesota. I woke up the first several mornings around 6, late for me in my Guatemala life, and found myself longing for the bustle of activity and flurry of humorous conversations normally filling up that time of day. I was almost waiting to hear Arnulfo say “Good morning!”and make me laugh, and I missed having somebody (i.e. him) to run with. I missed the way Guatemalans say “Buen Provecho!”after every meal to give closure and thank everyone for the good food and good company. I missed the humor and irony of certain commonly-used Guatemalan phrases and ended up teaching them to my family because they kept slipping out! (and then I’d just get funny looks from people when Spanish accidentally came out… actually, when in an American restroom once, someone rapped on my stall and asked if it was occupied and I responded with an emphatic Sí!) I missed the cooperativeness of making food together and learning from each other, maybe especially because everyone in my host family takes a lot of interest in good food and how to prepare it. I missed hugs from my host siblings (and I got REALLY good ones from Ixchel and José Arnulfo when I arrived home on Sunday!) I missed mountains and crazy erratic topography – I actually caught myself staring at the Minnesota horizon and thinking, Now wouldn’t this be better if there were some mountains over there? just more interesting, just one little mountain range over there in the distance? I missed the slanting afternoon light in the mountains and how cool it looks when it sometimes filters through the clouds clinging to the hills down below my house, and the way clouds sometimes crest the mountain and come cascading down on our house like a waterfall. And though I complain about the cold, I missed the cozy thickness of my 3-4 blankets and snuggling in for the night.
Speaking of nights, Minnesota nights are so still and quiet! I was astounded to awake in the morning and think – I didn’t hear a single thing all night! Boy, I tell you what, I did NOT miss those dogs barking up a war outside my windows or the roosters announcing a dawn that’s still 3 hours away, nor the cats pouncing on mice and making a racket in my ceiling. And I didn’t miss the fleas!! (They’re breaking records now: I think it took them a day and a half to find me anew, bug repellent lotion and spray apparently irrelevant.)
And while I will surely sit and ponder homesickness and absence and the heart growing fonder these next few months – weighing these against fleas, barking dogs, and numb toes, mind you – it has become apparent just how much Guatemala is becoming part of me. or how much I am becoming part of Guatemala. I surely have innumerable days at the Roske Cabin at the lake, countless visits to Kay’s Kitchen or the SJU Refectory if I want them, many a chat with grandparents and neighbors and friends awaiting me in my future. But how many times do I get to play in a rock-paper-scissors double-elimination tournament with Hugo, Ixchel, and José Arnulfo? How many opportunities will I have to listen to Emiliana’s stories of all the protesting and campaigning she did back in the day to win women’s rights or get funding for public education? How many more chances will I have to go running with Arnulfo in the mornings? How many deluxe-chocolate birthday cakes will be baked before it’s time for me to return to my American reality for good? Not all that many, in the grand scheme of things. In the end it’s all about counting one’s blessings… and I’m blessed enough to have plenty to count both in Guatemala and in Minnesota. It’s nice to be reminded of them now and again, and thinking of it that way helps me not miss home too much. Besides, spend all my time missing things that are somewhere else, and I’m sure to find I’ve missed out on life here.
I think on any adventure there are times when we wish like hell we were home. Kids at summer camp feel like that, no matter how much fun they’re having; Voyageurs trips feel this way; I’d guess most folks serving overseas in the military probably know what I mean. We start wondering what we’d be doing if we were home, making mental lists of the things we miss, maybe pondering the first thing we’ll do when we get there. Yes, I feel like that sometimes here in Guatemala, too. And think, Oh! How wonderful it will be to be home, sweet home! And, well… it was! It was absolutely perfect – or pretty dang close.
But this was the first time in my life that I’ve had that wish granted of going home in the middle of one of those adventures only to hit the trail again, so to speak, and pick up where I left off. And maybe it’s good that we are rarely granted that wish, to abort the mission and return, however briefly, to whatever place or person or state of mind that is “home”- you might find yourself wishing you were still adventuring or, conversely, you may find your resolve to return to the task at hand considerably weakened. I think both happened to me. The time spent with family and friends was so meaningful and filled me up overflowing with gratitude for the blessings I’ve received in my life, particularly the people in it, that I started to wonder what’s the point in abandoning all of this to try and make a life in Guatemala. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wouldn’t it be great to just stay here, and continue to have great conversations with siblings, grandparents, neighbors, old friends, to continue making these great memories instead of only remembering ones from long ago and far away?
I’m no authority on the typical emotional processing of ex-pats or PCVs in specific, visiting home… but I would say that’s probably THE question that they ask themselves when the vacation home comes to a close.
But I’m nowhere near ready to be done with Guatemala! Strange as it sounds, I missed my host family the whole time I was in Minnesota. I woke up the first several mornings around 6, late for me in my Guatemala life, and found myself longing for the bustle of activity and flurry of humorous conversations normally filling up that time of day. I was almost waiting to hear Arnulfo say “Good morning!”and make me laugh, and I missed having somebody (i.e. him) to run with. I missed the way Guatemalans say “Buen Provecho!”after every meal to give closure and thank everyone for the good food and good company. I missed the humor and irony of certain commonly-used Guatemalan phrases and ended up teaching them to my family because they kept slipping out! (and then I’d just get funny looks from people when Spanish accidentally came out… actually, when in an American restroom once, someone rapped on my stall and asked if it was occupied and I responded with an emphatic Sí!) I missed the cooperativeness of making food together and learning from each other, maybe especially because everyone in my host family takes a lot of interest in good food and how to prepare it. I missed hugs from my host siblings (and I got REALLY good ones from Ixchel and José Arnulfo when I arrived home on Sunday!) I missed mountains and crazy erratic topography – I actually caught myself staring at the Minnesota horizon and thinking, Now wouldn’t this be better if there were some mountains over there? just more interesting, just one little mountain range over there in the distance? I missed the slanting afternoon light in the mountains and how cool it looks when it sometimes filters through the clouds clinging to the hills down below my house, and the way clouds sometimes crest the mountain and come cascading down on our house like a waterfall. And though I complain about the cold, I missed the cozy thickness of my 3-4 blankets and snuggling in for the night.
Speaking of nights, Minnesota nights are so still and quiet! I was astounded to awake in the morning and think – I didn’t hear a single thing all night! Boy, I tell you what, I did NOT miss those dogs barking up a war outside my windows or the roosters announcing a dawn that’s still 3 hours away, nor the cats pouncing on mice and making a racket in my ceiling. And I didn’t miss the fleas!! (They’re breaking records now: I think it took them a day and a half to find me anew, bug repellent lotion and spray apparently irrelevant.)
And while I will surely sit and ponder homesickness and absence and the heart growing fonder these next few months – weighing these against fleas, barking dogs, and numb toes, mind you – it has become apparent just how much Guatemala is becoming part of me. or how much I am becoming part of Guatemala. I surely have innumerable days at the Roske Cabin at the lake, countless visits to Kay’s Kitchen or the SJU Refectory if I want them, many a chat with grandparents and neighbors and friends awaiting me in my future. But how many times do I get to play in a rock-paper-scissors double-elimination tournament with Hugo, Ixchel, and José Arnulfo? How many opportunities will I have to listen to Emiliana’s stories of all the protesting and campaigning she did back in the day to win women’s rights or get funding for public education? How many more chances will I have to go running with Arnulfo in the mornings? How many deluxe-chocolate birthday cakes will be baked before it’s time for me to return to my American reality for good? Not all that many, in the grand scheme of things. In the end it’s all about counting one’s blessings… and I’m blessed enough to have plenty to count both in Guatemala and in Minnesota. It’s nice to be reminded of them now and again, and thinking of it that way helps me not miss home too much. Besides, spend all my time missing things that are somewhere else, and I’m sure to find I’ve missed out on life here.
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