Hey everybody!
Yay I finally got a computer to read a Word Document! So here's a blog entry that I wrote on August 23rd, telling about my first weekn and a half in Guate:
Let me begin with Washington. After a very fun roadtrip with Sarah to visit Grace inRichmond, Sarah drove me to DC for orientationon the 11th. We spent an hour or so sightseeing (Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, the back of the White House, and some amazing smoothies), and then I sat down to a four hour intro to the Peace Corps with my 32 fellow trainees. Once we got through that, we quickly checked into our rooms, and then spread out for dinner. A bunch of us went to a Thai restaurant, which was a first for me, but delicious. After catching a few hours of sleep, we were in the lobby at 1:30 (AM!) to load up the bus and head to the airport. We had a three or four hour layover in Miami (where I used the rest of my “ PC dinner/travel” money to buy a charger for my iPod and A Year in France by Julia Child, which I’ve been dying to read ever since I finished Julie and Julia!), and touched down in Guatemala around noon.
From there we were greeted by some PC/Guate staff members, herded onto a bus, and a short time later dropped off in Santa Lucia Milpas Altas, which is about halfway between Guatemala City and Antigua. We spent Wed afternoon through Friday at the training center, and stayed with local host families for those three nights. I ended up with Eclicelda, and her 8 year old grandson, Alan, who really kept me busy. We spent about four hours the first evening playing marbles, cards, and “escondite”, or hide-and-go-seek. The next night we played “electrizado”, or freeze tag, with some of the kids that live on the same street. It was a really good workout, as the street was STEEP, and the kids cheated, so I was “it” for longer than I’d like to admitJ. As for our PC training sessions, the consisted of medical sessions, vaccinations, safety and security sessions, overall PC/Guate introduction sessions, discussions about adapting to the culture, logistics, a language interview, a few sessions with our technical trainers, and our first couple of language classes.
Saturday morning we were divided up and sent off to our separate communities. Our whole training class is basically divided into two groups, Municipal Development and Sustainable Agriculture. The later is divided into two subgroups, Ag Marketing and Food Security- which is my group! There are 9 of us, and four of us are living in San Bartolomé Milpas Alpas: Erin, Kamille, Stephen and I. So anyways, they stuffed us plus kids from two other towns and a few language teachers, plus at least a backpack of duffle bag per volunteer, into a van. And let me tell you, that van was NOT meant for 16 people! Haha, but I’m starting to realize that Guatemalans are just about the best carpoolers ever: you hardly ever see a vehicle going anywhere without it being filled to capacity and then some!
So now I’m living with Doña Rosa and her two sons, Wiliam (18), and Carlos (23). Ihonestly almost cried when I walked into my new home for three months: it’s really a gorgeous place. The yard right inside thegate from the street is SO green, with geraniums, begonias, roses, and all kinds of flowers and plants everywhere. Doña Rosa has a vegetable garden up the hill from the house with corn, artichokes, plums, and peaches, and then a pear orchard on some land a ways away from the house. The house is kind of “open”, I guess would be the best way to describe it. There are three bedrooms in a row, then a kitchen, a room with an open stove where Doña Rosa cooks tortillas, and two bathrooms. The rooms are all in a row with doors going out to the porch, so you have to go outside to go into any other room. It’s different, but I really like it so far. And the weather is great, probably 60s and 70s most of the time, with rain every other day or so. And usually when it rains, it pours. It’s cool enough that I usually need a sweatshirt in the morning and night, but it’s nice. Kind of spring/fall NY weather really. A welcome relief after being in Richmond and DC with stifling heat and humidity!
The first weekend with my new host family was a lot of fun! I worked on my tortilla making skills (it’s a LOT harder than it might seem to make a tortilla actually round), walked around town, went to Antigua for mass with doña Rosa and Wiliam, and FINALLY got to unpack! This past week has been extremely busy- 5 or 6 hours of Spanish class every day (we meet with our teacher, Mirsa, in one of our houses), a full day of training at the PC headquarters in Santa Lucia on Tuesday, and a number of sessions with our technical trainer, Davíd. We spent a while just learning more about our project, spent an afternoon learning how to use hoes and machetes (the two basic Guatemalan farming tools), and then another two afternoons making compost piles. To top it all off, this coming Monday is the day for the patron saint of our town (San Bartolomé of course), so there’s basically been a huge festival
going on since we got here! We’re talking Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, video arcades, all kinds of fair games, every kind of “street food” imaginable. (According to the PC nurses, we’re strictly forbidden from eating anything not made in our home or purchased from a restaurant…right.) But yeah, it’s a big deal.
(Here are David, my tech trainer, with Erin and Stephen, two of my training town buddies)
This morning my friend Erin ran in a 12k that was part of the festival, and won 2nd place in the women’s division! Granted, there weren’t a ton of women, but there were like 150 people overall, and the winner of the men’s division competed in the Beijing Olympics!
About running…it’s a lot harder here than I’d anticipated. Earlier this week I went for a run with Erin…and almost died. We’re at almost 7,000ft elevation here, and everything is hilly, much different than good old CNY. To make it worse, we were scolded for running on the only flat streets around, which are apparently in a bad part of town. So now the only place to go is UP. I ran again today, and actually felt a lot better. After a good 15 minutes or so of serious uphill (which I’m planning on eventually being able to run without stopping!), it flattens out to a nice flat dirt trail, so it’s not as bad as it could be!
Kamille, Erin and I after the race
Now for a couple good stories. One interesting experience I had this weekend was riding a Guatemalan Ferris wheel. So, I love Ferris wheels, and thought it would be fun. I was kind of surprised when they said it was Q15 for three people (almost $2), which seemed kind of steep for something like that here, but figured it would be worth it. And it definitely was, because we were on that Ferris wheel for almost half an hour! Erin and I tried to figure out their system…but couldn’t quite pin it down. It’s not like the states, where they fill the ride up, spin you around for two minutes, and then kick everybody off. Instead, they’ll empty three baskets or so, fill them up, go forwards (REALLY fast), then backwards (also faster than any Ferris wheel I’ve ever seen before), then repeat the whole process over again. And the seats were made of two-by-fours. And the welds that I could see around me were not that impressive. So….we were happy to make it off the ride alive.
One other funny story- Here's my host mom doña Rosa with part of her pear harvest!
So my Spanish has been serving me pretty well, but every once in a while…I just don’t understand. I’ve come to the conclusion that my host mom just doesn’t tell me everything, and my fellow gringos here agree that sometimes we just don’t have a clue what’s going on. Doña Rosa spent a couple of days this week picking pears, and Wednesday night I helped her deliver a cart full to a lady on the other side of town. Thursday she asked me if I would help later that night, so I worked on some homework until she said she was ready to go. But when I came out of my room…all the pears were gone except for a little bag. I said, “Oh wow, you’re all done!”, and she said “Yup, ready to go?”. So I assumed we were going to deliver that bag…but then we left without the pears. I then assumed we were just going to a store to buy something for dinner, but after she bought something, we headed the opposite direction from home. We went into a house, where there were a bunch of people sitting solemnly in chairs in one room, and then a bunch of women crying and praying in front of an alter of candles and flowers in the other room. So, we sat down, and sat there, and sat there. A lady came around with a tray and served us all tamales and bread and coffee on Styrofoam plates, and chatted it up with doña Rosa for a while. After she walked away, doña Rosa whispered to me that it was her father that had died. So did she tell me that we were going to a calling hours type thing, and I was either not paying attention, or she said a whole sentence that I thought I understood… but actually did not understand at all? I don’t really think so. I’m pretty sure she just said let’s go.
I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite new Guatemalan Spanish words:
“¡Púchica!”= wow!
“¡Calidad!”= quality, or cool!
“Chapines”= Guatemalans
“Pura lata”= a useless person. The direct translation would be something like “That guy is so worthless, he’s a pure can! Haha.
Now that I've got this blog thing figured out, I'll be sure to start posting more regularly!
