Getting Out

Hello blogophiles,

The first two weeks of the New Year have been filled with travels – both within and outside of Pachalúm. On the first Monday of the New Year, Luz and I gave our last charla in the community of Ciprés – one of the two indigenous communities in Pachalúm. We had only been going to Ciprés for a month but turnout was really low (two ladies and three daughters), plus two weeks we had not gone once due to poor weather conditions (rain plus dirt roads = no easy access) and the second time because none of them showed up. On the way back from the last charla – where we discussed women’s rights – I stopped the car to take a photo overlooking Pachalúm. On the right side of the photo there is a telephone tower with a blue building in front of it that says tigo tigo. That is where the town library is located, and if you continue down that road to where the crest of the hill is and then down a little ways is my house (which you cannot see in this photo). In the background of the photo is another telephone pole and a Catholic church, which is the other end of town. To get from my house to that end of town takes about five minutes walking all downhill, coming back of course is all uphill, so it takes closer to 10 minutes.

On Friday of last week I decided to make my first trip to Antigua and Peace Corps HQ since swear-in over two months ago. I went in order to say goodbye to a friend who decided to leave Peace Corps (leaving 30 of the original 33 volunteers from my training class), to meet the nurse to check out my stomach, and to visit Mamatina and Doña Estela. My site mate, Tiara, made the trip out with me, she was going to Antigua on other business, and we hung out a bit in Antigua before I went to PC to take care of business. Tiara and I have started spending more time with each other since Christmas and I am really happy to have such a cool site-mate. Along with the pleasantness of being able to speak English and relate easily coming from the same culture, I am also able to confide in Tiara knowing that what I tell her will not get into the local gossip mill.

With Tiara in Antigua

My visit with the nurse at Peace Corps and the medical test I did in Antigua showed that I thankfully do not have any parasites or bacteria; I just have a mal-absorption problem with the food. I have been placed on a series of pills to help my stomach adjust to the new foods I am eating, and I have had to instate some dietary restrictions for the sake of my stomach☹ This is not too big of a deal, except not consuming dairy will be a serious hardship on market days when Arroz con Leche is on sale. I might just have to suffer discomfort in favor of my favorite atol once a week. On Friday evening I went out with my departing friend, who left early Saturday morning, and I saw some other volunteers who also came out to wish her safe travels.

Early Saturday morning I went back to my training site to visit Mamatina and Doña Estela. It was probably the highlight of my weekend to see them both again, in no small part because they were so happy to see me☺ I first went to see Mamatina and I was shown a photo album, saw that the Athalia and Brenda Calendar 2009 which I brought with me to Guatemala was still prominently displayed in her kitchen (she saw it in my room during training and asked to have it so I took out my favorite photos and gave her the rest). Mamatina fed me and we talked about nothing in particular, but it was so nice to catch up. I left with promises to return when I came back to Peace Corps for reconnect, and then went to see Doña Estela and her two sons. We took a walk out to the cemetery, which is really well located on top of a hill with great vistas, and I took some photos

Estela and the boys

On Saturday afternoon I returned to Pachalúm, which took me a good half-day of travel despite the short distance (four bus connections = long trip). On Sunday I was invited down to Rosy’s house for lunch and ended up staying for seven hours. First we ate, and then I made tortillas, ate some more, played with her baby, ate again, and made rellenitos (cooked plantains made into mush, then filled with sweetened beans and deep fried).

Due to the cold weather Emilio was sporting a new headpiece

Making Rellenitos

When I got back to work on Monday I was very excited to learn that I would finally have the opportunity to get out into the communities! All of the municipalities in the department of Quiché that have an OMM (Oficina Municipal de la Mujer – Women’s Office) were granted a substantial amount of discretionary funding for productive projects of their choosing. The municipality of Pachalúm decided to use the funding for a chicken project – giving 10 egg-laying chickens (gallinas ponedoras) and a rooster with their vaccines to the 525 poorest families in Pachalúm with the goal of providing some food security especially for families with young children. In order to get the chickens, the families must be willing to attend a few trainings on how to care for the chickens and then they get them to do with as they like (no coops are provided, food is their cost, etc). Since the last census was taken in 2002, Luz María and I had to come up with a short interview to get basic information on families indicated to us as potential beneficiaries and also to determine if there is any interest in creating new women’s groups in the communities and what they would like to learn. Last week Luz and I came up with the questionnaire and on Monday I went around handing out letters to COCODE leaders (the local community leaders) asking for lists of the poorest people in their communities. Pachalúm has 28 communities outside of the main town and on Monday I went around to visit 6 of them handing out letters.

I also met with the local Justice of the Peace on Monday to discuss the creation of a Girl’s Group in one of the communities where there are girls who are making some poor decisions. Together the Justice of the Peace and I want to have an 8-week series of seminars on different topics that we think could help guide the girls towards a better future (topics including sexual health, sexually transmitted diseases, how to prevent exploitation, self-esteem, etc). In order to appeal to the girls, we created a budget for food at the meetings and plan to also teach arts and crafts or cooking classes (45 minutes of lecture, 45 minutes of fun). Next week we will head out to the community to see if there is interest and when we can schedule the meetings, so I will keep you posted!

On Tuesday bright and early Luz and I headed out to the first community to start taking our mini-census. I was completely unprepared for the excursion – I had on my danskos, which are comfortable to walk in on a normal paved surface but pretty much useless when climbing up a mountainside on dirt and rocky paths. The houses we saw were in varying states of construction – some were made of twigs, others of adobe, and some mainly lamina (aluminum siding) – and almost all had dirt floors. Getting to the houses we literally walked down a mountainside on roads that no motorcycle or car could access. Just imagining what a pain it must be to get to town to go to market, and then how much harder it must be to bring back any purchases, made me so grateful that I live in town and also very appreciative of the struggles that many women have to deal with (no wonder they are not more active citizens and do not participate in women’s groups – just getting out of the house is an endeavor). After we finished up the first community, we headed on to the second, where the houses indicated were a little better off (they were made out of bloque – cement blocks, which is a step up). One thing I noticed straightaway with the interviews we were doing was the difference between the houses where the husband was present and where he was not in a completely predictable manner. The project is directed at women, since they are probably the ones who will take care of the chickens and also to promote their capacitation, therefore the interviews are all done with the woman of the house. In the households where husbands were around, however, women were hesitant to answer our questions and looked to the men for answers – literally. It was such a vivid demonstration of the social structure and the power that men have over women in all aspects of their lives, which just goes to show how very far we have to go and how much work there is to do in the Women’s Office. Granted, we were going to some of the poorest families and a lot of the women in these households were older and did not have a high level of education, but given that the household is the women’s realm, it was a little disappointing to see the lack of autonomous decision-making. In response to all questions about further classes and forming women’s groups, almost all of those who were interested chose cooking or baking classes (as opposed to other options listed like women’s rights, health, nutrition, intra-family violence). This just means we will have to insinuate lessons along with the cooking classes, kind of like what we had going on in Las Vegas last year.

On Wednesday we went on to another community where Luz and I split up, each going with a local community member to visit half the households on the list. In three hours I visited 15 households and interviewed the women there. It was a lot smoother the second day since I was more practiced with my speech and having a local community member come along with me made people more welcoming – though honestly the fact that I am foreign has been an asset more than a hindrance as people are curious. Wednesday afternoon we started to put together the database with excel, and it is rather low-tech given all the neat tricks I learned and promptly forgot once Finance was over. I figure functional manageability is more important than efficiency in this case, so if entering data points is slow but easy to do that is a fine way to go.

Luz and I are going to continue going out into the communities for the rest of January and into the start of February and I am thrilled to finally be getting into the field. It is great to not be sitting in the office all day, and I love meeting new people and seeing how the majority of people are living here in Guatemala since the communities are more representative of the socio-economic status of the average Guatemalan (though the effects of immigration to the U.S. can still be seen in the communities there are some NICE houses out there on the mountainside).