Balancing it all out

At one point last year, I had women’s groups that I was meeitng with weekly, leaving me with little time to do more long-range planning since I needed to come up with activities on a daily basis to do with my women’s groups. Then, from November to January, I removed myself from Women’s Groups and did planning for events and activities with youth and I had too much time on my hands and in the office. Starting in February, I began to go out to Women’s groups in a few communities once a week or once every two weeks, getting me out of the office to keep me sane, and yet also not requiring too much commitment to prevent me from making long-range plans and putting on special events. I feel like it has been a pretty good arrangement thus far, and while I am glad that I have time to put on events, working with womens groups continues to provide my biggest satisfaction on the job.

This year, just like last year, from February to April the Office has the added help of three practicantes (interns) from the National School for Home Economics teachers. Here in Guatemala, high school is always career based, so students choose to study accounting, teaching, agronomy, or whatever other subject interests them. In Guatemala City there is a school for home economics and the students there are all female and after the regular three years of high school, they spend a year doing internships in order to graduate. The first internship they do is with a Women’s Office, followed by working at a middle school, and finally working for a business. I think that having obligatory internship experience is a really wonderful idea in an otherwise lacking educational system here, and the three interns we have are going out into communities and working with women, teaching everything from cooking to sewing classes. Teaching arts and crafts type activities in the communities has not resulted in any women’s groups establishing businesses, but a few enterprising women from different communities have had success – a woman in one community where I taught jewelry-making invested Q500 to buy materials to make earrings and made over 500 pairs and has sold all but a handful at Q5, providing a good extra source of income (Q2000 or $250 in profit!), in another community where we taught how to make coronas for Day of the Dead (styrofoam crosses or circles decorated to put on graves) some women made and sold them locally for a profit. Following are a few photos from some of my women’s groups and the work we have done recently.

One of the practicantes with ladies from Ciprés por el Campo

Making cake in La Joya de Moritas

Making piñatas in Las Minas de Ciprés

Another community that I want to help out has women who learned how to make art out of pine leaves a few years back with Luz María. In my last blog I posted a photo of one of the baskets that the women had made. I told the women that I would try to find a market to sell their artwork, but that I needed more than just one sample. I gave them some photos of pine-art that I had found online and waited to hear back from them. After a month, I got a call and went up to visit. Three women showed up with art that they had made. The artwork is very nice, but it is not refined enough to sell in Antigua, so I am trying to figure out if there is somewhere that they can sell locally.

Pine earrings

Juana and Marta

Two of the women who made pine art

A basket

I took a break from all of my womens groups to participate in two events in February – a dating workshop in my site, and a special three day workshop at Peace Corps at the end of February on HIV/AIDS prevention in high-risk youth. My sitemate Tiara, her counterpart, a girl from Save the Children, and I came up with the idea of doing a dating workshop to commemorate Valentine’s Day. The idea was to invite two student representatives (a boy and a girl) from each classroom in each middle and high school to train them about healthy relationships, rights, and basic HIV/AIDS prevention. In order to receive a diploma of participation, the students would need to then go back to their classrooms and present on what they had learned, a multiplier effect. Tiara invited teachers to help come and run the workshop, and we also had a local pastor discuss morals. The workshop had two shifts, for the students who attend school in the morning and those who attend school in the afternoon. It was a really positive event and hopefully encouraged students to think about what they look for in a relationship and what their values are.

Reflection on qualities important in a boyfriend/girlfriend

Group photo at end of training

The HIV/AIDS Committee at Peace Corps has gotten increased funding since HIV/AIDS prevention in a priority for Peace Corps, and part of that money was invested in this special conference with all Youth Development Volunteers and their counterparts, and a few volunteers from other programs and their counterparts. I was one of two municipal development volunteers at the meeting and I am really glad that I was invited since it was a really interesting experience. The desired outcome for those of us who attended the meeting is to identify an at-risk group in our communities, determine what makes them at risk, and then make a plan for behavior change based on the action that puts them at risk (so, for example if we decide that the risky behavior is unsafe sex, then it would be teaching about condoms; if the risky behavior is early-initiation of sexual activity, then we determine a set of activities to encourage postponement of sex, etcetc). Since my sitemate is a youth development volunteer, four of us at the meeting represented Pachalum, and we will all collaborate to identify the at-risk group we will work with.

Going over the HIV/AIDS prevention workshop with counterparts – steps to putting on a condom

Pachalum representing in the courtyard, not well timed for jumping photos

Keep trying with the jumping photos

I have had a lot of work lately, so weekends have kind of disappeared as I try to get organized and finish up commitments. This past weekend, however, I was ready for adventure. With two friends and their dog, we went on a small road trip to the neighboring department of Baja Verapaz and drove up to the top of the volcano Tun Kaj (where there was a mudslide during the rainy season that cut off water to Pachalum) and then went on a hike to a waterfall called El Chorro (The Faucet). The trip was a lot of fun and we got home in time for dinner!

With Beethoven on our way to adventure

Getting ready to rock out

At El Chorro

Happy to have finally made it to the waterfall. My friend had done the trip in elementary school, so he did not remember exactly where the waterfall was and we got lost and I got cranky (when branches start getting into my hair I am an unhappy camper). A ten minute trip (I should have known it was too good to be true) ended up taking 1.5 hours, but it was beautiful, close to home, and relatively untouched (no other people crossed our path and there was no litter on the path, which is pretty much unheard of).