Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Verapaz

I thought it would appropriate to talk about the name of my department in this blog.  Verapaz loosely translates into "True Peace".  Something that many of us may not ever find on this planet, but is important none the less.  I feel like being here, even though it has only been for a month, has begun to teach me a lesson that will probably be my hardest lesson here.  Finding true peace. Not only in my day to day life and inside, but true peace with those around me.  My life has slowed down since moving here to something that would have driven me absolutely crazy back in the states and sent me into a frenzy on the internet trying to find something more.  Something else I could be involved in.  I will not lie and say that I haven't gone into that frenzy here, but as each day passes I am finding more and more peace within myself to just be.  Just be here in this community at this time with these people and REALLY learn something.  Learn something about a new culture, learn something about myself.  Its amazing the things that can come up in conversations with people in town. The connections that I can have.  for example I bought a dining room table last week (and when I say dinning room table I really mean a small table that is now pushed up against the wall in the room that I have Dubbed as my kitchen) and was struggling to get it back to my apartment, well two guys in my town on their break for lunch threw my table in the back of the truck and took me the last block and a half to my home.  While driving i was talking to the young guy and found out that he had just returned from Gastonia, NC.  Working in construction.  We talked a little about sonic and walmart and then it was time for me to carry my table up my stairs.  But it was so nice knowing someone who sorta knew where my home was!

The more time I spend with my host family is also time that i end up feel fulfilled.  Just learning about their lives before I became a part of it and learning about their families has opened my eyes to so much more.  My host mom struggled to put herself through school against her parents wishes.  She slept on the floor of a room, which she shared with two other girls, cleaned in the afternoons, and worked in as many on the side jobs as possible.  She and her husband still have this mentality working incredibly hard so that their two oldest children can attend private schools in Coban and Salama.  They are saving now so that their son can go to medical school in Cuba in a couple of years, but are always generously buying my mangos, bananas, and cokes during our talks.

This "true peace" is something I know I will carry on after my time in Peace Corps comes to an end.  I am beginning to accept that my life will not be the fast pace go.go.go. that it was in college and even last fall as I waited to leave for this adventure.  But I am coming to peace that I now have the time to learn how to make paper cranes, help with the local english lessons that a north american evangelical lady does every wednesday,  and learn achi (the local mayan language).  I am finding that now when I slow down I can actually see the beauty around me.  I saw a bright blue and yellow parrot on the way to some of my schools this morning. I know that this is something I will struggle with week to week, but I hope that I can remember what this place is giving me day to day.

Until next time....

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Pools and zoos

So this week has definitely not been as exciting as my last couple, what i mean is, there have been no scorpions in my sink or stitches put into my thumb. It has however given me a peak into what my primary job will be here in Baja Verapaz. Maggie and I have officially split up our schools and both of us have started our base line surveys. Base line surveys are pretty much a survey that asks the director questions about water infrastructure, the health habits of the students, and how often health lessons are preformed in each of the classrooms each week. It is suppose to get the director of each school thinking about his or her part in the process to be certified as a healthy school. So far I have been able to complete four of my BLS and meet with the directors to talk about our plan of action. I have also been giving some serious thought into teaching English in my community. It is something that a lot of the families have asked us about and I would love to be able to give my community something that they really wanted and needed rather than something I think would be best for them.

On our free days this past weekend Maggie and I ventured out to Salama to go to one of the pools, when we returned later than afternoon, Maggie's host family asked her why we always go to Salama to go to the pools, don't we know that there is one in our town? We, of course, had no idea. Maggie went to it on Sunday and was delighted to share that there not only was a pool but a zoo in our town!!! Our zoo has a female lion, a deer, Ostrages, pigs, monkeys, and a small alligator! but ever since i found this out i can't help but having dreams of a lion in my shower or an alligator on my porch! haha!

We also started Achi lessons today. Achi is one of the many different Mayan languages of Guatemala and is very very difficult to learn! there are not many words similar between achi and spanish and for this I am very thankful (I know I won't get them mixed up!). There are sounds in achi that can only be made deep in your throat or at the back of your throat, which as english speakers we never ever use. As I am typing this my throat feels scratchy and sore! We are going to start taking lessons every Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours. Why? you may ask...We both feel that it is an important part to working with the parents at the schools within our indigenous communities, we are hoping that this will make them feel more at ease knowing that we are trying to learn their language and share in their unique culture!

Tomorrow I am off to another school, but this time it is to participate in a School Health fair. Each of the classrooms at my school will have some sort of health project set up in them, everything from HIV/AIDS prevention to hand washing stations to brushing teeth. I am excited to see this school in action and get to spend some time with the kids. I am still having a hard time adjusting to the slowness of life here, but find that these sorts of activities remind me of why I joined PC in the first place!

I am sure many of you saw the news of the massacre that occurred in El Peten early this week. I want everyone to know that I am perfectly safe in Baja Verapaz and that Peace Corps is already looking into the situation to see how closely it will effect either of the Verapaz's volunteers. I ask that you all take into your thoughts the family members of those who have died and the people of El Peten, who will suffer more from this state of siege than most of the drug cartels in Mexico.
I will continue to update you as the events unfold!

Have a lovely week everyone! i miss you all a bunch!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

2 stitches

Buenos Dias!

so it has been another leisurely week and a half in baja verapaz! From where i left off last week, Maggie and I hosted a Cinco de Mayo get together on thursday having two of our fellow volunteers come to San Miguel Chicaj and eat nachos, watch movies, and catch up on everything that has been happening. In the process of cooking some homemade pineapple salsa, i cut my thumb, but didn't think anything about it until later that night when Michael (one of the other volunteers) informed me that i should probably get it stitched up- it was a much bigger cut than i thought! So the next morning I called our PC medical office and was told that i needed to get to a hospital asap because cuts cannot be stitched up after 24 hours. This was a little difficult because we were in route to a school in a car borrowed from the muni. I turned to my counterpart and told him about the situation and that we needed to change plans for the day, he felt otherwise because we were already at our first school (Las Minas, a very isolated, but gorgeous school with views of the surrounding mountains), I made our healthy schools presentation and we promptly left so that I could find some sort of health center with a doctor. We ended up at a Puesto de Salud ( these are "health post" in the aldeas of munis) The doctor agreed that i needed two stitches and that he could do it there. This is when the fun began, my counterpart not wanting to leave me alone, decided he should sit in on the whole ordeal and got to witness me getting the numbing shots(the worst pain in my life, i literally screamed) have the stitches sewn in, and then because i hadn't eaten or really drunk anything all morning, faint. Yep. I fainted. only for a second, but it was embarrassing enough. when i finally got my barrings, i start cracking up because this is quite possibly the most ridiculous moment i have had in Guatemala and maybe in my whole life. My laughing only confused my counterpart more! So needless to say, we got a lot closer that morning!

This past weekend was the welcome party for the Verapazes. We got to meet all the volunteers in the area and learn more about the area around Coban (the capital of Alta Verapaz). Our party was at a eco-lodge that had a zipline, indoor and outdoor pool, and a place for a fire. All of the volunteers seemed really nice and I look forward to getting to know them all better. Some of them are COSing by the end of this year which is sad, but its nice to have people to talk to about these first three months and getting started in site! They had a lot of great advise, like looking outside our counterpart for other people in the community that could be resources. I took this advice and made an appointment with our women's group in town. Maggie and I will get to have a proper introduction and do a charla on nutrition by the end of May. The woman in charge seemed super interested and wanted to help us in anyway possible!

We were able to visit 3 more schools this week, which leaves us with only 2 left to visit. The schools we visited were actually in Alta Verapaz and were very remote! All of the teachers go up on mondays and come home on thursdays. Each of the three schools has dormitory like places for the teachers to stay. So it looks like Maggie and I will probably go up every couple of months for a week and either stay in the closest town or find someone in the community to stay with. These schools were in such a beautiful location though! Guatemala is always amazing me! in the west there is ice and snow, in my site it is slowly being transformed from a desert into the tropics as the rainy season is starting, and the location of these schools looked like we were back in north carolina with pine trees and green rolling hills, and if you go one more hour north, you are in the rain forest! absolutely loco! one of the schools in this location will be a perfect school for a bottle project that maggie and i can work on when the kids are on winter vacation (october- jan). which is something that we need to start getting to work on now because we need lots of bottles stuffed with plastic! haha, if you guys are interested in helping us with this project please visit this website: http://www.hugitforward.com/ it is an awesome way to get involved and all you have to do is spread hugs!

Maggie and I were going to start doing our Base Line Surveys this week, but were informed this morning that because of the celebration of mother's day on May 10th, the schools would not be having actual classes, but rather doing games and eating cake all week. So we are going to have to wait until next week, but it seems like we will be able to get these BLS done quickly and can start doing the trainings for the teachers by june (hopefully)! i am really excited to get all this together, i think tomorrow i am going to start making my training posters and visual aids. Friday i get to get my stitches out, which i am very happy about because its hard only having one thumb! haha

More adventures to come!

Monday, May 2, 2011

The week ends, the week begins....

Hello Everyone!

It has been another very interesting week in the verapazes. definitely an emotional one! After returning from Semuc Champey, I found out that my potential living situation was not going to work out because the Doña of the house couldn't afford to put doors on the bathrooms because her father was very sick. This came as a shock and left me feeling very confused and down! but after battling it out with Peace Corps throughout the week, I was able to find a much better situation with another family, so now I am the proud renter of an apartment above an incredibly nice family! And the apartment is absolutely beautiful! i am constantly asking myself, how did i end up here? this is just too nice! I feel incredibly blessed and lucky! thanks to all of you that sent out good vibes last week! they definitely worked!


We started visiting schools last week and were happy to find that about 13 of our 14 schools are on the same road and some of them are even in the same school area! which is going to make working with these schools much easier than we orginally had thought! Most of the schools seemed really receptive, which is also a good sign, I am sure when we actually start trying to do training of teachers and charlas with the Padres and Madres de la Familia (the PTA of sorts) we will probably hit some road bumps, but for now things seem to be going smoothly! In fact today I went to a Padres de la Familia meeting to introduce the program and myself and had to talk in spanish in front of 150 people! they all encouraged me on as a stumbled through what I wanted to say! I feel very comfortable speaking in spanish now, but in front of 150 fluent speakers, the task because very daunting! But they all seemed very excited about their part in the project as well, even after i told them, I had no money to fund any of the infrastructure projects that we have to do in the next two years! haha

Big Excitement of last week though was.....in my second to last day in the hotel, I woke up early to visit schools, took my normal cold shower and started brushing my teeth. I have had an infestation of flying ants (seriously the size of a penny) living in my sink since the day i moved in and have learned how to coexist with them. So as I am brushing my teeth, i see them running around the edges and go to spit my toothpaste into the sink....Bad idea. The next thing i see are these pincher like things coming out of the drain...and i am thinking (half asleep) that doesn't look like an ant. Next thing i know a SCORPION is crawling out of the drain, tail ready to strike ( i am guessing he didn't like being spit on?) Picture this: me with toothpaste all over my mouth, hair in towel, tooth brush in hand, Jumping around like a crazying person and squealing "what do i do...what do i do?" Luckily the maintence guy at the hotel heard the commotion and came running into my room where he informed me that the scorpion was very dangerous and then proceeded to stab it with a very short stick, scoop it out of my sink , and stomp it in one fluid motion. I am telling you the guatemalan's do not mess around here!

I learned that the spanish word for scorpion is Alacran, something i feel like i should know for the coming years!

this week it is more school visits, these are the ones that are very far away (3 hours in a car) so it should be very interesting! until next time.....