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.

Other Sites

In Training, it didn’t take me long to realize how a volunteer’s site determines their service. We had the opportunity to visit a few volunteers during training, and I remember clearly how seeing the towns that they worked in and the houses they lived in left a deep impression on all of us, as we were each privately trying to imagine the perfect site for us. At one point, two other trainees and I went to visit a volunteer in her site in Alta Verapaz, near Cobán, for a few days. Alta Verapaz is a district in central Guatemala with thick, jungle-like forests and a hot humid climate. This volunteer had had to change sites almost mid-way through her service due to security concerns, and previously she had lived in the mountainous, cold, pine-studded Western Highlands (where I live now). But perhaps the even more dramatic a change was the difference between being in a 100% Indigenous site to moving to a mixed Ladino and Indigenous site. In Indigenous sites, the people tend to be more reserved and traditional and follow old customs, as well as speak an Indigenous language. In Ladino sites, the people tend to be more openly friendly and inviting, and more liberal in their dress. This volunteer was doing very well and loved her new site, but the stark change was almost as dramatic as doing two Peace Corps services.

After being settled in my site for a while, and adjusting to my reality here and how my service is defined by where I live, it can sometimes be easy to forget how dramatically different the experiences of some of my fellow volunteers must be, based on the differences of their sites. This past month for the first time I’ve had the opportunity to visit some of the other volunteers from my training group in their sites and see their different realities.

One girl moved from a very rural Indigenous aldea (village) to the Cabecera, the departmental capital, which is predominately Ladino, in order to be able to access all of the aldeas in which she works more easily. She mourns the loss of the Indigenous culture (she was a big fan), but is also enjoying some perks being in a bigger city. She says she knows quite a few people around town already, and I’m sure many recognize here, but visiting her, I was struck by the relative anonymity that she has. I cannot leave my front door without several children calling out my first name, without wishing every person I see a good morning or afternoon, without being stopped by several people for a chat. I can’t imagine being able to walk around without getting any kind of big reaction or exchanging words with anyone.

Another friend lives in a very small aldea that is almost a suburb of her Cabecera. Her town is literally one road, shooting out from the Cabecera, with a spread-out sprinkling of shops and houses. Her house, though technically near the center of town, has a very remote feeling, being surrounded mostly by farm lands and in a valley ringed with mountains (which, I’ll admit, made me a bit jealous). She is close to a family that lives near-by and of course knows the store owners and such. But walking out of her house, her town seemed empty. There was barely anyone outside of the house, and it was very quiet. I live near the center of an actually very large aldea that takes over a whole corner of the valley, with 32 parajes (neighborhoods). I am surrounded by houses and shops on all sides (with intermittent corn fields, of course), and from my room I can hear people chatting, kids playing basketball, pigs oinking, car doors slamming, children shouting, buses passing (honking noisily), dogs fighting… until about 10 at night or later. In my town there is always a bustling of activity, although things get a little sleepier around noon and on Sundays. It is large, but very isolated from other towns, up against its own mountain ridge. It is very much its own town, and I wonder at the difference of living in a sleepy little suburb.

But the friend whose site made the biggest impression lives in a town that is a municipality (meaning that it has its own government representation and funding, rather than an aldea, which receives its funding and government services from the closest municipality, as in my case). Although her town has an Indigenous past, and some women still wear a somewhat subtle traje, the language has long been lost, and the mixed Ladino population gives the town a much more Ladino feel. The town is perched high on a mountain, but it had such a more urban feel than my town. The streets are all paved with cement bricks, and the buildings were continuous, which is to say not interspersed with open plots and corn fields, as in my case. It also didn’t seem as though people kept their farm animals tucked within their family complexes, also in my case, so I didn’t see chickens roaming the streets or women dragging reluctant pigs on a rope through the center of town (though this surely occurred on the outskirts of her town).

Beside the physical differences, there was a remarkable difference in the people. We took a walk in the evening after arriving, and everyone stopped us to chat for a prolonged period of time and several people invited us in. We were invited into the house of a middle aged couple, and as soon as we sat down the women brought out a bottle of wine and poured us all a little. I was a little shocked, as in my town the only people that drink at all are the town drunks, and when they drink it is to get completely wasted. The women and more respectable men definitely do not drink, and there is certainly a shroud of shame hanging around the act of drinking. By contrast, in my friend’s town, there were several people out “merrymaking”, women and men, and there it’s a normal and accepted pastime. In the couple’s house, we also got to talking about tortillas, and I was telling my friend how you can make tortillas by just buying corn flour and mixing it with water (rather than the long soaking-and-grinding process that most women in my town do). The woman then proceeded to get out her corn floor and make us some tortillas on the spot, to eat with a bit of cheese. It was a long time before we were able to make polite excuses and get away. We stopped to visit the family that are her closest friends, and the young woman kept telling me how nice and pretty I was. In my own town, I have never once received a direct compliment, nor have I heard anyone else receive one. It’s just not part of the culture. On our way back to her house, a complete stranger invited us to her house for food (we were able to politely decline). By the time we got back to my friend’s house, it was 9 p.m. and we had yet to eat dinner.

In my town, people do not generally invite other people into their houses unless they are visiting family members or unless there is an important celebration going on (such as a wedding or graduation or something). For me, it is a very rare occasion to be invited to someone’s house (definitely not something that would happen multiple times in a day). The dress was different, especially for the women. Some of them wore heavy vivid makeup and more fitted clothing, and some ladies had short hair. All of these things would be unthinkable in my town, where almost no one wears makeup, almost everyone is in traje, and virtually all of the women have hair that trails to their waist or lower (although usually it’s twisted up). Also, the kind of casual teasing that I saw the people engaging with my friend was very different from the more refrained joking and conversation that goes on in my town. And I don’t have “friends” in my town the way I have American friends, people who I can visit in their house and chat about my day, as my friend has in her town. In my town, people spend time almost exclusively with their family and extended families (with the exception of kids still in school, that still have more prominent friendships), though people may be friendly at work or at the market or at church. But I can never see myself hanging out, chatting in someone’s bedroom, or anything like that. I don’t think it really happens here.

At the end of the day, after all the visits, I wouldn’t switch my site for any other. I like that I have my privacy and escape in the evenings… I can almost always count on being alone, which as someone who appreciates alone time, is actually refreshing at the end of my days of chatting with everyone and teaching huge amounts of students. I like living with a family, which gives me my place in society and people I can visit with whenever I like (because they treat me like a family member). I like also that when I leave the house, little kids are excited to see me and several people chat with me. I like my town’s personality, its mix of urban and rural, its distinct Indigenous culture, its isolation, its proximity to Xela and my volunteer friends, and its setting against a beautiful pine mountain ridge.

In training, they told us over and over that everyone ends up loving their site and thinking it’s the best. We didn’t believe them at the time, and our nerves were raw with worry about the sites we’d get dealt, but now I see that it’s true. And my site is, of course, the best.

Estrellas de Hoy Stars of Today

One benefit of hand-washing clothing is that it certainly gives you time to think. Your hands are busy, rhythmically repeating the same motions in the cool water, but your head is clear to roam.
One Sunday in August, I was washing and began to think of my idea for a girl’s group. Since training, I had become obsessed with the idea of starting a girls’ group. I knew that besides the church youth groups, the young people in my community had no social out-of-school time, especially the women. When they weren’t in class, they were working hard in the house. I also noticed that the women in class were often significantly more reserved and timid than the boys. They dreaded having to say anything in class or share their ideas.

As I was washing, the ideas that I had been harboring for months seemed to crystallize. During training, I had heard some other volunteers talking about girls groups they had worked with in the States that involved sports and art to encourage the girls’ expression and confidence, an idea that stuck with me. And of course my own experience lies with leading young people in community service, having spent two years in Boston as an AmeriCorps volunteer. I believe community service is the best way to teach leadership, civic engagement and critical thinking, but it is not a common concept here in Guatemala. I decided I wanted to put on a camp that incorporated all of these things: sports, art, and community service.

Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without funding, especially for art supplies and a service project. This gave me a slight hang-up. I could try to seek it within the community, but I thought my chances of getting it, being so new in town, would be slim to none, and that people may not see the value of the camp (and instead just a frivolous waste of non-working time). But there was also a big population of people in the US that were very enthusiastic and supportive of my service in the Peace Corps, and I knew they would be excited to help me out. It wouldn’t be sustainable, and it wouldn’t be from my own community, which are pitfalls the Peace Corps warned us about time and again. But, I decided then, I could sit around and fret about sustainability and do nothing, or I could ask for support from home and do something new and positive for the young women in town. In that moment I made my decision. I had been tossing around the idea for a girls’ group for months, and if I really wanted this, it was time to start.
I got to work writing up my ideas, schedules and plans for activities. I made a flier to help get the word out at home and coordinating the fundraising from my parent (I asked for a modest amount from a limited number of donors). I tried speaking to some of the other local teachers and women around my age who might be interested in helping out.

In the last couple weeks of school I made presentations in all the classes in the Institute about the camp. I invited the girls to come to an information meeting if they were interested. For the first information meeting, only about 5 girls showed up, and I began to get worried (my goal was 20 participants with 4 team leaders). Once school ended, I would have no good way of contacting the potential participants. I scheduled another meeting and went back to the institute the day before to let the girls know. This time I had almost a full classroom of girls. I presented my idea once more and passed out a sign-up sheet to get their names and phone numbers. And I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

With my parents help, the funding was easily secured because their coworkers and family friends were very supportive, as well as many of my friends that I e-mailed. Although a few women in town had expressed interested in helping me, only one actually followed through by helping me plan a menu for snacks. I spent some of the funding and a good amount of time calling all the girls on my sign-up sheet to tell them about our first day and encourage them to come. I spent Thanksgiving weekend frantically shopping for materials and snack ingredients. I became very nervous, especially when I heard from other volunteers who had very disappointing turn-outs for their camps because of the harvest time. I decided privately that I would be happy if 5 girls showed up, and I would give those 5 girls a great camp.

On the first day, to my immense relief and joy, about 15 girls showed up, including the 4 girls I had selected to be my co-leaders.

I quickly found out that activities I planned took much longer than expected, especially the art because the girls were so meticulous, and every time we played sports, we had so much fun that we didn’t want to stop. In the first week, we only did about half the activities I had previously planned. The girls’ attendance also varied and was never as high as the first day. There was a “core” group of about 7 that came almost every day, but many girls could come only about every other day because they were needed to help at home with the harvest.

I also quickly realized that I had taken on a tremendous amount of work in trying to run a two week sports-art-community service camp on my own. The camp began at 10 every morning and run until 5, with a two hour break for lunch. Despite all the preparations I thought I had done, I was up late each night preparing the activities and supplies and writing up the guides for the team leaders. In the mornings and during the lunch breaks, I was frantically preparing the snacks (which were much more involved than the original snacks I had planned). I ran between the Institute and my house (thankfully only 5 minutes away), carting supplies, about 10 times a day. It was extremely exhausting.

I would often arrive at camp tired and frazzled, but after being around the girls just a little while, my mood would begin to shift. They never failed to energize me, and each day I was with them, I loved what I was doing. I quickly developed a relaxed and joking relationship with them, and I was impressed by the leadership that many of the girls already showed. When we played sports we had the most fun, especially when I taught them dogeball and kickball, and they tried to improve my pitiful soccer skills.

We also did more serious activities, such as community mapping and analyzing community service projects that other young women had accomplished in other communities in the world. The last day of our first week, it was time to create our own idea. I lead them in a brainstorm of what they liked and what they felt was lacking in their community. I gave them a list of 50 ideas for potential service projects and asked them to come up with some ideas in groups. Each group chose the same one: a community garden.

I probed them for why a garden was important to them. They told me that it would make their community more beautiful, give the people a sense of pride, and maybe encourage people to care for the community better and stop throwing trash on the ground. I made them choose some back-up ideas, but I could see they were very excited about the idea of a garden.
I had planned on having a week break in between week 1 and week 2, but the girls wanted to start fundraising for the garden right away. Our first idea was to hang up their art work in the community salon and invite people that were at the market to pay a small amount to come in and see their art and get a free coffee and sell snacks. We painstakingly decorated the salon and lit candles, but sadly only a few people entered the gallery, including the mayors who were trying to be nice. It was a little disheartening to see how few people were interested in helping out the girls. But all of the girls had come with snacks they had prepared at home, and we were able to sell some of the food and earn money that way.

In week 3, the girls dedicated themselves to making a life-like model of the garden, in addition to our regular sports and art activities. I had only intended this activity to be a drawing that would take one morning, but it involved into a week-long project. They carefully cut out little flowers and fences and paths from construction paper and made trees out of real tree branches and a lawn out of pine needles. The result was quite beautiful and impressive. On our last day, we decided to form a club to continue with the garden project. We elected our club leadership and made plans to meet twice a month.

Our club has been slow getting started, now that school has started and most of the girls are back to studying and a lot busier. I also have had less time to dedicate to them with all the teaching I am doing, and finding days to meet has been difficult. But we have made plans to visit some greenhouses in Xela, and they seem excited by the prospect of picking out the trees and plants that they like. I think we will get back into the momentum again. But I do miss the time when I had whole days to spend with them, laughing and joking and teasing and playing, and sometimes having more serious discussions. It was the first time I really felt like I was contributing something to my community, that there was a group of people that really cared about my presence here, and despite all the work, it was the happiest I have been here.

Developing Youth? Part 3, The First Three Months

So in my first three months in site, I decided to focus on teaching Tercero Basico, the oldest middle school grade (equivalent of eighth grade) since we were supposed to focus mostly on doing our diagnostic of the schools. I wanted to try to give them *something* of the program since they’d be graduating (in October), and also that way I would be able to start fresh with the complete program with all 3 grades when the new school year starts (end of January).

Sadly, I didn’t really get to teach that many classes to my Tercero students because in the months Aug-Oct, not really much class time goes one. The month of September was the month of Independence Day, which meant more time was spent preparing for and participating in the festivities than in class. Then at the beginning of October, the Municipality of my communities had their Feria, or town fair, so then there were yet more festivities to prepare for and participate in. Classes ended mid-October. In a couple of my schools, I only really taught 3 or 4 classes in 3 months (pretty sad).

But I definitely learned a lot. Some lessons that I thought would go great completely bombed. Others that I wasn’t optimistic about surprised me. The class of students that I thought I liked the least (they seemed to give me attitude and make fun of my Spanish) ended up being one of my favorites.

There were moments when the entire class would give me blank stares like they clearly had no idea what I was talking about. There were times when I would begin an activity I had planned and suddenly realize that I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it in Spanish. (A highlight was when I was trying to kill 10 minutes at the end of the class by having them do the human knot activity --participants stand in a circle and grab the hands of someone else in the circle and then they have to work as a team to detangle themselves into an open circle, still holding hands. I had 4 circles of students with their hands grasped in the “knot”, and I frantically went around to each group to try to explain what to do next, but they all just looked confused. And I ran out of class time.) There were times when I assigned them an art project, and they would spend half their class time measuring and drawing a perfect rectangle to frame their art, rather than working on the actual project (Guatemalan students are absurdly, painfully meticulous with their schoolwork). There were times when I would assign them group brainstorms, and 20 minutes would pass and their paper would still be blank. There were times when I came ready with a fun game that I’d played with kids in the US, and the students would be too shy or self-conscious to play.

But then there were times when I gave them a problem to solve or a scenario to analyze, and their head would be together as they discussed it earnestly and passionately. They were times where we would play a dinamica (like a warm-up game) and all of us would be cracking up and they would beg me for another. There were times when they would all crowd around me to proudly show me their work.

One of the biggest lessons was a final class report I assigned to the students of my big institute, mostly at the request of the Director. I presented it 2 weeks before it was due, re-presented it a week before it was due, and then when the day arrived for them to hand it in, not a single student (out of 95) handed it in. Also, at the last minute my co-teacher decided that my part of the class should be 50% of the grade, which completely surprised me. In none of the other institutes was I expected to assign grades yet, and I hadn’t been taking consistent attendance or giving much homework because I didn’t expect to have to grade the students. So all I had to go on was this report I had given them… and because these students were in their last year, suddenly it was partly my decision whether they graduated or not… WAY more responsibility than I was expecting or prepared for in my first 3 months. And NO ONE handed it in when it was due! So I spoke to them again, reiterated its importance, and told them it was worth half their grade. The next day to my relief a big stack of reports were turned in. But when I took a closer look, I realized that most of them were just copies of someone else’s work. Probably about 20 students actually wrote the report, and many of those students printed out several copies to give to their friends to hand in. This was especially ridiculous because the report consisted of very individual questions, such as “In your opinion, how is your self-esteem?” and “What are two goals you have for the future and what is your plan for achieving them?” OBVIOUSLY (I thought) each one would have to be different. But somehow the students thought they could get away with it. So now I was REALLY distraught. I came in and talked to them again and told them that if their work was the same as another person’s I couldn’t accept it. So I gave them yet another chance to turn in the report. Finally, the message sunk in and most of the students turned in their individual work. (Some of them were amazing, full of art work and thoughtful insights into themselves. Most were just a brief, fragmented sentence for every question with bad grammar that didn’t have much thought put into it.)

Really, I don’t blame the students. I see this incidence as a sad reflection of the education they’ve been given and the standards they’ve been held to. Obviously if a vast majority just copied work, they’ve gotten away with it before. And these are the students that graduated, most of whom probably will not continue studying.

But one of the best things that happened was when the 12 students from my smallest institute showed up at my house one morning (this was after classes had ended but before the graduation ceremonies) after having made the 45 minute walk in the rain from their community. They had come to give me an invitation to be the “Madrina” for their graduation. The Madrinas or Padrinas (literally, godmothers and godfathers) are either teachers the students found inspiring or important members of the community. These “Godparents” are expected to get each student a gift or a sum of money and make a speech at the ceremony. I was very touched that they had chosen me and that the whole class (so what if it’s 12?) made the long walk to deliver the invitation to me in person (even if I did make the same walk each week to teach). The Graduation Ceremony was a success, and especially important because it was the first ever for this institute (which is only 3 years old). I did feel honored. I also made it through my speech alright, even wishing everyone a good evening without looking at my notes (“the mayor and his corporation, representatives of the Junta Directiva, the director and faculty of the establishment, male students, female students, parents of the family, gentlemen of the music, and general public, good evening… a lot harder in Spanish!). And I bought them each a double-sided picture frame. In one side I put the “inscription” I wrote about the graduation and the other I left empty for the pictures I took on graduation night. Needless to say, I spent hours painstakingly cutting out construction paper as a matte for the picture and “inscription” and putting in perfectly in place. Thank god there were only 12.

There were certainly challenges in my first three months, but they only made my successes and breakthroughs that much better. Really, it was the perfect time to start. We had three months to “dive in” and get a taste of the reality of the institute—of the teachers, students, directors—and what it’s like to teach a class of Guatemalan teenagers (in my case, Guatemalan indigenous teenagers whose distant second language is Spanish). Then, thankfully, the school vacations rolled around, so we have 3 more months to get our feet under us before it all starts again. And when the school year starts, I will be teaching around 600 students in 3 institutes in the afternoons (each class once a week), and an English class for 3 elementary grades one morning a week. I also hope to have a girl’s group that meets regularly, and possibly in the future a drama club… but we’ll see. Oh yes, and I want meet regularly with the existing Women’s Group, stay involved with the Catholic youth group, in addition to holding workshops with parents, training teachers, and organizing extra-curricular activities, such as career fairs and field days!! Whew, it’s exhausting just to think about. Who knew it was possible to be such a workaholic in the Peace Corps? But I have no doubt it will be rewarding. It already has been, and supposedly this was the “hard part.”

Developing Youth? Part 2, The Program

The idea of our program is to prepare the middle school kids for adulthood by giving them some more practical skills than they may get in their other classes. (The students are in middle school, but most of them are US high school-aged because students are often held back or take a year off in between grades for one reason or another.) The program focuses on themes such as self-esteem, effective communication, goal-setting, careers, decision-making, sex ed., gender roles, etc. All of it is very participatory—such as team-building activities, problem-solving, working on teams, coming up with skits. Most students find these types of activities challenging because they usually spend their days listening silently to the teacher lecture or reading from their text books or copying information. They don’t get many opportunities to practice the critical thinking, communication, and creativity that participatory methods require, and they are often very shy and self-conscious. But they also seem to really like the classes because they’re a welcome change. Plus volunteers get an automatic rock-star status, being from the US, so that helps (at least for a while, until the glow fades).

Part of our job is also to train teachers in teaching our program with the idea that eventually they take it over. We’re never supposed to teach without another teacher in the classroom and the goal is to be co-teaching by the end of our two years. This can be really difficult because many teachers see the volunteer as someone that will take over the class while he/she can take a break and get other stuff done. We’re also supposed to give teacher trainings and workshops with all the teachers to help them develop participatory education methods, train them on teaching sex ed., and hopefully work in some training on professionalism. Part of our job is also to hold workshops with parents to give them the skills and info to better support their children.

Developing Youth? Part 1, The Situation

In all my blogging during my first three months in site, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t really talked about what I actually do—what my job and primary program is.

I am in Guatemala’s Youth Development Program, which is only in its second year. A “pilot” group of 5 volunteers came before my group of 15, and they’ve only been doing it for a year. So it’s a brand new program in Guatemala, and its success is still to be determined. We work in the middle schools, or “institutos básicos,” teaching a “Life Skills” program.

(From here, I am going to break it up into segments because there is a lot to be said about the Guatemala education system and our program and my personal experiences so far… so hopefully in bits it will be easier to get through!)

The Situation

The reality in Guatemala is that about half of the population continues onto middle school. The other half drop out after between one and six years of elementary school. Only about 1 in 10 continue to high school (or “diversificado”), and a very small percentage (maybe 2%) go to university.

What’s maybe even a sadder reality is that those few years of education that most Guatemalans receive is often less-than-quality (to put it nicely). There is very little regulation and standardization of how the schools are run and how professional and motivated the teachers are. My schools seem to be better than some, but even so, often a teacher won’t show up for class, leaving the students to just sit around for one or several class periods. (Other volunteers have told me stories about showing up at their Institutes to find only the students sitting around waiting for teachers that never showed up.) Even when they do show, many teachers will just read from a text book or have their students copy from one. Using class time to grade papers is the norm. Typically, teachers and directors (or principals) show up a half hour late. The students are often there before them. School is also canceled for the slightest reason. For a month leading up to the Independence Day Activities, school went from 1-3 or so (instead of from 1-6:30), so the rest of the afternoon could be dedicated to practicing for the parade. I’ve also seen class cancelled for soccer games. Teachers will abandon class to have meetings. Any holiday (and Guatemala has a lot of ‘em) is reason enough to cancel school or hold celebratory activities in place of class. Really, the amount of time the students actually spend learning is sadly little.

Of course there are exceptions. In all of my institutes, I have seen some teachers that are very professional, that obviously put a lot of work into their lessons, and that really value class time. But unfortunately, they’re a minority. This seems ridiculous considering Guatemala actually has an excess of people who are trained as teachers. The high schools here are all focused on some sort of career training, and the vast majority of them are for training teachers. So almost everyone that goes to high schools ends up being trained to be a teacher… which means that most of them won’t actually find a job teaching.

With so many teachers looking for work, you would think that only the very best would be the teaching in the middle schools. But this is not the case. Most middle schools (and elementary schools) are managed by a co-op of parents (usually all men) called the Junta Directiva. The members of the Junta don’t have to have had any formal training or background in education. They just have to be influential and respected members of the community. But that doesn’t mean (in my opinion) that they’re equipped to hire and evaluate the teachers. Many times teachers get their jobs through some connection with a member of the Junta. Often the Junta will take into consideration the input of the Director, and sometimes they rely on the Director completely to make their decisions. But that can mean that an Institute’s Director can have incredible power to set the tone and standards of an Institute… which can be good or bad depending on the Director. It can also mean that some Institutes are corrupt because they are run almost single-handedly by corrupt Directors with almost unbridled power (who may choose to skim some money off of the budget for him/herself). Also, it’s the director’s discretion as to whether or not they get in the classroom to observe the teachers and get an idea of how well they’re teaching. In some smaller schools the Director is also a teacher, which doesn’t allow time for observation. I have yet to see a Director enter a classroom to check on the teachers.

A very different Christmas season

It's strange being here during the Christmas season. For one thing there's the weather. It went from being bright and sunny in the morning and gloomy and rainy every afternoon to suddenly very bitterly cold and sometimes overcast in the mornings and usually clear, sunny and even hot in the afternoons, and chilly again as soon as the sun sets (I don't think I will ever understand how the weather could do a complete 180 like that). It's not quite like any season in Montana, and certainly not like the beginning of winter/Christmas weather. I feel like I'm in some kind of Twilight zone where the passage of time follows a whole new set of rules, and is most distinctly marked by the presence or absence of rain and the state of the milpas, or cornfields. Back in the "summer months"' (but what they call winter), the corn stalks boasted dark green shiny leaves. Beginning in October, they crisped and curled into a pale golden brown that glows copper when the morning or evening light hits it. Now, harvest time, the corn stalks have either been toppled haphazardly to the ground (to collect the dried corn) or chopped all together, leaving the bare mounds of earth bristled with spiky stumps. The milpas are interspersed throughout the town, and now that they've been chopped down, suddenly the town has opened up and you can see the neighboring houses and stores as if several curtains dividing up the town had suddenly been drawn, leaving the buildings bare and exposed.

As far as Christmas, it has been acknowledged in small ways, but it is not the explosion of Christmas that takes place back home. Decorations have popped up on a few houses, a scattering of a few Christmas lights and an occassional tree poking up from a roof (since most of the houses are made of concrete block, most of them are square with a flat roof you can access, including mine). Apparently here the Christmas trees go on the roofs rather than in windows. The hardware store that my host family operates has been transformed, in the evenings, into a flashing singing Christmas wonderland of electronic santas and little trees and Christmas lights, products they're selling. (But inside the house, there's nary a Christmas decoration to be seen.) And on the camionetas (buses) I occassionally hear a Christmas song in Spanish. Mostly, they just get on my nerves though. The songs are either manically upbeat and happy or so sticky sweet and sappy that they make me feel more scroogish about the season. (They're probably no more corny than the songs back home, but because a series of happy memories are not attaced to them, they don't have the same effect). For someone who dearly loves Christmas, I'm mostly trying to ignore it this year. It's so different here as to be almost a completely different holiday, and thinking too much about the Christmas that's going on at home just makes me homesick. So generally I'm just trying to pretend it's not going on.

At one point I did try to acknowledge Christmas. I bought a teeny Christmas tree in the supermarket and brought it home to decorate with the 6 year old girl in the family. I brought it up to the patio outside of my "apartment"(if that's what you can call it) and the neighbors accross the street that same day had put a big fake tree on their roof with lots of decorations and flashing, singing lights. I teased them that it wasn't as good as my tree, and although I'd planned on putting it somewhere inside, I decided to leave mine outside on the patio for a while accross from the big tree, on a ledge where I usually leave my dishes. Well I forgot to bring it in, or didn't bother. Of course that night happened to be very windy, and when I woke up, the tree was gone. I wasn't too worried because I figured it had fallen down to the open part of the house below, but when I asked, the family said they hadn't seen it. The little girl and I walked out to look for it on the street, but it wasn't there. I asked the neighbors accross the way, and they had not seen it either. We all figured that someone, who gets up earlier than me, must have come accross it and brought it home.

So my one attempt failed, but at least it's become a favorite joke in the neighborhood. People just love to bring up my Christmas (that I had for about 5 hours) and speculate about where it might be. I've told all the children my theory that it flew up to the mountain to live with all the other pine trees, where it is the one and only Christmas tree.