Sunday, November 28, 2010

I said the audience was heavenly, but the traveling was hell

I’m Thankful For… (A Haiku)
Friends and Family,
Baseball, Music, Traveling,
Luck and Fate, and Jokes.

So, the past couple weeks have been filled with lots and lots of traveling, and very little sleep. Lots of death-trap roads (and holding of breath while tumbling down hills on them in a shaky little bus), lots of 4 am wake ups and cold showers outdoors. Lots of roommates and lotsss of cold and rain. But only in the best way.

We started off our travels by taking one of our women’s groups to Cobán to meet with some women’s groups there that have done some really cool projects. We stayed at the women’s co-op in a couple ranch houses with leaky roofs and bunk beds. It was a pretty rustic couple of days, and it literally POURED the entire time we were there, but Cobán is absolutely beautiful and the women were really into seeing the projects. Even though I have never been so soaking wet in my entire life (this coming from a Seattle girl who’s spent most of her summers camping in the PNW), it was awesome to see the women get really excited when they saw that it actually was possible to put together a project that would benefit them.

We then did the six hour trip home, dropped off group #1, and left with group #2 for Uspantán. This group was the women’s commission of the Muni, so they’re a bit more urban and, for the most part, educated. We visited the Women’s Office in Uspantán and learned about their commissions and associations. The trip there was about eight hours, but the road was terrible and the women were so freaked out that the refused to go home the same way, and instead we took the long way home, which took almost 12 hours. It’s such a great depiction of the Guatemalan culture, because I cannot imagine any American seeing the sense in adding four hours to a trip just because a few miles of road are less than pleasant. I certainly couldn’t, but the gringa doesn’t get much say in those things, so the long way we went.

We dropped the ladies off at home and left the next day with Group #3 to the capital for Día de La No Violencia Contra Las Mujeres, which also happened to be Thanksgiving. I find this completely appropriate because living in Guatemala and working with women’s groups has definitely made me thankful for growing up in the States where violence against women is not acceptable or allowed. There is certainly an attitude here that these issues should not be talked about, and that “it’s just part of the culture”. We got into Guate on Wednesday night for a vigil held for all of the women in Guatemala (more than 5,800 in the past ten years) who have been killed. The next morning was a march for the big day, in which all of the women’s organizations in Guatemala participated.

The women we brought with us are from a very small, poor aldea and almost none of them can read or write. Also, not one of them owns a sweater. Not only that, when CODEFEM gave them each a sweater for the chilly capital, my counterpart and I had to teach them how to zip them up.

Straight from there I hopped a bus to Matequescuintla, Jalapa to meet up with the other volunteers in the Oriente for Thanksgiving. Most of them are from my training group, and it was nice to spend the holiday with familiar faces and catch up a bit. We had dinner at one of the volunteer’s houses, and then her host dad drove us all down to the lodge down the street where we had a campfire and somehow crammed all 14 of us into one cabin. The next day, some of us decided to stay another night and we spent the day zip-lining on the lodge property and exploring the nearby town of Colis for lunch.

Now, finally home, I am just relaxing a resting up, as we are taking our third group on their interchange trip next weekend. It’s so strange to think I have been in site for a month already- and that pretty soon it will be December- and Christmas!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Remember you got to reach high to be risen

The Christmas Games (A Haiku)
Volleyball star I
aint, but tall gringa I am.
So, I made the team.

In my town they have a volleyball tournament called the Christmas Games, that go from now until (duh) Christmas. Everyoneeee plays, and they have about five games every night. So, one night I of course got roped into playing with a friend of my counterpart’s. Good news is, I didn’t suck (but my team did lose…)

Spent the weekend visiting volunteers in San Diego, Zacapa, where the town was having their "Feria" for the patron saint. There was a rodeo- which consisted of about 5 cowboys being quickly bucked off of bulls, and then a scantily clad cowgirl singing in the middle of the arena for the rest of the time. There was also a dance, and we discovered that dancing in the oriente consists of spinning in circles as fast as you can the entire night. By the end of the night I really was a dizzy blond.

The past week has been quite the whirlwind- we are getting ready to go on some “Giras” with our women’s groups. I am finally starting to grasp exactly what CODEFEM is all about, if not necessarily what my role will be there. Basically, they are currently finishing up year two of a three year plan. Year One was diagnostics, evaluations, etc. Year Two has been capacitating the women on their rights, violence, etc. Now, Year Three is aimed at organizing the women legally so they can participate in decision-making in their towns and hopefully solicit projects that will benefit them and their communities.

So, we are taking each of our three women’s groups to visit another women’s group in Guatemala that has done projects similar to what they might want to do. Two of our groups are from little aldeas, and the women have hardly ever left their town, so to take them on a three day road trip (without their husbands) is kind of a big deal. In fact, it’s such a big deal we had to have meetings in each aldea with the women and their husbands so that they could get permission from the men to go on the trip. Some of them said they wanted to go, but they get sick in cars and were afraid to go. Some had husbands who wouldn’t let them go (one husband looked at me and said “there’s SEVEN of us in the house” as if that was some explanation as to why he couldn’t do without his wife for two nights). Most were excited, but slightly scared to go so far away. Then one woman told them to get over it- the gringa came all the way from the United States, so they would probably survive a 10 hour bus ride.

We leave for the first trip tomorrow, going to Coban. We’ll come home with that group on Saturday, and leave Sunday for El Quiché with our Muni group. Home from that trip on Tuesday, and into the capital Wednesday for Día de la No Violencia Contra las Mujeres activities. Then I’ll go straight from there to Thanksgiving with the Oriente Volunteers, and from there straight back to the capital for a week long end of the year evaluation of CODEFEM. THEN, the next week we’ll take our last group to Totonicapan. Phew. Assuming I’m not completelyyy exhausted after all of that, I’m sure I’ll have some great stories to share. Until then-

Sunday, November 7, 2010

I'm a big girl now, see my big girl shoes, it'll take more than just a breeze to make me fall overboard

My Favorite! (A Haiku)
I finally live
in a place where palm trees grow.
How cool is that, right?

Throughout training volunteers, nurses, trainers, admins all told us that Peace Corps, especially the first three months of service, would be like a roller coaster. There are highs that are reeeeally high, and there are lows that are juuuust as low. I totally underestimated how right they were. Also, it should be noted, that I HATE ROLLERCOASTERS. I always have. Even the little kid ones that are basically a fast train scare the crap out of me. But, that being said, I have now survived my first week of service, and while there have certainly been some moments where my roller coaster plummeted for a bit, there have also been some really great times (that need some metaphor better than the high point of a roller coaster, since that is usually the point that I am cussing to myself and trying not to cry in anticipation of the upcoming drop to death).

For instance: One afternoon I spent a sweaty hour or two trying to put up my mosquito net in my room. I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass, since I can’t put holes in the walls, the ceilings are real tall, and I had no ladder. However, the bat that makes kissing noises at me from the rafters every night and the increasing number of mosquito bites on every part of my body were enough motivation to come up with some sort of rigging for the net (because, although Mr. Murcielago has not come out of the rafters at all and kissing noises are kind of cute and all, I am just waiting for him to fly at my neck in the middle of the night and start sucking. No thank you). After some serious creative thinking and a lot of improvising, I somehow managed to get the thing in place. And guess what? I lovee sleeping under a mosquito net! It’s kind of like a cozy little fort!
mosquito net!

Also spent a day with fellow volunteers in Chiquimula, sharing horror/success stories and running errands. It is nice to be getting to the point where I’m starting to get the hang of the transportation around here, and the layout of “big city” Chiquimula. It was also quite nice to spend the day speaking English with others who were going through the same things.

Last but not least, I…Cooked! Yes, not a huge achievement in the lives of many but, when you: (1) come from a non-cooking household like mine and have no cooking practice, even in a familiar kitchen and country, (2) are in a foreign country where the ingredients are all different and in another language, and (3) are using a kitchen that you don’t know anything about with no counters (and no can opener…that was an adventure) trust me, I consider the corn chowder I somehow managed to scrape together a masterpiece. It was quite tasty, too, especially with some delicious fresh bread bought from the bakery down the street from my house (bad news). And, even better, I have enough leftovers for a couple more meals. Maybe I’ll turn into a chef just yet…
my beautiful creation! (yes, i was so proud of it i took a picture)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Then Slowly Grows a Little Faith

Day One (A Haiku)
Laughing/Hating Life
Stranded in Chiquimula
Welcome to Peace Corps!

Well, official Day One as a Peace Corps Volunteer started off with a bang… Actually, it was more of a deafening hissssssss. Yes, that is the lovely sound that our bus began to make right around hour 3 of the journey East (after already sitting in almost Seattle-esque traffic for the first leg of the trip). It probably shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, as the door of the bus was tied shut with rope and the driver had been fiddling with every button on the dashboard like he didn’t know what any of them were for. Nevertheless, there was a moment of slight panic when the hisssssss caused the bus to pull over on the side of the road and then all the lights went out. The workers seemed to think that the solution was to let everything rest for a bit and then start up again, so that’s what we did…about four times, until finally they decided that there really was something wrong with the bus and that we needed to flag down a different bus.

By the time my fellow PCV, Kristen, and I had finally gotten to Chiquimula our connecting busses had long since stopped running. As much of a disaster as it was, it was not so bad loafing in a hotel room, watching My Best Friend’s Wedding, eating pizza for a night before the real work started.

Holy Hot (A Haiku)
My deodorant
Has turned to liquid and my
Envelopes melted.

Nowww it’s three days later and I’m slowly (SLOWLY) settling into my site. It’s going to be a huge adjustment but each day I make a baby step (Yesterday it was sharing cake with my host family, who until then hadn’t really said two words to me. Today, it was buying heart shaped baskets to organize my belongings) and I’m finally starting to have faith that things are going to be okay-even though, yes, my deodorant literally squirted at me this morning, and all of my envelopes have melted shut.

me an wilson- i miss him already!
we're volunteers! some of us at swearing in (at the ambassador's house!)
Walking into my town from the main road
my office
my new room =]