Field Based Training and the following week

Here’s a little bit about what we did each day for field based training:

Sunday, February 13

We got picked up in our towns and rode to Totonicapan, where we went on a cultural walking tour.  We got to visit several artisans in their workshops and talk to them about their work.  We went to a ceramics place, a wood working place, and textiles place.  The textiles place was amazing because they had these huge wooden machines and they made all the patterns by hand and had to count thousands of strings- it seemed very difficult but the artist could do it while talking to us! 

Monday, February 14

We spent the night in cabins at a beautiful but cold ecological park called El Aprisco, which was a huge pine forest.  This day was really fun because we were in pairs and each pair had a station to present along the trail.  A group from the local school came and visited each station and we taught them about the environment and at the end they cut out hearts and wrote Valentine’s Day poems on them to give to their parents along with a seedling.  It was really neat because when we asked the kids if they knew how to plant the trees that we were giving them, they all said yes because the city had done a reforestation project with them.  The kids were so cute and so tiny even though they were 10-13 years old and a lot of the girls were wearing traje tipica, which is the traditional Mayan way of dressing.

Tuesday, February 15

So we got up this morning, ate breakfast, and then found out the place we were going to go to was inaccessible because protesters were blocking all the roads.  They told us the protest was supposed to be over around 2, so we stayed in El Aprisco to learn how to use several tools (even sharpen a machete!) and then we helped start a new trail.  We got in the vans to then go to Nueva Alianza near the coast, which is where a coffee and macadamia farm is located.  We were stopped by the road block though, which was still going on and wasn’t going to stop until the following day.  It was very ironic- the protesters were protesting road blocks!  We had to change our plans and get a hotel for the night, which was fine because it was very warm where we were and a nice change from being bundled up!

Wednesday, February 16

We woke up and traveled to Corazon del Bosque which is in Solola.  Corazon del Bosque is another small park, and it was also very cold when we were there!  We stayed in cabins though and this time the bathrooms were inside the cabin too so that was nice.  This was probably the most boring day, with a lot of it being charla based.  There were various volunteers with our group, and they would give us a charla, or talk/lesson, on topics like Emergency Plans, Aveturismo (bird tourism), and Interpretive writing.  It was probably the hardest day, basically because we didn’t do many hands on activities and we were missing out on the warm weather and café/macademia farm tour.

Thursday, February  17

We woke up early this morning to go birdwatching in the park.  It was so neat- we saw a rose headed warbler (I think that’s what it’s called in English) and some people even saw a quetzalillo, which is similar to the quetzal but has a smaller tail and is more common.  We had more charlas today but a fun game of ultimate Frisbee at the end.  It’s always nice to have a hackysack or Frisbee on hand!

Friday, February 18

We left this morning to go to a park near Lago Atitlan called Chiuraxamolo.  The park was awesome with a zipline and a cool interpretive trail.  We got to walk the trail and see a couple Mayan altars, and then after lunch we went on the zipline and helped maintain the trail.  The zipline was awesome except that we were told afterwards that it hadn’t been mainatained in 9 years!  The volunteer who works there has had a hard time getting the park to cooperate with him and motivate them to work.  Since it’s a municipal park, the mayor appoints his friends to be guards (whether they enjoy being at the park or not) and they get to slack off.  It’s really hard to train them too because when the next mayor gets elected, he just replaces all the old guards with people from the new party in office.  The muni doesn’t want to pay for maintenance of the zipline or safety training either.  Things get very ugly when politics are involved!

Saturday, February 19

This last day we finally went down to Santa Catarina, a pueblo right on Lago Atitlan.  The lake is so beautiful but knowing that it is so contaminated hurts!  It was even recommended to a volunteer near the lake that he shower with purified water.  Despite all the bad news though, we had fun eating a huge barbecue lunch and then headed back to our sites.

So, that was field based training!  I was so worn out after that I slept a lot on Sunday and this week we’ve been working on our project for Ciudad Vieja.  It’s been very exciting to actually be putting into practice the things that we’ve been learning.  We are trying to put together a walking tour/brochure with a map that has the location of different workshops of artisans here in Ciudad Vieja.  That way the tourist can visit various workshops and get to see how things are made by hand and then perhaps buy something if they want to from the artisans.  So last Thursday and Friday we walked around the city with a couple of people from the muni and visited several talleres.  We saw some awesome carpenters and a guy who worked with metal, and some women who made typical sweets.  Most of the people were really friendly and showed us how they make everything and welcomed us into their workshops.  We even got serenaded by this really cool guy who taught guitar lessons as well as carve wooden statues.

Email from Rosemary

Hello!

...I survived Field Based Training, even though it was freezing! There is a lot of anticipation now about where we will be placed because all the Altaverapaz sites are off limits and most of us will be placed in colder sites now so I am trying to find good clothes just in case! We had a lot of fun though, doing environmental education, building a trail, hiking (up to 9000 ft!), seeing Lago Atitlan, and more! I am still writing a blog enty so hopefully that will be up soon. My sinuses were really bothering me though by the end of the week so I just slept a lot over the weekend. So far my group has been pretty healthy except for some bacterial infections. We've gotten really comfortable with each other which is nice. Yesterday it was back to business though and we worked with the municipality some more of Ciudad Vieja. I have to go back to training though but hopefully I can talk to you all tonight!!

Love,

Rosie

Email from Rosemary

Hello!

I hope everything is going okay at home. I figured out I can call the United States for free with google, but I cannot find anywhere that has a working microphone so hopefully I will be able to use Wifi somewhere in Antigua this afternoon.

If I cant get in touch with you all by tomorrow, I just wanted to let you know that I will be out of touch starting tomorrow until next Sunday. We are going on Field Based Training and my group plus a couple volunteers and Spanish professors will be traveling to different sites in the highlands and near Lago Atitlan. We will be listening to lots of charlas, giving environmental education lessons, doing trail maintenance, and a lot more! I will try to upload photos today too. This week has been packed again and Im very excited to get a break from classes!

Yesterday our new Spanish teacher, Maria de Jesus, gave us a cooking lesson on how to cook tamalitos and platanos. Hopefully I will get to talk to you sometime today!

Love,

Rosemary

February 1st

February 1

Bueno, I’ve been very busy lately!  This weekend we had a community exchange where we presented our community to a different group and then got to go visit their community.  We got to see Pastores, which is a cute little town that is known for making boots.  You can even bring in a picture of what you want and they will hand make the boots for you!  In one workshop, they even had ostrich skin, eel skin, manta ray skin, alligator skin, and snake skin!  It was hard to look at, especially after working at the aquarium!

I’ve also had some interesting rides on the camionetas, or chicken buses.  Camionetas are old U.S. school buses that have been painted and are used as public transportation.  They usually have names painted on them as well, like Gilda, Primorosa, Norma, and even Rosmery! This morning I got on through the emergency exit, so I didn’t see the driver as I got on, and when I sat down, I noticed he was my age or younger and was talking on the phone while whipping around the curves!  I’m definitely going to watch who the drivers are from now on.  Each bus has an ayudante as well, or a person who stands in the door at the front, yelling and trying to get people to get on the bus and then goes around and collects money from people.

Also, as usual when I travel, I love the panaderias (bakeries)!  There’re so many good breads- lots of sweet breads, and the donuts are good too.  My family usually eats sweet bread with coffee every meal and it’s delicious!  I think that’s why I drink the coffee- so I can eat the bread too.

Feb. 2

Today we went to my family’s finca to “cortar el café”, or harvest coffee with some of their workers.  Not only is there coffee plants on the finca but there are also avocado trees, macadamia trees, banana trees, orange trees, and other types planted throughout the coffee to give the plants shade but also to give them produce throughout the year!  Here’s the whole process (or what I’ve learned so far).  So first of course you plant the tree, which can begin producing coffee in a year.  The café is planted among grabilea trees, which gives the coffee shade until it’s time to for the fruit to ripen.  Then they cut the branches off of the grabilea trees to let the sun ripen the coffee.  The coffee fruit, which when ripe is small and reddish with two beans inside, usually starts getting ripe in November here in Ciudad Vieja and workers come to harvest the fruit until the end of February.  It’s all picked by hand and put in 100 lb sacks.  I think the workers usually get about $5/100 lb bag?  The coffee is then sold to a beneficio, where the rest of the process takes place.

Also really quick I have some new favorite foods from here: rellenitos and dobladas.  Rellenitos are a desert, and look like potatoes.  A rellenito actually is frijoles surrounded by smushed platanos, which are then browned.  People eat them with sugar on top and it’s so good!  Dobladas are kind of like empanadas except made with a thin tortilla and fried.  The kind I had was filled with mashed potatoes and served with a cabbage salad (repollo) and salsa on top.

February 5

Happy birthday mom!!  I hope you have a good birthday!

This whole week we’ve been busy working on our charlas, or lessons/talks, that we gave to a group of students yesterday.  I talked about our actions and the environment- I love environmental education, but it’s a lot harder in Spanish!  Yesterday we also went to a sustainable, organic macadamia plantation run by a slightly crazy guy from California.  It was really cool to see how they sort the nuts and we got a free tour and samples of macadamia nuts and chocolate with macadamia nuts.  I also got a facial with macadamia oil which was amazing for only 5 queztales (less than $1!).  It felt so good and is supposedly really good for your skin.  Who knew I would be getting facials in the Peace Corps!  They also sold macadamia flour, butter, soap, candles, cream, and even pancakes!  They were all pretty expensive though.  It was a paradise though!  He said blueberries grow really well in Altaverapaz near Coban, that there’s a good market here for them, and that the land isn’t too expensive…

This morning I had to wake up early to go to Santa Lucia for a Mayan religious ceremony.  A Mayan priestess came and did a really pretty ceremony which lasted about 3 hours!  It was really cool and she burned lots of candles and incense and cigars and rosemary sprigs.  I didn’t really understand some of it because the Nahual names she was calling upon were all in Qiche, a Mayan language, but it was really interesting and made me want to learn more about the 22 Nahuals.

I finally have a free afternoon though so I’m going to put this up and then take a nap!