Merry Feria

The town fair has come and gone… for now at least. Tonight I will actually be able to go to sleep without the sounds of firecrackers, loud bands, honking horns, screaming children and the many drunks that filled the whole town with endless noise. Despite the noise, the town fair is always entertaining. There are many street vendors selling food, jewelry, toys, ice cream, clothing, you name it. The beauty of living above all the noise and chaos is that I have a bird’s eye view of all the action going down in the street below my house. I wake up in the morning to the fruit vendor shouting “naranjas, naranjas dulces”, to the lady selling soap “cinco por diez, mamaita, cinco bolsas por diez”, to the little boys trying to sell ice cream cones for one quetzal (which is equivalent to about 8 cents). Thankfully the morning noise starts when I usually wake up in the morning. Tuk usually gets up earlier than I do and perches himself over the balcony watching all the action below. The best and sometimes annoying part of the town fairs are the live bands that play. This year they had 2 live bands playing in the courtyard of the Catholic Church. As soon as you would walk into the entranceway your whole body would be pounding against the vibrations of the music playing. Sometimes it would get so loud that my head would start hurting. In front of the live bands are dancers dressed in masked costumes that dance for the whole week, all day, until they are de-masked on the final day of the fair. I’m still not sure what the significance of the masked dancers are yet, but I still have hopes that maybe next town fair I can be a masked dancer :)

The prosession of "Santa Maria" - aka the name given to my site: Santa Maria Chiquimula.

Santa Maria in all her glory... garland, christmas lights and beach towels :)

The prosession at night from my balcony.

The masked dancers dancing in front of the band.

The only disappointing part of the town fair, besides all the garbage and stray dogs wandering around, is all the drinkers that make an appearance. Every night, since the fair started, there are always a slew of drunks. At times it can be funny, watching someone who is drunk trying to pee on the wall that tries to place his other hand on the wall, misses and falls down, and other times it can be really sad. The other night I had to witness a drunken mother and her son who was no more than 14 years old were being supported by her daughters who were no more than 7 or 10 years old. Last night my site mates and I had to witness a drunken father passed out on top of his drunken wife who was passed out on her crying infant daughter. Surrounded by these poor examples of parents were their other 2 young daughters who were just sitting there obediently, waiting. When I saw this I went over there to see if I would be able to at least get the little girl out from under the weight of her mother. Soon a crowd formed and the baby was freed and a neighbor of mine took control of the situation. Later on throughout the night I noticed the whole family was still sitting there and it was getting late. My friend Anna was with me and we tried to find out where they were staying for the night to see if we would be able to escort them. Earlier that night Anna and I had already helped a father escort his drunken daughter after we found her passed out on the street, again, with 2 young daughters in tow. We tried talking with the father of the family and of course he was incoherent and we were both worried for the safety of the children. We happened to be by a restaurant where the town police were eating. Anna went to talk with them to see if they would be able to drive the family home. Long story short, the police were no help, they didn’t want to get involved and they were being jerks about the whole thing. Just then family members came to retrieve this family and I think it was because Anna and I were talking with the police. Anna told me she had seen some of the family members earlier. So basically, this family was left on the side of the road because the other family members didn’t want to deal with them. Sad, sad, sad! Last night made me really upset. There are no laws here on public intoxication and in this case who suffers, the children suffer. The police don’t intervene because there would be no outcome. Those intoxicated would be in jail, given a fine (maybe) and set free to keep drinking again. There are no resolutions here, and believe me it can be extremely frustrating at times. If justice were done here the parents would be put in jail and charged with public intoxication, child endangerment (amongst other things) and the children would be placed in child protective services. But – that will probably never happen here. So I guess, let’s hope next year’s town fair will not bring so many unfortunate circumstances… I don’t really know what else to say.

Just this past week all of Peace Corps was put on a nationwide “standfast”. That meant that wherever we were at the start of the standfast we were not allowed to leave until further notice. I was in my site so I wasn’t able to leave for almost a week. I was still permitted to go to work but I wasn’t allowed to travel outside of my site. We had the town fair so that helped with being kept occupied and thankfully the standfast didn’t last longer than a week. Unfortunately, a lot of the country suffered due to all the heavy rains and there was a number of landslides, collapsed bridges and impassable roads.

This picture doesn't do justice but it had been raining all day and for a few minutes there was a break in the clowds and the sun peaked through - as if to catch its breath. The sun reflected off off the rain clowds, and it was even raining still. The whol town was this glow of orange. It was a pretty awesome sight.

Hello September!

Another "Reina de Salubrista" aka Health Queen pageant has come and gone! This year Nancy, one of the professional nurses at my health center represented Santa Maria Chiquimula. When I arrived I found her waiting outside waiting for her clothes! Everyone was dressed for the "traditional" round where you wear traditional Mayan clothing and she was still waiting for her clothes to arrive from another nurses' house. She then told me she didn't have "cinta" which is a handwoven ribbon woven into your hair. So I told her I would try to find her cinta in the market. I ran and tried to find someone from my health center to help me find cinta - cause I had no clue where to look or even know how much it would cost. So within 20 minutes we found a store, bought the cinta - just in time for the peagent to start. That was my gift to her :)

Nancy, showing off her personality in her "fantasy" costume

Nancy and I right before she went out in her "formal" wear.

The venue for the "Health Queen" pageant - downtown Totonicapan in the town's teatre. pretty, right?! Night and day from last year's competition! No firecrackers were set off here!

I wish I could say we are almost done with the raining season here, but we still have at least 2 1/2 more months of this dreary, cold, wet season that lasts for half a year. It has been raining non-stop for the past 12 hours and has been raining everyday for almost 2 weeks straight. The weather reports state that it will rain straight for another 32 hours! All of PC is at a standfast which means we are not allowed to leave our sites due to the potential dangers that may be presented while on the road. For example, the many mudslides that are occuring as I type, flooded roads, blocked roads, and even streets and bridges giving out. So I am ok with staying home - although it can get a bit borning at times.

I just realized Tuk hasn't been around for a while and then I found out he was snacking on the bathroom garbage! Let's just say he is grounded - which means in about 10 minutes he will forget why I was mad at him. He is so gross sometimes!

This coming week every health center in my department of Totonicapan will take an excursion for a few days for a holiday break around Guatemalan's Independence Day. This year the plan is to travel to Livingston, Izabal which is on the clear oposite side of Guatemala (Eastern side). However, with all the rain happening I'm not even sure if PC will allow a bunch of PC volunteers to make the trip which will be unfortunate. Just recently a few PC volunteers were in a terrible car accident which left a doctor, 2 nurse assistants and the driver of the car dead while traveling on a health center excursion, the volunteers were hurt but are now recovering. So with this recent news I'm not too sure we will be taking this trip. I am just so grateful the volunteers survived and my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the deceased.

Yesterday my health promoters had their final exam. Overall, I was very pleased with how it turned out. After reading all of their exams they really understood all the material I gave them through out the year and I am very proud of them :) I am still in the process of watching a few health promoters give individual health talks to their own groups in their communities and watching them give their presentations has been very fun and rewarding. On the 16th of this month I will be having a meeting for new health promoters! A year has past! So I am hoping I get a nice turn out. On the 24th of this month I will be graduating my 10 health promoters. I will be presenting my health promoters with a certification of completion of the course and a Health Promoter ID badge with their picture and name.

My health promoters, Francisco, the president of the health promoters (on the left), and Manuel, the vice president (on the right), giving a health talk to almost 100 people fit into 2 tiny rooms. You can't see but there is a room next to Manuel that was packed with women who were listening to their presentations.

Here I am sitting in the middle of the mob listening to Francisco and Manuel give their presentations.

Another angle of the room.

So I bought internet for a day, and low and behold the darn thing doesn't sign me off every minute now... interesting. Maybe I'll try buying a full month soon and see if my internet is now back to normal.

Felisa, my wonderful friend and coworker, with her little boy, Martin, and her loquacious husband on one of our trips out into the communities. On our last trip he told me I would have to get married soon because of my patience with his kids. (haha, I have no clue what that means) You can't see, but there is a little girl standing behind Felisa who didn't make the picture. During the whole car ride she played with my hair and the little boy liked to kicked me. He told me I had a "doll face" and I would have very pretty babies :) haha. Don't worry mom, I have no plans on procreating anytime soon :)

I can already tell it is going to be a cold night! The breeze coming from my balcony door is really cold! On Thursday I found a man selling wool blankets. They make them specially from Momostenango, another municipality of Totonicapan. So I used it for the first time that night and MAN what a difference! I have never slept better! Wool blankets are the way to go! So instead of relying on Tuk's body heat - to which he usually bails on me and moves to the floor because he gets too hot - I now have an appropriate form on warmth at night. I also found a man that makes tables on market days and I finally ordered a kitchen table! Al fin!! So now my house will somewhat look complete. Next task is organizing my desk space and then plans to start a garden on my porch. But that will be next month's project - if weather permits.

Chuck talked about how he ate sushi last night.... I haven't had sushi in about a year and a half... it sounds soooo good. Hopefully my next blog entry will be about my trip to Livingston!

Kawilawib, se cuida, take care!

Clean House = Clear Head

So I spent all day today cleaning my house! IT WAS SOO DIRTY. It didn´t look dirty but I had been putting off sweeping and mopping for some time. Mom and Dad you guys are probably not surprised... but my house only looked like maybe there were some heavy winds instead of a huge tornado. After sweeping up dustpans full of dust andTuk´s hair (gross I know) I decided to take on an even bigger challenge- try to clean my patio. So, Tuk is not a typical dog by any means, when I say he´s house broken, it is true, but only partially. He doesn´t do his business in the house, which is good, he just does it on the patio outside of my house. I wish I could be able to train him to hold it and wait to go outside, but with my schedule and being in a site where having dogs as pets is really stange, he just goes out on the patio. Well... we are in raining season. So for the past 4 months or so my patio has been flooding and along with all the water went all of Tuk´s waste. So there has been a Tuk-feces swamp festering on my patio. Well today I thought I would try to do something about it. Well who knew there is a drain on the patio... duh! So I was finally able to clean the patio, ugh. I also gave Tuk a bath - his least favorite thing I make him do. Now he smells less like wet dog and more like passion fruit.

I went out into the market today to buy a bunch of produce for my health talk tomorrow for one of my women´s groups. I took Tuk with me. I have been trying to take him out without putting him on a lease. I´m trying to blend the house dog and street dog together. He has nearly torn my arm off recently because he is getting so big, so we´ll see how this goes. While buying food I could hear people shouting ¨chucho, shht, shht¨ which means ´get out of here you street dog, or I will throw something at you¨so I just pretended he wasn´t mine, haha. Well, that didn´t work because he would come up and lick my hands, and when I would walk away he would always follow... He got so annoying I had to send him home. I think maybe market days are not the way to go in the future, maybe in a less chaotic environment next time.

So overall, I was very productive today. Now I am going to go home, get a nice workout in, maybe watch a movie and call it a night. Maybe next blog entry I will not talk about my dog, haha. Almost 100 days until I am home again...!

Lazy Sundays...

He looks like a lion here

He´s so handsome :)

I woke up from a nap and this is how he was passed out... I think it was hot that day, haha!

So, overall, I would say a lot has happened since the HIV/AIDS workshops. Instead of slow, mundane work days now my work days are exciting, different and I actually feel happy to go to work! Wow – it only took a year….!! I would have to say it is because I have been working with the women´s office at my site´s town hall. I have been working very closely with the 2 women that run the office, Claudia and Felisa. Claudia was wrongfully fired as the women´s office coordinator and then rehired about a month ago. And Felisa has always been the “encargada” or what we would call the person in charge of the office. Felisa has been a Godsend! She has supported me from the day she was asked by the mayor to accompany me to one of my communities to help with translation and since then she holds a very special place in my heart. She is 40 years old and is a mother of 7 children! Her youngest just recently turned 1 year old. Thanks to my grandmother I was able to give her a pair of shoes and a few pieces of clothes to give to her son on his birthday, she was so happy :) And yes, we have talked about family planning so that she doesn´t become pregnant again :) Yesterday her husband drove Felisa and I to a community and probably one of the nicest men who totally talked my ear off. He found it so fascinating that I was 26, not married and without kids. When he found out that I was taking Ki´che classes the 45 minute trip home was pointing to random objects on the road, saying them in Ki´che and then having me repeat them back to him. After about 5 minutes of this he started to form sentences and then asked me to repeat the sentence. I think he thought I was some genius because he would get disappointed when I couldn´t repeat it back, like it was the easiest thing to say. I laughed on the inside at his presumption, but bless his heart for thinking of me so highly. By this time I had Felisa´s husband giving me a vocabulary lesson, Felisa trying to fight off her 1 year old who was hitting her in the face with a comb because she took away a pen he was trying to chew on, and there is me squished between the passenger side door and Felisa trying to anticipate all the potholes in the dirt road so my side doesn´t pound into the door handle - also trying not to wake Felisa´s 3 year old daughter who passed out on my lap. During my trip home I couldn´t help but he happy that I have 10 more months with these wonderful people and their family and how I knew tears would be shed when it would be my time to leave. It only took a year to finally connect with a family here but it was worth the wait.

I also contribute my new found happy work environment to limiting the amount of time I have been at the health center. All my friends here and my bosses know the frustrations I have been having with my health center and now since most of my work has been in the communities I find that I do not need to be present at the health center as often. I think I have been a total of 3 times at the health center this month, all being half days… and it feels great! I still have yet to meet with my doctor to really have a talk with him about everything because I know he thinks I am not doing any work – well work for the health center. Basically all of my work has been centered about the women´s office at the town hall and I am making sure they receive all the credit – they are the ones that actually want to work with me. The doctor asked me to make sure my health promoters take a test to become “certified”, so on Monday I plan on meeting with him to go over the test questions and then confront him on some of the concerns he may be having. My “counterpart” – I say this in quotes because she is an immature 21 year old girl who doesn´t do anything at the health center but finds joy in trying to tell me what to do. If you know me like my mother does – I do not like being told what to do. And so, as you can imagine, there are differences J So my counterpart has told me the doctor doesn´t want me working with her, so I would like to ask him about this and actually see if it is true. I also want to let him know that my bosses know of the situation I am having at the health center and this is one of the reasons why my work has been focused more with the muni (town hall). Oh – and also to thank him for letting the staff destroy the poster board of photos I made – with my own money. Great way to make an outsider feel welcomed by the way….

Well, enough with the negative, on the positive front, my health promoters are really close to graduating! They take their exam the 3rd of September. In the meantime they are coming to review sessions and making up any classes they have missed. I have also asked of them to put together a health talk to one of their community groups so that I can see them in action. I have been taking pictures so that I can present all the work they have done to the mayors of their towns as well as the doctor (not sure if he really is going to care or not). This past week I gave a presentation to the women´s commission. The women´s commission works under the women´s office at the muni and they are women representatives from each Aldea – or towns that surround the downtown of Santa Maria Chiquimula. The presentation was about making a new promoter group. Since these women are already leaders amongst their community I thought this was a great place to start with soliciting for new health promoters. I have already had 2 women approached me, before this I gave this presentation, so I am encouraged to know that there are people out there that would like to participate. Within my current health promoter group, we established a governing council – president, vice president, etc. and this group really want my help in making them a legalized group within the muni –which is awesome! I´m not sure if anyone in my program before or currently were able to make their health promoters a legalized group. So I am excited for the challenge.

This past Tuesday I went into Antigua and I was able to turn in the grant application for USAID so I can start construction on the stoves for my women´s groups. The process to be able to turn in the paperwork was exhaustive, but I completed it! So I am very proud of myself. The muni and the community matched the amount of grant money USAID is going to give which is amazing. Also, since I was able to turn in the application before this fiscal year ends, I have the opportunity to build more stoves! So the plan is to start building in mid October and hopefully finish before I come home in December.

Today I just came from an aldea called Xesana and gave a first aid class for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. My Ki´che teacher asked me a while back if I would be able to give a first aid class to his students and also the 5th and 6th graders. Well… the first group of kids, the 4th graders were really receptive, loved immobilizing broken bones, dressing pretend wounds… it was just the 5th and 6th grade classes that were a pain. What I found while being here in Guatemala is that children here are not disciplined in the classroom, they can basically do anything. Well, for me that is incredibly annoying and disrespectful. So there were a group of little boys in the back laughing and talking, so I gave them a warning and told them if they were disruptive again they would have to leave. Then I legit had a flashback. I remembered the time my mom and I volunteered to teach Sunday school to 4 and 5 year olds. If you know my mother, she is a high school teacher. She deals with 14 and 18 year olds and you need to delegate with hand and fist. Well, I remember my mom, not intentionally, using her “hand and fist” teaching method with the 4 and 5 year olds. At some point during the morning, within like 15 minutes of each other, every kid needed to use the bathroom and on top of that every kid was doing something they weren´t supposed to be doing. It was just so funny because my mom was talking to them like they were high school students and of course they weren´t listening which made it more frustrating for my mom. Anyways, through the flashback I reminded myself this could potentially backfire if I tell these kids to not to do something when they´ve been able to do it in the past… well it did. After the warning they were even more disruptive and loud. Also – the teacher wasn´t around, very typical here. So I kicked the kid out and guess what, he refused to leave. But, it got the rest of the class to pay attention, but it also prevented them from wanting to volunteer… haha oops. I´m not sure what the outcome was with the Sunday school class, if my mom made them hold their pee or send them in the corner, but I learned today that sometimes to be in control might not always be the best in certain circumstances or situations. Eh, I´m so glad I have no desire to teach kids…. No offense mom, love you :)

Well… I think that completes this blog entry. Thanks for all who have donated! Keep the donations coming! www.healthyhomesguatemala.webs.com

HIV/AIDS Workshops continued....

The group heading out to Chuicaca.



Giving my "bienvenida" to the whole group in the salon.




Julia and Adrian with their group outside.



Natividad and Antonio translating the workshop.




Esther and Zane starting "Globulos Blancos" with their group in the salon.

"Globulos Blancos" activity - the lady is trying to force her way into the body!

"Soy Parasito" - "I am a parasite". He was by far the cutest parasite I have ever seen:)

Val and Travis.

Another breath-taking view of Chuicaca's landscape.

Me and the professional nurse, Natividad - I love her :)

Kate and Stephen giving a workshop in front of the town hall.

When there is no chalkboard... use a french fry stand instead!

The group with the mayors of Chuicaca.

Don Miguel - President of the Health Promoters of Chuicaca.

Our way back to Santa Maria Chiquimula.

Our "classroom" as we were giving the workshops - so beautiful.

The HIV/AIDS workshops are now completed! Friday I had 8 of my friends from all over Totonicapan come and help give the final HIV/AIDS workshop Friday to almost 300 people! The whole week couldn't have gone better and I can't thank the people who helped me give the workshops enough (Val, Zane, Stephen, Adrian, Kiki, Kate, Esther, Julia, Travis, Jerami, and Jesse) - without them this wouldn't have been possible, so thank you guys!!

Friday, we all pack in the back of a pick-up truck and made the hour long drive to the town of Chuicaca. When we arrived to the salon - the whole place was packed! It was so awesome to see how many people came out to listen to the workshop. What was amazing was how the whole community came together to make this workshop possible. The town hall of this town, the health post, the community leaders as well as the mayors from the central part of town came together to make this all possible. I was telling the volunteers that helped me that this would be such an awesome site for a volunteer and the community really would love to have a volunteer. This would be a dream site for any volunteer - people willing to work with you, organized, having the support of the community - I could go on! So I plan on talking to my boss in the near future to see if they would be able to set up a new site in this town for the next group of Healthy Homes volunteers that will arrive a year from now.

We were able to divide the people into 4 groups where 2 PC volunteers gave the workshop. Once the workshops were over they were gracious enough to provide lunch for us as well as diplomas! They were all so thoughtful and so incredible generous. When I stood up to thank the community and my friends I almost cried. It was a great day :)

For the whole week - we were able to HIV/AIDS educate about 600 people!

.

HIV/AIDS Workshops: Aldea Chuicaca

Courtneay showing that "shaking hands" will not give you HIV.

Antonio, the health technician of Chuicaca, translating the poster in Ki'che

Condom demonstration.


Condom demonstration.

Making sure everyone can see.

Volunteers were asked to place their picture under "Yes, it gives you HIV" or "NO, it doesn't give you HIV"

Court and I giving a condom demonstration

An activity where participants were used to show how the body is protected by white blood cells and how the body is affected when it contracts HIV. This lady is representing "diarreah" and is trying to break through the body's immune system of white blood cells.

Another oppotunistic infection, this time "the common cold" is trying to break through the wall.

The beautiful people of Chuicaca

Giving an icebreaker to the participants.

This week I have had the opportunity to HIV/AIDS educate one of the towns in my municipality, Santa Maria Chiquimula. The town has roughly 8,000 people and is the farthest town in Santa Maria. By truck, it takes a little over an hour's drive - but through muddy roads and rough terrain.

I was approached a few weeks ago by the community to give a series of HIV/AIDS workshops due to an outbreak of new HIV cases. The mayor, the town representatives, teachers and health workers came together to see what they could do to help combat the fear of this virus. There were many rumos, myths and doubths that needed to be cleared and they asked if I would be able to help. My reply: Of course! That is why I am here! So within a matter of a few weeks I asked my fellow PCVs for their help in tackling the challenge of educating the town on HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness.

This Friday is the last day for the workshops - we have already finished 2 out of 3 workshops educating 3 out of the 5 villages that surround this town. Friday will be the last workshop that will cover the the central population of the town as well as 2 more villages. I have asked the help of 7 volunteers to help split the people into 4 groups - so I am crossing my fingers everyone goes well and that many people show up!!

So, I wanted to show you a glimpse of what we have been doing this week and look for a new post with Friday's pictures as well as how many people we were able to go to the workshop!

Happy 4th 2010!!

This past month I feel has gone by in a blur!!... A few weeks ago I celebrated the second 4th of July party in Peace Corps Guatemala. As always - it was a lof of fun! Besides the buckets of rain water that came that day - we were able to watch a World Cup game, eat delicious 4th of July BBQ, dance and enjoy the annual talent show where PC volunteers come on stage and show off their skills. There was also the socializing with old and new volunteers as well as welcoming the new group of trainees that will swear in this Friday! That means I have 1 more year left - I can't believe it.

The 4th weekend is also a great way to unwind.... and man did we all need to do that. Being able to wear clothes you wouldn't normally wear in your site, speak English, enjoy a beer without fearing that someone may be watching you... but it also doesn't beat the 4th in the States - friends, family, fireworks - you were all missed very much this 4th of July.

Until July, 4th 2011!!