Thursday, October 30, 2008

Home Again

It feels good to be "home."

Monday, October 27, 2008

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The First Wedding

The cousins and spouses.

View at the Austin villa.

Family.

My sisters-in-law, Whitney and Anne.

Aunt Kathryn and Reilly.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Viajando

I am heading to the states today for my second quick trip back since leaving for Peace Corps last May. The purpose of this trip, the same as the last, is to attend my cousin’s wedding (two different cousins). But unlike the last brief trip to Texas, this time I am actually going to visit my homes. I’ll be in my childhood home of Rock Port, MO, my college home of Columbia, MO, and perhaps make a day trip over to my final home of St. Louis, MO.

I don’t suspect my parents and brothers would be very pleased if I posted their home and cell phone numbers on the internet, so if anyone is interested in getting a hold of me while I am in the country, just send me an email.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Causality

Me: “Do you brush your teeth with chorro water?”

My sitemate: “I used to…and I used to have a lot of diarrhea.”

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Guatemalan Chainsaw

Trees are no match for machetes either.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

No Mail For You

My sitemate, Michelle, and I ran into Tactic’s postman, Lester, the other evening. Michelle recently moved into an apartment in town and needed to inform Lester of her new address to ensure she got her absentee ballot in time. She had been trying to track him down for over week with no luck, and immediately used the random encounter to pass on her information. Lester’s response:

“Oh, I don’t work at the post office anymore.”

“Well then who does?”

“No one.”

“How is no one working there?”

“It’s closed. It has been closed for over a month. They can’t find anyone to work there.”

“So what are they doing with all the mail!?”

“It’s all sitting in Cobán. They’ll probably deliver it when they find someone for Tactic.”

“But when is that going to happen!?”

“Saber. But it is kind of important. People need to get their bills.”

Yes, people need to get their bills, and the gringas need to get their packages and absentee ballots from the states.

Now I probably shouldn’t be surprised that the post office simply closed without any announcement and no proposed reopening date, but I am. Although the Guatemalan Correo has never been a model of efficiency, I have always found it reliable. I mailed quite a few packages to the states when I was working with Nu’Kem, and while the lag time in delivery varied from two weeks to over four months, they did all eventually arrive at their destinations. (Concerned about the package I had sent three months prior that still hadn’t arrived, I went to talk to Lester about it. He told me the delay was caused by a backlog from Christmas. I mailed the package at the end of February.)

I think Lester always had a bit of an uphill battle running the post office here. He was the sole postman serving a municipal population of nearly 30,000 people (that includes not only Tactic, but also all of its aldeas and caseríos). He didn’t have a car or even a motorcycle, and the post office lacked some basic necessities to function efficiently. After tiring of the same, “Fíjese que I have to take this to Cobán to be weighed,” every time I brought in a package to be mailed, I eventually bought the post office a scale. It made both Lester’s and my life a lot easier.

So I don’t fault Lester that Tactic currently has no mail service. And I am not even going to put the culpability on Guatemala for that matter. I blame Canada.

But what do our inoffensive neighbors to the north have to do with the fact that I’ll not be receiving any peanut butter M&Ms and Diet Sunkist via the mail? Well, in 1997 Guatemala privatized their postal service giving the contract to El Correo. El Correo in turn contracted with Canada Post for advisory and technical support. Somewhere along the line during the consultations, the Canucks must have forgotten to tell the Guatemalans that employees are important. Thanks a lot, Canada.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Monday, October 6, 2008

Día del Niño

This past Wednesday was Día del Niño (Day of the Niño) here in Guatemala. (It could also be known as “The Day of Torture for Anyone Over the Age of 13,” but it would be difficult for such a cumbersome title to catch on.) And since I am now working with youth through municipal Office of Culture and Sports (more details on my new job to follow at some point), I was involved in the community activities for the special day.

The festivities in front of the municipal building started early in the afternoon. Tactic’s mayor, Hugo, kicked off the event with a welcome to the hundreds of children and parents present and an introduction of those who work in the newly formed Office of Culture and Sports, including their very own special assistant all the way from the United States of America, Kathryn. As if those in the crowd who hadn’t already seen me during my past year in Tactic were unable to pick the gringa out of the mass of children, Hugo insisted that put a hand in the air. “Higher, so everyone can see you.” I was slightly embarrassed, but worse was yet to come.

After being in Guatemala for over a year, I should know by now that when there’s a gringa at a gathering with a microphone, there’s going to be an impromptu speech. (My fellow PCV and friend, Kelly, was impelled to sing the praises of Kotex at a school sanitary pad rally, and another friend, Jill, was asked to impart her wisdom at a function for pregnant women before she had any idea why the people were gathered.) But the thing is, I did know better. I knowingly maintained a large distance from Hugo while he was giving his speech, and I later purposefully avoided my co-worker Fito who was manning the microphone for the event. But I momentarily let my guard down, and Fito seized upon my proximity to pass me the mike to give a speech.

I am not an overly enthusiastic public speaker, though I have never considered the task daunting—in English that is. I have given talks/speeches in front of large groups of people here in Guatemala but always with the prior knowledge that I was going to do so. Preparation prevents (or greatly reduces at least) embarrassment. This Día del Niño speech, however, was popped on me at the last second, and I’m afraid I blew it. Perhaps it didn’t go as badly as the version that has been replaying through my mind, but I am pretty sure it wasn’t something a Spanish professor would have been be pleased to hear. I rambled. I rambled on about how wonderful children are, how wonderful the country of Guatemala is, and how wonderful the municipality of Tactic is. And when I thought my rambling was sufficient, I turned to give the mike back to Fito whose imploring look suggested I should continue talking, so I rambled some more.

Public humiliation aside, I was kept busy during the festivities as the event’s photographer and the self-appointed caretaker of the wounded. The focal point of the afternoon, as with nearly any Guatemalan party, was the more than a dozen candy filled piñatas. The piñatas were each meant to be reserved for a certain age and sex (7-year-old girls, for example). But short of locking up the children who didn’t meet the requirements to participate in a certain round in cages, there was precious little to stand in the way of a Guatemalan child and candy showering from a busted piñata. The municipal police were on hand for crowd control, but they were no match for the darting little patojos.

So inevitably after each piñata round there was some crushed and crying victim of the candy scrum who I took it upon myself to rescue. Like a football referee trying to get to the bottom of the pile after a fumble, I would peal off layer after layer of children and move them to the side. Progress was slow, however, because of the majority of the removed children would simply jump back into the fray with the singular objective of obtaining more of the highly coveted candy. But eventually I would reach the injured party, scoop him up, and carry him to the safety of his mother or older sibling. And then the chaos would start all over again.

Let’s just say that I was happy when the rain rolled in and finally brought the event to a close over four hours after it started. Yes, many children had cried, but there were no broken bones and no one was bleeding, so I count the event as a success. But I am not sure our luck would have held out had the festivities last any longer, and I hope not to make any more trips to the hospital.

Friday, October 3, 2008