I’m not sure whether or not my last post communicated just how difficult Christmas in Guatemala was for me. I was trying to stay positive, but the fact is…Christmas was really hard. December 25 is kind of my favorite thing in the world. I look forward all year to slogging through slushy parking lots with my arms full of presents, bounding through fresh snowdrifts with my little brother dachshund, and waking up on Christmas Day to my dad’s steaming poppyseed rolls and my mom’s warm cuddles. So Christmas in Guatemala was a struggle, both because I was away from my family, and because I was away from our traditions. Guatemala has been starting to feel more like home, but on Christmas it felt more alien than ever.
I had decided at the end of training that I would spend Christmas
in site, but that I would spend New Year’s on vacation. Christmas would be a big integrational
push for me, and New Year’s would be a mental break. And by December 26, I was ready for a mental break in a
major way. I was homesick, I was
reeling about the health situation in my CAP (as revealed by my diagnostic
work, and detailed a little further on in this post), and I wanted to speak
English again. So, on December 31,
together with some of my favorite fellow volunteers, I bought a bottle of wine
and hopped on a chartered Eurovan to Monterrico, Guatemala’s famous black-sand
beach.
First things first: Monterrico is beautiful. The miles-long beach is lined with palm
trees, funkily-painted hostels, and oceanside bars. Within hours of arrival, we got to enjoy this glorious
sunset over the Pacific:
 |
| One of these things is paler than the others... |
The rest of the trip was just as fun, and often just as
picturesque. I spent the days
running on the beach, sunbathing on the beach, swimming in the peaceful surf
past the dangerous riptide, exploring different beachfront restaurants, and
eating lots of ice cream (one of the local chains has a new “dark chocolate”
flavor, which is basically equivalent to regular American chocolate ice
cream…in other words, it is luxurious).
It was one of those vacations where you never really take off your
bathing suit; you just wear it into whatever shop or restaurant you may need to
enter.
Aside from all the ice cream and beach time (and
cinnamon-spiced piña coladas), there were two undeniable highlights. The first was a morning expedition into
the local mangrove lagoons. We set
our alarms for 5:30 am, bundled into a narrow flat-bottomed boat paddled around
by a local gondolier, and got to watch the sun rise over the volcanic
landscape.
Once there was a little more light among the mangroves, we
were able to enjoy a healthy dose of local wildlife: majestic wading birds,
fluttering sparrows, cackling monkeys, and tangled water weeds, to name a
few. My favorite animal sighting
was this strange little fish that skimmed across the top of the water just like
a skipped rock. Interestingly, the
ecosystem of the lagoon changes every half year, thanks to the ocean tides—it’s
a freshwater habitat for half the year, and saltwater for the other half.
The second highlight of the Monterrico trip was buying, and
releasing, a baby sea turtle. For
a measly Q10 ($1.50-ish), I got to acquaint myself with Tyrion Turtle (we had
just been discussing Game of Thrones), and set him free to seek his fortune in
the swirling ocean currents. It
was a bittersweet goodbye, but I feel sure his life won’t be rough as his
namesake’s.
All too soon, it was time to head back to site, where I had
a couple days to finish up my diagnostic work before heading to Early
In-Service Training (EIST). EIST,
held at Peace Corps Headquarters, is a time for volunteers to share what
they’ve observed so far in their communities (the diagnostic), learn
project-specific strategies for improving community conditions (i.e. how to
teach classes about birth control, how to collaborate with midwives, etc.), and
formulate future project plans.
Best of all, it’s an opportunity to reunite with all the volunteers from
my training group. I can’t wait.
But, back to the diagnostic: As you would expect, the
Maternal and Child Health diagnostic is an assessment of current community
health practices. I’ve spent the
past three months working on it, and I’ve made some interesting/surprising/disheartening
discoveries:
- 70% of the population in San José Chacayá lives off less than Q1500 per month ($200). This actually puts us above the average departmental poverty rate (77%).
- 14.8% of local women use birth control, with monthly injections and exclusive breastfeeding accounting for about 75% of their birth control use (exclusive breastfeeding is a hugely popular method of birth control here, though all but unheard-of in the United States. Basically, after giving birth, a woman can prevent the return of menstruation, and fertility, by breastfeeding any time her child is hungry—about 12 times a day. As you might suspect, this is not the most effective birth control method).
- 7.8% of local men use birth control, all in the form of condoms.
- The average woman in San José Chacayá will give birth to five children in her lifetime. No wonder the locals look at me like I’m crazy when I say I only have one sibling.
- Only 31.94% of local births take place at institutions run by the Ministry of Health (i.e. hospitals, the CAP). This preference for home births was further illustrated in my interviews with local pregnant women, when I asked, “What will you do when you go into labor?” About 40% of the women answered that they would tell their husband or their mother that they were about to have a baby, and stay home.
- My CAP does not educate young women (or men) on birth control until after their first pregnancy, their reasoning being that women only need to know about birth control in order to safely space out their pregnancies. I think the lack of education also has something to do with the strong religious fervor here, and the extreme hesitance to discuss female bodily functions.
- The municipal government used to provide free Pap smears to all women of reproductive age in San José Chacayá. Since the funding ran out two years ago, Pap coverage has dropped to less than 1%.
So the good news is there’s lots of room for improvement, in
my eyes at least. The hard part
will be motivating Guatemalans to change, and making improvements in a
culturally sensitive way. As much
as I’d like to, I can’t just charge into the local school and start handing out
condoms.
I thought my diagnostic would be the last roadblock before
EIST, but I was wrong. The night
before I was due to leave, my host dad came home with bad news: his
brother-in-law, who owned and ran the shop next to our house, was dead. My immediate reaction was shock. I had seen Byron less than 48 hours
ago, when he helped me pick out the ripest banana in his stock (this was our
daily custom). He was probably in
his late thirties or early forties, and appeared to be in the peak of
health. I soon found out that he
had long been suffering from some mysterious chronic disease, took a turn for
the worse, and died en route to the hospital.
Guatemalans move quickly when faced with death, and Byron’s
wake was already taking place next door, less than 24 hours after his
death. My host family and I went
to pay our respects at about 10:30 pm, just after his body arrived from the
hospital. My shock had, by this
point, turned to sadness, largely due to the thought of Byron’s two young and
now fatherless daughters. At the
wake, my sadness was pervaded with horror, as each of Byron’s family members
wept over his casket. I felt like
I was watching something far too personal, like I had no place observing this
family’s raw sorrow. And it wasn’t
like I was just an out-of-place gringa among close family members—I was one of
about 200 villagers crammed into the makeshift chapel, all of us mutely looking
on at one of the darkest moments in this family’s life.
The worst moment of all was when the time came to “dar
palabras.” The direct translation
of dar palabras is “to give words,” but dar-ing palabras is more than that:
Guatemalans love to offer up praises, reminiscences, advice, and good will at
all social occasions. At the wake,
Byron’s closest friends and family members took the stage to memorialize him,
all the while crying, screaming, and gasping for breath. One of his friends nearly fainted with
emotion, and had to be carried into the house. Byron’s sobbing teenage daughter begged everyone in the
audience to love their parents while they still can. That was where I lost it, and just started crying. You see, being in the Peace Corps is an
amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it suddenly struck me as a rather
selfish venture. I’ve left behind
all the people I love to have this incredible adventure by myself. What if one of my parents gets sick? What if someone back home needs me?
By the time we returned home around midnight, I had calmed
considerably (although I did emotionally wolf down an entire pack of cheap
chocolates before going to bed).
Byron’s death left me once again reflecting on how lucky I am. I don’t mean to get overly preachy in
all my posts, but, seriously, I have it really good. I have a loving, supportive, and healthy family; I have an
excellent education; I have my own health; I have amazing friends; I have the
ability to serve in the Peace Corps without worrying about how my family will
support themselves in my absence.
I’m really in the lap of luxury, even in my little cement-and-metal
hamlet in the Guatemalan highlands.
Now, it’s off to EIST!
I’ll end this post with a shout-out to my dad: I saw your little milk
truck’s cousin getting ferried around the Monterrico lagoon, and missed you
more than ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment