The day before yesterday, Monday, I finished teaching in the Institute in my town, and as I was walking back to the house, a group of girls from the Institute were playing a game of "basquetbol"... in their strappy high-heeled sandals and cortes (long wrapped woven skirts), of course. They called to me and asked to join them. I've just been WAITING for someone to invite me to play. It was so much fun. Some of the girls are decent, especially considering the outfits they were wearing, and the Gringa-Playing-Basketball of course attracted a bit of a crowd of spectators (mostly men). For a while there was a large group of boys from the Institute watching enviously, and some of them kept shouting to me, "¡Seño!" (the standard female title here, short for señorita) "¡A game!" but I told them I was already playing. Of course they didn't ask to join the game since girls and boys generally don´t mix for sports (me being the obvious exception in their minds). Some other day, I'll play with the boys. But it was a lot of fun playing with the girls-- they were so cute and shy, and they laughed every time I gave them a high five. Baby steps toward my girls-group dream, perhaps? They invited me to come the next day, but I returned from the other Institute too late, and it was raining, and I was exhausted. But I'm sure there will be other opportunities.
Then the next evening, the little 6 year old girl invited me to come down to the kitchen and practice "tortillar"ing, forming tortillas with your hands from the play-dough like maza, or corn dough, and placing them on the plancha, or fire-heated stove top. This basically involves rolling a chunk of maza between your palms to form a smooth round ball, and then slapping the ball between your palms rapidly to form the flat round disks. The idea is to get them very thin and very round. I´ve "tortillar"ed a little with the other host family, but always quit after a little while. Last night, with the help of the girl´s mother Lidia, I made quite a few tortillas, and they were rather round I must say (although quite fat and rough-textured). And I didn't drop any (like I did twice with the other family). I´m getting better. By the end of this two years, I´m going to be a great Guatemalteca.
It amuses me about my life here that one evening I can spend playing basketball with the girls-- a very modern and new pasttime here-- and the next evening, making tortillas from maza and cooking them over a hot fire-- a tradition almost as ancient as the Mayan people themselves, the "corn people." I never know what new encounters the next day will bring.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Pila scrubbin blues
Dear Reader,
Do me a favor. The next time you come across your washer and drier, give them a friendly little pat in thanks for all the hours of labor they save you each week. Washing clothes by hand is A LOT OF WORK. Socks are the worst. I simply hate socks. They’re so little, and there are so damn many of them. And you have to scrub first the outside and then the inside, and then you have to rinse first the outside and then the inside. For every sock! It’s no wonder that Guatemalan women have foregone socks for sandals (although they have to wash their husbands’ and kids’ socks, at least they’re saving themselves some time). And sweatshirts. Don’t even get me started on sweatshirts! You have to keep pouring water and keep sprinkling soap and keep kneading it, over and over, to finally get it nice and sudsy. And then rinsing all that soap out again takes forever!
Although I must say there is no feeling quite so satisfying as, after those hours of scrubbing and rinsing, to see your clean clothes out drying beautifully in the sun… until storm clouds suddenly gather to rain down the “rinse cycle”-- that may or may not finish any time soon.
I know electric washers and driers waste a lot of energy. But they do certainly save a lot of human energy. And if you’re going to use them, just be grateful.
Betsy's journey
So at the moment I am sitting on my ridiculous king-sized bed, sipping some of the best coffee in the world, listening to one of my favorite Wilco songs, typing this blog entry on my beloved computer (Betsy). Peace Corps? Posh Corps is more like it!
(WARNING: A very long and not really that interesantly tale ensues about FedEx Guatemala´s horrible customer service and my family & I having to pay obscene amounts of money and mountains of stress to get my computer here, so only read it if you´re really bored, and I won´t be sad if you don´t.)
Then came the fateful moment when we decided that mailing it FedEx would be the safest way-- one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Red lights should have flashed and horns should have sounded their warning when it cost $500, but my generous parents bit the bullet and sent it anyway (although if they had told me it cost this much, I would have told them to forget it). But that was only the beginning of our worries. First, FedEx contacted us to say that they needed the physical PC Center address rather than the PO Box (where all the regular mail packages go). Then they needed the name of someone to receive because I couldn’t be there. Not a big deal; I took care of it. Then there was the matter of the tax. Yes, for some reason when you ship FedEx rather than the regular mail service, it goes through customs and acquires a tax. The tax for my computer would be roughly $300 (or Q2000, WAY more than I can pay on my PC budget). But no worries, the FedEx Guatemala office assured me, this tax could be waived with a tax identification number, or NIT number. I told them I could probably use Peace Corps’. They said if not, I could go to a government office with my passport and get a temporary NIT number to avoid the tax (all this transaction was in Spanish, by the way, complicating things a bit). Thing was, they needed it by Tuesday or they were shipping the computer back the US ($500 or no). This was Friday (and let‘s keep in mind I have a full schedule teaching in 4 institutes).
Newborn
The very first night that I arrived in site, over a month ago now, the young mother gave birth to a newborn son. A few days later, I held this tiny new being in my arms, wrinkly and red and helpless, and thought, “When I leave here, this boy will be two years old. I will watch him make that mysterious transition from ‘baby’-- a helpless creature that does little more than cry, soil its diaper, and gurgle-- to a ‘person’, a little human being with his own very unique personality.” Looking at the little guy, so new and bewildered in a universe that had suddenly shifted so completely, I felt I could sympathize. And I thought, “we’ll figure this place out together, buddy.”
Monday, August 18, 2008
Mountain climbs and meditation baths
Yesterday was an interesting day... in the random entertaining way that days can be interesting here.
About two weeks previously, a group of girls from the Institute shyly approached me and asked if I had a climbed up the mountain ridge above our town yet. I hadn't, and they invited me to go with them two Sundays from that day. Of course I was enthralled, for several reasons-- because it is my dream to start a girls´group as a secondary project (though I'm still trying to figure out exacly what it will entail), because these girls will be my students, because I'm trying to ¨integrate into the community¨, and because I love hiking, duh! (And I´ve also been told that it is not safe to climb alone, so I´ve been impatiently tapping my feet, just waiting for someone to invite me.)
So this Sunday finally arrived, and I met them in the square. We of course got off to a late start, it being Guatemala and all, and on the way we stopped by at a tienda where the girls dropped 50Q to buy gatoraides and muffins for all of us (a lot of money for young Guatemalan girls) and would not accept my contribution.
It felt amazing, rising on the trail above the town, and I felt like I could be in Montana, with the breeze moving the pine trees around me and the taste of the clean cool air. Also, although the girls talked in K´iche´ mostly at first, more and more we got to talking.
I of course was wearing my new Keen hiking boots, pants, and an Underarmor T shirt. The girls were of course wearing the beautiful hand-woven trajes and little high heeled plastic sandals that the women here always wear. Yet, of course, I (the experienced hiker-mountain climber) was the one slipping around on the hard rain-slicked trail. At the top, we sat for a while and chatted, and played an impromptu tag-like game among the pines. The view was breathtaking-- you could see the whole valley below lined with soft hills and even in the distance where the plateau drops off. We walked to the other side of the ridge where we could look down on another valley housing another aldea. This valley was so covered in milpas (corn fields) that it looked like someone had tried to carpet it with plastic mini golf grass but hadn't quite finished, because there were still patches of the softer-colored natural grass. It was a lovely morning. They taught me their secret handshake and some greetings in K´iche´.
On the way down I (of course) slipped and fell on my butt. The girls all fluttered around me in concern and rushed to help me up. We continued for a bit, and then they decided they had better go back to the place where I had fallen to retrieve my heart, because I had left it there. (It is a Mayan belief that if a person is startled, they leave a part of their soul and as a result will fall ill.) It´s remarkable how powerful these beliefs are, even for girls who want be astronauts, models, or business managers, like these. So they went back and did a quick ceremony to retrieve my heart, then we continued.
They sounded interested in going again some time. My girls´ group may still just be a half-baked idea, but this feels like a start. If anything, it's nice to have a few new friends in town.
Then that afternoon, I headed back to the house and got ready to go with my host family to some hot springs. They had invited me to ¨bathe¨ at the hot springs with them. I of course did not have a clear idea of what this meant (swimming? taking baths? hot tubbing?), nor what was appropriate dress for an outing with an Indigenous Guatemalan family where water would be involved in some way (a family where the women always wear traje and never reaveal so much as a shoulder). So in preparation, I put on my bathing suite (without much hope), under a skirt and t shirt (in case we'd just be wading) and packed my back pack with a large t shirt (in case a bathing suite with a t shirt cover-up was the appropriate attire), along with my soap (they did say bathing!) and of course towel and jeans to change into (in the case I´d actually be taking anything off). I felt that if at that point I didn't have the appropriate attire, then it really wasn't my fault... this was the best I could do.
We all (mom, dad, sister, grandma, grandpa, great grandpa, plus 2 babies, a two year old and a 5 year old and me) piled into a borrowed Ford truck (the kind with a hatch back), and immediately there was something so assuringly familiar about the family-road-trip feel to it (such as when Dad couldn´t open the back door, or we had to stop after 5 seconds of driving to properly close Grandpa´s door, or the little girl asking many times before we even hit the highway if we were there yet), that I felt very at home... despite the fact that there were twice as many people as seat belts.
We drove for a long while and finally arrived at a series of buildings besides a strong-flowing river. The Grandma was suddenly ask me if it would be best if I had my own room, and I (still unsure of what ¨bathing¨ meant) awkwardly said I could go with them (assuming just the women) or have my own room, whatever they thought was best, putting the ball in their court. It was decided that it would be ¨safer¨ for me to have my own room. So a man led me (past small, steaming pools where men were sitting in swimming trunks) to a small room with a very large tile-lined bath (almost a small pool) where a faucet was streaming hot water. Host dad told me to come find them in a hour. I couldn´t believe my luck! I locked the door, stripped to my bathing suite (there was a large hole in the door that prevented me from stipping compeltely) and slid into the hot water. After craving privacy and quiet, it was like an answered prayer, and the water was so deliciously hot and wonderful. I even meditated for a while (if there´s ever a time to take up meditation, it´s in the Peace Corps, especially if you´ve been presented with a room with your private hot-springs bath to yourself for an hour).
On the long ride home in the dark, I dozed a little between Grandpa, Mom, and the newborn baby boy. If I was in a foreign land, it certainly didn´t feel that way.
About two weeks previously, a group of girls from the Institute shyly approached me and asked if I had a climbed up the mountain ridge above our town yet. I hadn't, and they invited me to go with them two Sundays from that day. Of course I was enthralled, for several reasons-- because it is my dream to start a girls´group as a secondary project (though I'm still trying to figure out exacly what it will entail), because these girls will be my students, because I'm trying to ¨integrate into the community¨, and because I love hiking, duh! (And I´ve also been told that it is not safe to climb alone, so I´ve been impatiently tapping my feet, just waiting for someone to invite me.)
So this Sunday finally arrived, and I met them in the square. We of course got off to a late start, it being Guatemala and all, and on the way we stopped by at a tienda where the girls dropped 50Q to buy gatoraides and muffins for all of us (a lot of money for young Guatemalan girls) and would not accept my contribution.
It felt amazing, rising on the trail above the town, and I felt like I could be in Montana, with the breeze moving the pine trees around me and the taste of the clean cool air. Also, although the girls talked in K´iche´ mostly at first, more and more we got to talking.
I of course was wearing my new Keen hiking boots, pants, and an Underarmor T shirt. The girls were of course wearing the beautiful hand-woven trajes and little high heeled plastic sandals that the women here always wear. Yet, of course, I (the experienced hiker-mountain climber) was the one slipping around on the hard rain-slicked trail. At the top, we sat for a while and chatted, and played an impromptu tag-like game among the pines. The view was breathtaking-- you could see the whole valley below lined with soft hills and even in the distance where the plateau drops off. We walked to the other side of the ridge where we could look down on another valley housing another aldea. This valley was so covered in milpas (corn fields) that it looked like someone had tried to carpet it with plastic mini golf grass but hadn't quite finished, because there were still patches of the softer-colored natural grass. It was a lovely morning. They taught me their secret handshake and some greetings in K´iche´.
On the way down I (of course) slipped and fell on my butt. The girls all fluttered around me in concern and rushed to help me up. We continued for a bit, and then they decided they had better go back to the place where I had fallen to retrieve my heart, because I had left it there. (It is a Mayan belief that if a person is startled, they leave a part of their soul and as a result will fall ill.) It´s remarkable how powerful these beliefs are, even for girls who want be astronauts, models, or business managers, like these. So they went back and did a quick ceremony to retrieve my heart, then we continued.
They sounded interested in going again some time. My girls´ group may still just be a half-baked idea, but this feels like a start. If anything, it's nice to have a few new friends in town.
Then that afternoon, I headed back to the house and got ready to go with my host family to some hot springs. They had invited me to ¨bathe¨ at the hot springs with them. I of course did not have a clear idea of what this meant (swimming? taking baths? hot tubbing?), nor what was appropriate dress for an outing with an Indigenous Guatemalan family where water would be involved in some way (a family where the women always wear traje and never reaveal so much as a shoulder). So in preparation, I put on my bathing suite (without much hope), under a skirt and t shirt (in case we'd just be wading) and packed my back pack with a large t shirt (in case a bathing suite with a t shirt cover-up was the appropriate attire), along with my soap (they did say bathing!) and of course towel and jeans to change into (in the case I´d actually be taking anything off). I felt that if at that point I didn't have the appropriate attire, then it really wasn't my fault... this was the best I could do.
We all (mom, dad, sister, grandma, grandpa, great grandpa, plus 2 babies, a two year old and a 5 year old and me) piled into a borrowed Ford truck (the kind with a hatch back), and immediately there was something so assuringly familiar about the family-road-trip feel to it (such as when Dad couldn´t open the back door, or we had to stop after 5 seconds of driving to properly close Grandpa´s door, or the little girl asking many times before we even hit the highway if we were there yet), that I felt very at home... despite the fact that there were twice as many people as seat belts.
We drove for a long while and finally arrived at a series of buildings besides a strong-flowing river. The Grandma was suddenly ask me if it would be best if I had my own room, and I (still unsure of what ¨bathing¨ meant) awkwardly said I could go with them (assuming just the women) or have my own room, whatever they thought was best, putting the ball in their court. It was decided that it would be ¨safer¨ for me to have my own room. So a man led me (past small, steaming pools where men were sitting in swimming trunks) to a small room with a very large tile-lined bath (almost a small pool) where a faucet was streaming hot water. Host dad told me to come find them in a hour. I couldn´t believe my luck! I locked the door, stripped to my bathing suite (there was a large hole in the door that prevented me from stipping compeltely) and slid into the hot water. After craving privacy and quiet, it was like an answered prayer, and the water was so deliciously hot and wonderful. I even meditated for a while (if there´s ever a time to take up meditation, it´s in the Peace Corps, especially if you´ve been presented with a room with your private hot-springs bath to yourself for an hour).
On the long ride home in the dark, I dozed a little between Grandpa, Mom, and the newborn baby boy. If I was in a foreign land, it certainly didn´t feel that way.
Charla number 1
Today I gave my very first charla (class). (Well, my first charla on my own, as a ¨real¨ volunteer.)
I´m a little embarrassed to admit this since I am approaching a month in-site and many of my compañeros have streamrolled-ahead with several charlas and are already well into planning (or have already started) secondary projects. Not me! I´m off to a very very slow start. But I think part of this has to do with the fact that I am in a new site, my schools are very hard to get to, and I don't really have a CTA (school superintendant) to work with directly and help me coordinate. Needless to say, it's been slow-going... although I've let it be that way. I've allowed myself to take my time settling in here and getting my feet under me, and I think that's okay. But I'm excited to get started.
My class was scheduled to be the third period for the tercero students (roughly, eigth grade, about to graduate from middle school). The teacher didn´t show up for most of it (I guess he had a meeting, but of course no one was informed, least of all the students), so I ended up trying to fill up their time with dinamicas-- team builders (while other teacher-less students watched enviously through the window). When the teacher did arrive, I observed their 20 minute math class, then it was time for me to begin.
I am very grateful that I had that time for the dinamicas first. They didn't necessarily understand every instruction I gave and some of the dinamicas didn't really work like they were supposed to, but it didn't really matter. There was a lot of laughter, and they were very patient with me. The ice was certainly good and broken when it was time for my charla! And by then I did not feel the least bit nervous, just certain that I could do this and that I knew my stuff.
And it went well! It was a short class, half the normal time, because they had a school assembly to practice for their Independence Day... basically just an overview of the program, expectations, and a very short lesson on self-esteem, but I still felt good about it. They understood me, and I think I hit the right balance between being serious and positive-- which is so key that first day.
This week I will be giving two more, in two of my other schools. Bring it on.
I think I'm going to like this job.
I´m a little embarrassed to admit this since I am approaching a month in-site and many of my compañeros have streamrolled-ahead with several charlas and are already well into planning (or have already started) secondary projects. Not me! I´m off to a very very slow start. But I think part of this has to do with the fact that I am in a new site, my schools are very hard to get to, and I don't really have a CTA (school superintendant) to work with directly and help me coordinate. Needless to say, it's been slow-going... although I've let it be that way. I've allowed myself to take my time settling in here and getting my feet under me, and I think that's okay. But I'm excited to get started.
My class was scheduled to be the third period for the tercero students (roughly, eigth grade, about to graduate from middle school). The teacher didn´t show up for most of it (I guess he had a meeting, but of course no one was informed, least of all the students), so I ended up trying to fill up their time with dinamicas-- team builders (while other teacher-less students watched enviously through the window). When the teacher did arrive, I observed their 20 minute math class, then it was time for me to begin.
I am very grateful that I had that time for the dinamicas first. They didn't necessarily understand every instruction I gave and some of the dinamicas didn't really work like they were supposed to, but it didn't really matter. There was a lot of laughter, and they were very patient with me. The ice was certainly good and broken when it was time for my charla! And by then I did not feel the least bit nervous, just certain that I could do this and that I knew my stuff.
And it went well! It was a short class, half the normal time, because they had a school assembly to practice for their Independence Day... basically just an overview of the program, expectations, and a very short lesson on self-esteem, but I still felt good about it. They understood me, and I think I hit the right balance between being serious and positive-- which is so key that first day.
This week I will be giving two more, in two of my other schools. Bring it on.
I think I'm going to like this job.
Friday, August 15, 2008
La Graduacion
Me, my host sister, my host mom. Can you pick me out? And no, my host mom is NOT angry, despite appearances. Guatemalans generally don't smile for pictures.
So I thought perhaps I should back-track and talk a bit about that glorious Cinderella-esque transformation from "Trainee" (aka you-don´t-count-yet-you´ve-proven-nothing-scum-of-the-earth) to "Volunteer" (aka the-real-deal/legit/badass).
Needless to say, it was a beautiful sunny day. I had asked my host family if I could wear a traje for the ceremony (traditionally, many of the Trainees that were in Indigenous training sites have worn traje to the graduation) and they were delighted. (I also, if you noticed, straightened my hair with my friend's straightener-- just to balance things out.) So I endured the stares and comments on the camioneta to the training center. I arrived to find I was one of 4 girls that wore the traje, and I must say I don't believe I've been photographed so much in one day since my high school graduation. We were definitely a hit. (But looking at these pictures, it dawns on me that it's NO WONDER that people stare at me! I'm hudge! I'm shockingly white! I look like a different species! I'm a freak of nature! ... note to those who perhaps do not recall, but I am actually somewhat normal-looking in the United States, not even particularly tall!)
After the ceremony, I endured yet another bus ride in the traje back to my village to have one last lunch with my host family. They had prepared my favorite lunch for me (roasted vegetables and chicken in this light tomato soup... with, of course, tortillas) and they gave me a gift of a rosary. I gave them a framed collage of photos of me and them (even one of me and mechanical baby Diego, which they appreciated). As happy as I was to be graduating, to leave the bottom rung of the ladder, to be a "real Volunteer" (after months, no, years, of waiting), my heart did ache a little to say good bye to them. We of course had our moments of misunderstandings, being from very very different worlds, but by the end I had considerable "confianza" (roughly, "closeness", though there is no word in English that captures the beautiful essence of this word) with them. There was a lot of teasing and laughter and sharing of stories and experiences. I was very blessed to have them as my host family.
What followed was the inevitable but amazing celebration in Antigua (yet another Peace Corps Guatemala tradition). My training group completely rented out 2 1/2 hostels for Friday and Saturday nights. After almost 3 months of hurrying home before 6 p.m., it was bliss. We all did our best not to think about the daunting challenges ahead, and instead ate good food, danced, watched movies, went shopping (yay move-in allowance!) and just sat around, enjoying each other's company. It was a good weekend.
Ahh!!! What's that huge pale demon-creature in a traje?!! Oh, right, that's me.
Then on Sunday, I waved good bye to denial and left for my site about mid-day. There were many other volunteers on the bus, but when I got off at Cuatro Caminos (a major transportation hub), in the pouring rain, with almost more luggage than I could haul, it was time to go it alone. I stood and waited for the bus to my town... and waited... and waited, letting the ayudantes (bus assistants) know again and again my destination, but no luck. I tried calling my host dad, but some guy I didn't know answered and I left a message I wasn't sure he understood. At last an ayudante for a bus to a different town told me that on Sundays, that bus went to my town. (Which seemed to make sense, right? There are less commuters on Sunday.) So I gratefully got on. But what the ayudante conveniently didn't tell me (ayudantes have a way of "bending" the truth to get more passangers) was that the bus only went to the entrance to my town on the highway, not actually to my town. My town is set a good 5 km from the highway, on a deserted, rought dirt road that I've been specifically told not to walk because it is sometimes prowled by thieves... not that I could have walked anyway-- I could barely move with all the stuff I had! We're talking 2 years, people!
Needless to say, I was dropped off on the side of the highway in the pouring rain with my enormous, very conspicuous suitecase and backpack, and it was beginning to get late. This was in fact worse than being at Cuatro Caminos, where at least, as a last resort, I could have hopped on to a bus to Xela and got a hostel for the night (which I was thinking of doing before this bus came along). Fortunately a nice older man, who also got off the bus, for some reason took notice of this sopping wet gringa with 2 times her weight in stuff took pity on me and asked where I was going. I told him, and he said there were no buses late on Sundays (so NOW I find out!), but fortunatley there was a pickup truck there to shuttle people to town (sometimes people with trucks work as unofficial shuttles to make a little extra cash), so me, all my stuff, this man and a couple others hopped into the pack of the truck in the pouring rain and traveled the rough 5 km road (which takes a half hour) to my town. Did I mention is was pouring rain? (The truck was going to drop us off about 1 km from the center of town, but the nice man convinced them to take me to the center-- in fact, to my front door.) I arrived sopping wet with my sopping wet stuff to the exclaimations of my new host family (my host dad had in fact tried calling many times but I hadn't heard in the noise of the camioneta, rain and truck).
Congratulations, I thought. You're a real volunteer.
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Beginning
I´m a bit ashamed at how long it´s been since my last update. I have been a slacker... but also more than slightly overwhelmed by all that has happened. I have been in my little aldea in the mountains for 2 weeks now. It´s been a roller-coaster ride, that´s for sure. Being alone here, without the friends in my training group I've become close to and come to rely on, without any Americans at all that have some concept of where I come from and who I am, and being such a novelty in this town and attracting SO MUCH attention... was a bit of a shock, as much as I saw it all coming.
I know now what they mean when they saw the highs are very high and the lows are very low. That's just how it's been here. I feel like my emotional state is a very delicate balance and all the things that happen to me, good or bad, are pepples that can tip it drastically one way or the other. Often the tone for the day is set during my morning walks. A little kid in the street whose face brightens when they see me, shouting "¡Buenos dias, Seño Leoti!" can make me so happy. A morning when the endless hills are glowing with light and the clouds float tranquilly in a vibrant blue sky. A simple "¡Que le vaya bien! (roughly, "hope that all goes well) from a stranger that I greet. After breakfast, sitting on my rooftop in the sun, where no one can see me, but I can see the velvety green hills and the top of a volcano in the far distance, sipping coffee and preparing lessons. Chatting with some eager, shy young ladies at the Institute where I'll be working. Preparing a delicious breakfast of yogurt, granola, fruit and honey with strong coffee (SO tasty after months of comida chapina). All of these things can make me feel truly content here, and the prospect of these two years is not intimidating but envigoring. It really doesn't take much.
In cambio, the scale can definitely tip the other way. Some mornings I just can't handle all the staring and muttering and the whole town treating my walk like a friggun circus act. Having a run in with bad-tempered and dangerous chuchos, street dogs (once one goes in for attack, it attracts a bunch more). Saying "Buenos dias" with a smile and getting a barely audible muttered response, or no reply at all. Getting vulgar comments or whistles from the construction workers (which happens also in the US and doesn't bother me, but for some reason it's so much more intolerable here). Saying something simple (and correct) in Spanish to my host mom and her not understanding (Spanish is a distant second language for her). Waiting two hours in the rain for a camioneta I'm not even sure will come to get my safely home. Little boys in the street throwing apples at me, then running away giggling. Some days there is just a cascade of such pebbles, building a mountain on my scale, tipping my mood very low indeed. Nothing is simple here, and there is no espcaping the glaring spotlight that is constantly pointed at me. Some days, I can handle it with grace and humor. Others, it just feels like too much. The other day, I loaned my best, warmest sweater to a little old lady that was staying the night with us and she took off with it the next day (SO should have seen that coming). That afternoon, I was pouring water from my own jug of purified water when it slipped from the table, cracked, and flooded my room with 5 gallons of purified water. It was just enough to put me over the edge, and needless to say tears were shed that day.
I think one challenge has been that I've gotten off to a very slow start. The director at the Institute in my town was gone for most of the first week, and I wanted to wait on visiting the other schools until I had met with him because he is my main contact. Then I wasted one day trying to get to one of my schools, but once I simply got to the entrance of the town, it was so late that I had to just wait (over an hour) for a bus back home before it got dark. Today I made the long trip out to the one institute I have not yet visited (1 hour 40 minutes including the wait) only to find the director wasn't there and having to turn around. The fews days were I have made it to the schools and felt like I had a productive day have made me feel much better, like I have a purpose here. As I figure out more and more the buses and get the initial meetings out of the way so I can really be with the kids, I know I will feel better and better.
This past weekend I went to Xela for the first time, the 2nd biggest city in Guatemala and only an hour away, and went to a gym with some of my compañeros and had a planning meeting, then went out for Indian food and dancing. A little bit of normalcy, a little time away, really refreshed me and helped me get back some perspective, and today has been one of the good ones. I can only hope the same for tomorrow.
I know now what they mean when they saw the highs are very high and the lows are very low. That's just how it's been here. I feel like my emotional state is a very delicate balance and all the things that happen to me, good or bad, are pepples that can tip it drastically one way or the other. Often the tone for the day is set during my morning walks. A little kid in the street whose face brightens when they see me, shouting "¡Buenos dias, Seño Leoti!" can make me so happy. A morning when the endless hills are glowing with light and the clouds float tranquilly in a vibrant blue sky. A simple "¡Que le vaya bien! (roughly, "hope that all goes well) from a stranger that I greet. After breakfast, sitting on my rooftop in the sun, where no one can see me, but I can see the velvety green hills and the top of a volcano in the far distance, sipping coffee and preparing lessons. Chatting with some eager, shy young ladies at the Institute where I'll be working. Preparing a delicious breakfast of yogurt, granola, fruit and honey with strong coffee (SO tasty after months of comida chapina). All of these things can make me feel truly content here, and the prospect of these two years is not intimidating but envigoring. It really doesn't take much.
In cambio, the scale can definitely tip the other way. Some mornings I just can't handle all the staring and muttering and the whole town treating my walk like a friggun circus act. Having a run in with bad-tempered and dangerous chuchos, street dogs (once one goes in for attack, it attracts a bunch more). Saying "Buenos dias" with a smile and getting a barely audible muttered response, or no reply at all. Getting vulgar comments or whistles from the construction workers (which happens also in the US and doesn't bother me, but for some reason it's so much more intolerable here). Saying something simple (and correct) in Spanish to my host mom and her not understanding (Spanish is a distant second language for her). Waiting two hours in the rain for a camioneta I'm not even sure will come to get my safely home. Little boys in the street throwing apples at me, then running away giggling. Some days there is just a cascade of such pebbles, building a mountain on my scale, tipping my mood very low indeed. Nothing is simple here, and there is no espcaping the glaring spotlight that is constantly pointed at me. Some days, I can handle it with grace and humor. Others, it just feels like too much. The other day, I loaned my best, warmest sweater to a little old lady that was staying the night with us and she took off with it the next day (SO should have seen that coming). That afternoon, I was pouring water from my own jug of purified water when it slipped from the table, cracked, and flooded my room with 5 gallons of purified water. It was just enough to put me over the edge, and needless to say tears were shed that day.
I think one challenge has been that I've gotten off to a very slow start. The director at the Institute in my town was gone for most of the first week, and I wanted to wait on visiting the other schools until I had met with him because he is my main contact. Then I wasted one day trying to get to one of my schools, but once I simply got to the entrance of the town, it was so late that I had to just wait (over an hour) for a bus back home before it got dark. Today I made the long trip out to the one institute I have not yet visited (1 hour 40 minutes including the wait) only to find the director wasn't there and having to turn around. The fews days were I have made it to the schools and felt like I had a productive day have made me feel much better, like I have a purpose here. As I figure out more and more the buses and get the initial meetings out of the way so I can really be with the kids, I know I will feel better and better.
This past weekend I went to Xela for the first time, the 2nd biggest city in Guatemala and only an hour away, and went to a gym with some of my compañeros and had a planning meeting, then went out for Indian food and dancing. A little bit of normalcy, a little time away, really refreshed me and helped me get back some perspective, and today has been one of the good ones. I can only hope the same for tomorrow.
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