The school year winded down in October, and I´d like to reflect on some experiences in summary. Even though I am on school vacation, until now I hadn’t gotten the ´´ganas´´ to update a blog, because it seems like the days pass by so quickly and even though life is generally slow here, something always seems to fill them, so, en fin, I am deciding to write some…
….top highlights of my service so far:
1. Experiencing the change of weather from rainy season to dry season, the latter also known as summer, although the current coldness experienced especially at night during this rainy to dry transition leads me to believe it would be wise to leave it at ´´dry season´´. Let me just say that I´m happy that if I wash my clothes in the pila, they are dry by the end of the day for all the sun.
2. Getting rid of lice and nits only after two women from town had picked out louse by louse from my hair for an hour and me crushing them with my almost-no fingernails on a wooden board, two shampoos within a week of each other (one for only Q5—less than a dollar—from the US, and the other is called Sarpiol from here that a friend in town ´´regalar´´ed me), a fine comb involving lots of brushing, and much washing of my clothes, sheets and blankets to finally rid them (for the moment!). Fortunately the flea problem in my bed has subsided, but usually when Cochinita is around those critters sometimes get me and love to bite around my waist, ankle and wrists. Apparently taking Vitamin B1 makes my blood less tasty to them.
3. Mountain bike ride from Panajachel to Sololá to San José Chacaya to Santa Lucía Utatlán (uphill basically the entire way) and back to Pana.
4. The process of implementing the construction of a hand washing station at my most rural school. I worked with some of the most amazing and sincere people I´ve ever met who are members of the school board, and unfortunately I found out they are changing. Now the school lacks the water tank because there´s not always water coming to school, like in the case of my house… (I´m not looking forward to the dry season.)
5. My students in 12th grade, Section A, from the teacher´s high school, leaving a project of soap dispensers in the boys and girls bathrooms (whereas before there was only one available in the staff´s bathroom).
6. Self-initiating a ´´Healthy Schools´´ table at the teacher´s high school yearly ´´Expo Mágico´´ or ´´Magic Expo´´ in celebration of ´´Día del Niño´´ or ´´Children´s Day´´ during which children all around the area come to participate in magic tricks, educational games, small scientific experiments and puzzles. A few of the high school students dressed up as clowns. My activities included food puzzles, a ´´personal hygiene´´ snake-and-ladder style game, ´´good and bad hygiene habits´´ memory games, my two cow teeth jars experiment demonstration—one with white teeth (´´having brushed one´s teeth´´) and the other having been soaked in coca cola (´´not having brushed one´s teeth´´), and a nutritional basketball game. The latter was most successful but I realize now that I will need more than myself if I´m going to have so many activities at my table if I do the same next year. Fortunately a friend from the junior high school helped me out towards the end. Adding a puppet show to the activities would be a nice addition.
7. Having talks with mothers of the three schools where I work on the contamination cycle, on kitchen hygiene using a fly trap bottle inside which you place coke or sugar water to attract the flies, on dental hygiene using hard-boiled eggs and real cow teeth from the market dipped in coke. Only at one school was I able to touch the theme of nutrition including the importance of foods that provide growth, energy and protection. The mothers, teachers and I all contributed money. We made a vegetable salad out of mostly raw vegetables (beets, celery, cucumber, tomato, cabbage, carrot, radishes, onions, cooked potatoes, hard-boiled eggs) with of course beans, rice and tortillas, and a ´´coctel de frutas´´ or fruit salad of apples, oranges and of course bananas to which sugar was added (like to most things here—including coffee). Afterwards, the students, mothers, teachers, and I all enjoyed this meal that included all three of the criteria of growth, energy and protection. The objective of the lesson was to show that every meal include foods from each of these three food groups in order to have a nutritious body. The women joked that maybe they would get a stomachache from eating so many raw vegetables, most with the skin, because they are used to eating them cooked and without the skin, but I explained to them that there is more nutritional value (vitamins) eating vegetables raw and with the skin.
8. My first Interpreting experience for a medical mission in Godines, Sololá, for US doctors as part of the organization ``Partners for Surgery´´ or in Spanish, ´´Compañero en Salud´´ was valuable, stimulating and revealing that I want to go into medicine! The day involved short consultations meant to assess whether there was need for a surgery in a hospital in Antigua. About 30 people arrived, a small number according to the doctors, 15 of which I helped interpret for (there was another PCV in another room interpreting). There was also a Caqchikel interpreter, so there was sometimes this chain cycle of English-Spanish-Caqchikel-Spanish-English. Very interesting, and I imagine a lot was lost in translation but the basic idea was understood.
Most cases involved people having cysts, some more detrimental than others. Some involved children with retardations, some because of an infection received as a baby from which nothing could be done, which is so sad because it demonstrated the importance of not only taking care of a medical issue rapidly when it happens, but also making me realize the importance of my work in health prevention in children. A few children had the ´´cleft palate´´ (´´palador hendido´´) lip and needed another operation. Many women had problems with their periods as a result of too many children. Other cases were for gallstones (´´calculos biliares´´) which needed operations. Others were of children with hernias, more common in boys but there was at least one girl with one. One interesting case was of an older woman who had a horrible skin infection below her eye (the only picture I took because the doctors wanted a visual). According to her and her daughter, it was a result of a piece of wood from carrying firewood that got stuck in her skin below her eye there some many years ago and she thought she had taken it out but somehow it hadn’t and so they waited for years to get it fixed, each year it getting worse. Who knows the validity of the story, but it makes me realize again how amazing it is that people will wait so long before getting medical treatment, in this case for poverty, for nerves or other reasons.
One of the two doctors even performed two simple cyst surgeries right there in the school where the medical mission took place. I was told that performing surgeries like this the day of the consultations is rare, and I wish I had taken pictures. One was on a woman who had a cyst in her nose which was an easy operation, and the other was on a woman who had a cyst in her hand which was trickier because it was stuck to a tendon.
9. I joined the Christmas championship basketball games on the team ´´Stars´´ (some of the team´s names are in English or come from US basketball teams—like Heat, Spurs, Wizards, Sundae, Revolution, Central, Djleaks—while others are in Spanish or the local Mayan language Tzujtujil—Sajbin, Chavajay (the latter two are last names in town), Nisvem (I heard each letter represents the first letter of the players´ names), TZ, Chuacrus, Chuixoral, Rosario (the latter three referring to the same sector in town), Estrellas Visitecas. Anyway, I realize how community-uniting these games are and it is fun to be the only gringa and the tallest one on the court, even if I can´t really play and haven´t since elementary school, although everyone believes I should be making all the baskets because I come from the country where the sport was born. All of the teams have these fancy uniforms, including our team, but they misspelled my last name Cooklin on the back of the jersey, which I find more than anything very funny than a nuisance.
10. Workshops at ``Pura Vida´´ (see http://www.puravidaatitlan.org), a local NGO based in San Marcos La Laguna started by a German that provides a recyclable and useful solution to inorganic trash by creating infrastructures out of it. I plan to tell teachers about this for school infrastructure projects.
11. Lots of awareness of the gift of giving, becoming closer with people in my town and having conversations is priceless.
12. Going to my town´s market (´´plaza´´) more, whereas before I was working visiting schools when it was happening.
13. Fresh produce. Eating new fruits like the anona, jocotes, and camotes. On market days (Monday and Friday in my town and Tuesday and Saturday in neighboring town), having fresh produce available that is grown locally, thus only eating what is available (mostly there are seasons with fruits—except for the always available bananas…*cough* you may remember the United Fruit Company?). For example, the season for apples just ended whereas oranges, mandarins, coconuts and jocotes are in high abundance. In the past two weeks, I´ve had two coconuts, drinking the mouth-watering milk and eating the lusciously juicy meat. I can´t wait for mangoes to make a come back in January! I also don´t have a fridge, and there is no need for it with so many market days.
14. Learning little by little the languages Kiche, Tzujtujil and a mixture of both, and getting a kick out of townspeople, especially the older ones, laughing at me every time I try to speak.
15. As I write this, drinking the coffee that came from, if not from out of my yard, then from the land owned by the family of the house.
16. The joy of el azar or randomness, including the occasional but short-lived electricity outages, surprise visits to my house, and question of whether at any moment I will have water.
17. The beauty of ´´paseando´´ and hiking.
18. Visiting another volunteer near the warm climate of El Palmar, Quetzaltenango, for Thanksgiving with fellow volunteers, and eating a fresh ´´chompipa´´ (female turkey-- I don´t know if I ever thought about the gender of the turkey I ate in the US before I became a vegetarian). I´m not really vegetarian anymore here mostly because the meat industry here is locally based and also because it is embedded in the culture and I want to accept and try out new foods that are given to me. Anyway, this turkey came from the back patio of a site mate volunteer who is in the town neighboring mine. We also ate so many potluck side dishes, including stuffing, green bean casserole, potato casserole, cranberry casserole, pineapple cornbread, eclectic vegetable salad, mac not cheese dish (using nutritional yeast), beet gazpacho, and if that wasn´t enough, for dessert: apple pie, chocolate cake, Sarita´s Neapolitan ice cream. The next day, we swam in one of his rivers, Nima Dos… so much fun, and I got burnt. Mmmm, it was so warm. After visiting San Felipe, the night involved a dance party and a limbo competition. Fun times.
19. Looking forward to going home for two weeks for Christmas and New Year´s.
20. Hoping for more positive experiences including a successful and productive year in 2009!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
La araña pequeñita
I am ambitious to update so close to the last blog. The idea is that I try to be better about blogging to share my experiences. Mother Teresa said, ´´In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.´´ This speaks a lot, especially to the Peace Corps experience. I think that many join Peace Corps, myself included, with the desires to accomplish great things, ´´change the world.´´ I am brought back to the essay I submitted in the PC application in which I quoted Ghandi, ´´I want to be the change I wish to see in the world,´´ a nice thought to remember in the most not motivating moments. To have in mind ´´great things´´ is superb but based on my experience I agree that the ´´small things with great love´´ are those that make the difference.
Today, for example, a Friday, was a tournament in my elementary school district and so the three elementary schools I collaborate with participated. I´ve learned that at least at the elementary school level, some Guatemalans love competition and to excuse school days for such community, people-interaction events. The tournament was song for the younger grades and math for the older ones. About a week ago, I bumped into two of the teachers I work with in the neighboring town SC, ´´paseando,´´ looking for a CD with songs so they could find one to use with their students. They needed two versions: not only the music and words, but also a version with only the music to which the students could sing to in the competition. I learn in this moment that music without words is called ´´pista´´ in Spanish. I told them about the Hap Palmer children songs in Spanish I have that I used for the preschool level when I taught preschool Spanish in Atlanta. (Kudos to my moms who told me about him). Luck would have it that I had both versions (music with and without the words) of about 15 of his songs, like ´´the itsy bitsy spider´´. As I explained it to Seño Cata and Seño Tomasa, I even sang it, ´´La araña pequeñita subió, subió, subió…vino la lluvia y se la llevó…´´. They laughed at me, but really we laughed together. It was a fun moment. So, later that night, I made pizza (this time for real… and how good it was!) with two women in my town (my first time mind you, although they thought I was an expert because I´m a gringa and thus must know about these things… check out photos in my ´´Más de mi casita azul´´ album). After making pizza, I bought a CD and made a copy of the Hap Palmer songs to give to one of the seños. When I show up this past week with the PC mason to check out the kitchen project in the school, they are rehearsing to ´´la araña pequeñita´´ song. I smiled to myself.
Today, these students of kindergarten and first grade perform the song, competing with others, and they are so cute up there making the motions. I notice that they are off beat, and I wonder if this is a commonly known song here. The greatness about the song as applied in this culture is that we are in the rainy season now, where the morning sun fights with the unavoidable afternoon rain clouds. And, well, you just have to visit me in my house to know that spiders are ubiquitous here. The spider´s struggle and its determination to transcend its problem is a universal struggle. It´s one of my favorite children´s songs, anyway. Al fin de cuentas, they get 1st place in their category! I think to myself that they got first place because they were one of the only ones who used the ´´pista´´ version whereas most of the others had someone singing in the background. De todos modos, I realized that this was one of those ´´small things with great love´´ that I passed on to make a happy day for just a few kids and teachers, even if it´s not ´´Healthy Schools´´ related.
This weekend is going to be exciting. After buying dog food in the SC market, tomorrow I head to Panajachel, a place on the lake, for a volunteer welcome party (no longer am I a newbie volunteer!). We are going to hike around the lake to some hot springs. The next day I´m going to mountain bike 35 kms. (about 20 miles?) around the ´´cabecera´´ (capital) of Totonicapán. It will be my first time mountain biking, as I am a roadie (and forever will that be my preferred), but I am so looking forward to getting some exercise and having the tired ´´I just biked a whole bunch mmmm´´ feeling. Next weekend is the Chimal welcome party but there´s also the half marathon run in Toto, so I may choose the half marathon over that (it will be my second half, as my first was the ´´De las Rosas´´ in Antigua, from which all participants who finished received a rose medal.. perfect for me, ´´¿o no o no?´´ as my Chilean sweetheart friend Claudio would say). There´s always something going on every weekend. And, days go by quickly here, even if paradoxically life is slower here. Doesn´t make sense, but I love that. It means that the things I miss most in the US aren´t that out of reach because my return will come soon enough. I miss exercising daily and I miss Bikram hot yoga, but something to look forward to more when I return to the US in 1.5 years.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
5 months mark in site
Hello, blog, after so many months! I have ´´located myself´´ in my new home of about 2,500-3,000 people for the next, now 1.5 years of my life. ´´¿Ya se halló?´´ they ask. I say located myself because that is an expression that many locals in my town ask me, ´´Have you located yourself?´´, especially when I first arrived. It is an interesting way to describe it, and it is one look into rural Guatemalan expressions. Sure, I think I´ve located myself since I got here. It is amazing to realize how time passes, while still things seem so slow here. Many times I like the slow pace of life here which means time to enjoy laying in my hammock reading a book (I´ve become a voracious reader here), but it also means that it´s hard to accomplish things however much one wants the ball rolling.
I wish I could summarize my first 5 months in site in one blog entry, but that´s tricky, and yet I´ll try. I will say that since I arrived I have lived in a cute, cozy little light blue house of two rooms (the living room/kitchen and bedroom). My ´´casita celeste´´ was completely furnished with furniture, shelves (an uncommon find in the common Guatemalan home), incredible bed, gas stove (also uncommon in the Guatemalan home because they use wood-burning stoves, sometimes supplemented by gas ones), and the uncommon toaster oven. But I don´t have a fridge, and sometimes I fantasize about getting one, but who knows, it´s kind of fun not relying on one just for the sake of it. I will mention that many of the neighborhood kids come over and we will bake banana bread, cookies, apple pie, and ´´pizzas.´´ I also don´t have a TV (didn´t in the US either but ironically I live next to the cable guy in town and almost everyone has a TV here). I suppose I lucked out, replacing a volunteer and getting the added benefit of belongings of another one who finished her service a few months before the one I replaced.
Over the course of the first few months, I painted the inside of the house (with the help of my site mate PCV in a neighboring town). The kitchen is ´´golden yellow´´ and the wall that is shared by the kitchen/living room and the bedroom is ´´mandarin orange´´, and the bedroom is ´´fuchsia pink.´´ I like to think of the ambiance as parallel to that of the cycle of the day when one arrives at my house. Well, when I arrive at my house because I arrive alone, if not with my adopted street dog ´´Little,´´ known to Guatemalans as ´´Cochinita,´´ the little dirty one (she´s not that dirty though has fleas like almost every dog here), or if the family compound dog ´´María´´ isn´t already found sleeping on my small patio with her puppies (she knows that I will feed her). Back to the paint, picture arriving at my house to a blue-skied façade and upon entering you are hit with the sun, and as you walk to the bedroom you will experience the sunset of orange and then pink. Well, that was the idea I had in mind. Maybe I do have too much time on my hands.
Looking out of my house from my front door, my garden area is a huge, (nicely?) overgrown and secluded area with, to the right, a peach tree that is currently being suffocated by a guisquil plant—Guatemalan veggie that´s not so tasty—grown by the owner´s older relative and, to the left of the garden, one finds many coffee trees.
Walking out my door on my patio to the left you will see my pila sink to wash clothes and dishes, from which for the first month in site water ceased to gush out (my situation was that I had water for one hour/week). It got to the point where my neighbors let me wash my clothes in their house, or that they brought water in a ´´tinaja´´ bucket. What a nightmare, for my first few months in site, the end of the dry season, to hardly have water. That seems like a dream to me now, in the middle of the rainy season, where I find it an amenity to be able to turn my one bathroom faucet on at almost any hour now (hot water faucet doesn´t exist here except in fancy places) and wash my hands (también con jabón—yes I´ve been too much in my ´´Healthy Schools´´ mode) without the little bucket from the pila. Anywayz, de repente, even now water could just not be there when I turn the faucet. Even more fun, like a game, is when I flush the toilet whether I will hear that ´´clunck´´ sound which means the water´s turned off. It´s usually always a surprise each and every time prefaced by the question, ¿hmm, will there be water? As for showering, I have an electricity-powered shower head, a nice change from my first 3 months in my training town of bucket baths. Taking showers is another game, adjusting the knob to that perfect equilibrium of hotness of the light dimming. If the light becomes brighter thus the water cold, I lose, but if it remains dim with low pressure and still hot,I´m a winner. I don´t know if that makes sense. Anyway, I´ve taken only one bucket bath since I´ve been in my house (only because the power was out for the first half of the day), and I actually enjoyed it because the pressure on the shower head isn´t super if you want some warm water. There was something very natural and thus enjoyable about remembering what a bucket bath was like at this moment. Who knew I could write an entire paragraph about water?
If you walk ´´recto´´ directly out of my yard, there is a rooster and hen coop owned by my neighbors, from which the calls of the rooster can be heard at all hours of the day (not only during the sunrise and sunset, as goes the misconception). I remember once my neighbor Doña Isabel carrying two chickens by the neck, and I asked her if they were for lunch, to which she replied affirmatively.
The scenery surrounding my small town is beautiful, hills and mountains. In and around town amongst the mostly small one-level lamina roofed and block houses, one can find corn (edible ´´elote´´ which with time turns into maíz—made into tortillas, the Guatemalan staple food), beans, coffee, and all sorts of trees like peaches and limes. It also vale la pena to mention that as one walks through my town, most greet in a usually sing-songy Spanish, for example, ´´Buuuueeennnoos dìììììaaas, que le vaya bien,`` as one notices the chickens and stary dogs romping about.
It all sounds so exotic as I write this, trying to remember myself before I came to Guatemala, but I´m just a normal person living in a normal place. You can see my pictures in Picassa for more of a visual, listed under ´´Más de mi casita azul´´.
Yesterday was an interesting moment that reminded me to keep up the task of blogging. As usual, I was waiting for a pickup truck (´´picop´´ in Spanish, or just ´´carro´´) to come home from one of the three further out towns where I facilitate the Healthy Schools program in elementary schools. One of the teachers gets in the last spot in the front of the pickup (the more comfortable location) while a few guys are in the back sitting on huge avocado sack mounds in the ´´palangana´´ or back of the truck. I animate myself to the task and jump on the back, somewhat sleepy, as I hold on to these sacks as the truck bumps to and fro, up and down. I think to myself, how wacky this situation is, to be sitting on these avocadoes, and imaging what someone in the US would think of this. To my 8-months eyes in Guatemala, mostly it was weird because avocadoes are out of season. I remember when they were in season, they only cost 1Q, but about a week ago they were costing 4Q.
My weekly routine consists of giving two 45-minute classes (two of my five work days) at a teacher´s high school in my town SMV (where the Mayan languages Kiche and Tzutijil are spoken) and visiting three elementary schools located in surrounding smaller ´´caseríos´´ or towns. These elementary schools are currently realizing the Healthy Schools program (the other three work days). For the elementary schools (where the Mayan language Kiche is spoken), I will generally visit each one once a week or once a month to meet with the teachers and maybe observe health classes and add a dynamic like a song or suggestion. I also go to see that the students are carrying out the systems of hand washing before snack and brushing their teeth after it. Two of the schools have two classrooms with about 25-30 students in each school (that is to say, multi-grade classrooms with three grades in one classroom and three grades in the other), and the third has four classrooms (one kindergarten, one first and second grades, one third and fourth grades and one fifth and sixth grades). I visit the elementary schools less frequently because I am a second generation volunteer, and ideally these schools are more independent. Once a month I am to give health talks to mothers of the students at each of the three schools. So far, I have given two types of talks with all three mothers´ groups (one on kitchen hygiene which included them making a flytrap using a 3.3-liter soda bottle (I know so big compared to the US), and one on dental hygiene which included me boiling white eggs and soaking them in coke overnight and having the mothers brush them clean---it´s all about the hands-on activities!). I´ve only done two because the first three months I was getting used to being here, and likewise they were getting used to me being here. It is interesting how long it takes to build confidence here, maybe because it is in a rural area.
Today was an even more unusual day. I began the day of ´´lo normal´´ going to the high school to give one of the two weekly classes on the Healthy Schools program to the students there who will become certified elementary teachers when they finish 12th grade. (We played a Jeopardy-style game to review some material covered). Afterwards, I met with the PC mason in the small center of town, consisting of a Catholic church and its adjacent parochial salon, the almost finished new municipality building (which has taken them more than 8 years to complete, hearsay) and basketball court. I have been trying to get him to come to my town for 5 months, since I arrived. So, imagine the unusual part of this. We go in his ´´single traction´´ pick up truck to the first school in a small town I will call Caserío C, to write up the plans and materials list to convert their latrines into flushable toilets. Then we drive on to the second school in small town Caserío T, to examine the kitchen remodeling they want to realize (as background information, elementary schools here have kitchens—usually they have ´´estufas mejoradas´´ or stoves with the wood-burning component but enclosed with a stovetop metal part and a chimney for the smoke to go out—because the mothers of students come to make a snack. The school day here is much shorter than in the US. It is from 7:30 am-12:30 pm and snack is around 10:30). Then, we leave his truck parked and make the 1-2 kilometer trek down to Caserío P, walking down because the roads are so bad from the rainy season that only a ´´double traction´´ car will make it. As we walk down, the misty fog comes in, announcing the predictable arriving afternoon rain, leaving dew drops on our hair and eyebrows as we discuss the process and continuation of the three desired projects I hope become a reality at all three schools. These roads are so bad that 1-2 kilometers feels more like 5 kilometers. But at least it was downhill and not the uphill I halfway attempted once before a car showed up. The view, on a clear day, is gorgeous, with the ability to see a bird´s eye landscape all the way to the Pacific coast. Between Caserío T and Caserío P, there is a part (30 meters long) where only a pickup truck can fit, with cliffs on either side. Dangerous but exciting. At Caserío P, he makes an assessment of the desired project of hand washing stations there. As you may imagine, we waited for a pickup for the return trip—which turned out to be an adventure because it began to rain and we were soaked standing up holding on to the bars of the pickup). This is the first time I have visited all three elementary schools in one day. In the end, it is decided to plan to get the hand washing stations project set up as a priority because the other two school s already have hand washing stations. This means I have to write the grant, which comes directly from a US institution, meaning I have to complete it in English. There´s some more drama involving this day, but it´s mostly interpersonal amongst the schools´ characters involved and it would be hard to catch up with it.
Word, I will try to keep this blog updated more often. There´s still so much I haven´t said, but at least I´ve planted some of the background here to give more context. With all the crazy ups and downs, I´m enjoying this experience. It is a one in a lifetime experience. 27 months of my life here is not much as compared with a lifetime. It´s worth every second, even the difficult moments. It´s hard missing loved ones at home, but I realize now after these 8 months in Guatemala who at home are truly loved ones based on those who respect me for my aspirations and independence to come here and try to make a (if even small ´´gotita´´) difference in the future of Guatemalan health.
I wish I could summarize my first 5 months in site in one blog entry, but that´s tricky, and yet I´ll try. I will say that since I arrived I have lived in a cute, cozy little light blue house of two rooms (the living room/kitchen and bedroom). My ´´casita celeste´´ was completely furnished with furniture, shelves (an uncommon find in the common Guatemalan home), incredible bed, gas stove (also uncommon in the Guatemalan home because they use wood-burning stoves, sometimes supplemented by gas ones), and the uncommon toaster oven. But I don´t have a fridge, and sometimes I fantasize about getting one, but who knows, it´s kind of fun not relying on one just for the sake of it. I will mention that many of the neighborhood kids come over and we will bake banana bread, cookies, apple pie, and ´´pizzas.´´ I also don´t have a TV (didn´t in the US either but ironically I live next to the cable guy in town and almost everyone has a TV here). I suppose I lucked out, replacing a volunteer and getting the added benefit of belongings of another one who finished her service a few months before the one I replaced.
Over the course of the first few months, I painted the inside of the house (with the help of my site mate PCV in a neighboring town). The kitchen is ´´golden yellow´´ and the wall that is shared by the kitchen/living room and the bedroom is ´´mandarin orange´´, and the bedroom is ´´fuchsia pink.´´ I like to think of the ambiance as parallel to that of the cycle of the day when one arrives at my house. Well, when I arrive at my house because I arrive alone, if not with my adopted street dog ´´Little,´´ known to Guatemalans as ´´Cochinita,´´ the little dirty one (she´s not that dirty though has fleas like almost every dog here), or if the family compound dog ´´María´´ isn´t already found sleeping on my small patio with her puppies (she knows that I will feed her). Back to the paint, picture arriving at my house to a blue-skied façade and upon entering you are hit with the sun, and as you walk to the bedroom you will experience the sunset of orange and then pink. Well, that was the idea I had in mind. Maybe I do have too much time on my hands.
Looking out of my house from my front door, my garden area is a huge, (nicely?) overgrown and secluded area with, to the right, a peach tree that is currently being suffocated by a guisquil plant—Guatemalan veggie that´s not so tasty—grown by the owner´s older relative and, to the left of the garden, one finds many coffee trees.
Walking out my door on my patio to the left you will see my pila sink to wash clothes and dishes, from which for the first month in site water ceased to gush out (my situation was that I had water for one hour/week). It got to the point where my neighbors let me wash my clothes in their house, or that they brought water in a ´´tinaja´´ bucket. What a nightmare, for my first few months in site, the end of the dry season, to hardly have water. That seems like a dream to me now, in the middle of the rainy season, where I find it an amenity to be able to turn my one bathroom faucet on at almost any hour now (hot water faucet doesn´t exist here except in fancy places) and wash my hands (también con jabón—yes I´ve been too much in my ´´Healthy Schools´´ mode) without the little bucket from the pila. Anywayz, de repente, even now water could just not be there when I turn the faucet. Even more fun, like a game, is when I flush the toilet whether I will hear that ´´clunck´´ sound which means the water´s turned off. It´s usually always a surprise each and every time prefaced by the question, ¿hmm, will there be water? As for showering, I have an electricity-powered shower head, a nice change from my first 3 months in my training town of bucket baths. Taking showers is another game, adjusting the knob to that perfect equilibrium of hotness of the light dimming. If the light becomes brighter thus the water cold, I lose, but if it remains dim with low pressure and still hot,I´m a winner. I don´t know if that makes sense. Anyway, I´ve taken only one bucket bath since I´ve been in my house (only because the power was out for the first half of the day), and I actually enjoyed it because the pressure on the shower head isn´t super if you want some warm water. There was something very natural and thus enjoyable about remembering what a bucket bath was like at this moment. Who knew I could write an entire paragraph about water?
If you walk ´´recto´´ directly out of my yard, there is a rooster and hen coop owned by my neighbors, from which the calls of the rooster can be heard at all hours of the day (not only during the sunrise and sunset, as goes the misconception). I remember once my neighbor Doña Isabel carrying two chickens by the neck, and I asked her if they were for lunch, to which she replied affirmatively.
The scenery surrounding my small town is beautiful, hills and mountains. In and around town amongst the mostly small one-level lamina roofed and block houses, one can find corn (edible ´´elote´´ which with time turns into maíz—made into tortillas, the Guatemalan staple food), beans, coffee, and all sorts of trees like peaches and limes. It also vale la pena to mention that as one walks through my town, most greet in a usually sing-songy Spanish, for example, ´´Buuuueeennnoos dìììììaaas, que le vaya bien,`` as one notices the chickens and stary dogs romping about.
It all sounds so exotic as I write this, trying to remember myself before I came to Guatemala, but I´m just a normal person living in a normal place. You can see my pictures in Picassa for more of a visual, listed under ´´Más de mi casita azul´´.
Yesterday was an interesting moment that reminded me to keep up the task of blogging. As usual, I was waiting for a pickup truck (´´picop´´ in Spanish, or just ´´carro´´) to come home from one of the three further out towns where I facilitate the Healthy Schools program in elementary schools. One of the teachers gets in the last spot in the front of the pickup (the more comfortable location) while a few guys are in the back sitting on huge avocado sack mounds in the ´´palangana´´ or back of the truck. I animate myself to the task and jump on the back, somewhat sleepy, as I hold on to these sacks as the truck bumps to and fro, up and down. I think to myself, how wacky this situation is, to be sitting on these avocadoes, and imaging what someone in the US would think of this. To my 8-months eyes in Guatemala, mostly it was weird because avocadoes are out of season. I remember when they were in season, they only cost 1Q, but about a week ago they were costing 4Q.
My weekly routine consists of giving two 45-minute classes (two of my five work days) at a teacher´s high school in my town SMV (where the Mayan languages Kiche and Tzutijil are spoken) and visiting three elementary schools located in surrounding smaller ´´caseríos´´ or towns. These elementary schools are currently realizing the Healthy Schools program (the other three work days). For the elementary schools (where the Mayan language Kiche is spoken), I will generally visit each one once a week or once a month to meet with the teachers and maybe observe health classes and add a dynamic like a song or suggestion. I also go to see that the students are carrying out the systems of hand washing before snack and brushing their teeth after it. Two of the schools have two classrooms with about 25-30 students in each school (that is to say, multi-grade classrooms with three grades in one classroom and three grades in the other), and the third has four classrooms (one kindergarten, one first and second grades, one third and fourth grades and one fifth and sixth grades). I visit the elementary schools less frequently because I am a second generation volunteer, and ideally these schools are more independent. Once a month I am to give health talks to mothers of the students at each of the three schools. So far, I have given two types of talks with all three mothers´ groups (one on kitchen hygiene which included them making a flytrap using a 3.3-liter soda bottle (I know so big compared to the US), and one on dental hygiene which included me boiling white eggs and soaking them in coke overnight and having the mothers brush them clean---it´s all about the hands-on activities!). I´ve only done two because the first three months I was getting used to being here, and likewise they were getting used to me being here. It is interesting how long it takes to build confidence here, maybe because it is in a rural area.
Today was an even more unusual day. I began the day of ´´lo normal´´ going to the high school to give one of the two weekly classes on the Healthy Schools program to the students there who will become certified elementary teachers when they finish 12th grade. (We played a Jeopardy-style game to review some material covered). Afterwards, I met with the PC mason in the small center of town, consisting of a Catholic church and its adjacent parochial salon, the almost finished new municipality building (which has taken them more than 8 years to complete, hearsay) and basketball court. I have been trying to get him to come to my town for 5 months, since I arrived. So, imagine the unusual part of this. We go in his ´´single traction´´ pick up truck to the first school in a small town I will call Caserío C, to write up the plans and materials list to convert their latrines into flushable toilets. Then we drive on to the second school in small town Caserío T, to examine the kitchen remodeling they want to realize (as background information, elementary schools here have kitchens—usually they have ´´estufas mejoradas´´ or stoves with the wood-burning component but enclosed with a stovetop metal part and a chimney for the smoke to go out—because the mothers of students come to make a snack. The school day here is much shorter than in the US. It is from 7:30 am-12:30 pm and snack is around 10:30). Then, we leave his truck parked and make the 1-2 kilometer trek down to Caserío P, walking down because the roads are so bad from the rainy season that only a ´´double traction´´ car will make it. As we walk down, the misty fog comes in, announcing the predictable arriving afternoon rain, leaving dew drops on our hair and eyebrows as we discuss the process and continuation of the three desired projects I hope become a reality at all three schools. These roads are so bad that 1-2 kilometers feels more like 5 kilometers. But at least it was downhill and not the uphill I halfway attempted once before a car showed up. The view, on a clear day, is gorgeous, with the ability to see a bird´s eye landscape all the way to the Pacific coast. Between Caserío T and Caserío P, there is a part (30 meters long) where only a pickup truck can fit, with cliffs on either side. Dangerous but exciting. At Caserío P, he makes an assessment of the desired project of hand washing stations there. As you may imagine, we waited for a pickup for the return trip—which turned out to be an adventure because it began to rain and we were soaked standing up holding on to the bars of the pickup). This is the first time I have visited all three elementary schools in one day. In the end, it is decided to plan to get the hand washing stations project set up as a priority because the other two school s already have hand washing stations. This means I have to write the grant, which comes directly from a US institution, meaning I have to complete it in English. There´s some more drama involving this day, but it´s mostly interpersonal amongst the schools´ characters involved and it would be hard to catch up with it.
Word, I will try to keep this blog updated more often. There´s still so much I haven´t said, but at least I´ve planted some of the background here to give more context. With all the crazy ups and downs, I´m enjoying this experience. It is a one in a lifetime experience. 27 months of my life here is not much as compared with a lifetime. It´s worth every second, even the difficult moments. It´s hard missing loved ones at home, but I realize now after these 8 months in Guatemala who at home are truly loved ones based on those who respect me for my aspirations and independence to come here and try to make a (if even small ´´gotita´´) difference in the future of Guatemalan health.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Site
I finally received my site, in SMV, Solola, right by the second biggest lake of Guatemala, Lago Atitlan! This lake is interesting because it was created by huge volcano erruptions that turned into a massive crater and water built up. (The biggest is Lake Izabal). I am the only one from my program of Healthy Schools that received this site, so I really lucked out, and I am super excited. I will be going to my site visit next week. I will be replacing a Healthy Schools volunteer there and working in three second generation schools, but the majority of my time will be giving Healthy School lectures (some to include HIV/AIDS and reproductive health?) in a nearby Colegio to high school students who will be future teachers. Training ends on March 28th with swearing-in! That weekend I will be moving to Santa Maria.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Training
This is a long entry that I have kind of written over time but am finally posting it online. It isn’t exhaustive but at least it is an update and summary. Be sure to check my photo album periodically because I keep that better updated. I haven’t written many cultural aspects but I plan to do that in the future. Training has taken up a lot of my time such that I haven’t taken the time to write and reflect as much as I would have liked. On that note:
What is sustainable development?
Go in search of the people
Love them
Learn from them
Plan with them
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
But of the best leaders
When their task is accomplished
And their work is done
The people all mark
“We have done it ourselves”
-Lao Tso
This is a quote that I enjoy rereading from the main training center room where we meet generally every Monday for general training on medical issues (diarrhea, STDs, food preparation, etc.), cultural training, and technical training.
As for my technical training in the Escuelas Saludables (Healthy Schools, or HS) program, the most interesting aspects for me so far have been visiting a primary school lacking in resources and receiving ideas on how to best implement the program. Four of us trainees living in the Santo Domingo Xenacoj community are visiting a small US-charter equivalent school (here called PRONADE), in an “aldea” or small town of the municipality Xenacoj called San Antonio. San Antonio itself has an approximate population of 300, is mostly if not all indigenous Kaqchikel, and while it has wells and springs for water, it does not yet have electricity. I am wondering if they don’t have these resources because most of the residents come from a different municipality (San Juan Sacatepéquez in the Guatemalan department). I am curious now why they have come from San Juan, being that it is relatively far away from Xenacoj? Regardless, our group has been working in a school of 30+ students of two classrooms split about equally. There are only two teachers. The first and second graders are in one classroom, and they mostly only speak Kaqchikel but most understand Spanish. The other classroom has the upper four grades, so you can imagine it is difficult to teach 4 levels. The kids at this school are adorable and intelligent, but the lack of especially running water creates a daily habit of unsanitary conditions, like not bathing/brushing teeth daily and not having sanitary latrines/toilets. PC had some extra toothbrushes lying around the center that they gave our group (because this is probably the neediest school for our Healthy Schools training).
Each of us trainers has given a practice lesson plan to the students on a health related topic. My topic was on brushing teeth. I chose a lesson out of the published “Por Una Escuela Saludable” teacher’s manual that was created after many other Healthy Schools volunteers. I started with a Rompehielo, or ice breaker, which was a funny song about using all parts of your body to brush your teeth. After that, I had prepared cut up apples and I told the students to imagine they didn’t have teeth. Then, I asked them to try to eat their piece without using their teeth. Obviously, they could only suck on it. Thus, the lesson revolved around the importance of teeth and the need to take care of them, or else one can’t eat the foods we want to eat, for example. After this, each student had his or her donated toothbrush and some toothpaste/water (that I brought for them) and we went to the outdoor sink (“pila”) and they brushed their teeth. It was a good lesson, I thought, but at the end of the day, everything was donated to them and I wonder when we leave if their parents will buy the supplies. That is the idea of sustainability. In the schools I will work in, the parents will be encouraged to buy these supplies in the same way they buy the standard pencils, notebooks, etc. In general, the San Antonio school experience is difficult because this is our training school, and thus we are only there for 3 months.
On another note, for less than a week, we went on Field Based Training (FBT) in the eastern highland departments Huehuetenango (“Huehue”), Quetzaltenango (“Xela” pronounced Shela), Chimaltenango (“Chimal”), and Totonicapán ("Toto"). We spent most of our time in Huehue, where we visited with two volunteers who are about to end their service when we begin ours in April, or in Peace Corps terms, they are about to COS (Close Of Service). Two of us will be replacing them. I kind of want to replace one of them who lives in an area where Mam is spoken, because I’d like to be in an indigenous community and want to learn some of the language, enough phrases to greet and have small talk. It was nice to visit some of their schools, where we mostly formally met with the teachers, saw a few health lessons, and see different infrastructure projects that the volunteers facilitated. It was an overwhelming experience because of all the travel and all 17 of us trainees were together but it was informative and the volunteers were very helpful. It was also great to see how they live. We visited three other volunteers’ houses in Toto, Xela, and Chimal (in the city Tecpán). At the one in Toto, many volunteers who are almost mid-service came to meet us and it was good to hear their perspective. A week after FBT, I got the chance to visit one of them in Toto for 5 days. It was nice to get the one-on-one opportunity to live how the volunteer lives, ask an infinite amount of questions, and go with the volunteer to school. I would say that it has been the highlight of training so far because it most closely reflects what my life will be like when I finally become a volunteer. She has a sweet set up in her house, and I’ve posted pictures online (coming soon). Some of my general opinions of the places we visited are that Huehue’s (the city) scenery was beautiful because of the Cuchumatanes mountain range, the highest in Central America, and Xela the city has a nice cosmopolitan feel to it.
I find out on Monday, in a few days, where my site will be! It is exciting yet I am anxious. The departments where we are being placed are in Huehue, Xela, Chimal, Alta Verapaz, and Sololá. I am hoping for Chimal or Sololá because they are closer to Antigua, but as I mentioned earlier, I would also like to be in Huehue. I think that the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director), the director of Healthy Schools, will give me first generation schools because I have some experience teaching, which is little. (Some background information: each school that signs on for the Healthy Schools program is in it for four years and thus has two volunteers, the first one starts it as “first generation” and the second one hopefully certifies it in “second generation"). If the case is that I am given first generation, I will probably not get Huehue because I think those replacements are second generations. Regardless, I am flexible and open to any option and, at the end of the day, eagerly awaiting the move to my site!
What is sustainable development?
Go in search of the people
Love them
Learn from them
Plan with them
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
But of the best leaders
When their task is accomplished
And their work is done
The people all mark
“We have done it ourselves”
-Lao Tso
This is a quote that I enjoy rereading from the main training center room where we meet generally every Monday for general training on medical issues (diarrhea, STDs, food preparation, etc.), cultural training, and technical training.
As for my technical training in the Escuelas Saludables (Healthy Schools, or HS) program, the most interesting aspects for me so far have been visiting a primary school lacking in resources and receiving ideas on how to best implement the program. Four of us trainees living in the Santo Domingo Xenacoj community are visiting a small US-charter equivalent school (here called PRONADE), in an “aldea” or small town of the municipality Xenacoj called San Antonio. San Antonio itself has an approximate population of 300, is mostly if not all indigenous Kaqchikel, and while it has wells and springs for water, it does not yet have electricity. I am wondering if they don’t have these resources because most of the residents come from a different municipality (San Juan Sacatepéquez in the Guatemalan department). I am curious now why they have come from San Juan, being that it is relatively far away from Xenacoj? Regardless, our group has been working in a school of 30+ students of two classrooms split about equally. There are only two teachers. The first and second graders are in one classroom, and they mostly only speak Kaqchikel but most understand Spanish. The other classroom has the upper four grades, so you can imagine it is difficult to teach 4 levels. The kids at this school are adorable and intelligent, but the lack of especially running water creates a daily habit of unsanitary conditions, like not bathing/brushing teeth daily and not having sanitary latrines/toilets. PC had some extra toothbrushes lying around the center that they gave our group (because this is probably the neediest school for our Healthy Schools training).
Each of us trainers has given a practice lesson plan to the students on a health related topic. My topic was on brushing teeth. I chose a lesson out of the published “Por Una Escuela Saludable” teacher’s manual that was created after many other Healthy Schools volunteers. I started with a Rompehielo, or ice breaker, which was a funny song about using all parts of your body to brush your teeth. After that, I had prepared cut up apples and I told the students to imagine they didn’t have teeth. Then, I asked them to try to eat their piece without using their teeth. Obviously, they could only suck on it. Thus, the lesson revolved around the importance of teeth and the need to take care of them, or else one can’t eat the foods we want to eat, for example. After this, each student had his or her donated toothbrush and some toothpaste/water (that I brought for them) and we went to the outdoor sink (“pila”) and they brushed their teeth. It was a good lesson, I thought, but at the end of the day, everything was donated to them and I wonder when we leave if their parents will buy the supplies. That is the idea of sustainability. In the schools I will work in, the parents will be encouraged to buy these supplies in the same way they buy the standard pencils, notebooks, etc. In general, the San Antonio school experience is difficult because this is our training school, and thus we are only there for 3 months.
On another note, for less than a week, we went on Field Based Training (FBT) in the eastern highland departments Huehuetenango (“Huehue”), Quetzaltenango (“Xela” pronounced Shela), Chimaltenango (“Chimal”), and Totonicapán ("Toto"). We spent most of our time in Huehue, where we visited with two volunteers who are about to end their service when we begin ours in April, or in Peace Corps terms, they are about to COS (Close Of Service). Two of us will be replacing them. I kind of want to replace one of them who lives in an area where Mam is spoken, because I’d like to be in an indigenous community and want to learn some of the language, enough phrases to greet and have small talk. It was nice to visit some of their schools, where we mostly formally met with the teachers, saw a few health lessons, and see different infrastructure projects that the volunteers facilitated. It was an overwhelming experience because of all the travel and all 17 of us trainees were together but it was informative and the volunteers were very helpful. It was also great to see how they live. We visited three other volunteers’ houses in Toto, Xela, and Chimal (in the city Tecpán). At the one in Toto, many volunteers who are almost mid-service came to meet us and it was good to hear their perspective. A week after FBT, I got the chance to visit one of them in Toto for 5 days. It was nice to get the one-on-one opportunity to live how the volunteer lives, ask an infinite amount of questions, and go with the volunteer to school. I would say that it has been the highlight of training so far because it most closely reflects what my life will be like when I finally become a volunteer. She has a sweet set up in her house, and I’ve posted pictures online (coming soon). Some of my general opinions of the places we visited are that Huehue’s (the city) scenery was beautiful because of the Cuchumatanes mountain range, the highest in Central America, and Xela the city has a nice cosmopolitan feel to it.
I find out on Monday, in a few days, where my site will be! It is exciting yet I am anxious. The departments where we are being placed are in Huehue, Xela, Chimal, Alta Verapaz, and Sololá. I am hoping for Chimal or Sololá because they are closer to Antigua, but as I mentioned earlier, I would also like to be in Huehue. I think that the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director), the director of Healthy Schools, will give me first generation schools because I have some experience teaching, which is little. (Some background information: each school that signs on for the Healthy Schools program is in it for four years and thus has two volunteers, the first one starts it as “first generation” and the second one hopefully certifies it in “second generation"). If the case is that I am given first generation, I will probably not get Huehue because I think those replacements are second generations. Regardless, I am flexible and open to any option and, at the end of the day, eagerly awaiting the move to my site!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Xenacoj
Finally I create the first post of my blog that will chart my experiences in Guatemala as a Healthy Schools Facilitator in Guatemala. I have been in Guatemala for a little of two weeks, and already it feels like years. For my first three months, I am living with a host family in Santo Domingo Xenacoj, a small mostly indigenous city of about 11,000(?) where Kaqchikel, one of some 23 languages in Guatemala, is spoken. "Xenacoj" is Kaqchikel for "beneath the hill Nacoj" which lies next to it, and "coj" means lion. Nonetheless, I am learning a little of the language, like "thank you" means "matioch", amongst a few others. I live with a fantastic family whose house is located near the central park, municipality, open market, and Catholic church. There are 3 other trainees with me, 2 who live with families that are part of my extended family.
While I have not had a typical day with respect to Peace Corps training, I will try to explain a typical day here for me. I usually take a bucket bath every other day, like my family. I use water heated on a stove, so thankfully it is not cold! My family has a gas stove in addition to a firewood stove. The women in the family know how to weave using the waist technique passed on from their Mayan ancestors. The food is mostly tortillas, beans, cooked local vegetables, noodles, and lots of soups with all of the above in them. The coffee is better than expected because the guide books said that all the good Guatemalan coffee is exported. I have (somewhat) learned to "tortillar" or make tortillas with my family--they are the best ever! They make about 200 a day, some of which they "sell" to their extended family and others.
The scenery is beautiful, as we are in the highlands or "altiplanos", with rolling hills and mountains. As for weather, there are only two seasons: summer, the dry season (November - April) and winter, the rainy season (May-Novemberish). This is interesting because Guatemalans are so intrigued by the idea of autumn and spring. Now, in summer it is characterized in the highlands as hot and dry when the sun is out, and when the sun isn't out it is basically freezing (well, maybe I exaggerate cause I don't like cold weather but still cold). Thus, contrasted temperatures, which is expected in higher altitudes. From my understanding, the winter season is the rainy season, so it will be raining almost every day.
More to come on my technical training... I just wanted to make one post! I will say that I have already been to many cities, mostly for training, including Santa Lucia Milpas Altas (where the PC Guatemala headquarters will be), Parramos, Alotenango, and Antigua. These travels have been done on bus on winding roads and the always visible volcanoes Fuego, Agua, and Acatenango have been a beautiful site.
Love you all!
While I have not had a typical day with respect to Peace Corps training, I will try to explain a typical day here for me. I usually take a bucket bath every other day, like my family. I use water heated on a stove, so thankfully it is not cold! My family has a gas stove in addition to a firewood stove. The women in the family know how to weave using the waist technique passed on from their Mayan ancestors. The food is mostly tortillas, beans, cooked local vegetables, noodles, and lots of soups with all of the above in them. The coffee is better than expected because the guide books said that all the good Guatemalan coffee is exported. I have (somewhat) learned to "tortillar" or make tortillas with my family--they are the best ever! They make about 200 a day, some of which they "sell" to their extended family and others.
The scenery is beautiful, as we are in the highlands or "altiplanos", with rolling hills and mountains. As for weather, there are only two seasons: summer, the dry season (November - April) and winter, the rainy season (May-Novemberish). This is interesting because Guatemalans are so intrigued by the idea of autumn and spring. Now, in summer it is characterized in the highlands as hot and dry when the sun is out, and when the sun isn't out it is basically freezing (well, maybe I exaggerate cause I don't like cold weather but still cold). Thus, contrasted temperatures, which is expected in higher altitudes. From my understanding, the winter season is the rainy season, so it will be raining almost every day.
More to come on my technical training... I just wanted to make one post! I will say that I have already been to many cities, mostly for training, including Santa Lucia Milpas Altas (where the PC Guatemala headquarters will be), Parramos, Alotenango, and Antigua. These travels have been done on bus on winding roads and the always visible volcanoes Fuego, Agua, and Acatenango have been a beautiful site.
Love you all!
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