Slammed

I envisioned that my Peace Corps experience would involve a fair amount of boredom and looking for novel ways to entertain myself in a place with limited options (I brought and have bought enough books to serve most people a lifetime). But spending my evenings delving into new books is not the case. Not at all. Hopefully after next week my schedule will open up a bit and I can finally revisit “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (a great book—if you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend doing so), but right now it is all work, all the time.

Between communicating with the speakers and setting the agenda for a volunteer conference on the 3rd, securing a venue, renting sound equipment, sending out invitations, and working out all the details for a Independence Day party on the 4th, editing a Peace Corps cookbook to have it ready to print, writing up an article for the quarterly Peace Corps Guatemala publication, buying new thread colors and preparing packets of thread to be given out in the communities for a huge order Nu’Kem just landed with Cemaco (Cemaco is a Guatemalan Bed, Bath & Beyond meets Home Depot big-box chain store that is going to stock our placemat settings, pillow cases, and table runners for a trial period. If they sell well, then they will become permanent items in their stores!) , and writing run-on sentences (I think this one is a personal record), I don’t have time to read for pleasure. I don’t have time to be bored.

I write all this to serve as an apology (more of an elaborate excuse really) to all my loyal blog readers (aka my mom) for my recent lack of posts. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to be entertained with pictures for a while. But some substantive (as if any of my posts have substance) written posts are coming soon…I promise.

More Dancing...

Poultry Slaughter

Slicing the tongue and catching the blood for the soup.

Loosening up the feathers.

Plucking chicken feathers.

Burning off the last of the feathers.

It's bloody work.

Bailamos!

Let's Celebrate!

To celebrate the huge accomplishment of winning the Premio, naturally, Nu’Kem threw a huge party. A testament to the resourcefulness and hard work that won them the prize in the first place, the women were able to pull off a widely successful bash with less than a week and a half of planning. And both the party and the preparations were extremely entertaining.

After the 200+ person guest list was finalized (6 slots were designated for “gringos”), invitations were meticulously made and delivered to all the weavers, the mayors of Tactic and Tamahú, all the organizations that have ever given assistance to Nu’Kem, and the sponsoring organizations of the Premio. A menu of soup with chicken and turkey (for the honored guests) and rice and tamilitos was decided upon. A women’s marimba group was contracted to provide the entertainment. A sound system was rented to supply my “disco” music while the marimba group was resting. Tables and chairs were borrowed from the Tactic municipal office. Plastic sheeting was purchased to construct a covering for the dance floor. Vases were filled with flowers to provide decorations. And a keg was bought to quench everyone’s thirst (although I took care of the ordering and delivery of the keg, it was completely the women’s idea).

Providing food for over 200 people is no easy task, especially when you have to kill all the chickens and turkeys. The day before the party was entirely devoted to just that—an all out poultry slaughter. In an afternoon, the women killed, defeathered, and dismembered over 40 chickens and 10 turkeys. The whole process functioned like a well-oiled machine. Turkeys and chickens were strung up by their feet all over the area behind the office awaiting their deaths. Some women were snapping the necks of the female chickens, others were slitting the throats of the larger male chickens, and others still were cutting out the tongues of the turkeys. (I asked if I could chop the head off of one of the turkeys with a machete, but I was told that would be inhumane.)

When a chicken or turkey had stop convulsing and the blood flow slackened, it was then passed onto the women in charge of removing the feathers. Each fowl was dipped in a boiling hot caldron of water to loosen up the feathers, which could then be almost pealed off like matted hair. After the birds were feather free, they were sent to the last group of women who were chopping up the animals into pieces to be cooked in the soup. Hardly a single part was wasted.

The women found my interest in the slaughter about as amusing as I found the slaughter itself. I was taking pictures and shooting videos the whole time. Whenever a fowl was about to meet its end, the woman in charge of its execution would yell, “¡Seño! Voy a matar esto ahorita,” and I would rush over to document the killing. The most fascinating deaths by far were those of the turkeys. The women would first wash their mouths out with a bar of soap. After the mouth was good and clean, two women would hold the turkey as still as possible while a third would grab a hold of the tongue and slice it. I didn’t understand the point of cleaning the turkey’s mouth until I saw the bucket of cilantro prepared to catch the blood—a special ingredient for the soup. The first batch of bloody cilantro had to be thrown out after the second turkey vomited in it. Mmmm.

The day of the party the first tropical storm of the season was rolling through Guatemala, but the rain didn’t put a damper on the festivities. The guests started showing up at around 11:30 A.M. (I think parties are the only occasions to which Guatemalans show up on time, if not early.) At half past noon, Yolanda and I gave some welcome and thank you speeches, and then the members of the board of directors set about serving everyone their soup, accompanied by a styrofoam cup full of foamy keg beer. The marimba group provided enjoyable (enjoyable, that is, if you like the marimba. I am NOT a fan…a confession that could probably get myself shot in many parts of Guatemala) background music while everyone dined, but it wasn’t until after the meal was finished when the real fun began.

On the days Lisa and I are preparing the thread to distribute to the communities and the women come in to drop off their finished products, I bring in my portable speakers and play “gringa” music. The women are always trying to induce me to dance, and although at times I would indulge them by busting out some moves, I had yet to completely satisfy their desire to see a how gringa dances. So that was their goal for the party—to see me dance…and “bolita.” They got one of their two wishes (okay, maybe one and a half).

After the marimba group played its last song (¡Gracias a Dios!) and started packing up to return to Tamahú, I plugged my iPod (already prepared with my “Hiphopalotamus” mix) into the sound system to start the dance portion of the party. It was difficult to get the women to join in at first. I would try to grab women and pull them out onto the dance floor, but they would burst out into laughter and refuse. The first woman to finally break the ice was Josefina (the trooper who vomited during Chubby Bunny but later participated again when we held a second competition). She sheepishly came out onto the floor, but then put on a show (to the cheers and laughter of the rest of the women) dancing to a Justin Timberlake song. After that I would get the women to come out one at a time to dance with me until eventually there was a group of women and girls tearing up the dance floor.

Although the women enjoyed dancing with me, the highlight of the party for them was getting to dance with the three gringos I brought. Mike, Dan, and Dan made the trip down from Cobán to participate in the festivities (I mean it was probably the first ever indigenous women’s keg party in the history of the world), and their dancing skills were put to good use. Now I keep getting requests, “Seño, puede imprimir una foto de mí bailando con un gringo,” and there is already talk about throwing an even bigger party for Christmas. My job is to bring more gringos…and beer. So now all I have left to teach the women about American culture is hot dogs and college football. Maybe I’ll throw a party at my house this fall to cross those last two things off the list.

The New Digs

404 days down-404 days to go

Today is the exact halfway point of my Peace Corps service. (The 3 months of training are not included in the 2 years of service, so the total time is actually 27 months.) I have been in Guatemala for 404 days and I have another 404 days left. I guess it’s about time I stopped using the excuse, “Well, I haven’t been here for very long…”

(The photo is of the bus in Washington D.C. that we took to the airport...404 days ago.)

Home Sweet Home

If there is one thing I have accrued living in Guatemala it is patience—endless amounts of patience (and free tampons…thank you Peace Corps). And I have just learned that patience pays off.

From the first day I set foot in Tactic on my site visit, I had my hopes set on living in the house where the volunteer that previously worked with Nu’Kem used to live. I had heard stories from Peace Corps staff members and seasoned volunteers about the gorgeous house Jee had in Tactic. I came. I saw it. I loved it. I wanted it. It was not available.

The house was unoccupied, but the owners, who permanently reside in Canada, were going to make a visit to Tactic and therefore didn’t want to rent it. With the uncertain possibly of residing there in the future, I left my contact information with the relatives who care for the house. I would stop by their home every 15 days or so to reiterate that I was very interested in renting the house the moment was available. During the vast majority of the visits I would speak with the Grandma, and as the months passed by, I was being to wonder if the message ever made it past her ears. But still I hoped and waited. I waited for almost a year, 315 days to be exact, until I finally got a call saying the house was open.

On June 1st, I moved into my Guatemalan “dream home.” And after all that waiting, living here really does feel like a dream—a wonderful dream. I have a huge front yard with orange and lime trees, flowers, and a tomato garden. There is a full kitchen with a real sink. The shower is wonderfully hot. There is a built-in wardrobe with a full-length mirror. The floor is tiled. I sometimes wonder if I am still really living in Guatemala.

I shed no tears about leaving behind my one room moldy former residence (I liked to call it my Guatemalan studio), but I did cry about leaving the wonderful host family that rented it to me. The house was separate, but located just behind the family’s house, so I would stop and chat with them every time I came and went. I spent countless hours sitting in Doña Maruka’s “Los Angeles” hair salon laughing about my Spanish faux pas and translating the instructions on beauty supplies (“DO NOT use this relaxer on white people’s hair!”). The moment I broke the news to “the Ruk” (she doesn’t know I call her that) she started crying, and my tears soon followed. She told me she understood my reason for moving and that no matter where I lived, I would always be part of the family.

So I left my dream host family for my dream house. And although I often miss the extended daily interaction with the family, this house was definitely worth waiting for.

Chirrepec Tea Cooperative

The Gangs of Tactic

Despite my sarcastic last post, death is not fun, especially when it is met at the blade of a machete. A 21-year-old woman and her 3-year-old daughter were recently found naked and decapitated outside by a water deposit not far their home in Tactic. The murders took place during the middle of the day near the Chi-ixim church, just up the hill from where my sitemate, Michelle, lives.

We had heard about the event through town gossip, so in order to get the facts, last Friday the two us went to the police station to inquire about the murders. The newly instated (as in less than a week before) 26-year-old Chief of Police seemed very suspicious of us at first. He took our Peace Corps issued IDs and wrote down our names, passport numbers, ages, nationalities, and cell phone numbers. For reasons unknown to me, he asked if we were able to read. This information he also noted. After we explained to him the workings of Peace Corps and our purpose for being in Tactic, he eventually opened up to talk about the case.

Apparently the husband of the murdered woman was rumored to be involved in a gang that had been stealing cattle and other livestock. As revenge members of another gang beheaded his wife and daughter. They also stole his 2-month-old son. The baby was discovered in the mountains on the other side of the valley the day before we went to the police station. Loggers found the still alive little boy infested with worms, and he was rushed to the hospital in Cobán. We asked the Police Chief why if the murders were an act of revenge did the perpetrators steal and later abandon the baby. He told us that since it was an ongoing investigation he could not share that information.

And unfortunately an unsolved “ongoing investigation” is probably the state in which this case will forever remain. Last year in Guatemala, only 100 cases were even brought to trial in a country that had over 6,000 murders. Criticizing the complete lack of justice in Guatemala, our former Peace Corps director once commented, “If you ever want to kill anybody, you should do it in Guatemala, because the odds are you’ll never get caught.” In fact, a special United Nations International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was recently created to specifically address this issue.

So if it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever go to jail, then why not kill a man’s wife and daughter for revenge? Or if odds are you’ll never be prosecuted, then why not make a living stealing livestock? And if the government and authorities aren’t going to enforce the law, then why not take matters into your own hands?

And that is what people do. They take matters into their own hands. It is “Mayan Justice.” Living with an ineffective and broken legal system, people administer their own justice, and the punishment for crimes—lynchings, stonings, burnings, beatings, beheadings—are usually much more severe than the original offense. It is a manner of imposing social control when the government fails to do so.

But a climate of impunity that necessitates “Mayan Justice,” also allows for the flourishing of gangs. The threat of punishment by your peers is greatly lessened if you are associated with a feared organization. When the authorities do nothing and society is paralyzed by fear, then gang members are free to do whatever they wish—rob, traffic drugs, and decapitate women and children.

When I told Lisa (the girl that works in the Nu’Kem store) that I was going to the police station to discuss the murders, she concernedly replied, “Don’t denounce the gangs!” But who are these gangs? Who are these gang members? These last two murders have brought the count up to twelve (that I have heard about) since I arrived in Tactic last July, but I have yet to meet an individual that I would even remotely consider being associated with a gang. Perhaps I have passed gang members in the street, or ate next to them in a comedor, or rode with them on a microbus. I don’t know. All I know is that I live by the old FRG (I in NO WAY support the FRG) mantra and, “No roba. No miente. No mata,” then I should stay out of harms way.