This year it seems like bad weather is not just a Guatemalan problem; people here in Cunen have mentioned the earthquake and hurricane that hit the US last weekend. It hasn't been so drastic here yet, but we've had tons of rain every single night starting in the afternoon or evening that makes a deafening noise on my metal roof. The rain also makes traveling, even within my municipality, pretty awful. The road up to some of the communities I work in isn't paved, so when the rain gets bad the gravel gets washed away in some places creating deep ditches and holes and the micro-buses aren't exactly in tip-top shape so its a very bumpy ride.
But the rain is a nice excuse to drink lots of tea and read when I'm not out working, no one really leaves their houses when its raining this hard. I just finished "La Casa de los Espíritus" by Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits). It's definitely the longest book that I've read in Spanish and although I still had to look up some words it was an enjoyable read.
I've been here in Cunen since I got back from in-service training and the weekend at Lake Atitlan, which has been good for catching up on work and spending time with my friends here Cunen. The people I see the most are my sitemates Melissa and Nicole; we cook dinner together several nights a week and alternate between southern dishes (Melissa is from Georgia and anything that calls for frying she does incredibly well. She also shares my addiction to way too much salt) and curries or stir-fry. I also visit with my old host family in the evenings sometimes. The room where I lived the first six months in Cunen is now a sitting room where Maria Isabel and I played Candyland when I last visited. I brought Candyland back from the States when I was home in July and she absolutely loves it. Just like six year-olds all over the world, she likes to play the same game over and over and over again. I think we played six games in row before I suggested we go outside and see the family's animals. They have a goat, which I'm not sure what they plan to do with and a whole family of ducks which I'm pretty sure is destined for the dinner table.
As predicted, the combination of heavy rain, build-up for the upcoming elections and Independence day has affected attendance of some of my health talks and training but there have still been many good days. This month I trained many of my groups in the basics of first aid, the importance of vaccines and also did a training with local teachers on HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention. Some of the promoters I've been working with also did their first health talks at a school last week. It was a great moment to watch them; when I first started working in Cunen it was a struggle to get groups formed to listen to my health talks, so having a promoter group that is far enough along in training to present a talk without me is pretty awesome.
Tomorrow morning I will be headed out of town in the early hours to go to the Quiche celebration of national health workers' day. There will be a parade, a basketball tournament (Melissa is playing and I'm cheering from the stands) and a dance! I'm very excited; last year I didn't feel as close to my coworkers so this year should be much more fun.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
touching base with Peace Corps: lots of meetings!
After a full week of in-service training I feel very intimidated by the amount of work I have to do between now and November. The first three days last week we practiced making different infrastructure projects—stoves, cement floors and latrines. By day two, I realized I am in terrible cement mixing shape. I’ve got the technique down pretty well from all the years working with Dad, but the most heavy lifting I’ve done recently is carrying bags full of health talk or cooking demonstration materials. I was so sore for a few days. It was a fun couple of days because the families we worked with all had young kids who kept asking questions about how to say different words in English and talking about their favorite American musicians. They were big Michael Jackson fans and said that it’s a popular belief in Guatemala that he didn’t actually die or that he did die, but then came back to life. It was pretty funny.
After the infrastructure training we had project design management training with our Guatemalan counterparts. I still do not have a good working relationship with my official counterpart at the health center but a community leader from Llano Grande and a representative of Save the Children, a NGO that works in Cunen, who translates the health talks and trainings for the health promoters into K’iche’ for me both came to the workshop. We talked through all the different phases of planning a community project, from pricing the materials, paid labor and getting municipal, community and outside funding. It’s going to be a crazy process, but I’m looking forward to a new challenge since I’ve been in the health talk routine for over a year and am feeling ready to make this happen.
Friday, after our morning meeting, Melissa, Nicole and I headed to Panajachel for a much needed break. There we enjoyed crepes, lattes, the amazing Saturday barbeque at La Rumba, reading time in hammocks at La Iguana Perdida, some mediocre live music aided by mojitos and restocking on peanut butter and other hard-to-find groceries. It was a great weekend.
Today I went with Melissa to one of her communities to do a health promoter meeting. We talked about birth control and intrafamily violence. As always in such a conservative culture, it took a lot of explaining that this was just an informational session and because they are training to be health promoters they should know these things but we’re not forcing anyone to use birth control. There was a lot of giggling and also some people that sounded upset, but it’s always hard to tell when the discussion is happening in really rapid K’iche’. But when we did the condom demonstration a good portion of the group was paying close attention. There were still some people who were pointedly looking away, but it’s a touchy issue since many of them are opposed to birth control for religious reasons. Hopefully some of them will feel comfortable enough with the topic to talk about the different methods once they have finished training.
The last few months have been absolutely nuts with elections coming up on September 11th but the political propaganda music and parades will be coming to an end in less than a month! The beginning of September will be tough to get work done because right after elections is September 15th, Guatemala’s independence day. But working around local/national holidays is pretty much a constant struggle here so I suppose it won’t be too much worse than usual.
After the infrastructure training we had project design management training with our Guatemalan counterparts. I still do not have a good working relationship with my official counterpart at the health center but a community leader from Llano Grande and a representative of Save the Children, a NGO that works in Cunen, who translates the health talks and trainings for the health promoters into K’iche’ for me both came to the workshop. We talked through all the different phases of planning a community project, from pricing the materials, paid labor and getting municipal, community and outside funding. It’s going to be a crazy process, but I’m looking forward to a new challenge since I’ve been in the health talk routine for over a year and am feeling ready to make this happen.
Friday, after our morning meeting, Melissa, Nicole and I headed to Panajachel for a much needed break. There we enjoyed crepes, lattes, the amazing Saturday barbeque at La Rumba, reading time in hammocks at La Iguana Perdida, some mediocre live music aided by mojitos and restocking on peanut butter and other hard-to-find groceries. It was a great weekend.
Today I went with Melissa to one of her communities to do a health promoter meeting. We talked about birth control and intrafamily violence. As always in such a conservative culture, it took a lot of explaining that this was just an informational session and because they are training to be health promoters they should know these things but we’re not forcing anyone to use birth control. There was a lot of giggling and also some people that sounded upset, but it’s always hard to tell when the discussion is happening in really rapid K’iche’. But when we did the condom demonstration a good portion of the group was paying close attention. There were still some people who were pointedly looking away, but it’s a touchy issue since many of them are opposed to birth control for religious reasons. Hopefully some of them will feel comfortable enough with the topic to talk about the different methods once they have finished training.
The last few months have been absolutely nuts with elections coming up on September 11th but the political propaganda music and parades will be coming to an end in less than a month! The beginning of September will be tough to get work done because right after elections is September 15th, Guatemala’s independence day. But working around local/national holidays is pretty much a constant struggle here so I suppose it won’t be too much worse than usual.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)