So this is peace corps…
So it seems the entire country of Guatemala decided the month of June should consist of as little work as possible. I still choose to believe it’s not a mere coincidence that it so nicely coincided with my birthday, although I’m going to say that hurricane Agatha was not my most favorite present ever…
So this month we officially worked a week and a half due to a whole slue of fantastic events. There was the hurricane/volcano chaos (okay, not so fantastic) followed closely by a week off in celebration of Teacher’s Day (which conveniently allowed me to not work on my birthday…no complaints)
Apologies for the smoke screen...again, fireworks
There is a day for everyone in Guatemala, and all are celebrated in a pretty similar manner – a giant acto civico, this one including anyone having anything to do with education in the district. And let’s face it – no acto civico is complete without the 10 minute Guatemalan national anthem (I will never learn it in the next two years), Fireworks (although these ones are just noise and smoke…no pretty colors or fancy designs), a reina (or in this case 3 – these are basically just beauty queens)
plenty of raffles giving out awful prizes, Marimba versions of American favorites (specifically Simon and Garfunkel Sounds of Silence), and plenty of food.
This one had the added benefit of gringas making complete fools of themselves.
So, as we didn’t belong to any school, we somehow got overlooked for raffle tickets. I was okay with this because most often they’re really crummy, but then came the soccer jerseys and I got a little bitter, especially when some random gringa from the back ran up with the winning ticket.
Um, EXCUSE ME. Let me start by saying that any time I see other gringos in my town I get a little defensive and bitter. I’m sorry, but my site partner and I are the token gringos of Patzicia. No one is taking that away from me, and when gringos are in town people confuse me with them, because all white skinned brown haired girls are identical twins. So needless to say when random gringa who I knew was only in Patzi for two weeks won the best prize in the entire raffle I started to get a little bitter that they got raffle tickets while we were overlooked. So, I decided to participate in one of the competitions. Generally the emcees just ask for people to volunteer and don’t tell you what you will actually be doing, so when I went up with Profe Pablo and they told us we were going to dance, I turned momentarily beet red before putting my game face on. Now just a reminder, I may be one of the most competitive people am the most competitive person in Peace Corps Guatemala, so when one of the directors suggested reggaeton instead of what would have been less embarrassing salsa or bachata, Profe Pablo (who’s a good 3 inches shorter then me) and I got down.
I won (so did Profe Pablo).
Next of said fantastic events was me attempting to organize the Guatemalan version of Bikes Not Bombs annual bike-a-thon. BNB has a partner organization down here (Mayapedal) so I got together some friends and people from Mayapedal and we had our own version riding through the hills of Guatemala (luckily mostly down them). I will say that ours differed from the one in Boston in several ways.
There were far fewer of us.
the group standing outside Mayapedal
We served as propaganda boards for Mayapedal (and didn’t have to be completely politically correct)
Directly translates to ¨Hey fatty, where´s your bike?¨
We had fabulous helmets
And our view was, I’ll deem it, many times more spectacular, despite my love for bean town.
The ride was pretty easy until we got to Antigua and decided to ride walk our bikes up to a lookout point. Then we decided that this would be fun to do:
Feel free to make fun of us.
Next exciting event: Vacation! Birthday celebration occurred in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been – Lago Atitlan. It’s a crater lake surrounded by 3 (or 4?) volcanoes and indigenous communities as well as extremely touristy hippie towns. Normally these are not my favorite, but when I’ve been living without delicious things like tahini and peanut butter bars and COUS COUS for 6 months, the tourist hot spots come in handy. We spent 3 days between Solola and Panajachel, stopping for a dayin our friends site on the other side of the lake and feasting the whole time. Did I mention that food is a huge weekness for me? Unfortunately my camera batteries died on the most beautiful day when we walked through milpa fields on the flooded beaches of my friend’s site, but here are some tastes:
View from my friends balcony
view of the lake early morning
accidental picture taken...kind of cool
As we motorboated across the lake I began to think that at least this was secluded enough to escape money-hungry oil diggers and stay pristine, but just as I was thinking that I heard clunking hitting the bottom of the boat and looked off the side to see a buttload of trash everywhere. Apparently when the hurricane hit it washed more than dirt into the lake, including some houses, and people could be seen days after fishing out doorsand windows and other household items.
And then American Patriotism hit Guatemala full force. 
The lovely folks at PC Guatemala deem 4th of July an important enough holiday to give us the weekend off and have a bbq for all 210 PCVs in Guatemala. Three days of nearly every volunteer in country staying in Antigua and showing off their American pride…I’m still recovering. I’m used to a wild night in site meaning getting tostadas from the street vendors (actually can be pretty wild if you decide to go for cabbage on it…it’s like Russian roulette with diarrhea) and tucking in at 8:30.
So, needless to say, this week has been tough as after two weeks of vacation I’ve tried to get used to the idea that I do actually have things work related that I should be doing. It’s been a challenge to my motivation, but I think I’m almost back on track
Which is a good thing because we only have one week before returning to Antigua for re-connect. Really peace corps?
Anyways, to give you all some catch up on work related news (there IS some I swear) on the whole I feel like I haven’t been doing all that much, but when we went to schools the other day it dawned on me that nearly every kid is now starting to wash their hands before eating and brushing at least once a day, which is something right?
the one in the middle is on the list of top 10 patojos in the district I´d say
We’re also finishing up 6 grant proposals for getting schools more faucets or water where there is none. Now we have to start petitioning the muni with the schools for funding.. Unfortunately we tried to do this last week (trying to get funds donated to make copies of health manuals available to the teachers at a more feasible cost for them) and were informed that no money was available because the town’s Ferria, which comes up in two weeks, was too expensive.
I tried to not laugh hysterically in the mayor’s representative’s face as I pictured the ¨cancel the who centennial?!¨ scene from Horton Hears a Who. God forbid we take away a churro stand at the expense of our children´s health. No no that´s insane!
Next week we’ll be starting to give workshops with some of the high school students on various topics – this week is self-esteem but we’re hoping to go into AIDS, pregnancy prevention, drugs, the works. I’m actually incredibly excited for this. As much as I believe in the work I’m doing as a means of promoting sustainability and putting the project and changes more in the teachers hands rather than ours, it’s hard not having the direct contact with children with the warm and fuzzy feeling inside when you see kids changing and maturing. I think this will be a good way to get the motivation factor and more substantial immediate gratification to keep me going doing the other stuff that’s not quite as rewarding or fun, although completely necessary.
We’re also starting to give workshops with our teachers next month so that they can start teaching health to kids. We have 6 planned for the first week in August – each one 4 hours. I may be dead, but it will be a relief to finally start working again.
Here’s hoping you’re all having a happy, scorchingly hot summer. The cloud that I live in usually just parts for about two hours a day to give me my vitamin D before enveloping us in fog once again. I’m missing those 95 degree heat waves.
Love you all
