First, a safety update

In response to a few worried messages and emails from family and friends, I thought I'd give a bit of a Guatemalan security update for those of you back home.

First of all, I'm alive and well.  Really.

Last week's events (the massacre in Peten and the San Lucas bus shooting) were truly horrible, and definitely a bit frightening.  However, they don't define the state of security of Guatemala as a whole.  Peten is now under a State of Siege, just like my home of Alta Verapaz was just a few short months ago.  Once again, it's the Guatemalan government versus the Mexican drug cartels, and it isn't an easy battle.

Yes, Guatemala is a dangerous country.  Because of this, volunteers here have a lot less freedom than volunteers in other Peace Corps countries.  And sure, I worry a bit when I travel, but there's always a risk, no matter where I'm living in the world.  But if I've learned anything, it's that Peace Corps always errs on the side of caution when it comes to the safety of its volunteers.  There just wouldn't be well over 200 volunteers serving here in Guatemala if we were under any sort of direct threat.

In light of the recent events and the evacuation we underwent in December, I have my suspicions that Peace Corps Guatemala will be shut down in the future due to security concerns.  It's this possibility--the possibility that I may be forced to leave here before my service is up--that worries me much more than my direct physical safety.  I just want to be able to finish what I came here to do.  And I want my friends and family to come and visit, and see this country for what it really is, and not what it comes across to be in the news.

Guatemala: for everyone's sake, get your act together.

The Road Conundrum

"Maak'a li bus."   I expect to hear this a lot during the next year.  These three words, Q'eq'chi' for "there's no bus," may very well become the bane of my existence.  There's.  No.  Bus.

My village is getting a road.  Not a road in the village, but a real, paved road connecting the village to the main highway.  This is very, very good news for everybody.  Nobody has quite been able to tell me where the money to build it is coming from, but I have my suspicions that it may have something to do with it being an election year.  Nonetheless, this road is a big deal.  A better road means quicker, safer transport which means more chances for business, for commutes to the city, and Dios knows what else.  It will probably shave about 20 minutes off of the hour and a half long trip to the city. 

The less shiny side of the coin?  Construction of this road will take one year.  Which in Guatemalan, means closer to two.  And because the dirt road they are paving is the only road into the village, there's no option for a detour.  Instead, the road will remain completely blocked to through traffic while the workers are working.  This means that if somebody wants to come in or out of the village, they must do so before 7am (when construction begins), between 12 and 1pm (when the workers are on lunch), and after 6pm (when the workers finish for the day).  This is the new bus schedule that I will have to deal with for the rest of my time here.  And to make things worse, because of this change in schedule, many of the village's microbus drivers have decided to switch routes and travel in the opposite direction of the city, further into the other villages.  Which means that, a lot of the time, there's no bus at all.  And when there is one, it's often so crowded that even a sardine wouldn't board. 

Pero así es, and I'll deal with it.  I'm just going to have to be even better about planning my traveling ahead of time, and expect there to be problems. 

Or maybe, I'll just buy one of these.

Dear Sabiha

Happy happy birthday Sabs!

PC Guatemala misses you...A.V. just isn't the same without you. 

I hope your day filled with buenas ondas.  I'll eat a piece of Casa D Acuña cake for you :)

xoxo
H

Respaldame

Junior high kids can be brutal.  This is no big news.  Giving junior high students free-reign to anonomously say what they really think about their classmates, and even worse--you, their teacher--seems like a bad idea.  Right?

There's a dinámica I sometimes use here with self-esteem lessons called "Respaldame" ("Back me up").  Each student gets a piece of paper taped to their back, and their classmates each write down something nice or positive about them.  Each student leaves with a list of positive qualities and hopefully a bit of a self-esteem boost.  That's at least the idea.

Today, at a special youth retreat organized with the village's Catholic Priest, Padre Elias*, we decided to do this activity.  But there's a twist.  Padre Elias ran this dinámica today (I was participating), and he changed it up a bit.  He instructed the students to write what they really feel about the person, be it a good thing or a bad thing.  Instead of boosting self-esteem, he wanted the students to see their faults for what they are so that they can change. 

[Side note: While Guatemalans tend to be extremely passive communicators, paradoxically, they have no qualms about telling it to your face if they think you're a flawed person.] 

So the activity came and went, and fifteen minutes later we all sat down to read what our compañeros had to say about us.  I was slightly uneasy, I will admit.  I know that my students like me, that's not the issue.  But Guatemalans can be blunt, and, well, I'm the weird Gringa that comes and gives them lessons once a week.  Who knows what they think.  However, to my surprise, I found myself holding a list of compliments. 

This is what my kids said about me:

1. Good vibes/Cool
2. Very kind
3. Friendly
4. Pretty
5. Responsible
6. Collaborator
7. Nice
8. Very pretty
9. Very responsible
10. Calm
11. You are very pretty
12. You are the best
13. Foreigner

And I gotta say, I was (and am) truly touched.  I get stared at, laughed at, questioned, hollered at, and otherwise tormented by students and villagers on a daily basis.  It's easy to forget that they think of me as a human when so often I'm simply The Gringa.  But apparently, when made to, my students do have some nice things to say about me.  And for me, that's enough. 

*Padre Elias is an amazing resource here in the village...he's extremely passionate about youth issues, highly respected in town, quite forward-thinking and tends to keep things pretty secular outside of the church, which makes it easy for me to work with him in youth development.

Thoughts on Guatemala, recently

- Being woken up at 4am by twenty minutes of fireworks orchestrated directly outside of your bedroom window by a group of hooting and hollering high schoolers is no way to start off Mother's Day.  Or any holiday, for that matter.

- Tin roofs, even when you're not directly under one, always make it seem like it's raining harder than it actually is.

- My shower never works.

- Scrambled eggs are always better when somebody else makes them.

- It will almost always rain on the day you wash all of your laundry.

- The Sun is one of nature's best disinfectants.

Dear Mom and Grandmas

Dear Mom, Grandma Mary, and Grandma Kay-

Happy Mother's Day!

As I've become immersed in this culture where motherhood is such a pervasive part of everyday life, I've found myself thinking more and more about what it will be like to one day be a mother myself (emphasis on one day).  In the process, I've only come to appreciate what an amazing feat of selflessness, patience, and understanding it is to raise a child and be its parent. 

Let alone how amazing it is that I have a mother and two grandmothers who are all three supportive of my choice to join the Peace Corps, who read my blog, and who still manage to send me letters, care packages, and Easter cards no matter where I happen to be living in the world. 

Enjoy your day, I love you all!

xoxo,
H

A watched bagel never browns

Most likely resulting from my current Michael Pollan reading spree, I have recently developed a heightened sense of my food experience here in Guatemala.  Now I don't know enough about agriculture to make grand claims about the environmental sustainability of Guatemalan food production (I do know that chemical pesticides tend to be highly overused here, but that factory farms are extremely uncommon.)  However, judging from my market day experiences and visiting locals' kitchens, people are definitely more connected with their food--where it comes from, how it grows, how to store it, medicinal properties of plants, etc.  (For example, a Guatemalan will NEVER cook up a pot of black beans without first adding chopped onion and/or garlic. I can never really taste the flavors of these add-ins, but found out later that both onions and garlic have special properties that prevent excess gas).

Also, I can safely say that foods here tends to be local, seasonal, and whole.  Sure, people eat Doritos and Frosted Flakes here.  But generally speaking, you have to have quite a bit of money to be able to afford such processed items in Guatemala.  Here, we have the reverse McDonald's effect: a meal at McDonald's (at around Q35-40) is extremely expensive compared to a meal comprised of whole foods bought at the local market (Q5-10).  If you're a poor Guatemalan, you really can't afford to buy or eat processed foods.  As a poor American, it's hard to eat anything but.  That's not to say that malnutrition isn't a problem among Guatemalans--it's actually a pretty huge problem here.  It's just interesting that in a developing nation such as Guatemala, fast foods (the same fast foods that are believed to be causing many of the major health problems in the U.S.) are seen as luxury.

On a personal level, I'm forced to be much more creative and interactive with my food here than I ever was back home.  Unless, of course, I want to eat black beans, eggs, and tortillas everyday.  Example: homemade bagels.

My beautiful sesame seed and plain bagels.

I made bagels today that I had long-promised to Jareau.  They turned out quite yummy, and were half gone in a matter of minutes.  But as I was sitting at his glass oven door, watching my bagels bake, I realized how true that old saying really is: a watched pot never boils.  There I was, watching my bagels bake, and I came to a realization: my life, and service, are flying by now at imperceptibly quick speeds.  I've been here a year.  Those first three, four, even six months were seemingly endless.  Painfully slow, at times.  But once I stopped "watching" my time so closely, and began instead to focus on my work and my experience as it was happening (living in the "now" is something I've always had to work at), the pace picked up.  And here I am, a year in.  And I couldn't tell you where these last six months have gone.  I wasn't watching.

Also, those bagels?  Damn tasty (and thanks to my patient fervor, perfectly browned).  Thank you, Chef Jim Berman for the wonderful recipe.