Work Ethic

My town on market day.

Since school has started, my life here has been good, but exhausting. I am in a unique position because I have over 600 students (significantly more than the other people in my program) and teach 17 separate classes (neither of these numbers include the elementary school, where I give an English class to every grade once a week). I have very little planning time during the day because I teach so much and am also taking K'iche' classes in the mornings (most of my coworkers have a full day free to use for planning or planning other activities, but I teach 5 days a week). Much of my planning falls onto my evenings, and I often find myself working late into the night and getting up very early, preparing materials and lessons or workshops. I am also trying to maintain my Girls' Group, but that has become increasingly challenging as I have less time to devote to it, and my girls are also much busier now that school has started. I get asked to do other random projects, both from the Peace Corps and my community. One Saturday night I found myself up very late preparing a four-hour workshop about self-esteem for adult members of the Catholic Church for the next morning, that I got asked to do last-minute. (I thought a little sardonically about what my friends in the US where probably doing that Saturday night...certainly not anything like this!)

I´ve also found since being here that basic cooking and cleaning is a much bigger demand on my time than it was in the States. Making meals out of whole ingredients (turning a scoop of dry beans and a pile of vegetables into dinner), although very healthy and rewarding, is also incredibly time-consuming, and dirties a lot more dishes (which I have to haul up and down the stairs to the pila to wash). And keeping my apartment looking somewhat respectable is also a much bigger task here, especially now during the Dry Season, which could just as well be named the Dust Season. The cornfields that surrounded all the houses and buildings in my town are converted into empty dust fields after harvest time and most roads are covered with a layer up to 3 inches thick that gets billowed all around in the wind. Unfortunately, all my doors have a sizable gap between the floor which permits dust to seep in and cover everything. My bathroom also opens directly onto my patio and is covered in a fine layer of dust even just a couple days after cleaning it. (I´m not sure it will be much better, though, in the Rainy Season, or Mud Season.)

It has been a very busy life. Sometimes I feel frustrated by how busy I am because, in joining the Peace Corps, I had had a romantic vision of getting in touch with a slower pace of life, on focusing on writing poetry and other hobbies I´ve neglected, on finding a balance between work and personal life. Yet I´ve found my personal time tangled up in work in an almost similar way to how it was when I was in AmeriCorps, where I maintained a very unhealthy and very overworked lifestyle (though not quite so extreme). I am also sad by how much I am NOT able to do. I would love to work with the Woman´s Group, help community members plant tire gardens, develop a scholarship association for my middle school students, start a drama club... but when? I can barely maintain what I am doing now.

But then I have to remind myself, I am living in a community where people work very hard. My landlord and “host brother”, for example, maintains a very successful hardware store, teaches English to most of the students in my big Institute in the afternoon, studies at the University all day on Saturday (all of his classes are crammed in from 8-6 in one day), and is a devoted husband and son, and father of 2 (a six year old and an 8 month old), and he oversees the planting and harvesting of the corn fields that feed his family all year. His case is not unique. Almost all of the teachers at my Institutes are University students, and many of them also teach all morning in the primary school before rushing to the Institute to teach all afternoon. (I have one day a week, Tuesdays, where I teach all morning at the Primary School, starting at 8, and then go to the Institute to teach for a few hours. Those days kills me... I lose my voice, I get a terrible headache, and at 5 p.m. when I finally get home, I collapse exhausted into bed, a worthless puddle. But that is only one day a week, and technically I get off early since I don´t teach the full afternoon.)

Part of the Peace Corps experience, or the idea of it, is to live with the people of your community, and to some extent, as they live. This is certainly not followed to the letter. I get paid an amount than many people would use to sustain their entire families (and less than many whole families have to live on). I cook with exotic spices and buy yogurt and whole wheat bread from the supermarket. I also escape a lot on the weekends, vising Xela and other parts of Guatemala, eating in restaurants and sometimes staying in hotels, activities that are not an option for the vast majority of people in my community (they do go to Xela, but only for special shopping or school). Whenever I feel frustrated and tired and that this kind of workload was not what I was looking for, I have to remember how hard the people around me are working all the time. When I am sleepy-eyed and crabby on my Tuesday mornings on the bus at 7 a.m. to the elementary school, I see whole families already out tilling their fields, and they are still there on my bus back home at 4:30 p.m. If my working this hard is giving me a taste of life as a Guatemalan, then that is definitely what I signed up for. The people here work very hard for the very little that they have. For this experience to be real, I need to be willing to do my share as well.

And I am blessed to have work that I love, with people that I care deeply about. I love my students and teaching far more than I expected to. Getting them to laugh or seeing them work hard and earnestly on a project is extremely rewarding. Nothing makes me happier than an afternoon with my Girls´ Group, joking around, playing basketball and dreaming of our garden. My elementary students act as though Santa Claus was coming to give them class each time I show up. It may be a lot, but it is the only time that I will ever be a teacher in Guatemala, and I am sure when I get back to the US, I will treasure ever minute of it. I´m sure I will never say to myself, “God, I wish I hadn´t done so much!”

The Hard Part

The words “hard part” often crop up when people think about the Peace Corps, either when they´re considering doing it, when they´re in the middle of it, or when they´re reflecting back on it. I had been thinking about doing the Peace Corps about half my life, since I first learned of its existence. In more recent years, when I was more seriously debating whether to do it or not, the “hard part” was something I kept wondering about.

For a while, it seemed it would be the purely rustic conditions. I pictured myself completely alone at night, in a 5 by 5 foot wooden shack somewhere hot and tropical, where I´d have to haul my bucket of water 3 miles each day, fending off obscenely large insects. (While this is the reality for some volunteers, it certainly isn´t for me: I live with a family in a nice house, I have a large bedroom with a queen-sized bed, I have a hot shower just about every morning, I live in a cool alpine climate, with few insects... Sometimes there´s no electricity or water, but usually for no more than a day.)

Then I was very worried for my health. I knew I had a poor immune system and I imagined myself miserably sick the entire time or getting very deathly ill or ending up with an incurable parasite for life. (I did spend a couple weeks miserably sick as a result of getting asthma, but now I am able to manage it well with inhalers. Getting a serious illness or parasite continues to be a risk that I run here, but I just do what I can to prevent it and hope for the best. Still, I have not been sick ALL THE TIME, as I feared. I was worse off teaching preschool in the US last year!)

I worried about being able to maintain a healthy lifestyle. (The truth is, I eat incredibly well here. I´m cooking with more whole foods than ever before and gobbling up fresh fruits and vegetables each day. I also brave the stares and giggles and go jogging sometimes, and I have to walk 30-45 minutes to get to two of my schools.)

Then there was the whole being away from Montana and the people that I love for TWO YEARS. NOT significantly advancing my career, education, personal finances, for TWO YEARS. (Yeah, that actually is still tough. God, sometimes I can´t believe how far I still have to go! And I do get quite homesick sometimes. Yet I also can´t believe how much has already happened, how much I have seen, learned and done here, and how quickly the time is passing.)

And of course I worried about being lonely and no one liking me and being rejected and not finding a place in the community. (The truth is, I have been astounded by the incredible warmth and acceptance with which I have been received here. A chorus of children call out my name each and every time I walk down the street. The older neighbors try to talk to me in K´iche´ and laugh at my efforts; the ladies in the bookstore tease me about the boyfriend I may or may not have. I can´t leave the house without someone chatting with me. However, spending each and every evening alone at home can get a bit lonely sometimes, I´ll admit. At night, when everyone is with their families, I have a lot of time alone with my thoughts, which can be a good and bad thing. I´m certainly getting to know myself pretty well!)

Many things are hard, and many things are not so hard, and many things are extraordinarily rewarding and wonderful. But that´s not the Peace Corps, that´s life, especially when you´re doing something that significantly challenges you.

But the truly hard part of this experience, the thing that stabs at my core, more than the asthma, the homesickness, the loneliness, are the difficulties I watch the people I care about face, unable to do anything about it.


One morning in my elementary school a large man burst through the door while I was in the middle of a lesson in the third grade. All the children shrieked and ran to one side as if they knew him. I was confused. Was he someone that worked with the school? A member of the parent directive, a maintenance man? Was he here to pay a visit? Then I noticed he was drunk. He was very disheveled. He greeted the students and then came up to me asking questions that made little sense. He proudly pointed out his daughter to me, one of my students. At last the third grade teacher was able to usher him out of the room, but then I noticed his little girl began to cry. I can´t imagine how mortified she must have felt. It was surely hard enough for her to have to see him like that at home, but in front of all of her classmates? In front of the gringa teacher who comes once a week to give their special English class? My heart broke completely in that moment, as it does every time I think of her. And there is nothing I can do, besides keep giving my English class each week.

I have seen similar problems in my own home: the father and grandfather of the family are both alcoholics. Once the father was drunk for an entire month, morning, afternoon and evening. His daughter, my “host sister”, disappeared one day with her 6-month-old and two-year-old daughters that I adored. I found out later she had returned to her abusive, alcoholic husband (who is also abusive to the children). The host family has been very frank with me: I will probably never see them again. If there was anything I could do to give those little girls a secure and loving home, I would do it without a second thought. But there is absolutely nothing I can do.


It reminds me of the prayer that hung in cross-stitching in our dinning room, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Serenity. That is the hard part. Serenity in the face of problems that are far bigger than you, and that cut deeply those that you care about. These problems exist in the US, I know, as well as many others. Women go back to abusive husbands all over the world. Adults cause suffering in the lives of children. People hurt each other, even those that they most love. I have always known this, I have seen some of it in my lifetime, but I am not sure I have seen it so frequently and on such a scale as I have here. I consider myself fairly thick-skinned, and I think you have to be to do this job, to not fall apart every time you see someone that is hurting, someone that does not have what they need to live a healthy and productive life. I would fall apart every day. But sometime even my tough heart does break, and serenity seems a long ways from here. And that, for me, is the hard part.

Visit of the Parents

Mom and Dad at some ruins in Antigua.

As soon as I was certain I would be doing Peace Corps Guatemala, my parents began to talk about visiting me. From the get-go, their visit was something I knew would help get me through the two years, and when they finally purchased their tickets, I could talk or think about little else. I was so excited to show them this country I had grown to love and the people that I cared about and to give them a taste of my life here. And also, I´ll admit, I was excited to eat at good restaurants and stay at nicer hotels on someone else´s bill for a change.

But at the same time, I was also a bit nervous. It would be their first time out of the country (except for a couple little trips to Canada), their first time in a place where everyone does not speak English, and their first time in a developing country, where the safety and comfort standards are no where near what they are in the US. I knew they were going to be extremely out of their comfort zone, and I
wasn´t sure how they would handle it. I was more nervous for my dad. Mom kept expressing how interested she was in seeing the sites of Guatemala and learning about the culture. Dad just kept saying, “I only want to see you. That´s all I care about.” Well, whether he liked it or lot, he´d be seeing a lot more than “just me” and I wasn´t sure how he´d take it all. Also, I´ve been in Guatemala long enough to know that no trip ever, ever just goes smoothly. No amount of planning can avoid some of the inevitable bumps in the road.

Still, I decided to do the best I could. I pored over my travel guides, created a detailed jam-packed itinerary, wrote long and excruciatingly detailed e-mails about everything from Guatemalan food to Guatemalan courtesy, made endless phone calls to hotels and travel agencies to arrange our transportation (we wouldn´t be riding in many camionetas, how I usually get around), thought long and hard about which restaurants we´d be eating in (that was the fun part), and all in all tried to arrange every detail to avoid as many bumps as possible.

They arrived in Guatemala City at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning. We hopped right into a shuttle bus to Antigua. Although my dad was clearly very happy to see me, he was also clearly very uncomfortable during that bus ride, being unable to communicate directly with the driver, worried about the price, worried about getting cash from the ATM. He was obviously out of his element.

But it didn´t take them very long to get relatively comfortable. We spent a few lovely days in beautiful colonial Antigua, checking out churches and ruins and the crafts market, and sitting in the lovely Central Park, people-watching and listening to the fountain. We were also lucky enough to catch a procession passing by one evening, and sat a long time watching people of all ages in purple robes slowly passing by. (It had nothing of the solemn pomp and circumstance of the processions I saw in Spain; many “penitents” were munching on snacks and joking around. But it was still a beautiful site.)


The Central Park in Antigua

During that time, we spent a memorable day visiting my first host family. My parents, with a lot of my translating, were able to thank them for taking good care of me, and ate their first tortillas with a typical Guatemalan meal (they made my favorite dish for the occasion). The father took us out to see his plots and the crops that were in season. He gave my parents some of his special tomatoes, whose seeds were carefully passed down the generations. My dad, always great with children, managed to joke around with the two little kids, despite the language barrier. My parents had brought Easter treats and gifts for the two children. They were left speechless when they opened them (a Dora the Explorer doll for the little girl and a Spiderman action figure for the boy-- the nicest toys they have). For the duration of the trip, my parents spoke of that day as a highlight.

We also took an afternoon trip to Pastores, a small town near Antigua that is famous for its boot-makers. The entire main street is lined with little shops selling hand-made leather boots. My mom was able to find a crazy little pair of gray cowgirl boots from a delighted salesman and shoemaker. I ordered my (second) pair custom-made: some beautiful knee-high riding boots that would be ready by the end of the week.

Each busy day in Antigua ended with a Happy Hour. I think we all needed it: Mom and Dad for the culture shock they were dealing with, me from worrying every minute that they would get robbed or we´d miss our bus stop or some other little thing would go wrong (and exhausted from the translating).

After our lovely days in Antigua and the surrounding area, we took the long bus ride up to the cooler, bigger city of Xela, with an almost Gothic feel to it. We´d be based there to visit my site and schools. The first afternoon, exhausted from the trip, we just walked around Xela. We walked up to “La Democracia”, the huge local market that takes up several streets around a small park. There are whole streets filled with fruit vendors, others of burned CDs, yet others of furniture and clothes. Xela is distinct from Antigua in that it is a truly Guatemalan city. Around the central park, there are a lot of travelers and tourists, but you don´t get the feel that the whole city is geared toward catering to them (as it is in Antigua). My parents were very taken in by this enormous market where the Guatemalans in the area buy their food, clothes, entertainment, furniture, everything (there is a Super Walmart in Xela, called Hiper Paiz here, but most locals still shop in the markets).

The next morning we got up early to await our taxi to my town, (In the end, we arranged a taxi driver for the whole day, rather than wasting hours waiting for buses or trying to drive a rental car amongst the ruthless Guatemalan drivers.) We drove briefly through my municipal town, San Francisco el Alto, which is reported to have the biggest market in Central America, just to get a glimpse of it. Then we continued north to one of the villages that I work in to visit the elementary school where I teach English once a week. As soon as we entered the gates of the school, we were greeted by lines of elementary students applauding us. All of the classrooms were festively adorned, with “Welcome Leoti´s Parents” written on the white boards. The director and his wife (who is the director of the middle school where I teach in the afternoon) welcomed us into the office and served us tamales, one of the more special Guatemalan dishes (a large steamed dumpling made of soft rice with a chunk of meat and sauce inside). Then we visited each classroom, where many students presented us with gifts. My parents spoke a little about Montana and life in the US in general, and I had the kids sing the English songs they were learning. I knew we would get a warm reception there, but even I was a bit overwhelmed by the extent of their welcome.

When we finally got away, we at last arrived at my town. My host family was waiting for us, with lunch prepared (though by now we were all pretty stuffed). We all ate lunch together, and again many thanks and welcomes were exchanged. Gratefully, my host brother who is the English teacher at the Institute and studying English at the university, showed up, and for once I got a break from translating. I showed them my area of the house, and after resting briefly, we walked around town. There was no formal class at the Institute because they were celebrating their Anniversary, but there were sports activities going on. I was invited to play in the female teachers-versus-students basketball game, where for once I made my dad proud as the star basketball player (being a good head taller than everyone, and having had more formal basketball training, even if it was in 8th grade). If anything, everyone laughed a lot, and I´m sure it was a site for my parents, watching me play basketball on a team of women in traje and high-heeled sandals against tiny sixth grade girls. We walked around some more, meeting other familiar people in my town and attracting lots of stares from my students (and pretty much everyone... not just one gringa in town, but THREE gringos! That´s headline news). We watched a bit of a soccer game, took a bunch of pictures with my host family, and then finally headed back to Xela, exhausted.

The next morning we took off for a few blissfully relaxing days at Lake Atitlán. We stayed at a gorgeous isolated hotel, perched on a cliff overlooking the lake and its three stunning volcanoes, surrounded by lush gardens and so many delightfully little nooks to sit and relax that it´s almost troubling you won´t be able to relax in all of them. (The other two hotels we had stayed in were a bit on the shabby side for my parents... which goes to show how out-of-touch I am by American comfort standards, cuz I thought they were pretty swell! But this place, La Casa del Mundo, utterly delighted everyone,)

A piece of the view from Casa del Mundo.

Our first day, we devoted ourselves fully to relaxing, and I´ll admit it was a relief to be isolated at our lovely hotel, with English-speaking staff, where it was hard to imagine anything going wrong. The next day, after a leisurely morning, we took a boat across the lake the visit the Indigenous town of Santiago, where they were having a craft market. Mom was able to finish her gift shopping, and we found a little boy to take us up to visit “Maximón”, an iconic cigar-smoking “saint” or “Mayan holy man”, depending on who you ask (for more details on Maximón, refer to my earlier blog post about him). The kid ended up ripping us off, of course, but it was still interesting. We also passed through the town´s local market (where more regular foodstuffs and clothing were sold, rather than just crafts for tourists), which impressed my parents (I have seen many such markets already). I was very taken by how beautiful the traje is in Santiago: the blouses the women wear are hand-embroidered, featuring birds surrounded by clusters of flowers, and they use darker more subtle colors (sometimes the bright Technicolor trajes around my town are a bit overwhelming). If I ever decide to buy one, it will be from there. The next day we devoted ourselves fully once more to lounging, after going kayaking briefly with Dad. Still, it passed far too quickly. Late next morning, we checked out and got on a boat to Panajachel, where we caught our shuttle bus to Guatemala City.

The stairway that lead to my little room at Casa del Mundo.

We spent that night in another shabby little hotel. We flipped on the TV to find disconcerting national news of a plane crash of a plane on its way to our hometown (it was a group of high school kids from California on a spring-break ski trip). We took a taxi out to dinner, and found this recommended restaurant in the “Zone Viva” (“Lively Zone”) virtually empty. Guatemala City is an unsettling place that has been ravaged by gang violence. It is an enormous city; about half the country´s population lives there. It is telling that no one was out for dinner on a Sunday evening in a famous restaurant in the most “happening” zone. We were glad to get back to our hotel, and more than a little exhausted. We woke up early to get to the airport for my parents´ early flight. It was strange to say goodbye to them. I´d gotten very used to having their company here, and Guatemala seemed a little more empty without them in it.

Overall, the trip exceeded even my high-expectations. It went incredibly smoothly, and it felt like the perfect mix of touristy-comfortable and off-the-beaten-track reality, of site-seeing and just relaxing. I was so impressed by how well my parents took everything in stride, by how quickly they adjusted, and by how much they ended up loving Guatemala and its people, despite the rough edges and cultural gulfs. They were incredibly patient, kind and gracious to everyone we interacted with, and I was proud to introduce them as my parents. And they were given the kind of warm and unbelievable welcome that you can expect in Guatemala. More than anything, it was so important for me to show them a bit of my life here, no matter how small, so that when I speak of it, they have some context in which to understand. They have faces for the names, images of the places. They understand a bit of how I have been welcomed and taken in here, and also maybe a bit of how despite all that, life can still be lonely here because of the differences that you can never quite get past. Guatemala will always be a part of me, and I´m so grateful they got to see a bit of that part.