Bad Idea

In a country that suffered over 36 years of internal conflict with still lingering effects, I found these posters plastered all over Tactic to be the worst possible way to advertise for an event.

Los productos

El proceso

Guatemalan Road Trip

With Semana Santa and its mass influx of tourists fast approaching, last week two women from my association (Yolanda and Julia), members of a local NGO that is providing us with assistance, our chauffer, and I loaded up the Land Rover (Yes, Nu’Kem has a Land Rover Defender that was left with them by the European Union project ALA…too bad the founding project never taught any of the women how to drive it, though) with products for a 3-day road trip to Guate, Antigua, and Xela to meet with clients, thread suppliers, and potential exporters. Overall the trip was a huge success, though exhausting. Here are a few highlights:

Yolanda told me they were going to pick me up at 4 AM in the park. Knowing all too well “la hora chapina,” I told her they could pick me up at my house. Sure enough, the Land Rover didn’t arrive until 5:15. It wasn’t until 5:30 AM that we finally picked up Julia who had made the 30-minute walk down from her community of Guaxpac and had been waiting on the side of the highway since 4:00. I didn’t need to understand Poqomchi’ to realize that she was angry. Usually soft spoken and smiling it was nothing but, “Poqomchi’, Poqomchi’, ‘Dios Santo!’, Poqomchi’, Poqomchi’, ‘A las cuatro!’, Poqomchi’, Poqomchi’, ‘Dios padre!’” from the moment she got in the vehicle. We all had a good laugh together, though, after her (justified) rant was over.

The first day of the trip Julia wore a machine made huipil (the blouse worn by Mayan women). Making huipiles is how and why Mayan women learn how to weave, and in good-natured teasing, Yolanda would not let it go unmentioned that Julia was wearing a machine made blouse while going to sell our handmade products. “!Estamos vendiendo nuestros tejidos y usted está llevando su huipil chino!” It was a good thing that the joking didn’t start until well after Julia had forgotten about waiting in the dark by the side of the road for an hour and a half, or I think she would have snapped.

In their desire to experience Antigua as I do, I took Yolanda and Julia to the Peace Corps frequented Mono Loco for a dinner of nachos. They were the only indigenous people there (now among the few indigenous people that have ever been there) and almost the only Guatemalans. It took them a little while to get over their initial culture shock (in their own country), but actually ended up enjoying it. After watching a group of foreign men at the bar for a while, Yolanda turned to me and asked, “Seño, when gringos get drunk do they all fight each other like Guatemalans do?” On the way out, Yolanda and Julia stopped by the gift store to inquire about selling Nu’Kem products there, convinced that in a place so full of gringos there were sure to be sales. But I am pretty certain that our elegant scarves and shawls wouldn’t quite fit in with the monkey t-shirts.

I found it so interesting to see Yolanda and Julia’s peaked interest in the indigenous people in the Western Highlands. The Mayan culture is much stronger in the western part of Guatemala, and the women would stare in wonder at the men wearing traditional traje. Men have not worn traje for over 20 years in Alta Verapaz, and it was something they found slightly humorous and very intriguing.

During the 3-day span we ate at the local fast food restaurant, Pollo Campero, some five times (Regan I am sure you are jealous) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (but never all three in the same day, thank goodness). The women are quite picky eaters and complained of stomach pains when they didn’t consume a sufficient amount of tortillas. I, however, am fried chickened-out.

My fellow Peace Corps volunteers and friends, Kelly and Mosiah (http://kandm1.blogspot.com), graciously allowed us to crash at their cute pink (inside and out) house in Salcajá. In an effort to have a food that the women might enjoy, I asked Kelly to make pasta. They didn’t like it. But we did have a fun evening of conversation and laughs.

With all my ranting about proper trash disposal, my women have taken to carrying wrappers and chip bags in the waistline of their corte (Mayan skirt) until they can find a trashcan. Every so often, one of them will lift up a part of her huipil with pride to show me the trash and say, “¡Mire, Seño! Estoy cargando mi basura.” In the office of a thread company in Xela, Yolanda pulled out a wad of hair out of her corte to the sight of which I replied, “Oh. That's gross. That you can just throw on the ground.” She responded, “¡Seño! It is my hair. I can’t leave my hair in Xela! It has to back with me to Tamahu!” I guess I still have a lot to learn about the Mayan culture.

Las materiales

Te extraño

I imagined Peace Corps to be a rather solitary experience. I pictured myself in some remote village with little to no contact with other Americans. I envisioned traveling for hours to see the nearest volunteer just to have someone with whom to speak English. My mental picture was way off base. Maybe that describes some people’s Peace Corps experience, but it certainly has not been mine here in Guatemala.

I started this two-year journey a little over ten months ago with a group. Although we are vastly different, we have become like a family complete with the slightly odd but endearing members. After training we were scattered all across this country, which is the size of Tennessee but whose mountainous terrain makes it feel like the size of the whole of the United States, but we still manage to remain connected even if we see some people only once every two or three months or more. These are the people with whom I will attend my Close of Service conference in July of 2009 and will forever have a bond from our shared time here in Guatemala.

But during training and especially after arriving in my site, my Peace Corps family has grown much larger beyond just my training group. Through the PCV visit in training, department “Bienvenidos”, hurricane consolidations, meeting people in my sitemate’s training group, security meetings, sharing work ideas with people in my program, VAC meetings, and just free weekends staying in Antigua, the number of volunteers I know and count as friends continues to increase. These relationships outside of my training group, however, are more difficult given the transitory nature of Peace Corps.

Certainly there are volunteers with whom I have not connected, but also there are others with whom I have formed deep connections, and it is difficult to see these people leave. Every four months an old group finishes its service and a new group comes to take its place. People who have had a significant impact on my experience are suddenly gone, and it takes time to adjust to life here without them. While I will be with my group until the end, I feel like with others the time together has been too short. But, “así es la vida,” and this cycle will just keep repeating itself until it is my group’s time to leave too and perhaps those left will be missing us too.

Monster Tree

I am sure that whoever put together this artificial Christmas tree in the lobby of a nice hotel in Guate was subsequently fired.

Rewarding

In my last post, I wrote about spending a day with a group of doctors who came to Guatemala with the non-profit Partner for Surgery. I think Partner for Surgery is an incredible well-organized and mission-focused NGO that does a lot of amazing work here in Guatemala. Below is a personal account from Todd Peterson, one of the co-founders of the organization. My contribution to Partner for Surgery was minimal, but it gives me great joy to have even spent just a day helping an organization that does so much good in the lives of poor rural indigenous Guatemalans.

“My favorite patient experience of all time has to be Don Francisco Ixcay from Chisec. Blind for 13 years, he was led around town by his grandson, whom he had never even seen. There was a huge party of unprecedented proportions in his village for the inauguration of a new road connecting them to Chisec. Everyone was there, free food, marimba, dancing, and yes, fireworks. The only person missing from the festivities was Don Francisco. Upon realizing his absence, one of his neighbors went to look for him and found him, trapped in his home crying because he was unable to join in the celebration. This story was recounted to us at our first eye clinic in Chisec when Dr. John Cheatham first evaluated his vision. John put two fingers up in front of Francisco’s face and asked him to count them. Francisco, trying to cooperate started taking random guesses...2? 4? 1? He was very embarrassed when everyone laughed out loud. That day John operated on Francisco’s right eye. The next morning he removed the protective cotton patch and again held up two fingers in front of Francisco’s face. His emotions prevented him from answering but as he reached out and gently touched John's finger, a tear ran down his cheek and we were all conscious of the miracle that seemed to be taking place. Francisco's tears were soon followed by those of his son, and then followed by my own and everyone else's in the room. Then he called his grandson over and hugged him, but when his grandson tried to take his arm as he had done so many times before, Francisco shook him off, got up and walked out the door on his own.”