Feelin like a Girl Scout Again...

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Happy Independence Day Guatemala (Sept 15).. Last week Guatemala celebrated their Independence Day. Here that means FERIA!! Which is like a huge fair with parades full of marching bands representing each school. The men do a specific march, very military style (i have a video and hope to share it with you all once I find faster internet to upload it) and the girls dance with the beat of the drummers and the music from the marching bands. It was beautiful to see them represent with such pride for their schools and country! I never thought I would go on any of the rides at the fair given that they are typically old ones passed down from the States, then from Mexico, hence they are a bit dodgy I would say. One was called the Crazy Chopper... a wild helicopter ride that I could not stop laughing at for some reason haha. But my friend Michelle who is a volunteer here, Eddy my Guatemalan friend who was showing us around the fair and I went on the ferris wheel... it went 4-5 times extremely fast forwards then reversed directions and did the same, what a rush! We ate authentic Guatemalan street food which was delicious, I offically love papusas (tortilla stuffed with cheese topped with veggies and salsa) and bread dipped in arroz con chocolate (hot drink made with milk, rice and baking chocolate and cinnamon sometimes too). It was a great week last week as the fairs and parades (desfiles) lasted all week thus I had a short work week, and the majority either went out and celebrated in the discos dancing, watching parades on the streets, eating lots of food, and attending festivities in the schools as the kids dressed in authentic clothing and did traditional dances, it was beautiful!

I can barely believe myself that is almost October.. that means just one more month of the rainy season! I have gotten use to the rain, it comes in patterns as though it seems, and Maria (the Health Educator who I work with most days) and I always joke and comment about how every monday at 1pm when we walk to the to the next part of our town for one of our women´s cooking groups it always rains muy muy fuerte (downpouring with thunder), it almost never fails. We are waiting to start building our benches and latrines wtih the bottles until after the rainy season which will make things much easier for everyone involved. We are currently in the middle of Earth Month here in my town as we have been doing activities with the schools to continue raising awareness about the problem with trash and promoting healthier, more sustainabe solutions. The kids seem very receptive to what we have been introducing to them, we showed them photos of trash problems around the world so they got to see that it is a problem, not only here but everywhere. Also we talked about the lovely 4 R´s.. Recycle, Reduce, Recollect, Reuse, organic and inorganic trash, how long it takes for different materials to decompose (examples would be 2-5 weeks for a banana peel, 10-20 years for plastic bag, 100 years for a can of beans, plastic cup 250 years), and we showed them Captain Planet show about trash. We have a meeting friday with the community leaders and mayor to make a plan of action after giving them a similar presentation about the problem with trash and show solutions such as explaining our bottle project of making benches, latrines, and trash cans using bottles full of trash (bottles in place of brick = eco-blocks). I am anxious to see how things play out through out the next several months!

I am still thoroughly enjoying the cooking classes with my women´s groups! We have been making a variety of foods such as pasta with campo cheese (cheese made here fresh from the cows that comes wrapped in a corn leaf), veggies, soy sauce and basil, chicken fajitas with fresh guacamole and the good ol´ fresh hand made corn tortillas they always make, chocolate cinnamon rice crispy treats wtih the kids, fresh chammoile tea wtih locally made honey I get from a natural store in Xela (We picked chammomile flowers that grow here in my town, some of the kids showed me where they all grow and helped me pick them and make the tea), potato pancakes with parsley and fresh cinnamon apple sauce, and potato salad. I will either list off several different foods and recipes that I have or know and they choose which one they want to do then we all share each bringing a part of the ingredients. Sometimes the kids who live at the houses we go to for these clases help with the cooking, or we will knit or crochet while waiting for the food to cook. This is definietly one of my favorite parts of the day!

English classes are going well, I have one with the kids (ages 5-12) and I just started another one with some teenagers and early 20´s (jovenes) who I really enjoy spending time with. When I first arrived to my village, I was so surprised how often I would and still get asked by someone in my town to teach them English. I am hoping to start a class for adults in the centro once school ends for their summer break in a few weeks, then I will have more time since I wont be going to the schools to give health classes like I do now twice a week. I was excited when I was asked by the kids to teach them more things such as dancing, art, cooking and english, so I think during their vacation I will do some creativity and educational classes once a week or so with them. There are always projects that can be done to benefit the community, and this may be a good chance to start one. I have a lot of ideas that I would love to do such as making compost with worms and making herb or vegetable gardens using old tires, build trash cans and recycling bins out of sticks and wire that we can paint after, make sandles out of old tires and leather, arts and crafts in general using old tin cans and bottles... I am excited for summer break because I love recyclable arts and crafts and being creative!! Now is time for the good old girl scout in me to shine.

My Kiche classes are coming along, slowly but surely, still working on the sounds since they are much different than English or Spanish, but I know the basic greetings and a few random words such as vegetables or utensils that I use in the cooking classes. My Kiche teacher and I made pages with all the Kiche alphabet letters, examples of their sound and a drawing of it too that we colored then we hung them each on a string and hung it in my room! It is funny because the schools I go to have similar if not the same drawings for the letters of Kiche, too. Again, I really do feel like a girl scout again sometimes, but I am loving it!

I look around when I am walking through my village and things look and seem normal after living here for a couple months. The same things I was astonished or surprised at when I first arrived slowly do not give the same reaction as I am becoming more accustomed to living here. Kids of all ages working whether they go to school or not, helping their parents or siblings carry hugs bundles of firewood, bucket of corn to bring to the town grinder to turn it into flour for making tortillas, or carrying almost their size of herbs or grass and they carry it either on their head or strapped across their head wtih the weight on their forehead with the bundle behind on their back. The grasses they will walk across town, sometimes without shoes, to feed their sheep, goats, pigs, turkeys, horse, bunny, squirrel, or cows. Or they will bring their animals across town by leash for them to eat in a field for a while then walk them back later that day. It happens everyday that I see someone walking their cows and animals by leash down the road. What a different lifestyle here than I had before... I am getting use to it that sometimes I like to think back and remind myself how different my life was before living here. Even just the simple things you wouldn´t think about such as not driving a car and relying solely on buses with limited schedules or a pickup ride to get home on sundays since the buses dont run taht day to or from my town, having to go to a tienda (small store) to buy phone credit, getting my eggs and cheese wrapped in a leaf from my neighbors two houses down, not spending the evenings with friends or family, eating eggs and beans daily, lack of variety of food in general, having to plan when to leave on the bus and knowing it takes an hour or more depending on if it breaks down or a parade of marching bands for the fair causes a delay and in search for a detour, having to plan my food for the week to buy fruits and vegetables or other items for cooking when I go to the market on saturdays in the big town an hour away (since my town only has a small one sunday mornings). But these things almost do not phase me anymore, they have become a normal part of my life because it is what I have to do thus I dont even think twice about it anymore really. It is crazy how the environments we are in shape who we are and what we do with such strong influence, I am amazed at how we are able to adapt and change as needed, perhaps that is our survival of the fittest in us...

I stumbled upon a Zumba DVD at the market and bought it for some of the jovenes in my town that I have been doing Zumba with. We actually did the video today with a group of them during their half hour break in school this afternoon after my cooking class.. wow this is why I love my ´´job´´, it was a great day. This morning I went to a smaller school in the further part of the town with my educator and we gave the same trash charla as we have been doing with the central school every tuesday for Earth Month. Then I came home and the 5 year old boy who lives in teh house I am renting a room with knocks on my door and hands me a whole head of cauliflower he helped picked in their garden so I made curried cauliflower with tomato and egg for lunch. I also received 2 freshly picked corn from the corn field from my Kiche teacher, and last night I made black corn tortillas with the mom I am living with. It feels great to have and live with such friendly and giving people. This is a culture that truly cares about one another and they are examples of what it means to lives for one another. It is almost like one big extended family here in my village (although many really are related since I always hear from people ´oh that is my cousin you have been cooking with´, or ´oh that is my mother in law that you taught to crochet´, or ´that is my daughter who works at that tienda where you buy bread´). It is an amazing feeling to slowly but day by day feel more like I am a part of their community, especially one that is this close-knit, welcoming, and friendly. Everyone greets one another who you walk past whether they are walking, working, or sitting, or when you get on the bus you greet those already seated. It really is a beautiful culture, and I am enjoying and loving learning more it about each day!

I guess that is all for now, hope all is well and take care! Peace and blessings, Alyssa

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Comments

[Mom]

kudos
You are making us feel so good about the work and lifestyle you are making for those there and yourself. You are a wonderful presence and we believe you are truly making a difference. Enjoy it all as the days add up and will be over before you know it. Looking forward to sharing some time with you next year....Mom and Dad