Day 269: Rock Bottom

“When this ultimate crisis comes… when there is no way out – that is the very moment when we explode from within and the totally other emerges: the sudden surfacing of a strength, a security of unknown origin, welling up from beyond reason, rational expectation, and hope.”*                                       - Émile Durkheim

As I discussed in my last post, I try very hard to keep a positive outlook in Guatemala.  This is largely for my own sanity and for the wellbeing of those around me, but it’s also for you, my readers, who probably don’t want to read a bunch of online whining.  However, there are times, like now, when being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala just…well, just sucks.  And I feel like I would be doing a disservice to you, and to me, if I lied about that, and only told you about the more positive aspects of service.  So I’m warning you now that this post is not a happy one.  Take comfort from the fact that, as I am a couple weeks behind in blogging, I can promise you a much much happier post next time.

I know it’s melodramatic to say I’ve hit rock bottom.  It’s entirely possible that I will feel worse at some point in my service.  But this is the most hopeless and unhappy I’ve felt so far during my time here, and in this environment of fluctuating and extreme emotions, that’s saying something.

So what went wrong?  I can think of five things that kind of snowballed to bring me down.  First, in a casual conversation with my two health center bosses, I learned that they thought my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer was basically to bring them money (this is in fact pretty much the opposite of what Peace Corps is about).  My health center staff thought I would be paying for foreign doctor visits, surgeries, vaccines, medications, you name it.  They were disappointed that I hadn’t brought them any of these things.  I explained to them that Peace Corps does not provide direct funding to the communities with which it works, and that my job is more about capacity-building.  They then asked me if I could find them organizations that would bring them money.

I fully understand that money is lacking in my community, and that without appropriate funding it’s really hard to practice good medicine.  It’s absurd that when someone comes in to the CAP with a head laceration, we send them back out to the local pharmacy to buy thread for suturing.  It’s crazy that we can’t use our ambulance because we can’t afford gas.  But I also know that we can improve community health using the resources—largely personnel—that we already have.  And it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that the work of many charity organizations in Guatemala, while producing good short-term results, has lead to a crippling culture of dependency.  The fact that my health center bosses want me to spend my time here searching for foreign aid, rather than working on local capacity-building, makes me wonder why they requested a Peace Corps Volunteer in the first place.  It also makes me worry that I don’t have their full support for my project.

After this illuminating chat, I had to draft and submit my semiannual Volunteer Report Form, or VRF.  The VRF is basically a summary of what you’ve accomplished in site, what you’re still working on, and how you feel your community integration is going.  I had heard from other volunteers and Peace Corps staff that your first VRF can feel a bit lacking; the slowness of community integration and project development here means that you generally achieve very little in your first six months.  But I had a few solid activities to list, and I felt good about my VRF.  I knew that some of my comments on community integration (read: frustrations with my host family and health center staff) were somewhat negative, but I also felt that they were honest.

Shortly after submitting my VRF, my Peace Corps boss emailed me with edits and comments.  She thanked me for my honesty, and told me that the best course of action over the next few weeks would be to adjust my expectations.  As the first Maternal and Child Health Volunteer in my site, she said, it’s very possible I won’t really achieve any positive health outcomes.  Instead, I should focus on integrating as best as I can, so that integration and project work will be easier for the next MCH volunteer.

I know that my boss was trying to be helpful—to give me something positive and attainable to work toward.  But her words left me reeling.  Making the next volunteer’s job easier is a fine goal, but it doesn’t seem to me like it’s worth two years of my life.

I thought a lot about her words over the next few days at work, especially when my Pregnancy Club (which, let’s be honest, didn’t have that promising of a start) completely derailed.  I had planned the next session with the CAP health educators, and I arrived the morning of the meeting ready to make posters and buy snacks.  When I asked the health educators if they were ready for Pregnancy Club (just trying to make light conversation, really), they shocked me by replying that they had forgotten about it, that they hadn’t invited any pregnant women, and that we would have to reschedule.

I tried to be casual and upbeat about this little snafu.  It would, after all, give me extra time to make posters and practice my presentation.  We rescheduled for the following week, and left it at that.

But when I reminded them about the Pregnancy Club the next week, the educators told me that they had once again forgotten about it and had a conflicting event that day anyway.  This time—and I know this sounds really over-the-top but it’s true—I felt too frustrated to even bother rescheduling.  That’s not to say we’ll never have another pregnancy club; I just didn’t have the moxie to try again that day.

My fourth frustration took the form of a Peace Corps training on Behavior Change.  The training, intended for Peace Corps Volunteers and their Guatemalan coworkers, took place at a delightfully zany hotel in the department of Chimaltenango.  I was excited to get out of site/not have to cook my own food/spend time with other volunteers/learn about how to encourage and measure local behavior change.

Some photos of said zany hotel:

The bathrooms

The bottle-construction exercise room

The exercise room proper

"Daniel and Gabriel's Forest" (I love you, bro!)

The other Peace Corps Volunteers and I quickly learned that the three-day workshop would not actually involve much new information; instead, we would sit through about twelve presentations we had already seen.  We were supposed to use our prior knowledge to encourage and help teach the Guatemalans.  Unfortunately, Guatemalans can be a difficult bunch to teach.  This is partly due to widespread childhood malnutrition (which causes decreased brain capacity), partly due to the poor education system (Guatemalan teachers encourage rote learning, and frequently take random days off), and partly due to impenetrable culture clashes.

Some examples:

When I asked my two coworkers for examples of how to do a community health diagnostic (hoping for an answer like “interview patients” or “compile diarrhea statistics”), they stared at me for over thirty seconds before suggesting, “We could ask the Municipality for money.”

My friend Paul and his coworkers, while planning a lesson on “Warning Signs in Newborns,” got in a fight about who they would give this lesson to.  Paul thought the lesson should be given to mothers and fathers.  His coworkers argued that the lesson should be given to the newborns.

My fifth and final frustration was a small run-in with my host dad.  I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping recently, because of the frequent Muñeca barking sessions at 2:00 and 3:00 am.  I’ve been trying to think of a way to bring this up to my host family, and I seized the opportunity when my host dad started telling me about a special flower that treats insomnia.  I pulled a, “Oh, maybe I should try that.”  When he asked me if I suffered from insomnia, I explained that the dog’s barking has been keeping me awake.  He then said, “Well, that’s not what’s keeping you awake.  There are a lot of barking dogs in the neighborhood, and it’s not ours.  Besides, there are a lot of drunks who walk the streets at night, and if it weren’t for our dog, they would break in to the house.  That dog is keeping you safe.”

So.  All of these things have me feeling pretty down about my work in Guatemala.  I keep asking myself the same questions: Why am I in Guatemala?  Can I achieve anything here?  How?  How can I work with people who only seem to want money that I don’t have?  How can I motivate educators who rarely get paid, and who will all lose their jobs when a new president is elected (that’s how socialized medicine works here)?  Why am I in Guatemala, when I could be at home, with people I love and who love me back?

*Here’s hoping.

Day 251: Semana Santa and Semuc Champey

“Two thousand years ago Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child.”     - Billy Crystal

I was recently informed by several confidantes that my last blog post was a bit negative; for that I apologize.  I do try to stay positive here, but, as I know better than anyone, I have a tendency to slide into self-pity and just stay there.  It’s all too easy to focus on homesickness, and what isn’t working in my community, and how I have it so hard.  When I stop to reflect, though, I actually have it pretty good.  I have all the basic stuff—my health, a sturdy house, a loving family, etc. etc. etc.  But I also have a lot of tiny comforts that many Peace Corps Volunteers (and Guatemalans, and people around the world, for that matter) go without.  I have a working hot shower.  I’m close to a hippie gringo town, where I can buy quinoa and sometimes even Pop-Tarts.  I can exercise safely and happily on my stationary bike.  I can afford to take vacations—and this brings us to the main topic of this post.

It’s Holy Week in Guatemala, and it’s a big deal.  There are no measly Easter egg hunts or pagan bunny costumes; it’s all about the resurrection of Christ.  Seemingly half the western hemisphere gathers in Antigua for celebratory parades (each parade participant shouldering about 90 lbs of a heavy wooden “float” showcasing various saint statues or Jesus’s tomb).  The streets are lined with alfombras, intricate pavement designs made with brightly dyed sawdust.

Pretty rad, even in hazy weather.

Said alfombras are destroyed as the parades (or rainstorms) pass over them, and then recrafted for the next day—because the Holy Week celebration lasts for at least four days, from Thursday through Sunday.  Interestingly (to me, at least), the biggest parades and Masses take place on Good Friday, the day of Jesus’s crucifixion, while Easter Sunday is more a day of rest and recovery.  When I passed through Antigua on Easter Sunday, the streets felt exhausted and abandoned, with only a few stragglers constructing half-hearted flower alfombras.

Most Guatemalan Peace Corps Volunteers take vacation during Holy Week (Semana Santa), because there’s so much to see around the country and no one’s working anyway.  My friend Naomi and I decided to take a trip to Semuc Champey, widely regarded to be the most beautiful place in Guatemala and one of the most beautiful places in the world.  The best way I can describe Semuc Champey is as a series of turquoise pools cascading down a limestone land bridge, which in turn stretches across a rushing river.  You kind of have to see it.  And so, starting from far away and gradually zooming in, I give you the following photographic masterpieces:

Perhaps the single downside of Semuc Champey is how difficult it is to get to.  It’s only 190 miles (by road) from my site, but it took Naomi and me 14 hours to get there.  First, our shuttle from Sololá to Antigua was an hour late.  I actually didn’t mind this so much, because it gave us the opportunity to observe a street vendor making and selling some sort of…health drink?  After juicing a few oranges, the vendor would add a mysterious powder to turn the OJ green (the box holding the powder promised sexual endurance and clearer sinuses and all sorts of things).  Then, just before handing the glass to a customer, the vendor added one or two (unrefrigerated) raw eggs.  Naomi and I watched in awe as customer after customer chugged the fluorescent eggy concoction.  When they finished, the vendor scrubbed out the glass, gave it a quick rinse, and set to work creating more sexual endurance juice.  I like to think I’m fairly adventurous in trying new foods, but you would have to pay me many many quetzales to try this one.

Once on board our shuttle, we had a quiet but hot ride to Antigua, where we had to wait for a second, also late, shuttle.  This second shuttle, in the course of its nine-hour trek to the town of Lanquin, took only two bathroom breaks.  I amused myself with podcasts, crosswords, and eavesdropping on the flirtations between a really desperate American dude and some giggly Australians (an excellent moment from their game of 20 Questions: Is it smaller than a plane?  Yes.  Is it a country?).  We rolled into Lanquin at about 11:30 pm, then boarded our final, rough-terrain shuttle.  Given that Lanquin is only about nine miles from Semuc Champey, I thought we were minutes from the hostel.  But it was a rough-terrain shuttle for a reason.  It took us over a half hour to traverse the rutted path, by which time I was desperate for sleep.

We spent the next day exploring the Semuc Champey nature park.  We hiked up a steep hill overlooking the land bridge, then headed back down (significantly sweatier) for a swim.  We feasted on pineapple, hot corn tortillas, mashed avocadoes, and these weird chocolate patties, which I’m pretty sure were comprised solely of cocoa powder, sugar, oil, and cardamom.

During the hot hot hot afternoon, we hiked the nine miles uphill to Lanquin, in search of provisions.  Naomi wanted ice cream, I wanted yogurt, and we both wanted to prove to our hostel owner that we could walk there (when we told him our hiking plan in the morning, he told us it was not possible to walk so far).  Sadly, he was less than impressed when we returned to brag about our success.  No matter; the views alone were worth the sweat:

For a bit of a more cultural experience, Naomi and I bussed over to Coban, a veritable city two hours from Lanquin.  We saw Holy Week floats,

This man is kind of my hero.  Guatemalans usually don't smile, let alone thumbs-up, in photographs.

and solved the mystery of alfombra construction.

Answer: STENCILS!

We even got to help make one.

Our last day of vacation was spent hanging out with our Argentinian hostel roommates and attempting to go tubing in the river.  I say attempting because, while the rest of the tubing group floated happily past, Naomi and I sat motionless in the middle of the current.  A Guatemalan eventually took pity on us, and jumped into the river to push us.  It was surreal and kind of magical.

The tubing river

As most vacations do, ours ended too soon.  I don’t think I’ll ever return to Semuc Champey—it’s just too hard to get to—but I’m so glad I went.  I leave you with two last photos.  The first is a snapshot from a crowded pickup truck ride from Semuc Champey to Lanquin, during which all 30 pickup bed occupants were airborne at one time or another.  The second is a shout-out to a family friend and his faithful chihuahua Rosita.

"Parking/TV Cable/Hot Water/24 Hours"