Virtually all of my time has been spent in the Department of Sacatepéquez, the Guatemalan equivalent of a province or state. When 53 other volunteers (or rather, trainees) and I arrived in Guatemala City, we were became the 128th such training group in the history of Peace Corps Guatemala’s 48 year history.
As we walked towards the baggage claim of a mostly deserted airport, we were met by several PCVL’s (that’s Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders; apparently the Peace Corps likes acronyms and abbreviations nearly as much as Carleton). They all were friendly, but there wasn’t much for them to do while we collected our luggage. As we left, I discovered that one of the PCVL’s was from Minnesota, so we chatted about that as we left what I later found out to be the 4th more homicide-prone city in the world. Apparently there are something like 48-50 murders per 100,000 inhabitants—in the US, that number is 5.6.
We rode on our own bus, which is called a camioneta in Spanish, and has garnered the name “chicken bus” in English. It felt squished sitting two to a seat in a more garish version of what I rode to school every day in the 4th grade. Or rather, I should say I felt squished until I saw us pass another such bus on the road out of town. I believe the seating capacity of a normal school bus is between 55 and 70, but there must have been at least 150 people crammed 3 to a seat and many more standing in the isle. I felt rather fortunate after that, but I anxious about how I will fare when I inevitably must be one of those many passengers.
When we finally reached Santa Lucía Milpas Altas, I was unsure what to think. I had tried to picture it in my mind, but it wasn’t close to the reality. I had expected forests and traditional Mayan lifestyles. Instead it was at 7,000 feet, a little bit chilly, and clearly a town. My host family, who I met later that day, even had a flat panel TV!
The Peace Corps headquarters here is a beautiful compound with rooms lining the walls and a flower-filled courtyard with picnic tables in the center. It’s at least a few acres, and more exploration revealed a basketball court, several additional classrooms, and a smallish field for soccer. I think it will provide a huge breath of Americanism and normalcy if I ever need it.
PC-128 (a term no one but me has yet termed it) seems pretty great. There definitely seems to be a Peace Corps “type”, which is fine by me. Everyone for the most part is smart, outgoing, and enthusiastic about international travel and experiences. There may be one or two who I’m not so sure about, but at this point I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I can see real friendships blossoming with many of these people.
After several hours of information by the Peace Corps staff, we were led to our temporary host families. I was paired with one other person, a trainee from Tennessee with a thick drawl that I continually found myself copying accidentally as I talked with him. He only spoke about ten words of Spanish, so most of the conversing was left to me.
The following three days were spent there, doing almost nothing other than attending workshops during the day and hanging out with our family at night. Everything is much earlier here, so I’ve been waking up at around 6:30 and going to bed between 8 and 10pm. Needless to say, this has taken some getting used to on my part.
I’m now in San Lorenzo el Tejár, which is about 35 minutes north of Antigua, the old colonial capital. I’m staying with this host-family for the next eleven weeks while I complete training. My host parents, Don Tereso and Doña Mayra are very excited to have me, and have been doing their very best to get me to burst from overeating. Unfortunately, there’s also another Peace Corps Trainee named Joe in the town with me, so he became José and I got assigned Chepe (CHEH-pay), a rough equivalent to Joey. Their three grown children, Jacobo, Fráncis, and Vilma, still live with them, along with Vilma’s husband Julio and their two children (one is Jefferson Daniél, aged 2, and an infant whose name I cannot remember), and Francisco, whose relation to the family I can’t distinguish. Needless to say it’s usually a pretty busy place, and I’ve even taken to drawing kinship diagrams to help me remember names and relationships…It’s only sort of helping. Just when I feel like I’ve got a bead on everything, I get introduced to someone new who happens to be the cousin of my mother’s uncle or something. Very confusing! It seems that everyone is somehow related in this town, and several generations live within a few blocks of each other. Hopefully I’ll figure it out soon, but it’s an intimidating process!
Beyond that, San Lorenzo is a rural pueblo nestled among the mountains, mixing charm and dilapidation in equal measure. Everyone is extremely friendly, and it’s rare to go more than two or three steps without greeting or getting greeted by someone. Despite this, we’ve been repeatedly warned not to venture out without a local escort after dark. So far I haven’t much felt the urge to disobey—not only because of the possibility of crime, but I’m not sure I could wind my way through the cement-and-corrugated-steel houses with enough skill that I would be able to find my way back.
My house is actually one of the nicer ones in town, however. While it still has a steel roof, it’s two storeys, made of some kind of stucco, and is a painted a friendly yellow. My room is actually two parts: a set of glazed glass and iron French doors open into a sort of sitting room with a desk in it, which in turn connects to my sleeping quarters, where there’s an armoire and my bed. In terms of amenities, the house is a little strange: We have regular electricity, but no bulbs over 50 watts; we have a flushing toilet (used toilet paper goes in the trash, not the bowl), but no running water in the rest of the house. To compensate, we, like many people in the area, use a pila, which perhaps can best be described as a bathtub four times the normal size that stores water for future use and forms the basis of all cleaning activities throughout the day. In the morning, we fill it from a spigot and will later use this water to do dishes, laundry, wash hands, and yes, take bucket baths; of course, this means that I’ve finally had to figure out for myself exactly how to conduct one. Usually my host mother will boil some water that I then dilute with colder water to the final desired temperature. Next, I bring the bucket (approximate 4 or 5 gallons) into what essentially amounts to a closet off the closet with the toilet in it, undress, and begin pouring water over myself with a smaller bowl. It can be a little tricky judging where the water will actually hit when I pour it behind me, so I would say only about half of the water at this point is actually doing the job it’s supposed to. The rest decides to bypass my body and make it to the drain as expediently as possible. To be fair, given the role it had been assigned, I can’t say I blame it.
I’m reaching the end of my post, and I just realized that I haven’t talked at all about the weather. As I mentioned, we’re in the mountains, at about 7,000 feet of elevation according to the Peace Corps. The days can border on hot—about 80 degrees in the sun during the hottest part of the day. When the sun sets, it drops to about 40 or 50 degrees pretty quickly, which may not sound like much by Minnesota standards, but since is no insulation, it can get quite chilly at night. I’m under two polar fleece/afghan-type blankets and my sleeping bag draped on top for good measure, but I still find myself having to wear socks and pajama pants.
So that’s about all I’ve got at the moment. I haven’t even been here a week yet, but the US seems quite distant. While I find myself wishing for modern conveniences every now and again, I’m for the most part enjoying myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t want letters though! Once again, my address until the end of March will be:
Joseph Sigrin, PCT
Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala, Sacatepéquez, 03001
Guatemala, Centro América
That’s it! It seems like I’ll only be able to check email on Tuesdays for the next few months, so I may be a little out of touch. I’ll be getting my Peace Corps-assigned cellphone by next Tuesday, so when I find out the number I’ll pass it along and hope to hear from some of you.
PS, I just uploaded a bunch of pictures to my picasa account. Follow this link to see it. I don't have time to make captions, but the majority are in Santa Lucia. The pictures of the yellow room is my permanent training site for the next three months. The dog is one of my host family's, named Oso (Bear), or more humorously, Oso Peligroso (Dangerous Bear)
http://picasaweb.google.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment