Livingston - Xocomil - Back to work...

Rio Dulce

Kiki and I enjoying the local drink, ¨coco locos¨

Judy and I - Mexicana y Peruana

Everyone on the boat - little did we know we would be on this thing for 3 hours....

So Livingston was a success :) However, taking into account the fact that I had to sit on my butt for 26 of the 48 hour trip on a school bus and a boat I´m pretty sure I will never go back there again. My butt is still sore and my knees have bruises from trying to make myself comfortable against the metal seat in front of me. We had to pass through Rio Dulce (Sweet River) in order to get to Livingston. The river was beautiful but I had seen something even more beautiful when I was in Costa Rica. We were able to taste the local food called Tapada - a soup with many different kinds of seafood. It was very delicious! The women in town were also selling coco bread which was also very good. We tried to find local music but the town was dead at night! The next morning after getting up at 4:30 am my friends and I (9 volunteers went on this trip) made sure we had seats at the front of the boat to have the better view. That was a huge fail. The water was choppy so for the next 3 hours we were trying to find ways to block the spray of water we were all getting hit with. Ahh, just writing about this trip is making me exhausted! We get back late Friday night and the girls and I decide to make a trip to a local waterpark - and that was awesome! We had so much fun! Probably the cleanest, coolest water park I have been to yet. When I get home Sunday - guess what - my landlord made an unexpected visit! How could I tell? She has her own separate bathroom next to my bathroom downstairs. Sometimes when Tuk is playing with something he accidentally loses it under this bathroom door. There happened to be a stuffed plastic bottle filled with inorganic trash - well Tuk tore it to pieces. I walk into my house to find the lower patio covered in plastic - it looked like a war zone. Then I realized there was a ton of Tuk´'s poop on the upper patio and also a leftover firepit I hadn't cleaned up yet. This lady must think I am completely weird.



So I am now back to work, I have 2 big meetings this week with the new health promoters and I also have the graduation for the health promoters finishing a year on Friday. Here is hoping the doctor actually shows up....



Here are a few photos of how the landslides affected Guatemala (photos from Phil Wood's site and BBC)

This is only 1 of many images of how the rain affected Guatemala leaving roads completely covered in land.

Tragically due to all the rain Guatemala's mountainsides were not able to stand against all of the saturation leaving Guatemala's highway system covered in massive landslides. In this picture an entire bus was buried by a landside leaving many people dead.

Here you can see the massive amount of people gathered at the accident site. In the distance you can see all of the ambulances that were called to help save the victims.

Happy Birthday Seño Valeria! Goodbye Zane :(

Yesterday my site mates and I celebrated Val's 28th birthday and also threw a going away party for Zane. We went all out with decorations, piñata, cake, games, firecrackers, bondfire etc. It was definitely a very entertaining night! Zane leaves the 12th of October - how time flew! Before I know it I will be saying goodbye to Valerie.

A Guatemalan tradition - smasing the birthday cake in your face right after blowing out the candles. We got Val GOOD!! People were eating cake off of her face for a while...

Val and the piñata.

Afternoon soccer game at the synthetic soccer field just built in Chuiquimula with some other volunteers for Val's birthday.

I'm taking care of Esther's dog Tay'in while she is in the states so Tuk has been a little less annoying now that he has regular company. However, Tay'in does not listen. They both bolted from the front door when I opened it and had to track them down on the other side of town - of course Tay'in was the ring leader. Tuk's chunky butt was just following behind like it was the coolest thing he has ever done. Of course it was a huge spectacle in my town. People all over town were leaving their stores to watch Tuk and Tay'in roam around town - it was like they were watching a parade. Today, they escaped again and while I was walking them back after chasing them down the street again we were passing by this one house who has 2 watch dogs that sit on the roof of the house barking - ALL the time - well one of the dogs (who is this boxer mix who just gave birth to puppies so she's a little chunky) got a little too excited barking at Tuk and Tay'in and SMACK, I turn around and the dog fell off the roof!!! I thought the dog was dead or at least with broken bones. Well the owner comes out of the house and the dog miraculously gets up and walks inside! I guess you had to have been there, but it was so ridiculous and I mean, really?!?! A dog falling off of a roof. I think I will be laughing over this story for a while.

So I just finished my last health talks with my women's groups. Soon we will start construction! Although it is raining season, my hope is to start in mid to late October. Ojala!

Me, Felisa and my women's group in Tasabalquiej after giving a cooking class. We made spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce with soy protein.

SO these are the spiders Tuk likes to kill and leave in the middle of my floor, dead. However, he failed to find this one! I was looking for something on my desk and this scary, ugly thing pops up! I think I spraid it with Raid for like 5 minutes. I was too afraid to kill it with my shoe.

Standfasted again....

So yesterday all of PC was standfasted again until further notice. A tropical storm came through last night and today which caused a non-stop, slow rainfall. Then tomorrow hurricane Matthew shows its ugly face. So I am stuck here at my site, completely bored out of my mind. I watched 2 movies already and plan on a third after my internet expires in a few hours. I finally watched Revolutionary Road - man that is a sad movie and then watched Baby Mama to help balance out the genres.

Yesterday and Thursday I helped my site mate Zane set up the town's first library!! The books that were donated were absolutely amazing! Most of which were all brand new textbooks and children's books. I am so excited for its opening. Zane did an amazing job getting everything all set up. He is still waiting for the municipality to hire a librarian so he can train him/her on how to run the library. So for those that have any books they would like to donate send them my way or I'll take them back with me when I leave in January. So Zane leaves for good the 12th of October! How time flew! This coming weekend we will be celebrating Val's 28th birthday and Zane's goodbye party. So this weekend should be a lot of fun!

So this is to give you all an idea of how the library is turning out. Everything you see is all donated! I helped Zane decorate, put together bookshelves and set books up. I'm so excited for the town to enjoy this library!

My promoters graduation was posponed because, guess what? The doctor decided to plan a health center excursion to the coast instead. I walked into his office to remind him about Friday and he nodded his head, paused and agreed then I asked him about the excursion to which he fumbled a bit and started apologizing and then invited me to come along. So basically, he would have been fine if he didn't go to the graduation. Ugh! Why do these people have jobs, I don't understand! Hey all, let's plan a trip to the coast even though the past month has been independence day, the queen election, sports day, and in a few weeks there will be another excursion to Livington. You would think all these people were in retirement for the amount of time they spend working. Oh and don't forget the past 3 strikes held around Guatemala where the whole health staff skipped work to go and strike. Sooo, now the graduation is on the 15th of Octobre. Let's see how this one turns out.

So now some good news. My SPA grant from USAID was approved!! I am just waiting to open up a bank account under one of my women's groups and we can start construction!! I am so excited! So hopefully by the time I come home all 60 stoves will have been built.

Also, I talked to the school director of one of the elementary schools here in town and we are in the process of building a whole classroom made out of recycled plastic bottles filled with trash! When I proposed the idea he was all for it and very excited. We set up 2 presentations for the students and for the padres de la familia (or parent representatives of the students, kinda like the PTO) in order to get everyone on board. School ends in the middle of October so the project wouldn't really start until February of next year. But they will have an assignment to collect and stuff bottles on their summer vacation. I made it so that the classroom with the most bottles will win something as well as the student with the most bottles. So I am very excited for this new project. This will not only involve the whole school, but the teachers, parents and the community. Not only will they be cleaning up their town but they will also learn about the importance of recycling and saving the environment.

This is to give you all an idea of what a bottle project looks like. Instead of using the traditional block for the walls, they are using plastic bottles, cool, right?! This just so happens to be a whole school, I am only hoping for a classroom. And look at all the students helping to build! Ownership, teamwork, bonding - all things to look forward to!

So I am very excited for the next few months to see how everything unfolds. I definitely can foresee opstacles and frustrations and probably delays, but all with patience and positivity!!

Thanks to all who have donated - without you all this stove project would not have been possible!! I am in the process of starting another project in February, so donations will still continue, so keep spreading the word!!

Easy Like Sunday Morning

I just looked at my wall calendar and September is almost over! My dad just bought my ticket home for Christmas, so before I know it I'll be on a plane back home for the holidays! I am beyond excited to go home for Christmas. My parents and grand mother came to Guatemala last year for Christmas, but it just wasn't the same. I wonder how I will do with the snow... when I came home in April I over-dressed and forgot how humid it can get in Ohio. Here it is always spring weather and there is no humidity so you can wear anything and always feel comfortable. I am excited for the Holiday spirit, family and friends. I am excited for traditions and Christmas morning with delicious breakfast (I so miss bacon and sausage...). I am excited to curl up in blankets and watch tv. I am excited to just spend time with loved ones :) In less than 3 months I will be home!

So I made a to-do list today and of course I did nothing on that list. I subconsciously made the decision to not do anything today :) Or in other words I was just too lazy. However, while I was sitting around the house - doing nothing - which usually means staring at the walls (I'm serious), dealing with Tuk being really annoying by not leaving me alone - probably because I don't walk him enough - I decided to make a wish list. It is more like a wish list to keep myself in my site instead of traveling to Xela every weekend. I decided I would like to start a garden on my patio. I would buy cheap tins you can find in the market, fill them up with dirt and plant flowers and herbs. The market sells little herb plants for cheap. And since my patio is basically walls of cement block, I am going to make shelves out of the recycled wood on my patio. I think this will make my landlady happy - it will show that I'm taking care of her house. Unlike last time when she took my pila away. I came home from vacation to find the pila she installed upstairs on the patio gone. I think that was her way of grounding me for leaving it completely dirty, moldy and unfortunately filled with cigarette butts ---- let me explain. So this pila, which is basically a sink that Guatemalans have to wash clothes and get water, was outside, uncovered, and there was also no lighting on the patio. So I could never use it because I didn't have a cover to prevent dust, bugs, flies, etc. from getting into pila, after 6:30 I couldn't see anything to do my dishes - so I just stopped using it all together and used the downstairs one. Well, my friends Phil and Rey had their birthday party at my house because I had space to hold the 20 people that came. And within our friends there are smokers (not me) so they used a rusty old tin can to throw their used cigarettes in. Well, before I left for vacation I put the can in the pila and covered the whole thing with wood in case my landlady came to use her part of the house while I was gone. And while I was putting wood on the pila the tin can tipped over making one side of the pila totally black with all the old cigarettes. So I freaked out a little because I should have just thrown the can out in the garbarge weeks before. So I told myself when I got back from vacation I would clean the disgusting pila. Well.... she beat me to it. Opps. The pila is now locked away in one of the downstairs rooms that she only has keys to. I saw her son not too long after the pila situation and pretty much in a nice way told me it looked like I wasn't using the pila so his mom put it away. Soooo - I'm hoping a garden will mend things over. I haven't seen her since she took the pila away, and not gonna lie, I'm a little scared when I do :)

So to the list. Id like to start the garden next month. I would also like to start cooking more. So if any of you have some favorite recipes you would like to share, send them my way!! Every Thursday night my site mates and I get together to cook. Since I'm really the only person with creativity when it comes to dinner options, no offense to my site mates, it would be nice to share new meals with them. AND, I FINALLY bought a kitchen table, haha. It only took like 9 months. And it only cost 8 dollars.... goes to show how poor I've been. I also plan on disciplining Tuk more. Yesterday he sprinted clear across the steet chasing a poor, scared to death little boy because he thought he wanted to play with him - nope. I'm pretty sure the boy thought he was going to die. Then Tuk caught site of a little girl and started chasing her. I literally had to body dive to get him to stop running after her. Then in the process the girl and I slammed our heads together, she fell on her knee, I thought I had a concussion and there is stupid little doedoe-bird Tuk hopping up and down ready to "play" some more. The poor girl, before I had the chance to see if she was alright, ran away half limping and holding her head. I felt SO bad. The whole night I was waiting for someone to knock on my door and yell at me for having a crazy dog. So Tuk will need some more conditioning work, bad! As for other list items, I plan on reading more and studying Spanish more. It is a small list, but I look forward to the possibilies it can bring.

Sundays are my favorite part of the week. They are so relaxing. Besides today - I usually get all my work done early morning Sunday and have the rest of the day to relax. Since being in Guatemala I have really enjoyed waking up early, you can get so much stuff done and still feel like you have so much time left in the day. This is one of the reasons why I want to have this wish list so I can include Saturdays as another day to relax. I think when I get back to the States my mind will be too occupied with all the technology that surrounds everyone on a daily basis that I'll forget to really enjoy a simple, stress-free, humble day. So I want to take advantage of that here as much as possible.

Happy Sundays everyone!

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...!