Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

Happy Father's Day!

Love,
H

Dear Emma

Happy Birthday, little sister!

Hope you find that 22 is even better than 21.

Miss you, and I hope you are celebrating!

xoxo,
H

Puppies, patience, and prayers

Neighbor's son Dilan learning to pet Nola nicely.

When it rains in Guatemala, it pours.  The rainy season is upon us, and I must say, I'm happy it's here.  The cursed dust that has covered every surface for the past three months has settled.  The smell of drunk men's urine on the main roadside has been graciously washed away.  And at night, the rains bring in a lovely breeze that allows me to sleep under the covers without sweating through my pajamas. 

With the rains, however, come other complications.  Mudslides, flooded crops, contaminated water supplies...because when it rains here, it rains.  Just like, coincidentally, in my service.  Since Jareau (my sitemate) left nearly three weeks ago, my life has literally been turned upside down.  I moved into a new house, I adopted a handful of projects, I was finally able to facilitate my first teacher workshop, and on a whim, I brought home a 4-month old chucho (street dog).

Nola, my puppy, has become a true test of my patience.  She is, in a way, a replica of my Peace Corps experience.  The beginning is tough as hell, full of doubt, confusion, and lack of control.  But I expect that as Nola grows out of puppy-hood (assuming I'm able to train her along the way), she will be just as rewarding as my PC experience has recently become.  It's just going to take a few months of hair-pulling to get through it.   I still wonder daily what the hell I'm doing with her and why I decided I had the time (or the money) in my life to take on such a huge responsibility.  But here I am (or rather here she is, gnawing earnestly on my hiking boot), and for now all I can do is try my best to figure it out, maintain my sanity, and keep my shoes well out of puppy reach.

Groundbreaking ceremony

Which brings me to patience.  Puppies take a lot of it.  So does Peace Corps service.  But no matter how patient I manage to become here, I will never be Guatemalan Patient.  Today marked the ground-breaking of the Tzibal "Eco escuela," or Bottle School.  The community started this project nearly a year ago, and have been patiently waiting since then for this to really happen for them.  Between our evacuation in December, Jareau leaving and a few other unexpected complications, the project has been pushed back more times than I can count.  Each time, however, the community remains hopeful, in high spirits, and remains patiently awaiting the U.S. funds (thank you Hug It Forward!) that will make their bottle school possible.  About two weeks ago, I went up to the school and met with the director.  He took me up to the lot where the school is to be built and showed me a small altar of flowers, burnt incense and candles.  He explained that the previous night a number of village elders had held a Mayan prayer ceremony in hopes of allowing their project to begin.  That was the moment I realized how badly the community wants this school to be built.  It's not just the teachers or the parents with children who will attend the school that care.  It's the entire community.  And their prayers were answered today with the inauguration/groundbreaking ceremony, which also, incidentally, involved a Mayan priest, incense, and lots of praying (plus a Gringa with a pick-axe).  Because for Guatemalans, it appears that patience and prayer go hand in hand.

Blog-worthy, I think

I walked to the center of town today to buy a light bulb.  On the way, I came upon a bolo--a drunk old Guatemalan man who upon my approach promptly dropped his machete, then his pants, squatted, and started defecating in the middle of the road. 

It being Sunday, the store was closed.  I took the long way home.

As you sow so shall you reap

It's the sembra, or the planting season, so many families are planting their corn for the year.   The Mayan belief here is that the men must go out to sembrar with "panzas llenas," or full bellies, or their crops will be eaten by pests and destroyed before harvest.  So each day of the sembra a different woman from the village hosts a midday feast at her house.  She and her sisters, mothers, and daughters cook all morning long and around 2pm the men come to feast on caldo--a typical oily orange broth with meat and vegetables--with tortillas, tayuyos, tamalitos, and cacao (a hot drink they make by crushing up cocoa beans and adding water, sugar, and cinnamon.)   The men stuff themselves and go out to sow, while the women do the equivalent of eating over the kitchen sink...they nibble at pieces of meat and tortillas while cleaning up.  It's a lot of work for the women, but they seem proud to be the hosts, and consequently, I have been invited to come "sembrar" with women from the pila project for three days in a row now.  Yesterday it was duck and smoked pork soup with tayuyos (I got there early and the women let me help them make the tayuyos...they all know tayuyos are my favorite), and today it was chicken and smoked pork soup with tamalitos.  The portions they serve me are equally as prodigious as the men's so I find myself relying on the Q'eq'chi' "xel," which roughly means to doggie-bag it.  You can't turn down food here, and if you don't finish it, you take what's left, wrap it in a banana leaf, and take your xel home with you to share with your family (or in my case, my neighbors and roommates).

 

My sembra booty. Some meat, tortillas, and tamalitos.

Today as I was sitting in the kitchen, wrapping up a giant chunk of smoked pork in my banana leaf, Estella said something about me that provoked a burst of laughter from all the women in the room.  I told her playfully, "I know you're talking about me, what did you say?" and she replied in Spanish, laughing, "Yesterday when you were in the kitchen with us making tayuyos, one of the men came in, saw you, and said, 'Look at her making tayuyos--she's a Guatemalan now, isn't she. She should be my wife.'"  I laughed and made a joke about how my husband will be the one who makes tayuyos for me.  They thought this was hilarious.  We laughed, finished wrapping up our xels, and went on our way.
I love these women.

Stuff: some thoughts

Stuff.  Clutter.  Cosas.

Stuff is quite a peculiar concept, if you really think about it.  Stuff can be owned, had, bought, sold, gifted, stored away, kept, tossed.  Lots of times we use stuff to define us, show others who we are, how much money we make, and what we enjoy.  For this reason, some stuff is put on public display, and other stuff is hidden.  There's so much stuff, everywhere, and as far back as I can remember, I've wondered where it all goes.  As a kid I remember panicking at the thought that soon there would be no more room for all of our stuff, and we'd all be left to swim around in it, like in Strega Nona when her magic pasta pot fills the village with never-ending pasta.  Except that we can't eat our stuff.  Where will it all go one day, when we're not here to use, keep, hide or have it?  I've always had a bit of an uneasy relationship with stuff, and por eso, I'm one of those people that purges her closets, drawers, and desk once or twice yearly, to avoid insanity.  (I very much subscribe to the "Cluttered room, cluttered mind" mentality.)

A few weeks back I listened to an APM podcast about a Duke University grad student who, in efforts to save money and remain debt-free, lived (and might very well still be living) out of a van he bought and parked on campus.  He had everything he needed and more...a bed, a place to cook his food, and a roof over his head.  As I listended to his story, I found myself growing jealous.  I want to live this simply.  It would be so freeing to have everything I own, need, and use fit inside of a van.

Living here, I've seen how little some people can get by on.  One of my woman friends, Estela, owns two twins beds for her husband, her 3 children, and herself.  The first time she came over to my house, she was immediately taken aback by my double bed.  "You sleep here, alone, Miss Hannah? You don't share this bed with anybody? Why do you have such a big bed?"  This not only reminded me how lonely it can be to have a big bed to myself night after night, but commented on the pretentiousness of my owning such an unnecessarily large bed.  Because the fact is, I don't really need such a big bed.  Nor do I need three cooking pots, especially when my Guatemalan neighbor owns two, which she uses to cook for her family of eight.  After all, it's just me here...how much stuff do I really need?

On the reverse, however, Guatemalans can be huge pack-rats, when they can afford to be.  I've been here long enough now to notice the kinds of things people spend money on in my village.  And a lot of it, frankly, is total crap.  My friend Olga sells Avon, and I am constantly amazed at the amount she sells to villagers month to month.  And again, a lot of it goes back to status.  Coca Cola, Avon, Corn Flakes...these are big ticket items here that people are constantly dropping money on--money they don't have.  My same Avon-selling neighbor owns four Tigo cell phones, which she received promotional "gifts" for selling so many recargas (phone minutes).  I can't help but think that along with a lot of our refuse, America is also sending the worst of it's consumerist buying habits down here to Guatemala, which very well might be one of the bigger factors in keeping the poor poor here, and slowing down development in general.  

Jareau, my sitemate, packed up and left last week, leaving me his apartment.  So I am going to take advantage of my moving as an opportunity to adios some of my excess stuff.  I've bagged up clothes to donate to the pacas*, given some of my kitchen stuff to women I'm close with here in town, and gathered together a bunch of books I'll never read to donate back to the Peace Corps library.  See how little I can comfortably live with.  That's the challenge.  And, of course, in the process, avoid some of that good ole' Gringo Guilt.

 A paca

*Pacas (literally "bales" or "bundles") are the stuff-fearer's worst nightmare.  Pacas are bulk clothing stores (very similar to a Salvation Army back home) where they sell, at very affordable prices, clothing, shoes, and other items that come down here from the U.S.  A lot of the clothing is actually brand new (either overstocked or somehow faulty) and some are lightly used.  It's a favorite pastime of volunteers here to Paca shop and get great deals on otherwise expensive American brands.  Pacas, as well as the revamped Guatemalan chicken buses, are probably the two most apparent manners in which Guatemalans take and use America's discarded stuff.  One man's trash...

Tajumulco, GAD style

 

"I'm pretty positive we haven't passed base camp already," I remember assuring the other girls as we struggled up the steepest section of rocks yet.  Well, we had definitely passed up base camp, and would soon find ourselves at the summit of Tajumulco, the tallest peak (at 4220 meters or 13,845 feet) in Central America.

Rey, Devon and I decided to do Tajumulco, as things tend to go in Peace Corps, at nearly the last minute.  Rey and Devon are two awesome fellow GAD ladies (GAD is the Gender and Development Committee of Peace Corps Guatemala of which I am the newly elected Project Representative for Youth Development, taking the place of Rey who will soon be finishing her service) and both from the Verapaces.  Since we all had to travel about 12 hours across the country to attend the GAD meeting on Friday, we thought we'd take advantage of our time in Quetzaltenango and do a little volcano climbing.  Most people climb Tajumulco with a guide company, but we decided to go it alone, mostly in the interest of saving money.  And luckily, we proved ourselves more than capable of surviving a night on a volcano.   

We started off early from Xela on Saturday, and made it to the base of the climb after a few bumpy bus rides and a stop to buy what ended up being an extreme oversupply of water ("better safe than sorry" is what we had in mind).  We paid a somewhat shady Guatemalan Q100 to drive us, in his pick-up truck that might as well have been held together by duck tape, up to the start of the hike, about 2 km up from the highway.  And off we went.  The climb took us about 4 hours, which is impressive when you factor in how slowly we were climbing.  It's amazing how big of an effect altitude can have on the body, and for me (I live at 2,844 feet), the altitude was utterly exhausting.  Five steps feel like half a mile when there's no oxygen to breathe.

Just around 5pm that day, we found ourselves at the summit, somewhat accidentally (we had planned on stopping at the base camp and going up to summit the next morning to catch the sunrise.)  But there we were, and with the sun about to set, we didn't have much choice but to pitch our tent and hope for the best.  And the best is what we got.  Sure, it was cold and incredibly windy (I didn't sleep much with the wind beating at our tent all night long), but we got a campfire going, watched the sunset, made bean tortillas and Oreo S'mores, and got in our sleeping bags at around 7:30pm.  And when we woke up the following morning, and stepped out of the tent, there we were, at the top of the world.  

We ran into a few hikers that had come with a guided hike and had climbed up to summit that morning.   "You guys camped there? Just the three of you?"

Sí hombre.

On the way up

Our serendipitous campsite

Exploring the summit the next morning