Day 122: Thanksgiving

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”                                                           - Marcus Aurelius

As Thanksgiving Day drew closer over the past week, a palpable excitement seemed to hang over Peace Corps Guatemala. For many of my fellow volunteers, it was a nervous excitement, based both in severe homesickness and in eagerness for the giant Thanksgiving party being thrown by my training group. Several other volunteers were excited about the rapidly approaching arrivals of their families, who had chosen Thanksgiving as a good time to visit Guatemala.

My excitement was something else entirely. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still very homesick, and no doubt will be throughout the course of my service. But Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday (probably due to the fact that I strongly dislike almost all classic Thanksgiving foods), and therefore didn’t cause a spike in homesickness (Christmas will likely be another story). And I wasn’t actually planning to attend my training group’s Thanksgiving party. I love my fellow volunteers, and I love spending time with them, but I really prefer small group activities, sans vodka. Finally, my family did not come visit over Thanksgiving, because they don’t love me. I kid; my parents actually think I’m pretty cool, but I’m not allowed to have visitors yet. And given the fact that I will probably only get to see my parents a couple times during Peace Corps service, it makes sense to postpone family visits for a little while.

Anyway. I spent the past week in a state of extreme restlessness, which I think could most appropriately be called cabin fever. It turns out that living in a small town can be kind of limiting, and can really get in your head and MaKE yOu CrAZy. Well, stir crazy, at least. First of all, everyone in town knows you, and always wants to know how you’re doing. This is actually quite nice most of the time, but when you’re having a bad day, it sucks. I don’t want to lie to my local egg seller, but I also don’t want to tell him, “Well, I’m actually having a bad day, because I’m PMSing and right now everything about your culture seems backwards.” Probably not a great way to make friends. What’s more, any sort of excursion requires preplanning; you can’t just decide to go to the movies or out to eat. The closest cinema is an hour and a half away, and the restaurant in my town got very confused when I asked them for a vegetarian meal (they ended up serving me plain pasta with a teaspoon of tomato paste and three pieces of onion on top).

I was also feeling significantly frustrated with my daily work, or lack thereof. Everyone at my CAP is very nice, but they often spend entire afternoons napping or browsing Facebook. This makes collaboration difficult. When they do have work to do and I ask them how I can help, they usually say that I should “just be.” According to one of the Peace Corps trainers, this is likely due to the fact that I have a college degree (a rarity here), and am seen as being too fancy or important for basic CAP work. This makes me very sad, because I would really like to be helping! I do have some diagnostic work I can do for Peace Corps, but it feels very condescending to only work on figuring out what my fellow CAP workers are doing wrong.

So, in summary, by Thanksgiving Day, I was desperately excited to see my friend Hannah (a fellow volunteer who had come to stay), and to get out of town. We spent a glorious Thursday in Panajachel, hiking along the lakeside, sipping non-instant coffee, eating tempeh stir-fry (ACTUAL TEMPEH!), and getting massages from a darling Guatemalan lady. We also had an interesting grocery store run-in with a young Jehovah’s Witness missionary, who assured us that Peace Corps volunteers are “politically funded.” He was shocked to learn that there are “real expatriots” living in Pana. I don’t know how he missed the vast number of white people wandering around and running businesses, but whatever.

The day ended with a positively inspired pizza-from-scratch kitchen party, and a screening of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Weirdly, MFBGW, which I considered a masterpiece in junior high and now consider superbly cheesy, fit with Guatemalan life perfectly. Seriously, if you want to gain some perspective on gender roles and societal expectations in Guatemala, just listen to Toula Portokalos expound on the importance of marrying men of the same ethnic background, having babies of said ethnic background, and cooking for said babies of said ethnic background. I basically felt like I was watching a video of my current life (although John Corbett does not, to my knowledge, live in Guatemala).

On Friday, Hannah and I hiked to the local lookout over Lake Sololá (the same one introduced to me by my fellow CAP workers). While soaking up the sun and the view, we had a long, emotional, and ultimately helpful chat about integration difficulties.

The view en route to the lookout

The lake view from the lookout

Hannah and I then headed to another friend’s house, to begin cooking our real Thanksgiving dinner (pizza, while delicious, doesn’t really count as Thanksgiving food). Our exhaustive efforts over the next 24 hours produced a veritable feast: mashed potatoes, biscuits, cornbread stuffing, sweet-and-sour carrots, green bean casserole, spinach salad, apple pie, pumpkin pie, peach pie, and pumpkin rolls. This may sound like a pretty typical Thanksgiving lineup, albeit sans turkey, but it felt like a huge accomplishment, given the fact that all of the food was prepared using a portable stove and a toaster oven. Best of all, while eating, I got to catch up with six other volunteers. We talked about our successes in site, our frustrations, and what we are thankful for. It was a really nice, really homey Thanksgiving…despite being celebrated in a cement block in rural Guatemala.

My conversation with my fellow volunteers made me realize that, even though I’m frustrated with small town life and my lack of progress in my CAP, I have a TON to be thankful for. I’m thankful for all the opportunities I’ve had in my life, many of which were afforded to me because I was born in a country like the United States, and not in Guatemala. Seriously, how amazing is it that I got to go to college, study abroad, work as a medical scribe in an ER, and join the Peace Corps? Those things are unheard of here!

I’m also thankful for my health—another anomaly here. The vast majority of Guatemalans are malnourished, and many Guatemalan women my age (23) already have three or four children. The results of such early and frequent childbirths can be devastating—Hannah just met a 17-year-old mother, whose recent bungled Cesarean section left her paralyzed from the waist down.

I’m thankful I’ve been placed in a town I like, with a generous and caring host family. And I’m thankful for my friends and family back home. I’ve always been thankful for the people I love, but since coming here I’ve realized more than ever just how much I love all of you.

Today, a few days after Thanksgiving, I have a new something to be thankful for. I’m talking, of course, about Cyber Monday. Just kidding! I’m actually talking about a promising work opportunity in my health district. However, given the length of this blog post, and as part of a sneaky plan to leave you hanging so that you read my subsequent blog posts, I’ll tell you about it next time!

See those little radio towers?  That's my town!