Día de acción de gracias / Thanksgiving

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day back in the US; we missed you all but were lucky to be able to spend the holiday with Mosiah’s mom. For the occasion we decided to spend the holiday at Lake Atitlan. Lago Atitlan, besides being one of the most beautiful places on the planet, is also home to many ex-pats and hippies (or one in the same). For this reason we were able to find a place that was serving the traditional thanksgiving dinner with a scrumptious vegetarian option. We stayed in a little village called Santa Curz accessible only by lancha (small boat). This town has become our favorite spot in all of Guatemala.

Many Guatemalans knew the basics of the holiday: big dinner, turkey, giving thanks etc… However, when we explained how the holiday started some were amazed to learn the United States has an indigenous population like Guatemala.

Here is some Spanish Thanksgiving vocabulary for you:

turkey - pavo (or in Guatemala “chompipe”)
mashed potatoes - puré de papa
pumkin pie - pastel de calabaza
cranberry sauce - arándano rojo



Some pics from Diane´s trip:

Field Trip!

I have been working with a women's group in Pachaj, Cantel for the past 3 months with another volunteer, Marissa. The group of women was started over ten years ago and has done various projects, the last of which was a literacy course through the Guatemalan agency CONALFA. Marissa and I were asked to help them with their next venture, a medicinal garden. I was really excited about the prospect until I remembered that I don't know anything about medicinal plants and even less about gardening... However, with a little Internet research you can "seem" like an expert on just about anything. The group meets every Friday and we've done a mixture of nutritious cooking classes and preparing the land for planting. We've made some fun stuff like homemade peanut butter (made by grinding the peanuts on the hand stone grinder), lentils and stir fry on the wood stove, home made jam and no-bake cookies with oatmeal. We were purposely stalling with the garden because we were having a hard time finding seeds or starter plants for medicinal plants. A couple of weeks ago after we had churned the ground, disinfected the soil and built a fence around the garden we decided to go a head and plant some "winter" plants, squash, carrots and such until spring when we will have the resources to start the medicinal garden.

One of the great things about Peace Corps is that since there are over 180 volunteers in Guatemala there is usually someone that has experience with a project that you might be working on. During training I met another volunteer, Olivia, who is working with an association of women that has a medicinal garden on Lake Atitlan. After contacting her she invited us to bring our women to her group to learn about what they are doing with medicinal plants. Our group was very excited about the trip. Many of the women had never been to the lake, which is only about 3 hours from Cantel. We rented 2 micro buses and left at 4:30 am with 20 women and their children. We did introductions and they gave us a tour of the garden. We had lunch on the lake and played in the water. The trip ended up being a huge success with both groups excited about the cultural exchange (the groups speak different dialects of Mayan, our women speak K'iche and the women in Olivia's group speak Sutuhil) and being able to share knowledge of the medicinal plants. Olivia's group is going to help us get seeds for our garden and send someone up to Cantel to help us get started. My experiences with this group of women have been some of my best times in Peace Corps! Here are some of the pictures of our field trip.

Group picture

Marissa and I with women from our group

Charla

Garden tour

Waiting for the Holidays

One thing that we learned in training was to always look forward to something, anything. It could be as small as a trip into town to eat Taco Bell, but just have something on the horizon to look toward. Now that school is all but over for the year and I have some time to plan for next year (I mean procrastinate), I find myself needing things to look forward to.
Things I am looking forward to…

1. The Rockies winning the World Series

2. Having healthy bowels again

3. Dave coming to visit

4. Having too much fun in Antigua

5. Mom coming to visit

6. Thanksgiving in Guatemala

7. My next pay check (I am getting really hungry)

8. Someone to call from home

9. Seeing bolos asleep in the gutters

10. Going to Belize and being warm again

11. Christmas in a hut on the beach

12. School starting again

13. Riding my new bike around Salcajcá -- Thanks Uncle Sam

I would love to hear what people back home are looking forward to.

Salcajá Market

The market in Salcajá is every Tuesday and Saturday. Tuesday is the bigger day with animal (live ducks, chickens, cats, dogs, turtles, turkeys, etc... ) and furniture venders. People come from all over Quetzaltenango & Totonicapán for the market, as Salcajá is well known for their corte. The market has several blocks dedicated to the corte venders. There is also flowers, veggies, meat, spices, pirated cds & dvds, and much more. Mosiah and I try to buy as much as possible from the market as we just learned that our little super market, the ¨despenca familiar¨ is actually owned by Wal-Mart... The below pictures were taken this morning.

corte vender

woman buying corte

girl shopping for a new huipil

sweater section

huipils

Our Little Pink House

After 5 months of living with host families we have finally moved into our own little casita!! Finding a place to live was a bit of a challenge as not much was available. This house is actually the only one that we found so it was easy to make a decision and besides the landlord lowered the rent to Q500/month (about $66) for us since we´re volunteers... A definite plus! It´s located a little bit outside Salcaja in the milpa (corn fields). It´s about a 20 minute walk to the center of town. It´s been fun and interesting buying and transporting all of our furniture and supplies up to the house. We´ve bought a bit of stuff in the market in Salcaja and then hired pickups to drive us up to our house. Here are some pictures and remember there´s plenty of room for anyone wanting to visit! And yes, the whole house is pink (inside and out), there are plans to paint in the future...

Our pink house

pink bedroom

kelly washing dishes in the pila in the back (pink) patio

mosiah drinking morning coffee

the pink kitchen

pink dining room/pink living room

Best Day Ever

A few days ago I went to bed feeling like hell. Apparently, when I get a fever I start acting strange and shivering speaking gibberishy Spanglish in my sleep. After a day of being kind of unconscious Kelly convinced me to go to the hospital to have a… well a poop sample analyzed.

Aside from having cramps, a head ache, fever and a mean case of the boom booms I was feeling fantastic! To make matters even better the microbus that we got on to go back home was jammed packed with people. Now for the average Guatemalan standing in a micro is no problem, but for giant gringos such as myself you have to be an armature contortion artist to fit. So there I was smushed between the huddle masses with my head crammed up against a handrail holding on to the sides of the seats trying not to fall over onto the other passengers.

I would like to say that I had my guard up and that security was the first thing on my mind, but it wasn’t. My true thoughts were probably closer to “Oh my god please stomach… Please cooperate!... Who smells like tamales… Please god let me find a restroom soon!!” So in all the hustle and bustle I barely noticed the group of guys get on the bus cramming in behind me. At the next stop the guys all got off the bus and I dove into a newly empty seat.

Then it dawned on me. Wallet! Crap! After checking I found I was right, the guys who got off lifted my wallet. Then the passenger next to me added insult to injury by saying “Those guys stole your wallet”. She said it like she was saying “Hey, can you pass the salt”? If I had the strength and the language ability I would have said something, but all that came out of my mouth was “yes they stole my wallet”.

Kelly was good enough to jump right up and cancel the bank cards and inform the officials. I made it home with an aching belly and a wounded ego excited to get back in bed, when the phone rang. The medical office informed me that I was feeling bad because I had a bacterial infection and not one but two types of amebas. So it was pretty much the best day ever.

First 45 Days

Sorry for the delay with the new posts. We have been “Adjusting” to life here in the Peace Corps. With so many new things surrounding our lives we have found it hard to find time to post.

We have been in site now for about 45 days. In this time we have been consolidated twice for Hurricane Dean and Felix. I would have written about them if they had been more exciting, but they did not really affect us up here in the Altoplano. These events turned into social gatherings where we had a great opportunity to meet our fellow Volunteers and spend some real quality time doing all the things that Volunteers love to do (I’ll leave that to your imagination).

In between consolidations we had an opportunity to go to Panajachel and see Lago Atitlan. It is one of the most breathtaking places that I have seen here in Guatemala. We meet up with casi everyone from our training group to celebrate Marissa Lopez’s birthday. For all those who want to come visit the Lake will have to be on your itinerary.
We have also started working in our jobs. Kelly is working for Coop San Luis. She has started with an inventory project and is working to help them improve their computer skills and systems. Kelly also has a secondary project. She along with the infamous Marissa (our casi site-mate/hija) are working with a women’s group and are going to start a medicinal garden project.

I have been working in INEBOA or National Basic (middle school) Institute with an Orientation in Agriculture. I have started to teach a class here and there, but I am trying to figure out how I can best help the school. I am also working in the administration trying to build a database. If anyone has ideas about projects, let me know.

Hopefully as we get to know more people and how things work around here we will have more to report. We will also post more photos soon.

Juramentacion & first week...

July 19th we became official peace corps volunteers. The ceremony was at a posh hotel in Antigua and the undersecretary of state for the western hemisphere was there to lead us through the oath. The following day we moved to Salcaja. The first week was a little rough getting settled. It´s interesting going through the readjustment and settling in process all over again. However, it is great to be living together again like a real married couple. We´re temporarily living in a house owned by a widow who lives with her 19 year old muchacha. The Dona has been in the United States visiting family since we´ve been living there so we´ve just been hanging out . There is also another very young Guatemalan couple living in the house with a baby on the way. The living situation is good, but we´re looking forward to having an apartment of our own.

We had a busy first week of work. I (kelly) spent most of my time in the co-operative´s pharmacy trying to figure out how we are going to organize and start taking inventory as that is my first order of business. The co-op opened a pharmacy 2 years ago as part of it´s agenda to help the community by providing low-cost medicine. Mosiah spent the first week in his schools in Cantel and had the opportunity to sub in a few classes... We also joined the municipality of Salcaja´s commission for youth development. We´re lucky to be living in such a progressive town that is activally wroking to imporve the lives of it´s citizens. We met the alcalde (mayor) and staff, however as elections are in September we might be working with a different set of officials, ¿saber? On Thursday Mosiah invited me and another PCV in the area to join his school in re-forrestation project. About a hundred 7th graders, teachers and the American trio climbed up an increadibly steep mountainside, trees in hand, to a clearing half way up the mountain to plant the trees. I have to mention that some of the kids were wearing corte and heels and many we´re carring machaties and not one kid got hurt (and they all made it up and down the mountain before us...) On Saturday my pharmacy had their 40th anniversay party. It was a very guatemalian party with many speaches, marimba (national music) and a lunch that followed. They also had caldo de fruta the locally made fruit liqior... interesting to say the least.

Overall we´re doing well. We think about everyone at home lots and love and miss you all very much!

Whole training group

Youth Development group

Small Business group

Dona Rafa (mo-host mom), Dona Lupe (kel-host mom), Carlitos, Kelly, Mosiah, Don Jose

View from our roof in Salcaja

Kids & Mosiah planting trees

More Photos

Last Days of Training

Well training is winding down and we have finally had sometime to breathe. Actually, I find myself bored now that I do not have every moment scheduled for me. We had our last day at the center and we are glad to report that we both passed our Spanish exams and are all ready to go out to our sites after swearing in on Thursday. The strange thing about swearing in is that it is surprisingly similar to the oath that the army takes. I suppose it makes sense, but it is very easy to forget that we are working for the US Government.

There has been a lot of emotion with our families surrounding swearing in. My family (Mosiah) was good enough to throw us a pizza going away party. It was complete with gifts and followed by a tour of the local fair. After, we were told how grateful they were for our service and how they know that we will go on to do great things for Guatemala. Wow! Talk about pressure. I guess it really put things into perspective for me. Not only do we have a chance to have a great experience with our jobs, but we also have an obligation to try to find some way to improve the lives of people around us. How…? Who knows, but I suppose we have some time to figure it out.

¿Cowboy boots?

We have less than one week of training left until we swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers at a hotel in Antigua. Next Friday we are moving to Salcaja to begin our 2 years of service. This week has been packed with last minute training. We had a day of Mayan culture and language (since most of us will be living in areas where a Mayan language is spoken by at least some if not all of the population). Salcaja is about 40 percent indigenous. There was a day dedicated to AIDS/HIV education and prevention as this is a very important side project for Peace Corps Guatemala. We also had the opportunity to go to a little town out side of Antigua, Pastores, know for their cowboy boots. Three months ago I would never have believed that I'd be buying a pair of cowboy boots... but here I am sitting here writing this blog wearing my new pair of boots. Mosiah got a pair too, of course. The entire town of Pastores is lined with stores selling the boots, however I was told that though the people of Pastores make the boots famous throughout Guatemala, they do not actually wear them... The hand made boot cost only Q300 about $45 so if anyone planning on visiting wants to get a pair, we'll be happy to take you.

Salcajá

We found out last week that our future home will be Salcajá a town of 20,000 about 13k from Guatemala’s second largest city, Xela, in the Quetzaltenango department of Guatemala. “It is the home of the oldest church in all of Central America. The town is known for producting a large quantity of corte, the traditional Mayan dress for women. In Salcaja resides the oldest church in Central America. It was constructed in 1524, only 32 years after Columbus discovered the Americas and is known as "La Conquistadora" because of the period of time and the circumstances under which it was constructed.” Ok… so I just copied that from Wikipedia, but I thought it was interesting. The town is also known for caldo de frutas, a fruit and hibiscus liquor.

Today Mosiah and I are meeting with our host country agency counterpart at the training center and tomorrow we are off to Salcajá for a few days to find an apartment. I (kelly) will be working with a savings and loan cooperative that is looking to expand into new markets. They are thinking about moving into pharmacies, clinics or weaving… Mosiah will be working with youth development in schools around Salcajá and Cantel. Hopefully, we’ll be able to post some pictures of our new home when we get back.

Thinking of Leaving Magdalena

We are sitting at the training site awaiting our site assignments. In some ways I am very excited and in others I am a little sad. I know that I have not mentioned this before, but I have grown attached to my host family and I think that I am really going to miss being in their home. I am especially going to miss my best Guatemalan friend, Marvin. Sure he is 4 but I it helps that we have about the same Spanish language ability.
Everyday when I get home from work he has some activity planned for us. Some days we draw, other days we color, but more than anything he loves to play soccer. Now only if I can get my future students to make me laugh as much as he does.
The rest of my host family is amazing. They are so kind and generous that sometimes I feel like they are getting a raw deal. Not only do they provide me a space to live, food, and laundry; but they also provide laughter, conversation and truly care for Kelly and me. All I can really do is hope that our next family is as wonderful and hospitable as the Martinez family has been.

update...

2 more days until we find out our future town for the next 2 years of our lives and the specifics of our projects. Then 3 more weeks until we swear in as real Peace Corps volunteers and move to our sites. We can´t wait!

Today we had the opportunity to meet the US ambassador to Guatemala. It was a very informal meeting at the Peace Corps training center. They even ordered Domino´s pizza! The ambassador is very down to earth and open and honest about his roll here. It was also interesting to learn about the US agenda in Guatemala. Peace Corps and the State Department are completely seperated in order for PC to be effective and remain independent of foreign policy. This issue is very stressed on both sides. Anyway, it was an interesting meeting because as peace corps volunteers we were able to ask more pointed questions than your average ¨government¨ employee.

We´ll keep you informed about were we are placed. Until then you are all missed and in our thoughts. Lots of love!!

More Photos

Matt and Sean are the Best!!!

I would just like to take a moment to thank Matt and Sean for their wonderful and super thoughtful carepackage. We are more than open to letters, packages, and responses to our blogs.

Kelly and I have just returned from a week in and around Xela. We had the opportunity to teach a weeks worth of classes to 6th graders in the beautiful town of Cantel. The kids were so generous and fun to work with. It gives me hope that I (Mosiah) may have the strength to survive the next two years. We will post pictures as soon as we have more than a few moments of free time. Hope eveyone is well and we hope to hear from people soon.

Fotos

Here´s a small selection of some of our pictures thus far.

The small business group with Carlos our trainer

Spanish classes at Kate´s house

Kelly´s host brothers dressed up for mother´s day

View from Mosiah´s roof

Mosiah and other youth volunteers in Magdelana (Mosiah´s town)

Cowboys in Antigua

Elmo piñta as promised

Girls in Nahuala