First days back in Pachalum

When I came back from Belize, I found my dog all grown up. For Christmas, the friend I left babysitting Cappuccino killed a pig and made tamales and all sorts of other pork-related foodstuffs for the holidays. My dog benefitted from the excess of meat and put on at least two pounds and grew a couple inches the week that I was gone. When I came back, he was no longer scared to jump on the couch or go down the stairs from my apartment – so now I really have to be alert about where I leave him. Due to his growth spurt, I decided that Cappuccino was ready for an exercise routine lest he get a case of early onset dog diabetes, so he now has a leash and I take him out almost every day to do some low-impact cardio. Unfortunately, all the growth that Cappuccino has done has not translated into more hygeinic practices – like not peeing on my floor, but as long as I stick him outside first thing in the morning we get along fine.

Pre-Christmas Trip, Cappuccino unhappily on a toy car and too small to do anything about it.

First day back from Belize, Cappuccino gets to know his new toys from grandma and auntie Mirit. The toys – a stegasaurous squeaky toy and a rubber squeaky elephant – were a huge hit and Cappuccino is highly entertained by squeaking the elephant all by himself. The toys have not, unfortunately, replaced the allure of my socks and running shoes, which he also takes out to play with when the mood strikes him (at least twice a day.)

Now that the rainy season is over, Pachalum is back to hot-as-usual. I am not all too excited to go through another summer in Pachalum – last year I do not think I slept a complete night in the months of April and May because of the oppressive heat – but at the moment it is still pleasantly warm and the weather was conducive to a nice New Year’s Day tradition – a trip to the pool! Cannot imagine doing that in California, much less New York. I actually returned from Belize on December 30^th and spent New Year’s Eve in Pachalum watching a fireworks show from up close (here in Guatemala fireworks are legal to sell to minors, and rules about distance do not exist, so I literally saw a fireworks show where the fireworks were being lit just a few feet away). On New Year’s Day I went with a group of friends to one of the local pools and took Cappuccino as well to his first pool outing.

One of our first outings to the pool.

With vacations over, it was time to get back to work. A big change this year has been the departure of my counterpart Luz María from the OMM in order to spend more time with her newborn son. Luz María came to Pachalum right out of high school and was placed in charge of the Women’s Office from its inception, so her leaving the office means that a lot of knowledge and experience are gone, and also that I did not have a counterpart until the mayor named a replacement (which he finally did at the end of January). In the meantime, I sat in the office and tried to figure out how to work with the new Annual Plan that Luz and I had written before she left. After a week of sitting in the office and trying to get organized, I was called into the mayor’s office on a Friday and told that I needed to get my dance students together and come up with a performance for the following Monday when the First Lady Sandra Torres de Colom was coming in her first official visit to Pachalum! The mayor wanted students from the various classes that were given last year to showcase what they learned (English class, karate, and me). Needless to say, it was a busy weekend – I came up with really basic choreography to a three minute song and got six of my ex-students to come and practice at my house Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning.

Practicing Flamenco in my house

The First Lady’s visit to Pachalum was to launch the program ‘Mi Familia Progresa’ a Conditional Cash Transfer program that pays parents a monthly stipend in exchange for keeping their children in school, taking them to monthly check-ups at the health center, and enrolling in literacy classes if they have not completed a 6^th grade education. Conditional Cash Transfer programs have been very successful in Brazil (where it is called Bolsa Familia) and in Mexico (where it is called Oportunidades) but it is still rather new here in Guatemala and so results have not come out yet about its effectiveness. Pachalum is one of the last municipalities in the department of Quiché to get the program, and there are around 800 families enrolled in the program. The first lady was supposed to come in the morning, so I had the girls with me from 10am practicing and ready to dance…but no first lady. We ended up waiting until almost 3pm to dance, so we had to get creative to stay entertained, and that included some yoga in the hallway of the elementary school where we were going to perform.

Doing Yoga to pass the time.

Dancing for first lady

(in back, Minister of Health, Governor of Quiché and First Lady Sandra Torres)

Finally, we went out to dance, and it was by far the biggest audience I have ever danced for – at least 1,000 people plus the First Lady, Minister of Health, Governer of Quiché, and cameras! I was shaking on the inside, but luckily my days of showing fear on my face are behind me and we got through the routine and went for ice cream.

Done.

In the next blog, I will write about actual work and changes in Peace Corps and at my muni! 2011 was slow to start, but new developments indicate that it will be an eventful year.

Sunrise & Sunsets

I saw some nice sunsets and sunrises while I was in Caye Caulker and got really into different camera settings, so here is a selection of my better photos.

Sunset

Sunset with my feet

Talking with dad

Modern Art

Black and white

Sunset day two with boats

Color accent setting

Sunrise

Black and white sunrise

Color accent sunrise

Lamanai

On December 28^th we made a trip to Orange Walk County in northern Belize to visit the Mayan ruin of Lamanai. The trip was a full-day affair – we left the island at 6am, went on an hour and a half boat trip to mainland and then through rivers to get to the small town of Bomba, then a bus ride to another river where we got in another boat to get to Lamanai. The nature was absolutely stunning, as were the ruins of Lamanai, which was apparently a huge Mayan City that was only discovered in the 1970s and remains mostly unexcavated (five temples have been excavated out of an estimated 95 believed to be in the area).

Morning on water, going towards mainland

In the river system

Iguana

Monkey

Jesus bird

This bird is called the Jesus bird because it looks like it walks on water, while actually it walks on lily pads. It is interesting because in this bird species, the female has mulitple partners and leaves the male to take care of offspring.

Orchid

Once we got to Lamanai we saw some really impressive trees and plants. The black orchids were grown in planters, while the crazily huge trees were all around.

Big tree

Jumping in front of Mask Temple

The first pyramid we went to was the Mask Temple, so called because of the reliefs on the bottom of the pyramid. The masks are still on the pyramid, but they have been covered with plaster to protect them from the elements and erosion.

Atop highest pyramid

The highest pyramid in Lamanai is some 120 feet tall and reaches above the tree-line, leading to some cool views from up top.

Jumping again with dad

Jaguar pyramid

The jaguar pyramid complex is really neat because there are remains of rooms all around the pyramid area. It is thought that these rooms were for the elite, who really only went indoors for sleeping (the rooms literally just had enough space to walk in and get on top of a big rock slab bed).

Peeking into a room with dad

With mom and one of the two jaguar faces on the base of the pyramid

Pelican?

On the way back from Lamanai we saw some more birds and the water lilies that had not opened up yet on our way in were finally blooming.

Lotus flowers

Back in Bomba before heading back out to Caye Caulker, we saw a crazy rodent pet. It was the most hyper-active animal ever, running all over the place and playing with its owner. Made me think of Cappuccino back at home.

Belize trip

In order to avoid another Christmas in Guatemala (last year’s tamale overdose and consequent stomach pains haunt me to this day), I convinced my parents to leave the cold Bay Area to travel down to tropical Belize. It was a hard sell, but luckily for me, my parents agreed to sacrifice the Berkeley clouds for some Belizian sun. On December 23^rd I left Guatemal via El Salvador to Belize (TACA has no direct flights, I imagine if there were direct flights they would take 20 minutes, but I guess there is not enough of a market). Apparently Guatemala and Belize have a somewhat uncomfortable relationship because when Belize declared independence from the United Kingdom, Guatemala claimed it had territorial rights…not too clear why since Belize used to be British Honduras…

Belize is the one country in Central America where English is the official language, but Spanish and Creole and some Mayan languages are spoken as well by most of the population. Belize relies heavily on tourism, I do not recall the number but it is a ridiculous amount of the annual GDP, and every year thanks to cruise ships it gets around 900,000 visitors (3x the amount of the population, which is around 300,00). Belize is therefore really focused on environmental protection and eco-tourism since that is the bread and butter of their economy. The following three blog posts are a montage of images from my week in Belize. While I was there for only a short period of time, there was a lot of see, so maybe I went overboard a bit with documentation, but I hope you enjoy anyways.

On boat with dad leaving Belize City harbor

Caye Caulker and Caye Ambergris are two of the northern Cayes (Cayes are islands all along the coast of Belize and Caye Ambergris is super touristic and apparently the most expensive place in all of Belize). To get to the islands, there are shuttle boats that take about an hour to reach the islands.

On Caye Caulker, population 1,000 + and 5km long, there are just golf carts and bikes to get around. The island is really easy to get around on foot, it has three main streets that go the length of the island and then streets that got maybe three blocks across the island.

Thanks to tourism, Belize also has the highest HIV prevalence in all of Central America with some 2.4% infection rate. I found two AIDS signs on the island, which again only has 1,000 residents or so. It is great that the government is making an effort to combat HIV/AIDS, this sign was on the main street and another sign was on a beach in Spanish.

With mom on main street

On our first full day on the island, my mom and I went kayaking around the northern end of the Caye and saw a really cool Rasta boat.

On day two of our trip, we went on a boat trip to Hol Chan, Shark Ray Alley and Coral Gardens – all parts of the coral reef near the island. Unfortunately, Caye Caulker does not have any beaches really appropriate for getting in the water – lots of rocks, shallow and weedy – so day trips on boats are necessary to go out and see the coral reefs. Hol Chan is a Nature reserve between Caye Caulker and Caye Ambergris where Mayans carved a channel for boats to get through the coral reef. The coral there is not in the best shape since tons of people go there to visit, and we were told that the worst offenders are Germans who do not listen to instructions about not touching the coral. The ocean colors on the way out were spectacular.

Ocean and sky

After Hol Chan, we went to another stop where nurse sharks feed, so I swam with sharks and sting rays!

The birds wanted in on the fish

With dad on the boat

Back on land obligatory jumping shot

Walking along the beach on Caye Caulker

Family - Mirit = Three Markowitzim

Hibiscus Flower

Bonding with mom's feet

Enjoying the sun