Town fair and preparing for stove building

I'm going to start off with a plug for my sitemate's stove project. We work on different sides of town and she is still looking for funding for her projects. She was also put in a bad situation because of Peace Corps' decision to have our training class take early close of service, so she is staying a month after finishing service to monitor the construction of the stoves in her communities. Here is the link to her blog http://30stovesin90days.blogspot.com/. She's doing a paypal or FOG check option, for FOG its the same, but with Melissa Amyx- Cat II in the memo line.

Good news on the SPA project proposal! I got the call Friday afternoon to let me know it was approved and I will be beginning construction at the beginning of next week!! The project is now fully funded and will be completed by March 5th, with a few weeks of evaluation and monitoring before I finish service and turn over my responsibilities to my replacement.

Town fair was just as fun as I hoped it would be! We were invited to a first communion lunch, went over to another friend's house to watch Convite (kind of like a parade, but it's all day dancing to marimba in heavy costumes) and had friends come to visit Cunen. The Conejos (the most famous marimba band in Guatemala) did come to Cunen, but because the Municipality was left in heavy debt, we had to pay an entrance fee. Last year it was in the park and free. The nice part about charging an entrance fee, is that all the drunks that wandered through last year's free performance stayed out to save their quetzales for alcohol.
On the main day of the fair there was a parade and Melissa and I walked with the other health center workers right behind the new mayor and his administration. The fair is in celebration of the Virgin of Candelaria so there were just as many religious processions as there were parades and dances. It was cool to have so much going on in town when its usually pretty quiet and low key. Most people are usually home for the night by six or seven p.m. but the night of the Conejos we left the dance around 1:30 in the morning and there were still lots of people dancing or watching and enjoying the music. All in all it has been a successful and enjoyable week. Things are turning out better than I expected with the new close of service date, and it has allowed me to make fun travel plans before returning to Pennsylvania. I will be traveling to a few sites in Guatemala that I haven't seen yet, then head on to Belize and Mexico, get in some beach time and hopefully see some Digo Rivera and Frida Khalo art in Mexico City. Then I'll be on to South America to visit family in Ecuador, perhaps see either Chile or Bolivia and definitely to Peru to see Machu Picchu, which has always been on my travels wish list.

I will be adding pictures as the stove project progresses!

big changes

In the last post I talked about how I had less than six months until returning home. I will be home in June, but my new close of service date is March 24th. I spent several days in this past week at an all-volunteer conferece in the Xela-area to hear about the restructuring of Peace Corps Guatemala. Currently, there are over two hundred Peace Corps volunteers serving in Guatemala. By March 24th, PC would like to have less than 120 volunteers. This is to have a better staff to volunteer ratio, and a more manageable number of volunteers. Although it is sad to see many sites losing volunteers, perhaps forever, it is an understandable decision given the security situation in Guatemala. Guatemala, as part of the "Northern Triangle" of Central America, was called the deadliest non-war zone in the world by the Pentagon.
What does this mean for Cunen? Not too much, beside the national budget going more towards militarization instead of infrastructure or health initiatives in Guatemala. This area of the country, like most rural areas (except near borders), is very safe and far removed from the gang and drug violence that plagues the capital and drug corridors. The problems found here are poverty related, one of the worst being chronic malnutrition (in some areas of the western highlands the numbers are as high as 7 in 10 children are malnourished). In our most recent health center meeting we were talking about malnutrition and heard that there are 1,200 malnourished children under five in our Municipality of 60,000 people. A pretty scary number, considering that, especially before the age of two, children's nutritional status dictates growth in adolescence and adult health. Children who are malnourished before the age of two are more prone to stunting, decreased mental capacity and chronic illness.
I joined Peace Corps with the hope of creating big changes, working hard and feeling like I had "made a difference." Once I actually came down from the high of training and had my feet on the ground, I saw how difficult that actually is. Language barriers (my K'iche' is still barely functional, unless talking about food, likes and dislikes, the weather or similar topics I am pretty hopeless), an overworked and underfunded national health system and community groups with a barely lukewarm interest in hearing an overeager gringa talk about preventative health, all made this task daunting. My actual successes have been on a smaller scale than I envisioned. I used cooking classes to lure the women's groups to my health talks and concrete skills like first aid to keep health promoter groups intact. I still lost some people, but there are the regulars that come back every month for information on nutrition and a new recipe. I will be finishing up service with about twenty graduated health promoters, instead of the forty or fifty that initially signed up.

When we were told that our close of service date was changed, it seemed as though our project would be postponed and left in the hands of our replacements. I was upset and wanted to figure out a way to still build the stoves in the time that I had promised the community. Yesterday morning I went to the mayor's office and begged and flattered to try to convince him to cover the rest of the funds needed for construction. I was told to wait and come back after the town fair, and that the previous mayor had left them with considerable debts. In the afternoon I got a phone call about the SPA funds. The committee will be meeting next Friday, and if they think it's a good project and that I can finish before close of service, they will approve it!
It's been a time of outrageous ups and downs, and I am going to be very busy for the next two months, but for the next couple days I am going to relax and enjoy the town fair with Melissa, Nicole and our Cunen friends.
The one picture is of my house, which I will be sad to leave because goodness knows when I'll be able to afford to rent a whole house again! The other is of Melissa getting a shoe shine because it amused me and the shoe-shine boys have been hassling us to get a shine since we got here.

2012!

It seemed so far away when I got here April 2010, but 2012 is here and I will be home in less than six months, but there is still so much to do here! After many months and obstacles I finally submitted the SPA application, so if it is approved, construction of the improved wood-burning stoves will begin mid to late February! Thanks so much to everyone who contributed through FOG, it was a huge help and made this project possible! I will be updating and posting photos as things progress.

I was back at the beach for New Year's eve, and it was fantastic. The pictures are of the ferry ride in through the mangrove swamp, and the last sunset of 2011 on the beach. The weekend included lots of dancing, good seafood (amazing ceviche!) and some swimming although the surf is pretty rough in Monterrico. It calmed down the morning of the 2nd as I was about to head back to Cunen, so I made it out past the breakers for about 5 mins and then had to swim back in because I got scared of sharks and other sea creatures. There were skates (or small sting rays?) jumping in the surf; it was strange to see them flapping above the waves. I'm not ashamed to admit I was a little scared of them too, that is how Steve Irwin died!

Due to low funds, work, a standfast, and town fair I will not be out of Cunen again for the rest of the month. Standfast is when Peace Corps tells us to stay put for a few days until the weather (or in this case, inaugurations) calms down. All the new mayors, govenors, and the new president will be taking over this weekend, so just to be safe, we'll all be staying in our respective towns for a few days. Standfast is always a good time to catch up on reading, watch tv/movies for hours on end, hang out with people in town or, as Melissa, Nicole and I usually do, bake something delicious. The weekend after next kicks off town fair preparations, although the real days of the fair aren't until the 30th-Feb 4th. Town fair is a huge event and the biggest marimba band in Guatemala, Los Conejos, is coming to play for the dance (if rumors are to be believed, and I hope so, because they came last year and it was excellent). It should be a productive and fun couple of weeks, and good for my bank account after all the festivities last month!

Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo!

Last Sunday I enjoyed my first Christmas in Guatemala. I did not, however, celebrate in true Guatemalan style. There were fireworks, which filled the streets with smoke and loud, gunfire-like sounds but not too many bright colors. It seems as though sound is valued over bright colors popping in the sky, which is my preference, but no one asked me. Guatemalans traditionally eat tamales at midnight on the 24th, which are cornmeal and meat boiled in a banana leaf (the christmas ones are special because they put dried fruit in them as well). The other thing that is served at christmas is ponche, a warm fruit punch served with lots of fruit still in it. I didn't have either of those on Christmas because Penni and I were at the beach. Seafood is pretty much impossible to come by here in Quiche (unless you want to figure out how to cook the tiny dried shrimp that sit next to other equally questionable dried animal bits)so we had seafood on the 24th. I really enjoyed the typical Garifuna dish, tapado, which has plantain, coconut milk, fish, shrimp, and crab. It was my first time on the Carribean coast of Guatemala, and although the beaches weren't as nice as I hoped there was still a lot of fun to be had.
We didn't stay long in Rio Dulce but the boat ride between there and Livingston was really pretty. There is a colonial era castle, lots of cranes, cormorants and pelicans and gorgeous tropical foilage. In Livingston we hiked the Siete Altares (seven altars) which is a series of waterfalls that are a short boat ride or an hour and a half hike from the main part of town. We hiked on the way there and then took a taxi for the second half of the way back because rainy season isn't over in that part of the country and we kept getting rained on. We also went Canoeing and had a pelican land in the water less than a foot from the Canoe! It was not scared of us at all and actually seemed like it wanted something. Maybe it is used to tourists throwing bits of food, but we didn't have anything and he eventually went away.
The weekend before Christmas Penni arrived and we hung out in Antigua. Saturday morning we hiked Pacaya, which is an active volcano and we got to roast marshmellows and warm up in a steam vent. It was a much easier hike than Santa Maria in Xela but still had great views of the other surrounding volcanoes. We also had a really fun tour guide who was wearing a leopard print scarf without a trace of irony. This is not terribly uncommon however (men wearing women's fashions unknowingly) because clothes arrive from the states in big bales and then are separated by newness, quality, etc but not by the gender for which they were originally intended. From Antigua we headed back to Cunen so that Penni could get to know my site. We hiked to the waterfall, went to a few of the communities I work in and she met my coworkers and host family.
The first picture is of decorating the Christmas tree my host sister and Melissa's host brother helped me find and the second is from the English class Christmas party. We had baked chicken instead of Turkey but there was stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and we made brownies for dessert.
It was, unsurprisingly not a very successful month for work, with several meetings cancelled at the last minute by the community members. I hope to get some good work done in January before people are carried away with preparing for the town fair which is January 30th-February 3rd.

thanksgiving and turtles

It has been quite a while since I updated. The last month has been a mix of ups and downs. I wanted to sit down and write several times, but it never felt right. My uncle who always read my blog passed away, and it was difficult to not be able to be home with the family. Thinking about updating the blog felt like writing him a letter he would not read. He was so encouraging of the work I am doing and was a positive influence in my life.

It was a fairly normal month in terms of work, I met with the regular women's and promoter groups. Topics this past month were natural disasters and emergency planning, first aid, reproductive health, and family planning. I also taught cooking/nutrition classes; we made some super yummy black bean burgers and in another class we made pineapple jelly. The promoters in all my groups are getting close to graduation. I will still be working with them after graduation, but more in a facilitator position to help them figure out their role in the community.

Last week I celebrated Thanksgiving all over Guatemala. Wenedsday night some friends and I cooked dinner in a cute hostel in Xela-- we bought part of a turkey (there were only four of us) and put that in the oven for a few hours and spent the day cooking and playing spades. It was really lovely. There were also sweet potatoes, stuffing, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, green beans sauteed in garlic, a spinach salad, and pumpkin pie for dessert. Needless to say, there were tons of leftovers and we had them in a modified version for brunch the next day. Then, I ended up going to Earth Lodge outside of Antigua for dinner Thursday night where another Thanksgiving meal was served. As it turned out, I had Thanksgiving three meals in a row! It was an extremely delicious and successful Thanksgiving for being out of the US.

On Friday I hopped on a bus headed toward the coast, and with only minimal difficulties arrived later that day in Monterrico. The Pacific coast of Guatemala is mostly black sand beaches, and Monterrico is one of the nicest and best known on that side of the country. It has turtle hatcheries, boat tours, and other tourist attractions. Both days I woke up early and saw a beautiful sunrise, Saturday on the beach and Sunday in a mangrove swamp. Apart from the turtles there are caimans, iguanas, herons, pelicans, sting rays and many more animals I don't know the name of but enjoyed seeing. Watching the pelicans skim the breaking waves for food was very cool. The tide is very strong in Monterrico, so I never went in too deep, but I'm hoping to make a trip to the caribbean coast for Christmas and make up for that. Penni will be coming to visit, so I think we'll be visiting the Livingston/Rio Dulce area. I am very excited to have her here to help me celebrate my first Christmas in Guatemala (I made it home to PA last year).

Both of my sitemates are away right now, and it has been odd but enjoyable to be the only gringa in Cunen. Today was spent planning for international HIV/AIDS day (Dec 1). A coworker and I will be doing a workshop and poster contest with the young people here, so we walked around today and put up posters promoting the activities.
After work I stopped by my old host family's house and chatted over an atol with them, then we watched some telenovelas, played go-fish and they invited me to stay for dinner, which was nice. They had been visiting relatives in another town for a few weeks so it had been a while since we'd spent time together. I've also been spending more time with my landlady and her niece. The three of us go jogging together most mornings. Now that it is the dry season, there are usually pretty awesome views of sunrise and the mist rising out of the valley and moving between the mountains. Although it sometimes feels really far away from everything, Cunen is a very beautiful place to live.

planning projects, aka I am almost done asking for help

Time is going so quickly! Next week is November, which means we shouldn't be expecting any more rain, woohoo!! We've had several days of sun, so I have clean, dry clothes and purified water (I hand-wash and line-dry my clothes so if it rains a lot nothing dries, I also purify my water using the solar ray method, leaving a 2-3 liter bottle of tap water on the roof for a full day of sunshine). Now that the rain has stopped we have clear, cold nights, with so many stars! With so little pollution (light or otherwise) and the altitude, I think around 6,000ft, the view of the stars is amazing but it is quite chilly. I am sitting here in a jacket and scarf but during the day a t-shirt is still fine.

I will be turning in the SPA application soon to be reviewed in November. When I turn it in I need to show a breakdown of how the money for the project will be spent and where the money is coming from (split between the community contribution, the municipal donation, donations via Friends of Guatemala and then how much I am asking SPA for) so if anyone would like to donate to the stove project in Llano Grande and has not done so already, please send that off in the next week or so (and email me to let me know that you did so, there is a bit of lag time while FOG processes the checks-- katemhoffer@gmail.com).
And a huge thank you to everyone who has donated!! I sent postcards as well, I hope they got there OK since the mail system here isn't 100% reliable.

This coming weekend is Halloween, which is not celebrated here, and November 1st is Todos Santos (All Saints day), which is celebrated. My sitemates and I will be celebrating both holidays in Antigua or near Antigua. There is a kite festival in a community about half an hour away from Antigua on Todos Santos. Kites are starting to pop up all over the place; many are home-made with different colored crepe-paper and sticks. The traditional belief is that the kite symbolizes the connection between the world of the living and the world of the dead, one end held by the person on earth and the kite up above in the sky. In Sumpango, where the festival is held, the best and biggest kites in the whole country are displayed on Todos Santos. I will be posting pictures next week!
People here also re-paint and bring flowers to the tombs of their relatives/ancestors and on November 1st they take lunch and eat in the cemetery. It is a day to celebrate ancestors and honor them by visiting and decorating their graves.

down in the valley

Cunen is in a valley ringed by mountains. It has its distinct advantages, one of which is a marked temperature difference from the higher mountain towns where it is only warm in the middle of the day when the sun is out. For the last two weeks it has been like living in a bowl of clouds. The sun has been out three days in the last two weeks and only one of those days did it stay out for long. The clouds drift in and sit, making it impossible to see past the lower mountains surrounding us.
I have always felt the effects of a lack of sunlight pretty quickly; after a few days with no sunshine it is much harder to get out of bed in the morning and I have very little energy throughout the day. The cold that has accompanied this rainy spell makes it that much harder to get out and do things. The only time I am warm is if I am hiking around, or in bed with lots of wool blankets. I haven't felt sad during this stretch of clouds and rain but it does sometimes feel like living in a dream world that is somewhere between waking and sleeping.
To cheer myself up and try to still accomplish things I make lots of hot tea, read online news to remind myself that the world outside of the cloud bowl still exists, and listen to Stevie Wonder-- I think it's literally impossible to listen to Stevie and not feel at least a little bit happier. I've also been reading a lot, as always, but because the rain has caused a lot of landslides that keep me from leaving home I have had an usually large amount of free time. I recently read The Feast of the Goat, about the Trujillo era in the Dominican Republic. It was a nicely layered story with good characters and lots of real Dominican history. I also read The Help, Year of Wonders, The 40 Rules of Love, The Hunger Games and am currently reading The Last Novel. Those are just the books I've read in the last two weeks. It has been rather nice, but I am hoping that the rain holds off and I can get back to work soon.
My sitemates have been doing mostly the same, we all share books and when we get tired of solitary activities we get together and cook. Melissa and Nicole both really like baking, so I have been eating more than my fair share of cinnamon rolls, cookies and scones. We were on Standfast for about a week, which means we cannot leave our community, and Melissa changed it to StandFEAST which describes pretty accurately what we've been doing. I get tired of sweet stuff after a while and crave salt and veggies so I've made sure we eat at least one regular meal a day with vegetables in it.

There have been a few days where the rain held off for long enough to safely get to the communities where I work. I have been pleasantly surprised by the commitment of the health promoters I am training. The groups have shrunk with time, but the people who are still attending the health talks are genuinely interested in helping their communities. Volunteerism is not as big here as in the states, so convincing people to sign up for a program where they will be doing health education for free was rather difficult. Now, after almost a year of working with the different groups I have three health promoter groups in three different communities. One only has three members, but they are really involved and have already given several health talks independently, even on days where I had to be somewhere else working. Another group has about six or seven promoters that show up regularly to meetings and they have been invaluable in doing all the house visits necessary before completing the SPA application. It has also been a great bonding experience to hike all over the mountains together visiting houses and joking and sharing our snacks. We even joke and laugh together, which I wasn't really expecting since they are from a very small, reserved community that is not hostile but definitely not warm to outsiders. In another community there is a group of eight to ten people that come to the trainings but its been a while since we had one. They live in one of the harder to get to communities and the road gets washed out when the rain is bad.
I was able to skype my friend Peter, who is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon, earlier today. It has been a really interesting experience staying in touch and comparing experiences. It's a great support to have someone that understands many of the frustrations of PC life (there are a lot of shared experiences, but also many differences) and its a reminder of how different each posting is. Signing up for Peace Corps, you don't really know where they're going to send you and my experience would be drastically different if I were living somewhere else. I am happy that I am where I am.