Week 15 - A Vegan by Convenience

Sometimes it’s hard to come up with what to write each week. Sometimes you get entries like Week 14, sometimes you get swill. This week I will continue the trend of greater detail at the sake of more all-encompassing posts. Weeks ago I received constructive criticism to this effect, and I’m only now getting to a point where my desire for perfection is starting to outweigh my desire for complete weekly summary.

Of all the little things in my life at the moment, perhaps none give as much pleasure as the simple joy of cooking. I was never great shakes in the US at creating a meal for myself. Carleton forced me onto a meal plan for 4 years, and when I graduated and was financially forced to move back into my parents’ house—a dark, ego-crushing day—my routine mostly continued as it had in high school, save that I would go to work rather than class. Most mornings I didn’t eat, or if I did it was little more than a bagel. Lunches were brown-bagged, and dinners prepared by an industrious parental figure. I suppose, were I forced to psychoanalyze myself, that my aversion to the kitchen was born more of a lack of need than a lack of desire.

The same does not hold true here.

After three bowel-aching months of fried chicken, hardboiled eggs, instant ramen, and lard-laced breads, I am free—even forced—to provide for myself. At first it was intimidating: Do I dare make anything more than pasta with store-bought red sauce? After a few days of boiled carbs, I decided to branch out. I bought a Guatemala-specific Peace Corps cookbook off a volunteer and set to work satisfying my more epicurean palate. The cookbook may contain a few hard-to-find items, but by and large it is specifically designed for the volunteer who only has a typical outdoor market at their disposal. You won’t find very many recipes for Tiramisu (Mascarpone cheese cannot be found), but you will find six delicious ways to prepare lentils. There’s no grilled swordfish, but it does teach you how to make an impromptu oven out of two pots and a tuna fish can.

My brother, when he was in the Peace Corps, made it his culinary mission to perfect a single dish, something that was “restaurant quality,” as he called it. Unintentionally, I have found myself in a similar mindset. Again, perhaps as a tacit homage to him, I find myself copying his choice of curry. Of course, that’s about where it ends. The produce available here is substantially different than it was in Namibia, and so my dish has taken on a decidedly tropical flavor. I now make Mango Curry at least twice per week.

Carrots, onions, tomatoes, jalapeños, and rice can all be found here for between one and two quetzales (12-25 US cents) per pound. Garlic, potatoes, curry powder and mangoes cost a little more, but I’d say the average cost of preparing a meal for myself is around one to two US dollars.

No, the difficulty lies not in the cost of a meal, but the space in which to prepare it. Simply put, my kitchen is tiny. I’m sure you’ve all seen the pictures I’ve posted over the last few weeks, but I have approximately 3 square feet of counter space. If I use a cutting board, it takes up half of my prep area. Laying out the vegetables I intend to use is a careful balance; if even one tomato gets away from me, it’s liable to create a domino effect and knock all my food to the floor.

I economize the space as best I can. I was bequeathed a wonderful hutch that houses all of my spices, pans, and larder, and it has become second nature to cook “up” rather than across a table. That is, when my dishes are not on the stovetop, they’re stashed in nooks and crannies next to my dried chickpeas and oatmeal. I still sometimes run out of space and am forced to use my bed to temporarily support auxiliary dishes.

I’m starting to get the hang of viewing my living situation as cozy rather than cramped. I set my laptop on top of my bookshelf (filled with clothes) and play music while I chop my vegetables into unequally thin slices. I usually start with the hard, drier produce, things like carrots, because they don’t make a mess of my single cutting board. Next comes onions and potatoes, and when the three are sliced and the frying pan is hot, I toss them in.

Later come the moderately juicy foods like tomatoes and garlic. They leave my surface feeling damp and slightly sticky, but it’s nothing compared to the mango. I still don’t really know how I’m supposed to cleave the mango meat from its large, oblong pit, and it leads to a rather messy butchering. I can usually peel the thick skin back with my hand, but then I’ve got a soupy yellow mass about half the size of a football and far more slippery. Little by little my paring knife cuts chunks off, though when it’s done it looks not unlike the murder scene of a badly jaundiced Mr. Potato Head.

At this point I usually have to run to the pila and wash my hands, or the entire meal will digress into some kind of amateur comedy routine where everything I touch ends up sticking to me. Until now the meal has had a slightly rushed feeling to it, like I’m dueling against the clock. Will I finish dicing the onions before the olive oil begins to burn? What if I haven’t finished with the mango before the rice has to be taken off the burner?

It’s a wonderful feeling to have the rice fully cooked and the curry sizzling away fragrantly. I toss in some spices: A couple dashes of curry powder here, a dollop of cumin there; I never measure them out precisely. Cooking for me involves a sense of exploration, and I’d never want to dumb it down to simply following a recipe. It’s far more exciting to ask myself what putting in some basil and parsley would do than feel confined to the pages of a cookbook. I look to mine for the broad strokes, not the specifics. Perhaps God is in the details, but perfection tastes so much better when I stumble upon it.

When the meal is ready I usually turn 90 degrees from my stove and eat it while sitting on my bed. My water bottle, the only beverage I have, sits between my feet. I own no table, and my dinner guests are usually Biggie, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Manu Chao. They’re very articulate, but sometimes the conversation feels a little one-sided. I’m not complaining by any means; my landlords have made it very clear that I’m welcome at their table, but I kind of like the solitude at the moment. I’m no longer a bag of potatoes as I sometimes felt with my earlier family, and can decide what I eat and when. I am free to make salt-free, sugar-free, meat-free, dairy-free meals for myself, especially since I have no refrigerator in which to store most of those things. I never thought it was possible, but I’ve become a vegan by convenience.

Check out the pictures for this week at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week15?authkey=Gv1sRgCM-98oDVn9-mkgE#.

Week 14 - Adventure and Other Mind-Altering Drugs

I suppose I should warn that this is going to be a more introspective, perhaps even self-indulgent, installment. Relatively few exciting things have happened to me in the last week, which I suspect will be an increasingly common phenomenon as my schedule slowly evolves from unique to routine. The teacher strike continues, and must post a correction from last week: Teachers get paid quarterly here, so apparently it’s normal for teachers to go 3 months at a stretch without pay. In this particular instance, however, (most of) the teachers of Guatemala have now gone nearly eight months without a paycheck. They are holding out for a 14% increase in salary yearly. That is, if the average teacher makes Q10,000 per year currently, they’d get Q11,400 next year, Q12,996 the year after that, etc. Now I’m no economist, but even I am a little skeptical at the sustainability of an exponential pay structure. Maybe they deserve it, maybe they don’t, but I’m willing to bet doorstops to danishes that the Guatemalan government has neither the desire nor means to pay out that many Quetzales. I guess we’ll see what kind of compromise they come up with, but it’s an election year, and this doesn’t exactly make President Álvaro Colom look very good. Not that he’s able to run for another term, but his ex-wife—the one who divorced him in order to legally run—is on the campaign trail…just sayin’.

But back to introspection: I had a moment this week that bordered on the mystical. It’s not as exciting or perilous as running from gang bullets, or as beautiful as Lake Atitlán, so as I describe it please keep in mind that it was more the stream of consciousness that I experienced than the actual activity that held me so entranced:

On Wednesday night I got a ride back with a nearby town’s basketball team.

That’s it. Ostensibly, that’s all it was.

I had been at the feria (fair/carnival) of a town about 45 minutes down the road and up a mountain. One of my new friends, a veteran PCV, is stationed there, and she invited me and a few others to come and see her site. I was the only one to accept, but two other PCVs showed up because they are on the basketball team from Malacatancito, which was scheduled to play the local favorites.

Malacatancito won, but it was an ugly game. I won’t get into it, because really the only important detail of is that they offered to drive me back to my site when the game was over.

I subsequently found myself squished into the far corner of a pickup bed with four large players while four more rode in the cab. The night was inky black, the darkness thick enough to hold save for a lamppost every mile. The blanket of stars above lent a pale luminescence to the men around me. The road unfurled behind us, close enough almost to touch. Whenever someone casually flicked away their dying cigarette butt, a tiny eruption of sparks—an ephemeral volcano—would briefly light up the history of our path.

I sat there, exhilarated beyond words at where I was and why. I relished being alive in that moment, in this country, as the wind whirled around me. Looking up at the virginal purity of the celestial bodies mixed with the brooding shadows of trees and mountains made me feel in binary oppositions: Colossal and tiny; counterfeit. Genuine.

It was like my inaugural ride to site a couple weeks ago: I was walking in the footsteps of giants, simultaneously following the paths of others and carving my own, terrified and electric at the thought. Many months ago my most trusted confidant told me that the possibilities for greatness and the possibilities for awfulness are greatly amplified in this place; whatever would happen would not be merely ordinary. She was right, as she so often is, and I have felt more alive and vibrant since my arrival than at any other point since freshman year of college, when I watched my parents pull away from my dorm that first illustrious fall. Like then, I was inebriated on my own maturity. Excitement and possibility really are potent drugs.

I felt noble about what I am doing here, even as I feel self-conscious for saying so. The romance of the Peace Corps has infected me more than it did when I was applying, but such romance is not necessarily born of aspirations to the philanthropic or the humanitarian. It’s the most thrilling adventure upon which I have yet embarked, further heightened because of the hardship and loneliness that I am already becoming accustomed to.

In the pickup I was moving forward, towards a home and a future that is unknown and exotic. San Se signifies for me what site has signified to fifty years of my compatriots: It’s a personal relationship, an arranged marriage between fate and providence. Like a relationship, it can end, perhaps unexpectedly or at the behest of either party, but it can also polish and accentuate the best in both. I don’t know if I’ll become my best me while I’m here, but I feel like I’m at least on the right path.

All this I thought about while gazing up. Of course I also had pangs of isolation as I spotted familiar constellations: There’s Orion, the same one that my friends at home must surely also see. I traced north via the Big Dipper, towards cultural fluency and linguistic simplicity. Then we passed the base of a large mountain and it was obscured by its bulk. For the best, I think. Homesickness does me little good at this point in my journey.

The trip was nearing its end, but my stay here is still beginning. As I clambered out of the truck, pounding fists and cracking last minute jokes, I did one last inventory: Backpack? Check. Cellphone? Check. Emotional growth? Check.

I started up the hill, bathed in the soft radiance of the streetlights which nonetheless caused me to squint.

I found my way to my apartment room, pausing to soak in the night one last time before going inside. The stars winked, the trees swayed, the road unfurled.

“This is a pretty great time to be alive,” I spoke to no one in particular. And it is.

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Though they don't have a lot to do with what I wrote about, this week's photos can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week14?authkey=Gv1sRgCL6SrbT8y6DP0wE#. There's another piece of good news: By Saturday night I will have my own personal source of internet. That also means that starting Sunday you have no excuse not to sit around and Skype with me. Your social lives have been warned.

Week 13 - Fíjese Que...

One week has passed, and I’m still here. We lost a few more over the last week because of the failure of expectation and reality to coincide, bringing our total up to 7 or 8. San Se is struggling, but getting to the point where I need it to be to feel comfortable. My room is still as tiny as it looked in the picture, but where the first adjective that described it was “cramped,” now it’s “cozy.” San Se as a town was “sleepy” and now it’s “tranquil.” Even Lauren, where I would have originally described her as “jerkface,” is now “less so”…That last part is a joke; she’s great and continues to be so.

I will admit that I had aspirations to greater efficiency than in retrospect was reasonably possible. We’re about 35 minutes away by camioneta from Huehuetenango (Huehue for short), the nearest big city, and I’ve been at least half a dozen times trying to fetch what I need. I was lucky enough to inherit a stove, some food to start me out, shelving, and a bed. Others, including Lauren were not so lucky. It’s amazing how hard it is to outfit a home on Q3000 (375 dollars), and transport everything you need—beds, stoves, blankets, etc.—via public transportation. It forces you to relentlessly conduct cost/benefit analyses between the expected resiliency of a bed’s foam and the unforgiving nature of its support structure beneath; it makes you think long and hard about the need for a third burner on a stove—how often will I want coffee with breakfast, too?—versus the minimal two; But mostly it obliges you decipher exactly how much you envy and despise the people who were grandfathered into a 6^th, 7^th, even 8^th generation Peace Corps house who have slowly collected all the beautiful conveniences of mostly-modern living: 13-inch TV’s with built-in VCRs, mini fridges to store their perishables, couches, coffeemakers, and electric water heaters for their shower. Indeed, it makes you despise them all the more that they get the same Q3000 as we mere plebes.

Unfortunately, I haven’t really gotten into a routine yet. It makes each day pretty unique, but it would be great to start working in some of the 34 schools I’ve been assigned. Alas, I need to shelve that kind of thinking for the time being. We were waiting for our CTA (superintendent/boss man) to meet us, introduce us to the bigwigs in San Se like the chief of police, the mayor, and the head of the COCODE, which is like a mixture of the PTA and the school board, as he promised to do when he was admitted to the Healthy Schools program. On Monday he didn’t show. On Tuesday we stopped by his office, spoke with his secretary who very politely answered our questions with “fíjese que…”, which roughly translates to “be advised that…”. Usually, though, it precedes decidedly bad news, so perhaps “unfortunately…” is a better translation. We’ve heard it a lot since we got in country—first with phone delays, with site placement delays, and of course site visit cancellations—but it had an ominous ring here:

“Fíjese que the CTA won’t be back into the office until Thursday at the earliest, and probably more like Friday.”

There has been worse news, but Lauren and I were chomping at the bit. We were essentially hamstrung without his introduction to the town and, more importantly, his directions for how to get to schools. Still, there were things we needed to get in Huehue, and we could use that time to do so.

Thursday came and there was no one in the office to open the door, much less to act as CTA.

Friday came and there still was no one. We called the CTA’s cellphone with no response. Where exactly was he?

Not knowing what else to do, we started introducing ourselves to all the community leaders we could think of (and, well, find). It lent us less legitimacy, since we didn’t have his introduction and, by extension, his pledge of support, but it felt wrong simply sitting in the park all day. Manifest destiny!

We finally got in touch with him by sitting in his office on Monday and refusing to move until he saw us. Once we had his attention he was actually pretty gracious, and took us on a two hour tour of the town, introducing us to the people we were looking to meet. When it came time to get directions to our schools, he began again with a “fíjese que…”

Uh oh.

“Fíjese que the teachers in all the schools of Huehuetenango are scheduled to go on strike starting tomorrow (Tuesday). We hope that this matter will be resolved in about two weeks, but the last one persisted for approximately six.”

With a little more digging, I discovered that the teachers in our department—perhaps the entire country—haven’t been paid in over three months. The government instead takes payroll and puts it into a bank account to collect interest. At some point they eventually pay out, but the educators are understandably upset, especially since the money has not yet been forthcoming. I tried to think about this in an American structure of government and educational system and soon gave up; I can’t see teachers in the US going a quarter year without pay, either. It’s terribly unfortunate for the students, who are trying to get an education, since they’re the unintentional victims of this social action. Further, after about a week it’s likely that the strikers will begin blocking roads throughout the department of Huehuetenango as further protest, so more and more people will be affected by the government’s malfeasance. I talked to our security director about this and he didn’t seem too worried about it, so I won’t be either.

I guess in all truth I don’t know how I feel about the situation: I am really anxious to begin my work and shudder at being forced to wait around until the strike is over, but I can see where the teachers are coming from; I am scandalized by the fact that the instructors don’t seem to give one whit to their students’ educations, but I am scandalized more by this egregious governmental account padding. Were I forced to take a side, I would ultimately say I don’t agree with the strike: Well-founded though it may be, it’s already an institutionalized practice to have virtually every other day off for one reason or another. Teachers, with few exceptions, never meet outside of class hours, so if there’s a one hour staff meeting, they’ll usually cancel school. If one of the teachers has to grade homework, they’ll simply not show up. Each “holiday” is wryly christened by Guatemalans as well as PCVs the Holiday of the Pencil, the Holiday of the Blackboard, the Holiday of the Eraser, etc. It seems indefensible that students miss even more school.

So there you have it. A week has passed, and for better or worse I’ve done a week’s worth of activities. That’s all I’ve got for this week, but check out the pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week13?authkey=Gv1sRgCKnprqLI1-yGDw#.

Week 12 - Without Reservation

Well, I’m in site. After an opulent swearing in ceremony, a rowdy weekend of celebration, a day of meetings, and a hair-raising car ride in the back of a pick-up on the intercontinental highway, I’m finally in San Sebastián Huehuetenango, my home for the next 2 years.

Unfortunately, I only arrived in San Se (SAHN-say, as it is usually called) less than 48 hours ago, so I don’t know very much about the town yet, other than what’s in my dossier that the Peace Corps gave me. Demographically, it’s about 90-95% indigenous, with people hailing from the Mam indigenous group, there are a little less than 25,000 people in the county-like municipality (though I have no idea how many actually live with me in the cabesera (municipal capital)—perhaps 1,500-5,000?). We are at approximately 6,000 feet above sea level, which means that the days are warm and the nights cool-to-cold. I know these details are pretty impersonal, so I’ll try to describe the few things I’ve seen and fill in the rest during next week’s installment.

As per the Peace Corps rules I must live with a family in San Se for 3 more months before I can live on my own, though it’s such a small town that it’s unlikely that I’d find a residence removed from a family compound even if I wanted to. Lauren and I are replacing Mark F., another Minnesota native, who ironically went to St. Olaf, Carleton’s crosstown rival. Despite this, he seemed pretty nice when I met him, and I’ve been lucky enough to inherit some of his stuff that he chose not to take, including a portable propane stove, various herbs and condiments, and the family that he lived with for the entire 2 years of his service.

The dynamic of this homestay will be very different than my last one which, frankly, is a good thing. I have no ill will towards my family in San Lorenzo, but almost anyone would chafe under the constant supervision of “parents” when you’ve already tasted the sweet, sweet freedoms afforded to you during college. I still haven’t gotten a handle on how many actually live here, but it would appear to be at least 3 generations, with the oldest about 65 or 70 and the youngest not yet 12. Names too will be forthcoming, but I know that the people I pay rent to are named Don Romeo and Doña Enriqueta.

Lauren lives about 4 blocks away from me up a gently ascending hill. Her house is perched both above and behind a pharmacy and a comedor (independently-owned restaurant), spilling over the two family-owned businesses not unlike a distended belly over a belt. She has more space than me, as well as a truly fantastic rooftop balcony overlooking the park, but I’m not too jealous. We had no choice in the matter of where we live—Peace Corps approved 2 houses, and the CTA (Coordinador Téchnica Administrativa, basically the superintendent and our boss) picked where we would go based on those two choices. Her landlord/host mom gives off a liberal vibe and we both liked her immediately.

The park is a leafy affair with several cement paths bisecting it in quarters, each about 50 feet in length, leading to the town’s administrative and social centerpieces—the municipal building, or muni, and the cement, brightly painted cancha (court) that serves as the field for virtually all sports in the community, though most notably soccer and basketball. On the east side there are bleachers for the scores of townspeople who attend every game.

I know this is slightly out of order, but I figure I should probably talk about what swearing-in was like, even though it was chronologically before my arrival to San Se. Both Doña Mayra and Don Tereso accompanied me to the ceremony at the US ambassador’s residence, which was also doubling as the 50-year anniversary party since the establishment of Peace Corps. Virtually all of the 220 volunteers in country were expected to be there as well as dignitaries, plus ones, and, of course, us.

The ambassador’s house is in one of the better parts of Guatemala City, and its front façade betrays little of the opulence inside. As we passed through security, the Ambassador, the PC-Guatemala director, and the chief of staff for PC-Washington shook our hands in welcome and congratulated us on getting to this point.

It might seem expected to be reaching the end of training successfully, but more than 10% of our group did not. Each manner of flaming out has its own parlance: 2 quit within the first two without prejudice, which we call Early Terminating—or ETing for short; 1 was declared unfit for service by the medical staff  and sent home (Medically Separated, or MedSep’ed); 2 were fired by a combination of PC-Washington and PC-Guatemala due to conduct unbecoming of a Peace Corps Trainee/Volunteer (Administratively Separated, or AdSep’ed); Finally 1Trainee was very politely told that he did not successfully meet the criteria of their technical program and Peace Corps did not think that they would perform adequately during their service (we don’t have a clever abbreviation for that so we call it with grim humor what we would in the US: Getting shit-canned).

So there you have it: 6 people were removed from our surrogate family here. I’m not going to say which separations I agreed with and which I did not, but there were some that seemed well founded, and others that in my mind almost certainly did not.

But I digress; the Ambassador’s backyard is comparable in size to a football field, and had a pavilion-like tent to protect us from the harsher solar rays. It seemed as though everyone in Guatemala spoke about how great Peace  Corps was, but only a little of the ceremony was devoted to us as about-to-be-sworn-in volunteers. Still, the reporters sneaking around the front of the stage with their huge cameras and lenses seemed to find no end to the number of opportunities to take people’s photo when they were least expecting it. The next morning we’d find the story on the front page of the Guatemala’s national newspaper, Prensa Libre. In the print edition, you can clearly see me, which is pretty cool. I am now a celebrity.

When the time finally came to stand, raise our right hands and repeat the oath given to us by the Ambassador, I found myself grinning like an idiot. During the more indecisive moments after my acceptance of the Peace Corps I always wondered about the part of the oath—the same taken by military personnel and the president—that says I take this oath “without reservation.” I think it was born of nervousness at the gravity of my decision, but while I was still in the US I assumed that I would hate Peace Corps service by this point, but be too constricted by my pride to ET.

The moment approached and I found myself saying those weighty words with an almost careless exuberance. I reflected on my service thus far: Training was both a terrible onus and exactly the type of hand-holding I needed to become comfortable here; For the last 3 months I have found myself among some of the coolest and adventurous people I have ever known, becoming their surrogate family and them mine. Mostly, though, I thought about the sense of mutual obligation and trust to each other that we had formed through our darker moments: They’re here for me, and I am proud to be here for them.

The fateful words were uttered, and they were among the most emotionally substantial that I have ever spoken: “I take this oath without reservation.”

I am now a Peace Corps Volunteer, with all of the rights and obligations afforded to one.

There’s only one picture of my room in San Se,  but there are several of the swearing-in ceremony. See them here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week12?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_alauY-rzuygE#.

Week 11 - A Portrait of the Writer as a Slightly Older Manchild

How is it already week 11? How am I about to swear in as an honest-to-goodness volunteer in only 3 days? Where has the time gone? I’m sure I’ve talked about it before, but the distillation of time around here is truly awe-inspiring. It feels like forever since I last ate a Juicy Lucy at the Blue Door while sipping a craft brew that had both nuance and flavor. At the same time, I simply refuse to believe that I have now endured more than 70 frigid bucket baths, decimated entire generations of fried chicken, weathered countless stomach illnesses, and emerged both healthier and happier than when I started. It simply cannot have been three months since I stepped off the plane.

However, in that time I have come to learn things about myself that I never knew (or indeed, would have had cause to learn were I still in the United States). Even last week, while on my IDA (Independently Directed Activity) field training I found out three very important things all of which, at least in retrospect, were interrelated:

1)      I handle myself pretty well even while uncomfortably close to gang warfare.

2)      I can hike more than 20 miles, over rivers and mountain ranges, and emerge with enough energy to teach English to giggly middle school girls.

3)      I am able to navigate even the most complicated bus schedules and routes in unfamiliar parts of Guatemala to wind up “accidentally” at beautiful lakesides for lunch while still returning to my host site by dark.

As some of you may remember, I went to the department of Huehuetenango in the northeast part of Guatemala to learn, for the second time, how volunteers live and behave themselves. I was stationed for the latter part of the week in a little town called Malacatancito (Malacas for short) about twenty or thirty minutes from the department capital, not-so-cleverly also named “Huehuetenango.” Kyle A. and I were stationed with a volunteer in the same program who’s a year ahead of us.

But on to gang violence: The three of us were at the supermarket buying all the groceries we’d need for the next few days (read: lots of pasta and Bacardí) barely thinking past that night’s meal. As we were passing through the checkout, the armed guard for the store slammed down the security gate, insulating the store from the outside world. The urgency and unexpectedness of the gesture surprised us; after all, we have been to many supermarkets over the last three months and never has the big steel screen been closed, preventing the entrance and exit of patrons.

A crowd began to form, and the guard explained what happened: He had seen a car pull up in the parking lot, guns being waved, and then shots fired. Not knowing what else to do, he did the only thing he could: He hid us.

When he opened the grate again a few minutes later, the lot was clear. Hesitantly the three of us stepped out into the growing dusk. A few hundred meters off we could see a phalanx of police officers with hulking automatic weapons engaged in some sort of assault-and-advance movements, the militaristic equivalent of leap frog. Even after playing years and years of Modern Warfare 2 (thanks, Will), you don’t get used to seeing futuristic weapons that spit death at 30 odd rounds per second.

“We should probably get out of here,” we all agreed simultaneously. Of course, being Peace Corps volunteers (or almost, anyway), we have no private transportation. We had to wait for the bus virtually on that same corner. The crowd of curious civilians that was starting to tentatively ring the police suddenly broke and began sprinting towards us. Something had scared them into getting the hell out of there. Oh God.

“Perhaps it would be more prudent to wait for the bus a little farther away,” we again decided as one. We began to jog, then run farther from the activity. The army began to fill out the already impressive ranks of police, passing us going as they sped towards the warzone. Humvees of camouflaged soldiers sat grimly while the standing gunner, using his M-60 for support, acted as guardian and scout.

The bus came after what felt like ages, and we practically leapt in. On the radio, the police chief for Huehuetenango was issuing a city wide alert about the violence that had just occurred, and would likely increase. “Huehue doesn’t abide Zetas,” he said, “and anyone in the area should find an excuse to get out of there. The drug lines flowing through the city and into Mexico [a few dozen kilometers north] will not be tolerated.”

My mother called, even as the emergency address continued. “Hi honey, I’m at the GAP getting that pair of jeans we talked about that I’m going to put in your care package. Is it alright if they are prefaded, or will that be too informal to wear to work?”

“Hey Mom; now’s not really a good time. Can I call you back?”

Of course, as soon as we were a safe distance outside the city, the three of us were suddenly aware of the spastic muscle control that an adrenaline rush always brings. We gripped our seats a little less tightly. We were out, and lucky for it. Had we finished at the grocery store five minutes earlier who knows what might have happened? Had the bus come five minutes later and who can say?

But such is life here; we do all we can to prepare for emergencies, but when they come all you can do is tell your mom that pants are not your priority at the moment.

The next day, my cardiovascular system was again tested. We were going to hike to one of our host’s farther schools, about four hours distant. Of course, to get there we had to ford three rivers and summit three mountain ranges. It could have been the impossible task of a fairy tale had we, you know, only had to read about it. We hitchhiked when we could, sometimes with an NGO going a mile up the road, or a teacher who’d take us as far as the next T-junction, but 95% was walked with the plodding feet of young adults eager to see a place where no other aid workers had the cojones to get to.

We awoke at 4:30am and were on the road by 5, trying to get as far as we could before we got baked by the merciless sun. Two backpacks full of water, a pound of granola, and a dozen cookies were all that we took. Another IDA group, joining us for most of the way, packed similarly.

We got to the school at around 9:30, watched and critiqued a health lesson, played soccer for almost an hour with the students, and then were on the road headed back again before 11.

We estimated that we walked between 20 and 25 miles over 8 full hours of hiking. Exhausted but exhilarated, blistered but satisfied, we took a nap for a few hours and then hoofed it a mile or two out of town again to work on the secondary project of our host: Teaching English at a subsidized girls’ school. I slept well that night, to put it mildly.

Saturday morning Kyle and I left Malacas, with the objective of getting back to our respective host sites by dark. Four busses later we found ourselves in Panajachel, a trendy tourist-destination-but-also-hippy-commune sort of town on the banks of Lake Atitlán. “We deserve burgers,” we decided, “with lots of cheese, and bacon if possible.” After all, we walked a marathon the other day. No big deal.

We found our burgers, the most delicious that I’ve encountered since coming here, and enjoyed each other’s company over a beer that turned into two as we migrated closer to the water.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Lake Atitlán, but it’s one of the most impressive bodies of water I’ve ever seen, and I feel pretty confident in my estimation of lakes coming from a state with 10,000 of them. The graceful slope of volcanoes, their flattened peaks rising thousands of feet above the mist at their bases, commanded my attention even while feeling the bubbles of our icy beers wash over our dry tongues.

A more idyllic spot for a beer cannot be found, but time waits for no PCT, and less than two hours after we got there Kyle and I were again on a bus headed back home. Four transfers later and we were there, barely minutes before the sun set. Damn, we’re good.

This installment is getting long, so I suppose I should wrap it up. A few notes before I go: As I alluded to earlier, this week is full of goings on:

Wednesday I find out my permanent host site, where I’ll spend the next two years of my life.

Friday afternoon I officially swear into the Peace Corps at the US Ambassador’s mansion in Guatemala City.

Of course, neither of those will be the most exciting day of the week: Sunday is my 23^rd birthday.

PS. As usual, please find the accompanying photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week11?authkey=Gv1sRgCITcm4Xj65u-hQE#

Week 10 - Operation Beach Bum

There are big changes in the works. Training is almost over—a week from Friday and I’m done—but it’s been quite a slog to get here. Sure there are good moments, just as there are bad ones that follow, then inevitably good ones again, ad infinitam. I realize that my blogs must seem to disproportionately focus on the bad, so I vow to make this one balance the others out. Bucket baths and chronic illness aside, I really am loving life.

My family and I finally went to the beach, which they have been promising for nearly as long as I’ve been living here. Of course, like everything here it’s very different from how I used to go to the beach in Minnesota. First, though, should probably talk about international events, and their sometimes shocking effect they have the world over.

I hear there was an earthquake of some note in Japan. The coverage here has been rather limited, though, and I admit I don’t know many of the details of what’s going on. Imagine, therefore, my surprise when I got a text from our Safety and Security Coordinator (SSC) on Friday afternoon that said “ALERT—TSUNAMI APPROACHING FROM JAPAN IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. GUATEMALAN SHORES WILL BE HIT AT 15:00 hours with waves +/- 1.5 meters. Pacific shoreline is OFF-LIMITS until we lift the warning.”

In Minnesota we don’t have earthquakes, nor Pacific oceans for that matter, so it’s hard to conceive of an earthquake big enough to effect little ol’ Guatemala all the way from Japan. Of course, the next thing I thought was that I couldn’t possibly have the conversion from meters into feet correct. Did he mean fifteen meters? Was the Peace Corps really getting upset enough to issue a tsunami alert over waves that are shorter than most 10-year olds? Were waves of this stature really that much different than other unprotected shorelines?

I quickly called the SSC and got him to promise me that he’d call me with any updates. I ultimately got clearance from him to go to the beach at San José, about two hours south of me, on the condition that I would call when I got back.

Begin Operation Beach Bum.

The plan was for us to arise at 3:30am to get in the car by 4:00 and hit the surf by 6:00, 6:15 tops. My skepticism was put aside in favor of seeing “huge” waves and sunning myself on black-sand beaches next to attractive natives in minimal fabric. 3:30 it was. Also, Yuna, the Healthy Schools volunteer who had lived with Don Tereso and Doña Mayra before me, her site mate Christie, and her friend from the US were joining us. The more the merrier. Sometimes it’s good to inject a little new blood around here (just not, you know, literally).

It was black when I woke up. It was black when we tumbled into the car, and remained so as we wove our way through across the department of Escuintla and parked our car in the private lot near the beach. Even the sand was black, though I admit this is more a function of geological phenomena than the hour. We were there; where was the sun?

Not wanting to imagine how cold the ocean would be at 6:00am when my baths were barely tolerable, I decided to just put my toes in.

Ah, glorious, glorious water! It was a perfect temperature, perhaps even a little on the warm side. This of course did not clue me into the temperatures likely to appear later in the day, when I’d be too busy keeping my pearly dermis and the 200 degree sand from becoming formally acquainted. As an addendum, volcanic beaches, colored black due to the volcanic rock, are really cool. I had seen a few while studying abroad in Greece, but this beach was truly jet black. With my toes snuggled into the sand, it was not dissimilar to them being in rich soil.

The waves were big, I admit. At their point break (thank you for the vocab, Keanu Reeves) they loomed perhaps 5 or 6 feet above the water, which was around my neck line. It would have been great surfing if, you know, I had brought a board…or knew how to surf. Still, were they security alert worthy? I will not comment on this. I have recently become aware of how touchy Peace Corps bureaucrats can be over statements not in line with their official message (Solidarity, JR*). My official statement, if ever given, will suggest that the Peace Corps is concerned with our safety, perhaps even more so than my own mother…Or a hen.

We spent the next several hours frolicking in the water, running out to catch our breath, then returning to chill our charred feet, stopping every so often to exclaim how it must be time for dinner but was really not yet 10:00. When a socially acceptable lunch hour finally occurred, we went to a comedor (independently owned restaurant) a stone’s throw from the water for a meal of fried fish (skin and head still on. Sorry Nemo…), rice, and the ubiquitous corn tortillas. It was good, I admit, but it couldn’t compare with the almost mythical memory I have of eating fresh garlic shrimp by the kilo in Mexico, now almost a decade distant. Then again, what can?

I won’t bore you with the details of the rest of the day, but it was mostly more of the same, just with more mangoes and fewer repetitions of the word “black.” I will comment that my almost depressingly severe farmer’s tan has been balanced out somewhat. Lobster pink is not a good look for me, though you will be relieved to hear that I temporarily put aside my aversion towards sunscreen and applied liberally, for all the good it did: I expect to peel within the next few days.

The only other things worth mentioning is that I successfully delivered my final taller (tie-AIR; lit. “workshop”) on Friday, which lasted about 2 hours along with Allison and Kata from San Lorenzo, and now am that much closer to becoming a full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Also, starting Wednesday I will be going on an Independently Directed Activity (IDA), which is a very fancy way to say I will be going to Huehuetenango with Kyle A., a great friend from my training group, where we will basically relive Field-Based Training (FBT). Am I overloading you with acronyms? Well too bad. Welcome to my life, the life of a PCT-about-to-become-a-PCV-in-the-502.

As always, here are this week’s photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week10?authkey=Gv1sRgCLnbkujk6IO59gE#

*  “I MAY NOT AGREE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, BUT I WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT.”  -Voltaire

Week 9 - Double Fried. Twice.

You all know me. You know that I love food, but am not terribly hard to please. You know that my tastes tend to skew to the exotic, the flavorful, and the guilty pleasures. So when I tell you that Saturday’s dinner was too much, even for me, please take that not as a sign that I have somehow become pickier, but that I simply am no match for the Guatemalan food pyramid.

I should probably preface this anecdote with the fact that I was diagnosed with Giardia, a parasite transmitted via fecal/oral contamination, about a week and a half ago. I’ve beaten it (with a little help from my friends and a staggeringly large dose of antibiotics), but after the second stomach parasite in as many months, the Peace Corps is rightly getting a little worried about me. Of course, they practically skipped over the fact that I ate, at some point, a little piece of someone’s number two, but they seemed—for a while—gravely concerned that I might have something called “Malabsorption,” which is rather technical but basically means that my intestines aren’t doing their job because I’ve been sick for so long.

“Now Joe,” the staff nurse began, “I’m sure you already know this, but Uncle Sam is paying for your medical bills, so I feel obligated to remind you. Please stick only to bland food for the next couple days. Avoid anything spicy, with dairy in it, and most of all greasy. You should be thinking bread, rice, and bananas, not fried chicken and sugar, mmkay?”

“No problem,” I told her. “It shouldn’t be too hard to stick to those dietary restrictions, especially around here.”

A day passed, and Doña Mayra called me down for dinner. I had, of course, made her aware that I wasn’t feeling well and my stomach couldn’t be strained. I sat, smelling the rich aromas of her kitchen, looking forward to whatever magic she’d done with the insipid foods I was allowed. My plate was put before me. It appears to be some kind of empanada (called dobladas here, which means “folded”), something that I’ve not yet seen here, but remember fondly from the days when my brother’s Spanish tutor would cook for us years ago. It’s a fried dish, but it appeared to be reasonably grease-free. Beside it were two things that may or may not have been eggs. I’ve never seen them quite so…deep fried.

Now, I appreciate a good egg as much as anyone. Ask anyone who knows me and you’ll learn that most of my brain food comes from some variation of the fried egg sandwich. Almost by definition a fried egg must be at least a little greasy. Still, it is no match for a fried egg that has subsequently been deep fried. A double fried egg. Two of them.

With a resigned sigh, I bit into it, knowing that if I didn’t I would offend my host family, whose respect I’m really trying to gain. It would be a bad idea, I reckoned, but so be it. There are worse things that a little upset stomach. Grease ran down my face in little rivulets. Wiping it away I reached for a doblada. Even grasping it gently between two fingers, grease squirted out. So much for grease-free.

Huh, I though while biting into it. This is interesting. Most fried things typically don’t have another fried thing in them, so I was quite surprised to find a pork rind nestled comfortably in its crispy tortilla blanket. Pork rinds, and I could be wrong on this, are pig fat (and skin?) that has been deep fried. Once again, I found myself eating something fried inside of something that had been fried. I began to gag a little bit.

I somehow got through it, mostly by alternating bites of the meal with bites of bread (which I later found out is made with generous helpings of lard). Surprisingly, I only had a mild-to-moderate stomach ache for the next 12 hours. What I find so hilarious, though, is that despite eating food like this on a more regular basis than I’d care to admit, I’ve lost 15 to 20 pounds. Perhaps that will put my sickness into a little more perspective.

Sunday was another free day, the nine hour phenomenon we get bimonthly that is about as close to a weekend as we get. Our training cohort is getting closer and closer, but we get to hang out with each other so infrequently that it’s truly a treat to go to Antigua and pack as much living into as few hours as possible. We still need to return home before dark, which means getting on the bus no later than 6pm, but we have some truly epic lunches. Meals like the above make one, for lack of a stronger word, ravenous for light and vegetable-centric foods. Salads are a prized commodity among us, and no expense is spared in the pursuit of such divine perfection. Add a bottle of wine and it’s almost like we’re able to cook for ourselves again.

Of course, by 3 or 4 in the afternoon most people were done eating, no matter how leisurely they polished off the last of the hummus and pita wedges. Spread by word-of-mouth, more and more began to meander over to the Ocelot, a jazz bar run by Peace Corps-friendly American expats with the best all day happy hour in town. I felt so sophisticated to be sitting in a cosmopolitan city, letting the cool carbonation of a Cuba libre tickle my throat while surrounded by the swirl of banter and music. None of those sensations are terribly out of the ordinary from my old life, but it felt really great to be surrounded by compatriots in such a trying enterprise as the Peace Corps enjoying a few of  the finer things in life.

That’s all I’ve got for now, though I’ve been struck a lot this week by how much I feel like I’ve changed since arriving; it’s amazing how many deep thoughts you can have while swinging back and forth in a hammock at a macadamia farm. I’ll be done with training in two weeks, but it’s scary and exhilarating to think how different I’ll be in two years.

Also, Two of my dearest friends, Becca D. and Heather C., have, as of today, began their own service with the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan. I’m not going to post their contact information for the whole world to see, but if you know them, please consider giving them the same wonderfully heartfelt sentiments you gave me when I began my own epic journey. They’re a lot more poised than I am, so maybe they’re so full of excitement and optimism that they’re inured to preoccupation. I, however, was shitting myself—almost as literally as I am now that I’m here.

PS, per usual, please peruse this week’s photos at your convenience. They can be found at https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week9?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGU64n7mqGvTg#.