October

So, as you can see from my last entry, September was a very frustrating month.  Work was going very slow due to frequent strikes by the teachers (which isn’t their fault since they aren’t getting paid), there wasn’t very much sun, and due to other things as well it was just hard to keep a very positive attitude.  But after a tropical storm and after a week and a half of solid rain, destroying many roads in the country, the sun is finally out!  And October has turned out to be a pretty good month.  I’ve learned so many things from just trying to stay positive, that I thought that I would write a few of the things I’ve learned. 

1.       First of all, if I didn’t have my family and friends to vent to, I probably wouldn’t still be here in Guatemala.   So thank you so much!  You all have been such a great source of strength and given me lots of help.  It’s funny how sometimes friendships and family ties can grow stronger when you are farther away (but don’t worry, I’m not going to stay farther away forever!).  But this is something that everyone in my community seems to already understand.  In two weeks, three women of Santa María passed away, and each time, there was an unbelievable support for the family from the community.  For the funeral, the whole community comes to support the family and I have never been so moved.  I went to one funeral and followed the procession down to the cemetery, where afterwards women had provided lunch for everyone.  And that means everyone, over a hundred people easily.  Even families that are struggling a lot still make time to invite me over for coffee and dinner, which is really awesome.

2.       A good conversation can make my day so much better!  I’ve been starting to get to know people here a lot better and having a good conversation makes such a difference.  It’s strengthens my ties to Santa María, gives me insight into what people’s lives are like and what is important to people here, and what the needs of the community are.  It also helps people get to know me and hopefully see me more as just another volunteer.  In other words, making friends here helps a lot too!

3.       Don’t stop doing what you love!  When I got really sad and lonely, I would try to do things that I love, like read or write, listen to music, or go outside (which was hard because it rained so much!).  Every time I walk through the country here it just takes my breath away again, I don’t even know how to describe it!  Also, I’ve started baking and cooking a lot more and experimenting with recipes, which I knew I liked but I didn’t really know that I liked it this much.  I just wish I didn’t make so many dishes to wash all the time!

4.       Be prepared for anything.  Whether it’s a tropical storm, political party hosting a party across the street, bad news, or really good news, any day can bring any kind of surprise.  For example, one day I was teaching English at the primary school and went out for a snack during recess.  When I came back, EVERYONE was crying.  Some kids were shaking uncontrollably, the teacher was crying, and the teacher’s aid was just yelling at me “START TEACHING, PLEASE”.  It turns out some of the students had been playing near a house during recess and found a dead woman inside.  It was just a really shocking incident that I was not prepared for at all and I kind of went into shock.  I’ve had so many new experiences that it’s just necessary to be prepared for anything every day.

I’ve learned a lot more, too, but I don’t want to make this post extremely long and cheesy.  Here’s what’s been going on in my life lately:

1.        A new mayor was elected, so I am working on a presentation for the different communities on the landfill/compost/recycling center project that is already in progress.  That way, hopefully the communities will still push for the project when the new mayor comes in and he won’t throw it out.

2.       Israel passed the writing portion of his English test, which is really great!  It was a test on even things I didn’t know about English, like phonetics, biographies of the founding fathers, the origins of English, and other difficult topics.  We are still waiting to hear back about the oral part of the test.

3.       I survived tropical storm 12-E, although many roads in Guatemala did not.  NOTHING dried though and it pretty much rained 24 hours 7 days a week for 2 weeks.

4.       I made a delantal (an apron), and am working on a blouse and button up shirt with the sewing workshop with the Comision de la Mujer.  I love that group and am learning so much with them!  I even had to be the secretary one meeting and write the acta, which is a legal document of what goes on during the meeting.  It was really hard because I had to listen and at the same time write everything down!

5.       I’ve been looking for a new place to move to, and I might have found a family to move in with!  I’m going to spend more time with them to make sure that it would be okay, but I’m pretty excited.  I would just be renting a room with them and share a bathroom and kitchen with them.

6.       The project with the environmental songs is slowing down because we are having some budget problems, but hopefully we will work through them!

And finally I will end with the quote that's on my mirror:

“…you need to understand that as long as you got a vagina you run the entire ----- universe” – Katt Williiams

Sometimes it’s tough working around men in the muni, but I’ve realized that the real power in Santa María is with the women.  These women work so hard for their families, selling Avon, sewing, baking, running a tienda, weaving, while at the same time being expected to raise their children, prepare all the meals, wash the clothes, and much more.  The women are the foundations of the family here, yet most of the decisions are made by men.  This quote just helps remind me that women are powerful and not to let the machismo get me down!

Oh, September

September is so frustrating!!  I miss sunshine.

August 15

Monday, August 15

Today was probably one of the best days I’ve had in Guatemala!  I’m finally feeling better after having stomach and other health problems and it was just a really good day!  It’s really nice to feel healthy again.  The daughter of someone who works in the Peace Corps office is coming to live in Santa Maria to work with the women’s group here so today I went to look at houses with her and her mom and met Dona Lucia, who seems like an amazing woman!  She leads the group and they make pine baskets to sell in the capital and are going to learn from the new girl how to make shoes out of tires and some kind of plant I think.  Also, when I run, I go into one of the communities, and the kids usually stare at me or run away because they think I might steal them.  They are starting to get used to me, though, and so today some kids started racing me and it was really fun!  They were making fun of my red face but they helped me make it up this hill that I always have trouble with.  And I got a package, which makes any day better!  I’ve already started one of the books I got, Love in the Time of Cholera, and can’t put it down!  That’s the problem…if it’s a good book, I can’t just read little bits at a time.  Today was just beautiful too.  It’s starting to rain more in the evening, around 5:30 or 6, so I have time to go running in the afternoon and get to see the beautiful mountains!  I am amazed every time at the breathtaking views.  It feels sometimes like I’m in a magical land, with mountains appearing out of the clouds it’s hard to believe its real sometimes!  The road winds through different terrains with corn and beans or coffee fincas.  While I was waiting for the new girl to arrive, I was sitting and just talking to the kids who were getting out of school and it felt really good to feel a part of the community!  I don’t feel as bad anymore not working in the office all the time and I think my counterpart is getting used to me not being there from 8-5, which is good.  This Thursday I am going to start teaching vermiculture to his class, so hopefully that will go well!  It will be an experiment, since I’ve never done vermiculture, but this weekend I might go visit a friend who has good setup and see how he does it. 

Election time is really exciting!  There are lots of things going on right now, lots of campaigns and people painting the country with all kinds of political slogans and signs.  One party’s slogan is “Hasta la victoria siempre!” which Che Guevara is famous for as well.  Another party, which actually has a lot of support, has suspicious ties with the war.  Another party with a decent amount of support does not actually have a legal candidate yet because she is the wife of the current president and they divorced so she could run for presidency and the supreme court has told her that she can’t run numerous times because she broke the law to be able to run.  So she is using her supporters to protest and cause roadblocks to try and get the supreme court to let her run.  Rigoberta Menchu is running for presidency, as well as several other women, and it’s great to see women involved in politics here!  Locally, there are four candidates for mayor in my town, one of which is a woman.  Luckily things have been pretty tranquil and there hasn’t been any violence- just a couple of political rallies and parades.  In some places, like the town next to me, there have already been political clashes.  Some schools are planning on closing early for elections because they will probably use the schools as places to vote.  Speaking of elections, I had to go into the Peace Corps office and picked up a magazine that was about the 2012 elections back home.  I am so behind on politics at home!  I really have no idea what’s going on except for the fact that I missed Shark Week.

So I apologize for not posting in a while!  I have been busy being sick and going to workshops, but now I’m settling back into a routine.  With the women’s committee, I am continuing to learn how to sew with them and will soon start an apron.  The women’s group also wants to build greenhouses, so I am going to help them look for funds and write a proposal.  With the high school, we are going to start planning out their recycling center for the upcoming school year.  A couple other teachers have come up to me with projects they want to do, but I am still not quite sure how to make them happen.  Overall, I’ve learned so much in the time I’ve been here!  I can’t believe that we are halfway through August already.  There’s so much to do and time goes by so fast!  I want to stay in my community but at the same time I want to travel around too because Guatemala has so many places to see! 

4th of July

Happy 4th of July!!  Every year, Peace Corps holds a big celebration the weekend before, as well as an All-Volunteer Conference in Antigua.  I went to both of them last week, which unfortunately meant I had to miss out on most of my town’s feria, or town fair, last weekend.  All of last week was exciting though, everyone was getting ready for the fair!  Vendors came and set up arcades and food stalls and really sketchy ferris wheels.  School bands practice for the parade, all the girls get their traje hemmed and embroidered and put on their heels, and all the guys put as much gel in their hair as they can so that not even a hair is out of place.  There is a parade and schools and organizations each make carrosas, which are kind of like floats, on the back of pick-ups.  I helped out for the one that the muni was making, which was fun!  We spent the week cutting and glueing and glittering.  Everyone was stressed out we weren’t going to finish though!  I don’t have a finished product picture, but I’ll try to get one from someone else.  The theme was, of course, Santa María and the products that are grown there- corn, avocado, limón, café, potatoes, and squash.  Schools had events all last week and this week they are out of school all week, which doesn’t really surprise me anymore.  The school schedule is so confusing- there are always holidays and events going on.  On Thursday I left to go to Antigua for the conference/4^th of July celebration and then came back on Sunday.  On Sunday I saw our new central park, which is really nice!  It has a big covered amphitheater and a fountain.  It doesn’t have a lot of green spaces, but lots of places to sit and people watch.  It will be really nice having a place to “hang out” in Santa Maria now!  The All-Volunteer Conference was pretty fun- I missed a lot of it because I had to meet with my supervisor about the teacher training, but what I heard was pretty interesting.  There was a panel on diversity and how to explain to Guatemalans that not all Americans are white and look European.  There was also a guest speaker who talked about the elections and then workshops afterwards.  Then there was a basketball tournament between the different departments (Sololá lost) and we went back to Antigua to rest before the fourth of July party on Saturday.  There were delicious burgers, pasta salad, potato salad, music, a talent show, a baking contest, and a pie eating contest.  It was really fun to see everyone from my group again and meet new people as well.  The ambassador and his family came, and he brought his famous brownies.  They were absolutely delicious with cardamom seed in them which made them taste so good!  I have the recipe so I have to try that while I’m here.  When I came back to Santa Maria on Sunday, there were still things going on so I went to the park with Etelvina and the kids to watch the marimba band that was playing and walk around.  Then the convite started, which was probably the weirdest thing I have ever seen.  Everyone was in the park, watching the band, and then these people dressed in animal costumes came out and danced around to the music in the park.  It was really terrifying- the animal costumes were supposed to be friendly looking or something, but if I was a child I probably would have nightmares after that.

Things I’ve gotten used to since I’ve been in Guatemala:

1.        Being in a camioneta on the highway and seeing the ayudante climb out the emergency exit and walk along the outside of the windows while the bus is going 45+ mph

2.       Seeing lots of people on motos/bikes (the most I’ve seen so far is 5- with a toddler in the front!)

3.       Guys peeing wherever they want to on the street

4.       The fact that it is promiscuous for women to show their shoulder or wear anything above the shin in public yet breast feeding in public is normal here- even at the dinner table

5.       Teenagers making out everywhere in the street

6.       Firecrackers all the time

7.       Women carrying huge baskets on their head and being able to carry on conversations at the same time

8.       Little girls carrying their even smaller brothers and sister on their backs while the mom carries a load of firewood on her back

9.       Having diarrhea

10.   Hearing horses (and smelling them) at all times of the day and night

June 24

It’s about time I updated again!  Life in Santa Maria continues to be new and exciting.  The feria, or town fair, is next weekend so all the schools are preparing for the parade and the new central park is going to be opening that weekend as well.  My birthday was really nice- on Wednesday night, I shared tamales and chocolate with my host family and then on Thursday I was invited over to Israel’s house for tamales and chocolate.  I also made a banana-coconut bread concoction in my toaster oven that turned out really good!  They sang me happy birthday and other songs and it was a really nice meal.  It was wonderful not to have to eat alone on my birthday!  Tamales and chocolate is probably my favorite meal so far- the tamales are really good with a piece of meat and sauce inside.  They are usually eaten with fresh bread or crispy tortillas.  The chocolate is SOO good too- when I say chocolate, I mean the blocks that they melt in boiling water and drink.  It’s really rich and creamy if you add a bit of powdered milk- perfect for a cold rainy night.  That day as well I had a 4 hour meeting in the municipality so it was nice to relax for a bit after that.  I was starting to get really stressed out as well, with planning for classes and trying to do more than I have time for, so I had to cut down on my Tz’utujil classes.  It was hard because I know that my teacher really needs the money, but it wasn’t worth being so stressed out all the time.  Now I only have class 2 times a week.  There is a German volunteer in town who works in the preschool, so one day I went with her to work just to see what kind of stuff she does for a little while.  It was so cute!  The kids were absolutely adorable.  They ate breakfast there- beans and tortillas and everyone had beans all over their face.  We helped them brush their teeth afterward and played some games and then I had to leave.  My English classes are starting to get more technical so I have to look for fun ways to teach grammar.  I like our classes a lot though- we have about 4 students who always come to class and so we can joke around a lot and I can personalize the lessons a lot more.  I learn something new about teaching every day!  Sometimes it really stinks being a woman here because sometimes the guys don’t take you seriously.  I’ve been asked out several times by married men with children, and it just makes the work environment uncomfortable.  Fortunately, though, a strong “no” has deterred most of them for the time being.  Just part of being a single gringa in Guatemala!  My site mate Grace just certified three of her schools as “Healthy Schools” or “Escuelas Saludables”, so on Tuesday there was a big celebration for that.  It was so neat!  Each school did a presentation- two of the schools did traditional dances and one school sang 5 songs.  It was really sweet.  I took lots of pictures, so hopefully I will be able to post recent pictures this weekend.  I’m itching to buy a corte and guipil, but they are so expensive!  A little bit less than 1000 quetzales?  So I’m going to have to save for a while.  Other than that, I’ve been pretty busy planning for the taller for teachers that we will have.  Getting approval from the CTA, writing practice lesson plans, invitations, the agenda, lots of things to do!  There was also another clinic at the Puesto de Salud, except this time it was for diabetes.  I helped out there in the morning.  Diabetes is becoming a problem here so they want to be sure to catch any problems early on. 

Today was market day, so I got lots of fresh fruits and veggies!  It has to be my favorite day of the week.  I usually have smoothies on market days too because of all the fruit (watermelon smoothies are my favorite so far!) and now there are sweet potatoes, or camote, in the market so I’m excited about making some kind of bread with those.  I can’t make sweet potato muffins, but I’m going to try and see how it turns out if I just make it all in one pan.  I also got the Mennonite cookbook More with Less for my birthday from mom and dad (thanks so much!!) which is wonderful!  It has simple recipes with simple foods, most of which I can find in the market, so today I’m going to try out a broccoli stem/celery dish.  Most of the recipes don’t call for stuff that you can only find in the supermarket, which is great because it’s a big trip to the nearest one.  I don't know why I'm so obsessed with all the fresh food here, maybe because I survived on pickled okra, frozen veggies, eggs, and grilled cheese last fall in Georgia when I cooked for myself!

Also, Wal-Mart is officially in Guatemla!  It has been here for a while now, under the name of Hiper Pais, but they officially changed the name to Wal-Mart recently.  It’s taking over the world!  They are the closest place I’ve found with peanut butter though, so they are good for that and spices/specialty foods that you can’t find anywhere else.  The Wal-Mart nearest me is in Quetzaltenango, though, so I only go there if I really, really, really, need peanut butter since it’s about 2 hours away!

First two weeks of June

Wednesday, June 1

Washing my socks by hand, I came to the conclusion that dryers do, in fact, eat socks.  I have been here for 5 months (I can’t believe it!) and just recently lost my first sock.  At home, whenever I do a load, I almost always end up with an uneven amount of socks!  It’s hard to manage washing clothes, work, fighting the mold, integrating into my community, exercising, and then having time to spend with my friends!  I’ve been very busy lately, with lots of different things!  I haven’t really been focusing on the environment lately, so I need to do that more, but I helped out at another gynecology clinic on Tuesday and today I taught 6 English classes in one of the schools and then gave a charla about recycling to the women’s group.  One of the ladies suggested that since they are learning to sew on machines, that I teach them how to make reusable bags that they can take to the market so they don’t have to use so many plastic bags.  So that’s my next project- hopefully I can collaborate with the sewing teacher so that they can learn that.  It’s amazing how far a simple greeting in Tz’utujil goes…it helps so much when getting to know people!  They either smile because I’m trying to speak Tz’utujil or they smile because of my pronunciation, and I’m fine with either kind of smile!  Today was really funny- during recess at the school, a youth group from Georgia came to work with the kids.  I had to make a phone call so I was going outside to call when all these gringos came walking up to school.  They stopped and greeted me in English and the first thing that I could think of to say because I was so surprised was “This is weird!”  And it was.  They came to play and read parts of the Bible to the kids and then they left just as quickly as they came. 

Thursday, June 2

One thing that is interesting here is that when you are sick, it’s always because of the cold.  It’s not because of bacteria or germs, but the cold.  For example, yesterday my throat was hurting and I was having trouble talking, and that afternoon I came home and washed some clothes.  My host mom told me I shouldn’t have done that because the cold water was making me sick.  Also she told me I shouldn’t shower while I’m sick because the water might be too cold and make me sicker.  Even though I’m sicker today, I feel a lot better than yesterday!  I was really stressed out yesterday.  And now that I can’t talk, today seems to be the day where everyone wants to come in and have a conversation.  But that’s okay with me…it’s nice when people pop in!  My Spanish has gotten a lot better since I’ve gotten here- I use pronouns a lot more now, and can even use past subjunctive without thinking about it sometimes!  Teaching English and learning Tz’utujil is also helping me with my Spanish because it’s kind of like learning Spanish backwards.

There have been so many times here where I wish I had my camera so bad!  Like today when I was walking to one of the schools, I saw the cutest pig tied to a fence!  It was all furry and cream colored with big brown spots.  Another time I wished I had my camera was when a pick up from the rural communities came by full of men in traje tipica- they were wearing the plaid skirt things with beautiful bright colored shirts and were all smiling so big!  One time it was really misty in the afternoon and you couldn’t really see anything except for sillouhettes of things and in front of me all I could see was the dark figure of a man riding a horse coming out of the mist.  It was so cool.  I felt like I was in a whole different time period! 

Sunday, June 12

So, a lot happened in the past week!  I wrote my first invitations in Spanish to a meeting, presented my ideas about an environmental education program to the three directors of “high school”, and met with my supervisor.  My visit with my supervisor went really well.  He gave me a lot of good ideas, and we met with the directors of secondaria, which is kind of a mix between high school and middle school, and are going to do several workshops with the teachers, beginning in July.  So right now I am working on designing the first workshop, writing formal invites to all the teachers, and getting the school superintendent’s approval. 

I also helped out at another gynecology clinic here in Santa Maria- there are a lot of them right now because the students from the university who are doing their residencies here have to collect lots of data about the number of infections and things like that.  That was the last one though.  A group of pre-med students from the United States came to observe as well, and it was funny to hear them talk.  Most of them were sophomores in college and were talking about finding a husband in Guatemala and living in Guatemala City.  For lunch, I split lengua de vaca (cow tongue!) with Enma, one of the student doctors here.  It was really good actually- I liked it a lot!

English classes are going pretty well- we only have about 4 students, but those 4 students come to almost every class so it’s nice to have a steady attendance rate.  Last week I made cookies with Wendy, who is one of the doctors here.  We also had yucca, which was really yummy!  On Sunday I went over to Israel’s house to just talk to them and he told me a lot about the history of Santa Maria.    It’s really strange because here, in this one small area, they speak Tz’utujil, but we are surrounded by Quiche speaking communities.  Apparently Santa Maria was settled by people who came over from Santiago Atitlan, which is a Tz’utujil speaking town.  We had spaghetti with meat sauce for lunch, and I got to help grind the meat.  I’d never seen a meat grinding machine before but you just push the meat in one side, turn the crank, and it comes out ground the other side! 

This weekend I went to Panajachel for my first salsa dancing class!  I’m trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m in a Central American country and am going to try and learn salsa while I’m here.  It was really fun…I’m preparing for when I see Uncle Charlie the next time.  I also got to visit with almost everyone from our group, which was amazing!! We all went to dinner and it was so good to be all together and catch up on everything.  It was like a cheesy Olive Garden commercial where the family gets together over dinner, except there are no Olive Gardens here.

Friday, May 20

What started out as a terrible week ended up being a fantastic week!  I’ve been super busy, but that’s a good thing!  I bought a (really!) cheap guitar since I had some money left over from last month and this month, and Justo, my neighbor in Santa Clara, has started teaching me to play.  I also had enough money to pay June’s rent in advance, which was nice.  So guitar has been really fun (although my hands really hurt!) but it’s another goal to work towards and will help liven up the rainy days.  I also had my first classes of Tz’utujil, and can now greet people (Saqiri’ - Buenos dias, Xe’q’ij- Buenas tardes, and xokaq’aa- Buenas noches) as well as say how are you and my name is.  Afterwards my throat hurt though from making all the different sounds!  My teacher is really nice though and was really prepared- he teaches Tz’utujil regularly, so he’s got it down.  On Wednesday I helped out with another gynecology clinic and got to talk with the women more and got to know the doctors more.  The universities make their students do a residency in the puesto de saluds, or community health posts, in rural areas for 6 months so it was interesting to hear the doctors from Guatemala city talking about how different life was in rural areas.  We all got lunch from the local comedor, which is kind of like a cheap restaurant with only a few things on the menu, and it was sooooo good because it was the first real food I had eaten besides bread since I got sick the weekend before.  I was also invited to dinner this week by a guy I met in a tienda.  His wife prepared a nice meal and I met their two kids.  He teaches English and wanted to practice English, so he spoke English and I corrected him while I spoke Spanish and he corrected me.  He also said his wife wants a friend, so I am going over to their house again on Sunday to help her make lunch and then have our “club de conversacion”.   

Friday, May 27

Last Sunday I went over to Israel’s house, or the guy I met in the tienda.  I talked to his wife for a while she got the baby ready for the day and then helped Israel with his English while he helped me with my Tz’utujil.  I love the way people speak in this area because they use lots of different tones when they’re speaking, kind of like singing.  They talk slower than people from the city too, which helps me out.  For example when greeting people, instead of a short Buenos dias, it’s more of a long bueenoos dIIIas seño (seño is what young women/women teachers are called).  Israel is really proud of being Maya, and so he and his wife are also teaching me a lot about the Mayan culture here.  I can’t wait to wear traje tipica but I feel like I have to gain more confianza with the people before I do that!  This week I’ve been working on going to schools and getting to know more people.  Me and Grace, my site mate, teach English every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (we only have 6 students so far, but it’s fun) and I have Tz’utujil classes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so I have been busy with all that as well!  On Thursday I went with Grace to one of the schools in the more rural communities, Chuipoj, to introduce myself and get to know the kids.  They are all so cute! Also, I greeted a woman in Tz’utujil this week and she understood me!  I didn’t understood what she said after “Xe’q’ij xten” but it was still exciting! 

Can't believe it's already May 17th!

People showed up to my english class today!!!!  That was really, really good since I've been having kind of a rough time lately.  I was sick to my stomach for the first time since I've been here, which was HORRIBLE.  Hopefully I'm getting better though, although I haven't tried eating anything besides bread and bananas yet.  I also had a bad day at work on Monday which just kind of pushed me over the edge, but now I'm doing much better!  That day motivated me to take more action and more initiative.  So today I worked really hard to finish researching about environmental education programs and have decided instead of waiting for the director's meeting, which I don't know when it is, I'm just going to go to different schools and present my ideas and introduce myself and research the school system.  Today I also made up questions to ask each school to get a feel for how the schools work.  Hopefully I'll get to go out on Friday because tomorrow and Thursday I am helping out at the gynecology clinic again.  But first, Mother's Day.

So, El Dia de Las Madres was on Tuesday, the 10th.  I woke up at 4 a.m. on Tuesday to what I thought was a gunshot.  Now I don't want to scare anyone, because I don't think it happens in my town, but lynching still exists in Guatemala.  Sometimes in the pueblos there are no police or people don't trust the police so they take justice into their own hands and form mobs and terrible things are done.  So I thought that was what was going on, except the mob had guns.  But then I started noticing music in the street and there were firecrackers, so my panic settled down and I was just confused after that.  It turned out to be a bunch of kids in the street celebrating mother's day by waking everyone up and playing music.  After that hullaballoo, there were luncheons at schools and celebrations at schools for mother's day.  That night I went with students from the school I've taught at, La Salle, to serenade mom's around the town.  The music students led the whole school in a song on the doorsteps of different mothers.  It was really sweet!  They sang this song: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpEmdThN0Mg).  On Thursday the municipality held an event for all the mom's in town.  Many women came, over 200, lots of them bringing their children with them.  It was a nice ceremony with speeches in Tz'utujil and Spanish by the mayor, the head of the oficina de la mujer, and a woman from and NGO that works with empowerment.  I had to go around and pin a note on each of their shirts, which was kind of awkward, but it helped me get to know a lot more women.  The note was from the municipality thanking the mom's for all their support and helping to develop the town and everything they do for their families.  Then afterwards, we served cake and coffee to all of them, which was chaos.  I was at the cake table, helping put the cake on plates, but then some women got out of their seats cause they needed to go home and they started crowding the table.  Icing was everywhere and afterwards the gym was a mess!  But it was really fun to see the women get recognized for all the things they do because they work so hard!

Then I got sick on Friday and now I am way behind on cleaning my house, laundry, knitting, and all my other projects!  I did get to wash my underwear today finally though (thank goodness!).  Today I also met a guy in a tienda who speaks really good English and wants to practice so we are going to do a language exchange, I hope.  His wife invited me over for dinner on Thursday, so yay for making friends!  Poco a poco (little by little) is my motto for my Peace Corps service so far.  Also one quote that I have on my wall from the book The Tao of Pooh is "A thousand mile journey starts with one step" which pretty sums up the attitude I have needed to take so far.

First Week of May

I have hot water now!  Which is really, really nice.  Now I am not as smelly anymore!  

Last week me and my site mate Grace tried to start English classes but no one showed up, so we will have to try again and publicize more or something.  I taught twice last week, and both days went really well.  One day we talked about the water cycle and did some water activities and then the other day we talked about recycling, if they would recycle if there was a program here in Santa Maria, and then made bracelets out of newspaper.  I also tried to explain packaging and how that is a big part of waste and how they can reduce their waste by making an effort to buy things with less packaging, but I don’t think that idea really caught on.  Maybe it’s because they don’t buy the food for their families or because there aren’t that many options where they can choose to buy something or not based on its packaging.  I like the kids a lot- it’s about 14 kids who are ages 13-16 and are just a lot of fun to work with.  I still have so much to learn about teaching and am basically just going by trial and error right now, but I am slowly starting to figure out what works.  One of the hardest things to figure out how to do is how to teach with limited resources.  I’ve been buying paper and stuff for my classes so far, but I know I can’t do that all the time and I can’t ask the students to buy school materials because I don’t know what their financial situation is at home.  They all speak Kiche too, so sometimes they speak in Kiche to each other, which makes me want to learn Kiche just so I know what they’re saying.

I went out to eat on Saturday night with some other volunteers and had lo mein with beef in it, which was soooooo good!  I hadn’t had Asian food in a while.  I am having a problem fruit flies right now because my fruits and veggies are just in hanging baskets right now and attracting lots of flies, but this week I am going to give in and get a refrigerator so I can save food for longer and don’t have to worry about it going bad.  I made pupusas this weekend successfully, which is really exciting for me!  I’ve tried making them before but have ended up with masa, or dough, everywhere in the kitchen trying to flatten them with my hands.  So I got a tortilla press, which is just two pieces of metal that you press down to flatten the dough instead of patting it in between your hands and shaping it, which I have tried many times to do but have failed miserably.

I thought I might just try to explain a typical scene you might see in Santa Maria; I have grown accustomed to it but when I talk to other people they are really interested in it.  In the streets, you might see a pick up go by full of people in the bed of the truck, going to one of the other communities near by.  You could see an older man in the picop wearing traje tipico, which for men in Santa Maria is a bright woven shirt, usually orange (or sometimes pink), with a brown flannel looking blanket tied around his waist  like a skirt that goes down to about the knees.  As you get out into the more rural areas, you could see horses or cows grazing on the side of the road while their owners are out doing something in the campo.  People use the horses to carry huge loads of lena [firewood] back into town and I feel so bad for them sometimes because they always look so tired!  You might pass a woman and her children, collecting lena to carry back on their backs.  It amazes me how much firewood these women and children can carry.  It’s not uncommon to see women in traje carrying their babies on their backs too, or even seeing the younger kids carrying the baby on their back while the mom is busy or has another kid on her back.  Not many people are in the street, but the people you do see will always greet you with “Buenos dias” or “adios” and you should greet them as well, or else you might be seen as the angry gringa. The occasional chucho  with one eye will be curled up on the corner and women walk by carrying tubs on their head with laundry in it, stuff from the market, or who knows what else.  They can even have conversations with each other while balancing these huge tubs on their head.  In the afternoon, you’ll see kids walking home from school.  If it’s market day, the plaza in front of the muni will be full of people selling fruits, veggies, laundry detergent, sugar, fish, chicken, eggs, and other random things like pots and CDs.

It’s been hot during the day lately and sunny, so people are usually talking about the abnormal weather, how it needs to rain because they just planted this year’s corn, or their kids.

Friday, April 29

Wow! I’ve got a lot to write about.

Things are going pretty well in Santa Maria, slow as usual, but there is nothing wrong with that! It’s learning to adjust to the pace of things that is really hard.

I am still working on designing an environmental education program for the schools, but the more I research the more I find out I have to do and the more complicated it gets.  I am using a book that I found online and that was free to download by Judy Braus called Environmental Education in the Schools: Creating a Program That Works!  It’s a book developed specifically for Peace Corps volunteers working with environmental education.  It’s a very helpful starting point considering I’ve never taken any education classes and brought up some good points that I didn’t think about.  For example, I should have done a more in depth study of the school system and schools here before I started.  Next week though, I hope to start observing classes and interviewing teachers and students to find out more about the strengths and weaknesses of the school system here.

My site mate and I are planning on starting English classes next week as well since we have both been asked by various people to continue the English classes that were given by the previous volunteers.  My fellow trainees are all going at different paces- some have to work on the weekends, have multiple counterparts, or came into a project already in place so they have a lot more work, and some are like me where we’re still trying to figure out where to start.

One of the biggest problems about development that I’ve learned about since I’ve been here is the attitude of dependence.  This is not just a problem in Guatemala, but in countries all over the world.  There are so many organizations, non-governmental and governmental, that just give the communities things like a landfill, or water filters and then they don’t train people on how to use them or care for them that people just become used to hand-outs.  Behavior change is definitely one of the biggest obstacles I’ve come up against so far.

Other than learning more about environmental education, though, I’ve been going to several meetings this week.  The one yesterday was in Sololá with all the Peace Corps in the department and it was an update from the Country Director and head of security about safety issues in Guatemala.  Since rainy season has started (and oh yes, has it started) and we are in an area very prone to landslides, they warned us about any transportation issues we may have.  The bad thing is that after Hurricane Agatha last year, they still haven’t repaired some of the roads or they did a sloppy job repairing them, and now rainy season has started so that makes them even more dangerous.  But we do have an emergency action plan, so no worries!  It is also election year, so they made us very aware of any violence that may occur (I am so glad Santa Maria is such a peaceful little place!).  Today (Thursday)  I went to a COMUDE meeting, or Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo, which is a meeting of all the leaders and representatives of the different communities of Santa Maria, members from the Muni, and members of the NGO’s that work in Santa Maria.  It was really long but nice to learn about all the projects that are going on in Santa Maria, the state of the different communities (at least one community does not have running water), and the different organizations that are working here.  There are various organizations here that work with nutrition and especially with little kids since Guatemala has such a high rate of malnutrition.

One thing that is crucial to doing any kind of project in Guatemala is developing confianza with your community.  Confianza is basically a trusting relationship where people feel comfortable coming up to you and talking to you about the communities problems and are open to listening to your ideas.  I’ve been debating back and forth about whether to take Kiche or Tz’utujil classes for a while now and a woman I met brought up a good point- some people in the community only speak Tz’utujil and it is harder to gain confianza with them when you only speak Spanish, or for many people Spanish is also their second language.  So I think that is the deciding factor that made me want to take Tz’utujil, now the hard part is finding a teacher that meets Peace Corps requirements.  The fact that I’m a foreigner already makes some people wary of me, so it would help if I at least knew some phrases in the official language of Santa Maria.  I was walking with my host mom to Santa Clara and these little girls were staring at me and she jokingly said to them that I was going to steal them, which is a fear that many Guatemalans have- that foreigners have come to kidnap their children.

An attitude that many people have here, and that they preached in the church, is fatalism.  Things happen because God wanted them to, and we are in these circumstances because it’s part of His plan and there’s nothing we can do about it.  It’s hard for me to understand because it inhibits people from taking action, but I think it also helps people believing that things are going to be taken care of by God.

Anyways, Semana Santa!  That was a fun week.  Work was so slow, the office didn’t even open on Wednesday.  We had vacation Thursday and Friday, and on Wednesday night two of my friends, Ben and Brandon, came to visit.  On Thursday and Friday we went to the lake, but it started raining Thursday and Friday as well.  We came back and went to Justo’s town, Santa Clara, where they have the famous toronjeada every year.  Basically there’s two teams of guys, each with about 20 on each team, and the town provides each team with easily over 200 unripe oranges (so they are almost green).  They get in the big town square and just throw oranges at each other for about an hour.  It was so much fun!  It rained the whole time, and Ben, Brandon, and Justo all participated in the battle.  It’s pretty brutal cause oranges hurt! It was fun though because the whole community came out to watch, and I got soaked!

Email from Rosemary

Hey mom and dad!...

Over the weekend I went to visit my other host family, which went really well, and then on Monday it was a holiday here (World Work Day or something) and so I just cleaned my house, studied Spanish, and finished reading Help [The Help?], which another volunteer lent me.  It was so good!  

Today was an eye opening day.  I went with my counterpart and volunteers from another organization to do a survey in the poorest communities of Santa Maria about their attitudes towards the forest. It was crazy to hear how much these families lived on per month- one family of five lived on less than $118 per month.  None of them made more then they spent either, so most of the families were in debt. One of the woman interviewed is really active in the womans group here so we decided to work on a project  to help out.  She said the main problems with receiving outside help is that people just come and train them and dont give them any help to get started or train them in things that arent useful or they just give them gifts without training.  

Love,
Rosemary

Third Week in Site

This past week has been really fun!  I participated in a sewing workshop with some of the women in town, which was really fun.  We learned how to use sewing machines that work by using a pedal instead of electricity.  The first day was spent just learning how to use the pedal since all the machines were new and the pedals were really stiff.  It was really funny because all of us were huffing and puffing trying to get the machines going!  The muni bought about 10 machines for the women to use so that they may be able to earn some extra income or make clothes for their family.  We never actually sewed anything- just worked on making lines and curves and everything and then next month the trainer will come back for another week.  The trainer was really nice and interesting to talk to.  She’s with an organization that sends her out to give workshops about all kinds of stuff- sewing, crochet, knitting, baking, etc.  I made peanut butter cookies one day for snack for everyone and was asked to teach them how to bake, so hopefully that can be something I can do.  Also recycled art is really big here, so I might see if the women would be interested in learning how to make bracelets and purses out of chip bags and things like that to sell in the market.  The only downside is that there are no tourists here and I don’t think any locals would buy them so they would have to sell the goods in a more touristy town.   

Besides doing the sewing taller (workshop), I worked some more on my presentation and then on Friday went to Panajachel, which is a really touristy town on the lake, for an eco-festival put on by an NGO called Pura Vida.  They are the ones who invented the eco-ladrillo and bottle constructions and they work a lot with solid waste management around the lake.  At the festival they had all kinds of eco-friendly goods for sale and lots of info about composting and vermiculture.  I learned a lot more about worms so I think soon I may go visit a vermiculture specialist in Chimaltenango to see how he does it.  I went with Justo, who is another volunteer who lives in Santa Clara, the town right next to me.  It was really fun to get out of town and go see the Lake, which was beautiful even though there are so many hippies and tourists everywhere there!  It made me miss the beach a lot.   

I finally started cooking for myself, which is really nice.  Tonight I made dobladas, which are like empanadas, with fried plantains.  It was really yummy!!  Now I just have a lot of dishes to do.  I’m finding it’s really hard to find time to do everything I need to do!  Laundry takes at least two hours to do, and there’s lots of dust everywhere so I have to sweep a lot.  There are also tons of cobwebs in my house so tomorrow I’m going to try to do some spring cleaning and try to mold proof my casita before rainy season kicks in.  There’s already a little bit of mold creeping up some of the walls, so if anyone knows how to get rid of mold just let me know!  Peace Corps has made me so domestic!  I’ve been sewing and baking and washing clothes and cleaning a lot this past week.  And I’m working on turning a dress I found at a PACA into an apron.  I found a free podcast with snippets of Ricky Gervais’ comedy bits which are really funny, and I like listening to those at night when I’m cooking or having a coffee or something like that.  Even though I’m in Guatemala and the coffee here is SO good and is exported all over the world, I drink instant because the good stuff is too strong for me!  Lots of people in the campo, or rural areas, drink café con cereales, which is kind of like a really weak, watery coffee with barley and other grains in it.  I’m not a big fan.   

This week is the beginning of the Semana Santa, so the town is getting prepared for the celebration at the end of the week.  We have Thursday and Friday off, and on Friday in the town square the Catholic Church is building a couple platforms for the dramatization they are going to perform on Friday.  In Santa Clara, they do something called the toronjeada, which is where a bunch of people, some who are drunk, just throw oranges at each other.  That’s one of the major reasons why there has been a rise in the evangelical church here.  It’s about 50% evangelical and 50% Catholic.  A lot of people are evangelical because they think the Catholic Church is too loose with its rules- it allows people to drink, for example.  The Evangelical Church doesn’t, and so that’s why some people prefer that faith- it’s a lot stricter.  The family I live with is evangelical, and they are very, very religious.  They go to culto, or church service, every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday for at least two hours.  

 I apologize for all the grammar and spelling mistakes in my blogs, by the way.  It’s pretty much just a stream of words running from my brain to the page so that may be why I’m getting worse at spelling and grammar.   

Lately the shower has seemed colder than usual- I woke up on Saturday morning to take a shower, and it was so cold I could see my breath!  It definitely woke me up though and makes me take shorter showers.  Plus, when you get out, the air around you feels  a lot warmer than it did before you took a shower so that’s another plus. 

Sewing Class

I am also doing some sewing!  I started the sewing workshop on Monday and it was very funny.  The machines we're using are like electric ones except they are powered by a pedal instead of electricity.  It was really hard to get the machines going because they were new and the pedals were really stiff so we were all sweating and our legs got tired.  But it was fun! 

Its been hard to get a lot of work done lately since the schools have been on strike since the beginning of last week and all the teachers are in Guatemala city.

(from an email sent by Rosemary...) 

Second Week at Site

My mind is always thinking about trash now since that’s my main job, trash management education.  Being somewhere that doesn’t have a management system in place makes you really really think about how much trash you produce and how bad it exactly is for our environment.  It makes you think more about packaging, plastic bags, and everything.  I am trying to get a hold of some red wrigglers so I can try vermiculture in my casita and have a little compost and with the stuff I can’t compost make eco-bricks.  They are a really cool way to use trash in a good way and not burn it or throw it in the campo.  Basically you take a plastic soda bottle that still has a lid, and stuff it with trash like chip bags, plastics, and other inorganic trash so that it is really solid.  You can end up fitting a lot of stuff in one soda bottle!  Then once you have enough, you can use them to build different structures like schools, latrines, and recycling centers.  Several other Peace Corps volunteers have done projects like this and it has turned out really successful!  I know it may sound kind of crazy, but it’s a way to manage trash when there are no landfills or a trash pickup service. 

On Wednesday I went for a hike with several of the guys I work with to the site where the landfill and recycling center is going to be.  It is so beautiful out in the rural area!  There are HUGE avocado trees that grow in the wild and look like they would be great climbing trees.  It was fun going with those guys because they are all really funny- David and Hugo, who work in the Planning office, both were wearing dress pants and nice shoes, and then Elmer and Don Bernabe always dress like vaqueros, or cowboys, with HUGE belt buckles and really pointy boots.  Don Bernabe even had on his sombrero.  Bernabe is really religious and asked me how to say a lot of things in English while Elmer filled me in on where the best places to buy good quality boots are. 

I also made oatmeal-chocolate cookies in my toaster oven for my host-brother’s birthday on Thursday!  It was so nice to have my room smell like cookies and be all warm and toasty.  Even though I didn’t have all the ingredients, and I used fake M&Ms instead of regular chocolate chips and put in honey instead of brown sugar, they still turned out pretty tasty!  I’m looking forward to making another batch this weekend for my co-workers with the leftover ingredients.  The nice thing about here is that you can buy eggs one by one, so you don’t have to buy a whole dozen at once.  You can do the same with sticks of margarine, pounds of flour, even cinnamon!  On Thursday I gave my first charla here to 16 year olds at La Salle, a private school run by brothers.  Apparently there are schools like La Salle all over the world, even in the United States.  They were founded by a rich French guy or something like that.  I will look it up first before I try to explain it more.  Anyways, my charla was over organic compost, and their assignment is to make little composts in 3 liter bottles that they find.  Hopefully it works!  It was really fun and the kids paid attention most of the time.

I have slowly but surely tried to wean myself off of pan dulce and am now down to 1 a day.  I’ve started eating mangos a lot though- you can buy bags of mango slices in the street for 1 quetzal and so that’s usually my before lunch snack.  Hopefully I will get a cutting board and knife this weekend so I can just start buying mangos and make my own mango slices so I don’t use as many bags.  But it’s really refreshing!  And sometimes there are these weird spices on them- like a mixture of salt and something called pepita and it tastes really good.  My stomach has been hurting lately from eating too many beans and tortillas.  I think they’re both kind of hard to digest in large quantities, and my host mom doesn’t put garlic or anything in the beans to make them smoother, so I’m excited to start cooking for myself next week!  Since it is mango season, mango chicken is first on my list to make.  I ate my first pollocriollo yesterday.  This is what I understood: Pollocriollo is basically chicken you raise yourself at home.  It’s fed corn, tortillas, and other kitchen scraps while the chicken she usually buys is fed something like a Purina mix for chickens.  We had a rooster for a while and then my host mom killed it for her son’s birthday and made a stew with it.  It was really good but I’ll be honest- couldn’t really tell a huge difference between pollocriollo and the pollo that she usually buys from the meat lady. Some people here though only eat pollocriollo and it’s something that people eat on holidays or celebration days.

Earlier on this week I met with the CTA, who is kind of like the school superintendent for Santa Maria, and talked to him about going to the schools and doing educational programs for them.  He said that was a good idea and that I should come up with a plan and a curriculum to present to the principals at their next meeting in May.  I’m really excited to come up with a curriculum about waste management but it’s a daunting task at the same time!  I really want whatever I do to be sustainable, so I would love to leave behind a curriculum the teachers could continue teaching.  So that’s what I’m working on now as well as trying to get together English classes again.  The volunteer before me taught English and I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and ask me to start the classes again because everyone wants to go to the States.  I probably won’t start them until after Semana Santa, which is the week before Easter.  Next week I’m going to attend a sewing workshop with the women’s group here to get to know the women better.  The only problem is, they usually all speak Tz’utujil.  I went to their meeting on Monday, and it was all in Tz’utujil.  Very confusing. 

First week at site

This week has been very busy but very interesting!  I’m getting to know my community little by little, which helps a lot.  On Monday, I helped paint some trash barrels to put in the schools and got to know my counterpart a little better.  It’s very difficult because we have to remember that our views are seen as the views of the Peace Corps as well, and so when people ask us difficult questions we should defer them.  For example, my counterpart was asking me what I thought of Barack Obama, immigration in the United States, and drugs.  It was very hard not to state my opinions, but I got to know Elmer more and he’s a pretty funny guy.  He’s never at the office, which is sometimes hard, but at the same time makes it easy for me to make my own schedule.  There’s another guy who works in the same office, Santiago, with CONAP.  He’s only here on Mondays and Fridays to deal with land issues and then the rest of the week he walks the forests, looking for people who are illegally taking plants and animals.  The law here is for every tree you cut down, you have to plant 10 more.  It’s a good law, but hard to enforce!  Santiago is awesome- he seems like a pretty tough guy on the outside, but on the inside he’s a funny marimba loving family guy.   

On Tuesday, I went with Grace, another volunteer in my site who’s working with health in the schools, to some schools in the more rural areas of Santa Maria.  We had to go in picop, or pick up, and ride in the back holding on for dear life.  I thought chicken buses were crazy, but that was before I rode in a pickup!  The roads are in terrible condition too- I definitely won’t be going on those roads during rainy season.  We went out to a Kiche only speaking community and went to the school there where she did an activity with the kids in Spanish and the teachers translated that to Kiche for the kids.  It was a fun morning and then we went to the market in Santa Clara, our sister town, where the market is bustling on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  I’m starting to slowly gather stuff for my house and hopefully this weekend I’ll get a toaster oven.   

That afternoon I went to a meeting with my counterpart (for three hours!) and got a better idea of what the muni is trying to do in terms of the environment.  They are currently building a landfill and recycling collection center so that they can start doing a trash pickup and have placed bins in the schools to separate trash into inorganic and organic.  I volunteered myself for something at the health post here just to get to know the community without actually knowing what I was volunteering for.  I was surprised to find out it was a gynecology clinic where they were giving PAP smears!  It turned out to be really fun though.  I worked with Santiago all day there, taking down the names and information of the women who did the exam and Santiago translated from Kiche to Spanish for me.  It was a challenge writing down all the names of the indigenous women!  For example, some last names I had to spell were Tox, Itaix, Tzaj, Chavajay, etc.  And I’m pretty sure I even spelled those wrong, but what made it even harder was that some of the women didn’t know how to write so they couldn’t tell me if I was spelling it right or not.  Santiago helped a lot though, and I got to know the nurses and some ladies from the Women’s Office in the muni.   

Today (Friday), I want to talk to my counterpart.  I will have to get him to give me a copy of his schedule so I know when he is going to be in the office and when he isn’t.  From what I have gathered so far, most of the time it will be me taking the initiative to introduce myself to the schools and other people I will be working with and developing my own projects, and then running it by Elmer to make sure I have his support. 

Things with my host family are a little awkward - the mom sells Avon products, and so she wants me to buy some of her things.  Who knew that Avon now sells kitchenware and sheets!  The excuse that I don’t have a lot of money doesn’t work because to her, I have a lot and I am looking to buy things like pots and silverware.  I just can’t afford Avon brand pots!  So that’s been kind of difficult, but other than that things have been fine.  I talked to the other volunteer who lived there about it and she said that that’s just how the situation is, that instead of integrating into the family like I did in Ciudad Vieja, here it is more of a renter-landlord relationship.  I came back and the grandmother is raising turkeys now to sell and there’s a cute kitten who always tries to get in my house.  My addiction to pan dulce is now very serious.  One day I didn’t have it and I was craving some sweet bread so bad!  I have had to limit myself to two a day.  I am still eating with the family, but that has turned into them serving me in the living room and then they stay in the kitchen.  I think after this month I will start cooking for myself so I can try to have a more balanced diet, or at least just eat more dairy because now that’s pretty non-existent in my diet.  I’ve been getting used to powder milk though because I can’t drink the raw milk that people sell. 

Swear in

Busy, busy week!  But the most important thing is: I’m now an official Peace Corps Volunteer!  

We swore in on Friday at the ambassador’s house in Guatemala city in front of our host families and the other current volunteers (around 400 people!).  It was also the celebration of Peace Corps 50^th anniversary, so there were lots of speeches, anecdotes, and recognitions of current volunteers who are leaving soon.  We made the front page of the national newspaper, Prensa Libre, the next day!  

I went home with my host mom after the ceremony to eat my last meal with the family and pack my stuff up.  It was very sad leaving them, mainly because Chiqui and Hugo are moving to Spain in a couple of weeks and I probably won’t see them again anytime soon.  

I checked into a hostel in Antigua with the rest of my ecotourism group (it was a challenge getting all my stuff on the chicken bus- but everything got to my site safely!).  We stayed in Antigua that weekend to celebrate and just to relax.  I didn’t really realize how tense I had been until I felt so free in Antigua!  During training, we have to follow strict rules and be in our houses before dark and were always getting training on all the dangerous things that could happen and all the sicknesses we can get, which I’m sure is so we know what’s out there, and that’s good.  It does make one tense, however!  It was nice to just walk around the park in Antigua, listen to live music, and hang out with good friends before we all left for our sites.  

On Sunday, I left Antigua for Santa Maria and arrived safely, but very tired, that afternoon.  Now it’s all a matter of getting my stuff settled and getting my new place arranged so that it feels more like home!

Site Visit

So much has happened in the past week!  On March 10^th I found out my site is going to be Santa Maria Visitacion, which is pretty near Lago Atitlan and I will be working principally with environmental education (mainly about solid waste management).  Then on Monday, the 14^th (Maria’s birthday!) we went to Santa Lucia to meet our counterparts, or the people who we will be working with in our communities.  My counterpart’s name is Elmer and he works in the Environmental Office in the Municipality.  He’s a really nice guy and hopefully it will be easy to work with him.  We spent the day in workshops with our counterparts, and unfortunately that day we also found out that Lily has to go home.  It was really sad because she’s such a lively, energetic person with lots of ideas but she was being sent home- we will miss you so much Lily!  Our group went from 17 and now we are just 14, so hopefully no more people will go home!  On Tuesday we went to Santa Lucia again for more workshops with our counterparts and then we went straight from the office to our sites with our counterparts.  Luckily I’m not all by myself in my site- there’s a town right next to me (like 5 or 10 minutes walking distance) where another volunteer, Justo, will be working, so I went with Justo and his counterpart and mine in a van to Santa Maria and Santa Clara, Justo’s site.  When I got to Santa Maria, it was like culture shock all over again!  Santa Maria is a small pueblo with about 3500 people, including people who live in the surrounding 4 communities.  It’s 98% indigenous and the people speak Tz’utujil and Kiche as well as Spanish.  I really want to learn at least conversational Kiche so that I can communicate better.   

I arrived and was dropped off at my new family’s house where they weren’t expecting me, so that was a shock in itself!  But it worked out fine because my room was already set to go.  My living situation is a lot different- I live in a family compound instead of inside the house with the family.  My little casita has a kitchen, a bedroom, and then outside there’s a small bathroom with a shower.  I worked out that I’m going to eat with the family the first month and then after that I will be cooking for myself.  Luckily since they had a volunteer before, there was already a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and a stove so I don’t have to buy any big items of furniture.  My new family is indigenous and there’s a mom, a dad, his parents, and two kids.  The grandpa and grandma are both very traditional- the abuela’s traje is beautiful and she always braids pretty silky ribbons into her long hair.  They even bathe in a traditional Mayan bath, which is kind of like a steamroom.  I definitely feel very safe and secure in my house and in the village (I can walk by myself to the municipality!) and Dona Isabel, my senora, is very helpful in showing me around town and where to buy things I need.  Sometimes, though, I wonder if she just wants to show me off!  She’s funny because she’ s very chismosa, or a gossip, so I have to be very careful what I say and who I’m with when she’s around, but she and her husband are both curious and helpful people.  The kids are still too shy to talk to me, but hopefully that will change!  They have two horses which the husband and his dad use to bring lena back from the campo to cook with.  It’s very quiet and the air just feels a lot cleaner than Ciudad Vieja.  It’s pretty cold though, so I will have to get used to that!

So that’s my living situation.  My work situation is a lot different.  The moment has finally hit me where I’m like “okay, I’ve made it here, made it through the application process and training, now where do I start?”  It’s one thing to hear your job description on paper, but then to actually see what the people expect of you is a lot different.  It’s also hard to explain why I’m there because to a lot of people, they don’t understand why I would want to come here when they want to go to the United States.  I just don’t want to end up working in the municipality from 8-5!  But it’s funny how things work- when I was in Antigua today, wondering how I was going to start going and getting to know the community, two girls came up to me and asked me if I was in Santa Maria that week.  It turns out they used to work there and saw me that week and they gave me the contact of a woman in the community who’s really active and could help me out a lot.  So I have a place to start!  And I’m glad it’s a woman- gender roles are very defined in Santa Maria and I would really like to work with women’s groups as well.  In training, one of the nurses quoted a former volunteer as saying that Peace Corps was kind of like “being comfortable with feeling lost”.  That’s kind of how I’m feeling right now, how I think everyone is feeling right now!

Anyways, so on Wednesday I went to meet my counterpart at the muni around 8 but then after waiting around for a while I found out that he wasn’t going to be able to come that day and that another person was going to show me around.  So David, a guy from the City Planning office took me to a couple schools to introduce me to some of the teachers and kids.  I saw a lot of the country side that day because we went to one of the communities that was more rural.  Apparently deeper in the forest there are spider monkeys!  Hopefully I will get to go some day.  Then on Thursday I went to the muni again at 8, waited for my counterpart until about 11 (that’s the hora chapina- expect people to show up 2 hours later then you plan on meeting) and then got introduced to the mayor and the council, which was really nervewracking cause I wasn’t expecting to meet them that day!  My counterpart teaches an agroforestry class every day at 2, so I went with him to the school to work with the kids.  It was fun because I was with the girls, who were about 15 years old and were really funny.  We got to use machetes and dig up some plants to transplant them!  On Friday I showed up at the muni again to meet my counterpart but then found out that he wasn’t going to be able to show up so he said just to work in the muni that day.  So I talked to various people that day, read up on the situation of the environment around Santa Maria and what the other volunteer worked with and then went home around 5.  In my host community I’m known as “Rosita”.  That night I went around with my host mom to visit her Avon customers and collect money.  Selling Avon, Tupperware, and Mary Kay is very popular here!

Well that's enough of my ramblings for now!  Moral of the story:  I love Santa Maria and I'm really excited about living there!