trans-kaqchikel

Buenas noches! As of tomorrow, I will have been here in Poaquil for one month. And it has gone by so fast. I've been at the Centro de Salud everyday, some days just giving a charla in the morning to the waiting room, other days going out to the aldeas, and others going to schools. We spent 2 days doing topographical surveying for potable water lines in one of the aldeas, Nueva Esperanza. That was awesome because we worked with my companero Ryan that lives in a town 12 km away. He was quite helpful, whilst I spent my time whittling him his own Harry Potter wand with my machete.

I've been out of my town the last two weekends, one in Xela and the other in Antigua. Xela was lovely - stayed in San Franscisco El Alto, Totonicopan, with my lovely pal Anna. There's a ton of volunteers who live within an hour or so of Xela, so it was a hoot to see all of them. Antigua was exactly as we left it - tourist central. On the way back from Antigua, I fell off the camioneta in Chimaltenango when I was changing buses and busted the crap out of my elbow. As in gushing blood and it's still killing me a week later.

I went to Chimal this morning to get out of dodge and see if I could buy wireless internet there or if I'd have to make the trek to Guate. Long story short, I'm sitting in my bed with my computer right now. Yay. Days just seem to come and go here and there's not much stress. Which is awesome. I was discussing with my sitemate earlier today about how the people here don't really seem to have any self-consciousness, which is admirable. I'm sure a lot of it is that it's a much less materialistic place, mostly because it has to be! The people here are really just, in the words of one Jacqui Stewart, "just trying to live." I wish I had coined that, but it's really the best way to describe things here.

I think the reason I haven't been too quick on the blog updates is that things are all starting to seem normal. What was surprising and blog-worthy a month ago now is commonplace, so I'm finding less things worth mentioning. And day-to-day work would be unbelievably dull to recount. I'm starting to find a groove here, really without even trying to. Next up: time to find my pony.

poaquileña

Yes, I am alive! This is the first time I´ve been on a computer in over a week, but now that I´m here and settled, más o menos, I´ll hopefully be a little less out of touch. Everyone talks about how hard the first 3 months in site are, but I´m thinking that won´t be the case here. My first week went ridiculously well. Let me just mention right now that the precious tween in her traditional traje on the computer next to me is looking up pictures of Bon Jovi. Be still, my heart. Instead of a boring rundown, I´ll just hit some high points:

-Kaqchikel class. Absolute hilarity. Fortunately, we all stink at it so there´s no where to go but up. Our teacher, Israel, is rather patient. I´m also going to be giving an English class in our Centro de Salud every Thursday afternoon, but yesterday we didn´t get back from the nacimientos in time.

-Día de las comadronas. In other words, midwife day at an ONG here, Ixin Ac'uala'. Ixin Ac'uala' is a local branch of the Christian Children´s Fund...hmmm. The comadronas spent half the morning preparing an enormous pot of caldo, soup with veggies and an unidentified meat, and then did a little dance and some speeches. All in Kaqchikel, I understood almost nothing. I got to call off the raffle, which was a scream.

-Disinfecting the nacimientos of one of Poaquil´s aldeas, Hacienda María. We schlepped across the side of a mountain and down into the valley to the water source and scrubbed down the cajas and put a 60% concentration (!) of cloro in the main caja to kill whatever crap is in there. Apparently, this is done 2 times per year. There´s about 30 aldeas of Poaquil, and who knows how many nacimientos each one has. So that means this happens a lot, I guess. We went to two others, also for Hcda María, which was back up the side of the mountain and down into another valley. My new Converse kicks were not a good choice of footwear for this caminata.

-I´m going to skip over the week before this one because all it was were a ton of meetings and sessions, followed by swear-in at the ambassador´s house in Guatemala City on Friday. We all spent the weekend in Antigua, which was fantabulous. AND SAW HARRY POTTER! It was amazing.

All the doorways in this country are covered by curtains, cortinas, and they are sooooo necessary. There are these enormous flying ants here called sompopos, and they land on the cortinas (better than in my bedroom). I felt like I was in Super MarioWorld the other day, in Bowser´s Castle, knocking sompopos off the cortina from the opposite side instead of turtles across the net.

Peace Corps would be very pleased to know that my danger radar is fairly sensitive these days. I was on the camioneta, heading to Antigua last week, when 2 FULLY dressed and painted clowns boarded the bus. My first thought is, ¨well, glad I´m not carrying much money, because we´re all about to be held up.¨ Fortunately, that wasn´t the case and I was just a smidge paranoid. But, let´s face it, clowns are scary as hell.

I´m going to wrap this up by informing all of you I purchased my machete today. Such a proud moment for my parents, I´m sure. But you do really need them here...everyone carries them without a sheath or a scabbard, which is weird. The men just tuck the handle into their belt and it swings along with them. I hope everyone is doing well, and I´ll be back with more soon.

Nos vemos.

serenita

Things I´ve Learned Thus Far in Guatemala:

-Jeans are appropriate for 99% of occassions. Possibly more.
-It is perfectly acceptable to have a cell phone but not wear shoes.
-Laundry day is typically determined by the weather.
-Refracciones are a must if you want people to show up to something.
-Hora chapina. It kills you and your planning. ALWAYS have a book or something.
-Jobs/schools shut down during fería.
-This is a country of cultures colliding. You will see men in traje spraying crops with pesticides and little girls wearing corte (traje skirt) with a Hannah Montana t-shirt.
-The world does not stop if you are sick.
-For a country that exports excellent coffee, it can be crazy difficult to find good coffee to drink.
-Guatemalans are extremely creative about carrying all their crap.
-There is no such thing as salad dressing - lime juice and salt.
-Quesadilla is not what you would expect. It´s essentially a super sweet cornbread here.

brisas.

Well, we´re all about to hit the ground running. Today is the first day I´ve had a couple minutes to make it to a computer in quite some time, and I´m about to get MUCH busier. Today was the day...dum dum dum...we found out where we´re going!

I´m going to have to eat my words from my last post, first and foremost, because I said I wouldn´t take anyone to visit Chimaltenango. When I said that, I meant the cabecera (departmental capital, kind of like Austin is to Texas), not the department in general. But I´m eating my words because in just a few short weeks I´m going to live in Chimal...ideally with this pet raccoon I plan on getting. Specifically, San José Poaquil. It´s in the northern part of the department, not at all too far from Lago de Atlitlan. Two of my pals from training (Ryan and Stacy) are going to be pretty darn close to me also. Ahhhh, and there´s Mayan ruins within an hour of me! The town is 95% indigenous and speaks a fair bit of Spanish, but I´m excited about learning some Kakchiquel.

I´m going to go visit next week, so I´ll know a heck of a lot more after that. Finally, that huge weight is off our shoulders (also because our VIH/SIDA taller was today, but it was remarkably unmemorable...perhaps because only one person showed up and we had to modify). Anyways, the rest of my time before swearing in is going to go by lickity-split.

This past Friday, the Pastores kids and us from Dueñas went for a little caminata up through Antigua to this really cool cross that overlooks the whole city. Of course we ran into other tourists, but these gringos were super special in the fact that a slew of them were from Houston and were in Guatemala with the organization Living Water. Which I plan on finding out more about. On Saturday, our Dueñas crowd (including families...like 26 people) and two other trainees, Anna and Courtenay, fled Sacatepequez for the beach. Las Lisas is practically in El Salvador along the Pacific coast, and was quite relaxing. A bunch of my host family´s family lives there, so we stayed with them. I personally can´t imagine Mom/Dad or any other middle-aged parent I know bunking down on the concrete floor with everyone. But that´s what all the Guatemalans did! Well, other than those of us who slept in hammocks, my fortunate self included. This is where I got the idea for my future pet raccoon...the Las Lisas relatives had one named Jackie (I hope the irony isn´t lost on you all...it certainly wasn´t on me).

The schools finally went back today, after 2 1/2 weeks off, supposedly for AH1N1, which I prefer to refer to as gripe porcina. Anyways, we were all on pins and needles all morning waiting to find out. In short, out of my preventive health training group, 3 of us are going to Chimaltenango, 2 to Huehuetenango, 2 to San Marcos, and 8 to Totonicopan. Wooooh! A ton has happened recently, but I just wanted to hit the high points and pretend like I´m not forgetting to update this thing when I can.

Please keep the letters and emails coming, I love them! Ooooh, but for packages, try a box instead of an envelope, don´t send anything valuable (please), and try to put religious symbols on the outside (seriously, it´s supposed to work). Books and magazines are excellent items. I should have some time this weekend, well, when we´re not celebrating the 4th of July, so I´ll see if I can´t get some more info up then.

¡Nos vemos!
Marta

santa cecilia.

Aaahhhhh, where to begin. Perhaps with a small anecdote. Yes, I think that´s a swell idea. So I´m standing on the corner in Antigua waiting for the bus to head home, and a "gentleman" (yes, that´s in quotes for a reason) feels the need to ask me, "Hey baby! How you doin´ and how much?" Somewhat humorous I felt. It´s rather bizarre that the people who try to speak English to you here only say things like "I love you" or "Hey baby, how you doing?" Whatevs.

So, Sunday night I had a crash course in hand-washing clothes in the pila. Apparently my host mom is 5 months pregnant and her doc doesn´t want her doing laundry anymore. Fíjese que, that´s hilarious. She told me that I have quite the aptitude and was impressed by how fast I picked it up. Uhhh, ok. I may not have had to do my own laundry until college, but I feel that I am more than making up for it these days. It took me literally 15 minutes to wash just ONE pair of jeans...they´re the worst. Fortunately, there is a washing machine, but they say it doesn´t work well and just use it to wash sheets. Anyways. It´s weird to wash your clothes with this kind of bar soap, and they don´t ever really smell fresh and clean the way that they do when they come out of the dryer. I miss that smell.

I experienced my first bit of camioneta trouble this past weekend on Saturday. A group of us (2 from Dueñas, 3 from Pastores, and 3 from San Luis Las Carretas) went to Zaragosa, Chimaltenango to visit the one and only Grant P-M. Grant, if you´re reading this, thanks again! We had a ball. But first we had bus trouble. We´re in the middle of the road between Pastores and Parramos, about 15 minutes outside of Antigua when the bus stops and then just doesn´t go anywhere. Keep in mind that I´m sharing the bench with 2 other full grown adults, and there´s a chapino ass in my face too. To put it mildly, it was a rather full camioneta. After about 20 minutes of just sitting there, people start getting off in hopes that another bus will come by and we might be able to hop on. Disembark. A bus comes by, and for the FIRST time I´ve seen in 2 months, doesn´t stop because it was full. Usually they don´t give a hoot if everyone is standing on each other. After about 15 minutes of hanging around outside the bus, it turns back on and there´s a mad dash for the back door. Fortunately we all made it in through the door before it took off running with the door swinging in the wind. Apparently all fixed and we made it to Chimal without further incident. If any of you reading this come to visit me, we are NOT going to be visiting Chimal. It is a rather nasty city that is really just good for changing buses to get to the antiplano of the Western Highlands of Guatemala. We had a lovely rest of the day shooting the breeze and eating Grant´s homemade hummus. Snazzy.

I actually managed to go riding yesterday morning, which was delightful, despite the piss-poor weather. It was literally pouring, but we went out anyways. The people that own the stables are rather...eccentric...British ex-pats. It was lovely to ride a trained horse again, however. My swell friend Anna accompanied me, and was a great trooper even though she was soaking wet and somewhat confused. But if you know Anna, you know confusion isn´t an uncommon frame of mind for her :) There was an interesting point on the ride where Fred, the hubby, speaks up about how he thinks this country needs a good ole epidemic disease to wipe out some of the population growth. He continues by commenting on how he thought AIDS was going to do it, but it´s looking like it won´t be able to do the trick. Vaya. Too bad we´re here working to improve health and prevent disease...

We had a hilarious little language confusion in Spanish class the other day. One of the girls here in Dueñas with me is from Louisana. We were discussing animals in Spanish, because I didn´t know how to say quail or possum. Rafael, our Spanish teacher, starts talking about nutrias, these precious little animals that swim and some people even keep as pets in their pilas. Lauren´s jaw drops, because apparently there are nutrias in the States, and they´re nasty water rats that are kind of similar to possums. I have no clue. Rafael is talking about how beautiful nutrias are, and what great pets they can be. Us gringas continue to be ridiculously confused, but just accepting it. After all, possum meat is a delicacy here. We finally discover that nutria is the word here in Guatemala for otter. Yes, I would like to have an otter in my pila as a pet. No, I would not like to have a Lousiana nutria, EVER.

I feel normal again, but will be continuing to take horse-sized antibiotics 3 times a day for another two weeks. Whoo! Happy belated Father´s Day again to you, Daddy, and I hope everyone had fun at John´s last night. Wish I had been able to be there. Fam, please email me some new pictures of the one and only Libby Mae! We´re coming down to the wire here...I find out where I´m going forever on July 1. Cross your fingers I end up somewhere, I don´t know, whatever. I don´t even know what I want in a site anymore. It will all work out.

Muchos besos,
Marta

xoyita.

Ahhhh, the after effects of our field based training. What an...interesting...8 days. In a nutshell, we left from Antigua on Saturday for San Antonio Ilotenango, Quiché. Wednesday morning we left San Antonio for San Martín Sacatepequez, Quetzaltenango. Returned to our training towns on Sunday.

We did everything from give charlas about lombrices (worms) to an HIV/AIDS workshop to cooking class with indigenous women and children to playing basketball in the muni with little kids to visit the "slaughterhouse" of the towns, etc. It was a really full and interesting week, but I feel like I kind of missed out on a lot of it because I felt horrible the second half of the week. Apparently, I have amoebas and a bacterial infection, and had NO energy. Fortunately, as of today, I´m feeling tons better. For being on 4 different antibiotics, I´d better be feeling better. I had to go to the hospital Friday night to figure out what was wrong with me, and I SO wanted to be in the States at one of the two rehearsal dinners that were happening that night. I have no idea if they´re reading this, but huge congrats to Richard/Gwendolyn and Amanda/Ben...I´m so sad I had to miss your weddings! The one upside of Saturday is that after we finished all our work of the week, we went to the Fuentes Georginas near Zunil, in Xela (same thing as Quetzaltenango). They were FANTASTIC. I have pictures somewhere on Facebook. I hadn´t ever been to hot springs before, so it was a major treat.

We´re (my town) giving an HIV/AIDS workshop here at some point in the next week or so, the details are still being hammered out. Current volunteers came in from their sites to help us out with the planning this past Mon/Tues/Wed which was incredibly helpful, and it´s also nice to get to know some volunteers outside our loony group of trainees.

I feel like this is a really boring update without my fav brand of dry humor, but I guess I had trouble finding sarcasm when I felt so crummy. This morning, we met our Spanish teacher, Rafael (Pastores, be jealous) and went to Jocotenango, a town just on the other side of Antigua. There is a "cultural center" there at this coffee finca called La Azotea, and we had a tour of the coffee-making process and some Mayan cultural education. Considering I didn´t drink coffee until 2 months ago, I didn´t know anything about it until this morning.

I´ve decided it will be hilariously ironic if I end up owning a horse in this country for transportation purposes (it´s really common) when I never was able to in the States because they´re so crazy expensive. However, that´s a long way off with lots of details to figure out, and quite possibly may never happen. Wooooo, I´m off for now. Time is starting to move FAST, and we find out where we´re going for the next 2 years in just over a week! Craziness. Keep the letters/packages/emails coming (the only ones NOT on my shit list are Mom/Dad, Rachael, and Lily W) as I´m really starting to miss celebrity gossip and idle chitchat from home.

Mere

Primorosa.

Buenas. I´m so tired! I´ve been working all week on this presentation for tomorrow afternoon. It´s essentially just about a 30 min ¨charla¨to middle school kids about why it´s a good idea to wash your hands, but in a fun and educational manner. I don´t know how teachers do it. I´ve been working and editing the same lesson plan for like three days.

This pastSaturday, we all met up in Santa Lucía for some kind of Mayan ceremony; I´m still not totally sure exactly what it was for. I learned that apparently because of my specific birthdate and year, I supposedly have tons of energy and share that and other attributes with Carlos Santana and Winston Churchill. Snazzy. For the afternoon, we met up in Antigua, surprise, surprise. It was really nice just to chill out because things are really starting to roll along. I spent about 5 hours on Sunday at Valhalla, the macadamia nut finca thats about 1 km from my town. I read almost all of Unaccustomed Earth...fantastic book. Couldn´t put it down. I got a funny text in the afternoon from our techníco de salud in our Puesto. Earlier in the week, we had been joking about going to happy hour on Sunday, but we all thought she was kidding. Nope.

On Monday, we switched Spanish teachers...so sad. Our town really misses Sandra, but Rafael is our new teacher and he´s pretty good too. I had my second language proficiency interview on Monday, and am apparently now at the level medio/medio. The only reason that´s a good thing is because you have to be at that level at least at the end of training to go out in the field.

I was on pins and needles for most of Tuesday because we were in Santa Lucía at the training center all day, and I was anxiously awaiting an email about Libby Mae! I´m so glad she´s here and Candace is doing well, too. And Aunt Kath, I know you´re reading this...I tried to call and text you to tell you happy birthday, but I couldn´t get it to go through!

Next week, us Rural Home Preventive Health (RHPH, or salud preventiva) trainees are going on field based training (FBT). Go look at a map, we´re going to Quiché and San Martín Sacatepequez (en Quetzaltenango). It´s going to be 8 days of some really intense stuff, but should be really fun too. We´re headed off with the kids from Pastores (another training town around Antigua). Tomorrow morning (Fri), we´re going to Antigua for a specific class on how certain terms and phrases translate and don´t really mean the same thing...should be pretty beneficial for all of us.

Please send me mail! It´s so fun to get snail mail (and emails...Kels, where´s my weekly fix?). I finally uploaded some pictures to Facebook that I had taken throughout the last 6 months or so I was in the States...it´s hilarious that I finally get around to uploading them when I´m having to pay to use the internet here in Guate. Since we´re leaving Saturday, I won´t have access to a computer for a while...

Wish me luck with my charla tomorrow. My spanish needs your luck.

Marta