Hello, friends. It has been so long. I’ve been in my site for just over a month now, and every day has its ups and downs.
The village itself is truly beautiful. Getting there involves an ear-popping car ride through the mountains of Huehuetenango. My pueblo is in a deep valley surrounded by tall green mountains with a big river running through the middle of it. The mountains look like a patchwork quilt made of every shade of green, because they have been divided up into small terranos of land where the people farm coffee, bananas, apples, beans and especially maize.
The truth is, often I feel like the people in my town are at best mildly amused by my presence and at worst really irritated by it. But probably even the experiences that are hardest are very character-building. For example, up to this point in my life I haven’t received much unwanted attention due to my race. That’s totally different now. Everywhere I go I make a spectacle of myself, just by walking around and talking the way I do, and being myself. And I have to tell you, if “¡Gringa, gringa, gringa!” has never been screamed at you by 200 school children, you haven’t lived.
The hardest thing right now is definitely the unabated loneliness. My town is really reserved, and I don’t really have any friends here. I think that will eventually change, but realistically, it will probably take several months. I’m far away from all the friends I made in my training class, and I miss my family incredibly. Furthermore, the fact that Spanish is a second language to all the residents here certainly puts a barrier between me and potential kindred spirits.
I think this kind of experience really brings out whatever personal neuroses you happen to have, and I won’t tell you all of mine, but I have always had a problem with comfort eating, and I pull at my eyebrows when I get nervous. And while right now, during what everyone agrees is the hardest part of training, these neuroses are exaggerated, I’m hoping that also, this will prove to be the best opportunity to conquer them.
Back in my college debate society, I once presented the resolution “Be it resolved: Addiction is the opposite of personal freedom.” The best counter argument that I heard was something to the effect of, “No, addiction offers us the best opportunity to prove that we do indeed have personal freedom.” He argued that addiction gives us the occasion to prove that we have agency, to make a choice and a commitment about something that actually matters.
So I’m hoping that pushing on through my constant doubt, and enduring innumerable uncomfortable social interactions will effect a positive change in me, and in my pueblo, too.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
what are the people like, there?
Before I came to Guatemala, and even when I first arrived in the Peace Corps, people told me a lot of things about the Guatemalan people. “They are a murderous group,” one neighbor claimed. “They are a small people, and very, very quiet,” said another. “Culturally, they often don’t marry. They just opt for common law marriages.”
“It’s a very machismo kind of society. Women tend to be subservient.”
“Everyone is armed.”
“It’s a society of indirect communication. No one will ever explicitly tell you ‘no.’”
And on and on.
One of the funnest things about being here has been seeing how these stereotypes play out—but more often than that, how they don’t.
All of these statements lump citizens of The Land of the Eternal Spring together as one. And while most cultures have something in common, all of the Guatemalans I know have very distinctive personalities.
For example, we’re all told that the men here have the last word. In a marriage, they run the show, while women just stay at home, cooking, cleaning and popping out babies. But in the families I know, the women are totally in charge. They control the finances, they work, and they make practically all of the important decisions regarding the family.
Then there’s the little old lady in the Puesto de Salud who spontaneously gave us a charla on family planning, explaining to us to use condoms and oral contraceptives. In a society that is supposedly too Catholic to believe in anything other than the rhythm method, this should not have occurred.
Even in my house, where I live with two older sisters who grew up together and are best friends, their personalities are completely different.
One is direct, proud, a career nurse who wisely invests every extra cent she earns. The other is loving and nurturing, but firm, a wife and mother with strong opinions about her family, community and world. While traditional in some ways, she taught her four sons to always show women respect with their words and deeds.
Having all of my preformed assumptions blown out of the water one by one has been a humbling experience. It reminds me how silly it is to ask the question, “What are the people like, there?”
“It’s a very machismo kind of society. Women tend to be subservient.”
“Everyone is armed.”
“It’s a society of indirect communication. No one will ever explicitly tell you ‘no.’”
And on and on.
One of the funnest things about being here has been seeing how these stereotypes play out—but more often than that, how they don’t.
All of these statements lump citizens of The Land of the Eternal Spring together as one. And while most cultures have something in common, all of the Guatemalans I know have very distinctive personalities.
For example, we’re all told that the men here have the last word. In a marriage, they run the show, while women just stay at home, cooking, cleaning and popping out babies. But in the families I know, the women are totally in charge. They control the finances, they work, and they make practically all of the important decisions regarding the family.
Then there’s the little old lady in the Puesto de Salud who spontaneously gave us a charla on family planning, explaining to us to use condoms and oral contraceptives. In a society that is supposedly too Catholic to believe in anything other than the rhythm method, this should not have occurred.
Even in my house, where I live with two older sisters who grew up together and are best friends, their personalities are completely different.
One is direct, proud, a career nurse who wisely invests every extra cent she earns. The other is loving and nurturing, but firm, a wife and mother with strong opinions about her family, community and world. While traditional in some ways, she taught her four sons to always show women respect with their words and deeds.
Having all of my preformed assumptions blown out of the water one by one has been a humbling experience. It reminds me how silly it is to ask the question, “What are the people like, there?”
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Thursday, my four-person group gave a charla on HIV/AIDS to a local high school. I was intimidated. "Now really," our technical trainers said, "you wouldn't really give this charla until you had been living in your community for at least six months, probably a year. It's imperative to built the trust and confidence of the people first, before you go barging in talking directly about genitalia and specific sex acts."
So why are we giving it after only a few weeks, my coworkers and I wondered, but we've long since learned that arguing with the technical trainers is about as fruitlful as trying to argue with one of our host mothers, which is to say, not at all.
We practiced all week, making colorful flip charts, practicing the technical vocabulary and rehearsing skits to show how HIV can be and is transferred to the general public, to faithful housewives and their breastfeeding children. When we arrived at the school, they rearranged their desks on the basketball court to accommodate all eighty students. Girls in plaid, pleated skirts and bright red sweaters, boys with hair full of moco de gorilla (a styling paste that literally translates to "gorilla snot") and one student in a brightly colored indigenous traje stared expectantly at us as angry rain clouds threatened above.
And it went great. Though shy at first, they warmed up as we performed goofy skits, and paid attention through the more boring, technical parts about transmission and prevention.
"Any questions?" We asked at the end. And there were. We took question after question for at least twenty minutes. They asked important questions, intelligent questions, questions that showed they had been paying attention.
When one boy asked, just in general, where condoms are available for purchase and if one brand is better than another, one of the health promoters (our counterparts), stood up from the back. She looked like somebody's grandmother, and in fact, she probably was.
"I would just like to say that all of you kids are way too young to be thinking about sex!" she said. "Right now you just need to study. You shouldn't even think about purchasing condoms!"
A small boy from the second row raised his hand. "I would like to say," he began, "that we just want the information. It doesn't necessarily mean we'll use it, or that we'll use it any time soon. But we aren't bad people, just for asking."
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, perhaps I'm glorifying our efforts there to the point of ridiculousness. But it seemed to me that beneath the surface of this huffy point/counterpoint was a real generational exchange. I was glad the grandmother stood up. And likewise the young man.
But the most meaningful moment of the day for me happened after we had folded up the flip charts and put away our props. Three girls motioned me over, leaned in close and spoke in sotto voce.
"Is it true that when you lose your virginity, everyone can tell, just by looking at you?"
I did a doubletake.
"No, absolutely not," I said.
"We heard that a woman bleeds on her first time."
"Sometimes that's true, but not for every woman. That's a big lie."
"But isn't there an exam that can be done, to see if a person is still a virgin?"
Whoa! I thought. This deserves more than a firm, monosyllabic "No." I paused for a minute to consider the vocabulary I would need in Spanish to explain the physiology of virginity. Inadequate. I began anyway, and stumbling through it, I felt a real connection with the girls. More importantly, I felt that giving them some good, truthful information about their health and their bodies was making the world a slightly, infinitesimally better place.
Who knows if my Spanish was good enough, or if they even trust the word of a crazy North American woman against that of their mothers and grandmothers. But talking with those three girls was definitely the coolest thing I've done since I've been here, and it gave me hope and peace that I'm doing the right thing.
So why are we giving it after only a few weeks, my coworkers and I wondered, but we've long since learned that arguing with the technical trainers is about as fruitlful as trying to argue with one of our host mothers, which is to say, not at all.
We practiced all week, making colorful flip charts, practicing the technical vocabulary and rehearsing skits to show how HIV can be and is transferred to the general public, to faithful housewives and their breastfeeding children. When we arrived at the school, they rearranged their desks on the basketball court to accommodate all eighty students. Girls in plaid, pleated skirts and bright red sweaters, boys with hair full of moco de gorilla (a styling paste that literally translates to "gorilla snot") and one student in a brightly colored indigenous traje stared expectantly at us as angry rain clouds threatened above.
And it went great. Though shy at first, they warmed up as we performed goofy skits, and paid attention through the more boring, technical parts about transmission and prevention.
"Any questions?" We asked at the end. And there were. We took question after question for at least twenty minutes. They asked important questions, intelligent questions, questions that showed they had been paying attention.
When one boy asked, just in general, where condoms are available for purchase and if one brand is better than another, one of the health promoters (our counterparts), stood up from the back. She looked like somebody's grandmother, and in fact, she probably was.
"I would just like to say that all of you kids are way too young to be thinking about sex!" she said. "Right now you just need to study. You shouldn't even think about purchasing condoms!"
A small boy from the second row raised his hand. "I would like to say," he began, "that we just want the information. It doesn't necessarily mean we'll use it, or that we'll use it any time soon. But we aren't bad people, just for asking."
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, perhaps I'm glorifying our efforts there to the point of ridiculousness. But it seemed to me that beneath the surface of this huffy point/counterpoint was a real generational exchange. I was glad the grandmother stood up. And likewise the young man.
But the most meaningful moment of the day for me happened after we had folded up the flip charts and put away our props. Three girls motioned me over, leaned in close and spoke in sotto voce.
"Is it true that when you lose your virginity, everyone can tell, just by looking at you?"
I did a doubletake.
"No, absolutely not," I said.
"We heard that a woman bleeds on her first time."
"Sometimes that's true, but not for every woman. That's a big lie."
"But isn't there an exam that can be done, to see if a person is still a virgin?"
Whoa! I thought. This deserves more than a firm, monosyllabic "No." I paused for a minute to consider the vocabulary I would need in Spanish to explain the physiology of virginity. Inadequate. I began anyway, and stumbling through it, I felt a real connection with the girls. More importantly, I felt that giving them some good, truthful information about their health and their bodies was making the world a slightly, infinitesimally better place.
Who knows if my Spanish was good enough, or if they even trust the word of a crazy North American woman against that of their mothers and grandmothers. But talking with those three girls was definitely the coolest thing I've done since I've been here, and it gave me hope and peace that I'm doing the right thing.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
partido patriota
So, the other day, I was talking to a fellow volunteer about how our parents are afraid we will come back to the US uber-liberal and totally disenchanted with American culture. And while that may happen, at least for now, I feel prouder of my country than I have in years. Here in Peace Corps training, you really feel the call to national service that John F. Kennedy gave when he said, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man," which is at the heart of the best kind of liberalism. It's great to know that for the past forty-five years, throughout a civil war, various earthquakes, hurricanes and all kinds of political unrest, Peace Corps has remained, trying to impart small, positive changes in the world. I'm also proud that, unlike Guatemala, we have strong(er) child support laws, it's not acceptable to ride with your three young children on a motorcycle, and in most places you can drink water straight out of the tap without getting worms, a parasite or worse.
And while I like how close families are here, I feel good that in my family, we stay close even when we are far apart geographically--it's ok to go out into the world and be yourself and have new experiences, as long as you call home on your sister's birthday.
And while I like how close families are here, I feel good that in my family, we stay close even when we are far apart geographically--it's ok to go out into the world and be yourself and have new experiences, as long as you call home on your sister's birthday.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Greetings!
It's been a little over two weeks since I arrived here in beautiful Guatemala. Here's a brief recap of what all has been going on:
The thing that is really amazing about my time here is that in one day you can have like last Sunday, where there are at least three experiences that are completely simple, completely mundane and at the same time, the kind of thing I know I will remember my whole life.
Doña Susana (my host aunt) took me to mass in Antigua. The church there is centuries old, and very beautiful, and there was a youth orchestra of mandolins, violins and marimbas playing the hymns. We even sung one that I used to sing in the Spanish service at All Saints' back in Arkansas, which was kind of a comfort. The priest was hilarious--apparently. I personally didn't catch any of his jokes, but the congregation laughed a lot. It was Pentecost, and he spoke about having the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Then I took Doña Susana out for a licuado (smoothie), which was really nice. I asked her when the happiest years of her life had been, and she said, "The past five years. The economic situation has improved a little, because my sons work."
Finally, when Seño. Maria (host mom) returned from work, we walked up to the town cemetery to lay flowers on their mother's grave. She died when Maria and Susana were only 18 and 20. The cemetery is at the top of a very, very steep hill, but the view is incredible. You can see the tin and adobe textures of the whole town stretched out , the dark polluted river that winds through all the hills and valleys and the pan-American highway that stretches from Alaska to the tip of Argentina.
It just didn't seem right that so much should have to fit in only one Sunday!
Anyway, all that was before I got sicker than I've ever been in my life. "Lo siento que yo vomité en el piso de su baño," is definitely a Spanish phrase I never wanted to learn, and I'm wearing out the pages of Where There is No Doctor.
Overall, though, I'm happy, the food is good, I love my host family, I have access to a lukewarm shower, and training is OK.
I love and miss you all.
The thing that is really amazing about my time here is that in one day you can have like last Sunday, where there are at least three experiences that are completely simple, completely mundane and at the same time, the kind of thing I know I will remember my whole life.
Doña Susana (my host aunt) took me to mass in Antigua. The church there is centuries old, and very beautiful, and there was a youth orchestra of mandolins, violins and marimbas playing the hymns. We even sung one that I used to sing in the Spanish service at All Saints' back in Arkansas, which was kind of a comfort. The priest was hilarious--apparently. I personally didn't catch any of his jokes, but the congregation laughed a lot. It was Pentecost, and he spoke about having the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Then I took Doña Susana out for a licuado (smoothie), which was really nice. I asked her when the happiest years of her life had been, and she said, "The past five years. The economic situation has improved a little, because my sons work."
Finally, when Seño. Maria (host mom) returned from work, we walked up to the town cemetery to lay flowers on their mother's grave. She died when Maria and Susana were only 18 and 20. The cemetery is at the top of a very, very steep hill, but the view is incredible. You can see the tin and adobe textures of the whole town stretched out , the dark polluted river that winds through all the hills and valleys and the pan-American highway that stretches from Alaska to the tip of Argentina.
It just didn't seem right that so much should have to fit in only one Sunday!
Anyway, all that was before I got sicker than I've ever been in my life. "Lo siento que yo vomité en el piso de su baño," is definitely a Spanish phrase I never wanted to learn, and I'm wearing out the pages of Where There is No Doctor.
Overall, though, I'm happy, the food is good, I love my host family, I have access to a lukewarm shower, and training is OK.
I love and miss you all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
