I must start this posting with an apology for being unbelievably derilict in my duties to post on a semi-regular basis. At least a month has passed since my last note, a ton of stuff has happened, and I am completely at a loss for how to write about the highlights in a coherent post. As such, I will do the best I can with ample photos and hope that some sort of storyline emerges.
This past month I got out of site more than I had in the prior 8 months (already at nine months in Guatemala!) combined. First was my trip to the beach, documented in my previous post, which was followed by two more consecutive weekend trips – first to Huehuetenango, and then to Sololá and Xela. In between my trip to the beach and to Huehuetenango, I was in Pachalum for a week and did work normally, but on Friday April 30th, in honor of Worker’s Day, we got half the day off and then the following Monday as well (feriado is the term used here). I am a huge fan of feriado days and took full advantage by going to a birthday party for a friend’s father – where there’s cake I will follow.
My friend, Harry, shares a birthday with his father and had planned a surprise birthday party for his dad with a marimba and all his dad’s friends pretending that the set-up was for a party he was throwing for himself. When Harry’s dad came back to the house from going up into the mountain to collect pine leaves (every special event involves pine leaves covering the floor) and saw the marimba and all his friends gathered, he started to cry and then spent the rest of the afternoon dancing to marimba. While I find marimba music somewhat boring, and it looks like a simple dance, it is not that easy! I danced with various friends of Harry’s dad, including the two men below who in between marimba sets sereneded us. These two men reminded me a bit of one of my grandmother’s friends, who always has a funny story to tell and Harry told me that whenever there is a party these two guys are always there with the guitar, jokes, and ready to dance.
On Saturday May 1st I headed out to Huehuetenango all by myself to meet up with other volunteers from the department who were holding their welcome party for the new volunteers. I caught the 530am bus to Quiche, made it there by 830am and then got onto a micro direct to Huehuetenango that got me there in two hours. The new road from Quiche to Huehuetenango is absolutely gorgeous and well paved, and I was pleased as punch to have a seat in front next to the driver watching the scenery. When I got to Huehuetenango the early start and long trip started to get to me a bit, but I held out and went on to Chiantla, another city around 40 minutes outside of Huehue by bus, where there are pools with dinosaur statues, which is where the party was being held. I met up with tons of volunteers from my training group and from my program that have been in country a year longer along with a lot of new volunteers.
With Marisha and Charlotte, two Huehue-ers in their second year as Muni Dev PCVs
Huehuetenango has possibly the highest concentration of municipal development volunteers, which is why we went there during Field Based Training, and while I thought it was horrible when we went there the first time (overcast, lots of trash), having spent time in Quiche and other cities I have come to appreciate what Huehue has to offer (a mall, a few bars, good places to go dancing). After spending half the day at the pool, a huge rainstorm came and we all fled to the hotel for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening the rain finally let up and we went out to eat and DANCE!
With Marisha at a restaurant in Huehuetenango and the shirt my mom wanted to see in the blog:)
The dancing was fabulous, we went to a disco called Escape (pronounced Es-kap-é) and there was a great variety of music and good dancers all around. When we got back to the hotel at 2am I could not believe that I had stayed up for 22 hours, quite possibly a new record for discretionary staying awake time (intercontinental travel does not count).
I stayed on in Huehuetenango through Monday morning, going to visit a friend’s site an hour outside of Huehuetenango.
Back in Pachalum for two days, I went to my pride and joy, the women’s group in Ciprés por el Campo, and helped them draft up their first official Acta and Solicitud asking the mayor for a project for the community. Since they became an official Committee, the women from Ciprés have already gone down to meet with the mayor twice and have written four solicitudes and have gotten positive answers (follow through is something they need to be vigilant about). I really hope that other women’s groups are inspired to start organizing formally as well and to then advocate for projects and help in their communities too, and that is what I will be working on in the upcoming months.
Secretary Olga reading the Acta that she just wrote
On Wednesday morning, May 5th, I headed out again for my final big tour – going to Panajachel, Sololá for the Annual Peace Corps Regional Security meeting followed by a trip to Xela (the second largest city in Guatemala) for a Gender and Development Committee meeting and some more dancing. On my trip to Sololá I met up with a few other volunteers from Quiché and we hung out the day before the meeting. Sarah and Matt are a couple from Ohio who have been working in Rural Preventative Health for the past two years, they are about to finish their service, and together with Cali – my mentor who is a year ahead of me in the Muni proram – we all went to a great coffee shop in Panajachel called Crossroads Café (www.crossroadscafepana.com). The café is off the beaten trail, but it has the feel of a San Francisco coffee shop, in no doubt partially due to the fact that the owners used to live in the Bay Area. Next time my dad or any other coffee aficionado comes to visit, I now know where to take them to get a coffee fix!
Matt, Sarah, Cali, and I at Crossroads
The lake was unbelievably beautiful the two days I was in Panajachel. Unlike previous visits where it got really overcast and foggy in the afternoons, the visibility was amazing and I went down multiple times to take copious photos.
Jumping in front of ALL THREE visible volcanoes around Atitlan
Sunset on the lake
On Thursday May 6th the Regional Security Meeting took place and among other fun facts I learned that of all Peace Corps countries throughout the world, Guatemala has the highest rate of pickpocketing (more volunteers in Guatemala get pickpocketed than anywhere else). This sounds bad at first, but I think it is a reflection of the fact that we get out a lot more than volunteers in other countries (things are pretty close, travel is relatively cheap, and there are a lot of volunteers). After the security meeting, I headed up to Xela with an eagle eye and firm grip on my bags and pockets.
Xela is considered the best city in all of Guatemala and after Antigua probably has the second most amount of students studying Spanish and hanging out. Despite being really large, it is relatively safe and has a very popular and famous soccer team. Xela is the one city I have been to besides Antigua where there are beautiful old buildings that reminded me a little bit of San Francisco. A huge group of volunteers was in Xela so after going to the meeting, I went out to eat (Indian food!!) and dance. The hostel we stayed in was called the Black Cat and it is definitely the nicest hostel I have stayed in since I got to Guatemala and I recommend it to anyone planning to travel to Xela. For Q60 you get a nice clean room with bunk beds, a fabulous breakfast, and excellent location. On Saturday most people headed back to their sites, but since it was such a long trip, Devon – my friend from my training town who lives close to Pachalum in Baja Verapaz – and I decided to stick around an extra day. In the morning Phil, the one guy who lived with us in our training town, came from his site in San Marcos to show us around Xela.
I enjoy jumping. This place is called the Train Statin by volunteers, it has tons of cafes/restaurants
In the afternoon, Devon and I headed to the Fuentes Georginas, famous hot springs around 30 minutes outside of Xela. Going to the Fuentes was probably the highlight of all my travels this past month. The springs are in a relatively cold and foggy crag in the mountains and the water is piping hot in a series of three pools (the top pool is the hottest and nicest, right against the rock face from where the water was seeping, so I stuck to that one).
Volunteers of PC Guatemala calendar photo?
The view above the pool
I have been back in Pachalum for the past two weeks and while it is a lot less exciting than traveling around the country, it does feel good to be home. There were a few changes when I got back to the office. The mayor decided that we were not working with enough women’s groups, therefore Juanita and I are no longer going to be working together but instead will be going to different communities in the afternoons for ten weeks at a time before rotating to new communities. I will continue to work in Cipres por el Campo, Juanita will stay with Los Tunales, and I will start in two new communities and Juanita will have three new communities. Just this past week I made my initial trips to my new communities and while I am a little nervous about going by myself, so far the women seem very nice and I will attempt to teach them about the importance of forming committees along with handicrafts.
On Thursday and Friday May 13th and 14th, Juanita and I went to Quiché for a meeting with CODEFEM (an NGO of Guatemalan women fighting for Women’s Rights). At the meeting we met OMM coordinators from other municipalities and learned about the how to write project profiles. There is a Women’s Office Network in the department that has meetings every month, but our office has not participated since I arrived in Pachalum, so it was very exciting to finally meet some other Women’s Offices and find out about what they are doing. Hearing about the number of Women’s Committees and networks in the other municipalities really convinced me how important it is to inform my women’s groups about the benefits of being formal groups and hopefully then create enough to form a Women’s Network here in Pachalum.
This past week I woke up at 4:30am on Tuesday morning to the sound of the kids from my house awake and talking. Groggily I got up and opened my bedroom door and saw my floor covered in chequenes/zompopos pouring in from under the balcony door. Chequenes de mayo are huge flying ants that show up around three times a year, only in the month of May, and they are considered a delicacy that sell for Q50/lb. in the market. While I busted out my Raid to kill all the chequenes on my floor, the family came up to ask for permission to collect the chequenes off of my balcony. The chequenes are attracted by light, which is why they were outside the door since the light post is right next to my balcony, and as daylight breaks they start to die off. People all over town were up from 3am collecting chequenes in buckets. Once they are collected and die, their wings, head, and legs are picked off, they are soaked in lemon juice and then roasted.
Chequenes de Mayo
Despite the gross out factor, I decided that I would be ungrateful not to try out the pure protein snacks offered to me. To date I have eaten chequenes at three different households, and they are in fact a pretty tasty snack.
On Friday May 22nd, the municipality of Pachalum celebrated Tree Day with a tree planting ceremony. The bank in town donated 3,000 tree plantlings to the municipality and so we invited the elementary school, preschool, and two middle schools to come help plant 1,000 of the trees in land that will be used for the new cementary. The kids were unbelievably cute and it was a really sweet activity, hopefully the trees were well planted so they survive this winter and into the upcoming years.
Listening to instructions for how to plant a tree
Cute preschooler with a pine tree
