Its gorgeous here...
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Vacations and Out of Site
So I’ve been getting several emails from friends asking if they can come visit. The answer is yes, of course. Please come, bring everyone you know. Even if I didn’t particularly like you at home I’ll probably like you now, so come visit. You can even call it a volunteer trip and help us work on the Chisec Health Clinic, good resume material and you can practice Spanish or for the more daring, Q’qechi. Visitors can come any time but the school year runs from January through October so the best times to come are in November and December.
I’m officially allowed 48 vacation days during my two years of service. I’ll likely be taking the majority of these days traveling to US for Christmas and possibly a little holiday to Europe. Before leaving for Peace Corps, my friend Jesse (he is also a Peace Corps volunteer here in Guatemala) and I talked about how hard core we were going to be, traveling all over South America and not returning home for two years, truly embracing the culture abroad and living out of our backpacks. Jesse and I are now searching online for the cheapest flights to San Francisco so we can fly home together for the holidays. There is nothing shameful about wanting a little family time, and a hot shower…
Peace Corps policy limits travel to a maximum of 21 consecutive days, any travel taken out of country must be approved two weeks in advance and certain areas of Guatemala are off limits, like the town of Livingston and the entire north west corner of the Peten. If we go to other countries with Peace Corps presence we have to abide by the travel restrictions and policies of thats country, but we can also use all the Peace Corps facilities in those countries including complete access to medical care. Cori and Mark and I have been thinking about going to the Bay Islands in Honduras to go SCUBA diving, but we are all completely broke so it might be awhile before we can afford it.
We are officially Peace Corps volunteers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but Peace Corps allows us two weekends a month out of site. We have to call and tell them where we are going, where we are staying and what time we’ll be back. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in high school. The amazing thing about being way out here in Alta Verapaz is that I can take weekend trips to several of the major ecotourism sites in the country. I’m only four hours south of the Tikal ruins, two hours from Laguna Lachua and half an hour from the Candelaria Cuevas and Lagunas Sepalau. So while I may not be able to go visit my friends over on the other side of the country very often, I’m not stuck in the middle of the jungle with nothing to do. This also means that if you decide to come visit there is plenty to do around here.
I’m officially allowed 48 vacation days during my two years of service. I’ll likely be taking the majority of these days traveling to US for Christmas and possibly a little holiday to Europe. Before leaving for Peace Corps, my friend Jesse (he is also a Peace Corps volunteer here in Guatemala) and I talked about how hard core we were going to be, traveling all over South America and not returning home for two years, truly embracing the culture abroad and living out of our backpacks. Jesse and I are now searching online for the cheapest flights to San Francisco so we can fly home together for the holidays. There is nothing shameful about wanting a little family time, and a hot shower…
Peace Corps policy limits travel to a maximum of 21 consecutive days, any travel taken out of country must be approved two weeks in advance and certain areas of Guatemala are off limits, like the town of Livingston and the entire north west corner of the Peten. If we go to other countries with Peace Corps presence we have to abide by the travel restrictions and policies of thats country, but we can also use all the Peace Corps facilities in those countries including complete access to medical care. Cori and Mark and I have been thinking about going to the Bay Islands in Honduras to go SCUBA diving, but we are all completely broke so it might be awhile before we can afford it.
We are officially Peace Corps volunteers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but Peace Corps allows us two weekends a month out of site. We have to call and tell them where we are going, where we are staying and what time we’ll be back. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in high school. The amazing thing about being way out here in Alta Verapaz is that I can take weekend trips to several of the major ecotourism sites in the country. I’m only four hours south of the Tikal ruins, two hours from Laguna Lachua and half an hour from the Candelaria Cuevas and Lagunas Sepalau. So while I may not be able to go visit my friends over on the other side of the country very often, I’m not stuck in the middle of the jungle with nothing to do. This also means that if you decide to come visit there is plenty to do around here.
Justin
So I know this blog is supposed to be about my life in the Peace Corps, but I don’t exist in a vaccum and the people in my life all around the world are having some incredible experiences as well and I thought it necessary to share a bit of that as well. There are some brilliant people in my life, writers, artists, economists and a certain collegiate baseball player but it’s my older brother Justin who is truly gifted. I just want to congratulate Justin, he is both a brilliant scientists as well as an extraordinarily eloquent writer. He has combined his talents and written a chapter titled Cylcodextrins and Their Functions in Cellular Interactions that will be published in one of the leading scientific textbooks. Nice work big bro.
wow mom, don´t we make you proud...
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Photos, again.
school yard
My kindergarteners
School kitchen
School basketball court
school on the border of Mexico
Mothers preparing school snack
Students brushing their teeth after snack
Basico (Jr. High)
Elementary SchoolFriday, April 17, 2009
My life in a bag.
Guatemalans love stuff in bags. I don’t understand why. This likely wouldn’t be a problem if they had even a fraction of the same amount of enthusiasm for recycling, but little plastic bags riddle the streets like a second national flower. You can buy anything you want in a bag here. Buying a dozen eggs? Have a bag for each one. Need a drink of water? Grab a bag of water. Does your kid want to bring juice to school? Pour it in a bag, tie it closed and send junior off. Its absolutely incredibly what you can find in a bag here, people will cut off the rind of watermelon, stick it in a bag and sell it on the side of the road as if the natural casing wasn’t good enough. This must somehow be related to the obsession for food on a stick found commonly at state fairs in the US. Next thing you know people here will start selling deep fried twinkies, in a bag.
Community Integration
I officially have been a Peace Corps Volunteer for two and a half weeks. I moved to site on March 29th, my 24th birthday. It was a serious dose of reality moving away from Antigua and the other trainees. Departing on a nine hour ride into the jungle of northern Guatemala, I arrived in my new community hot, sweaty and quite alone. I spent my birthday slapping mosquitoes in an attempt to avoid catching Dengue Fever and trying to figure out if I had enough money to buy and bed and a fan. I didn’t, so I bought the fan. Its usually well over 100 degrees here during the day.
I’ve gotten much more settled over the past weeks and while there is no mall and no Target to run to for new bed linens or wall decorations, I’ve made my room quite homey.
My first great adventure was buying a bed. Chisec is a very small community, but there is a store in the town center that sells beds. There are basically two kinds of beds, hard and soft, and they come in two sizes: for one person or “cama matrimonial” i.e. for two people. I haven’t slept in a twin bed since college, and the thought of sleeping in one for two years brought back bad memories of old dorm mattresses. I bought the double bed. This caused quite a stir among the young men working in the store. This was a bed clearly meant for two people, so who was I planning on sharing it with? Normally it only takes one, or at the most, two people to set up a basic box spring and mattress, but somehow five delivery boys made the three block trip from the store to my house with my bed. It took me well over two hours to get them out of my house after explaining that none of them were going to get to share the bed with me.
I’d like to say I have a routine here, but nothing is routine here and there are surprises and disappointments in every moment of every day. The first three months of service in site are supposed to be the hardest, and heres just a small glimpse into my day and why this is called the hardest job you’ll ever love.
I woke up this morning around 4:45am to the sound of the two toddlers who live in my house screaming. This was a relief because yesterday morning they were up at 4am. Around 6am I made it to the shower outside and enjoyed the cool water as the temperature outside quickly climbed with the sun. At 6:30am my thermometer read 88 degrees outside. I grabbed some granola and put on the least amount of clothing socially acceptable and headed up to the dirt road at the other edge of town that leads to one of the smaller villages I work in. Transportation is unreliable at best. I sat around on a rock, surrounded by wooden huts, banana trees and stray dogs, waiting for a pick up to pass by and take me to the school. After an hour of waiting I sent Mark (one of my best friends who lives on the complete opposite side of the country) a text message saying: Waiting for mythical transportation to arrive and carry me further into the jungle, teachers must have teleporting capabilities can not find them anywhere. Texting Mark is one of my few ways of staying sane during the crazy moments that make up our lives. Eventually the teachers called and said that there weren’t any pick ups coming so they were going to get a microtaxi to take us. It came and picked me up and I road the twenty minutes down the dirt path sitting on a bag full of dead chickens.
I visit a different school each day of the week, and this one is clearly the most beautiful. Down a dirt path about 10kms through the jungle is a tiny village of a few hundred people. The school sits on a hill right off the only road. Theres nothing glamorous about the six cinder block classrooms painted blue and white, but the scenery is beautiful. The schools is surrounded by a thick grove of trees old enough to have watched over children learning for centuries. There is a small grass soccer field carved out of the palm trees and hibiscus bushes and a large thatched roof tree house that the children play in during recess.
Part of adapting to the culture and style of learning means that I can’t actually work on teaching or infrastructure projects before I understand the teaching techniques and learning styles of the teachers and students. I observed classes today and learned as much from the first graders Q’eqchi lessons as the students. One of the six teachers actually gave a health lesson which was incredibly exciting since I’ve observed over 20 classes this week and this teacher was the first to use the Healthy Schools material.
On days when the school has enough money to provide lunch for the students several community mothers come and cook for the kids. Today the chickens I road into the community on became lunch. I was feeling exhausted and my digestive system will likely never be the same after all its been through here, but the mothers offered me some chicken with tortillas and I knew that it would be impolite to refuse. It is going to be absolutely critical to develop a positive relationship with these woman in order to work successfully in the community and sharing a meal is a universal way to create trust and confidence between groups of people, so long after I was full, I accepted seconds and laughed with the mothers in the few words of Q’eqchi I’ve learned so far. Apparently the volunteer before me told them she didn’t like their food and did not eat with them, so I think I’ve already taken the first steps towards gaining there confidence.
After lunch I was absolutely thrilled to see the students go into their classrooms and bring out their toothbrushes and toothpaste and start brushing their teeth. Imagine over a hundred elementary school children sitting around a jungle school brushing their teeth together. Health education is lacking in these communities and basic hygiene habits are not frequently reinforced at home, so tooth brushing at school is one of the main goals of my program. Dental care here is not nearly as advanced as it is in the US, and preventative care is one of the few ways to keep these children room losing all there teeth to cavities. I wish I had brought my camera with me, because after two weeks of struggling to explain why I am here and what my job is I began to wonder if any of this was going to get through. I can’t take credit for their health habits thus far, but the last volunteer clearly created a strong base at this school which will allow me to make even bigger changes and develop a better infrastructure for health education in the community.
The school day ends at 12:30 and fortunately a truck drove by around 1pm and I was able to get a ride back into town. Normally I spend the afternoons in the community running a few errands and eating a lot of mangoes, but I needed to get some things in Coban that aren’t available in Chisec, like bread. Its about a two hour ride into Coban but well worth the trip. I raided the grocery store, stocking up on basics like whole wheat bread, broccoli, lentils and jam and indulged myself with Cheerios and Soy Milk. Imported products are really expensive but there are few things in life as great as a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I sent off a few quick emails and caught a micro back to Chisec. Normally this trip is a quick two hours as the van zips along the road, dangerously passing large trucks full of cows and dodging motorcycles and other road hazards, but today was different. About an hour out of Coban we came upon a large crowd of people on the side of the road all gathered around the mangled dead body of a twelve year old boy that had just died after being hit by a speeding truck. There are few ambulances and it would probable take another few hours for the firefighters to arrive to take the body away so the people could do nothing but wait. My van pulled over and before it had even stopped all the people had jumped out and joined the crowd staring at the blood stained concrete. I stayed in the van. This is the third dead body I’ve seen in the street in as many months. Life in Guatemala can be gruesome and there is no hiding it.
Sometimes I think my life is a big reality show and the jokes on me.
I’ve gotten much more settled over the past weeks and while there is no mall and no Target to run to for new bed linens or wall decorations, I’ve made my room quite homey.
My first great adventure was buying a bed. Chisec is a very small community, but there is a store in the town center that sells beds. There are basically two kinds of beds, hard and soft, and they come in two sizes: for one person or “cama matrimonial” i.e. for two people. I haven’t slept in a twin bed since college, and the thought of sleeping in one for two years brought back bad memories of old dorm mattresses. I bought the double bed. This caused quite a stir among the young men working in the store. This was a bed clearly meant for two people, so who was I planning on sharing it with? Normally it only takes one, or at the most, two people to set up a basic box spring and mattress, but somehow five delivery boys made the three block trip from the store to my house with my bed. It took me well over two hours to get them out of my house after explaining that none of them were going to get to share the bed with me.
I’d like to say I have a routine here, but nothing is routine here and there are surprises and disappointments in every moment of every day. The first three months of service in site are supposed to be the hardest, and heres just a small glimpse into my day and why this is called the hardest job you’ll ever love.
I woke up this morning around 4:45am to the sound of the two toddlers who live in my house screaming. This was a relief because yesterday morning they were up at 4am. Around 6am I made it to the shower outside and enjoyed the cool water as the temperature outside quickly climbed with the sun. At 6:30am my thermometer read 88 degrees outside. I grabbed some granola and put on the least amount of clothing socially acceptable and headed up to the dirt road at the other edge of town that leads to one of the smaller villages I work in. Transportation is unreliable at best. I sat around on a rock, surrounded by wooden huts, banana trees and stray dogs, waiting for a pick up to pass by and take me to the school. After an hour of waiting I sent Mark (one of my best friends who lives on the complete opposite side of the country) a text message saying: Waiting for mythical transportation to arrive and carry me further into the jungle, teachers must have teleporting capabilities can not find them anywhere. Texting Mark is one of my few ways of staying sane during the crazy moments that make up our lives. Eventually the teachers called and said that there weren’t any pick ups coming so they were going to get a microtaxi to take us. It came and picked me up and I road the twenty minutes down the dirt path sitting on a bag full of dead chickens.
I visit a different school each day of the week, and this one is clearly the most beautiful. Down a dirt path about 10kms through the jungle is a tiny village of a few hundred people. The school sits on a hill right off the only road. Theres nothing glamorous about the six cinder block classrooms painted blue and white, but the scenery is beautiful. The schools is surrounded by a thick grove of trees old enough to have watched over children learning for centuries. There is a small grass soccer field carved out of the palm trees and hibiscus bushes and a large thatched roof tree house that the children play in during recess.
Part of adapting to the culture and style of learning means that I can’t actually work on teaching or infrastructure projects before I understand the teaching techniques and learning styles of the teachers and students. I observed classes today and learned as much from the first graders Q’eqchi lessons as the students. One of the six teachers actually gave a health lesson which was incredibly exciting since I’ve observed over 20 classes this week and this teacher was the first to use the Healthy Schools material.
On days when the school has enough money to provide lunch for the students several community mothers come and cook for the kids. Today the chickens I road into the community on became lunch. I was feeling exhausted and my digestive system will likely never be the same after all its been through here, but the mothers offered me some chicken with tortillas and I knew that it would be impolite to refuse. It is going to be absolutely critical to develop a positive relationship with these woman in order to work successfully in the community and sharing a meal is a universal way to create trust and confidence between groups of people, so long after I was full, I accepted seconds and laughed with the mothers in the few words of Q’eqchi I’ve learned so far. Apparently the volunteer before me told them she didn’t like their food and did not eat with them, so I think I’ve already taken the first steps towards gaining there confidence.
After lunch I was absolutely thrilled to see the students go into their classrooms and bring out their toothbrushes and toothpaste and start brushing their teeth. Imagine over a hundred elementary school children sitting around a jungle school brushing their teeth together. Health education is lacking in these communities and basic hygiene habits are not frequently reinforced at home, so tooth brushing at school is one of the main goals of my program. Dental care here is not nearly as advanced as it is in the US, and preventative care is one of the few ways to keep these children room losing all there teeth to cavities. I wish I had brought my camera with me, because after two weeks of struggling to explain why I am here and what my job is I began to wonder if any of this was going to get through. I can’t take credit for their health habits thus far, but the last volunteer clearly created a strong base at this school which will allow me to make even bigger changes and develop a better infrastructure for health education in the community.
The school day ends at 12:30 and fortunately a truck drove by around 1pm and I was able to get a ride back into town. Normally I spend the afternoons in the community running a few errands and eating a lot of mangoes, but I needed to get some things in Coban that aren’t available in Chisec, like bread. Its about a two hour ride into Coban but well worth the trip. I raided the grocery store, stocking up on basics like whole wheat bread, broccoli, lentils and jam and indulged myself with Cheerios and Soy Milk. Imported products are really expensive but there are few things in life as great as a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I sent off a few quick emails and caught a micro back to Chisec. Normally this trip is a quick two hours as the van zips along the road, dangerously passing large trucks full of cows and dodging motorcycles and other road hazards, but today was different. About an hour out of Coban we came upon a large crowd of people on the side of the road all gathered around the mangled dead body of a twelve year old boy that had just died after being hit by a speeding truck. There are few ambulances and it would probable take another few hours for the firefighters to arrive to take the body away so the people could do nothing but wait. My van pulled over and before it had even stopped all the people had jumped out and joined the crowd staring at the blood stained concrete. I stayed in the van. This is the third dead body I’ve seen in the street in as many months. Life in Guatemala can be gruesome and there is no hiding it.
Sometimes I think my life is a big reality show and the jokes on me.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Life in the AVP
I know I havent updated much these past few weeks, life has been a bit hectic and when you don´t have a refrigerator and its 100 degrees outside, suddenly finding ways to prevent your chocolate from melting become incredibly important. I actually bought a fan before I bought a bed... Anyhow here is a little map of Guatemala, the green department is Alta Verapaz and I live waaaaay up north towards the border of Mexico and the Peten. I have a topographical map of the municipality of Chisec. Its a 18 by 24 inch map and its all jungle except for a 1 inch by 1 inch city in the corner. Learning to love coconuts and living without bread and milk.
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