Clausuras

Hi all,

Apologies in advance for double photos, internet is weird here and not allowing me to edit my posting, so I hope you do not mind the hiccups.

After waiting for months for my little rabanitos to grow, the time for harvest finally came around. Despite my hopes and trilingual conversations, the rabanitos did not grow too much. While I blame my black thumb for the bad luck, the excessive rains probably played a key role as well. I have more seeds to plant, but I am planning on waiting until New Year to make sure that there is no rainfall and so I can water regularly.

Sad rabanitos

In October and November the windy season starts in Guatemala, with strong gusts most afternoons – perfect weather for kite flying. I made my first kite this year out of some reeds growing by the side of the road, string, and recycled newspaper. The kite turned out pretty cute, but when I went up to fly it on a hillside with some friends, there was essentially no wind and when I gave the kite to a kid to fly, it was pretty quickly ruined by the reeds bending. All was not lost however, I got a few photos in, and while we waited for wind we were entertained by a little boy playing with Beethoven in the grass.

My kite

Cristian and Beethoven

The second to last week in October was a week of clausuras, or endings, of my women’s groups. I have been working in two communities since May and two others since August, but I decided to end all of them before the town’s feria since once November starts my site-mate and I have a lot of activities lined up with youth in town. All of the participants in my women’s groups get diplomas for attending and I made little handwoven hearts out of paper as well. I am a little sad about finishing up with my womens groups since I have gotten attached and the best part of my day is usually when I go out into the communities, but hopefully my activities with youth will go well and in the meantime I want to reevaluate how to work with womens groups in order to keep up more regular contact throughout the year with more communities rather than just covering four communities at a time.

Clausura in Guachipilin

Ruby and her daughter Ashlin waiting for the food to cook at the clausura in La Joya de Moritas Clausura in La Joya de Moritas, the largest women´s group I´ve had to date
Clausura in Las Minas de Ciprés, my smallest women´s group but the most participative by far - made it worth hiking 25 minutes up a hill to visit them

Some of the kids in Las Minas

Last weekend my friend Devon came to visit my site for the beginning of feria. The feria, town fair, in Pachalum started out as a big cattlemen’s party with sellers coming to town to celebrate and sell cows October 27th to October 30th. Since then, the fair has become a much longer affair, with vendors coming almost a week early to set-up and the election of the local beauty queen held the weekend before the official start of the feria. This year there will be four different parades held for feria, multiple dances, karaoke night, rodeos, and sport competitions. The Feria ends on the 30th, but then November 1st and 2nd are Todos Santos, so there is essentially a week and a half of vacation. Devon came at the very beginning so she was here to see all the street vendors and the Señorita Pachalum beauty pageant.

With Kati and Princesa

Before heading out for shopping, Devon met Kati and the newest addition to the family – Princesa (aka known as Plincesa since the youngest boy cannot pronounce her name properly). Princesa is a really cute dog, she gets really excited when she sees me and starts shaking before she makes a beeline run to come and get petted.

Pizza

I made Devon pizza and it turned out really well. It is surprising how easy to make pizza is and it is oh so satisfying to eat.

On Saturday night we got dressed up to go sit in the dark and watch the Señorita Pachalum pageant. This year there were 10 candidates, the oldest being 21 and the rest 15 to 17 years old. Most of the girls participating were beauty queens from their middle/high schools, and I was ready for a long and boring night. The event was really long – there were four costume changes and in between each costume change there was an extended musical performance by pretty medicore artists. Nevertheless, I had a good time since I was rooting for my favorite candidate. Kenia is a fifteen year-old who has been working in the muni for the past six months or so, cleaning in the mornings and then going to study in high school in the afternoons. When the candidates were given a list of themes and questions that they would be asked during the activity, she came up to ask for help with her answers, and during the competition she was asked one of the questions that I helped her answer (Q: Could a woman be president of Guatemala? A: Yes, very yes). It was really exciting to see her on stage, and I was pretty impressed with the quality of answers that most of the girls gave. In the end, four girls were finalists for the four titles (1st: Señorita Pachalum, 2nd: Señorita Simpatía [Sympathy or Niceness], 3rd: Señorita Cultura y Deportes [Culture and Sports], and 4th: Señorita Novia del Ganadero [Cattleman’s Girlfriend]). Kenia gave the best answer and ended up winning the competition. While I am still not a big fan of beauty pageants, I was really happy with the outcome. Yay KeniaJ

Peace Corps´Finest at the Señorita Pachalum pageant

Señorita Pachalum

Visits

Last week I went to the Peace Corps Center to do my MID SERVICE MEDS!!! That means I am half-way through my Peace Corps experience! It is a trip to remember that at this time last year I was nervously waiting for my site placement and concerned about my ability to hold out for a whole two years of service. While there is a long way to go still, I feel like I have accomplished something by making it thus far. At my midserice meds I also found out that despite concerns, my teeth are cavity free (quite an accomplishment, a lot of volunteers get cavities since there is a lot of sugar in food and no flouride in the water supply). I took advantage of my trip to the Peace Corps Center to go by and visit my old host family and friends in my training site. Mamatina and her family are doing well. They were very excited to see me and insist that I return in a month for one of her granddaughters’ graduation from high school. It is a little odd to go back to my training site, I remember how long the three months I spent there felt, but now it seems like a lifetime ago.

With Mamatina and family

Doña Estela also got a visit and we flew kites with her two sons. In the month of October, strong winds start up, marking the end of the rainy season, and kite-making and flying becomes a popular passtime for children in their last days of school and then during vacation.

With Doña Estela, kite, and son

When I returned to Pachalum last Wednesday, I brought along with me a PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) from the new Municipal Development Group. Janet is one of only three older volunteers who will do her service in Guatemala. She is an urban planner and came with me to spend a few days to see what life as a PCV is actually like. On the day we arrived, Kati, one of my host-mom’s grandkids, was celebrating her 7^th birthday and we were invited to join in on the festivities. It was a really tasty party, complete with chocolate cake from Guatemala City (for some reason, you cannot get it in the bakeries here) and lots of family.

Happy Kati

Janet went with me to the office and I took her along as well to two womens groups where I have been teaching a course on business basics called Fundamentos Empresariales along with teaching arts and crafts and/or cooking. The idea was for the women to learn how to make something and how to sell it for a profit, hopefully in time for the Feria (which is coming up in a little more than a week). The business course is really well done, it is interactive and entertaining, but none of the women have united to make a product to sell together (though some women are making earrings and jewlery and sell it on their own). In the past few weeks I have been teaching how to make earrings and necklaces with materiales from Antigua. The women LOVE making jewlery, so it has been a lot of fun teaching them.

Janet sitting with some women coming up with advertising for a product, an activity from the Marketing Talk

Explaining how to make necklaces

Another community, busy hands

A woman modeling her earrings

All the women with their new earrings

For a good two weeks now we have had no rain, so I have started watering my radishes again (it took me a week of no rain to remember that I actually have to water my plants since I never had to before). On my first day of watering, I found my first fully formed radish! They are small, I will chalk that up to excessive rain and not enough sunlight and not negligence, but they are the finest bilingual radishes in Pachalum! I plan on saving them up until I get a little bunch ready to make radish salad.

My first radish!

Next week I will be wrapping up with my four womens groups, so this past week I have been wrapping up the business talks and arts and crafts instruction. In another community I taught how to make photo frames out of recycled cardboard and magazine cut-outs.

Cuadros

The next post will probably be post-feria, so I will update you all about the festivities in town and my plans to work with youth for school vacation (first project: World Map!!). I hope everyone has a happy October and feliz Día de Todos Santos:)