Scenes from the feria

Case in point

How ironic that two days after I make a post concerning child stealing and lynchings that I should receive a site mate who was evacuated from her town for just that reason.

The director of the Healthy Schools program called Wednesday morning to inform me that as a result of an “incident” in Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, the volunteer from that site was relocating to Tactic and was scheduled to arrive that afternoon. The incident that occurred in Fray involved an angry mob that attempted to lynch the CTA (the director of schools in the area), the mayor, and visiting members of the Ministry of Education who the townspeople claimed were running a child stealing ring.

These accusations stemmed from rumors of a dead girl being found on the outskirts of town missing her organs the preceding weekend and reports that five children had been stolen from a local school the morning of the unsuccessful lynching. Two months prior a child had been stolen and transported to Cobán, where the 17-year-old kidnapper attempted to sell him. The kidnapper was apprehended, taken back to Fray, and tied to a school flagpole to be burnt to death. Instead, he got off with a severe beating.

The members of the Ministry of Education and the mayor were all meeting with the CTA in her office late in the afternoon when the lynch mob formed. What started out as 30 machete bearing angry men eventually swelled into over 1,500 people surrounding the CTA’s office. Everyone managed to escape seeking refuge in “safe houses” and hiding out in the surrounding mountains, until eventually evacuating the town by boat (the townspeople had blocked off all the roads). The mob set all the vehicles of the Ministry of Education on fire and burnt the mayor’s dog to death.

Michelle (my new site mate) was actually waiting for a scheduled appointment outside the CTA’s office (the CTA was her counterpart—PC lingo for the person with whom we are to work most closely for our assigned project) when the first two truckloads of armed men arrived. Knowing any rumors of child stealing are eventually tied to gringos, she wisely left the area, went to her house, and informed Peace Corps of the happenings. With just an evacuation backpack of essentials, she left Fray on the first bus out the following morning at 4:30.

While my situation obviously in no way compares to what Michelle has gone through (she can’t even go back to Fray to collect her things for at least a couple of weeks), my Peace Corps experience has/will change considerably as a result of this too. Out of my whole training group I am the only one in the department of Alta Verapaz, and I was fully expecting to be the only volunteer in Tactic until at least the end of November when the new group moves out to site, if not for my entire service. A part of me regrets not having Tactic all to myself, but then I am also thankful to have someone with whom I can speak English. Perhaps that is a bad thing, though. Vamos a ver.

I don't want your children.

Guatemala is the second largest source of foreign adoption for the United States, recently surpassing Russia and trailing behind only China. However with a population 1/100 of that of China (over 1.3 billion to less than 13 million), Guatemala has by far the highest foreign adoption per capita rate in the world. Americans adopted 4,135 Guatemalan babies last year, a shocking 1 out of every 100 babies born here. You can’t spend a day in Antigua without seeing at least a dozen adoptive mothers toting around their new babies in back slings or bouncing them along the cobblestone streets in strollers.

But with the recent approval of the Hague Adoption Convention in the US Congress, it is plausible (though not probable) that all American adoptions from Guatemala will cease by 2008, unless Guatemala comes into compliance with the stipulations set forth by the Hague (Canada has not allowed adoptions from Guatemala since 2001). The State Department is already discouraging prospective parents from initiating the adoption process here.

The Hague Convention has its share of both outspoken opponents and proponents. Those against the treaty point to swelling orphanages in countries that have ratified it, while supporters (in the case of Guatemala) assert that something has to be done to fix a broken system in which there are claims of children being bought and stolen. And it is this claim of child stealing that affects my existence as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala.

Partly due to old rumors of Americans stealing children to harvest their organs (hypothesized to have been started by the Guatemalan military during the civil war to prevent the people from talking to foreigners investigating war atrocities), but increasingly as a result of stories of people going into villages with the intent of buying babies, there is suspicion of foreigners (including other Guatemalans unknown in a given location) among the Mayans in the remote parts of the country. Propelled by fear and lack of faith in the authorities thought to be ineffective and/or corrupt, the local population takes “justice” into their own hands through lynchings. On July 1st an American and a Guatemalan were overtaken by a mob in Chicaman, Quiche after talking with a local boy (they were eventually released unharmed), and on July 17 a Guatemalan man accused of child stealing was beaten and burned to death in the Petén. The mob later burnt down the police station and held 11 officers hostage for arresting four people involved with the murder. Thus far this year, eight Guatemalans have been lynched in connection with child stealing accusations.

Living in a town with a long history of Peace Corps volunteers, among people accustomed to foreigners, these reports have seemed as surreal to me as they might to some living in the states. It wasn’t until last Thursday that the magnitude of people’s fears here really hit home. I was traveling out to the small municipality of Tamahú, about a 40-minute micro ride on a gravel road, to meet some of the weavers in the association. Just outside of town, the bus stopped near a small shack for someone to disembark. A little boy was amusing himself with a pile of dirt and a stick in the yard by the road. Upon seeing me in the front seat (the best place to ride), the boy’s father ran from the house, snatched up his son, and ran back inside, the whole time staring at me with a look of both fear and anger.

Now I have prompted this instinctive fear in babies in Africa who had never seen a white person (or white-ish in my case), but never have I experienced this kind of reaction from an adult. The incident left me slightly alarmed, but mostly just disheartened. As if life isn’t hard enough eking out a living by subsistence farming or some other form of manual labor at which they are skilled, these people have to worry (whether founded or not) about someone coming along and stealing their children. But the irony in all of this is that I don’t even really want kids of mine own—let alone do I have the desire to steal someone else’s.

Ma’xta b’ih niraq chiriij

No longer in the constant presence of other English speaking gringos, this past week has been a bit of an adjustment learning to completely live in another language. Granted I have been utilizing and learning more Spanish daily since arriving in Guatemala, but there were always moments everyday during training when I could express more complex thoughts and feelings in my mother tongue with other volunteers. Here, it is all Spanish, all the time, and I am constantly frustrated with my inability to perfectly articulate what I want to say.

Adding to my frustration, whenever I am in the presence of more than one woman in the organization with which I am working, they prefer to speak to each other in Poqomchi’ instead of Spanish. And as the title of this blog indicates, “I don’t understand anything.” I have had in total one four hour crash course in Poqomchi’ (which was taught in Spanish—nothing like being two languages away from completely understanding what is going on), during which the whole time on was on the verge of gagging trying to speak such a guttural language. But despite the protests of my throat, I have decided to request a tutor through the Peace Corps Mayan language program—at the least I want to understand what the women are saying when they are talking about me (because I know they are).

With my ears resonating of Spanish and Poqomchi’, my internal monologue has become more like an intense discourse given it is the only place I can “speak” English. But even during these lengthy personal conversations, I often make myself switch over to Spanish out of guilt that I am not practicing enough. (It really is a bitch being an anal perfectionist). Laughably, for further practice I attempt to translate English songs as I am listening to them, which most of the time simply ends up being a wearisome exercise given I am metaphorically challenged in Spanish.

So currently my mind is a jumbled mix of Spanish, English, and Poqomchi’ (Spanglichi’, tal vez?), and I currently lack the ability to effectively converse in any of the three (I thought I could still bank on English, but according to my parents, I am now incomprehensible in that too). Hopefully within the next two years I will learn some language (any language!), otherwise I’ll be returning to the States communicating with rudimentary grunts and hand signals. And, unfortunately, as I have learned here, not even all of those are universal.

Not So Great Expectations

Training above all else was a lesson in realism. Mixed in between learning how to say, “Help me! I’m bleeding,” in Spanish and not to throw tortillas to dogs (while seemingly a brilliant solution to rid oneself of a stack of the unwanted staple, this is apparently very offense to Mayans), we were constantly told not to expect to see much results from our service. Before anyone starts contacting his congressman about the ineffectiveness of Peace Corps, I should note that this ‘warning’ if you will is a much-needed reminder for all new volunteers.

Like many others working in development, we (I am speaking for all Peace Corps Volunteers here and am fully aware I am overstepping my bounds) come to our countries as a bit of idealists, whether we would like to admit it or not. We have college degrees and great ideas and are just itching to save the world. However, over time dealing with that unpredictable factor called the human being, a large portion of those in the development world become jaded. The people you are trying to help don’t care or don’t know what they really need as much as you do (because Americans always know best…that’s sarcasm). Cultural differences lead to misunderstandings and slow, if not no, progress. Locals see you as a big dollar sign and expect things to be given to them without any effort of their own.

Knowing what lies ahead, holding onto idealism can only lead to a miserable and frustrating experience that has the propensity to be frustrating even without it. To that end, snuffing any idealist tendencies might very well be the most important function of training. It is all about preparing us to go to our sites with controlled, realist expectations (I know, Jenna, me and my ‘expectation theory’). That said, regardless of however frustrating working here might get or however many times I might contemplate quitting, I am ready to give the next two years helping to improve the quality of life for a group of women weavers here in Tactic. And I am sure in the process I will be changed as much, if not more, than the women with which I am working.

Official PCVs at last!

After almost three months of Spanish instruction, technical training, cultural classes, safety and security orientation, and medical sessions, I am finally an official Peace Corps Volunteer! Twenty-four of my fellow trainees and I swore an oath to the United States on July 19th and became the newest group of PCVs here in Guatemala.

With our host families, Spanish teachers, technical trainers, Peace Corps staff, and the highest ranking official, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon, to ever speak at a PC/G swearing-in all present at Porta Hotel Antigua (the ceremony usually takes place at the Ambassador’s residence in the capital, but he was out of the country at the time), it was quite a proud moment pledging to spend the next two years of my life serving Guatemala.

Millón Q Caballos

By far the best connection I made during my three-month stay here was with the owner of a huge finca with 50 horses. Kelly and I happened upon the farm one day while taking a walk on the outskirts of town. After a short chat with the security guard (who we discovered is the host father of another volunteer), we were met at the gate by the head horse trainer. Within minutes I was on the phone with the owner negotiating a price to ride his horses. Now, I am always excited about the opportunity to ride a horse, but the thing is, these aren’t just any horses. They are Andalusians flown in from Spain, bred and trained for competition, and worth more than one million Quetzales each (over $130,000). Moreover, the owner had never let anyone besides his trainers ride his horses before we arrived.

For a mere 70Q apiece (less than $10), the trainer took Kelly and I for over an hour ride on trails through the property. The trails passed through forests, avocado orchards, and fields of flowers for export. It was gorgeous and exhilarating galloping through the hillsides on an absolutely amazing horse.

Today is my final day in town, and I went out for one last ride before leaving (hopefully not last overall—I have the security guard’s number to call to set up more rides when I am back in the area). Despite getting caught in a downpour, the ride was just as exciting as the first. At one point, we climbed straight up a hillside on a trial no wider than the horse. (After that my horse was very much ready to buck me.) My goal now is to convince the owner to loan me one of his Andalusians for two years…not very probable, but worth a try.