Mirit in Pacha

Sunday morning meant back to Pacha after over a week away. We headed out early – first with a lancha across the lake back to Panajachel, then on the back of a pickup to Solola, and then buses back to Pachalum. Mirit was thrilled on the back of the pickup (totally illegal in the USA!), and I was totally thrilled that we caught all of our buses with almost no wait time, making it back to Pachalum in record time.

Really excited, and she just can’t hide it.

When we got back to Pachalum, we were both tired and a friend met us at the bus stop with a surprise – a new puppy! I had mentioned to my friend that I was not sure if I should get a new dog, but that if I did get a new dog I would get a black female and name her Pichacha (refer to blog about sugar cane juice production for origin of name). Apparently, when I left for vacation, my friend found a cute black female dog on the street covered in gum, he asked how much she was selling for and they gifted her. Pichacha is now around three months old and the apple of her auntie’s eye.

Bonding time with Pichacha

Both my parents told me that the highlight of their trips to Guatemala was hanging out in Pachalum, visiting the communities where I work, and getting to know my friends, so I was ready to dish up more of the same for Mirit. On her first full day in town, I took her to lunch at a friend’s house where they also make their own tortillas. Mirit figured that with her artists hands tortillas would be no sweat, but she quickly learned, it is hard work. She made a few cute little tortillas, for the Atkins dieter, but before long the masa started sticking on her hands and the tortillas started breaking. For a first intent it was pretty impressive.

First one looking good

Starting to get stuck

Didn't work out

Mirit did not waste her time with tortilla-ing, she found some cute chicks and kept herself amused.

With a chick

On Monday afternoon, I left Mirit on her own and headed to the muni in order to attend the official swearing-in of the Women’s Committee that we formed at the last Women’s Conference. With all my travel blogs, I failed to mention that on May 18^th we held the fourth Women’s Conference with women leaders that were chosen from their communities and in that meeting we discussed what we had seen in Chiantla, the importance of forming an official committee at the municipal level, and our plan of action for what we wanted to accomplish with the committee (get a project in the budget for the benefit of women, create more solidarity among women, etc). At the Conference, we elected seven representatives to make-up the Committee, a huge success, and since that conference we have had meetings almost weekly coming up with plans and formalizing letters in order to get more representation of women at the municipal level and hopefully get something in the budget for next year.

Women’s Committee getting sworn-in with mayor

Another project that I have kept up with since I last wrote about, (see blog Meanwhile back in Pachalum 10 May 2011), is the pila and water reabsorption well project for the community of Los Tunales. Getting the paperwork together was a headache of epic proportions, I had to run in circles getting people to give me documents I needed and the design for the well had to be revised three or four times until it was deemed acceptable. I was finally able to get all the paperwork turned in right before the deadline while my sister and I were in Antigua, and now we have to wait until it is reviewed to see if it has been approved. In the meanwhile, Juanita and I have been doing trainings for the twelve women who will be beneficiaries in Los Tunales with collaboration from the health center about hygiene, environmental contamination, and how to prevent diseases and diarrhea. If the project is approved, we will continue with trainings on how to build the wells and then go ahead and start construction in August.

Mirit came up with me to visit Tunales and we had a funny moment when Doña Tomasa asked her what her name was in English!

Teaching about environmental awareness in Tunales

My captive audience

Mirit and Juanita walking from Tunales with rain in background

Along with visiting my communities, Mirit got some quality Pichacha time in and I also took her to see the nicest pools in Pachalum – XEMAP. She was sadly not allowed to dunk Pichacha in the water, get rid of those fleas once and for all!, but they were able to make it work.

Mirit with Pichacha at the pool

Happy chubby puppy

When my mom came to visit, she was skeptical of my abilities to teach cooking classes – after all, I hardly ever did it when I lived at home. Little did she know, however, that living in my cooperative and later on in San Diego as a poor AmeriCorps Volunteer and student did not give me the financial liberty to go out to eat every day or pay someone to cook for me, so I can make a few meals. Here in Guatemala in order to get women to show up to my meetings, there has to be some sort of cooking or arts in crafts for them to show up. Lately, I have been focused on cooking and baking and had been doing really well…until Mirit, heretofore to be known as kryptonite, came along with me and all my recipes were complete disasters. Luckily, my women’s groups were happy to meet kryptonite and not as upset as I would have been if the tables had been turned.

In Las Minas de Ciprés, we tried making latkes out of carrots, potatoes, and a protien powder with a little flour…except instead of grabbing flour from home, I grabbed a bag of baking powder and the latkes would not stick together and the more ‘flour’ we stuck in, the worse it tasted. I was mortified, but funnily enough when I went back to the community this past week, they were making the recipe again, but this time with flour, and it turned out great. I have never seen them making my recipes again after it goes well, so I might plan some more screw-ups in the future (or just invite back kryptonite) to get them more interested in making the recipe right.

In Las Minas de Ciprés

The last community we visited was Ciprés por el Campo, and kryptonite struck again as my tried-and-true recipe for carrot cake ended up burning in the improv oven we madeL We still had a great time and the not-burned part of the cake was yummy.

With Lety and Amy

In Ciprés por el Campo

For Mirit’s last day (eye wipe), we went to the other pools in Pachalum and were in the water a total of fifteen minutes before we realized that it was full of dead baby frogs (when I informed the caretaker, he did not believe me, then when he saw it was true, told me they wouldn’t do anything since they were dead…). In the afternoon we headed up to Mixco Viejo, Mirit’s first Mayan ruins.

Getting physical

Overall, a kick-ass vacation (minus cooking disasters and dead frogs), with hardly any rain dampening the travels. This past week I have continued working in Pachalum with my womens groups and Committee, organizing some HIV/AIDS trainings for July, and then next week it is off to Honduras with Allison, and then Peace Corps and Antigua with Devora!

Happy early Fourth of July to all, happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, and a very special thank you to all my visitors past and future for getting me out of my daily routine! Especially my hermanita<3