Honey, I'm Home!

Well, tomorrow will mark my 6 month anniversary of arriving in Guatemala. I will head off to Reconnect to meet with my entire training class in Santa Lucia so we can have more technical training, Spanish classes, and discuss our first 3 months in site. It's sort of a Peace Corps milestone, and to talk about a recent milestone of my own, I must first backtrack a tad. On August 12th, my plane left American soil for Guatemala. Nerve racking enough as the plane ride was for me, being only a world traveler through encyclopedias, having rarely left the ground, and having never left the country, I was still optimistic (scared half to death with a smile on my face). I kept a journal almost obsessively at first, and it just so happens that I passed the time on my flight by writing. I will momentarily delve into the private sanctuary which is my journal with an excerpt from the flight.

"After Staging, Alex, Jared, Stephen, Micheal, and I went out for some classic American food (instead of Thai like most of the others) for our last meal at a place called Stan's. Among the items ordered were jalapeno poppers, cheese sticks, chili, burgers and fries, and fish that smelled overwhelmingly but apparently was delicious. Afterwards, I went back to my room and caught a couple hours of sleep before waking up for our 1:30 AM checkout. Peace Corps has a 4-hours-early-to-the-airport policy. We arrived two hours before it was even open. The bright side is that we got to mingle and bond. I've only been with these people for 24 hours and I already feel like I know some of them very well. I am excited and anxious about the next few days, but I am most of all confident that things will work out well for me, which is a great feeling. I was even able to carry my guitar on all three flights! Right now I am going from Miami to Guatemala City, running on a few lousy hours of sleep, but too excited to get anymore..."

Then the plane landed on the tarmac. Suddenly there was a buzz about the air, a very unfamiliar buzz. Everyone stood up and began rapidly firing off Spanish. I immediately came to the harsh realization that I couldn't speak a word. Even my fellow trainee two seats away from me stood up and joined in on the conversations. I first thought to myself, "She knows Spanish?" My next thought was, "What have I got myself into?" The next three days were a complete blur. Six months later, almost to the day, I hit a milestone. I, yes I, gave a series of relatively complicated directions to a far away lake, in Spanish, to a Guatemalteco and his family. "Stay on this road. You will go through 4 curves and then you will drive straight for another minute or two. When you see a yellow house on the left, take a left, and then your first right. Follow this road until there is another right and take it. This road will take you to a sign that says "Laguna Magdalena 15km" and you will take a left there. That is as far as I know." Granted I have no idea whether that family made it to the lake that day, but regardless, I was proud of my directions. Especially in a country where you can ask four people for directions until you end up back where you started. The best feeling about it all, however, was that I finally felt like I was home. Not my home in the sense of home, because nothing can replace that feeling of walking into the house you grew up in, to your family, dogs, photos, or that familiar smell, but a different kind of home. I live here now! I've been here for three months, I've got 21 left, and this is now my home. My little two room, cinder block, tin roofed, uninsulated home. When I ride my bike through the mountains, people yell, "David" instead of "Gringo." Well, I still get gringo calls, but I am hearing more and more David's these days. I've been invited to birthday parties, celebrated Christmas in a small room with 40 strangers (who accepted me as one of their own for the holidays), and have seen simple "Good afternoons" turn into hour long conversations until "I have to go before the sun sets." I can't promise that things will always be this good, or that I will always be positive or happy here. I will, though, heed the advice of the volunteer I replaced. He told me to, "Ride the wave." That is what I'm going to do. Hang-ten.

Star-Spangled Banner

So I was walking through the mountains with my counterpart, Roberto, today. He asked me if I had learned the Guatemalan national anthem yet, which I hadn't. He began to teach me, which didn't take well. Then he asked me to sing the States anthem. I started in on The Star-Spangled Banner, and halfway through, he interrupted me and kindly requested a translation. I obliged. The translation went a little something like this: "Hey, can you see the time of the morning when the sun first rises, it's very early in the morning. What we happily, like if you had a son and he just scored a goal in a soccer game, showed at the stars final light. It had grand stripes and bright stars in the hard fight and we watched something like a river without water going through the sky. And the missles red light, also there were explosions in the air that gave evidence in the night that our flag was still there. Still is the star-spangled banner waving for the land of the free and the house of the brave!" He wants me to translate it again next year when my Spanish is better... I agreed, I can't do Francis Scott Key like that... unacceptable. Good news though, in two weeks I'll be recieving more top notch Spanish classes, courtesy or the Peace Corps, when I head back to Santa Lucia for Reconnect! Already Feburary, boy how the time flies...

Strange World

So, I actually have internet in my site now, albeit very slow internet, but amazing to have. It's a strange world we live in. I have a cell phone and everywhere I go I seem to have service, except for a few places further back in the mountains. I have wireless internet that is about the speed of dial-up or less. My village here in the cumbre (which means summit, pronounced coombray (try to roll the "r" the slightest bit)) has one churro (water faucet, really roll the "r" here, I still can't do it right) that is shared by everyone. In fact, that is the case with almost all of the communities here. I heard a story during training about a volunteer that couldn't get any of his womens' groups to meet. After a period of frustration, he made a 24-hour calendar and asked some women to describe their day by the hour on the calendar. He pregunted (spanglish), "What time do you wake up in the morning?" They replied, "Usually around 3:00." This baffled the volunteer and when he asked the women why, they told him that they had to fetch water. Turns out that the clusters of villages and communities had only one churro for everyone in the area. The women would spend the entire morning, sometimes in to the afternoon, fetching water for their families. Then they returned home, prepared lunch for their husbands and children, spent the afternoon doing all the rest of the household chores, hence leaving them no time for their group meetings before having to get started on dinner. Now, this story, I'm sure, has been told for years here in the Peace Corps, and don't quote me on anything as I'm not one to be spreading fallacious rumors, is supposedly about the first volunteer sent to the cumbre somewhere around 12 years ago, who now is the president of my counter-part, Seeds of Help Foundation. At the time, there was no electricity to most of the area, and hardly a road... also hearsay, but you have to understand that in Guatemala, most credible information comes in the form of hearsay. Saber (who knows)? None the less, here I am, 12 years later, in that very place. Now every community has a churro, some more than others. The cumbre has electricity, and cell phone towers. With the technology boom of the past half century or so, we have finally come to a point where I can call home on a cell phone from one of the poorest parts of a developing country, where I can communicate with friends on the internet, and where I can keep up with the latest news worldwide. So here in this strange world, where I have all of these things without running water, I have to think that I am living in one of the most interesting times and places. A place where technology has surpassed indoor plumbing, and is currently running laps around it mercilessly. The strangest thing about it is, everyone seems to do just fine without the running water, even yours truely. Of course there was an adjustment process, but really it didn't phase me at all. I use a latrine, one that I have to admit is beginning to feel like my throne, which I never thought would happen without the involvment of porcelain. I use a pila (sort of like a gigantic outdoor sink made from concrete, I think I've been through this before) that holds plenty of water so that I can wash my dishes and clothes if I need. Really the only nuisance is my bathing situation, which is an hour long process of collecting and heating water, standing in a bucket the size of a hold-your-arms-out-into-a-human-basketball-hoop, pouring as little water as possible to get myself clean (about 2 1/2 gallons or so), trying to keep as much of it as I can in that bucket that I was talking about, drying off, then sweeping the remaining water out of my kitchen door. Needless to say, we cumbre volunteers have a smelly reputation... I couldn't be more happy right now. The people here are amazing and I'm constanly reminded of it. My groups are all oustanding in their own way. I wasn't expecting such a variety of experiences while giving the same high blood pressure charlas, or the same banana pancakes recipes, but sure enough everyday is still different. I get a good amount of daily excersise, biking and hiking everywhere I go, sometimes for upwards of ten to fifteen miles a day through the mountains (I've dropped at least twenty pounds or more, but don't worry, I'm eating well). I have a well established couterpart with a director that is muy pilas (very smart and hardworking). I get to experience all the seasons of the year within one day. When I wake up, it is very much like winter. The ground is completely white having frosted over during the night. I know what you may be thinking, I realize that I am in Guatemala, but those temperatures come with the elevation (10,500 ft). I sleep in a 30 degree bag with three wool blankets on top of that to keep me warm at night. Around 10:00 it starts to feel awefully springish outside, with a full on spring by lunch. After lunch, I strip off all of my layers and bake in the close cumbre sun. I like to call it summer. Then an hour before the sun sets, it suddenly rolls into fall, which will last until bedtime. Then comes the long cumbre winter once again. I have a fairly close proximity to Huehuetenango, a city which allows me the luxury of markets, food, people, noise, and less people that have never seen a gringo, all while living in a place that is a secluded 45 minute hike from the highway that takes me there for an hour. Here, it is extremely tranquil, almost excrusiatingly so at times, but mostly of the therapeutic nature. I keep myself entertained with books, my guitar, a plentiful amount of music, and more bootlegged dvd's then you can imagine. What can I say, with 22 months to go, I love it here. I can only hope that the rest of my service is as wonderful as these first 5 months have been.

P.S. To anyone who reads this thing, I know its been a while since the last post, but I will try to keep it updated now that I have the power of internet. Que le vaya bien (take it easy).

Oh So Close!

Yesterday I recieved some good news! I had my final Spanish Language interview and I am officially an Intermediate Medio speaker, which is the level you have to achieve to be sworn in! I visited my site a week ago, I now understand what the meant about Scotland and the moon. It definately looks like Scotland or Ireland, very green, tons of grass and sheep, not many trees, crazy rocks sticking up out of the ground everywhere, very beautiful. The moon has to do with the climate, very cold at night, but when the sun is out in the middle of the day, very hot. The sun is very intense, but when the clouds roll in it gets cold in a hurry. Always wear plenty of layers and plan to remove and add layers with frequency as is necessary. I have my own house with two rooms, one to sleep in, one to cook in. I have a plancha (wood stove), and a propane stove as well. I will have electricity but no running water. The llano is known as "La Cumbre" and the people there are very friendly (muy amable), but very poor. My host family has a house next to mine that is also a two room house. They have nine children and all of the family shares one bedroom at night. It is sad to see the poverty that you only read about in books or see on the TV, and the reality of it never really sinks in until you are there. At the same time I am amazed by the people and their attitudes and outlooks on life. They all wear smiles on their faces and seem so eager to learn. I will have plenty of work to do and am excited to get started.

A Site for Sore Eyes

If you were coming to Guatemala, would you pack a coat, long-johns, wool socks, scarves, and beanies? Well, I would if I were coming to visit me! I got assigned this week! For security purposes, I am more or less prohibited from giving away my exact whereabouts on the interweb for all of the world to possibly Google, but a few minor details won’t hurt. I am going to an area of Guatemala known as Huehuetenango, (pronounced: Way-way-teh-non-go). West in the highlands, Huehue, as it is commonly referred to in the cool circles, actually borders Mexico. The population is of Mayan decent, specifically Mam (there are 22 different Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala), but where I’m going the language was unfortunately lost generations ago, which is fortunate for me because my Spanish still has a ways to go and I don’t think I could handle anymore languages at the time being. My site is around 10,500 ft in elevation, and has been described to me as a mixture between Scotland and the moon… I’m sure I’ll understand what they’re talking about when I go there for my site visit next week. They did tell me that I’ll be able to see basically all of Guatemala, a truly breathtaking view, and not because of the altitude, although I have a feeling that it may be a contributing factor. I’ll have electricity, access to a community water faucet (where I can fetch my bath water and any other water I may need (besides pure drinking water which I will buy in bulk elsewhere)), and I’ll be renting a room with a family that will share a kitchen (stove and sink), and bathroom (latrine) with me. There will be one volunteer within a thirty minute walk working on the same projects as me, and we are both replacing volunteers from the same general area, which means we will already have some sort of established groups and projects to jump into. In fact we are following up about ten years of Peace Corps service in the same area. We will be working with women’s groups, expanding compost production, introducing new vegetables and medicinal plants into family gardens, creating reforestation nurseries, and teaching health and nutrition. I’m very exciting to begin my service as a volunteer, it’s a surreal feeling all over again and it’s hard to believe that the time is already here. Training has flown by. I am going to miss my current host family, they have been absolutely wonderful, but I am ready for the next step and the challenges it will bring.

Light at the End of the Training Tunnel

Well, four weeks from today I'll be officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, granted I pass my final Spanish interview and complete the reswt of my technical training. Time is really flying by, and I've always got something to do. Too much has happened since I last posted. I've seen Mayan Ruins, zip-lined across mountains in Jalapa, been lost in El Tejar (which Jared and I mistook for Chimaltenango), been to my first real Guatemalan wedding, and hiked to Santa Domingo Xenaco on Independence Day. I've vaccinated chickens, built a coop, made chicken feed from scratch, fixed homemade strawberry jam, taught a group of men how to make worm compost, dug my hands in cow manure for the sake of agriculture, and made contour lines on the side of a mountain. I've helped teach local school children english, showed another group of kids how to make tire gardens (only to see them mysteriously sabotaged later on), and taught a womens' group about high blood pressure. I've been happy, sad, sick, well, up, down, excited, confused, eager, curious, and sick. Everything I just mentioned has a story behind it, and as much as a hate to leave everyone hanging, I just don't have that sort of time.

Alot of the reasoning behind me starting this blog was to bring the Guatemalan culture to a new audience, but somehow cultural differences here are becoming less and less obvious to me. Many of the differences I still notice have to do with the educational level of the people here (which you really notice when your sick). I found out that I can't bathe after dinner or I'll have stomach problems. When you are sick, you absolutely cannot bathe, because there could be serious consequences. I can't eat eggs, avocados, or cheese when I'm sad. When I have stomach pain I must drink a variety of teas that I'm pretty sure only make things worse. None of the people here really understand the science behing agriculture and nutricion, so if you start talking about the pH level of the soil, nitrogen deficiencies, the essientails of vitamins, or the biological processes of compost, you get a bunch of very bored people with blank stares. It really makes you look at the world differently to describe plants and chickens as being sad, or to explain how cow poop is like chocolate cake for worms. However, the biggest cultural difference has to do with the amount of gratitude and patience these people have for everything. Thank you's almost require schedule changes. Introductuions can also be very gratuitious and quite long-winded. You can run into someone on the street, no matter if you are walking with a purpose, and easily have a ten minute exchange and possibly an invitation to somewhere or something where afterwards you really have no idea what you just agreed to do. Everyone is extremely polite, respectful, interested, and always ready for a conversation. The best way to become an effective volunteer is to indulge in gratitude and patience as much as possible, always with a smile of interest and a joke at yourself.

So here I am, 2/3rds of the way through with my training, soon to be tossed out into the still largely unknown. Not to put down the training, it really is top-notch, but more than anything it teaches you how to react to certain situations. Every site in Guatemala is a little bit different, every area of the country is like its own country in a way, and every town has its quirks. Some places here are entirely indigenous (some of us will be learning new languages other than Spanish). Some areas are completely ladino. Some places are hot, others are cold. Some places are in moutains, some are in valleys. The thing to keep in mind going into your site is that your Peace Corps service is what you make of it. You might not have electricity, you might not have a hot shower, you might not have running water, you might not speak the language well, but you can be positive, work hard, and give it all you got. With a positive attitude, flexibility, and enthusiasm, you can make your site the perfect place to serve.

The Un Mes Mark

Today, I've reached the one month mark... Only 26 more months to go... I have officially completeled 1/27th of my service abroad... It's been everything I could have hoped for! In fact, everything has exceeded my expectations. For example, the food has been 90% awesome. My host-mom/sister is a great cook. I lucked out with my host-family in general. They never seize to amaze me, and I'm sure I probably return the favor. The quirky rituals and traditions exceeded my expectations as well. Guatemala, believe it or not, is a very loud place. One of my fellow trainees has a saying, "Night time is the right time in Guatemala." My addendum would be, "for dogs, roosters, firecrackers, parades, camioneta horns, eardrum busting evangelical music, and churchbells." It's all in good fun, the people here know how to laugh at themselves and, in my opinion, from what I've encountered thus far, have a great sense of humor. My health has exceeded my expectations. Only minor digestion issues. The Peace Corps staff has exceeded my expectations. I figured they would be great, but I am blown away by how wonderful everyone has been. My training class, from what I understand, is probably the best one that has ever come through Santa Lucia (although I may have a bias). Last but not least, the difficulty of the transition and adaptation of everything you thought you might know has exceeded my expectations. This is no cake walk and, even though I'm only one month in, I would have to agree with the old Peace Corps slogan, "The toughest job you'll ever love." I have learned that a positive attitude can carry you through hard times, to never forget where I came from and why I am here, to always keep a smile on my face, to roll with the punches, and did I mention the positive attitude. It has been a wild, difficult, exciting ride so far and I'm loving every minute of it, even the tough ones... Well I've got to wrap this post up but before I go, I promised some pictures, and since pictures tell a thousand words anyways, this post should be more than sufficient to satisfy my readers needs... Oh by the way, my Spanish name is David, because Barrett, as it turns out, is virtually impossible for people to pronounce...


This is yours truely, fresh in Guatemala at the PC headquarters... As you can see, we have top notch security.


This is my messy room (I was in the process of unpacking, I really keep it pretty clean).


Another angle.


Santa Maria Cauque, my training community.


Found it!!!


My Spanish class.


Outdoors action.


Amy and Jared (Javier).


La Merced in Antigua, muy bonita.


Religious festivities, seems like something similar to this is going on in a different place every weekend, I haven't quite got it pegged yet.


My host dad, Don Juan, and I on a hike (Don is how you say Mr.).


Jared, Charlie (Carlos), and Don Juan in the cave.


Charlie on a hike.


Our first garden!


An average days work, carrying banana leaves through the streets while locals stare and shake their heads.