Pictures from my second charla

Here are some pictures of me giving my second charla about nutrition (forgot to take pictures of the first one). Those that came enjoyed it and I look forward to continuing my work with them.


Women participating in an activity of placing picture of different foods into their corresponding groups.
Going over the different groups.

Getting a better attitude :)

I am surprise how much I have grown while being here. I mean I expected to grow but not so much in the first 4 months here. Through the time of being here, I have really begun to feel that this is where God wants me to be. I have followed His calling to get here. I was a little freaked out about the whole experience but not following God's calling can be a whole lot more freaky (just think of Jonah!). I haven't had the privilege of joining a church, but I feel like I have really had the opportunity to make my faith my own. I think going to church in the states became such a habit and it lost some of it's significance. I have been keeping up with sermons from my church back home and I feel like I can glean so much more from the message. I really feel in step with God being here and I feel like He is showing me a lot.

On a slightly different note, I have recently started reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. This is a second attempt at finishing the book (I am not good at sticking with books long enough to finish them and this time I plan on reading the whole thing in a short amount of time. I also take a long time to read books and then forget some of what I have read earlier on, making it hard to get the idea that the book is trying to get out. I am hoping that both of my bad habits in reading books will be changed while I am in the Peace Corps. I guess it was just that I always felt like I had other things that I should be doing instead of reading, not so much the case here :) ) The book is about living as an "ordinary radical" which pretty much boils down to living how Jesus lived, befriending the not so good people of this world and being in community with them, living out faith in every aspect of life. In the book Shane talks about how we have to go where we are called (everyone is different, called to different things according to their passions and gifts) and where ever we are called we must live out our faith there. So I guess tying this back to the first paragraph, this is my calling here and I shall live out my faith in the situation that I am in, not thinking that there shall be another time for it, but knowing the time is now. Getting on track with this thought and idea, has helped me to be more content in my time here. I have been through a lot of difficult times here and to be honest haven't really had the best attitude but now that I have this information in my head, about how it's really supposed to be, I think it's going to make this experience a whole lot better.

Work Update

I gave my first charla (or health talk) yesterday. It was with a group from my first community and was with about 20 people, mostly women. I gave my charla on nutrition and talked about the three food groups Guatemala has. Grupo de crecemiento, grupo de proteccion and grupo de energia (growth, protection and energy) Growth is the group that contains proteins, energy is carbohydrates and protection contains fruits and vegetables. I discussed the importance of eating foods from each group and what each group's purpose was. In Guatemala, the diet doesn't contain much fresh fruits and vegetables (which baffles me a little considering how plentiful they are here), so I tried to emphasis this point as much as I could. I think the meeting went well, we had a few laughs and those present seemed interested in my topic and were willing to participate in my activities. I am excited to continue working with them and to build relationships with them. I have a passion for building relationships and I think once that starts to happen more, I will really start loving what I do, not that I don't now, it's just starting to get good :) I have a meeting tomorrow in the same community and will be going over the same topic with the other group I have there.
Today I finished up my home visits in my second community. It was the second day I was covering the 3rd sector because there were too many to get them all in in one day. We hiked uphill a lot on some rather difficult terrain. We got to once ladies house and I almost couldn't make it up to the latrine and all I can say is if I lived there I probably wouldn't be drinking much water so I wouldn't have to make that many trips to the bathroom. But the view was amazing! Should have taken a picture of it but wasn't thinking I guess. This picture is a view from our walk down the mountain. After we finished our day of home visits around 12:30, we were invited to have lunch at one of the ladies house. It was a simple meal of beans and eggs with tortillas, but the hospitality was amazing and I am truly thankful for it. The picture below is a guisquil that was boiled and to eat it you just have to remove the skin. It taste similar to a potato but was a bit smoother.
Here is a picture of where they grow.


On our way out of the community, we saw one of the women who I had worked with before to visit homes weaving a huiple or the tops that the women wear. She said this was for a 10 year old little girl and she also told me that it takes about three weeks from start to finish.

Just thought I would leave you with this view, it's on my walk to the health center. I have been meaning to capture it for a while and just got it today.

Oh! P.S. more pictures posted here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2414575&id=22423429&l=c9baad8481

Guatemalan Hospitality....warms my heart :)

Yesterday I went out into my second community to do home visits. I covered one section on Thursday and another on Friday. I have one more left to cover that will get spread over two days next week because of the great number of people/houses to visit. This community is a lot more spread out than my other one. It was a test of endurance both days, walking uphill a lot and through corn fields and down steep slippery paths. I have slipped many a times, catching myself many and avoiding any bad spills, and have the constant anxiety that with each step down the steep downhill trails my feet may come out from under me and leave me painfully on the ground. I follow the Guatemalan women accompanying us through these trails, carrying small children on their back, wearing simple plastic shoes that have little purpose other than to cover their feet, and maintaining complete and perfect balance. I wonder how they can do it, jealous of their ease of step. There are some paths we walk up that I have to push myself through and then when we get to a house or a point of flat land I silently cheer in my head and struggle to grab my breath as I don’t want the others with me to hear how out of shape I am. On the positive side, it’s been great exercise and I am happily tired by the end of the day feeling like I have made the day count. I talked with my sitemate yesterday about the fact that this is my work and I totally could have spread out these home visits over more days, oh well, I guess they are done now. Hopefully my visits next week will turn out to be a little bit easier, or not, I guess that’s supposed to be part of the experience here.

On another note, I have been wondering how the people here perceive me as an American and a guest, in particular the ones that I will be working with. The meeting last week with my first community (of interested individuals) left me wondering how the people felt. The majority of the meeting was carried out in the traditional Mayan language and I had little understanding of what the conversations entailed, but trusted my counterpart, who speaks the language and facilitated the meeting, with the matters at hand. I tried to pay attention to the emotion of the conversation and the non-verbal clues and also a few Spanish words that are thrown in as the conversation runs on (many times it is a mix of the Mayan Language and a few Spanish words as the Mayan language is simple and lacks the means for clearly expressing modern day thoughts), in order to best determine the topic of discussion. It is also a challenge to understand because Guatemalans are not very direct in what they say but they like to walk around and around a point and hope the receiver of their words can pick up what they are really trying to say. My counterpart is really good at this. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy working with him but sometimes I have some mild frustration in him not saying exactly what he means and leaving the interpretation up to me (which can be a challenge due to my lack of proficiency in Spanish and lack of cultural competency). I think I will just have to leave it to time and see how it all carries out with them. Then we have my second community. After having the initial meeting there, I had a better feeling and was excited to get starting working with them. I was really touched on the second day of home visits with them (yesterday) and had a moment that really made me feel that I was glad to be here (that has been a challenge for me, trying to find my purpose here when I didn’t feel very productive, but things are picking up) and that they really appreciated it. There were three women from the second sector that went out with my counterpart and I to help us locate the houses. We followed them to 17 different houses that were spread far and wide throughout the country side of this town. It was a lot of work and I am truly thankful for their time and dedication to my work, especially because they don’t even really know me or what exactly my work entails here, though they have a very basic understanding.

The part of the day that got me the most was when we tried to figure out what to do for lunch. It was around 1pm and my counterpart was asking me what I would like to do (we still had houses yet to visit) and I told him that I was ready to eat and would love to get lunch somewhere, and the women that had accompanied us were also lacking in the department of having food with them for lunch. One of the women called a nearby friend and had them start preparing food for us. I was really excited for this as I had worked up a good hunger from hiking to all the different houses and this would give me a chance to spend some more time with the women. We arrived and after a short wait for fresh warm tortillas that were being made on the stove and the preparation of the rest of our food, we were served a fried egg with a simple tomato sauce, tortillas and a glass of Pepsi. Guatemalan hospitality is something that I have been taking for granted, but now I am getting a better grasp of what it means for them and also for me. After we were done eating, which I was the first to do (I really need to work on slowing down, because it can get awkward sitting there waiting for others to finish), we inquired as to how much lunch would cost. There was some conversation in the Mayan Language and then my counterpart gave me the answer translated into Spanish which ended up being that we didn’t have to pay, but that this was a gift to us for the work we would be doing. I was really touched and I got a little teary eyed. I also noticed the women my counterpart was talking to was tearing up a little too. At this moment I felt like I was really getting to know these women and got excited for my opportunity to work with them and help to improve their quality of life and also that of their families.

So I guess I can say things are looking up, slowly but surely this is becoming the “toughest job that I will ever love.” Thank you everyone that has kept me in their thoughts and prayers, it keeps me going :)

Love to all,
Kelsey

The Work Begins!

Great News! I have a sitemate, she is from the same program as me. We went through training together only she was at a lower level Spanish and had to stay back for some extra help. She is here with me now in the place of my other sitemate who decided to go home. Peace Corps isn’t for everyone. We will be covering four communities that are within the 36 communities that the Health Center covers. I have begun work in my communities, though it has taken a little while to happen. My work starts with a community meeting that gets organized via talking with community leaders, my counterpart was able to help me with this as I have little knowledge as to who these people are. I met with one community during my site visit in mid July and met with the second one this week Monday. The meeting is a means of presenting my work and how I can be of resource to the community. After this meeting, those that were interested in participating in what I am going to do singed up and from that list I can start my meetings. In an effort to get to know how the people live and to meet the interested individuals on a more personal basis, I have conducted home visits in one community and have plans to cover the next in the coming days. Home visits are a bit more challenging to carry out in rural Guatemala as compared to a community in the states. Communities are divided into sectors usually around 2 or 3 depending on the size of the town. Each sector contains houses scattered throughout the countryside. Some are easy to get to just of the main road, but others require taking the path through the cornfield up and down hills shooing away angry dogs that protect many of the house, it’s not an easy job, but more of an adventure :). I was accompanied by a couple women from the community to help us locate the houses of those on the list and also by a staff member from the health center as I don’t speak the Mayan language spoken here (it’s a work in progress, a very slow progress) and many of the women don’t speak very much Spanish (Spanish is taught in the schools and many attend for only a few if any years of school). After finishing home visits, I will starting working with groups of interested community members, giving charlas or talks and working on health promotion activities.

So I guess you can see by reading all this that things are slowly picking up for me. It still continues to be a slow go, but that’s how things work here. It’s been a challenge to feel productive considering the fact that I used to be busy with school and work. It’s been nice to slow down, though it has been a challenge.

More pictures posted :)

Just wanted to let you know that I posted more pictures. They can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2414575&id=22423429&l=c9baad8481

Guatemalan Transportation

Hello all,

I had a great weekend meeting up with other volunteers at the Welcome Party in the department of Huehuetenango. Met volunteers from Huehuetenango and Quiche, a joint Welcome party. Not only was the party a memorable experience, but also was my ride out there on Friday and then returning on Sunday. It takes about three hours to get out to where the party was but for me it took a little longer.

As some of you know the main means of transportation for most Guatemalans and myself included are “Chicken Buses” or in Spanish, they are called camionetas. These are old retired US school buses, painted and stooped to Guatemalan standards. These buses travel all throughout Guatemala and can get you pretty close to where you need to go. Each bus has a driver or “chofer” and a helper or “ayudante” that collects the fare for the bus. Buses here carry many more people than you could ever imagine. It is standard that seats are filled with three people. This works for small school children, as I can remember in my bus riding days in elementary school, but it is a bit more difficult for grownups, though Guatemalans are much shorter than Americans. In addition to this, people can fill in the isles. Drivers fill their buses to the max in order to make the most money off of their trips. With so many people on the bus it makes it a little difficult to get off and you may end up getting closer to some people than you really wanted to. I am slowly getting accustomed to this but I feel it will take a little more time for me to be ok with someone that far into my personal space.

My ride out to Huehuetenango began first with catching a camioneta to the capital of my department. This has been a challenge for me because catching one involves me determining if it’s a bus that’s going to the capital and then waving my hand to alert the drive that I desire to get on. All of the buses have their destinations posted above the windshield. So I have to read the location quickly and wave my hand in enough time for the bus, that is usually barreling down the highway, to notice and stop. I have waved a few times without having the driver stop and I know the saw me. This can be a little frustrating because I know it’s probably because I am a gringa but such is the life of a PCV. I finally caught one to my desired destination and was in a bit of rush in order to catch the last bus for the day out to Huehuetenango from the capital of my department. The route to the capital involves some “curvas peligrosos” or dangerous curves but this doesn’t always phase the drivers. These are curves that turn back on themselves and are going uphill or down. Drivers of camionetas like to go fast so when they get stuck behind slower moving vehicles they are very apt to pass which is sometimes done blind. Blind passing is a very common thing and most drivers pay enough attention to avoid accidents of this fashion, but that’s a little more difficult on the curvas peligrosos. On my way out to the capital, when I was in a but of a rush, we come to a line up of cars within the area of dangerous curves. We sat there for a little while and people started getting off the bus to gawk (Guatemalans love to do this) and then the driver killed the engine and we ended up sitting there for about a half an hour. It turns out that a couple of blind passings had happened on the curves causing not one but two separate accidents. From my times traveling through this area on previous trips it seemed that it was only a matter of time before something like this were to happen. It was a relief that we started moving and I was able to catch the last bus out to Huehuetenango.

The ride to get from the capital of my department to the capital of Huehuetenango is on a microbus. These are about the size of a van and seat about 15 people plus the driver. The ride there was pretty uneventful with some beautiful scenery and the sun setting but the ride back was a different story. I was able to experience how full those micros can really get. Just when one would think that there is no more room, the driver stops to pick up more people. I was happy that we had gotten on at the beginning of the route and were able to secure a seat of our choice. Another interesting thing about Guatemalan transportation is what people transport. Anything and everything that people want to carry with them comes in or on top of the buses. A lady getting on the microbus was carrying two geese wrapped in a gunnysack with one head sticking out of one side and one from the other. I have seen many interesting things carried on the bus, mostly animals. I have seen a lady with live chickens in her apron, a lady with a puppy in a basket, and some guy with a woodworker. I am sure this is only the beginning of the crazy things I will see on the bus.

Until next time,
Kelsey

Sights and sounds of market day

Today is market day in my town. Every town has at least one maybe two days that they have their market. Every one comes out to sell their products, offering everything from live animals to fresh produce, clothing, and DVD's. Anything your Guatemalan heart desires can be found in the market. I myself was excited to check out the wide array of fresh produce as this is something that has been lacking in my diet here (I am not sure why Guatemalans don't eat more fresh fruits and veggies because they are so plentiful here). Even though we headed out early to begin our shopping trip to the market (6:30am), the market was well filled with shoppers. There were men carrying their products to sell into the market, many times it seemed, carrying more then they weighed themselves. The large packs are carried on their back and are attached via a rope that is placed on their forehead and goes down around close to the bottom. I am flabbergasted as to how they carry so much stuff, many of them are well along in years appearing to be around 70 years old. This is how much of the stuff is brought into the market and carried in day to day life, not having the luxury of vehicles, Guatemalans seem used to the hard labor of carrying such heavy things (I will try to get some pictures of all this the next time I head to the market, so you can get a better idea of what it looks like). After I left the produce section of the market, we walked past the section where vendors were selling meat. I believe the set up they have here in Guatemala would utterly fail the USDA standards. Carcasses are hung from a hook in the open air and as buyers come for their purchases the meat is cut off. There is also chicken for sale along with many other parts of the animal that I am not sure should be eaten. I don't like walking through this part of the market, the smell is overwhelming and makes me sick to my stomach. I don't think I will ever purchase meat in this fashion, it just doesn't seem right. I made it out of the market without getting sick and with some pretty good steals, by American standards. The experience was intimidating but I anticipate it to get better with time. Hopefully it will be a little easier to navigate once I learn the ins and outs and improve in my Spanish, and maybe pick up a little of the Mayan language spoken here.