A Grief Observed

The public health care system in Guatemala is a hellish nightmare. Peace Corps would rather us travel hours on a camioneta to the capital to seek medical attention or go to the tremendous cost of transporting us in a helicopter if the seriousness of the situation warranted it than to ever leave us in the care of one of the free regional hospitals. In the early hours of this morning, I discovered first hand why.

A little after 3:00 A.M., I received a call. It was a cell phone number I didn’t recognize, but in my half asleep stupor I answered it. It was Aura’s husband, Carlos. They had taken Aura to the hospital in Cobán by ambulance a short while past midnight, and now her situation was “grave.” He wanted to know if I could go to Cobán and help.

I called my friend, Fernando, who is the chief of police here to provide transport. We picked up my sitemate, Carlos’ parents in Chijacorral, and later another volunteer who lives in Cobán and went to the Cobán Regional Hospital. The facility was absolutely horrifying. When we arrived at about 4:30 A.M., all the doors were locked, including those to the emergency room, and there were huddled masses of people sleeping on the concrete all around the outside of the building. Through a window we saw Carlos, and he let us inside. The sick and dying were all over the room lying on beds, cots, mattresses on the floor, and benches. There was not a single doctor or nurse anywhere in sight. The only hospital personnel present were a security guard and a janitor.

Carlos took me to Aura’s bed. She said the left side of her body had gone numb and the other side was affected by frequent uncontrollable tremors. They had been there for over four hours and the only medical attention they had received was from a nurse who attended to them upon first arriving. This nurse had given her an injection (God knows of what) to calm her down, but she was still worked up in a complete frenzy. I set about trying to find a doctor or a nurse. I asked both the janitor and the guard as to where I could locate a medic, and I received the same uninterested reply from both of them, “All the doctors and nurses are resting.” This is an emergency room!

I went back to Aura’s side to talk through her symptoms again while waiting for someone to wake up. It was at this point that Carlos and Aura sheepishly informed me of the manner in which they were hoping to receive my help. They asked of me the “huge favor” of transferring Aura to the private hospital in town and paying for her medical treatment there. I was put in a very difficult situation. The options in health care in Cobán are free at the dilapidated regional hospital or exorbitantly expensive at the private one. A short stay at the private hospital could easily consume one or two months of my Peace Corps living allowance if not more. I explained this to Aura and Carlos, that I receive just enough money to live off of and certainly not enough to cover hospital stays. They already “knew” this, but it goes without saying that a white American signifies “rich” here and in comparison to the meager resources they have, we really are.

Although I certainly didn’t tell them this, if I had honestly thought Aura’s situation was “grave” I could have probably found money to pay for her to be treated at the private hospital. But as harsh and uncaring as it sounds, I didn’t. In my year here, I have gotten numerous phone calls and reports from people about friends and/or family members that have been rushed to the hospital on the verge of death only to find out a day or two later that they are fine back in their houses. It makes it very difficult to parse out real medical emergencies from the false alarms, and even though from the beginning when I received Carlos’ call I slightly questioned the gravity of Aura’s situation, I wanted to go to Cobán to see her state for myself. I had brought the other Peace Corps Volunteers, Mike and Michelle, with me for this very reason—to help in logically assessing the situation (I owe them both dinner and some beers for dragging them out of bed so early).

Our first thought was to call the Peace Corps Medical Officer, but then we realized even though she was willing and ready to assist volunteers at all hours of the day or night, it is not her job to help Guatemalans, especially not before 5:00 A.M. on a Sunday. So with no professionals present, the three of us did our own amateur medical assessment. Although Aura said the left side of her body was numb, she felt pain when pinched, and she had feeling and movement in both sides of her face, so we ruled out the possibility of a stroke. She was speaking lucidly, and although she was warm, most likely from just being in a state of agitation, she didn’t appear to have a fever. It seemed like to us she had worked her herself up into a state of frenzy and agitation as all the grief and tension over the death of her baby she had pent up inside her was finally being released through her body.

The hospital finally began to slowly wake up at around 6:00 A.M. Nurses started turning on the lights and slowly meandered into the ER. I cornered each one I saw and led them over to Aura’s bed, but they were of absolutely no help. At the first site of a doctor, I tracked him down and insisted he give attention to Aura. Truthfully, I don’t think Aura would have received any attention had a gringa not been with her. One of the nurses told me there were only three doctors on duty for the whole hospital until Tuesday. This is a regional hospital—the only place well over half a million Guatemalans in the vast area can afford (because it is free) to seek treatment. Three doctors.

Two of those three doctors (I never saw the third) were attending to Aura. They took her heart rate, measured her blood pressure, and took a blood sample for testing. After the exam, the doctor confirmed to me what we had originally thought. He believed Aura’s infirmity was “psychological” resulting from “nerves” caused by the death of her child. Her took her blood as a precautionary measure to run tests to make sure there wasn’t any infection lingering from the pregnancy. They also gave her another injection (of what?) to once again try to calm her down.

Now I completely understand Guatemalans fear and near complete avoidance of seeking medical treatment. What medical treatment? Aura told me when Mynor was born the nurses were too afraid to even touch him, so she had to wrap his head up with a cloth herself. When the nurse inserted the receptacle in Aura’s hand to give the injection, he stuck the bloody syringe in the plastic bed while he was doing other things. He didn’t even make the effort to wipe the area clean when he removed it and threw it in the trashcan full of other bloody syringes and rags next to the bed.

As if some kind of sick joke, there were signs posted on the wall stating the patients’ rights. First and foremost patients had the right to “quick and comprehensive service.” If patients didn’t have the “highest quality of service” there was a number to call to log complaints. I wondered if anyone actually believed in the sincerity of the banner and made a call. I doubt it. Poor Guatemalans don’t know what it is like to receive real medical attention. All they know of hospitals are these deplorable regional ones where people go only as a complete last resort. They are not places of healing; they are places to die.

I felt horribly guilty about leaving Aura there, but she had finally started sleeping and with the doctor’s diagnosis, there was nothing else for anyone to do but to let her continue to rest. I left my business cards with the doctors and told them to call me if anything suggested to them Aura’s illness was being caused by anything more than nerves. Exhausted, we returned to Tactic at around eight in the morning.

With the horrifying images of the hospital and all that I had just experienced still fresh on my mind, I wrote the first portion of this post right when I got home. The following is what occurred later this afternoon.

At 2:00 P.M. I received a phone call from Beti, another Nu’Kem weaver. Crying hysterically she told me that Aura was dying. The doctors at the regional hospital weren’t doing anything to help her so they brought her back to the house, and now she was dying. I needed to get there as quickly as possible.

Not knowing what to expect, I threw on my shoes grabbed all the money I had and my ATM card and rushed out to Chijacorral. I could hear Aura’s screams long before I reached her house. The mud path to her shack was clogged with people, about 30 community members were surrounding her house and another 20 or so of her closest friends and relatives were packed inside. Everyone was crying. Upon the sight of me, the message started being passed along, “The Seño is here! The Seño is here!” The crowd parted to make room for me to go to Aura’s side. She was on the bed, thrashing about uncontrollably and screaming. Her face was blank and expressionless. I was scared to death.

With tears streaming down their faces, everyone turned to me and frantically asked, “Seño, what do we do? She is dying, Seño! What can you do, Seño?” What can I do!? I pulled Carlos aside outside the house and a huddle of people followed us. Completely distraught, he looked at me imploringly for direction. I told him, “I don’t have the money for the private hospital. I don’t know exactly how, but I will find some. We are going to the private hospital. We are taking her to Galeno.”

Once again I called Fernando, and he came to Chijacorral in his police patrol truck. Chijacorral is located up in the mountains, and there is only access to it by foot. Fernando parked the pick-up at the highest point he could, and Carlos carried Aura down on his shoulders. We placed her in the back seat and eight family members and friends piled in the back.

As Aura screamed and writhed in the back seat on the way to Cobán, all I could think was that I had made a huge mistake—that I had erroneously thought she was suffering from emotional distress when something much more serious was wrong. I felt angry with myself and incredibly guilty. I just wanted to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible. I had never been in a situation like this before, and like so many other times in this past week and a half, I was completely overwhelmed.

When we arrived at Galeno there were no doctors there. There were no doctors at the private expensive hospital. Upon seeing a group of obviously poor indigenous people, the receptionist said, “This is a private hospital, and it is expensive.” I told her I was paying for it. She got on the phone and started calling the doctors, asking if they could “please” come in and attend to Aura. We waited. During that time I went to an ATM to take out all the money I could, and I sat outside alone and cried. I cried tears of distress and tears of guilt. Tears of anger and tears of helplessness.

It was 45 minutes until a doctor arrived. Other community members from Chijacorral had made the trip to Cobán in a microbus and were gathered outside of Aura’s room. Aura had calmed down considerably, and the doctor performed an exam. He took her blood pressure and heart rate—both again normal. She said her arms were numb, but through some simple tests, the doctor realized that was not actually the case. The doctor came to the same conclusion as those at the regional hospital—Aura was suffering from severe emotional distress but she had no other seriousness life-threatening ailment. She needed to eat and rest in a quiet place. I was relieved.

Even though it was the same diagnosis as before, coming from a doctor at the nice private hospital, it held more weight. People here go to the regional hospital because they have no other options, but they never really believe the doctors there. And, honestly, given the condition of the facility and the manner in which things are run, I wouldn’t either. But now here was a “real” doctor at a “real” hospital saying that Aura was not dying, and people took note.

The doctor administered another sedating injection and gave Carlos the information for the medicine he needed to buy at a pharmacy in Tactic. I closed out the bill, and we all piled back into the patrol truck to go home. It was almost 7:00 P.M. when we arrived in Chijacorral. Dozens and dozens of crying community members were waiting outside in a complete downpour at the base of the hill when we pulled up. They all rushed over to the truck and followed Carlos as he carried Aura up the hill, this time to the house of her mother where she would have more privacy.

People were crowding around Aura’s bed, crying and inquiring about her condition. I managed to get everyone out of the room leaving just Carlos, Aura’s mother, and Fernando. In the adjoining kitchen, I addressed the gathering. Over the commotion, I began to talk. Mothers hushed their children and all conversations stopped. “The Seño is speaking.” There was complete silence—silence and inquiring eyes waiting for my words of “wisdom.” I told everyone that Aura was going to be fine. She was extremely emotionally upset about the death of her baby and now all the grief was leaving through her body. She needed to rest in a place without any noise. And although everyone there was very concerned about Aura’s wellbeing, the best thing they could do for right now was to leave her alone.

I can’t imagine the all-consuming sorrow Aura is experiencing. I can’t imagine the overwhelming heartache she is enduring. I can’t imagine a grief so intense that it consumes the whole body.

I left Chijacorral to the chorus of gratitude. But their gratitude is so undeserved. They think “the Seño” knows everything and is in complete control, when the reality of the situation is that I was, and am, in way over my head. I was scared to death that Aura was going to die. I was scared to death that it was my decision as to the course of action for which everyone was waiting. I do not belong on the pedestal on which they have put me. And it is only a matter of time before I fall bringing their hopes crashing down with me.

Mourning

Mynor’s funeral was this afternoon. I had never attended a Guatemalan funeral before, although I have seen many. The cemetery in Tactic straddles the only road in and out of town. It is the custom here for the mourners to walk from the house of the deceased to the cemetery in a group with the body. The processions often block the highway, and the micro drivers pull over to the side of the road and turn off their music in respect for the dead. Although I had never intimately known anyone who had died here, I always felt a deep sadness upon seeing these solemn gatherings. Now I know the sadness that arises from participating in one of these processions is infinitely more profound than simply watching one pass.

I went out to Aura’s house a little past noon. People were gathered inside sharing a meal of saq’ik and tamilitos that neighbors had prepared. I was served my portion and sat down next to some other Nu’Kem weavers: Beti, Estela, and Lucia. The atmosphere was both solemn and light. There was an underlying sadness, but people were engaged in conversations about other things. I chatted with the weavers about our big Cemaco order. With a forced smile, Aura said she needed some thread so she could start working again. I replied with my own forced smile that we would get her all the thread she wanted when she was ready. Maybe having something to keep her busy would be good for her.

Mynor’s little casket had a plastic bowl set on top of it. As mourners entered the house, they would go over to the bowl and place in it whatever they could afford—10Q, 5Q, 50 centavos—to help the family with the costs of the coffin and the funeral. One little old woman came in, dropped 25 centavos in the bowl, sat down in a chair, and broke down into tears. Her son had just died earlier today in a motorcycle accident and her granddaughter was in the hospital. People went to her side to comfort her. There will be another funeral in Chijacorral soon. It seems like life here is just a succession of deaths and burials.

The service began around 2:00 P.M. The pastor from Aura and Carlos’ church shared some words while other members of the congregation later led the gathering in the singing of some hymns. The composure Aura had displayed throughout the dramatic unfolding of Mynor’s birth and eventual death finally gave way, and she was too distraught to participate in the service. Her sobs rose from the kitchen partitioned off by a sheet while the rest of us sang.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than a tiny casket. A tiny casket signifies a life that was much too short. The assistant pastor put Mynor’s tiny casket on one shoulder, and we accompanied him in the walk to the cemetery. Carlos and the pastor led the way, followed by children carrying flowers, Mynor’s body, and then the group of mourners. Our number grew walking down the hill out of Chijacorral as other community members joined the assembly. Aura could not bear to see her baby being put in a grave and therefore stayed at home.

Seeing the young children in the procession, some of them Mynor’s brothers and sisters, made me mourn for the loss, or more accurate, the lack of their childhood. From having to care for younger siblings, taking on jobs to provide extra income for the family, and constantly being reminded of the harshness of life—namely poverty and death—I don’t know there is even such a thing as childhood here.

Tactic’s cemetery is composed of two sides: one to the south of the main road is clean and the other to the north is situated right next to the city dump and is filled with trash. Mynor was buried on the north side.

The poorest people here are buried in the ground in unmarked graves, while those who are better off have small simple concrete mausoleums. Aura and Carlos could not afford to have a mausoleum, but the pastor of their church was kind enough to offer space for Mynor in his.

The crowd made its way over to the mausoleum walking over and on unmarked graves and through piles of trash. Another church member was just finishing chipping out a hole in the concrete large enough in which to slide in the coffin. There was already another tiny casket inside. It belonged to the pastor’s baby girl. As trucks deposited more trash in the dump and vultures circled overhead, the pastor spoke a few last words and then slid Mynor’s casket into the mausoleum next to the other one.

I left with Estela as they were concreting the mausoleum shut. I had been crying a lot all day, and I still was. Estela’s son looked up at me with a smile and took my hand in his. We walked that way, hand-in-hand, back to Aura’s house. I had never before received comfort from a child—a child, who at seven years, has probably endured more hardship and seen more tragedies than I will in my whole life.

Black

Tactic has been unusually sunny over the past week, but today the sky opened up and let forth a torrential downpour. It is fitting that the day has been gray, dreary, and cold. Mynor died early this afternoon.

I was in Cobán turning in some paperwork for Nu’Kem when I got the news. Mynor was having difficulty in breathing since he woke this morning and just a few minutes after noon he took his last gasp. I quickly finished my errands and headed back to Tactic.

Dripping wet, I arrived at Aura’s house at little after one. Mynor’s tiny casket was set on a wooden table in the middle of the room. Carlos and some other male relatives had hung a white sheet on the wall behind the casket and were in the process of decorating it with little fern branches and flowers they had collected from outside the house. A circle of chairs was placed around the room ready to welcome the mourners.

I presented Aura and Carlos with the best thing I could think to give them. From a waterproof bag I took out four photos I had taken of Mynor and the two of them the day before. Their reaction was like I had given them a block of gold. Babies die in the poorest countries of the world everyday never leaving any proof of their short existence—their reminiscences live on only in the memory of their parents and family. But here Aura and Carlos have pictures to serve as a reminder of their little baby long after their mental images fade.

I have learned the importance of just being present, and even though I didn’t understand any of the conversations taking place in Poqomchi’, I stayed at Aura’s house for the majority of the afternoon. Every time a group of family members, friends, or neighbors came to the house, Carlos would go over to the dresser, carefully unwrap the photos and show them to the new guests. Upon seeing the pictures, Aura’s mother started crying—the only tears, besides my own, that I saw shed in the house. A tragic premature death is no novelty in Guatemala, and although a deep sadness and loss hung over the house those emotions were not expressed outwardly.

Mynor lived for only 13 days, but in that short amount of time he touched a lot of lives, especially my own. He didn’t live long enough to get his surgery, but long enough to impact me for the rest of my life. Mynor died as a result of poverty. Babies die all the time because of poverty. I hope Mynor’s death and the memory of him will serve as a reminder to those of us fortunate enough to have been born in wealthy nations of the struggles the majority of the people in the world face. We are more privileged than we will ever fully know or appreciate.

Drowning in the gray

I am not proud to be an American, as the cheesy song says, because “at least I know I am free.” I am proud to be an American, because I think Americans have the biggest, most loving, generous, and compassionate hearts of any people in the world. Ever since sending out the message last Friday about the grave situation of Aura’s baby, I have been flooded with emails filled with compassion, concerns, information, leads, and prayers from friends, family, and complete strangers. I am utterly overwhelmed—overwhelmed to tears.

Aura and her husband Carlos just named their little boy, Mynor Alexander Tujab Cal, yesterday afternoon. It is common here for parents not to name their children for days after their births because of the possibility of them dying in infancy. Mynor is suffering from occipital encephalocele, a condition that arises during the first month of pregnancy if the mother does not receive adequate folic acid. Yes, the situation is correctable with surgery, but since Mynor was born with a larger portion of his brain in the protrusion than is actually left in his skull, the odds are that if he survives the surgery he will be mentally and developmentally impaired.

Through a chain of connections starting with a professional photographer named, Steven St. John, who I took to Aura’s house that first day, I have gotten into contact with a neurosurgeon, Jorge Lazareff, at UCLA who has expressed a willingness to perform the surgery in Los Angeles. He has been in communication with the doctors in Cobán who originally attended to Mynor and others here in Guatemala gathering as much information about the case as possible. At the same time, there is another gentleman, Ed Mattson, who is currently trying to secure emergency visas, arrange flights, and raise funding for Aura and Mynor to go to California to have the operation. If the arrangements cannot be made to transport Mynor to the states, there is talk of getting Dr. Lazareff down here to Guatemala to perform the surgery. I have been on the phone with numerous Peace Corps staff members explaining the situation and ensuring that I have permission to accompany Aura, at her request, to wherever this procedure might take place.

I have been out in Chijacorral visiting Aura, Carlos, and Mynor everyday since last Friday keeping them up to date with any and all information I had received, providing them company, and bringing them small gifts of food and candies for their other children. Before today I always spoke of “possibilities,” but now with so many wheels set in motion I needed their definitive decision as to whether or not to move forward with all of this.

Aura and Carlos’ first language is Poqomchi’ and mine is obviously English, so I took Lisa along with me to ensure that my message was without a doubt clearly communicated to them through my Spanish and her Poqom. I told them there was a chance Mynor could die during surgery. I told them that there is a very good chance that if he survives he could live his entire life with mental problems. I told them this was a very important decision that would affect the rest of their lives and the lives of their other children. And I told them that regardless of what they decide to do, they are good loving parents who are doing all they can for their child and their family. After a couple of hours discussing the situation, they replied with yes, “Sí, Seño, aceptamos esta ayuda y queremos la operación.”

This whole situation for me has been an extremely intense mental and emotional struggle, and I can’t even imagine what Aura and Carlos are going through. In my hopeful naivety, I accessed the problem as black or white. Black: the baby dies in surgery or for lack of having the surgery. White: the baby survives the surgery. But there is so much gray, blinded by my desire to help “save a child,” I did not initially take into account. It is now with “possibilities” quickly becoming “realities” that a fear of the repercussions of this expansive gray area is consuming me.

Mynor surviving the operation left with mental and/or other continuing health problems is all gray. And with information that Dr. Lazareff has ascertained in the past 24 hours from doctors here, that is looking like the most likely outcome. Aura, Carlos, and their six other children live in a dirt floor wooden shack in rural Guatemala surviving off of a combined income of probably less than $9 a day. They realistically do not have the financial means or the knowledge to care for a child with a mental disability. And what kind of existence would Mynor have? Life here is difficult enough for “normal” children without major health problems. But Mynor is not my child, and being the one who opened the door to hope, I do not have the right to say, as horrible as it sounds, that it would probably be better for the whole family if this child dies than survives with a disability.

Have I meddled with something that I should have left to nature to take her course? Have I put two parents in the horrible position of having to make a gray-filled decision about the life or death of their child? Am I “playing God” only to create lingering disastrous results?

Over these past five days two contrasting scenes have constantly been running through my mind—one that makes its way into my thoughts quite often is from the movie Schindler’s List and the other is from the book The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley. In the scene from Schindler’s List towards the end of the movie, the protagonist, Oskar Schindler, who has courageously saved over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust, breaks down and censures himself over the lives he didn’t save. Emotionally distraught he holds up his Nazi pin and states had he just melted it down he could have saved the lives of two more Jews working in his factory. The Zanzibar Chest is a non-fictional book about Hartley’s experiences working as a journalist in war-torn parts of Africa. At one point he recounts discovering a still barely alive young boy in a mass grave of bodies that was just about to be bulldozed over in a refugee camp in Goma, Zaire (now the Congo) following the Rwandan genocide. In an effort to save the boy’s life, Hartley dug him out of the pile of dead bodies and took him to the medics. The boy died overnight, and Hartley severely regretted removing him from his peaceful resting place wrapped in the arms of his already dead mother.

It is these two scenes that represent my struggle. No, it is not a struggle of life or death or even the heart-wrenching struggle of having to make a decision on someone else’s life or death. It is the trivial struggle of feeling good about myself—thinking/knowing what I have done was right and for the “best.” Because over the progression of the last five days I have gone from Oskar, cursing myself for not being able to do enough, to Aidan, cursing myself for not leaving things be. I am sorry to all those I have gotten emotionally involved in the plight of Aura’s baby. I am sorry to all the doctors whose time I am afraid I have wasted in sending me diagnoses of the problem. But above all I am sorry to Aura, Carlos, and their family who, surgery or not, will suffer the most from my “help.”

Helpless but not hopeless

Life is so damn unfair. Today I was again made very aware of that fact in the most heartbreaking way. A woman, Aura, from my association had a little baby boy six days ago. What is supposed to be one of life’s greatest joys turned out to be a devastating sorrow as the boy was born with a fist-sized portion of his brain protruding from the back of his skull. The doctors in the hospital in Cobán told her there is nothing they could do, so she returned home today with the baby to care for him at her house. With that kind of diagnosis, better the baby die with her in Chijacorral than with the doctors in a hospital nursery in Cobán.

I went over to Aura’s little dirt floored wooden house today to visit her. Her husband, children, and other family members sat somberly in a circle around her (the family’s) bed as she lay there next to her fragile baby. They had hung a blanket and fastened plastic sheeting over the walls to prevent the light from peering in through the spaces between the boards so Aura and the baby could rest in darkness. The last time I was at her house, just under two weeks ago, she was still weaving, joking with the other women there, and excitedly talking about the approaching birth of her child. But today there was no joy in the house—only downcast faces and sad eyes. Sad eyes, but no tears.

Life is harsh in rural Guatemala. Babies die. Children die. Parents and grandparents die. And life goes on. And amidst all this death and impending death, people display an inexplicable fortitude that I have seen only in the poorest countries in the world. Aura started breaking-down a little towards the end of the visit, but I think that was the result of seeing the tears that I was fervently trying to fight from welling up in my eyes. Everyone else was remaining strong, and I desperately tried to also.

It’s just that I am the gringa here, and I’m supposed to know how to fix everything…but I can’t fix this. I am not a doctor, and I don’t know if the problem with the baby’s skull is beyond repair, or if the doctors in Cobán simply lack the experience and equipment to do such an operation. I am aware that babies are born with life-threatening problems all over the world all the time, but I know this baby, and I know this baby’s mother, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do all that I could to try and find him help. I took some pictures of the baby’s head, and told Aura and her husband in a manner that would raise their hope as little as possible that I would contact everyone I knew to see if they could do something or knew someone who could.

Aura was so grateful for my offer, and her gratitude just made me feel worse. What can I do? Yes, I went home and with tears streaming down my cheeks wrote an email to all my friends and family imploring their help. But will that message ever reach someone who can act upon it? Yes, I wrote this blog post. But what are the odds of anyone with the ability to help actually reading it? I am here and everyone who could possibly do something is somewhere else, but, for some reason, I have the smallest glimmer of hope. I now know what a rural Guatemalan must feel like most of the time: helpless but not quite hopeless.

The VeraPacers

Habitants of the coolest departments in Guatemala.
Ladies from my group, falta una.

Putting on our game faces.

Showing off our nicknames. Steph wins.

Chimal!

(For the full wished for effect of the title of this post, it is best shouted out loud while pumping a fist in the air.)

Chimaltenango is the armpit of Guatemala. Volunteers whose sites are in the department are usually met with a look of pity, which translates into, “Oh, I’m sorry you got placed there,” and it is the lucky volunteer (I still count myself in that fortunate minority) who has not yet been robbed on the camioneta line between Antigua and Chimal. (Slightly related side note: Upon first arriving in the country, my sitemate mistakenly thought the Chimaltenango ayudantes were yelling, “Chimar. Chimar. Chimar” instead of “Chimal. Chimal. Chimal.” Unknowingly she started repeating this as a joke. It wasn’t until much later that she learned it definitely wasn’t something she should be saying…especially around men. Look it up.) And furthermore adding to the appeal of the department, in mero Chimaltenango there are probably more prostitutes per capita than any other city in Guatemala…and that’s saying a lot.

Okay, so perhaps all this Chimal bashing is rooted in bitterness for having lost to the department in a basketball tournament. Sorry Chimal, I don’t hate you (especially since you are the number one provider of high quality pirated DVDs to volunteers)…but I will not negate the prostitute comment.

As an event tied in with the All Volunteer Conference and 4th of July Celebration, VAC hosted the First Annual Departmental Basketball Tournament, pitting volunteers from the different departments against each other in a 3-on-3 double elimination tournament. San Marcos, Huehue (pronounced “way way,” as in “way way the hell out there”), El Quiché, The East (all the departments on the eastern side of the country are lumped into one block because volunteers are few and far between in that area), Chimal, and the Verapaces (Alta and Baja together) all fielded teams. Unfortunately the Xela/Toto duo and Sololá were absent from the competition (I blame this on poor representative leadership…yes, Mosiah, I am specifically calling you out.).

And as can be easily gathered from my bitterness and anger directed towards Chimaltenango, we, the Verapaces, did not come out victorious (“winning isn’t everything” is a crap saying for the losers). But in our defense (another one of my convenient excuses—I call it becoming fully culturally integrated), we played twice as many games as Chimal, and by the time we faced them in the championship we were not bringing our best stuff. Due to an unfortunate first round loss to El Quiché, we had to fight our way back through the losers bracket, and even though we took one game from Chimal, we didn’t have enough steam left to repeat for the title.

It was that devastating first loss that prompted a team strategy change that put us in a position to even participate in the “big show.” We, as in the members of the team who played basketball competitively in high school, decided to stop giving equal PT to everyone and put the best players on the floor. Unfortunately, as a result of this decision there is an unnamed volunteer who will probably hate me for the rest of her service. (The rules stipulated that a female had to be on the floor at all times, and in my defense, I never denied her the right to play; I just simply never left the game.) It is probably not the most becoming or healthy personality characteristic, but since approximately the age of 8 when it comes to competitions I have placed winning above feelings, and it has only gotten worse over time (as my mom would say, “I am my father’s daughter”).

But despite not winning and still not being able to comfortably chew with the left side of my mouth due to a blow I took to the jaw (if you are not bleeding and/or bruised then you didn’t play hard enough), I really had a great time. Maybe winning really isn’t everything…hmm, no. And for our Verapaces bragging points, not only were we the only team to beat every other department, but we were by far the best dressed. Playing off of the name of our departments, I “designed” (my younger brother thinks I have a problem with copyright infringement dating back to a Mizzou lacrosse t-shirt that might have had a strikingly resemblance to the Puma logo) VeraPacers t-shirts, each one personalized with individual nicknames and numbers. So even though we lost, we sure looked good doing it. And there is always next year.