Week 3 - Lots of Interesting Things about My Stomach

Another week has come and gone. Right now I’m sitting on my bed (I'm writing this Monday night) and listening to the sounds of one of the many games of soccer going on at the concha (paved court) next door to me. Sounds of soccer, barking dogs, and over-laden trucks whizzing by have been the constant soundtrack to my world since I came to Guatemala. It’s a mixed blessing, I guess. On one hand, they’re all familiar sounds, and on some level I can project myself home for a couple minutes when I feel I need it. On the other, it’s super loud, typically goes on all night long, and constantly wakes me up when I’m trying to sleep.

There really has only been one noteworthy thing to happen to me since I last wrote. On Tuesday, I ate street food for the first time. Walking through the market in Antigua (on the way home from a day at the Peace Corps headquarters), several friends and I stopped for papoosa, which I think can probably be best described as a quesadilla with coleslaw on top. It came fresh off the grill, and tasted amazing. Unfortunately, the Peace Corps warns us about eating such things. By Wednesday morning I knew what they were talking about.

It started as a minor discomfort, a subtle sense that things were not as they should be. By noon this malaise had turned into a headache, a fever, and a whole lot of gastrointestinal distress. I didn’t accept it for what it was. “It’s just a bit of stomach irritation from breakfast,” I thought, “it’ll go away soon.”

But it didn’t. By that evening I was shivering from fever and frequenting the bathroom at least twice an hour. We had to go back to the Peace Corps headquarters on Thursday morning, and I was strongly considering not going. Only one thing made me pause to reconsider: Cell phones. The PC had promised us that we would get them on Thursday, and though they had promised us this very same thing every couple of days since we showed up in country, on this particular occasion I happened to believe them. I took my temperature before going to bed on Wednesday night, and it read over 100. “I’ll revaluate in the morning” I told myself.

Thursday morning came and I knew I was sick, but was unwilling to admit the extent of it. I had promised myself that I would go to Santa Lucia, but refused to be a whiner. I would not ask for special considerations. Luckily, my friends noticed that I had no color to my face and was generally miserable and when noon hit and I still hadn’t gone, they practically frog-marched me to the medical office.

One of our medical staff had no problem telling me that I was sick, a fact that I was still trying to avoid, and that I would need to give a stool sample. I won’t get into the nitty gritty, but let me just say there are an awful lot of “what ifs?” that go through your mind as you’re holding a tiny specimen cup under your ass in a third world country.

I finished, handed the container over, and three hours later had my results. I had a nasty trifecta: Bacterial diarrhea, Symptomatic Amebas, and Amebic Cysts (which apparently are little Ameba eggs. I also don’t know what happened to the “O” in “amoeba”, but none of the medical staff put it in, and so neither will I). I was assured that I did not have Amebic Dysentery, even though the symptoms are generally the same.

The cure? Pills. Large pills. Lots and lots of them. For quite a long time. I was immediately put on Ciprofloxacin, Tinidazole, and Iodoquinol. The first two are a fairly short regimen, just once or twice a day for 3 days. The third, however, is taken 3 times per day for 20 days. Twenty days! Add all those to my Chloroquine that I’m taking to prevent malaria, and my weekend had some pretty interesting dreams.

Even by Saturday morning I was feeling well enough to go with my language group and explore Antigua, the old colonial capital before it was moved to Guatemala City. While we’ve passed through it many times on the way to and from the Peace Corps office, this was the first opportunity we’d had to actually explore. It is a city that does not disappoint. The architecture is amazing, and the number of shops, restaurants, and curios are equally so. It’s a bit touristy, but definitely worth it. We stopped at a little café that gives discounts to Peace Corps volunteers, where we had the single most amazing breakfast I’ve ever eaten. I don’t know if it was because it was the first food I’d eaten in 3 days, or because we had stumbled on perhaps the only place in the country that serves fresh bagels, but it was glorious. Throwing caution to the wind, I had an egg, ham, cheese, and garlic cream cheese bagel and a latte made from Guatemala’s finest. The textures, flavors, and ambiance of the place made me want to cry from relief and satisfaction. I didn’t realize how stressful it had been being sick in a foreign place until I found myself feeling normal again.

I spent a little beyond my means—breakfast came to $4 dollars, including tip—but I would go back in a heartbeat. We strolled through the cobbled streets for the rest of the day, snapping photos and remarking on how cosmopolitan everything seemed compared to San Lorenzo. We stopped at a Jade museum, and I now know more about this semi-precious stone than I’ll ever need to. Even still, very cool.

I suppose I should probably wrap this post up. It’s 10pm and well beyond my bedtime. I should mention that at this point I feel totally fine, and am happily continuing to do what I need to with the Peace Corps. This has become the first of likely many (but hopefully not!) shitty events to befall me. Pun intended.

As usual, here’s the link to this week’s photos http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=sigrinj&target=ALBUM&id=5566117903988076129&authkey=Gv1sRgCP2rrrLNhuDsrgE&feat=email

Week 2 - A Word on the Discomfort of Cold Showers

Thank you for your responses to my post last week! They really make me feel good to know people are reading what I write and feel inspired to comment.

Let’s see if I can keep up the good work…

I’ve now been in San Lorenzo for a little more than a week, and a few things have been clarified for me. First off, Vilma and her husband don’t live full time here, but it seems that with the new baby they are in need of some support. The baby, who currently doesn’t have a name, is celebrating his 23^rd day of life today! Doña Mayra is more than willing, of course, to cook, clean, and care for the young ones with Vilma while Julio works, and they seem to stay for a few days at a time and then go back to Julio’s (Julio’s parents?) house. So while it can be a little stressful in the early morning when everyone is trying to get ready for the day, it’s not usually as bad as I previously thought.

On that note, I would like to register my growing distaste for bucket baths. It’s not that the practice is so bad—I’ve actually become pretty good at getting the water to wet what it’s supposed to—it’s just that it’s pretty uncomfortable taking a bucket bath in 55 degree weather with 55 degree water. Let me paint a picture for you, if I may:

It’s 6:43 in the morning. I’ve just brushed my teeth, taken my morning constitutional, and have stepped into the bathing closet, closed the door, and undressed. It’s brisk outside, and goose bumps are already beginning to form on my arms and legs. In collegiate vernacular, I’m “nipping out hardcore.” The water, taken directly from the spigot on the wall, fills the basin. I test it with my hand, grimace, and fill the dog-bowl-sized guacal (essentially, the “scooper”). With a wide stance, bent as far over at the waist as I can possibly be, I timidly dip my head into the frigid liquid. It’s not so bad. One might even call it refreshing. My head is somewhere in the vicinity of my knees, and all the water trickles up, past my ear, and spills onto the ceramic drainage basin. No water has touched me below the neck; so far, so good. I put shampoo into my hand, lather my hair, and let sit. Now comes the bad part. I sigh loudly. Now comes the cold part. Standing upright, I refill the guacal and bring it to mid chest. I take a deep breath, count to three, and pour it on myself.

A slew of words escape my mouth, some English, some gibberish, most consisting of four letter words or their offshoots, and all of which are thoroughly unprintable. If there was any doubt before, there can be none now: My body would rather be dirty than go through this every day. The first few are the worst—stomach, armpits, back…after that my body enters a mild sort of shock and doesn’t register the abuse it’s receiving with as much clarity. I scrub my body, rinse my hair, and then reach for my towel. One shower down, 76 more (but probably more like 800) to go.

I suppose I could ask Doña Mayra to heat water up for me, but since she’s already up before all of us getting breakfast (from scratch) ready, I don’t want to burden her with heating my bath water, too. She did it for the first couple of days, but she’s since stopped and I don’t have the desire to ask her to continue. When I’m able, I try to shower during midday when it’s warmer, but more and more often we’re doing something during training that takes up our entire lunch break. Frequently, the morning is the only time I can shower.

Besides that one uncomfortable aspect at the beginning, my days are starting to settle into an easy routine. Wake up, do Peace Corps, eat, do Peace Corps, fall asleep around 9pm, repeat. I’m finding San Lorenzo more and more charming. Everyone is exceedingly polite and friendly to me, a fact which Francisco (“the not-family-but-living-with-us-anyway tenant") attributes to me being a rich, college-educated gringo. He may be right, but I rarely feel unsafe here, even when walking alone. I still avoid going anywhere alone after dark, but during the day, when the paving stones of the main streets are warm with the tropical sun, I feel confident strolling through town.

It’s becoming more and more obvious that my family is very wealthy by Guatemalan standards. Don Tereso, Jacobo, and Fráncis all work 6 days per week, and I’m assuming the children’s money goes towards the general family fund. We have two cars and, as of Friday afternoon, a brand new motorcycle. Don Tereso and I had a rather frank discussion about the differences between Guatemala and the US the other day, and he told me that he makes about 400 Quetzales per week (about 50 US Dollars). They’re getting an additional 450Q from the Peace Corps for hosting me, and assuming that Francisco pays ¾ of that for his rent, that’s still only about 7,500 dollars per year. Add 350Q each for Jacobo and Fráncis, and it bumps it up to 12,000 USD. It makes me feel kind of guilty for spending what I did on my tuition…

I took Doña Mayra’s sister’s 10, 5, and 3 year old children (my host-nephews?) to the circus on Saturday. I can’t recall if I mentioned in my last post that there’s one parked just up the street from me. I had already gone once before, but they kept making it obvious that they wanted to go, if only they had the money. At first I was a bit uncomfortable about it—if I paid then, would I always be expected to act as a source of money? Would I box myself into the very common stereotype around here of rich gringo? Then I noticed just how they were asking: They never explicitly requested, but instead kept circling around it. “I’ve never been to a circus, and tonight is the last night”; “I would go if I could, but my mother doesn’t have the pista [cash]”; “Don’t you want to go to the circus again before it leaves?” This lines up well with my more general observation of everyone being hesitant to explicitly say no. Instead, they too dance around it without explicitly saying it. Does indirect questioning breed indirect answering? Eventually, I decided that I could afford the amount, 20Q for all four of us (about $2.50), and it seemed an equitable exchange for this valuable bit of cultural information. For this relatively low price, I had learned out how to approach subjects here that I want but shouldn’t ask for. As we left, any remaining doubt was erased; their faces were truly priceless.

This weeks pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week2?authkey=Gv1sRgCMqOz-DHwb6Q5QE&feat=directlink

Week 1 - I've Arrived!

I’m here! It’s been a very stressful, though exciting, couple of days. I only arrived on Wednesday afternoon, but I’m amazed at how much the Peace Corps can fit into only three and a half days. I can’t fully describe how much I feel like I’ve already learned, and the staggering feeling of knowing how much more I have to go.

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 128^th 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 4^th 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 4^th 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/sigrinj/FirstDaysInGuateStaLuciaYStLorenzoElTejar?authkey=Gv1sRgCMieuvme3oeHzAE#