Reconnecting

Since I last wrote I have kept busy both in the Pachalum and around Guatemala (getting out!) Following are some photos of the past two weeks with summaries of some of my recent endeavors. Hope you enjoy.

A woman with four of her ten children in El Jute after interviewing her for the Chicken Project

This month I continued to go out to the communities to do interviews for the Chicken Project, and it got harder as the weather has really ramped up. To get to this woman's house, we had to climb a hill and all I could hear was my own breath as I huffed and puffed my way up under the hot sun...at 10 in the morning! The woman in the photo has ten children and lives in a stick house, definitely one of the more worthy candidates for receiving chickens.

Girls from Las Minas learning about Sex Ed

My girl's group in Las Minas with at-risk girls is going well, with about 8 participants and a few little kids who come along to listen. The first week I talked about self-esteem and the talk was ok, but not stellar. The next two weeks we invited along our local Cuban doctor to talk about reproductive health and sex ed and it was really interesting - the girls even asked questions and I learned a thing or two.

Company on one of my trips to visit houses in the campo for the chicken project

Some of the best company I have had on my chicken visits. These girls ran me down and up a mountain, in shower sandals no less, to visit two houses. Yomira and Nayeli are cousins and come to my women's group in Cipres por el Campo, a community where all the women are sisters or in-laws and have a really neat way of talking (cantadito - kind of sing songy). At one house Nayeli forgot her juice box and realized it when we were twenty minutes up the mountain. Rather than cut her losses, like I would have done, she ran back down the mountain to go and get it, only to find out that her cousins had already consumed it! Yomira and Nayeli kept me well fed on our hike, finding food along the route, and asking me how long I was blind since I could not see the fruits that they were pointing out in the trees (in my defense, green on green is hard to distinguish when someone does not know what she is looking for).

Emilio in Montufar

My favorite baby is growing up into a cowboy

Graveyard in Las Vegas with some photo effects

I went out to visit some land to take GPS points with the forestry technician and took advantage of extra time to walk around in the oldest cemetary in all of Pachalum. Some of the graves date back to the 1800s. This graveyard is also the site of the Corrida de Cintas that takes place for Todos Santos.

CODEDE Meeting in Quiche - last Friday the mayor invited me to go along with him to the Departmental Development Commission. This was a really special opportunity to see democracy in action, and I was thrilled to be there with the mayor because he told me all about the different people in the meeting (mayors from all the municipalities, representatives from national institutions, civil society, etc). The meeting basically dealt with the huge budget cuts that have occurred and the resulting new annual budgets for the municipalities (budgets were cut by as much as half). There was good representation from women´s groups who spoke about the importance of continuing to invest in women´s projects and when mayors stood up to say how they took care of women in their municipalities the whole auditorium erupted in laughter (middle school level humor applies at all levels of government). The meeting ended with a few mayors repeatedly asking for the floor and complaining about different problems, but very little was resolved...I did get the schedule for future meetings, however, and I hope to go to more meetings over the next two years.

Celebrating African American History Month in San Martin

For Valentine´s Day weekend, I went out to visit a friend in a nearby town to celebrate African American History month. It was by far the most entertaining weekend I have spent in country so far. There was soul food, a lot of dancing, comedy dvds, and excellent company. It was great meeting old and new PCVs and we are planning on trying to meet up every couple months now in different peoples´sites to celebrate African American culture.

With Yesenia on the hammock, Valentine's Day Peace Corps love

On Monday February 15th I headed back to San Antonio to visit Mamatina and Doña Estela. It was really nice to catch up, see the kids, and eat wonderful food (Mamatina´s tamales cannot be beat).

With Estela and Daniel during my visit to San Antonio/Santa Catarina

Saying goodbye to Roberto at Reconnect all but one of the muni volunteers (there are now 15 of us)

On Tuesday we had Reconnect at PC HQ, a training 3 months into service. In the morning we got administration updates, but then the afternoon was Municipal Development specific where we all shared experiences, challenges and accomplishments. I was not especially excited about meeting, but it was actually really motivating to hear about other peoples´struggles and know that I am not the only one who has had difficulty in adjusting to life in the muni. We also had a goodbye lunch for our APCD, Roberto, who just retired after 27 years of service. Our new APCD is a really nice guy named Carlos who has extensive experience working with NGOs and who seems like a solid replacement.

Muni Council and Rachel (Jerami, me, Cara, Charlotte, and Rachel) in Antigua before Muni Council Meeting

This upcoming week I have my first international guest - my dad! I hope the next blog post will be better written and more entertaining. In the meantime, I would like to sign off by thanking my World Wise Schools program match school in Colorado for sending me a letter, Zoe for sending me soap and a scarf, and Sherri for sending me GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!! It is like Christmukkah all over again:) Happy end of February!