Day 343: Bureaucracy

"Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military."                                                                           - Simone Weil

After a celebratory glass of wine toasting Guatemalan youth, I entered a sort of post-GLOW/BRO hibernation/recovery period.  I spent a lot of time thinking about my service: what I've accomplished so far, what I still want to accomplish, whether my work here is making me happy.  Despite my conclusion that, yes, I am beginning to feel fulfilled in my Peace Corps work, my contemplations were darkened by a serious security incident and subsequent changes to Peace Corps Guatemala security policies.  I was not involved in the security incident, and will not go into details.  Suffice it to say that under the new policies, it is much more difficult for volunteers to spend time away from their sites.

Coming into Peace Corps, you know you're signing up for a challenging experience (Peace Corps staff love to quote the Core Expectation that you will "serve where the Peace Corps asks you to go, under conditions of hardship, if necessary").  You know you're on the job 24/7, because you are a constant representation of 'Murica.  But you also expect some time off—for instance, weekends in the city.  It's a mental health thing: getting out of your rural village, eating American-ish food at an actual restaurant, and spending time with other volunteers in a place where no one recognizes you.  I recognize that this last sounds creepy—why do I need to go incognito?  But imagine if everywhere you went, you ran into a neighbor or distant relative, who acknowledged you with a hug and a kiss and questions about your well-being ("Do you feel sad today?").  It's kind of nice in the short-term, but it can get very overwhelming very quickly.

That being said, for most of my Peace Corps service, I've felt very comfortable with the travel restrictions.  I've never used the maximum allotted time-away-from-site days per month, and I'm rarely out of site overnight.  And yet, with the announcement of the new policies, I suddenly felt completely claustrophobic in San José Chacayá.  Maybe this is why I jumped at the opportunity to participate in Peace Corps Guatemala's Training Design and Evaluation Workshop.

Google Maps' faithful depiction of my sprawling town

Training Design and Evaluation, or TDE for short (I sometimes think Peace Corps loves acronyms even more than it loves team-building activities and global development work), was a two-day conference meant to examine and redesign the Peace Corps Guatemala training process.  I was invited to participate because I serve on the the Gender Equality Committee, and Peace Corps is trying to improve gender development integration in its projects worldwide.

The conference was eye-opening, to say the least.  I honestly hadn't realized how much thought went into Peace Corps training sessions, each of which is designed to deliver specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes to trainees.  The complicated design mechanism behind trainings, however, means that changing trainings, or cutting them out, or adding new trainings, is quite a process.

For me, this red tape was most evident/bothersome when each Peace Corps project team made a list of the specific trainings useful to their project (for instance, my project, Maternal and Child Health, made a list of all the trainings that help improve momma/baby health in rural communities).  The idea behind this activity was that any training not useful to any project could be eliminated.  But, there are some really important trainings that aren't project-specific, such as the training on what Peace Corps is and how it differs from other international development organizations.  At the end of the list-making activity, I found myself debating this conundrum with Peace Corps staff.  I told staff that it was really useful to me to know who I was working for; they countered that if the training wasn't useful to any specific project objectives, how could it be useful at all?

I have a lot of respect and admiration for the ideas and ideals behind Peace Corps.  But, as with most bureaucratic organizations, putting these ideas and ideals into practice is not so easy.  I sometimes wonder if the limited work Peace Corps does justifies the approximately $50,000 annual cost per volunteer.*  And then I remember that, of the FY2015 United States federal budget, $609.3 billion, or 15.88%, went to the military.**  The Peace Corps budget of $380 million (0.01%) seems pretty small by comparison.  And maybe, if our country dedicated a little more funding to peaceful operations, and a little (or a lot) less to the military, we would have more success in our international development efforts.

*http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/PC_funding_issue_brief.pdf

**https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

***http://files.peacecorps.gov/manuals/peacecorps_cbj_2015.pdf

Day 333: GLOW

"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts."                                                                                                    - C. S. Lewis

One of Peace Corps Guatemala's cornerstone activities is the GLOW/BRO camp.  GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World; BRO for Boys Respecting Others, or Boys Reaching Out (depending on how high your expectations are, I guess--doesn't "Boys Respecting Others" seem like a depressingly low bar?).  GLOW/BRO camps usually comprise one or two days of self-esteem and sexual/reproductive health lessons, complemented by team-building exercises and classic camping hijinks (read: s'mores-making).  The camps are a really great way for Guatemalan kids to get out of their small towns, meet other kids, and have fun while learning about condoms and IUDs.*

Yes, that is a huge penis poster.

Since early February, eight other volunteers and I have been working to plan a department-wide, co-ed GLOW/BRO camp.  This is no easy feat.  It requires drafting a budget and applying for a grant; looking for sources of local funding in the name of sustainability; writing interactive lesson plans; rustling up enthusiastic Guatemalan coworkers to co-facilitate said lessons; finding an appropriate overnight venue for a bunch of hormonal teenagers; obtaining cheap but nutritious meals for a bunch of hormonal teenagers; sorting through the applications of a bunch of hormonal teenagers; organizing transport from at least six different municipalities; and frantically brainstorming bonding activities.

Ours was a macro-GLOW/BRO camp, with about 100 kids and 25 adults attending.  To allow for more individualized attention, we divided the students into groups of 18-ish, by gender and age.  (The gender division is especially important.  In co-ed settings, Guatemalan boys tend to get very loud, rambunctious, and just generally testosterone-y; Guatemalan girls tend to lapse into shy silence.)  Each group of students then rotated through all the lesson stations, with the result that each lesson facilitator had to give their lesson six times.  It is really amazing how differently the same material comes out of your mouth when you're presenting to 11-year-old girls versus 18-year-old boys.

On the first day of the camp, I was in charge of the fun-and-games station, meant as a break from the strain of too much sex ed.  I forced tens of children into wheelbarrow races,

This poor girl, carting around about 60 extra pounds of pure gringa

harrowing trust falls (in retrospect, probably not a good idea to introduce trust falls by dropping my partner),

0.25 milliseconds before disaster

and whatever is going on here:

Das ass crawl

I tried to participate as much as possible, although I quickly learned that Guatemalan children, especially male Guatemalan children, are very willing to chastise you when you're not up to par.  After a hard-fought wheelbarrow race, as I lay on the rocky ground contemplating my bleeding palms, my partner told me, "You really should have gone faster."  Jeez, Estuardo.  Sorry we got second place.

The day ended with a dangerously large bonfire for the kids.  In the meantime, the Guatemalan coworkers helping with the camp got to learn about proper condom use, and I got to comb the surrounding woods for hormonal teenage shenanigans.  I didn't find anything, although I did hear some very suspicious rustling.

The next day, I led the birth control lesson.  My Guatemalan co-facilitator unfortunately had some sort of emergency at home, which meant that I was leading the lesson alone.  Despite my love for all things female empowerment/birth control/sex ed, I felt decidedly nervous about broaching the subject with teenage boys, in my second language, without a Guatemalan actually trained in birth control at my side.  I needn't have worried.  The girls' groups were a little tough to crack, just due to overwhelming shyness and the female Guatemalan habit of non-participation; the boys, especially the 18-year-olds, were engaged and respectful the whole time.

And let me tell you, it was a pretty cool lesson.  I drew the female anatomy on the ground with masking tape, using two giant bags of pine needles as ovaries and a huge vase of flowers to mark the location of the uterus.  Then I called for volunteers to serve as key actors in the sexy sex: the volunteer egg held a plastic ball with a hole in it, and slowly meandered down the Fallopian tube; the sperm cells each got a lollipop that they tried to force into the egg's plastic ball; the condom volunteers linked arms so as to prevent the sperm from entering the body; and so on and so forth.  There was much laughter and learning (I hope).

The day ended with an awkward talent show featuring rather racy dances and rather racist standup comedy.  Before going to bed, I promised a couple girls from my town that I would go hiking with them in the morning.  These girls then woke up my poor dorm-mates at 5:45 am, when they knocked on our door to make sure I hadn't left without them (let's be real: I was so jazzed about the affection that I didn't care about my poor dorm-mates' disrupted REM cycles).  And despite losing a few Guatemalan children in the woods (actually), the hike was really beautiful.**

Before closing the camp with a tedious high-fiving ceremony (inexplicably popular in this country), the other Peace Corps Volunteers and I led review sessions with each student group.  I volunteered to take the 18-year-old boys, since they had been such superstars at my lesson the day before.  The review session showed that the kids had learned and retained a good amount; it also led to what may have been my greatest moment in Guatemala so far.

In an attempt to get the kids to use a bit of higher reasoning, I asked them to give me a similarity between gay and straight people.  Their immediate response was to recite the definitions of "homosexual" and "heterosexual."  No, I told them, I wanted to know how these two groups of people are similar.  They all sat around looking constipated for a little while, until one boy tentatively raised his hand, and offered, "They both...have the right...to love...whoever they want?"

My heart basically exploded.  I do have a purpose in Guatemala, I thought, and it's advancing the gay agenda!  Just kidding.  Kind of.  My purpose here is of course vast and varied, and impossible to capture in one measly blog post.  But moments like these remind me that what I'm doing here has value, that Guatemala is changing, and that all the cold showers and damp clothes and social faux-pas are worth it.

*Although many Peace Corps Volunteers around the world teach youth how to use condoms (we're talking the classic banana-as-penis demonstration), these lessons are strongly discouraged in Peace Corps Guatemala, due to the cultural constraints of religion and tradition.  Most parents would not allow their children to attend GLOW/BRO camps if they knew their children would be learning how to use condoms.  So, out of respect for the culture in which we work, we Guatemalan PCVs teach kids what condoms are, where they can find them, and how important they are in preventing the spread of STDs.  No bananas allowed.

**All lost children reappeared at breakfast.  Where they went and what they did in the intervening time, I have no idea.  Now accepting babysitting gigs, btw.

Day 327: Birthdee

"So Owl wrote...and this is what he wrote: HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY.  Pooh looked on admiringly.  'I'm just saying "A Happy Birthday",' said Owl carelessly."                                     - A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Confession: I've never spent a birthday away from home before.  And given the whole Guatemalan Christmas fiasco, the idea of a birthday away from home, without the Wolski clan, was pretty unappealing.  Luckily, Guatemala and my friends here had decided to provide plenty of distraction opportunities.  There was a clubbing party in Antigua, a boat party on the lake, and a quieter brunch option to celebrate another volunteer's birthday.

There was also the fact that a good friend's house had recently been partially demolished by a landslide.  Allow me to sketch out the details a bit more.  My friend Mike, the owner of a delightful café in Panajachel and an actual legend, was rudely awoken at 3:15 am, June 13, by an 80-ton boulder smashing into his bedroom.  He and his wife miraculously survived with only a few scratches, despite the fact that said boulder a) weighed 80 tons, b) snapped their bed in half, and c) had just barreled down a mountainside, picking up speed and taking out trees at will.  The boulder came to rest in the bedroom, and their house was subsequently flooded with mud and rocks.

I don't think I've mentioned Mike in this blog before, but the fact is he's one of the reasons I didn't just give up on Guatemala and head home (during the Dark Ages).  I visit his café most weekends, and am always greeted with comforting words of wisdom, laughter, and superhuman kindness.

I was tempted to skip all potential birthday parties, and spend my birthday Saturday the way I spent most Saturdays: taking a beautiful hike along the lake, camping out in Mike's café for a while, eating tempeh stir-fry at my favorite restaurant, and slowly meandering home for pizza night (Posh Corps, I know).  It's not that I don't like the idea of birthday partying; it's more that these typical Saturday activities make me really happy, and seemed like a good way to spend my birthday.

But then I realized I could have a really special birthday if I thought a bit beyond my own happiness.  Mike and his wife needed help to rebuild their house, and a day of physical labor would do me good.  So I told Mike that I wanted to help him out on Saturday, I asked a few fellow volunteers to join me, and I set about making a master plan for the day.

The master plan went something like this: do not reveal that it is my birthday.  Sneakily buy large cake from Guatemalan bakery.  Spend morning working on Mike's house.  Return to Panajachel for birthday lunch at favorite restaurant.  Spend afternoon working on Mike's house.  Casually mention birthday and surprise everyone with delicious cake.  Return home for pizza night.

It was a perfect plan, and destined for success.  But Guatemala, and people as kind as Mike, have a way of surprising you.  When I rolled in to Mike's café on Saturday morning, he immediately launched into the happy birthday chorus.  He then treated my friends and I to his famous cheesecake.  After we worked on his house for a couple hours (shoveling rubble off the roof), he treated us to lunch (cheese!  artisan bread!  pickles!  birthday cake!  ice cream!).  We worked a little bit longer, and his wife brought us an afternoon snack.  Then one of my fellow volunteers opened a Tupperware of homemade cupcakes, and I continued stuffing my face.  Of note, all dining was accompanied by great conversation.  I think it was my best birthday yet.

The morals of this story:

• I have great fellow volunteers in Guatemala.  They were willing to give up relaxing lakeside dining/significantly less relaxing boat partying for a day of manual labor, because helping Mike meant so much to me (and because they also care deeply about Mike and his family).
• Sometimes when you try to help someone, they end up helping you more than you could have imagined.  Yes, I spent my birthday doing what I could for Mike, but I also know that I received so much more than I gave.
• You never have to buy yourself your own birthday cake (although you can if you want to, because who doesn't like more cake?).

And now, a quick note about Mike's house and the work that remains to be done: it turns out that clearing an 80-ton boulder out of your house is kind of expensive.  Some of my readers have asked how they can best support me in Guatemala, and although I hate asking people for money, I will say that it would mean a lot to me if you considered donating to the reparation fund.  You can read more about it (and see insane videos) here:

http://www.gofundme.com/robertsrebuild

As always, thanks for reading, and much love.

Day 320: Bhavana

"Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected."                               - Charles Lamb

Just about a week ago, I headed to Antigua in a cloud of excitement and body odor.  The excitement stemmed from my friend Bhavana's coming visit; the body odor from the fact that my host family's shower had broken and I was officially on No Hygiene, Day Four.  I planned to check in to our Antigua hostel early, shower up, and fool Bhavana into thinking I was a very clean and healthy person.  I wasn't fast enough: by the time I emerged from the shower, Bhavana was waiting in the hostel's courtyard.  This led to a rather undignified, semi-naked reunion hug (which I actually highly recommend; it was very touching).

Before I launch into a recap of our hijinks, I have a little explaining to do.  Being a Peace Corps Volunteer obviously entails moving far away from your friends and family.  And even though I miss my friends dearly, it's been hard for me to keep in touch with everyone the way I'd like.  This is largely due to lack of internet, scheduling conflicts, and other technical difficulties.  But it's also hard to keep in touch because our lives have diverged so completely.  It's hard for my friends to relate to some of my experiences in Guatemala (my nearly constant battles with fleas, for instance), and it can be difficult for me to hear about or relate to their lives in America (a simple comment about a recently sampled IPA can turn me into a jealous monster).

Most of all, it's hard not to compare experiences and turn judgmental.  I recognize that my friends' struggles in the US are real and difficult, but I also inadvertently compare their struggles to those I see here, and think, "Seriously?  You're upset that you have too much grad school work and are running low on sleep?  Most of the kids in my town struggle to graduate from middle school."  I know that comparing struggles is ridiculous.  There's no definitive or rational struggle scale, and even if there was, what good would it do to know who has a more difficult life?  The best we can do is empathize with each other, help each other when we can, and learn from each other's experiences.

This is easier said than done.  And so the opportunity to really show a friend what my life in Guatemala is like, in contrast to merely offering email or Skype descriptions, is uplifting.

It's especially uplifting when said friend is Bhavana, who was game for anything and everything Guatemalan.  We spent our week together sampling street food, braving evening rainstorms, and reminiscing about our work as medical scribes back home (I left the emergency department to join the Peace Corps; Bhavana left to go to medical school and be generally awesome/doctory).  We started our adventures in Antigua, that cobblestoned heart of Guatemalan charm.  Some highlights:

Climbing a mist-shrouded volcano

Enjoying beautiful views over Antigua

Meeting the owner of an artisanal ice creamery, who moonlights as a painter and "steamy crime novel" writer*

Stuffing our faces with non-Guatemalan fare*

We then made our way to Lake Atitlán, and my site.  We passed a memorable afternoon with the local middle school girls in the Safe Space, playing as many party games as we could think of after our planned soccer game was rained out.  Despite a lack of Spanish fluency, Bhavana was a superstar at both Charades and Telephone.  The Guatemalans all expressed deep regret that she would not be a permanent fixture of our Safe Space sessions.

Before heading down to the lake proper, Bhavana and I got to enjoy a meal at the local comedor, a visit to the bustling Sololá market, and, most importantly, a van ride with the hot ayudante (Bhavana informed me that I have a bad case of Guate Goggles, but reassured me that he does have very nice eyes).*

We spent our last hours hiking around the lake, and exploring the lake town of Panajachel.

Check out dat walking route

It was hard to say goodbye to Bhavana, but I'm so glad she came to visit.  It was great to see her and catch up with her in person.  And it was deeply moving to share a slice of Guatemala with a friend from home.  If any of you lovely readers feel like dropping by, just say when.  I'll pick you up at the airport.

*Sadly, no photographic evidence of these exploits exists.

Day 307: Gender Matters

“In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.” - Nicholas D. Kristof, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

I've been trying to offer weekly educational sessions to my health educators for some time, at the request of my two health center bosses. Unfortunately, every time we schedule a session, we end up canceling at the last minute, due to a training in another town, or an unexpectedly long day of house visits, or an event that I have to attend at the Peace Corps office. The stars simply haven't aligned, and I'm learning to be okay with that.

This week, something magical must have been going on in the cosmos, because I led my first ever lesson (or charla) with the CAP educators. My CAP bosses left charla topics up to my discretion, and, being kind of obsessed with feminism and gender discussion, I decided to start with a session on gender equality and gender equity. I believe this topic to be especially important in Guatemala, where women are just generally less valued than men. Girls often need more encouragement than boys to express themselves, and more help than boys to stay in school.

I started with a simple story to illustrate the difference between treating people equally and treating people equitably. I thought this went over well, until I asked the staff members for examples of how they treat people with equality or equity in their own lives. The ambulance driver said, "Well, I'm the only one who can drive the ambulance, so that's equity." Wait. What?

I rehashed the whole equity/equality thing, and then moved on to an examination of gender roles in the community. At first, the educators argued that neither men nor women in San José Chacayá face any limitations due to their gender. They said that women can drink, and men can do dishes, and all is equal. I asked them, "But don't men here get negatively judged if they help with housework? And doesn't the same go for women drinking? I've certainly never seen a woman in the local bar." They all stared at me for a few seconds, before conceding that, yeah, there is a lot of judgment around inverted gender roles.

I ended the charla by asking the staff what topics they want to learn about in the future. The responses ranged from racism to "how to have more respect for old people" to self-esteem to "I want to learn about mental health because I have a friend who only talks about sex and I want her to reflect so that she can have a clean mind." So, might save that one for a little later.

After this semi-successful and hopefully thought-provoking lesson with my educators, I got to lead a gender discussion with fellow volunteers, at our monthly Peace Corps Guatemala Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Committee Book Club, Sololá Chapter (or, as I like to call it, PCGGEWECBCSC). The other participating volunteers and I spent a most enthralling hour discussing our latest read, Remaking Manhood by Mark Greene. I don't really want to use my blog as a place to plug or dis books, so let me instead say that the role of men in the feminist movement is particularly salient in Guatemala. For gender relations to really improve here, men need to both recognize women's worth and fight for women. We ladies are strong and capable, but we can't make lasting change without the support of our male compatriots.

And so, in closing, I leave you with the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, another PCGGEWECBCSC author (whose book Americanah I will actually totally plug: you should read Americanah): “Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”

Boys should use purses, because they're damn useful.
And, girls should wear ties, because they're damn sexy.

Day 304: Siempre Mejorando

"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."                                                                                                                                 - George Bernard Shaw

After my parents left (and I ate a slice of sadness cheesecake and about six chocolate bars, no joke), I decided that I needed an attitude adjustment.  I was tired of feeling sad, and even though I'm not fully in agreement with the adage that "happiness is a choice," I felt like I was directly responsible for a lot of my recent unhappiness.  I had gotten bogged down in a cycle of negativity and frustration.  I resolved to dedicate more mental energy to feeling happy, and to spend more time on the activities that make me happy, however small they may be (going out of my way to eat a delicious mango every day is a perfectly valid use of my time).

As luck would have it, the day after my parents' departure was the day of my first Peace Corps site visit.  In other words, my boss was coming to town.  I felt slightly intimidated by this prospect: how would she react upon learning that I have accomplished NOTHING?!  (This is an exaggeration--I have accomplished several important things in San José Chacayá.  But the pace of life here, combined with the struggles particular to my health center, means that I have not accomplished all I had hoped.)

My boss was patient as I explained my frustrations and disappointments.  The head of the Área de Salud (sort of the equivalent of a state's surgeon general, minus the medical degree) was also present, and suggested that I share my feelings with my CAP bosses.  This made me very nervous--how do you tell someone, "Your employees don't really do anything, which makes it hard for me to work with them" in a polite way?  But with both my Peace Corps boss and the head of the Área de Salud present, I took a deep breath and tried to phrase my thoughts in the most diplomatic way possible.  What came out was something along these lines:

"Everyone at this health center is a great person, and I really like all of you.  I'm really so happy to be here.  But I feel frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm for health work.  I understand it--the health educators rarely get paid, and many of them are likely to lose their jobs at the end of this year when a new political party assumes power.  I totally get why they don't want to go above and beyond their basic duties.  But this makes it really hard for me to work here."

I also threw in a lot of "fíjese que"'s, which is Guatemalan for "I am going to say something that may come off as offensive, but I am really just trying to be honest and you shouldn't feel offended."  We should probably come up with something similar in English (other than "no offense," which, let's be real, is the WORST).

Anyway, both my Peace Corps boss and the head of the Área de Salud later congratulated me for a perfect Guatemalan confrontation (thank you, Haverford College Quakerness, for training me in the ways of healthy confrontation!).  This felt like a major cultural breakthrough for me; it made me realize that I can assert myself here, albeit in a very roundabout and carefully phrased way.

The head of the Área de Salud also suggested that I present the findings from my district health diagnostic (completed in December) to the entire CAP staff, and then come up with a year-long plan of action as a team.  This may seem like a pretty obvious next step, but I honestly hadn't even considered it.  I had previously presented my findings to my two CAP bosses, who basically told me that I had great ideas for projects, but that I would have to implement said ideas alone.  Maybe this reaction made me feel too depressed to consider a different approach, or maybe I just have Guatemala brain (similar to pregnancy brain, minus the whole fetus thing).  In any case, my CAP bosses were excited about the prospect of coming up with a CAP-wide plan of action.  This gave me hope.

I spent the next week actively seeking happiness in tiny things (see mango comment above), and throwing myself into my work with new vigor.  My third Training of Trainers session went off without a hitch (well, almost.  I was tasked with demonstrating a really bad lesson, to provide examples of what not to do.  After explaining that the following lesson was a dramatization, I proceeded to snap at the participants, answer my phone, lecture in a very boring and overly technical way, and just generally be a jerk.  It was actually somewhat therapeutic, and pretty funny.  Or, it was funny until the end of the day, when we asked for participant feedback.  A lot of the Guatemalans seem to have missed the whole dramatization announcement, as they complained that "Ana is really mean and gives bad lessons."  Cool, guys).  I had a really productive meeting with my site mate, Laura, and my health educators to plan further Safe Space sessions.  And I had a riotous Kaqchikel class with the coolest Mayan language teacher in Guatemala (new favorite word: muxux'aj, which means belly button).  Things are looking up.

And now, dear reader, a note to you about the coming week: I know that I have been really bad about blogging this summer.  I really do appreciate you reading this, and in an attempt to provide more updates in less time, I'll be adding a series of mini-posts, one per day, starting tomorrow, until I am finally caught up to real life.  As always, thanks for reading.

Day 280: Visitors!

"If you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three.”                                                                                                      - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

As per usual, I’m a little behind in my blogging.  I’m sorry that my last real post—that one really negative one—has been my only written update for so long.  However, the lack of bloggery actually has a really good explanation: my service seems to have turned around, at least for the moment.  The last two months have been incredibly busy, incredibly productive, and incredibly happy.  I feel like I’m finally finding my niche in Guatemala.

The first step in this rather dramatic turnaround was a much-needed visit from home.  On April 25, my 271^st day in Guatemala, after weeks spent counting down the days and a veritable gestation period of Peace Corps service, my parents flew in from Minneapolis.  And even though I don’t want this blog to be a giant brag about international travel, this post is kind of going to be just that.  I’ll try to let the pictures do most of the talking.

Ann’s Top Ten…er, Twelve…Steps for Parental Integration

1. Take the chicken bus from the lakeside town of Panajachel up a curving mountain path.  Enjoy the soothing sounds of a one-armed hawker trying to sell single-tablespoon servings of JELL-O.

2. Sip on fine Guatemalan coffee at a quiet Sololá café (this actually isn’t a very Guatemalan experience.  Almost all good Guatemalan coffee is exported, which means that most of the coffee available in Guatemalan cafés is of the instant variety.  But, having the advantage of the Q7.50:$1.00 exchange rate, my parents and I were able to splurge for real, good Guatemalan coffee).

3. Make your way through the crowded Sololá streets on your way to the famed market.  Get shoved around by seemingly sweet old Mayan ladies,

marvel at strange animal body parts,

and treat yourself to some fresh mangoes dusted with salt and crushed pumpkin seeds.

4. Take a tuk-tuk (see picture) to your Mayan language teacher’s house.  Make awkwardly translated conversation, and exchange gifts and hugs.

The world's cleanest tuk-tuk (but really)

D'aww...look at that integration!

5. Take a micro (see first video blog) up the mountain to San José Chacayá.  Freak out a little when the driver vigorously scratches his head for about 10 minutes straight.

6. Visit the host family.  Make awkwardly translated conversation, and exchange gifts and hugs (seeing my host brother hug my mom after being given toys from America (but really from Vietnam) was enough to make even my hardened gringa heart melt a little).

My host mom and me (I'm the one on the left)

7. Walk into town, and enjoy lunch at the local comedor (basically a little meal factory run by a hard-working Guatemalan woman and two assistants).  For Q15, or about $2, you get one of the set meals of the day: fried chicken/roasted chicken/steak with rice, tortillas, side salad, and the beverage of your choice.  You can opt for either agua pura (drinkable water) or agua Pepsi (soda).  Yeah, they call soda “water” here.

8. Visit tourist mecca San José Chacayá’s hottest sites: the health center and the church.

9. Micro yourself back down the mountain, and chicken bus yourself back to Panajachel.  Lament the absence of the one-armed hawker.

10. Find, purchase, and consume dry-roasted fava beans (I highly recommend Googling these, and/or ordering some from nuts.com, which is actually a real website).

11. Embark on a street food adventure for dinner.  For us, this meant pupusas, an El Salvadoran treat of corn tortillas stuffed with cheese or meat and fried on an oil-covered stovetop.  They’re generally served with a delicious side salad of pickled and spiced cabbage, carrots, and jalapeños.

12. Congratulate yourself on fully understanding and integrating into a foreign culture.  Er…not.  But I do love that my parents were willing to try such outlandish new experiences, and risk their bowel happiness on delicious street food.

The above list is a description of just one of the eight wonderful days I got to spend with my parents.  I don’t want to bore you with a description of each day, but I will give you a few more highlights of the trip:

Quest for Tortillas: I think I’ve mentioned before that corn tortillas are the staple food here in Guatemala; and there’s no better way to enjoy them than hot off the griddle at a tortilleria, or tortilla stand.  On my parents’ second day in country, we walked to the small town near our treehouse hostel with the express purpose of finding a tortilleria.  Sadly, the town was so small that it didn’t have a tortilleria (a first in my experience).  I asked a local woman if she could point us to the nearest tortilla procurement facility, at which point she led us up the stairs of her house.  Many Guatemalan women make their own tortillas at home, and our new friend had a fresh batch.  She wouldn’t accept payment for her tortillas, so my parents got to experience both authentic Guatemalan cooking and the pervasive Guatemalan hospitality.

Watching Survivor: I don’t need you to tell me this is sad.  I know it’s sad that I’ve been watching Survivor since Season 1 (we’re now on Season 30), and I know it’s sad that I count watching Survivor as one of the highlights of my parents’ visit.  But, watching English-speaking television for the first time in months, with my parents, and happening to stumble upon one of my favorite shows—all of this was a poignant reminder of home.

A Perspective Change: My parents’ awe for Guatemala really served to reawaken a similar awe in me.  After living in this country for about nine months, I had grown accustomed to the beautiful vistas and friendly culture.  I had stopped appreciating these things, and instead was focusing my thoughts on what’s wrong with Guatemala, or why living here is hard.  When my dad told me that he saw more smiling faces in Guatemala than he had ever seen in the U.S., I realized, Yeah.  Guatemalans, despite often having harder lives than I can imagine living, are pretty happy.  It was time for me to pull myself out of my self-pity party, and start seeing the beauty of this country, and my service, once again.  Thanks, Mom and Dad!