The Tuesday after Thanksgiving was our Christmas party with the health center employees. We were lucky in that we got the two best people we could have possibly picked to buy presents for; that is the nurse who works in our village whose brother is our language instructor, and our host-sister, Reina. We bought our presents in Huehue, and other than that we were pretty clueless about what to expect.

We arrived at the health center as the party should have been starting, so in typical Guatemalan fashion, it was pretty far from being ready. However, they had a huge tree erected in front of the center, which was a fun surprise. Turns out because of deforestation problems chopping down whole trees is not allowed here, so they have some sort of cone support they put up and cover with pine branches they cut individually. It makes the trees look amazingly full and festive, and someone can use the branches for firewood later. The woman who cleans the health center had the place smelling delicious from the moment we walked in. She must have been cooking all morning long. The doctors lit a barbecue outside and grilled what was one of the best meals we’ve had since we arrived here in Guatemala. Some of you might be wondering why we had our Christmas party on December 2, pretty early. I was wondering the same thing until we were informed that the head doctor is leaving, and they wanted to include him.

I was really surprised and disappointed when I heard the news. This guy is super quiet, but once we got to really talk to him we found out he’s great and we really like him. He has been really dedicated to his job here, which is unfortunately hard to find in some doctors sent to rural areas. He told me when we first got here that he wanted to do an in-depth study on the maternal mortality problem in our area. So why was he leaving? I shouldn’t have, but I assumed it was because in reality he was only as dedicated as the average ladino Guatemalan doctor in a rural indigenous area, which is to say, not very. I was very glad to be proven wrong. What really happened is he won a 3 year scholarship to study for his OB/GYN specializacion, and he would like to come back to continue supporting our community after that’s done. Too bad he won’t be back while we’re here. A lot of the employees gave speeches about how sad they were to see him go, but he motivated a lot of people, so hopefully his presence will have a lasting effect on the center as a whole.

So there we were celebrating Christmas a little early, and there was much hilarity involved. We had to do a guessing game, naming characteristics of the person we bought for before we handed them their gift. The health center secretary was naming things and when he said, “and this person has blue eyes…” everyone said, “Emily! Emily!” and I thought, nu uh, my eyes are green. Reina and Lucia had paid enough attention in the last few months to shout, “Jaime! Jaime!” Luin, was indeed Fletch’s “amigo secreto” who just happened to buy him the traditional sombrero and neck tie to go with the capishay he was wearing that day. It was the perfect garmet for the cold and rainy day, plus whenever he wears people just can’t stop laughing at the big, funny gringo in their capishay. The woman in charge of the cleaning was my amigo secreto, and she cleared the air by saying, “and she has green eyes”. At first I wondered if maybe they couldn’t tell the difference. We just found out today that people here do not distinguish between mine and Fletch’s hair colors. To the average American there’s a pretty big difference, but in Guatemala there’s black hair and there’s not black hair. I received a nice tipico bag. Anything they describe as tipico here means made from traditional fabrics or woven patterns. Fletch bought the nurse a little hand held radio to take on her long walks through villages giving vaccinations to kids–that’s right, the kids don’t come into the health center, the nurses go out and find the kids. And I bought Reina a fun pair of earrings and a bracelet. Everyone was happy, and stuffed by the time the party was over.

Since we had no idea what this party would entail when it began, because people here almost always leave out the details of everything, and we didn’t know the doctor was leaving until just before the party, we went back in yesterday, his last day of work, to send him off with a chocolate cake. People are always very happy when we bake things.

Christmas lights are going up all over Temux. Our host family constructed a tree like the one at the health center and strung it with lights today. I keep hearing marimba Christmas music which, let’s face it, is just kind of weird, and the funniest part is all of the most popular Christmas songs are in English, and pretty much none of them are translated, so people here know the tunes and no one has a clue as to what the songs are saying. I find that funny in a ridiculous sort of way. Oh…and we burned effigies of the devil on Sunday night. Yup. You see the Virgin of Guadalupe has her festival this week, so each family burns the devil at their house to clear her path of evil. They make a scarecrow like figure and ring it with fireworks, and pour paint thinner or gasoline or whatever kind of handy flammable liquid they’ve got around on the effigy and set it aflame. Lots of craziness, completely unsafe, little kids and random exploding fireworks shooting off in all directions. All I know is All Saints never did anything that exciting for the V of G. My past life was so boring…..

Hello hello! I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving activities. We had lots of interesting conversations with our family, indigenous Mayans mind you, about the story, fact and fiction behind what is a favorite holiday of mine. They have asked us on several occassions about the status of indigenous people in the US, and we always tell them there are some, but not many, then give them a brief over-view of the history between the US government and the indigenous (American indian) population. I think part of being here is to be as honest as we can about the United Sates, being critical but not bashing our own country, especially important in Guatemala with so many ties to our country. So many Guatemalans in the states and returned immigrants have such a starry-eyed view of el norte (the North, which completely ignores Mexico also to the North of Guatemala, refers to the US). The discussions we’ve had with the family have been really interesting, leading them to compare their own situation as indigenous Guatemalans and their relations to their own government throughout the history of their country. The best part, to me, is that we get to watch them all think, adding this new information to things they’ve heard or lived through, and what they come up with when it all melds together in their head after a few moments. Our family here pretty much rocks. I will have you all know, these discussions took place two times, once while helping them harvest the last of their corn, the other while sharing with them the wonder that is PUMPKIN PIE! So that’s very Thanksgiving appropriate, right?

Originally we thought it would be fun if we could get some friends to come to Temux, have our family help us butcher a turkey (because they definitely know how), and fix all the stuff to share with them. The problem is that where we live is REALLY far away from pretty much all the other volunteers, so this proved very inconvenient. We also lack sleeping space. But we wanted to share with our family part of Thanksgiving even if we couldn’t do it all, and we were totally jonesing for some pumpkin pie. They had Libby’s pumpkin puree on sale in the large supermarkets in Antigua, Xela, and Huehuetenango, so we packed an extra large can back to our site after Reconnect, and used the 9×13 teflon pan from a US care package (thanks Dick & Ann) plus a mini glass pie pan to whip up enough for everyone. And I also prepared to eat ALL of that if necessary. I kept thinking of my cousin who, during her time in Barcelona, made pumpkin pie with a Thanksgiving meal and everyone thought it was awful, so I thought maybe our family would not like it either. I was excited to eat all of it. 🙂 But just in case they liked it, we kept the mini-pie hidden for just the two of us. That was a good idea. They LOVED the pumpking pie, minus the two little boys, who quietly gave their pieces back to their grandma, and she was more than happy to eat them. Nas took a few bites, examined the pie, and asked, “Can you teach Masha how to make this? She wants to know how. In fact, I obligate her to learn how!” He was laughing when he said that, but Masha, one of the oldest girls, looked at me smiling shaking her head yes, she wanted to know how to make this. A thank you to my father-in-law, again, for the pumpkin seeds. We told them we have them, now the whole family is excited about making sure those grow, so they can eat loads and loads of pumpkin pie. Here they have a big squash called chilicoyote, which they eat either diced and mixed in with black beans, or mashed up with lots of sugar. We like the former and hate the latter dish, but chilicoyote is a lot like pumpkin in texture and consistency so we kind of want to experiment and see if we can make a chilicoyote pie. The family was also pretty excited about that idea because they have no problems producing those around here.

That was all a few days before Thanksgiving. We’d decided to meet up with some fellow PCVs, Huehuetecos all of us, in the capital and put together a meal. I mashed 4 pounds of potatos by hand with a tiny wooden masher, and Fletch made a double batch of ginger snaps before we took off on Thursday morning for the 4 hour ride south. As I walked down the path from my house to the micro-bus, a turkey crossed my path, and I felt it would be a very good day. We walked into our friend’s apartment to a steaming hot kitchen and a table full of desserts. The weather was weird for what we’re used to, but the kitchen scene was about right. The only catch: the oven in which our turkey dinner was cooking was a big aluminum box the volunteer had constructed to fit over her 3 burner stove, the edges didn’t match up and let out heat, so there were three people wetting and replacing towels over the box seams to ensure the turkey cooked. They’d been at it since about 6 am, and we arrived just after noon, so we joined in to relieve some of them.

We ended up as a group of 9 PCV’s and 1 Guatemalan friend who came along, putting out the spread at about 7 pm. It was beautiful. I think we did a pretty good job with our resources. But in particular, a shout out to Nick Bardo who was the real force behind the turkey, cooked and stuffed just like home. At the top is a picture of Nick and his bird. We each went around the table and said what we were thankful for, then we all ate ourselves silly, as you should on Thanksgiving. At the time I thought that was an okay thing to do.

Turns out, I’m apparently completely unaccustomed to American food these days, as were a lot of other volunteers. The tiny bathroom in the apartment got loads of use that night. I thought I was the only one who got ridiculously sick, but our friend who slept next to the bathroom informed me otherwise the next day. She didn’t sleep all night for the traffic. It wasn’t enough illness to have been something badly cooked, and everyone’s illness manifested itself differently. Fletch felt ill, but never got sick. In a way, it was funny, and we laughed about it. However, on Friday, we went to a restaurant in the capital, where I could order any number of things, and the only thing that seemed remotely palatable was beans and tortillas, so I ordered them without thinking. That’s when I really laughed. I bought beans and tortillas at a restaurant?! I guess I’ve finally adapted to the diet.

We spent the whole weekend in Huehue doing exciting things like seeing Mayan ruins, and going to the grand opening of the first real mall to reach this far out capital city. We felt, along with a friend of ours, that we should check it out. They were running free shuttles from the city center to the edge of town where the public transport didn’t go so the average citizen could get there. Hmmm, does that mall arrangement sound like anything familiar? So we went. Also, we’d heard there was going to be a movie theater, which really would be exciting. The mall is quite far from being finished. More than half of their stores were still empty, and the crowd was so strange, gathered in a fairly modern building, ladinos dressed like any American would be and then the traje wearing men and women wondering around. The McDonalds outside had the longest lines I’ve ever seen, tables spilling into the parking lot and full of people. We did not stop but did take advantage of the McDonalds trolly that drove people to and from the central park. The movie theater was a big fat lie. Bummer. But there was a Subway at which I bought pretzels, for the first time since I left the US. Yum.

The mall was full of Christmas decorations, the central park in Huehue was sporting a huge tree, sponsored by Gallo beer (about the only beer you can get in Guatemala because they’ve got a pretty thorough monopoly going on here) and topped with their trademark rooster head. Gallo means rooster. On Saturday night we went to a pizzeria that was all decked out for the holidays. It was so strange yet kind of fun to be somewhere so urban and festive. It wasn’t terribly overwhelming since we were leaving early the next morning.

Our Sunday ride back was the luckiest trip we’ve experienced yet. We stood out on the street at 7:30 in the morning, just across from the bustling market, waiting for a northbound bus to pass. The first one that did didn’t seem to believe that I was waiving to him and went right passed us. I was so annoyed, until this nice black SUV stopped and rolled the window down. A guy who looked to be about my age asked in English, “Where are you going?” We told him we where we were headed, and he was going to a town within two hours of us. We hopped in when he told us to. This was about the sweetest ride I’ve ever had. Normally this journey up and over the Cuchumatanes is done in an overcrowded, falling apart school bus where our bodies are insanely bounced around, legs bash against the seats in front of us which makes it slightly painful to walk for the rest of the day (for me anyway since I have huge tendonitis knots below my kneecaps), and at least of a few of the windows are stuck permanently down so that we are covered in road dust and pretty much ready to be done with the trip by the time we arrive in the town this guy was taking us too. Turns out he’s an optometrist who has a clinic in Xela, and another in Soloma. He comes to work up north every 15 days or so. He talked to us the whole ride, invited us to dinner with he and his wife the next time we pass through Xela, which we go through every time we have to go near Antigua, and talked to us about Guatemala. He offered to get me coffee from his wife’s family’s coffee finca the next time we meet up. It was such a sweet deal. I had the entire back seat of an SUV to myself. My legs stretched out, the temperature was controlled, the car was clean. I already had my hair braided with a thick head band on–my travel hair-do to try and prevent catching head lice–and here I didn’t need that at all. We arrived in Soloma in under two hours, completely clean, pain free, and I spent the rest of the day absolutely STOKED about how easy a ride that was. We already sent the guy a thank-you email and told him when we’d be heading to Xela next, (on our way south to visit our host families for Christmas). Who knows if we’ll meet again or not, but I was so thankful for the way our Thanksgiving weekend worked out.

We had transport luck all the way home, waiting only 5 minutes to leave in the next two buses we had to take. It was so sweet. On the way home we stopped and hooked Fletch up with the traditional men’s garmet, a capishay, which is a felted wool sweater, with half sleeves that aren’t sewn all the way shut so they drape over the sleeves of his jacket, and fancy stitching along the edges. It was his Christmas present to himself. He’s been jonesing for one for quite a while. When we made it back to Santa Eulalia, we had to run around buying groceries since it was our market day, before hopping into the next packed van back to our village. As I was getting in this little girl tapped my shoulder and waved excitedly. I waved back, kind of distracted with the task of loading myself and our bags of groceries and our huge back packs into the little remaining space in the van. Once I was in and squashed by our stuff she tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “um, what do you have in those big bags?” in clear English. I smiled at her and asked if she was from the US. She said, “I was born in the United States of um America in Skyler, Nebraska.” I told her our bags were full of stuff we couldn’t buy in our village, like a big box of Honey Nut Cheerios and some cheese. She was pretty excited about that. She’s apparently visiting her Grandma in the neighboring village and this was her first trip to Guatemala. She asked what we do here, so we explained our work. Then she asked, “So, are you brother and sister or cousins?” I said, “No, we’re husband and wife; we’re married.” Her response, “Oh, cute,” as she shook her head taking it all in. Haha, I thought, yeah we only got married to be “cute”. She was probably 6 or 7, and absolutely adorable. I asked her what she liked about Guatemala, and she said she likes the plants. Fletch asked if she spoke Q’anjob’al, and she said no, so he began teaching her animal names, which made everyone in the van laugh every time he mentioned one of them. Us speaking in their language is a constant joke. It never gets old; it is never not funny. We made it home that day from what is usually a long, exhausting trip with tons of energy and super happy about the luck that had befallen us all morning long. Amazingly it wasn’t even noon when we walked in our door.

Perhaps this is obvious, but I feel like this Thanksgiving, this year of my life, perhaps forever after this, I realize just a little more profoundly how much I really have to be thankful for. In spite of the frustration, the random illnesses and all, I’m really glad we’re here. I can’t imagine what else we’d be doing right now if not sitting in our little wooden club house shivering a bit. I’m thankful, just about every day I’m here, for the pretty privileged education I’ve received in my life. I’m thankful our families; our grandparents and parents and siblings and nieces and nephews have never had to live in these conditions and that many will never know first hand what places like Quixabaj look like. At the same time, I’m really thankful for all the support we’ve received from our family and friends always, but especially now. And in the way of family, I’m thankful that I’ve met so many good ones who’ve taken me in and made me part of their lives: my in-laws, my spanish family, and the 3 families we’ve managed to accumulate here in Guatemala. I’m thankful that every where w go in this world, no matter the level of riches or poverty, we’ve never found a shortage of good people.

THE END, for now.

When I think of the “company Christmas party”, I generally imagine a gift exchange, a slide show, eggnog, and maybe even bonus checks. When you work at a health post in rural Guatemala, though, it’s a little different. Sure, we have a gift exchange: I got a hat and a scarf, and gave away a tiny transistor radio to my nurse friends who walks the countryside giving vaccinations. A slide show is out; we don’t have the budget for that kind of stuff.

Instead of eggnog, the tradition here is to have a big ‘ole barbecue, packed with an astounding array of tasty meat products (click on the image to see the goodness). I am not a big meat eater, but the stuff they cooked up was pretty amazing. It is hard to identify everything in the picture, but it includes: chicken adobada, lime-marinated beef, spicy ribs, pork loin, salchicha, longaniza (both are homemade sausages), roasted green onions, and baked potatoes. This is a tradition I might have to bring back with me.

They even had a christmas tree. It’s made from pine branches assembled together into a tree shape. Apparetly it’s illegal (or very expensive) to cut down trees. Hah! Also, you should know that the lights are the kind that play a selection of tinny Christmas music. Several strings were going at once, none of which were on the same song at the same time. Aaah, Guatemala.

The doctor made an important, sad announcement. He will be leaving us next week. But it’s in the best possible of circumstances: he got a scholarship to continue his education at the national university, studying to specialize in OB/GYN, his area of interest. It’s a fantastic opportunity for him, and also for Guatemala. There aren’t a lot of specialists here, and he’s the kind of guy that will continue working with poor rural poplations, instead of taking his degree to the city to get the $$. When I first heard the news, I was a little sad, because I just started working hard to get donations for the Midwife Kit project (a few posts back). I’ve had TERRIBLE luck with my projects getting the rug pulled out from under them. But he took me aside during the party, and asked (in Spanish) “So, how are the donations for the midwife project going? You know, I still want to do this. If anything comes through, give me a call and I will travel up to Santa Eulalia to help set them up and distribute them.” Wow. I was pretty blown away; they guy would skip class and travel 10 hours to work for FREE to help the local midwives. That’s the kind of guy he is. So, the project continues.

Oh, and I got a bonus check equal to a full month’s pay.

Sunset in Temux Grande

Hello everyone. Today is just some random goings-on. The picture above is from a particularly nice evening as we walked back to our house. The mountain in the sea of clouds is just this side of the Mexican border. If you like it, you can click on it to get a really hi-res verson that you can download to make a cool desktop for your computer.

There is a fair amount of construction going on around here lately, both traditional and “modern”. Here we have adobe (mud & straw) blocks, drying in the sun. A team of about a dozen Guatemalans with hoes cleared a flat spot in the hillside to build the new house; they will start laying the adobe bricks once they are dry.

Our neighbor Petronella, on the other hand, decided she wants to replace her adobe house with a concrete block house. This is a pretty good idea; the adobe has terrible seismic performance, since it’s unreinforced. She doesn’t know that, of course; she wants the block because it’s modern and expensive-looking. And, I am sure she will go with the popular “dirt floor” model like everone else in town. Sigh. Here’s a picture of Pertronella in her partially-destroyed abobe house (left). So where will she stay during construction, you might ask? Simple: she built herself a new temporary house last week, out of scrap lumber and sheetmetal (right) she stripped from her old house. Her kids helped her. Can you tell? The scary thing is, though she’ll only live there for a month or two, lots of people here live like that indefinately.

I haven’t posted a gross bug in a while, so here’s one that Emily found. It makes me think of my brother Dave. Not because he looks like that, but because it’s something he’d like. I am not really sure what it will turn into when it’s done being gross, but my guess (from the size of it) is a Luna Moth like the one we saw last month.

The neighbors are drying their corn on their roof. This is a great idea, since it’s a warm sunny location safe from wandering animals that might want to eat their grains. Or ladrones (thieves) that might want to make off with it. Sounds like a lot of work for little gain (stealing dry corn), but they seem to take the threat pretty seriously around here. The old guy sitting on the stool was out there several evenings in a row, patiently tying ears together by the husk, watching the sun go down.

For the first time ever, I saw a Guatemalan exercising last week. Since weights would cost money, they improvise by tying a strap around a burned-out 5hp electric motor, and hoist that in the air a few times. The little kid is Chalio, our buddy, and he wanted to participate in the fun, even though the weight is a bit big for him. He lifted it twice, got bored, then took off to go play in the stream with his buddies. The guy on the bench is Galindo, who is continuing to recover from his hospital stay. I figure the family pressured him some to do some exercise, to get his strength back up.

Because we’re up in the clouds here a lot, we get fog and rainbows and such pretty regularly. Here are Emily and two of our local friends, walking home from a hike in the hills. Sadly, they forgot to stop and pick up the gold that is lying in the pot in the culvert just down hill from them. This picture is also on the server in hi-res format, so you can click to enlarge it and make a desktop of that one too, if you’re so inclined.

And that is all for now.

So, we just got back from our Thanksgiving. It was a nice time. We travelled about 5 hours to Chiantla, next to the state capitol of Huehue, where about 10 of us volunteers met at Cat’s apartment for a pitch-in dinner. It went really well, and people somehow came up with all the necessary parts: a turkey, pumpkin pie, cookies, mashed potatoes, stuffing, you know. And since we are all freinds, it was kindof like hacing a family. Kindof. Hey, we do the best we can. Nick Bardo, our resident Viking, did a great job with the turkey- both eating it as well as cooking it. We knew it would be a good trip when we left at 6am in th emorning, and the first thing to cross our path was a turkey! But being Guatemalan, it was his lucky day, and we did not eat him.

The next day, we went to visit the nearby Mayan ruins of Zaculeu (or Saq’ulew, in the mayan toungue). This picture is taken from atop the largest pyramid, which was used for sacrifices. The story of Zaculeu is sad, but typical of most of the Maya: it was the capitol of the region, a seat of power and culture from about 400AD until the mid-1500s. The Mayans got comfortable with their lofty temples, advanced mathematical concepts, and accurate geometry- and never got around to inventing the wheel, steel, or gunpowder. But someone else (the Europeans) did, and they brought their inventions with them in 1524 and destroyed the city.

While we were walking about enjoying the serenity and warm sunlight, we heard the sounds of merriment behind one of the temples. We investigated, and saw this: the modern day maya, playing a ball game in the the very court their ancestors used a thousand years ago. A very cool experience.

We then returned to the big city to spend some more time with friends. As it turns out, McDonalds (and the new mall) opened in Huehue on Friday, so we went by to see what all the commotion was about. Wow, a hundred people in line to get a Big Mac. Not really sure what I think about that, especially since the cost of a Big Mac is about what the average farmer makes in a day.

Alright, so I wrote most of this one time, and it didn’t save. Lord knows how I did that, but it pissed me off so badly it took me a long time to get back to it. My apologies. As I left on in my other post, I was quite ready to take leave of Temux. Their party style is just a little too much for me, and I’d been dreaming of tasty restaurant food for days and weeks…

To do the trip to Antigua in one day is possible, but it’s killer. Your body feels a bit like your feet do when you take them out of roller skates after a few hours at the rink. That is to say, there is this bizarre feeling of constant vibration running from head to toe after some 12 hours on chicken buses. You basically feel wrecked. So we split the trip in two days and stopped over in Guatemala’s second largest city, Xela, where we met up with some other volunteers. There’s a restaurant there called Sabor de La India (Taste of India) that Fletch had been dreaming about for a few weeks, and though it’s pricey up against our budget so none of our friends wanted to go, we’d been in our site for weeks, where we don’t spend much money on anything, so we went alone. At first we joked about it being a date, but when you spend almost every blessed second together, “dates” don’t really hold as much appeal as they might otherwise. 🙂 We were excited about the food though, and we’d managed to find something to talk about.

We were jabbering and mainly just excited to be out of our site. You don’t realize how much pressure is on your day to day to existence in site until you leave. Here in the village, everyone is watching you, everything you do is strange and interesting. Literally, kids will stand and watch us do our dishes in the stream without ever say ing a word to us. They watch us at our door to see how we sweep our floor. Women who happen to walk by are amazed to see Fletch doing the cooking, so they stop and watch. In the village, anyone who wants to feels like it’s okay to come wake us up at 6 am to give us hot tortillas they just made us. Yes, it’s VERY nice of them, but I like to decide when my first encounter of the day will be. When we leave the village I feel like every pore of my body lets out a sigh of relief. So there we were, in Taste of India, and the food came. As we took our first bites, all talking ceased. We started eating faster, and faster, the spices kicking in. We started sweating. WE COULD NOT STOP EATING…and then our plates our clean. It was basically the most amazing food we’ve eaten in months. So now we know our favorite restaurant is a mere 6 hours from home. And to think we used to view driving to Davenport, Iowa for Thai food (from Galesburg, IL 45min. in our own vehicel) as quite the big adventure.

Thing is people like to go out to eat because it’s relaxing, right? But EVERYTHING in our house, every meal of the day is basically made from scratch–that is minus the Mac n’ Cheese some of you have sent us–but seriously, it’s a lot of work. It’s a good thing there are two of us here to trade off or I have a feeling I would eat a lot of eggs and oatmeal plus whatever a neighbor brings by on any given day. We do have the time, but we get tired of spending it cooking. Then there’s clean up. No running water in the house. The dishes all pile up, and we have to carry them all to the stream where we wash them in freezing water, freezing our hands, more likely than not on a very cold day and sometimes in the rain as well. Do you get the point? Eating at Taste of India was like heaven times ten. It was in every way possible a break from Guatemala if just for an hour. I’m still so excited about it, 3 weeks later, I had to tell you all.

So the next day our crew started out as a group of 6 leaving Xela in the morning and grew as we got closer to Antigua. It was so strange going back. We lived our first 3 months in Guatemala there, and we had to pass through our old towns to get to the city, first through Fletch’s then through mine. It’s strange how distant that part of our service, that part of our lives, feels now. Those were the days I lived in a suite room bigger than our entire house is now. I had my own bathroom where the toilet flushed and I could have hot water showers most hours of the day. Those were the days Fletch and I barely saw each other, were sometimes sad about it, had to talk on the phone at night before going to bed like teenagers. Not anymore. We did not stop to say high to our families but blew right on through. The visit would come later in the week. We had the pressing business of finding Halloween costumes to attend to.

I’m not kidding, we got off the bus, dropped our bags at the hostel, and went straight for the PACA. I think I might have explained this before, if so forgive me. PACA is short of empacador which means package. The empacadores starting arriving as relief aid in the early 70’s shortly after a massive earthquake killed about 200,000 Guatemalans. The quake hit early in the morning while most people were still in bed, and their tile and adobe houses fell right in. So after everyone had recovered from the quake, some enterprising folks decided they would start selling the cheap ropa americana for profit. Thus we have a Guatemalan equivalent to Goodwill. Antigua had a sizeable selection at their PACA. Fletch wanted to be the devil and had shaved his head in advance. I was stoked to be a flapper, but then found a cheaper dress that I thought the devil’s girlfriend could wear. Meanwhile our friends were bargaining down the dresses that would allow them to be 80’s prom queens for the evening. Unfortunately, we never found the red body paint we thought would make the costumes, so Fletch looks like something from The Crow. I was pretty afraid the velour pants we found for Jaime would be a bit too small. As it turns out it’s a good thing I had my knitting kit with me because I had to safety pin the butt in two places for them stay up. I must say, this picture illustrates one of the reasons I love Fletch. He cracks me up. I could not look at him on Halloween without laughing. Not only did we all get a break from being PCV’s, Halloween kind of gave us all a break from reality. YAY.

The next day started off groggily, as we all tried to get ready, eat, and find the proper bus to take us to a kite festival some veteran PCV’s had mentioned was worthwhile. It’s kind of ridiculous the coordination required to get 12 adults moving in the same direction. It shouldn’t be that hard, but it was. Sometime around 11 am, as we were waiting to get on the bus that would take us to this festival we heard someone say it was set to end at 11:30. GREAT. But we tried to make it for the tail end anyway. We came running in to the town park at nearly noon, and then we were sad. It looked like they were taking all the kites apart.

Then I realized no one was leaving, in fact, the food vendors looked like they were just getting started. People were pretty well settled in to some grassy spots watching the deconstruction. So I asked a lady what was going on. “They’re putting the kites together.” YAY! We had gotten there for the beginning instead of the end. By 6 pm, when we were all back in Antigua exhausted from staying up the night before and sitting outside all day, we were really glad we hadn’t gotten there any earlier. The whole production was pretty impressive. Apparently the kite teams are kept absolutely secret while the designs and sizes are figured out so that there is as little favoritism in the judging as possible–Guatemala, like many third world countries has a problem on all levels with “favoritism”, it is also sometimes called nepotism or just plain corruption. But the kite contest, or Barriletes are a very important matter, not to be messed with.

The first few kites to go up were only between 6 and 10 feet tall, from younger less experienced groups. The longer the festival went the bigger the kites got. The designs were pretty much amazing. It was a very big deal as they prepared to right the next kite. Everyone would hold their breath, the crowd was tense. The men on the ropes would start pulling, while the men on the kite would start pushing and running and pushing and running until the kite emitted huge cracking gasps, the crowd screamed and the men ran out from under it. Or until the kite was standing. The former seemed to be a more frequent occurrence than the latter, but it sure did make the whole scene pretty dramatic. It was, more than anything, a game of art. The only thing I’ve experienced like it were the castilleros (Robin/Toni is that how you spell that?), the teams of people who made human towers during all the festivals in Catalunya, Spain. That is to say, it’s something that doesn’t seem to have a point, but people put a lot of time and effort into doing it, and for that it is something beautiful and moving.

We had two days of reconnect, that felt a lot like training. We had lots of talks on different themes, we got shots in each arm, I got sick. Just like training! Only this time my amoeba test came back negative and I got better before losing 25lbs. YAY. The rest of the week was spent in Spanish class, except I don’t really need Spanish class. Since Fletch did they let me stay and wait for him rather than sending me back home alone. It was pretty much fantastic, as I spent multiple mornings in the Cafe Condessa, a restaurant off the main square in Antigua in a colonial mansion. They also have fantastic coffee, and the best deal in town, at 9Q for a mug with endless refills. ZZZIIINNNNGGG! I sat in the courtyard by the fish fountain being anonymous with my coffee, reading, and hanging out with my bad self. Alone time happens so infrequently here. It was nearly as amazing as the indian food.

We did go back and visit our host families as well. We spent a few nights at Fletch’s old house. Since he was pretty much their hero in residence, the kids have been asking their moms and grandma every day since his departure when he would come back. There was much squeeling and excitement every day we showed up there. His host family is amazing. They are so kind, so humble, and so giving. The kids are polite and fun and funny. We ended up playing cards with them both nights. Guess what Timmons kids? Egyptian Rat Screw is now their favorite game as well because Fletch taught it to them when he lived there. They had us read them stories (Where the Wild Things Are, in Spanish!). One afternoon we all played soccer together in the courtyard, until the light went away, and as I looked over my shoulder, the two boys, one a foot taller than the other, were walking off together with their arms slung around the others shoulder. They took such great care of Fletch during training, and were always so welcoming to me. I struggle to find the words to describe how it feels when complete strangers truly take you in and make you part of their family, but we do feel like part of theirs now. Jovita, the host mama, had to have serious talks with both of us, individually, about our weight. She asked, “Is there food there where you live? Are you sure you’re eating enough?” She just had to check on us. We assured her we eat tons of things that are so bad for us we probably shouldn’t, tasty things like scones and cinnamon rolls and pancakes. We told her we eat lots of fruits and vegetables too. She seemed to, well, kind of believe us. At least our stories matched. The last night we said good bye to everyone as we had to leave before the kids were up. They nearly cried to let us go. The 7 year old, Luz Maria, had saved me a goody-bag from her birthday party which she gave me, and Memo, the 9 year old had saved a goody-bag for Fletch from his first communion. He also gave Fletch a picture of himself so, “You won’t forget me.” And Luz and Andres both gave us pictures they’d drawn us. Here’s our life, according to Luz Maria.

My host family was a very good one as well, and I tell Fletch all the time, I probably would have loved them even more if didn’t have his family to compare them too. My host parents were great to talk to, but often unavailable. They are more affluent, their kids are involved in lots of activities, so they are always running around away from the house. We stopped by and visited with them on Friday afternoon. It was good to see them, but in typical style my host mom seemed offended we weren’t staying the night as she ran off to the gym and I stayed to visit with her mother and brother a bit before we headed back to Antigua. All in all, Fletch and I have continued time and time again to luck out, I think.

So that was reconnect, and then we had a long long long trip back home. Shortly after was the trauma with Galindo. He’s doing amazingly well, though he lost a staggering amount of weight and he occassionally has vision problems. He seems to be getting back to himself, but then again, we’d never expected him to do such a thing since his regular self is so calmly content, polite and kind. That’s about all for now folks. Hopefully I will be more timely with these things in the future

A last general announcement: The road to Quixabaj did collapse as we had predicted. Thankfully we were wrong about the part where we thought people would be crossing as it finally caved. We were supposed to go this month, but for the reconstruction will not make it there until at least the second week in December.

This morning as we were cooking breakfast, we heard a lot of BAAAAAAA outside the house. When this happened yesterday, I opened the door to see a herd of sheep trotting past our door. Luckily, I only opened the top half of the door, or else they would have come in for tea. Today, the bleating was coming from our neighbor’s yard, so I went over to investigate. The neighbor’s herd was milling around in their cornfield, and the teenage girls were trying to catch one of the ewes. Lina (the younger) had her by the foot. Since I’m a big guy (in local terms), I sauntered over and helped her using my favorite sheep-catching technique: fistfuls of wool, and lift straight up into the air, sheep feet flailing wildly. This my neighbors laugh every time, so I did it again to get a chuckle. Then I realized: why did they want this sheep? I tried to get them to explain, but we were having trouble communicating, and the sheep got heavy. So I set it down… and it took off like a bolt of lightning, and dived into the middle of the herd. This made them laugh more, as I just undid all their work.

We chased the wooly jumper around some more, and eventually caught her again, and Lina tied a rope on her. Once secure, the other sisters took the rest of the herd away to graze in the valley. This ewe had a baby, so of course the baby stayed too. Lina led the ewe up the hill to the sunny, grassy spot. There she tied the rope to a stake.

I tried again to get an explanation as to why this one was singled out. By now, the elder Lina was involved. “Cuesta!” she exclaimed emphatically. “No puede caminar bien!” she explained, waving offhandedly at the baby. What? But then upon closer examination, I realized she was right: the baby WOULD have trouble walking a long distance with the rest of the herd. It was the three-legged baby from a few weeks ago! I was kindof wondering if it survived, so now I know. Oh, and what looks like a half-length leg in the picture is actually it’s tail. The leg is gnawed off all the way up to it’s body.

Howdy everyone! So, as you may know, much of my job here is to teach the locals the importance of preventive health, and how to construct sanitary infrasturcture to improve their chances of evading diseases like cholera and dysentery. Sometimes, however, we get called upon to talk about other health-related topics. Being white and all, everyone thinks were experts at everything. This includes delivering babies.

About once a month, we give lectures to the regional midwives’ group, as a sort of “opening act” for the doctor’s presentation. We cover basic stuff, like home hygeine, the importance of drinking purified water (to avoid parasites etc.), proper nutrition, and similar things as they affect expecting mothers. Then the doctor gets into nitty-gritty stuff, like how many finger widths down you should cut the umbilical cord.

Our region has the dubious honor of being the most dangerous place in Guatemala to have a baby, in terms of maternal mortality during childbirth. It is also in the top five for infant death during birth. 99% of the births here are in the home, assisted by midwives, many of whom still don’t understand the importance of handwashing. Oh, and these homes all have dirt floors and mud walls.

Our only doctor, Dr. Ervin, has made it his pet project to turn this trend around. That’s why he started this montly educational series. He also mentioned to me at our last meeting that he wants to put together “birthing kits” for each of the 130 midwives in our region. They would contain basic things, like a pair of foreceps, boilable scissors, a plastic sheet to put under the mother during delivery, etc. “Do you know of any way we could get help with this?” he asked me.

Oh yeah, that is my other job. Hooking up those in need with those that want to help. Right now I am working with two NGOs to get funding for two other unrelated projects, as well as my private Computer Center project. But I also know that sometimes hospitals and clinics discard old medical equipment, so I made a flyer to send to all my buddies that are doctors or med students. Then I emailed it to them, knowing they are WAY to busy to read this blog. It’s kindof like “fishing for aid.” I am a terrible salesman/ panhandler, I know, but hopefully the nature of the cause will work to my advantage. If any of you are interested in helping, or know someone who might be, here is the flyer I made in .PDF format. It’s easy to email, easy to print, and explains the project and what exactly we need. If you click on the link, download shoudl start automatically.

Guatemala Midwife Appeal

[ Interesting side note: in the local mayan dialect, a “pregnant woman” is a yob’ix, or literally, “bad female.” All you women’s studies majors, talk amongst yourselves. ]

Sorry there isn’t a better title for the post. It’s sort of a mishmash.

Yesterday, we went to Yulais to give a health talk. It’s a tiny village about a 15 minute walk from here; ironically, very close to where we had the rock-throwing incident. Our message of preventive health was well-received. There were about 30 women and 11 men in the audience, not a bad turnout for such a small village, and they thanked us and are looking forward to our return next week. Here is a picture of some of them waving to us as we made our way back down the mountain.

Today, we went to the third village we work in, Campana, for the same thing. It’s about a 20 min. walk the other direction. No one was there when we arrived, so we waited. This is normal in Guatemala; everyone shows up late for everything. But after about 40 mins, when still not a single soul could be seen, we packed up and went home. The annoying part is, Emily even called the president of the Campana health committee to make sure the lecture was on for today, and he said yes. Another case of them “lying to your face, becuase they don’t want to tell you something they think you don’t want to hear.” For this group, it’s the fourth or fifth cancellation in a row. I think we’re done with them, unless THEY call US.

The cold has returned. Yesterday and today, I’ve been able to feel my fingers and toes only about half the time. We have taken to hanging out with the neighbors in their house, around their open fire. That helps. When we’re at home in the evening, we sit in bed like this picture of Emily. The night has brought strong winds that would sound really eerie and relaxing as they whooshed around, if we were insulated from their effects. We aren’t. Our new woodburning stove went in the mail 21 days ago, and we are still awaiting its arrival. By Guatemalan standards, we might have a few more weeks to go.

One of our strategies to combat cold is to bake stuff. We put chairs by the oven, and enjoy the warmth while smelling fresh bread and similar goodies. Here is a picture of the neighbor kids reaping the benefits of being buddies with the gringos in their town. Chalio, on the left, can now say “Cinnamon Roll!” in clear English. Little by little, my friend. Little by little.

Another way we keep warm is to follow the advice of my buddy, Farmer Ryan. “Firewood!” he exclaimed. “Heats four times!” What are you talking about, Ryan? He explained it to me: it makes you warm when you cut it down, when you carry it, when you split it, and when you burn it. He’s a pretty smart guy. And we have a MOUNTAIN of unsplit firewood next to our house. Normally, it’s Galindo’s job to split it, so I took over and have been having a blast breaking up logs. (note: i learned a new verb, rajar, “to split”) Here’s a picture of the medieval-looking tool I use to get the job done. This place is so much like living in the Dark Ages, in so many ways.

Everyone will glad to hear that Galindo is up and moving around OK. I talked to him some today, as he was sitting in the sun cutting up oranges to give to the little kids. It remains to be seen what the long-term psychological effects of his attempted suicide will be, but it’s hard to really get into it with him because of the language barrier combined with the sensitive nature of the topic. That, and I am not always the most sensitive guy in English. Sigh.

We were eating dinner with the neighbors last night, and at one point, most of the people had left the fire. I looked over at Nas Palas, and he looked absolutely beat. “¿Tiene sueño?” I asked him. He told me that he wasn’t tired, his head hurt really bad. He’s been worrying about money in the last few days; apparently his grandson’s excursion to the hospital cost him about Q10,000. I should tell you that is a STAGGERING amount of money for an old farmer that makes, at the most, Q30 per day. The terrible part is that the hospital itself is FREE. The cost was for the bus rental to get the 30-odd relatives to the hospital and back, and rooms for them during the ordeal since they couldn’t stay in the hospital, and meals, etc. It’s totally a weird, Mayan social fabrication. I understand a little, yet I will never be able to understand completely. “It’s a shame,” he said in Spanish, “all that money for something that was his choice.” Galindo wasn’t in the room when he said that. I believe Nas would do anything for his grandson, but I feel bad for his predicament. Much like my grandparents and those of their generation that survived the Great Depression, people Nas’s age survived a horrible famine and civil war in their youth, so when they get money, they hoard it very carefully. I am sure he blew his life savings on this endeavor, and now fears that if there is a drought or civil unrest next year, they’re done for.

That is about all I have for today. Take care out there!

At quarter to nine pm a van came honking into town and fireworks went off. Galindo came home accompanied by many family members who took off early this morning to help him check out of the hospital. It seems to me some kind of miracle that he’s made it back, but he is himself again, smiling and polite, laughing with the family that surrounded him. He’s walking on his own and can eat again. The doctors are worried about the damage that was done to his pancreas, and he’ll probably have pain for a while, but NOTHING as severe as the night they took him to the hospital.

His young cousins, Alberto, 5, and Chaleo, 9, had trouble staying awake until he got home, but once he made it they hit their second wind. Nas told me tonight that after Galindo was taken to the hospital Alberto asked his mother if he should drink poison too since he was sad about what happened to Galindo. It’s pretty crazy how these things hit the little kids. But tonight everyone is smiling, even as they yawn. Many of the people here have features I find at once strong and beautiful, but I have to say his aunts have never looked prettier to me than they did tonight, as though relief and euphoria made their smiles bigger and brighter their hair shinnier and more radiant.

I told Galindo he should let me know when he can eat chocolate cake again, and I’ll make a big one, because I was on the verge of making one tonight and realized he might be sad if all of us ate it around him while he couldn’t have any. He smiled and suggested, “How about tomorrow?”

These people’s cultural heritage leads them to put a lot of faith not only in prayer, but also in their dreams and local fortune tellers. The fortune teller said if he survived he would try it again. People have had some foreboding dreams, but maybe they’re wrong like the doctor who checked him into the hospital and said there was no hope has turned out to be wrong.

We took pictures tonight, as though to erase the awful pictures I had to take for them on Thursday. Nas and Galindo’s great uncle thanked us for the water bottles we sent with them as he was having a terrible time with the cold on the way to the hospital, and they thanked us for talking them into going all the way to the hospital. They said they might not have come to the decision on their own, that Galindo might have ended up dying here. They also wanted us to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers.

If I could make one request: please, keep them up, for a little while longer.