"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.
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