Random Thoughts of the Week...

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I am still learning the schedule of the camionetas (chicken buses) to and from my town. They come roughly every hour or so, except sundays, but I do know however that they take an hour, mas o menos, each way so I typically bring either a book in case it breaks down part way and we have to wait for a while for the driver and ayudante to fix it, or my current knitting or crocheting project during the bus rides. Sometimes, we are even entertained by what I compare to as an in-person infomercial by a salesperson. The majority of their products are health products of some sort, but it is quite entertaining at the least to watch and listen to them eagerly try and sell their productst with much enthusiasm and great facial expressions while also trying to maintain their balance as the bus driver continues to drive at his typically fast pace. At the bus terminal, there are several vendors who briefly get on the bus and sell anything from gum to soft drinks, ice cream, fried plantains, peanuts, tortillas and even entire food dishes. It is like being at a baseball game, almost. None the less, there is always the beautiful view since I live in a very small town of roughly 4,000 including all 21 of the parajes (smaller villages where I work, too) on top of a mountain. Each time I have to ride up and down this curvy, bumby road, but it is through green, lush trees and plants and with a breath-taking view of Volcano Santa Maria as well as a beautiful view of the vast towns and city below in the valley surrounded by tall, green mountains.

Through a governemnt funded program called Mi Familia Progresa and with help from Maria, the health educator who I work with almost daily, we were able to form 3 women´s groups who all expressed an interest in cooking and knitting/crocheting classes every week. I was overjoyed that so many wanted me to come show them new things that I also have an interest in, and with that I also am doing a training with them with hygiene and nutrition. This week in my cooking classes with the women´s groups, we made chinese food: beef and broccoli stir fry over rice. Although both groups bought chicken instead of beef, since it is cheaper, but it still turned out great! I was overjoyed to introduce them to ginger, one of my favorite cooking spices! Thankfully they sell fresh ginger here in the markets, as well as soy sauce which was also new for them. Next class will be lentil and carrot curry for one group and avocado brownies for the other group, both are some of my favorites so I am pretty stoked to introduce them to the amazing flavor of curry and using avocado in place of butter in baked goods! I should not have been surprised when after cooking the meal, they quickly made delicious corn tortillas to accompany the meal right before they served the food and gave me some in a to go bag with some corn maza to make my own, too! I was delighted for I havent eaten too many tortillas since training. In my town here, everyone makes their own and they usually make tomalitos which is the maza wrapped in a leaf then cooked in a pot of boiling water. Personally I prefer the tortillas, but unlike my training town where several women make and sell tortillas from their house, no one sells them here so I am on a search to find maza and make my own, thus it was a delight to have been given some this week 😊

At the meeting with the health promoters in my town last friday, it was a very successful and exciting day us all! A member from the local NGO came and helped form and start our own health comission here in my village! They elected a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and 3 vocal leaders and with our help giving them training in various health topics, they can start working in the community as official health promoters. I started off the meeting giving a nutrition charla and then showed them how to use recycled water bottles to make a device that can be used to wash hands. It is quite easy to make: cut off the bottom of the bottle, cut 2 holes near the top to put either a string through (or what I did was use the label from the water bottle, cut it into strips then braided it and used that to hang the bottle) then turn it upside down and hang it from a tree next to the latrine or bathroom and fill it with water and put soap in the part you cut off and use that as the soap holder. Then you slightly turn the cap to let a little water trickle out as you wash your hands! We call it the porta-pila (pilas are what they use here to wash their dishes, clothes, hands, hair and teeth). They were excited to learn something new, and asked me to teach them more projects. I think in the upcoming month we are going to make shampoo, I just need to figure out what plants are in abundance here because in training we made aloe vera shampoo, but I have not seen too many of those plants around so the search continues!

Time. It is such an interesting concept in itself, but my perceptions of time have changed over the years through several various experiences. I remember the summer I stopped wearing a watch, it was one of the summers I was working on my parents farm and would spend the days mowing lawns and fields, berry picking, power washing the fence, cutting shrubery, feeding and watering the animals and what not. One of my favorite parts of these summers was being in tune with the sun. I woke up when it came up and I would either go down and help with the animals or go for an early morning run, for the sun revealed ´´what time it was´´. When I was hungry I would eat, when I was tired I would sleep, and I would sometimes continue working until I could no longer see anymore, and thus it determined when I would start and stop working. I can relate well with my town here for it is the same. People rise when the sun does and work until they can no longer see. Yet the concept of time differs much greatly here compared to as in The States. I feel as though the needs of people are adjusted to suit the demands of time such as with schedules and deadlines, and there is a limited amount of it available. One excuse I always heard and told myself, too, was if only there was more time... Well here, there always is more time. Time is the servant and tool of people and it is adjusted to suit the needs of people, where more time is always available and people are never too busy. However, with this comes almost a lack of schedule and deadlines, and tardiness is quite normal. I want to represent professionalism when possible in my job and try to show up on time, but I have been finding myself becoming culturally adapted to the concept of time and have been showing up a little past when we originally said something would start, yet I still am the first one many times. Thus I learned to always bring a book or my knitting projects because there is always time here spent waiting. I guess in some sense I can look at it as I have been learning to be more patient, one day at a time.

Thinking back to training which ended about a month ago, I remember it being quite intense and we were very busy all the time and couldn´t wait for it to be over. Yet as training neared its end, I was scared to say goodbye and be on my own in my village. I accept that this culture is different than my own, and in many ways that is, yet I find myself still feeling and thinking that deep down we are all alike. I have to adjust my own style and ways of living in many aspects, but I still feel like I do not need to worry about my basic assumptions and life beliefs. What I am slowly realizing is that cultural differences are not just on the surface, but people really do view the world fundamentally in different ways. We can look at the same thing for instince, such as a pine tree, yet will have completely different feelings and thoughts about that same object. Even on a scientific level or when talking about brain waves, things will affect each of us differently, and cultural differences will have yet another effect on how we view things. I am reading I Rigoberta Menchu, a book of an Indian Women here in Guatemala, and it is also teaching me new perspectives about this culture and about the secrets passed down from their ancestors to keep their culture alive. Culture does run deep, and therefore so do cultural differences. I am becoming more understanding of this day by day. Things that used to bother me I can either laugh at now because I have been adopting them into my own life, or I do not even see them anymore. I cannot imagine what it will be like after 2 years living here if I am already experiencing this after only 4 months of living here. I continue to hope for this same thing to occur throughout the world, where people understand one another better and to be curious instead of afraid when meeting someone new or of a different culture. It can be scary at first, and many of the kids and adults here are afraid of me because I am very different, but slowly through these 2 years here, I am hoping for a mutual understanding that may develop between us.

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