Packing

I’ve been in Guatemala for almost a year now and the new class of Healthy Schools volunteers are receiving their invitations and preparing for their January departure. I’ve got a few emails from people asking about packing tips for Guatemala, so here it goes.

Guatemala is a very geographically diverse country. Some volunteers live in the mountains at altitudes about 9,000 ft. Temperatures can drop below freezing and with no in door heating, fleeces, flannels and down sleeping bags are a must. I’ve got friend whose pilas (large basins used to store water during the week) freeze during the night, and they’ve sent home for warmer pajamas, thicker socks and hats and gloves. I spent the last week in Antigua, and a major cold front came in. The temperatures didn’t get above 50 all day and there’s no heat at the training center so be prepared to be bundled up even  in the classroom.  Out of the 180 or so volunteers in Guatemala, around 170 would tell you leave your flip flops, tank tops and sundresses at home, its too cold to get a tan. However, I spent most of the months of April, May, June and July wishing that it was culturally appropriate to wear a bikini to work. I live in arguably the hottest site in Guatemala. It’s a constant joke at the training center that the volunteers in Chisec don’t know how to pack for trips out of Alta Verapaz because I never show up with enough clothing (this was also a problem of mine back in California). Temperatures here range from about 75-110 year round. Its so humid that any thick cottons will mold before they dry and everything picks up this warm jungle smell. The only long pants I’ve worn in site are my white linen pants because they protect my legs from bugs and sun, and even those get too hot sometimes. I rarely wear anything with sleeves and I don’t even know what happened to all my socks (I haven’t pulled them out to wear since basketball season ended in June). While I own several pairs of shoes, great hiking boots, running shoes, business casual flats, I only wear my rainbow sandals in site unless I’m working out. I’ve yet to see a Q’eqchi woman wear closed toed shoes and really I could probably get away with not wearing shoes at all. Men tend to wear rain boots or cowboy boots all year round, but they make up for the amount of coverage on their feet by rarely wearing shirts. One of the returned volunteers from Chisec decided he was going to go an entire month without wearing a shirt to see if anyone notice. He was disappointed to find that people simply assumed he’d finally “gone native”.  A few weeks ago I took most of my clothes into Coban to get washed and dried (no dryers in Chisec). I left everything at a friends house in San Cristobal so that they don’t get ruined by the mold up here. I guess the best bit of advice I can give is  don’t pack anything you aren’t willing to part with after your service. Hand washing, harsh soaps and the weather wear away your clothes here much faster than in the U.S.

 

I’m off to wash my pillow cases (all my bedding molded while I was away for the week)

 

Halloween

So just because we're living in remote villages in the middle of the jungle does not mean Peace Corps volunteers don't celebrate American holidays. In fact, many PCVs spend months planning, designing and sewing costumes. The volunteers in Alta Verapaz (the best volunteers in Guatemala) throw an annual Halloween party and this year the theme was  super heroes and super villians.

Where in the world is Amy Van Buren.

Amy and Becca do Guatemala

Church in Panajachel

Amzo in the boat

Santa Cruz la Laguna

Lago Atitlan and the volcano

A room with a view

Catching some z's

posing

our attempt to spell out KT, missing our other best friend

surprise?

View from the mountains above Santa Cruz

Amy reading up

Relaxing

Guatemalan man on the boat

Hammock style

Lake side

lunch.

Road down to San Marcos

Lots of love.

Roomies

Love them or hate them, life is full of sharing rooms, houses, and leftovers with roommates. I’ve had a lot of roommates in the past, some I’ve loved, others I’ve been less than enthusiastic about and life here in Guatemala is no different. Now Peace Corps policy prohibits us from cohabiting with other Peace Corps volunteers, something about not integrating with society kind of deal, although personally I think Guatemalans find it quite bizarre that I’m not living with my family or at least friends. I think some even generally feel sorry for my solitary home life, which may explain the frequent early morning visits from several of my male teachers. (that or my habit of doing yoga at 6am in just shorts and a sports bra). Someone must have put an ad up on craiglist advertising my house. Possibly something along the lines of:
Gringa seeks roommates in her cozy two bedroom hut to aid in further integration into jungle lifestyle.

Recent responses to the alleged ad have included, scorpions, tarantulas, this horrendous arachnid known as a tailless whip scorpion which is neither scorpion nor spider, toads, mice, iguanas, ants, mosquitoes and the neighbors dog (he came running into my house a few nights ago dragging not just the chain they use to tie him up with but the entire tree branch he was tied to). And just like roommates they eat my food, keep me up late at night and steal my stuff. The dog ran off with one of my shower sandals earlier today, I took off after him but the little mutt is fast.
Generally my roommates are annoying but I deal. Its easier to gently relocate the tarantulas outside then clean up the hairy squished mess and I even caught one of the scorpions (hes living in an empty peanut butter jar). The tailless whip scorpion has escaped my attempts at smashing him with a boot so many times that I’ve decided to adopt the motto “walk softly and carry a big stick”.  If my life were a reality show it would be called Survivor: Guatemalan Jungles, life in a giant terrarium…lets just say I'm glad I sleep underneath a mosquito net.

Would you want this living in your shower?

Tailless whip scorpion

smattering of photos from life in Guatemala

Chris and some guatemalan boys

new roommate

mike and chris bbqing in tactic

mike and michelle

lorba and her meat

the famous arch in antigua

antigua churches

salto(waterfall) 

antigua with Volcan Agua in the background

carrying a load

the parrot that lives in the yard

cuevas candelaria campo santo

Chris's house (where ive been living until he comes back in Oct)

mudslide!

About a month ago Chris and I were headed to Coban to watch a big soccer game. About an 45 minutes into the two hour ride all traffic stopped, and for a road that rarely sees more than two or three cars in the same mile stretch, it was crazy seeing about a hundred cars backed up. Everyone got out, and after arguing with the driver about getting a refund on half of our fare, we followed the crowd and started walking. Turns out heavy rains turned the hillside to heavy mud and in the middle of the night a huge plot of a corn field fell. We had to walk about 300 yards through mud below the highway with all of our stuff to get to the other side. Chris was wearing boots so he had no problem, but I was in my rainbows (as usual) and ended up hiking in my bare feet. Here are some pics Chris took of the mudslide.

just getting by

So food is in a major shortage down here because, well aid isn't reaching the needy and theres a major draught.   (Its barely rained at all in the last month and this is supposed to be the height of the rainey season) The poor indigenous people can't afford to keep the food they grow and they have to sell their beans and eggs instead of giving them to their kids. People are malnourished because all they can afford is tortillas and while they dont really look like the starving African babies you see on television and in new articles because they're full of corn, they  are really sick and struggle to survive and sometimes fall asleep on eachother/me on the buses.

What this translates to is that food prices are skyrocketing. Tomatoes cost 2 Quetzales/lb in March and they now cost 5Q/lb. There are no reason for the price increase other than the food crisis (no seasonal factors) but for whatever reason apples are dirt cheap, probably because they have such a short season and also because Guatemalans seem opposed to anything that you can't fry or serve in a bag.

So what does this all mean, it means that I can buy a pound of apples for 2Q (8.4Q=$1). So today I was like alright im gonna by some apples, but they arent all pretty and groomed like the ones in the states (did you know their are federal regulations in the US of A about what produce has to look like, ie no funny looking carrots, lopsided apples, etc) so I didnt want to just eat the apples plain, with bruises and potential ameobas so I decided to cook them. I peeled, cored and cubed the apples and threw them in a pot with some water, some sugar, a  ton of cinnamon and let them boil. I passed out in the hammock and 30 minutes later woke up, turned the stove off and smashed up the apples into their gooey goodness.  Tastes just like apple pie filling.

But not to make light of a very serious problem, Healthy Schools volunteers, myself included, have been hosting special community meetings to parents, teachers, women's groups and other social organizations to stress the importance of proper nutrition and cost saving ways to provide food for not just children but all those going hungry. And while the problem is much more deeply routed than  spending habits and lack of education, we are doing what we can.

Below are a few links to articles about this crisis in Guatemala.

Economist:

http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displayStory.cfm?

story_id=14313735&source=hptextfeature

CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/09/guatemala.calamity/index.html