Getting There

My alarm went off at 5:30, but it was another ten minutes before I crawled out of bed. I rushed to feed the dog, cover up in my rain gear and hurry to catch the first bus leaving from town to the village of Palqui, where I would spend my day working. Sprinting through the cold and early morning mist with my friend Adrianna, I couldn’t help but think how miserable it felt to be moving my body so quickly before the sun was even up. We got to the microbus to find that its 15 seats were already occupied by at least 25 people and the only space available to us would be among the crates of fruit and bags of corn bouncing around the roof of the van.  Sitting on top of the van as it lurched from one pot hole to the next on the dirt road I again found myself sulking in self-pity at such an early and miserable commute to work.

Somewhere during the 45 minute bus ride from town to the road where we would begin the hour plus hike to Palqui I started thinking about how much my life will be changing in 25 days when I finished my work here in Guatemala. Thinking of the traffic, subways and busy streets I have been avoiding for the past two years, my commute to work began to look a little sweeter. The view from the top of the bus is pretty incredible once you get over the fear you encounter contemplating your options as you get closer and closer to the edge of the cliff with every turn thinking, “If we do go off the cliff I can probably jump towards the road and avoid the bus rolling after me, or maybe if I jump straight up the bus will roll out from under me and I’ll be safe and sound sliding down the hill ten feet above it.” But somewhere during that decision process you begin to relax and notice the beauty and tranquility; the mountain tops hiding in the thick clouds before the sun comes up, people far below washing in the river, cows roaming the mountain sides, children hauling firewood.

After getting off the bus and thanking God we made it alive, Adrianna and I have an hour to hike before arriving in Palqui where we visit Johvita and her family for breakfast and some laughs, mostly at our expense. From here Adrianna and I split up, her with Johvita and me with Cristobal, her husband, to visit the 43 families in the village and check up on their new rain-water catchment systems. Again we are walking, this time from one house to the next until everyone has been seen about 3-4 hours later. Even though we are walking through one community, we pass through a multitude of landscapes; rich forests like the ones back home, high mountains with cold sparse air, dry hills covered in rocks and cacti, fields of mud, tropical expanses with banana, mango, palm and papaya trees, at one point there is even a bamboo forest, over and under fences, across rivers, one very long cable bridge and lots and lots of corn. But what is even more fascinating are the people. Old and young are all working much harder than I have ever had to but they always take the time to welcome you to their home and offer you the fruit from their trees and food from their kitchens, which their families and children could benefit from much more than I. Everyone wants you to sit and talk and eat and enjoy their company. And you do. And you always realize, as if for the first time, that it is not the work you do that you will remember, but the journey you took to get there.  Cliché but true. 

I can't help but think I will miss the adventure of my everyday life here in Guatemala. Earthquakes, tarantulas, death-fearing transport...every single time you get in a vehicle, cockroaches, rain so loud you have to wear ear-plugs to read, flooding, burning trash, street dogs, pigs running around everywhere, Spanish, K'iche, Uspantecco, Ixil, K'achiquel (the five languages spoken in the region), moths the size of birds, road blocks, lines, thunder, sporadic electricity, cold water, dirty clothes, doing laundry by hand, beans for every meal and so much more make this life exciting and unique and I am sure that I will miss it.

Grandmother willow showing off her new gutter.

All about the excitement in her face.

Don Lucas walking through the milpa.

Enriquita with her bamboo gutter.

Cable bridge.

Youngins' carrying fire wood (9-13 years old).

Huge grasshopper.

Preparing for the water tank.

Cristobal leading me through the community.

Coming up on a house.

Cristobal and I.

Kitchen complete with tree and a couple buckets.

Guillerma and her pup workin it for the camera.

Roberto built this little hut for new tank.

Adrianna helping Teresa prepare lunch.

Maribel and Emilfa taking Adrianna and I on a shortcut.

8 year old going to work in the corn field with his family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Classic Guatemala

Nothing too good to report from down here. Just thought some of you might like to hear about a run I recently went on. It all started when I answered a phone call from a number that wasn’t saved in my phone. Francisco is a pretty smart guy. After realizing that most of his calls to me go unanswered, he came up with the perfect solution: payphones, the most recent advancement in Guatemalan technology. Francisco had recently passed me in a pick-up truck while I was out on a run and had decided that as a 40 year old man, it was time to get in shape. Frank is 5 inches shorter than me and 20lbs heavier, but he assured me he was up for it. A little skeptical of the whole thing, I almost called it off, but Frank did help me get involved with the local soccer teams when I arrived a year and a half ago so I figured I owed him one.  

It didn’t take long for Frank to reveal his real motive for joining me on this 5:30am run. I’ve heard it a million times before, “I need help getting to the states.” It always starts off as a minor favor.

-“Can you write a letter to the embassy inviting me to stay with you in the US?” 

“Frank, I am more than happy to help you out and write you a letter but a letter from me is not going to help you at all.” (They usually think I know the president, or at least, that I’m friends with the ambassador)

-“Okay, thanks man. Maybe you can also help me out with a little money. I only need about 7000 more dollars.”

After bursting out laughing, I explained to Frank that I have never even had $7000. I continued to explain the whole college loan deal in America and after a couple minutes he realized there was no money to be had. We ran on in silence as he registered everything I was telling him and then moved on to other conversations. It took him a few minutes to regroup and to mentally piece together all the intricate parts of his next great plan. 

-“Mateo, I know what we can do”, he told me. 

“Let’s hear it.”

-“Mateo, you can adopt me! And then I’ll be your son and you can take me back to the states with you.”

Brilliant. 

He didn’t quite grasp the fact that I couldn’t adopt him, apart from the fact that he is married with 4 kids of his own. He was not ready to take no for an answer, arguing that nobody would ever know that he had his own kids. I then pointed out the small issue of him being about twice my age and that I was pretty sure you can only adopt children, but that didn’t faze him. He told me about a volunteer adopting someone 15 years ago who was also too old to be a child. I asked how old and he told me,  “I don’t know, 9 or 11 I think”. Good ol' Guatemala.

Since I brought up running, I thought I might quickly tell you another fun fact about running in Guate. Most Guatemalans know at least one word of English and they love to practice when they see me. On the last run I did I had the following words shouted out to me as I ran:

"ALRIGHT"

"SHIT"

"CHICKEN"

"RAMBO"

"DOG"

Well On My Way

I have now been in Guatemala for over a year. It is crazy what you can adapt to. Things that at first seem insane or jaw dropping are taken in stride without a second thought quicker than you would imagine. Living as a volunteer abroad presents you with challenges that you never expected to face, mostly because such challenges would never present themselves to you in the states. Lots of things that used to worry me back home seem to be trivial now that I have seen the way people struggle just to survive. We worry about showing up to appointments on time; here people worry about whether they will be able to feed their families on a day to day basis. 

Even after you realize how much in life we take for granted, including life itself, working abroad can still be frustrating. There are always challenges when it comes to finding a time when 20 women can all meet at the same hour on the same day to finally plan out that garden project you having been dying to get under way.  Sometimes it can even take months, and to people who are used to living their whole lives according to an hour by hour schedule; wake up at 6:30, work at 9, home at 5 etc.. it can be extremely frustrating. Because of our strictly scheduled lives it is easy to forget that the women are living under a different hour glass; wake up at 3am climb down the mountain, cut down a tree, cut the tree into pieces, tie the wood to your back, carry it back up the mountain so that you can use it to cook breakfast for your family before they need to go out to the fields, after breakfast do all the dishes by hand, then wash all the laundry by hand and begin to cook lunch so that you can carry it out to your husband and sons in the field. Get home, clean up, by now it’s 3pm and it’s almost time to start preparing dinner.. This is not to mention taking care of all your children, all the other housework, taking care of the animals if you have any, going to market to by all the food.. and this is the life they live from the time they are children until the time they die, I have literally seen women well into their 70s carrying tree trunks that I wouldn’t attempt to pick up.

 Besides the obstacles to complete your work, you are also presented with challenges making everyday life difficult. Mom isn’t there to help you through your week long diarrhea and vomiting from giardia. Come to think of it, no one is there, just you, in your bed all week, and you really notice mom’s absence. Some things you adapt to quickly and don’t think about until you reflect on them, like the fact that you have lived without a refrigerator, microwave, hot shower, sink, heat, air conditioning, tv, pretty much all the comforts of life at home, for the past year and you have gotten on just fine. Then there’s also the isolation of living in a small town, high in the mountains, where you not only have one language barrier but two. Where, when you walk around in the street, 90% of the time you only hear K’iche because Spanish is pretty much only used to communicate with you and in the school systems. You do have a good group of friends but your friends dropped out of school when they were 10, got married at 16 (or maybe 13 if she’s a girl) and had 3 kids by the time they were 20, meaning you have two very different lives, and yes you can connect on some things and have a good time together but most of these friendships don’t go as deep as those friendships from back home. You don’t really hang out outside of work and soccer games, but at least it’s something. 

Up to this point, it sounds like I am complaining, but that is not the point of this blog. The point is to show that during our time abroad we learn many new skills and because of the hardships and differences during our time in Guatemala, we learn a lot about ourselves, about what is most important to us and each day is a first-hand lesson on the overwhelming importance of patience. Peace Corps life is not bad; it is just different than the 23 years of my life prior to Guatemala. During my first year as a volunteer I have learned many new things; a new language, how to make my own soap out of chicken oil, how to use some medicinal plants, how to make the perfect boiled egg, I can kill, skin and gut a rabbit like a champ, I’ve given my share of vaccines to chickens and turkeys, I have two of my very own worm farms…used for composting, I’m not AS afraid of cockroaches as I once was (although I don’t think I will ever get over my fear of the tarantulas), working with kids beats working with adults, raising a puppy is a lot harder than you’d like it to be, I’ve decided I will never ground my children when I have them, I now know that the best punishment will be making them wash all their own laundry by hand when they misbehave, I can plant a garden with the best of them. I have climbed volcanoes, swam through caves, hiked through mountains, jumped off waterfalls, participated in Mayan ceremonies, watched lava erupt from volcanoes, slept in hammocks, bathed in volcanic hot-springs, been woken by numerous earthquakes, eaten bugs, fallen in love with mangos, seen birds that exist nowhere else in the world, I have read 25 books since arriving, I can cook…well, does oatmeal count? I have even had to jump off the back of a pickup truck to save my legs from being shattered by the truck that rear-ended us.  I have done a lot in Guatemala and I have learned more in the past year than I ever thought was possible, but the most significant thing that I have learned is the unparalleled importance of my family and friends. 

To that end, I want to thank all of the Guatemalans who have made my time here so amazing; you have all been so welcoming and open with me, particularly; my host family during training (Florencia, Martín, Amparo, Maria Jose, Gabriela, Monica y Marvín), my counterparts (David, Mari y Karina) and all of the women, men and children that I have worked with directly during the past year. They have always been ready to feed me and ask me why I have freckles… and sometimes even try to erase them from my skin with pencil erasers, thanks for trying. 

I also want to thank all of my friends and relatives from home who have kept in touch with me.  Your calls, letters, packages, skype dates and visits have kept me from going insane. Only a Peace Corps volunteer can truly understand the power of opening up a package to find a jar of peanut butter, nutella, homemade cookies, peanut M&Ms and pictures… Big thanks to Tim, Sean and Chris who all made it down to Guate for some quality palin’ around time and a few cheap shoe shines. 

Next, I have to thank all of my fellow PC Volunteers, particularly my fellow Food Security pals; Adrianna, Dawn, Sasha, Christine, Kelly, James, Josh, Eric and George, and also my site mate, Casey. Definitely wouldn’t still be here without all of your support, advice and terrible jokes. 

Lastly, and most importantly I want to thank these beautiful people right here.

The Daly family (missing a couple of the new kids)

I have been blessed with the most amazing family in the world. All of them have sent packages, letters, pictures and some awesome drawings. They are always there on the other end of the phone or the computer screen and are always willing to listen to me bitch and have always helped me with anything I have ever asked. So, thank you; Mom, Dad, Ira, Carrie, ira, Claire, Noah, Erin, Ray, rayray, Christopher, Biz, Marie, Brian, Tim, Tina, Kierra, Sean, Beth, John and Patrick. You are all greatly appreciated and greatly loved. Your support means the world to me. Thank you, I love you. 

The following are some of my favorite pictures taken during the past 15 months:

Mari and I

Maria Jose, Amparo, Moni y Gaby

Semuc Champey

Last sunset of 2011

Rugs made wish sawdust in the street for Semana Santa

Me and Mija

Student at Chicaxul

Me and Denilison

Me and Casey and the kids from our soccer tournament

Selling pigs in San Francisco

Me, Sasha, Adrianna, Christine, James, Kelly, George and Dawn at Semuc Champey

Kiernan Dawn, Sasha, me and Christine

Hand made mud blocks used to make houses

Woman doing her laundry in Xesana

Getting ready to plant corn. All of these rows are made by hand using a hoe.

Me and Adrianna exploring around the lake.

Boats at the lake.

Making pizza at Adrianna's host family's house.

Adrianna teaching that little guy to walk.

Sean, Tim and I climbing Volcan Pacaya.

Sean, Tim and I at the lake.

My apartment with my Nahual painted on the wall.

Working with students at la escuela ubana

Students at la urbana

Me and Perdida in Antigua

Students at Chicaxul

Planting in Patzam

Playing 'monos'

Preparing the garden in Chuaisiguan

Me and David cooking lunch.

Mari, me, David and Karina.

Eating a snack in one of my tire gardens.

Cleaning out a water filter... Sasha's enjoying herself

Flute and Marimba player at the feria in Momos

Santa Maria Chiquimula

Students at Chuiasiguan.

Students at Chuiasiguan.

Students at la urbana.

La urbana

composting

Chris, me and Eric

Summit of Volcan Santa Maria, 12,375 Ft

Ruins at Iximche.

Host mom and grandma

Mija

Mija

Mija

Swear in day

Dawn, Oscar and I

Thanksgiving 2011

Girls in Panajachel

New years 2011

Last sunset 2011