Oh Yeah, I Remember This!

It's funny how you can become accostumed to certain things. I've been sick for around a month straight now, which I feel is finally turning around. I suddenly have endless energy and motivation. I feel like running, jumping, flailing my arms about, and washing my dishes (which have piled up lately). I had forgotten what it felt like to feel normal, and now that I am almost there, normal is feeling so so good. I hope this trend continues! My "To Do List" can't take it anymore.

Hanging On

Life isn't always fun. Things aren't always fair. I can't always breath... At least as of lately. I've been quite ill. Bronchitis I believe, still not sure. For a spell, I thought it might have been pneumonia, and for a bit just an average cold. Nonetheless, I've been hacking up unholy globs of disgustingness for around three weeks, and combined with the wind, dust, pollution, and altitude, it's been taking quite the toll on my ability to transport myself up the slightest of inclines. This is fairly unfortunate because I happen to live near the top of one of these inclinations. I lose my breath pretty quickly, and so I breath faster and harder, which loosens a lot of things in my chest, which brings on a cough, which is like stirring the oxygen tanks in Apollo 13, which, if you remember, ruins the mission to the moon with a crippling explosion that leaves the crew struggling to breath. Only the crew of Apollo 13 had a team of brilliant MIT PhD's putting square pegs into round holes, building world class air filters out of tube socks and paper clips, and I am in Guatemala. I've got nurses I can call 24/7, who are one micro, one city bus, and three crowded chicken buses, that seat 36 but jam in 70, (6-7 hours) away from me. The trouble of getting to them would probably make things worse. Now, I don't want to worry anyone out there, I'm feeling better now and am confident that I'll be back in true form in the coming days. I just wanted to say, it's been a little rough lately. I can't even get excited about getting groceries. It's been nearly impossible to work because, 9 out of 10 times, that requires hiking and biking, which completely drains and destroys me. I feel like my counterpart, who has been understanding and supportive during this gripe fuerte (very strong cold), is beginning to get frustrated with me... That brings me to today.

This afternoon, there was supposed to be a meeting with the group in Los Angeles, i.e. my house. It was scheduled by Amy, who had to leave today for a training session at headquarters. I was supposed to take over, but my counterpart called me this morning and informed me that it had been cancelled, and that WE were going to another group, Nuevo Comunidad, close to my house, to make chicken feed from scratch. After that, I rested some more, and prepared myself by reading over all of my chicken stuff from training. I got to the group about a half hour late, still ahead of 90% of the women and Roberto. Its just plain bad integration to be on time anywhere in this country. After another half hour, however, all of the women had arrived and were ready, but still no Roberto. So I called him to see if he was close by. The conversation went a little something like this:

"Where are you?"
"I'm in Nuevo Pinal, there's a new group here."
"Really, so then it's just me here all by myself?"
"Yes."
"So what should I do?"
"Give a charla."
"I don't have a charla ready today, and all of the women brought ingredients for your chicken feed."
"Then make the chicken feed."
"Ok, I have a recipe here, tell me if it's the same: Corn, Beans, Bones, Eggshells, Salt, and Ash."
"No, it's different: Potatoes, Beans, Bones, Eggshells, Salt, Water, and Chicken Poop."
"Chicken poop?"
"Yes, week old chicken poop."
"Wait, wait, I'm confused, did you say chicken poop?"
"Yes, you mix it in."
"Well, how much of each ingredient should we use?"
"All of everything they brought."
"All of it?"
"Yes, all of it."
"Ok."
"Schedule the next meeting for 15 days (2 weeks, 8 days means one week here too, don't ask me why), and call me if you need help."
"That's Semana Santa, we have to wait another week"
"Ok, make it the week after."
"Ok."
"Ok."
"Ok, talk to you later."
"Good, take it easy."
"Thanks, you too."
"Bye, then."
"Bye."
"Take care"
"You too, bye."
"Bye..."

So I gathered the women around, who were just listening to the entire conversation. I explained that my recipe was a little different, so this was new for me, but similar enough to work. I had them add all the ingredients together, most of which have been ground down to powder, except the potatoes, which I had them hand mash. I explained to them what each ingredient was for as they added in in. "The potatoes," I said, "are for energy. The eggshells, bones, and ash are for the formation of minerals and rich in calcium. The beans are for muscle growth and strong eggs. The salt is for the nervous system. And, throw the chicken poop in your compost pile. I have no idea what that's for, but it can't be good." All of the women laughed and joked, they were all a little confused by it too, and suddenly the group was full of energy. We decided to leave the water out of the recipe too, and went outside to test it. The chickens had all roamed away to an empty pasture across some rock walls and the women began a chorus of chirps and random bird calls to lure in the unsuspecting hens. I threw a handful of our creation on the ground and the birds all walked past. Then one of the women did the same and after a minute or so the chickens all dove in. Thirty seconds later, they all backed off, rubbing their beaks on the ground and leaving much of the feed behind. The women laughed again as I explained why the chickens didn't like the feed. "You have to portion out all of the ingredients. It needs less bone and eggshell and more salt. We should have done that before, but Roberto did not have portion sizes in his recipe and in all the confusion, I forgot too." I gave them the proper portion sizes for each ingredient, and then I asked them how their chickens had been doing. "Not good," one woman said, "my chickens are dying. They have diarrhea and some have colds." I asked if their chickens had trouble "para hacer huevos" (which I thought meant making eggs, but it turns out means "to grow a pair" which got blushing giggles). "Si," they said, "para poner huevos es dificil a veces." I told them that I could vaccinate their chickens fairly cheap, but then I asked to see a chicken coop. "It's right there." I turned around to see a large wooden doll house on stilts with a makeshift chicken ladder leading to the door. There was no coop. In fact, it's like that almost everywhere in the cumbre. All of the chickens roam wild and free during the day, and perch in these tiny houses on stilts (and in at least one house I've visited, only in the trees) at night. This goes against everything we were taught during training. So today, amidst all the confusion, poor planning, and impromptu mayhem, a light bulb went off in my head. Amy is at headquarters taking classes on how to solicit funds and plan extensive projects. The people here can't afford to build proper chicken coops, and as a result have high mortality rates with their populations, basically losing money for not having it. Why not plan a project?!

So, with this new revelation, I'm going full steam ahead. I've got plenty of time and need a project to occupy it. Somehow, three lousy weeks and a potentially disastrous meeting turned into one of the better meetings I've had since I've been here, on top of maybe finding a project that is worthwhile for the long term. Something that could really help. Worry not my friends. Life isn't always fun. Things aren't always fair. And I may not be able to breath so well, but things are looking up just around the bend. I may have fallen off of one wave, but I can always catch another.

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.