Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Random...

*** Note to readers...this was written very quickly so please excuse all the mistakes!!!

Hey everyone…this update is not really about anything! What an opening sentence makes you really want to read right?!

First off I want to thank my mother, brother and grandma for being faithful scribes, they have made me the envy of my technical training group! I get letters, packages or cards every week without fail! Also a big thanks to my best friend Juliane for an awesome care package, love ya!

I have gotten a lot of emails asking me what I need/want so since you asked….
Target Brand raisins and fruit snacks
Trail Mix
Sticky tabs to mark my tech book (cannot find any here)
Pens
Reeses/Baby Ruths are always good (candy bars are expensive)
Books, any kind are welcome ( I have read six books since I got here)
Little Peanut Butter packs (hard to come by here)
A travel size Febreeze and Downy De-wrinkler
Surprises are always welcome

I know some of this stuff sounds superficial and stupid but when you are feeling down or sorta homesick, these things make all the difference!

Now that I got ME out of the way, I do have a few more observations! First off, the women here are unbelievable! They work so much harder than any other people I have every met in my life! They will hike up our mountain, like an hour, and not an easy hike for fire wood, food, etc, and carry up to 50 lbs or more on their heads back down the mountain! They never stop, no matter what age they are! For example, my 83 year old grandmother still chops her wood every morning! At first I didn’t realize that she was actually the one doing the chopping, so one Saturday morning, I asked her to show me how to chop wood, her response was this (translated) “I don’t think that you can do it…young people can’t do anything these days!” I mean I knew we were a lazy generation but to be told by this 83 year old woman who was chopping wood that I could not do it was a shock! I wish I was better with words so that I could explain better the women of Guatemala, I guess the best words I can find in the thesaurus is astonishing, astounding and remarkable!

Today, Monday October 22, the US Ambassador to Guatemala came and spoke to us! It was nice to see the stance that the US has here in Guatemala but at the same time I was thinking the Peace Corps goals are the total opposite. He made some very good points and has some great ideas about how to help Guatemala develop! I also like him because he bought us all pizza for lunch and let me tell you, pizza has never tasted so good!

Well three weeks and three days until I officially swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! We are having our swearing-in service at the Ambassador’s residence in Guatemala City! It should be a good time, the exciting part is that our host families are invited which should be a nice treat for them! I have grown quite attached to my host family, mainly my mom! She is awesome! She is so cute, whenever I leave the house she always tells me to be careful, to watch my money and to call if I am going to be late! I know that I always complained about my parents nagging about stuff like that but now it is kind of comforting knowing that there is someone here looking out for me!!

Monday, October 15, 2007

You just might get what you wish for...

Well, I just got back from our Field Based Training in Coban, Alta Verapaz! It was an experience let me tell you! We went to visit Chirrepeca Tea Co-op, one of the five people in my group will be sent there for the two year assignment, hope it is not me! I learned one very important lesson about the Peace Corps experience...never hope for anything, just hope you have a roof over your head and food! So before we got to Coban I told everyone that I just did not want fleas in my bed, I just didn’t think that I could do that again! Well I got my wish, I didn’t have fleas because I did not have a mattress, I slept on a wooden bed with a wicker like mat (check my blog for pics)! To get to the house with a mattress I had to hike 5-7 minutes through a tea/corn/ banana field to get to the house, which turned out to be pretty nice because it was build like 6 months ago and the just got electricity about three years ago! While they were showing me the house, we were walking to get to the kitchen and we walked through a room which had my bed and they were like here we go, that is when I realized that I should have hoped to have fleas just so I could have had a mattress! Now that I am back in Magdalena I feel like I am at the Ritz Carleton! I do not have to poop in a hole and throw some water in and I do not have to shower with the chickens.

Coban is a very beautiful city, along with the surrounding areas. The tea co-op as rustic as it was, was wonderful! I got to experience nature at its finest, the silence of the night, the stars and true natural beauty that was intended for this earth! I know that I probably sound super corny but it seriously was one of the most relaxing and soothing places I have ever been! You knew that you were by yourself, that there was nothing interfering with everything around you, it actually gave me time to think, which is something that I have been doing more often, Mom and Dad you can pick your jaws up off the floor, its true!

So the week at the Tea Co-op was an eye opening experience and now I understand why they wait to give us that experience! They put us up in nice towns and nice homes for training because it really is culture shock when you get out there into some of the small communities that we will be living in! If they would have dropped me off in that situation six weeks ago I don’t know how I would have re-acted, it would have been hard! It is just amazing how there can people Guatemala City and the 50 mile radius around it and then there can be places like the Tea Co-op, it is just amazing they exist in the same country!

While we were in Coban we got to give a charla to a women weaving group in Que’chi, which is one of the indigenous languages of Guatemala. We had to give it in Spanish and use a translator! It was amazing that some women could not speak Spanish, they only spoke Que’chi. Then there were some, mostly younger that spoke both! I was talking to the family I was staying with and they said that the first language is Que’chi then you begin to learn Spanish when you begin to go to school! Que’chi is a very throaty language and there are no words with three syllables, which is why they have a difficult time with Mackenzie! I am really excited to see if I will get to learn an indigenous language, I think it would be really cool!

Well that is about it for now, nothing to exciting has really happened here, same ole same ole!

Till next time...

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Just another day...

Sorry this is a really quick entry, bare with me on the explanations and spelling…

This week has been full of activity. I gave my first charla, which is like a mini talk/lesson on the channels of commercialization. There were about 15 women there plus the other trainees and my trainer. It went ok, the activity turned out really well because they really understood that they could make more money through selling directly to the stores than to middlemen which was the point so props to that! The best part was in the middle of my talk there was a woman there with a baby and he was hungry so she just took him off her back and whipped out her boob and stared breast feeding right there in the middle of the room in the middle of my charla. I mean it definitely not the first time that I have seen women just whip it out but I was kind of taken back that it was in the middle of my charla….that’s life I guess!

Saturday we went on another hike but this time we made it all the way to the top which is about 10,000 ft above sea level. We were up in the clouds, it was surreal! We could see the clouds below us moving and forming and you could smell the freshness of the air, it was so clear and crisp. At the top there is a really cool set up that was done by another Peace Corps training group. There are benches, swings, and a slide for the kids and some picnic areas too!

Saturday night we had our first real night out in Antigua. We went and had a great dinner for Q15 (about $2), then hit up some of the Happy Hours before going to this great bar that had dancing! Although I only danced a little it was fun being in that kind of environment again, the loud, somewhat packed bar where everyone is having a good time! It was so fun too because it was all Guatemalan and not over run with Americans. It was awesome to see some Guatemalans kick back, drink and dance (a very rare thing here)! We didn’t get home until 11:30, I felt so bad though because I was later than I expected and I felt like I was seventeen again and sneaking back into the house!

Today I am off to Coban in the state of Alta Verapaz for FBT (Field Based Training). We will be there for a week; working with a women’s weaving group, a tea co-op and another coffee group. It should been a fun and interesting trip. We have to give two more charlas, which sucks, but we also get to have a night out in Coban and on the way home we are going to some hot springs which will be a wonderful! When we get back I will only have 15 more days until I found out my site for the next two years, YAY!

I miss everyone and I am trying my hardest to email as much as I can but the internet is a rare thing here, or it cost me Q6/hour which is about one-third of what I make in a day! I am going to try to figure out a regular schedule once I get to my site and get settled in! Thank you to all who have sent cards, packages, emails and facebook messages, you do not know how much it means to me!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

That’s right I have a life…



I got to have my first “night out” on Friday…YAY! First off let me calm you down before you get to excited for me… I was home by 8:30 and asleep by 9:30! It was really exciting though because we got to go to Antigua on a Friday night and have some beers and dinner! This is really exciting because we never get to do anything…we are suppose to be with our families all the time, which is normally great but sometimes I really need to just feel like I am 23 years old again! It almost feels like high school again, having a curfew, having to tell your family every time you leave the house, having to sneak around to drink…I am having major flashbacks!! It was really nice to be in a social setting and not a classroom session with other PCT…personalities come out and bonds begin to form…it was fun!


Saturday was the most incredible day that I have had here so far…weird it was our one month anniversary of being in country! I started out the day with a kick-ass conversation with my host dad…it was my first really long convo (an hour) that I have had here in Spanish! Then because no one else was home I got some quite time to read and relax before I began the day! Two other trainees for the neighboring town came up and met me and my fellow trainee here in Magdalena! We went shopping for lunch…this included hitting up the local corner market/store to get some veggies…then the careneria (meat store) which is also a mini hardware store…oh yea it was interesting! Then we went on this amazing hike up the mountain that Magdalena sits on…it had the most amazing views I have ever seen in my life! We could see Antigua and Chimaltenango (an hour and a half drive away)! It was absolutely the most tranquil moment I have had here…it was untouched by humans so we were completely surrounded by nature, in its purest form!

On our way back down the mountain, one of my fellow trainees saw someone she knew working on his land so we stopped and said hello, which turned into an hour session on farming, fruits, vegetables, and other things! Let me just say that I cannot wait til March when all the avocados are going to be ready…YAY! We tried some many different kinds of fruits straight from the tree…these included, the sweetest pears, sugar cane (which he peeled with a machete), and then this other fruit I have never seen before in my life and I cannot remember the name worth the life of me! It was just amazing that is man, who knew only one out of the four of us, took us in, feed us so much, and taught us all about his land, produce and his life! All I could think about was how fabulous this was and how here your day never has a plan it just always takes its own course…you could plan on having lunch at one but not end up eating until three because you met the coolest farmer ever!!!

Does this bus have windshield wipers…?

The day after the wedding I left for a four day trip to Tecpan, Chimaltaengo to visit Andrew and current PCV! There were two other trainees going to the same area, so we decided to all go together, so as we are waiting for the bus the flood gates opened up and it started to down pour! There was so much water that the road flooded and started to come on to the side walk, it was crazy! Finally in the middle of the down pouring our bus came…we ran to get on and were thankful for dryness! As we are pulling out, the other girl and I notice that our bus does not have windshield wipers…I could not see out the window and I am pretty sure that he couldn’t either…maybe just the outline of lights! All I kept thinking was, well this is just another experience to add to the list!

Tecpan is an interesting city…it is about 20,000 people but 98% of the people are indigenous and some do not speak Spanish, they only speak Cachikeal (sp?, it is one of the indigenous languages)! It was really good though to see how a PCV lives, works and spends a normal day! I learned a lot that I do not think I will learn from training…such as, how much work you will really do, how to cook on your own, what are the most important things to buy right away, etc! It was nice because I was able to see that not everything is going to go by the book and that not everything you do have to deal with your program…some the most successful things that Andrew has done have been with his secondary projects! One of those projects is organizing a children’s library for the town (way cool)!

When I returned for my trip I had to go to the training center to work on some “homework” so I finished up and was walking home with a friend when we came upon a huge crowd in the road, as we walked around and began talking to people, we found out that there was a “wreck” and the police were not letting people through! We decided to head back and see if we could get a bus back to our towns…we did find a bus but that bus decided since it could not get through, it would just drive up the wrong side of the Pan American highway and then drive down the other side the wrong way to our turn off! Let me tell you it is not a wonderful feeling to see a semi coming at you straight on with no control over the situation what-so-ever!

Here Comes the Bride…

So my host sister got married this past Saturday…the one word I would use to describe it is LOCO (crazy for you non-Spanish speakers)!

Up until Thursday, the house was abnormally calm but I came home for lunch on Thursday and it was out of control…there were people everywhere, food everywhere, pots and pans everywhere, flowers everywhere, it was crazy! So that night was all about organizations and then Friday morning at 3 am my host mom and sister hopped a bus for Guatemala City to buy even more flowers! That afternoon while I was shedding pork by hand I asked why they left so early and they told me because you have to get there early during September because everyone is getting married and they wanted the best flowers! I guess every bride no matter where you are want the best!

Like I said before I was the human shredder for the pork that was going into the soap for the civil ceremony/rehearsal dinner…I always tend to become a human something here, I have been the human fan more than once! My family was cooking for ONLY a hundred people on Friday night, that was nothing, the grooms family cooked for 800 people on Saturday night! They set up a tent outside the reception to cook it all! So Friday night was interesting because it was the civil ceremony, which should be a great occasion, but it was weird because no one was smiling, everyone looked somber, like it was a funeral! I was not sure what was going on but I still smiled for all the pictures, even though I am probably the only one!

Saturday morning I woke up at 6 a.m. and my house was FULL of people! They were beginning to make flower arrangements, cooking, decorating stuff…they were doing anything you could think of that needed to be done for a wedding and they were doing it all themselves…I could not believe my eyes!

I need to explain here that when I first moved in they were handing out invitations and I asked how many she was sending out…between 80 and 100…seems normal right…wrong! Eighty to a hundred invitations turned into over 800 people being invited to the wedding. And in the words of most Guatemalans, “How nice that you want a small wedding!” I am a small wedding is 800 people, normally weddings are between 1200-1500 people, could you imagine…absolutely not! During this whole process I had to explain why I am the same age as Miriam, my host sister, and I was not married. I also was asked how many people I wanted at my wedding…when I responded with 80 or so, they were like oh so the same size…I had to explain that, no, I only wanted 80 PEOPLE not invites!

The wedding was like anything other Catholic wedding, except that they never kissed at the end, they just started taking pictures! The reception was decorated like any other reception that I have ever been to but the strange thing was there was no dancing and no booze (we all know that rarely happens in the states)! I could not believe there was no dancing, I mean my family is really fun and outgoing and there was just nothing! We just sat there and ate and talked…in Spanish!