Month 3 Day 8
Washington DC is a long memory back. Now I’m looking forward to new challenges and big events, mainly swearing-in and the election (Obama has it nearly wrapped up thank ______ or God). I have almost made it all the way through training. There are lots of good memories, a couple not so great ones, but one awesome experience. It’s hard to believe I am 1/9 of the way through my experience here. I know that still doesn’t sound like much, but its flying.
In less than 2 weeks we will be swearing in at the ambassadors house here in Guatemala. We swear in coincidentally Friday the 31 of October, Halloween for those of you who aren’t making the connection. Needless to say everyone is ready for our wings to be unclipped and celebrate the weekend with a couple Quetzalteca bottles and tequila shots in Antigua…and not have to return home. Quetzalteca is a $5 a liter bottle of unidentified liquid that is awesome, mostly due to price. We have a hostel booked up and I have no doubt we celebrate to the most properly deserved level.
Before we get to swearing-in we have 12 more days of general class and Spanish.
After all of the slow build-up of where our sight assignments were, time is flying now. I visited my future site this week, which I am not allowed to actually say due to Peace Corps Washington restrictions. But it’s pleasant and much more than I imagined for a site in the Peace Corps. I have 3 banks, 2 grocery stores, several Internet cafes, pool halls, cantinas, tons of great restaurants (in Guatemalan standards), including Chinese and pizza, awesome town center, and much more. Its way better than my hometown of Ostrander, OH…although I appreciate you Ostrander for everything you are…I would be a different person without your influence. The association I will be working for is a large national association focusing on health, education, youth development, family planning, and agriculture development. The lineup is especially typical of efforts to support Guatemala. There are 36 employees there along with myself, and a Spanish volunteer. The agriculture program is relatively new and consists of only a 20-year old female accountant, who was basically assigned to be my guide for the week, and a 3? Year-old agronomist. I have been assigned to support them (mostly the agronomist). The agriculture program works with 120 farmers in 7 surrounding communities that primarily grow broccoli (30,000 lbs a week) and snow peas (10,000 lbs a week). I will be working with them to expand their markets, figure out how to bring in funds to perhaps start irrigation, packaging, do transport, analyze markets and costs of production, try to see if there are any other viable crops, etc. They have a micro-credit program as well. There is plenty to do over the course of 2 years.
They association accepted me quickly and openly. They talk of “Confianza” (confidence/trust) all the time here. At first I thought it was an overused Peace Corps phrase, its not. My two counterparts have already said I have it and are excited to work with me. The association celebrated my birthday the second day of my trip and gave me a nice binder. They have made me feel more than comfortable and have a lot of respect for my experience and work. I am truly a knowledgeable professional to them, which I am in many ways…but I like that I am forced to fulfill that roll now. There is one young kid, 19, who speaks really good English, and I imagine ill spend some time with him. Already I have a line of people in the city waiting to meet me. I will have no shortage of activities. There is a story of a volunteer there that left 5 years ago who married a local…so there a little of that expectation too…I’ll ask them to bring me the best ha-ha. The thing is they probably would. I will be joining the basketball, futbol and running team for my organization. For those of you who know my basketball skills, you know they are marginal in the US, but here due to my size, speed and decent shooting…I am a star.
I found a pimp house to live in while I am in my unable to be said site. There is a rule that volunteers have to live with a family or in a family complex during their first 3 months…which I am not overly fond of but understand the reasoning completely. I made the best of the requirement though, finding a two-story house near the director of the association. I will be renting the upper half of an open-air style house, which is really like its own house. It has a staircase going up on the main side from the bottom area. The bottom area is like an aged resort, with a covered tiled area with two rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen all coming off of one side, and an abundance of vegetation in the yard and along the edge. The staircase is on the yard side of the covered tiled area and leads up to a covered terrace that is approximately 35x10 feet (huge), tiled, and surrounded by vegetation around the outer edge on the other side of the balcony. The terrace ends and shares a wall with a small living room that will now be a half living room and half bathroom after they install a brand new bathroom for me in half of the room. The other half of the upstairs is my room (which is the same length of the terrace but about 10 feet wider). You may think this is a big room, especially for GT standards…and it is. I will be dividing it somewhat into a half living room because its way to big to be just a bedroom. The other corner of the house, which is equivalent size to the living room/bathroom space is a kitchen. I have to provide the majority of furniture, but I will build most of it. I will buy a bed, stovetop, wood, a fridge, and possibly a tv (which would get cable, yaya). Anyway, it fits the Peace Corps rules because a family lives downstairs in one room and I share an entrance with them. Side note, the owners of the house (a small family) are moving out to rent it to me. And I will be paying 115 dollars a month for it. There is space for a garden, which I never thought I would have and I have criticized over the course of my life, which I will grow all sorts of vegetation. If you ever come check it out ill let you try it all if it’s in season.
Another birthday note, beyond the celebration in my new site, which I keep wanting to write but have to erase because I cant say it, I celebrated with another volunteer that had a birthday a few days ahead of me on Saturday the 11th. Peace Corps reads these blogs over at times and they don’t approve of drinking profusely, but I did accept a “few” birthday shots and helped myself to a few birthday rum and cokes. It was definitely a good celebration. I enjoy my people here.
Also, thank you for those of you who called me on my birthday. I appreciate it and love you people. I am excited to start getting visitors here soon and show you around a fuckin cool country. I invite anyone and everyone who likes me enough to spend at least a week here with me, or is traveling through.
Interesting story, of which I have been waiting to happen to someone here due to pure statistical chance, my neighbor volunteer best amiga came home from her site visit to a massive funeral in her house for her 83 year-old great grandmother of the house. Unfortunately for her funerals/mournings (which is a lot more like an excuse to celebrate) last from the day of death, through the night, through the next day until they bury the body, and then for the next 2 days!!! So I’m glad I’m not in that house.
Mentionable notes: my head hurt like hell after speaking straight Spanish for 5 days on the site visit, combined with meeting and smooshing with most of the town, including the mayor.
A drunken guy called me an idiot today. I said I bet I was smarter than him. My common response to those people, like him, that don’t want foreigners here would be “its unfortunate that you need us here because you and your country can’t take care of itself.” I have much more empathy than that statement suggests. It really bothers me that some people can have the audacity to be so simpleminded that they really would be mad people are here volunteering to make their lives better. I look past it due to the fact that the USA has fucked up several times in foreign relations here (along with a famished families laundry list of other countries) through CIA inspired coups and self-serving activity, giving them a legitimate reason to disgust us. Speaking of this, there is a great book called “The confessions of an economic hitman” that documents one specific economists experience working for a large consulting firm tied closely to the US government in the 60’s and 70’s, during which he was involved in large foreign loans from the US to countries like Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, etc. that recycled the money directly back to the US because the countries lacked the ability to invest the money in their own infrastructure and development companies. Due to this, thousands of US companies would come in at inflated costs and construct superfluous and massively expensive projects. The kicker is that the money being loaned would end up right back in the pockets of US companies. Not only that, but the consulting companies were encouraged to make unrealistic growth expectations, convincing them their growth would be sufficient to pay back the loans, when in reality it trapped them in a never ending debt cycle that made them a pawn of the US government. It’s a grimy example of our government and its foreign policy during the 60’s and 70’s in an effort to limit communism and push the American interest empire. The USA has a disgusting list of CIA meddling in marginal countries over the last 50 years.
Beyond that, I apologize for not writing habitually for the last few weeks for those big fans of the site. I have been pretty busy traveling around the country and checking stuff out…and finishing training.
Bring on Month 3
My 3rd month in country is just beginning. Thinking back to what I was doing last year at this time is unreal. I was about to celebrate my 22 birthday, in the middle of football season and having way to much fun. Two years ago I was about to celebrate my 21st birthday in the mountains of Tennessee. I think anyone reading this who was there remembers that, that was fun. Now I'm in Guatemala, two more birthdays to go until I'm done.
I received my site assignment finally yesterday. Everyone was really excited after the first 2 months of buildup to finally receive his or her sites. For some people it’s awesome, and for some people it’s disappointing. For me, I would say I’m stoically in the middle. I didn’t have a whole lot of expectations for the sites since none of them were nearly a perfect package and none were full shit. The things I am happy about include: the larger size, it’s a municipal capitol with 43,000 people living in it, it has all the amenities; housing to rent, internet, post office (a real sign of size), restaurants, stores, and solid transportation, it is close (within 3 hours) to several major cities and the airport, its literally miles away from the massive lake Atitlan and several cool hippie towns, there are 30 other volunteers in the area (including my best friend in the group and 5 others), close to amazing ruins and volcanoes, I will have the space to have my own gardens (I know who would have thought), and I will be working with a new group to peace corp, which I wanted. All good for visitors though.
Things I am not excited about: I wanted to be further away in a random far flung part of the country, although that may have meant losing many of the previous stated things, I do not have a strong international agency supporting my work, meaning I will be probably working uphill a lot, and I am in a 96% indigenous area, meaning its time to learn kakchikel.
All in all, I’m content. I haven’t even been there yet so I am still waiting to see the end result.
I wanted to mention that I watched the presidential debate on the 6th; Peace Corp had a shout out from Barack Obama when talking about the sacrifices citizens may have to make in the future.
Walking through the streets of my town recently, where the kids often yell to me to get some kind of response, I encountered a small group of kids led by one specifically loud child down a large side street. The one kids started yelling “gringo” to which I was answering, “where do you see a gringo…no way…I don’t see a gringo…there’s a Guatemalan.” They just laughed and kept saying gringo and hi until the one kid started running sideways away from us laughing…all the way until he ran into the back of a truck. I couldn’t help but to start laughing pretty hard… The poor kid had that half distressed half I don’t want to cry in front a stranger, and half still laughing look on his face. His friends were laughing though.
A week ago I went on a site visit to a town in, Quiche Guatemala. It’s a site high in the mountains where I group of volunteers live. I got a good vibe from them. They are pretty far away (6-8 hours from the center) and may be kind of forgotten, but I think they like that freedom. Which I wont get being so close (2 hours) to the center. The area was hard hit by the 40-year civil war. Thousands of Indigenous people died there. I stood in front a mural that cited foreigners as part of the major timeline of violence initiated there…needless to say I did not take a picture. The town has about 30,000 but seemed much larger. They have a lot of international tourists to see mountains and such there. We even met a group of 3 (Israeli, English, American) while hiking.
I only have 21 days left until its time to swear in as an official volunteer and continue this adventure in another place. Next week I am going to my site to check it out and try and find a place and meet my agency. I am excited needless to say and still comfortable here.
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