Dear Liz

¡Feliz Cumpleaños, mi amiga! Te extraño mucho!

This is my second happy birthday blog post to you which means two things:
1. We are getting old.
2. I've been here a really long time.

Wish I could be there to celebrate with you! Enjoy your day ix Lizzy...tatinra.

xoxo,
H

Happy International Day of the World's Indigenous People!

The Grim Girls Do Guatemala

Lunch with the women in Tzibal

"I don't think this is the right way," I tell my mom and sister Emma moments before a pack of a dozen barking, snapping wild dogs bound around the corner and head straight for us.

This was our third and last night at Lake Atitlan, where we were happily passing our days shopping in Panajachel, enjoying family-style dinners at la Iguana Perdida backpackers' lodge, and lounging poolside in Jaibalito. 

Walking around Antigua

This last day we had spent the day doing the latter, wading in Ven Aca's infinity pool, sipping Rosa de Jamaica Mojitos.  Not too shabby for the Peace Corps.  About an hour after we arrived at the restaurant/bar in lumbered Balto, the Iguana Perdida's huge Akita mix.  Apparently he had followed us from the hotel on our 3km hike to Jaibalito. 

Enjoying volcano-cooked S'mores

Worried that he might not find his way back alone, Mom, Emma and I decided to hike back with him, while Aunt Cass took the ferry boat back.  After we gobbled down the last trozos of our fantastic fish tacos, we headed up through the village of Jaibalito to find the hiking path back to our lodge in Santa Cruz.  We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the village proper because soon enough we were standing, frozen in fear, with a dozen wild dogs charging towards us and our new canine companion.  In my 15 months living here in Guatemala I have never been chased down by dogs like this.  Maybe it was Balto's foreign dog scent that threw them off, or maybe it was us, but these Jaibalito chuchos went crazy. 

Learning how to make Pachas, potato tamales

All I can remember thinking was "Oh my God, my mom and sister came all the way here to see me, and I'm going to get them attacked by wild dogs."  I quickly picked up some hefty rocks and started chucking them at the pack of chuchos, while instructing mom and Emma to turn around and walk quickly away.  Soon enough, the dogs scattered and backed off, and we were amazingly safe.  With the sound of dozens of dogs barking still ringing in our ears, we backtracked and soon found the (chucholess) path, down which an unfazed Balto led us safely back to the lodge.  Yet another Gdalman Girl Adventure to put in the books.  I'm just happy we're all still rabies-free.

Bottle school training

Rock-Paper-Scissors with Juan

The last two days of our trip I brought the girls into my village, where they were welcomed with open arms.  The women in Tzibal prepared the typical dish (Kak'ik, a traditional soup) for them, fresh tortillas and all.  They saw a bottle-school training session in which we put up the very first bottle-wall.  Down in Campur, my Segundo Basico students put on a 45-minute show during which they performed traditional Mayan dances, the traditional Mayan courtship ceremony (in which the family of a boy asks the family of a girl for her hand in marriage), and then had dinner with all of the teachers and the school director, Nelyda.  My village really pulled out all the stops for my family visitors, it really touched me to see how much they wanted to impress them and make them feel at home. 

Hanging out with the women's group

Nine days later I'm exhausted, but sad to see my family go.  Mom, Cass, and Emma--I can't thank you enough for your wonderful visit, your flexibility, and your patience on all the very long bus rides.  Also, of course, for my wonderful life-supply of protein bars, my bed-bug mattress protector and all the beautiful new rip-free, stain-free, un-sunbleached clothes.  I hope you will all look back on your Guatemalan adventure and remember the wonderful people of my village, and not that time when I almost got you mauled by rabid dogs.

Bottle School Update

OG volunteers sorting bottles

After many months of planning, collecting bottles, community meetings, and trainings, the bottle school is beginning to really take shape.  The excitement in Tzibal is palpable.

                                                                    

Two weeks ago Tzibal had the honor of a wonderful week-long visit from a group of volunteers from Operation Groundswell.  Operation Groundswell is a grassroots tourism organization whose primary goal is "backpacking with a purpose."  The 11 volunteers (Canadian and American University students/recent grads) stayed in the village with host families and worked at the school each day, classifying the 10,000 bottles (a horribly tedious task that I owe them big time for) hauling rocks, and playing with the village children.  I owe these guys a huge thanks for their time, dedication, and amazing enthusiasm for the bottle project and the Tzibal community at large.  The community could not have been prouder to host this lovely group of "kaxlan," and their stay will long be remembered by the families they stayed with and the children who will soon have a brand-new school.

Tying in the first row of bottles to the chicken wire

Yesterday, Chris and Juan Manual from Hug It Forward drove out to give me and the community a training session on how to properly assemble the bottle walls. The process itself isn't difficult, so the community will be doing it themselves as part of their contribution to the project.  This is how the bottle walls work:

The foundation and beaming is done in the traditional manner using rebarb and cement.  Then, in the empty wall spaces, a piece of chicken wire is stretched taut over the opening, against which bottles are stacked neck-to-neck, and closed in with a second sheet of chicken wire.  The bottles, or eco-bricks, act as the wall filling, thus rendering cement blocks unnecessary.  There you have it---a school made of trash-filled bottles.

Our completed bottle wall

With the bottle wall construction underway, we are hoping to finish the school and open it for business!  We are, however, still lacking funds to buy some of the final materials.  If you can, please donate to Hug It Forward by clicking here, and help the Tzibal community finish what it started!

Midservice, an anniversary

The 16th of July marked one year since I swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala.  I am officially at mid-service and have just 12 months left here.  In terms of my PC service, it's the beginning of the end.

Another week in Antigua.  Midservice meds are done and I am happily cavity, TB, and intestinal parasite-free.  One final day of midservice technical conference and I'm returning to the campo where I am anxious to jump back into work.  Four nights of hot showers, sushi dinners, beer on tap, and time with some lovely friends, and here I sit, on the side of the Carchá highway, waiting for the road to Campur to open.  The longer I've been here, the less of a jolt it is going between the American comforts of Antigua and the total lack thereof in Alta Verapaz.  I've actually come to much prefer the latter, except for hot water.  I could live here for a decade and I'd never become inured to the cold showers of Alta.  Nevertheless, the incoming smell of Alta Verapaz dusk and dinnertime wood-fires comforts me.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a Guatemalan couple sitting a few meters away on the curb.  The woman, who I recognize from Campur but can't quite place, is gesturing conspicuously in my direction, clearly instructing her husband to go investigate the Gringa.  A few moments later he passively moseys over and takes a seat uncomfortably close to me.  Despite the fact that I sit here scribbling intently in my journal, ipod earbuds in place, he strikes up this Qeqspañol conversation, one that I've had a million times since arriving last year.

-Where are you going?
-Campur (I put down my notebook and remove my earbuds, trying to hide my annoyance)
-Where are you coming from?
-Antigua, I was there for a few days doing work, now I'm returning to Campur where I live.
-You live in Campur?
-Yes, I live and work there.
-Oh (pause).  Were you born here?
-No, I'm from the United States.  I'm just here on a two-year work contract as a volunteer.  I rent a house in Campur.
-Oh (longer pause). And your parents are in Campur?
-No, they live in the United States.
-Oh (pause). You're here all alone?
-Yes, all alone.  Do you live in Campur?  I've seen your wife over there around the center.
-Yes, I live in Campur, but 2 hours by foot from there in another village, do you work in Santa Domingo?
-No, I only work in three villages (I list them).
-Oh.  You speak Q'eqchi'?
-A little, I respond in Q'eqchi'.
-What's your name?
-Jana, what's yours?
-Francisco.
-Nice to meet you.
-Equally.
-(Pause).  Excuse me. (Satisfied with the information he's gathered, he returns to his wife to give his report, and I return to my journal).

It's been 10 hours traveling so far, and according to the bus driver, and the dynamite blasts I hear further up the road, it will be at least 2 hours waiting here before the road will open to traffic.  But I don't really mind.  After finishing the lukewarm tamale I bought from a passerby Señora, I'll make my way back to the big yellow school bus where I'll curl up and nap until we start moving again.  I'll get home eventually.  A year here has at least taught me that.  And unlike Francisco, I won't have to walk two hours in the dark to get to my house.  The school bus will drop me off right at my front door, where I can crawl into bed and sleep the day off.

Lynchings and bedbugs

There have now been two lynchings in my village since I arrived a year ago.  Luckily I've been out-of-site both times and was thus spared having to witness any of the events or aftermath thereof.  This past Thursday, six people were violently lynched up in a neighboring village.  The 5 men and 1 woman were apparently caught (or accused of) stealing peppercorn crops and Q3,000 in cash from a local's home.  A mob of 2,000 villagers went after the accused, tied them up, stoned and beat them, then shot them to death and threw them down a mountainside.  Word to the wise: don't go stealing other people's pepper crops in Guatemala.

These lynchings demonstrate perfectly that self-policing is still an integral part of rural Guatemalan culture and living.  Without a police force or other authority to help control crime (due to past issues with corrupt police forces, people here don't trust law enforcement officers), villagers are left to solve their own problems, and lynchings are a surefire way of issuing a public message that criminal behavior will not be tolerated.  In everyday village life I see this same kind of self-policing on a much smaller (and nonviolent) level: women from the women's group like to look at the attendance list and publicly denounce those women who have been consistently missing meetings; schoolchildren are able to solve conflicts between themselves without the involvement of the teacher or other school authority; in business transactions people always wait to pay until the product is in their hands, and at school teachers announce students' test and homework grades to the rest of the class.  In a country where people don't have insurance, can't afford lawyers, and often go unpaid for months despite working under contract, you can't expect them to trust the system to take care of them.  In America we sue each other; in Guatemala they fight it out with each other.  Considering the amount of persecution that the indigenous people of Guatemala have experienced in the (recent) past, particularly at the hands of the military and police forces, I can't say I blame them for taking matters into their own hands.  In a country where "machete" is both a noun and a verb, civilian violence of this nature is only to be expected.  It's just a bit ironic that all of this happened the week before I begin a life-skills unit on "Violence" at the local school. 

In other news, for the past 4-5 months I've been waking up with itchy welts all over my body.  At first I thought mosquitoes, so I re-installed my mosquito net to make it extra mosquito-proof and no change.  Then I moved houses, with no change.  Bedbugs were always at the back of my mind, but due to a combination of denial, busyness, and apathy, I never did any investigating to prove that hunch either way.  Due to a major storm yesterday, the village's power was out (again) and by 7:30pm I resolved to turn in for the night, cuddling up in bed with a book and my headlamp.  Bedbugs usually strike in the dead of the night (2-4am), when it's the darkest and their victims are in the deepest stages of sleep.  The power outage and resulting pitch-darkness must have thrown their little nocturnal timers off, because at around 9pm I started itching all over.  I put my book down and shifted my headlamp to investigate and quickly found several bedbugs crawling for cover between my sheets, already engorged with my blood.  I grabbed some toilet paper and started smashing them, each time causing them to explode and leave a nice little polka dot of (my) blood at the kill site.  I soon found more underneath my pillows and crawling up the sides of my mattress.  Full-blown bedbug infestation.  Awesome.  I slept on the floor last night, although have not yet developed a long-term plan.  I'm going to pay a neighbor to boil my bedding (my pots aren't big enough) and hopefully get a hold of some plastic sheeting to seal off my mattress.  Because honestly, if it weren't for the fact that they are sucking my blood nightly and causing me to live in a perpetual state of itchiness, I'd let the buggers just hang out.  But I refuse to be their nightly meal, and will therefore begin my fight.  I'm going to "go to the mattresses" Godfather-style, literally.

Happy 4th of July!

As I write this I sit upstairs in an Antigua hostel, on a sheetless bed, listening to the hostel owner scold his reticent child for making noise during their movie.  I am the only patron at this hostel, and it's nice.  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week I spent in Antigua with somewhere in the range of 200-250 fellow PCV's, who flocked to the Old City for the annual All-Volunteer Conference and Fourth of July Party--the only Peace Corps condoned all-volunteer events of the year.  Thus these few days were abnormally social, a bit overwhelming at times, not to mention full of yummy American food (grilled veggie burgers--I almost cried), overpriced beer, and drunken Gringos dancing.  Needless to say, also exhausting, so yesterday I stowed happily away to Monterrico to spend my 4th of July holiday on the beach with some close friends.  Despite being slightly overcast (afterall it is winter/the rainy season) the beach was wonderful, and even though I won't be watching any fireworks tonight, I spent my holiday jogging barefoot on the beach, laying poolside chatting with Lizzy and Kyle (two of my all-time favorite people, I will add), and slurping down banana licuados while watching the waves.  Not too shabby, if you ask me.

Tomorrow I'm off and back to site where I'll be jumping right back into work and scrambling to get things done before the end of the month when I'll be returning to Antigua for Mid-Service Conference shortly followed by a 10-day visit by Mom, Aunt Cass, and Emma--my very first visitors!!