Saturday, June 30, 2007

My site!

We got our site assignments Wednesday!! I am going to be living in a small town about 30 km south of Cobán in Alta Verapaz working with the Asociación de Artesanas Textiles Nu’Kem del Área Poqomchi’. They are a group of indigenous Poqomchi’ speaking women making a variety of products out of traditional cloth.

I am leaving next Tuesday to go out and visit the site for the week and meet the women. After that I should have some more details about the project and the town. I am really excited about my placement, and I can’t wait to finish up training and get to work out there!!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Leche de cabra


Sometimes you just feel like having a tasty glass of freshly squeezed goat’s milk. Fortunately when those cravings arise, there is a lofty group of entrepreneurs in my town whose job it is to provide just that service. Armed with the tools of the trade—a package of Styrofoam cups strapped to the waist and an Indian Jonesesque bullwhip—these “goat men” walk door to door around town leading a pair of tethered goats each, selling milk by the glassful. To ensure freshness, each glass is milked to order right in front of your eyes.

Upon first seeing one, I asked my host mom why goat’s milk is so popular in a town where no one has their own goats. The answer was simple—people like the milk but hate the uncontrollable goats. She relayed a story about a relative that used to own a goat that was constantly jumping on the couch and kitchen table and bothering the younger children (I’m not quite sure why the goat was being kept inside the house) as definitive proof that goats are nothing but trouble. And I believe her.

For this reason, the goat men carry whips. I have yet to see one of them actually lay the whip to the backside of one of the goats, but they crack it fiercely and often in the air. I wonder if the whip cracking is just a manly show in what otherwise could be considered somewhat of a girly profession, or if indeed the ominous sound instills the fear of God into the mischievous goats. Regardless, I am amused.

Milking a goat


Friday, June 22, 2007

Loss

There are moments in life you can never forget—things you see that will never leave you. Today driving home from visiting a volunteer’s site in the east, we passed a little boy lying dead in a pool of blood in the middle of the highway. There were no policemen or paramedics there to tend to the body or to block the road. The flow of traffic slowed slightly but continued with the drivers simply swerving around him like avoiding a piece of road kill they didn’t want to get on their tires. A large group of people had gathered to stare, but no one was crying and no one was with the body. The dead boy was just lying there alone and the people were just staring and the vehicles just kept driving past him. I wanted to know where his mother was or a relative or a friend—anybody to cry for the loss of his life. I wanted to cover his mangled and bloody body with a sheet to shield him from the gawking crowd. But just like everyone else, we merely veered and continued on passing through a scene in less than 30 seconds that will impact me for the rest of my life.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

La Salud

Our purpose here as volunteers is to make a positive and lasting impact on the communities in which we live, but above all, I think Peace Corps’ unofficial goal is just to ensure that we make it home after two years alive and relatively disease free. For this reason, heath classes are an integral part of our training. The first day in country we were issued Peace Corps medical kits (more like medical suitcases) stocked with medicine to treat any common ailment and some not so common ailments like bird flu disease. We were also each given the tome “Where There is No Doctor” chalk full of useful information like the proper places to administer shots to babies, methods of building latrines, and how to fashion a pair of crutches from a branch (if only I can find the perfect stick).

Seriously, though, I am very thankful for the wealth of PC medical resources available to us, especially given the inadequacy of health care and emergency response systems here in Guatemala (three ambulances broke down in the process of transporting a critically injured former staff member from Cobán to Guate who had been hit by car last month). There is usually less than a two-day turn around from sickness to pooing in a cup to diagnosis to receiving medicine (I really feel sorry for the PC driver whose job it is to traverse the country collecting volunteers’ stool samples). Fortunately I have been blessed with a stomach of stone and haven’t had to go through this process…yet.

On the subject of getting sick, especially diarrhea, we are told that it is not a matter of if, but when. Diarrhea is so prevalent among volunteers that an entire day of health class was devoted to the topic, aptly named, ‘D-Day’, which was kicked off with a group rendition of the diarrhea song. We learned about the clinical definition, different causes, and various treatments, with the whole session so eloquently summed up in the words of our PCMO, “It is all a matter of how much poop you get in your mouth.” After that day, all previously proper avoidance of the subject was thrown out the window. Now conversations routinely begin with talk of bowel movements (in our meeting with our Country Director that is the first thing he asked about), and there is absolutely no shame or embarrassment in having to excuse yourself from class to make a dash to the bathroom. Getting rid of the evidence, however, is a bit difficult in a country where all toilet paper must be thrown in an adjacent wastebasket and a good portion of the toilets have to be flushed by dumping water in the stool.

Other major topics of discussion in health class have been: distinguishing between the myriad of skin infections we are likely to contract, identifying brown recluse spiders and knowing what to do when bitten by one, treating burns (apparently volunteers’ engulfing themselves in flames trying to light gas stoves and ovens here is a common occurrence), dealing with depression, and of course recognizing the symptoms of the major diseases like malaria, dengue fever, hepatitis, tuberculosis, etc.

So with my extensive training, my vast knowledge of diseases, my little briefcase of drugs, and my how-to book of backcountry doctoring I am seriously considering setting up a gringa clinic in my soon-to-be-discovered site. “No, I’ve never performed surgery before, but there is a great diagram in my book.” Who needs a medical degree when there is Peace Corps survival health training.

Healthy!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Field Based Training

Contrary to my father’s assumption that the 6.8 earthquake that hit Guatemala last Wednesday knocked out internet access, the reason for my lack blog updates is the simple fact that I have been entirely too busy. I just got back to my little town after an exhausting yet fun week of Field Based Training (FBT). All the Small Business Development Adult and Youth volunteers spent this past week in Quezaltenango (Xela) out in the western highlands implementing the things we have been learning in training.

Every morning for over two hours, we taught classrooms of 6th graders in two little indigenous aldeas outside of Xela about the fundamentals of business. I shared a classroom of about 45 students with two other SBD Adult volunteers. The curriculum, Fundamentos Empresariales, is an integral part of the SBD Youth program, but our trainers wanted the Adult volunteers to have experience using it should be wish to teach in the schools as a side project at our sites. For me the experience basically served to reinforce the fact that I have absolutely no business teaching children.

Don’t get me wrong, the kids were cute and for the most part really well-behaved (an example of a business selling Chocobananos produced some snickering…hmm, I don’t know why a banana covered in chocolate on a stick would be amusing to a bunch of kids whose hormones are just starting to kick in), but interacting with children is definitely not one of my strengths, especially when it is all in Spanish. There were times when I would just answer, “Sí. Sí,” when I had no idea what they were saying. Despite my rudimentary language skills, though, we were pretty much gringa celebrities in our classroom. All the little girls wanted to hold our hands and the boys were drilling me about my knowledge of American luchadores (professional wrestlers). For our last day teaching, the kids decorated the classroom with balloons and pine needles, performed a traditional dance in our honor, and each gave one of us a gift. I received Mayan woven cloth, pottery, stuffed animals, and cards. It was really touching to see such an outpouring of generosity from such a poor community.

The afternoons of FBT were spent visiting cooperatives and women’s groups in the area with whom volunteers are currently working, as well as the agency that is in charge of all the cooperatives in Guatemala. A highlight was visiting an indigenous women’s group working in agriculture near Cantel. The women there dressed us all up in the traditional costume consisting of a huipil (the loose fitting blouse) and a corte (a long skirt). Mayan women weave the intricate huipiles on back-strap looms, and each huipil takes about three or four months to complete. Each region or town has its own pattern for the cortes usually incorporating the four colors main colors with Mayan significance: white, yellow, red, and black. The colors represent the directions: north, south, east, and west, and symbolize heaven, hell, day, and night respectively. The traditional corte of the aldea we visited was considered to be a boring pattern, so the women instead opted to wear more exciting designs.

As a bit of a reward for a week of hard work, we got to spend the last morning of FBT at Fuentes Georginas, a natural hot water spring bubbling out from the slopes of Volcán Pico Zunil. I bet some of you are wondering why sitting in a steamy hot pool in Central America would be an enjoyable experience, but the Quetzaltenango area of the country is quite cold, especially when it is raining…which is every day. In fact it wasn’t until the drive back home along the Pacific lowlands through sugarcane fields, rubber plantations, and banana trees that I saw the landscape that I had previously envisioned all of Guatemala to look like. It was pretty amazing to see the drastic change in temperature and scenery as we descended about 6000 feet in less than 30 miles from the hot springs to the turn-off onto the Pacific Highway. Aside from the training aspect, the trip was good just to get out of my small town for a bit and to see some more of this country that is going to be my home for the next two years.

FBT in Xela









Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Ducha de lodo

After about a month belated start, the rainy season here in Guatemala is now in full effect. There was a period of four days late last week that it rained non-stop as Barbara was hitting the coast of Mexico. Now that the tropical storm has passed the weather was slipped into the normal pattern of intermittent periods of heavy rains that last for about an hour or two followed by the sun.

These deluges seem to sneak up with little to no warning as occurred yesterday over our lunch break. A torrential downpour lasting only about 30 minutes produced a calf-high raging river of mud, garbage, and excrement (there was a dog with a bout of diarrhea just a few feet upstream from us) flowing through the main street in town—the route Kelly and I had to take to return to my house for afternoon Spanish classes. Thankful to be wearing capris and Chacos, we trudged through the swirling putrid water until we finally reached a section of the road with a sidewalk out of the flow.

Having not even spent a minute on dry land, we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Before we knew it, a mini-bus whipped around the corner heading straight for us leaving toxic brown waves well over six feet tall in its wake. It seemed so surreal as I frantically popped open Kelly’s umbrella all the while she was yelling, “Hurry! Open it! Open it! Get down! Get down!”. As if taking shelter from a bomb, we crouched down behind our little plastic shield and braced ourselves for the oncoming flood. While it did block a good portion of the surge, our puny umbrella was unable to completely protect us from being inundated by the fetid stream. Everything seemed in slow motion as we looked up to see a brown river flying over our heads. Completely soaked from the waist down and smelling of sewage, all we could do was laugh. Bienvenidos a la época de lluvia, verdad?

The Flood


Sunday, June 3, 2007

Bolo-ball

Just as every Guatemalan town has its chuchos, they also have their share of bolos. ‘Bolo’, literally ‘bowling pin’ in Spanish, is the nickname given to drunks for their habit of staggering, sometimes rolling down the street. Whenever I hear English spoken while walking through town, it is certain to be a bolo (how they manage to spit out a foreign language in an intoxicated state amazes me). Sadly, alcoholism is a major problem here in Guatemala and there are at least a dozen or so men in my small town that spend all day, everyday drunk. In and around the park is usually where they pass their time (when not in the adjacent bar), and it is there that I met my now bolo ‘friend’.

My initial encounter with this aforementioned bolo, henceforth to be referred to as Juan (his name has been changed to protect his identity…and because I couldn’t understand him when he told it to me), occurred one late afternoon a couple of weeks ago as I was shooting baskets in the park. Juan shuffled onto the court and immediately took to stealing my ball and shooting it himself. Thoroughly annoyed, I was at the point of going home, when he challenged me to a best two out of three game of one-on-one. Despite his faulty score keeping (he always erred in his favor), complete disregard for the rule of needing to take the ball behind the 3-point line after the other person shoots, and habit of constantly fouling me, I handily beat him in two quick games (I am not bragging here—a blind wheelchair bound 7-year-old could had done the same). The highlight of the game was when he attempted a running hook shot during which he yelled out, “Larry Bird!”. I really think Juan could have a future with the Celtics…if he can just lay off the booze.