Broccoli and Feria

First, as promised, here are a couple of pictures from feria this past weekend.

Elotes locos (crazy corn on the cob)! Personally, I prefer it before it's slathered in mayonnaise, ketchup and hot sauce (notice the huge tubs of condiments).

A stand of typical Guatemalan candies, including my favorite- candied coconut!

Carmen, Des, Sara and I all ready for the big noche vaquera (cowboy night): a rodeo followed by a dance.

Now here are some pictures of broccoli harvest. I spent two mornings last week helping my host family. Broccoli is the main source of income here in my village; with the chilly weather, it grows great. Broccoli takes three months from planting the seedlings to harvest, so many men get in two harvests during the rainy season, and if they have irrigation, one in the dry season. Although some men grow broccoli to sell in the local market, the majority work with export companies. The broccoli is cut up into pieces at one of the maquilas (factories, if you will) here in the village, and then transported by truck to the capital, where it is frozen, packaged, and exported mainly to El Salvador and the USA. So next time you buy a bag of broccoli, check the country of origin! I know one of the export companies sells to Hanover Foods (based in Hanover, PA). Actually I just looked at their website, and it says that Hanover purchased ALCOSA, a broccoli exporting company in Guatemala in 1975 in order to ensure vegetables year round. Interesting, huh?

A nice head of broccoli.

Nando cutting broccoli and tossing it to Sole.

The sack where Sole is packing the broccoli.

Sole tying up the first sack- that day they got almost 40!

These sacks are heavy- 130 or 140 pounds, but the only way to get them to the truck is on your back!

Nando tying a load of sacks on his truck for the drive to the "acopio"- the place where the broccoli is weighed by the export company and loaded on trucks which take it to the "maquila" or to the capital.

And Another One Bites the Dust

"Ya no tienen gracia ya!" My host mom exclaimed to me yesterday afternoon (they're not even funny anymore!).

We were talking about the girls in our village who have moved in with their boyfriends lately, and the boys who have brought their girlfriends home from neighboring villages. I think I've mentioned this before, the strange culture of young people just moving in together instead of getting married first. Hmm, put that way, it doesn't sound so strange. That happens in US all the time. But in Guatemala, and in my village in particular, the people are overwhelmingly Catholic and conservative. And the young couples don't move into their own house somewhere. They move into the boy's parents' house! It may be years and years before they move out on their own, and it's often just to a one room house built next to the parents' house. Sole could only think of THREE men in our village who had their own house built before they got married or brought their girlfriend home.

The girls seem to go in waves. I can imagine that it would take some gumption to just up and move out of your parents' house as a young girl, especially in this culture where independence is not encouraged, and respecting your parents' is so important. So it does kind of make sense that a girl might get up the nerve to move in with her boyfriend if her best friend did it the week before. But it's depressing. And it always seems to happen when I'm gone. For example, I was hardly here at all in June. And talking with my host mom yesterday I found out that my 18 year old neighbor brought a girlfriend home, his cousin (also 18) moved in with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend is eighteen, and has 7 siblings, one of whom also has his girlfriend living at home. They live in a one room shack with a dirt floor. So that means 12 people living in one room. What could possess the girl?!?! She was a student in middle school, four months away from graduating. Two other girls in her class have recently dropped out of school and moved in with their boyfriends. And worst of all, according to the latest gossip, a 12 year old girl ran away with her boyfriend, was dragged home by her dad, and is now pregnant. And in Pino Dulce, an 18 year old girl who is my best friend and biggest supporter in the community, moved in with her boyfriend in a village an hour away. I always imagined that she would finish middle school, keep studying, and get a great job eventually. Guess I was wrong. It's very rare the girl whose boyfriend allows her to keep studying once they're living together.

I'm so happy that higher education is becoming more accessible in rural Guatemala. Three years ago, a kid had to travel to town every day to study past sixth grade. Now they can walk there, making it much more convenient and less expensive for their parents. But if people don't start taking it more seriously, Guatemala isn't going to get ahead. Dropping out of 7th, 8th or 9th grade to move in with your boyfriend and start having kids should not be acceptable. And although it's not exactly condoned, nothing is being done to stop this trend!

Here are some pictures of my middle schoolers a year ago. They look like kids, don't they? Well I was looking through these tonight and was shocked by just how many girls have dropped out of school.

Theresa, red jacket with pink stripes.
Magdalena, standing to the left of Theresa.

Pilar, far right. Paola, crouched on left.

Iliana, brown jacket in center.

Well I guess that's only five, but still, five girls out of twenty three is 22%! That is ridiculous!

Back to Site

After a wonderful trip home in June, I was feeling a little down in the dumps upon my return to site. I know how lucky I am to have this opportunity to live and work in Guatemala. I've made great friends (both Guatemalan and American), traveled to some beautiful places, learned SO much about the life and culture of Guatemalans, and hopefully made a difference to some people through what I've taught them. I live with a caring, easygoing and funny family, in a breathtaking village on the top of the highest mountain in the eastern part of Guatemala. Yes, my current method of doing laundry is scrubbing my clothes a rock, and no, the water doesn't come on more than twice a week...but hey, its raining enough every day to fill the pila. (Which is also unfortunately enough to encourage a stubborn and reappearing crop of mold to grow on my cinder block walls) Sound depressing? Well honestly, I don't mind it. For the most part, the good outweighs the bad in my life here in Guate. I wasn't expecting a washing machine or running water when I moved here. What was really getting me down my first week back in site was the fact that my family and close friends are just so darn far away. And even though I'm nearing the end of my service here, the transition between America and Guatemala is still a little hard. "See you in four months" was so easy to say as I packed my bags and headed to the airport, but four months seemed like a really long time as I unpacked my bags and scrubbed mold off the walls.

Luckily I was able to cheer myself up with a fun-filled weekend shorty after returning to Guate: the Peace Corps 4th of July party, followed by a short trip to Monterrico, a black sand beach on the Pacific. A group of volunteers puts the party together every year, and it was a definite success. Hamburgers, hot dogs, a whipped cream pie eating contest, a bake off, a talent show: truly an all-American afternoon. I even got the chance to sing the national anthem in a quartet with some other volunteers. It was the first time I've sung in four part harmony since...high school? Yikes! It was a lot of fun!

Trisha, Erin and I sporting our red, white and blue at the 4th of July party!

Yum! Fresh fish for dinner!

But now I'm back from the beach (miraculously without any bug bites or a sunburn!) and happy to say that I'm excited about work. I have a lot to look forward to in these last 3 or so months. Apple season is right around the corner, which means coming up with some yummy recipes to teach my women's groups (apple pie, apple cake, broccoli and apple salad...so many possibilities). By the way, if anybody has any good apple recipes, send 'em my way! Our school gardens are growing by leaps and bounds with all this rain, so soon I'll be teaching new recipes to my students. I've been doing some geography lessons in the school where we painted the world map, so I'm planning to do a couple of cultural days where I teach a lesson on a certain country and then we make a recipe that is typical in that country, using veggies from the garden. The next round of chicken vaccinations is coming up in Pino Dulce and I'm hoping to train Carmen, one of my favorites in the group there, to take over vaccinating once I'm gone. My host mom from training, is planning to visit me in my site in two weeks, which should be fun.

Also right around the corner is feria, or the annual fair, in town. In most of Guatemala feria means a midway filled with all kinds of games, a Ferris wheels, and plenty of other rides that may or may not meet safety regulations. You can always expect an assortment of tipico (typical) fair food, though you won't find the hamburgers, hot dogs, salt potatoes, steamed clams, corn on the cob, funnel cake, and fried dough that we enjoy at the NYS fair. More common here are elote loco: corn on the cob on a stick covered with mayonnaise, hot sauce and ketchup, chicharones: fried pig skin, gringas: greasy flour tortillas filled with meat and cheese, shucos: sandwiches filled with grilled meat and onions, and an assortment of sweets such as coconut and tamarind candies. I am really only a fan of the last three. But the best part of living out here in the eastern part of Guate, the land of cowboy hats, horses, and holsters, the Wild Wild East, if you will, is that we also get a jaripeo: a rodeo! The bull riders aren't very good (they don't even bother timing them because they fall off so fast) but it's always a good time.

A couple of changes that I noticed since I got back:

My neighbor's house, which was recently painted to support one of the current candidates for mayor. (Elections are in September and campaigning is already full force).

The new paint job on the school. Hot pink is not an improvement over green, if you ask me.