October 26, 2010
Ready for Cunén!
Hola, buenos días,
So not only did I make it back from my site visit alive, but I really enjoyed it! My work situation at Save the Children is a bit of an unknown right now (hopefully to be solved when I officially start on November 2nd), but my living situation is pretty great. For the next 3 months or so, I’ll be with a new host family that lives literally 2 doors down from my office and who are kind of the peces gordos of my town lol. The mom, Seidy, and dad, Manuel, are both well-educated, and Manuel even studied in California for a few years through a USAID scholarship…aka he speaks English, which is a great help to me when I don’t understand a word or phrase, or if I’m not quite sure how to say something (which happens A LOT!). He also works for an organization that does micro-credits in the nearby villages, so I’m hoping to be able to learn a little from him. Also maybe some K’iche, the local Mayan language, in which he’s fluent—I actually started learning some beginner stuff at the PC office yesterday, and it is DIFFICULT. But anyway, the family is very young and has two very cute kids, ages 3 and 9. The only annoying thing is that I literally have a room in their house and will probably want something more independent in the future…also the fact that the house is right next door to a molino (very loud corn grinder that makes tortilla dough), which its owner starts running around 6am daily. I’m pretty sure I’ll no longer need an alarm clock!
And although there is almost nothing to do in the actual town, we’re not very far from the cabacera (department capitol) Santa Cruz del Quiché, Chichicastenango (super tourist site for its market), or Nebaj (supposedly a very cool little town). Huehuetenango, Panajachel/Lake Atitlán, and Xela are a little farther away, but definitely still doable, which I’m really excited for! Plus the whole area is surrounded by incredibly gorgeous mountains with some great hiking, which I will convince myself to love haha. Thank god I also have sitemates, and I even like them! There are 2 girls who actually live in my town working in health, and then a guy really close by also working with Save the Children, all of whom are really cool.
I wasn’t looking forward to coming back on Saturday to my training community for just 1 more week, but it honestly felt like I had come back home. It was awesome returning to my family here, and then on Sunday we had a nice little despedida (farewell) party with the 8 of us trainees in my town and our families. My favorite parts were the piñata, at which I failed miserably at hitting, and the kick-ass tomato sauce I made for the pasta and pizza (I miss cooking!). This week is already flying by, and Friday is the Swearing-In ceremony when we officially become volunteers, and then we move for real to our sites on Saturday…so crazy!
The next time I write will be from my site!
<3 Nicole
October 19, 2010
Site assignment :)
Hola!
This week has been crazy busy, so I haven’t had time to compose a better email, but I have exciting news! I will be living for the next 2 years in the department of El Quiché (ki-CHE…like Che Guevara), more specifically the town/municipality of Santa María Cunén, and working with Save the Children (weird, right?) on their food security and ag marketing project there. Out of my training group, 1 of my ag marketing (we’ll be doing pretty much the same work in different towns, and even kind of share counterparts) and 2 of my food security friends will also be working in the area with Save the Children, and I think 3 Municipal Development girls will be in the department as well. There are also lots of current volunteers already in El Quiché and at least 2 in Cunén.
I met my counterpart(s) today; it was kind of an awkward experience, but I promise it wasn’t just me because almost all my friends felt the same way! Anyway, I’m going to be spending a lot more time with them this week, as we’re leaving later this morning for our site visit. Supposedly we’re first going to Santa Cruz del Quiché, the department capitol and also where the Save regional office is, to meet everyone there and we’re spending the night. Then Wednesday through Saturday I’ll be getting to know Cunén :)
Many more details to come with my next email!
Adios por ahora,
Nicole
The sun is back!
October 12, 2010
Hola!
As mentioned above, the sun has finally returned and I couldn’t be happier! Though after being outside for a week, and especially after having 4 hours of Spanish class in the sun yesterday, I’m pretty sunburnt. And no worries, the burn lines are almost as awkward as usual…at least I narrowly avoided a farmer’s tan! I’m hoping that this week’s gorgeous weather means that the rainy season is practically over, and that I don’t jinx myself for saying that. Supposedly after this comes a cold but dry winter until February-ish, when it’s warm again, but this year has been known for its unseasonal weather, and especially a rainy season that started much earlier and has seen much more water (and damage) than usual. However, I am currently in the so-called Land of the Eternal Spring, so we’ll see if it lives up to its name!
Let’s see…the past few days have been pretty interesting. On Thursday we visited the Texas A&M institute that sponsored last week’s presentation in Guate. They’re doing some really interesting capacity-training work with small farmers, funded by the US Department of Agriculture. I was particularly charming during one of the presentations: while drinking water, I had the apparently irresistible urge to cough, and spewed water all over the table in front of me! I could not stop laughing and looked like a total idiot, but tried to redeem myself with some fairly intelligent questions at the end lol.
Friday we had another trip to the capital to learn about different governmental and non-governmental organizations. While our visit to the Ministry of Agriculture was fascinating, we never actually really made it anywhere else…except a mall for lunch, of course. I felt like I was on a trip at camp where half the activities failed, but it was ok because we got to go shopping instead. I couldn’t complain, though, because fast food (aka Wendy’s yummm) is a total commodity here!
What might have been the most impressionable event I’ve experienced here occurred on Saturday, when I was shown how to kill and prepare a rabbit and a chicken. I’ve never seen anything so disgusting. It actually wasn’t as messy as you’d expect, which actually made it even more disturbing for me. All I will say is that “lucky” bunny feet aren’t as fun straight off the body and you wouldn’t think it, but apparently immature eggs growing inside a chicken are edible… Anyway, it wasn’t at my house, or even in my community, so I didn’t have to then eat those probrecitos animals. The experience hasn’t made me a vegetarian, but in case there was any chance of it before, I have now definitely sworn against ever cooking meat.
Hmmm I’ve also discovered that my story-telling abilities remain awful in Guatemala, both in English and Spanish! Nevertheless, I have some pretty good friends down here and my family seems to like me and find me funny :)
Anyway, I promise my next email will be more exciting because we found out our site assignments on Thursday ahhhh!
Déseenme suerte,
<3 Nicole
PS – Some fun words:
pez gordo = big shot (literally, big fish)
chipi-chipi = drizzling rain
tenango = place of (hence EVERY place in Guatemala ending in it)
calida = cool
puchica = awesome, or shit…potentially could be used as “the shit,” but with the risk of offending people lol
Yet another busy week!
October 5, 2010
Querido todos,
It’s funny, because when writing the subject line, I realized how incredibly busy all the weeks are here and how fast they’re going, despite each day seeming fairly slow and uneventful! Alas, less than a month left of training, just enough time for me to freak out!
But yes, this past week has been quite eventful. Wednesday our Spanish teacher María took us to a coffee/culture museum outside of Antigua for the day…it was kind of strange, but very interesting, and the best part was eating bomb “Mediterranean” food for lunch (my falafel pita was def Mediterranean, but I would say the spring roll I split with Kristen was Thai and her chicken tandoori, though also in a pita, was Indian lol). Thursday brought us back to ICTA in Chimaltenango, the government institute for ag science and technology we had visited during FBT. This time was potentially less interesting, mostly because we were there for way too long learning about organic farming and composting…which honestly isn’t the most interesting topic to listen to, it would definitely have been more fun to learn about it hands-on.
Then in the afternoon we were running late, so we grabbed Pollo Campero (apparently there are some in Queens!) for lunch to eat in the car, and then zipped off to our community group meeting. Some background notes: our community group is a bunch of women in a nearby aldea (village) who don’t actually do anything. From what we can gather, their “organization” is super new and works to better aspects of their community…though I’m not sure they’ve actually completed any projects as yet. We’ve met with them before to do a community analysis and to give presentations (me and Nicholi’s on small business admin, even though maybe like 2 of them have some sort of business, and Kristen and Carolyn on record-keeping, which did not go over well considering they are for the most part illiterate and have nothing for which to keep records), and this time we met to do a group analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats…you business majors probably know about that). Considering the group isn’t particularly organized and doesn’t do very much, and also the fact that we were almost completely unprepared for the meeting, it was pretty tough to get the info we needed. Nevertheless, we were eventually successful and they must still like us because I ran into a group of them in my town yesterday afternoon and they were excited to see me :) (Though that may be because they don’t know any other gringos…haha)
Friday we went to Guatemala City (aka Guate) for the most boring lecture on Adult Education from a returned volunteer/International Ag professor at Texas A&M. I take that back, it would have been more interesting if it wasn’t 6 hours and if his Spanish was better. Even so, we got like 2.5 meals at the Crowne Plaza, where we were, and it was fantastic! Not too much of a surprise to say that I ate more than a normal person should lol. I also got some super exciting news that day: I got switched to a more advanced Spanish class! It wasn’t actually as much of a surprise as I’m making it sound – I had spoken earlier with the language director because although I loved the other people in my class, I was more advanced than them (I hadn’t done very well on my initial interview and had fallen behind since) and I didn’t like María very much. Sooo starting yesterday, I’m with 2 of my other friends and my old teacher, Isabel :) The only catch is that they’re in Food Security and have a different tech schedule than I do for marketing, but there’s only like 2 more weeks of Spanish classes left and I’m more than happy to deal with it!
Also exciting was a trip to the zoo in Guate with my (and Nicholi’s) family on Sunday! I didn’t want to go at first, because it was a free day and I’d had plans for a crazy day in Antigua, but it was originally a surprise as to where we were going and my family kind of guilted me into it…it’s obviously not just the Jews that can do wonders with guilt! But honestly, it was a super fun day and a chance I probably won’t get again! Then that night my host mom and aunt taught me how to make tortillas (I may be a natural…jk) and to wash my own clothes yesterday (it took over an hour to regain feeling in my hands afterwards…never again will I take a washing machine for granted!).
Anyway, I realize this installment of my life has been super long, so I apologize!
Les extraño,
<3 Nicole
Field-Based Training y más!
September 28, 2010
Hiiii,
So I got back from my training trip on Friday…and it was awesome! Seriously, I was slightly worried it would be either lame or a total waste of time, but I had a really great time and me and the other 7 ag marketing trainees (and of course our wonderful tech trainer Martha) totally bonded. With Martha driving all of us packed into a microbus, we may have overplayed the song “MARTA Bus”…
We spent the week in different parts of the department of Chimaltenango and saw some pretty cool places—vegetable-exporting success stories, an artisan association that sells to the Guatemalan version of Bed Beth & Beyond (check out www.tikonel.org), coffee cooperatives, mushroom-growing women’s groups, a government institute for ag science and technology, and an experimental farm I think kind of like the Rodale Institute. Oh, and my favorite part was a last-minute trip to an organic farm that sells to Guatemalan Wal-Mart, where we were allowed to pick as many strawberries as we wanted (yes, I might have picked the most)…and it was on the side of a freaking volcano! I also gave my presentation on how to vote democratically to a women’s group, and I hope they took some voting practices away from it!
Another exciting moment was when the big ag boss told us about our potential future sites…right now there are 10 spots for 8 of us, and each of them sound really great with their own advantages and disadvantages. Some were a little farther than I would like, but 1 in particular sounded like a good fit for me, though I’m trying not to think too much about it because we don’t find out our site assignments until October 14th…which is actually not that far away!
The rest of the weekend was fun, even though we were supposed to have another day trip on Saturday that got canceled due to the bad weather (cold and rainy are back, unfortunately). Sunday I dioscovered that Gallo beer is way better than I was expecting!
Abrazos y besos,
<3 Nicole
Fíjese que…
September 19, 2010
Hola!
En español (at least in Guatemala), fíjese means something along the lines of “be forewarned.” So, fíjese que I’m going on a week-long trip for tech tomorrow, and so I won’t be sending out a whole weekly update!
The most exciting things that have happened this week are:
- Wednesday was Independence Day and after watching the kids’ parade, my friends and I hung out and baked rum cakes :)
- Thursday was my presentation (with my friend Nicholi) in Spanish to our women’s group – it was on small business administration and went really well! Who knew (well…I did lol) that Simon Says (or Simón dice) would be a great way to get everyone engaged?
- I cooked eggplant parm for my family today with my friend Kristen and it was super fun!
Anyway, as I mentioned before, this week we’re going on field-based training to visit 5 current ag marketing volunteers in their sites nearby, in the departments of Chimaltenango and Sacatepequéz (where I live now lol). We’re also going to see a bunch of different ag associations, so hopefully it will be a lot of fun as well as a good learning experience. My next email will have details!
Adios por ahora,
<3 Nicolee
Spanish successes, movies, and traje!
September 14, 2010
¡Hola!
This past week has had its normal ups and downs, but overall lots of excitement! I’ll start with Thursday…a large part of our training, and eventual service, is giving mildly technical charlas (presentations) to community groups, and Thursday afternoon started off with presentations to each other (within my ag marketing group of 8) in English. Our training director and our program’s Assistant PC Director decided to drop by as well, though they missed the awesome presentation I gave with my friend Nicholi on small business administration lol. BUT the more exciting part was afterwards, when we went to s small aldea (village) nearby to meet our community group of 60 or so women! Martha, our technical trainer, led the session, but we each broke into small groups with the women for some community analysis activities, and she also forced me to lead part of the discussion at the end as well! It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced, especially because I had really low expectations for the session, mostly for myself. I was really blown away by how nice and understanding the women were of our limited Spanish, and also by how much some of them participated. Overall, it was a really encouraging experience, which I have to keep remembering because on Thursday we’re going back to present charlas in Spanish to them!
Friday was a lot of fun in a different way—tech class in the morning was an exchange of knowledge between my ag marketing group and the food security group, with whom we don’t spend all too much time with. They taught us a lot about vegetable gardening and composting, which was far more interesting than what we taught them about costs of production :) More importantly, we managed to have barely any Spanish class by convincing our teachers to take us to the movies in Chimaltenango as part of a cultural experience! We ended up seeing Grown-Ups (or Son como Niños), which was super funny and in English with Spanish subtitles haha.
We celebrated our 1-month anniversary of being in country on Saturday with a traditional Mayan ceremony at the Peace Corps office…way cool, but super long! Afterwards a bunch of us went to Pollo Campero for lunch—it’s like KFC but potentially healthier. It’s the main fast food restaurant here and I totally understand why, the food was really great! I think there’s also a bunch of them in the States… And Sunday was pretty awesome because my madre decided to dress me up for our visit to their aunt in the afternoon! I got to wear the whole traditional outfit, called traje: a huipil (embroidered top), corte (wrap-around skirt), and faja (embroidered belt), all of which is hand-made. It’s incredibly beautiful and also quite heavy and difficult to walk in—I’m attaching a photo! My friend Sara literally shrieked when she saw me (she lives next door to the aunt; also, that doesn’t say much because she screams more than I do lol) and I got lots of stares on the walk there!
Hasta la próximo vez,
<3 Nicoleee
PS – I’m currently reading the book I, Rigoberta Menchú, which is the autobiography of a Guatemalan indigenous woman. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for the book and its role in making her people’s struggle known. Parts are pretty boring, but most of it is extremely interesting, and I highly recommend it!
¡Hola de Guatemala!
September 7, 2010
Hi everyone!
I can’t believe that today is officially 4 weeks since I left home! That means training is over 1/3 finished, which is actually quite scary… But anyway, Guatemala is pretty awesome. Right now I kind of feel like I’m doing some sort of study-abroad experience because I have Spanish lessons every day (we’re finally down to 5 days a week) and I’m living with a family that takes care of most of my needs. Although I don’t quite understand everything they say, we get along very well and I have a lot of laughs with them. My padres are Berta and Mario, who have the most adorable 9-month-old named Gladys, and we also live with Mario’s sister Estela and father (whose name I still don’t know and even though he’s really kind, his lack of teeth scares the hell out of me). My room is huge and the house is really beautiful—all the rooms are lined in a row facing an open courtyard filled with flowers. The bathrooms (one with a shower and one with a toilet and sink) are on the other side of the courtyard, which is tons of fun in the rain, but I can’t complain because most of my friends in other towns have it way worse (no hot water, bucket/weird sauna baths, no doors on the bathroom, no toilet seats…). Actually, almost all of the volunteers in my town, Sumpango (very close to Antigua), have it pretty good, and it’s most definitely going to be a shock when we move to our sites at the end of October! We also have some chickens and ducks at my house and we’re located like 2 blocks from the center of town :)
What else? Of the 32 people in my training class (including myself), 8 are male and the rest female. 15 are in the Municipal Development program, and the rest are in ag with me, though we’re divided into Marketing (working mostly with sellers) and Food Security (mostly planting family vegetable gardens) programs. There are 8 of us in Sumpango (only 1 guy!) because it’s a much larger town than the others, but we’re split between the 2 ag groups as well as 3 different language-training groups. I really like everyone I’m with and I’ve made some really great friends with trainees both in my town and in others…though of course I’ve already let my judgmentalism/short fuse out…!
But yeah, after the first 3 days in country, when we stayed with families in the same town as the Peace Corps office, we split up into different towns and we only all get together once a week at the office for common session days. The rest of the time it’s Spanish classes (I like to think I’m improving a lot, though that’s debatable), and also tech training classes for ag marketing (or Mercadeo Agrícola) every day, which I have mixed feelings about, but right now I like because I just finished a kick-ass presentation for Thursday on small business administration (in English). We’re also meeting a community group that we’ll be working with for the rest of training, and also then all of our presentations will be in Spanish.
Honestly, though, I’ve been having a ton of fun here! Yesterday was the last day of Sumango’s 2-week feria, which involves parades, street vendors in ridiculous numbers, marimba bands galore, and super frightening amusement park rides (I can’t even describe). And this past Sunday was our first totally free day, so almost everyone went to Antigua. That amazing city is so incredibly different from real Guatemala, but it was a total blast and it was overall awesome just to get away for a day, especially in a place where we didn’t have to dress conservatively! Plus it was an absolutely gorgeous day (it’s rainy season now, so it’s generally pretty gross normally), and I managed to rack up some more super awk burn lines lol. Traveling was a little bit of an issue because the particularly bad rain earlier in the week caused a lot of mudslides and other destruction (I’m sure you can read about it in the news, there have been a bunch of deaths, even fairly close to where I am), but it’s just another reminder that I’m living in a developing country.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to write so much and I apologize if it was super boring! My goal is to send out an update once a week, and if I remember to upload my photos by next week, I’ll definitely attach a few.
Besos y hasta luego,
Nicole :)
PS – I downloaded Skype and although I don’t really know how to use it and I don’t have constant Internet access, my thing is nicoleee678
PPS – I’m currently living on a budget of 30 quetzales a day, $1=Q8
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