13 going back on 22
the Pastores crew with our ex-spanish teacher Chepe at swear-in
So, its official, we’re finally volunteers. We can cook for ourselves, stay out after dark (ish), and no longer have to call the second we leave our doorstep for somewhere other than Peace Corps headquarters. I don’t even know what to do with all my freedom!
Swear in weekend was our two days of pretending we were tourists, dancing and consuming massive amounts of overpriced ethnic food, before retiring to our lives of isolation and chocolate abstinence (its just too darn expensive).
So, here I am in Vacaville, my home for the next two years. I must say that arriving here was quite the unexpected adventure. I brought entirely too much stuff, and despite my beliefs that I had already brought most of it when we did site visits 2 weeks ago I seem to have accumulated twice as much. I love entertaining Guatemalans on the bus as I struggle to lug four suitcases onto an overflowing camioneta then profusely sweat as I awkwardly stand vigilantly staring at my bags to make sure no one steals anything and giving dirty looks to the man completely obscuring my view of my bags probably with the intention of having his friend swipe something, and I’m sure they love me twice as much as they watch me thinking I’m being vigilant and an excellent traveler while they are simultaneously unzipping my pants pocket and swiping my wallet with my bank card and over 2000 quetzales (roughly 250 dollars) without me acknowledging even the slightest touch. Yea I love the bus rides in Guate.
My biggest hope right now is that whoever opens it up and exults at their recent pot of gold also sees the Peace Corps ID and feels really really incredibly guilty for robbing someone who isn’t just an arrogant tourist of their entire monthly income.
So after cursing Chimaltenango (where essentially every Peace Corps volunteer gets robbed at least once in their two years) and all the folks on my bus who probably knew what was happening and did nothing to help me, I started to count my blessings. They only got my wallet, it’s only money, and no one did anything to hurt me or threaten my security. I also called Peace Corps to report it and was informed that they can reimburse me the majority of what was stolen. So really, there’s nothing to be upset about except for a little inconvenience. I feel so lucky, no matter how we live here, no matter how little we make or how many of our favorite foods we give up, we never truly live in poverty because we always have the security of Mr. Obama backing us up if anything goes severely wrong. The little blessings in life, eh?
So anyways, now we’re in our lovely town and have somewhat settled in, although procrastinating putting things away is perhaps my biggest vice and my room is covered with all the stuff we acquired from the previous volunteer who lived in our town along with my clothes strewn about in every direction, sorry mom. I’m living in a room in a house with a family, but it’s big enough that I can fit a mini kitchen in it too and Amber (my site mate) and I already christened it making curry Sunday afternoon. I have three host sisters who are incredibly cute and all have ridiculous bangs, but am finding it hard to adjust to all the benefits of having younger siblings (constantly wanting to play, being in your space all the time, sometimes just staring at you and watching you as you do seemingly mundane things) and am starting to realize why I was probably not my brother’s favorite person when I was younger. Last night they were banging on my wall trying to get me to respond for about an hour while I was trying to sleep. My mother’s sweet but she’s also very overbearing and very sensitive of the girls bothering me so she yells at them a lot more when I’m around and I feel guilty. I feel bad because I know everything she’s trying to do is just out of trying to help me but it gets suffocating. She also insists on everyone in the house calling me “seño” which is the name students use for teachers out of respect, but it sets up a very awkward dynamic in the house, and even I asked her that everyone called me Abby she said no because they had to show me respect.
Anyways, the best part about the house is we have five cows and they are awesome. Yesterday morning I got up early to try and milk them with my host father Manuel but unfortunately the cow I went for doesn’t usually like having women pulling on her udders so she got agitated and then didn’t give as much milk as she usually does. From the two cows they milk they get roughly two big buckets of milk a day (maybe like 4 gallons?) and sell it all to neighbors, many of which come at 6:30 in the morning to get it fresh out of the teet and foaming. We’ve been instructed by our medical officers not to drink any milk that’s unpasteurized unless we first bring it to a boil three times (which simulates pasteurizing). Unfortunately when I went out to milk they also insisted on me taking a big glass of the frothing warm liquid, and despite my insistance that I wanted to save it for later they made me drink it right then because apparently it tastes different and not wanting to offend my new family on the first day I was there I humored them and took a few sips. Now we’re just awaiting the possibility of intestinal worms, no big deal.
Other than that life on the homefront has been pretty tranquila. This week we have off because of Semana Santa, and we have plans to do household shopping in Chimalt this afternoon. My mom’s going to show me how to make Semana Santa bread tomorrow and on Wednesday we’re planning on having all the newly arrived Chimalt volunteers over for a potluck. I’m so relieved to be able to cook for myself again it’s ridiculous, although this is slightly hampered by the fact that I have no food in my house besides a loaf of bread and peanut butter.
Here’s some pics to keep you updated on my ever growing guate butt. We may start running this week so hopefully it will get no bigger.
Me with some of the kids from Cerro Niño, the school we worked in during training
Me with the second grade class I worked in
Me and my host mother from Pastores
Me and site partner Amber
MOO
My host sister with her vacita
Aw, those little girls are adorable. Don’t worry, little sisters are just like pets- immature and downright annoying sometimes, but you can’t help but love them. You can pretend you’re living with a Spanish-speaking Narineh and Junie (although that girl looks older than either of them).
That’s funny about the mother making them call you that. I know a Russian family that makes their kids call me by the formal direct address (it exists in French and is the same a address you would use for more than one person.) It’s so weird!
Sorry about your getting robbed. Did you ever meet gypsies in Spain? Because that experience of riding in a bus sounds like what gypsies in Europe do.
Miss you! I’ll call you!
Yulia