February 5th – Its too late to apologize (for not writing)
Usually I start out a blog, although lately and historically there haven’t been too many of them, with some comment about how the time is f**in flying. Well yes, it still is flying. Some of you may be wondering, minus those who have called me, if I haven’t written because I'm wallowing in self depression down here in the middle of the Guatemalan highlands or it is because I’m having too much of a good time, or maybe because I'm saving people. Well it’s a combination of 2, and it doesn’t include depression. I do apologize for anyone that does check this blog, and has more than 2 times and found it to be hazardly outdated.
I do not commit to being more prompt with blogs, but I will try. I don’t have time to catch up with everyone all the time, although I would because I have amazing friends and family all over, and perhaps more than one person should even deserve. I am actually taking the initiative to write this blog due to the instigation of 3 people: 2 uncles and an amigo from school getting ready to be an agent.
Like I already mentioned though, time truly is going quickly. My greatest fear when I got here was that I would be counting the days… all 800 something of them. And thankfully I actually sometimes look at my watch and raise the brows that it’s later than I thought. Weekends always come quick.
At this point I can say I'm very integrated into the community. I can navigate my way through any social situation, out of the ordinary situations, and so forth. I have too many friends/acquaintances here that I can never keep my commitments, which I apologize for (to the wrong crowd here). My Spanish is at the point where I say exactly what I mean and I don’t have to premeditate anything mentally. However I still cant exactly hold a great convo after a 10-mile run. Its tough to walk across town, or even to the center without having to do the “stop and chat” with at least 5 people. Most of the time I hear whistles and my name, look, and I see a group of people waving I don’t even know. My legacy precedes me.
This is the section where I would detail several PC incorrect tales of where I live (PC being a play on politically correct, but actually referring to Peace Corp) but I cannot due to the tracking of my blog. If I was smart I may not have included my name in the title, but here we are hindsight being 20/20. I will make any of the tales known to callers of my local cell phone via calling card or world phone.
After 3 months in my sight, now going on 4, I have started projects in the communities of ________, __________, ___________. All around my community of __________. So yes 3 communities. One major fault/disadvantage of Peace Corp is that you do not have access to any type of resources to implement even the simplest projects. Many people have access to resources through their associations, NGO’s, or perhaps the actual community groups. However, I am working with the poorest of the poor as far as farmers out here. ** I am going to attach an article I wrote on a whim so that you can grasp the idea** So my recent projects, more than analyzing and strategizing about the government, local policy, and potential investments include 3 things:
1. Gardens: to combat malnutrition, and to start experimenting with diversified crops so that eventually we can scale up the size if they grow well in the climate and given land. In my field I’m more interested in the trials of the new crops and doing tests with organic parcels/chemically treated parcels/and mixed organic and chemical to measure results, compare costs, etc, etc.
2. Worm composting/regular composting: mainly to provide nutrients to leeched lands for the garden experiments and for small parcels near the houses. The worms are the money project. They produce a liquid that can be sprayed as fertilizer when the composts are properly managed and concentrated. It is a popular idea right now and we are at the forefront in our area.
3. Technical training: Thanks to a generous set of grandparents we are sending a select group of the associates, along with myself and our new agronomist to a training center to learn about greenhouse crops, open field crops, administration, and related maintenance. I will be licensed in some form of agriculture (who ever would have thought), but more importantly 10 members of our group will have gained important knowledge and access to new ideas that we will work as a group to reteach in the communities through brief orientations and examples.
4. Also I'm working towards tree replanting, mushrooms, and a couple other mental gems.
Mostly I have decided that YES these farmers can benefit from joining and continuing their pursuit into the global food trade, but they have several issues to address before it becomes truly obtainable on a profit level. They currently make very little money, sometimes less than $2 a day. Again will be addressed in attached article.
I am currently thinking about returning from the Peace Corp in a million years and doing environmental engineering or something technical so that I can compliment my existing knowledge and use that base to work in forming policy/analyzing/doing research or government work.
OTHER NEWS
Since my last post (although there is some proof via pictures) all members of my immediate family have been down to visit me here in Guatemala. I had an amazing time with all of them. Both trips were special. The time with just the men of the family provided a number of good laughs (all week), and some frustration (trying to find the beach), but overall we bonded, celebrated a fantastic new year, and did some cool activities. I imagine they will all be back in the next year. The love existing between father and us as brothers is evident and I sit back in awe at how awesome my family is and couldn’t be happier.
My mother followed up their visit about a month later. She spent more time in ________, my local place knowing the local flavor and my families/friends here. We also went to Flores Petén in northern Guatemala. The most amazing ruins I have ever seen. Huge towers sticking out over jungle. SO impressive they are evident in Star Wars, I believe number 2 of the originals. But it was also a pleasure to have someone else in the house to share the backbreaking cleaning, cooking, laundry, and so forth that I always do. Thanks mum.
Other brief notes:
Got a new buddy in town from Spain who will be volunteering for 8 months (he is counting down the days and says 7 ½). Ha.
I moved houses. My original landlord charged me 800 quetzals (roughly 110 bucks), but that’s 200 over my local budget. And I received an offer for a place with 3 rooms, hot shower, better location for 200 less. Easy decision except for the fact I really liked my old neighborhood. But on the way out moving my things I asked the family that had been living below me how much they had been offered to live where I lived upstairs and she told me 600. Needless to say, my old landlord took advantage of me and I didn’t feel too bad about moving out after hat.
IF ANYONE EVER WANTS TO MAKE A DONATION TO MY ASSOCIATION THAT GOES DIRECTLY TO MY WORK THERE EXISTS an NGO CALLED FRIENDS OF GUATEMALA. That is how we are sending the group of farmers to technical training. And its also tax deductible. So before you think about sending cash to the local church, send it to something sustainable… and real. I promise that every bit will be used to start grassroots projects that can and will be documented for the viewing pleasure of donees.
What else? I’m not sure. Usually I keep better track of what I want to mention but its bee such a long time. But I promise my next post will be more up to date.
Oh some may hear from my mom or whoever, but I've been seen going out with a Guatemalan friend from the capital. She’s cute and I enjoy spending time with here. That’s my political answer as of now.
I’m throwing on some serious photage also for the viewing pleasure.
Oh yeah: BONNAROO – See you in June people. Make your appointments now.
ARTICLE:
Farming as a National Pastime
Snaking gradually lower out of Patzún Chimaltenango into the surrounding mountains I marvel at the incredible views. The type of views you take in, and remind everyone around you to appreciate due to the uncanny resemblance to postcards and documentaries. Steep mountainsides fallings drastically into valley floors you can’t see. Not one or two, but three surrounding volcanoes in sight. Distant highland plains are visible in the distance. Its almost like you can touch the sun in the early morning and late evening. There are trees covering much of the mountainsides, but the rest is covered in checker shaped parcels of farmland, quietly reminding me that people inhabit the remarkable countryside.
The excursions into the surrounding mountains of the Guatemalan highlands always provoke thoughts about the people that still inhabit the beautiful, but intolerant land, the people that trek daily to those modest check board parcels and tend some crop that may or may not be worth tending. As my counterpart remarks smiling, but knowingly, farming is becoming a national past time.
I consider the long chain of events that end with populated, barely habitable mountainsides. The conquistadors arrived many years after the peak of the Mayan empire, so forcing the indigenous people of Guatemala out of prime, flat land must not have been a major challenge. Slowly the Mayans and their descendents, threatened increasingly by the presence of Kaxlan (foreigner in Kaqchikel, one of a number of indigenous languages), moved further away from the resource-extracting and political centers that were being created. Simultaneously they were moving away from friendlier coastal areas from the same pressure. And where did they end up? The same place I used to end up as a child jumping from sand-island to sand-island on the beach during high tide, awaiting the rising water, forcing me to choose an island, urging me with the threat of water to the center.
In the Guatemalan version the Mayans were forced to the tops of mountains, far from the most inviting climates and lands. And there they remain, hidden away from nearly 500 years of persecution, first by conquistadors, and later conquistador descendents, who culminated a quarter millennium with 40 years of violence that witnessed government troops persecute the indigenous after the fall of President Jacobo Arbenz, a man who wanted to give land back to the people. My mental meandering always brings me to a point of admiration for the resilience of these people. Continuing onward, but certainly never thriving.
That continuity contributes to the consistent production of large volumes of agricultural products that are exported out of Guatemala annually. The parcels of land littering the mountainsides provide a massive amount of food to developed nations.
Yet there exists an overwhelming contradiction that consumers don’t realize as they cruise the vegetable aisle at the mega superstore; the people producing their food are dying of hunger. How is that even possible, that farmers in a produce exporting country are suffering from malnutrition and hunger on a daily basis? As I end my excursion out to the villages to meet with the promoters of my association, they and their family’s gaunt faces, with deceivingly high cheekbones, large teeth, and undersized bodies greet me.
We explore the lower side of a Xetzitzi looking for a spring that may potentially provide irrigation for the small agriculture community. As we walk for 6 hours, traversing up to the crest of a mountain, hacking along the ridge with machetes, and then lowering down to the riverside, I taste the sweat of hard work, secretly giving thanks that I don’t do this daily. The contingent stops once to eat a meal intended to impress the two engineers, my coordinator, an agronomist, and myself. I pay intimate attention to the rationing. They make sure we are well fed in comparison. Surely their bodies are used to the limited food? After the meal of canned sardines, tortillas, canned beans and Pepsi we push on.
Naturally, being best acquainted with the region the undernourished local delegation of 5 lead, as the best-fed people struggle. Several times I pause, peering back along the machete slashed trail, awaiting the faces of the second group comprised of the two engineers and my counterpart. Several times I wait several minutes, watching the group of Mayan descendents sit patiently, eyes wandering, purposely avoiding much attention. The water source that may finally bring consistent water and irrigation to a community that currently receives water for half an hour, every three days, lay ahead. They are clearly accustomed to waiting.
As a Peace Corp volunteer it’s my responsibility to understand their existence, or more definitively their daily struggle. I accompany them to their checkerboard parcels. Many of them daily walk for an hour in each direction to tend harvests. They hike up and down mountains. When planting time comes they bring hundred pound sacks of fertilizer and seed down to the parcels. And when it comes time to harvest they bring hundred pound sacks of vegetables on their backs up from those parcels.
Popular economic theory says that countries, regions, and people should exploit their competitive advantages to advance. I find myself at a mental hurdle: what if there is no competitive advantage? Some economists may argue that one would be silly to argue that point. But from what viewpoint is there an advantage? The steep mountainside parcels are not a geographic advantage. The 6 dry months 6 wet months cycle is hardly a climatic advantage. Nor is a central mountaintop location. Furthermore they require basic infrastructure and services, market information eludes them, they lack access to capital, and the government is unreliable at best. Is there some illusionary advantage to them?
Low-cost labor. I crunch out costs of production, because as a Peace Corp volunteer I bring only expertise, so I can understand, analyze and advise. I find disturbing numbers. The current daily field laborer wage is Q35/day ($4.50), not much. But the numbers I calculate punch me in the stomach. During subpar years, which are coming more often, and this being one of them, they are making less than Q15 ($2) a day for doing work that is reminiscent of slaves in ancient empires. There is nothing competitive about $2 a day.
Expensive oil had lead to surging fertilizer and transportation costs. Due to top down industry pressure from a small group of large retailers, intermediaries refuse to pay the proportionate increase in price, further devaluing their labor. What if an advantage is so detrimental it is no longer an advantage? What if mountainside producers can’t compete with large scale, subsidized first world agribusiness without accepting even less? If they cant compete in farming then what else? Guatemala depends on agriculture as a whole, and nothing but agriculture exists in the small rural communities. If the first world forces these jobs out by providing subsidies and allowing large food retailers to create so much pressure that the farmers become flattened by price demands, then what will happen to these people?
There will be no factories or service centers. If survival by agriculture is not an option, then I don’t know what is? Their lands, like they, are exhausted. The government gives little support. How long until their frames are too small for the brutal 18th century farming practice.
Will empty store shelves in the developed world open eyes to the brutal lifestyle perpetuated by the global food system, a system that perpetuates malnutrition. How long until farmers decide it’s better not to grow food if they can’t sell it to buy food? They are accustomed to struggle; they will revert to subsistence before we do.
What am I doing as a Peace Corp Volunteer to help them? Three things. One, I am changing the rules to the extent possible. I am promoting social, subsistence, community based farming where they grow a variety of foods, and trade inter-communally for meat and other staples.
Two, because its hard to be totally self sufficient and they cant make houses with vegetables, I’m teaching them to play the game. The global export game. If you can’t beat them join them. Learning how to grow produce like consumers want it, perfect, is priority one. Trying to implement irrigation, build processing capabilities and gain certifications are close behind on the list.
Three, I’m telling people about it. It’s not enough that we volunteers travel to and work in Guatemala and other countries with some of the most impoverished, resilient, and hard working people on the planet. The world needs to know how hard these people struggle unwittingly against the pressure being placed on them by a global food system demanding a double shot of low-price and perfection. The world needs to know that these people are dying of hunger in order feed it, before we are all hungry, because they are not loud enough or strong enough to tell anyone, and they cant go any further away, higher into the mountains. Hopefully someone listens.
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