Times of uncertainty

Now that some points have been clarified a bit, I figured I’d share with you our security situation, which has been the hottest topic of conversation among volunteers.  You may have seen some articles posted on Facebook, but I’ll try to outline everything more comprehensively.

Mid-December: we received a cryptic text message from the Peace Corps administration to check our email.  As the texts go out in waves, I received 3 questioning calls from fellow volunteers without internet access before receiving the text.  The big – and unexpected – news was that following recent security incidents (volunteers involved in bus crashes, bus hold-ups, etc.), the new training class (slated to arrive at the beginning of January) was canceled, in El Salvador as well.  See the PC press release.  Moreover, through the rumor mill but also via another press release, we learned that all volunteers in Honduras were being sent home in January until further notice.  The NY Times picked up the story as well.

Beginning of January: another cryptic text announced a further development.  This time, the email contained a letter from the PC Regional Director offering “any Volunteer who feels that they cannot continue their service in Guatemala the status of Interrupted Service.  Interrupted Service is granted when a situation beyond your control prevents you from completing your full tour of service.”  Hold up: what is preventing me from finishing my 2 years??  Cunen could not be a safer place (despite being located in the midst of 5 far less stable towns) AND I only have about 9 months left, so why would I leave now?  Not to mention, there remained so much mystery about PC’s status here (would we end up like Honduras?) that it seemed impossible to make a decision without further information.  Unless of course you were involved in the security incident and want to get the hell out of here, which I’ve heard some people are doing.  The funny thing is that a little over a year ago, Noor and I offered to feed each other contaminated mud water with the hopes of contracting something serious enough to send us home…and now we’re offered a way out and we turn it down!

Mid-January: this was yet another standfast (standFEAST/[sit]DRUNK) weekend due to the inauguration of the new president and all new mayors.  You know, Guatemalans get agitated easily and might have rioted against some of the corrupt politicians assuming power.  Surprisingly, Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams came as the Head of Delegation of the U.S government representing the Obama administration…it’s like, sorry Señor Presidente, we know Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be in attendance, but we’d rather spread a message of peace, cool?  As part of his visit here, Director Williams met with some volunteers and assured them that Peace Corps is dedicated to continue supporting Guatemala, so I guess that means we’re not getting sent home.  However, that doesn’t mean that the admin won’t make other security-related changes…

Inauguration Day in Cunen seemed to go fairly well.  I was woken up this morning by fireworks and the marimba music in the municipal salon, a block from my house.  It seems that the departing mayor did indeed show up for the change-over ceremony (word on the street was that he’d been missing for some weeks now), but he neglected to comment on the state of the town’s treasury (like if he’d stolen all the money or not).  It’s incredible how everyone here passively accepts the fact that the treasury is completely looted every 4 years by the outgoing mayor.  Rumor is that Los Conejos won’t be making reappearance at this year’s feria in 2 weeks, so the situation must be kind of bad.

Today was also the annual celebration of the black Jesus of Esquipulas (a town in the eastern part of the country), who has quite the following in Cunen!  Kate, Melissa, and I were invited to lunch at Jenny’s house and then dinner at her friend’s house…aka yet another day of massive eating with that girl (last Sunday was lunch and learning to make chiles rellenos and Tuesday was lasagna…suffice it to say my stomach was punishing me for several days!).  On the way home, we decided to stop by the mayor’s dance in the park, danced with some girl friends, and then got coerced into dancing with the mayor and members of his administration!  Off to a great start…haha

My busy work schedule for the month has gotten significantly less busy as people keep canceling on me.  On the bright side, I’ve had plenty of time to research grad schools lol.  I’ve also been researching nutrition for babies and pregnant women, a group I’d like to start working with.  Plus I scheduled cooking classes for this week with another women’s group, so there’s another day or so of work a month.  Oh my, that Interrupted Service looks more and more enticing…just kidding :)

Happy New Year!

Feliz Año a todos y todas!

Wow, how is it already 2012??  Supposedly the last year before the Mayan-predicted end of the world.  Fun fact: the Mayans don’t really believe it will be the end of time; it’s just the end of this current cycle of the world and the start of the new one.  No Apocalypse is expected, just major changes, like climate change and maybe political chaos.  Hence 50-degree weather in NY in January and a gridlocked Congress lol

Anyway, after spending a fairly stagnant month of December in site, I got to spend a wonderful New Year’s at the BEACH!  First, December: I literally only worked 1 day after my last update.  It was a slow freaking month.  My Peace Corps ag director came to visit me during that time and was highly impressed by all the projects/groups I have going…I chose to hold back the fact that I’ve only been meeting with each group like once a month, so that’s maybe 7-10 days of work in every 30… We also had a big meeting with the Save the Children Medios de Vida (Livelihoods – food security and marketing) staff and some light was finally shed on the end of their project here.  Turns out that they were supposed to leave in September/October 2011, but extended for some more months and will be gone by May of this year.  I’m here until October, so figuring out how my work will continue should be interesting.  My final bout of productivity was attending a convivio (end-of-the-year gathering) hosted by a women’s group I work with in town that makes beaded jewelry.  They invited the new mayor to solicit a storefront in the muni and I helped them present before him and sell their goods to his entourage.  He surprisingly seems like an open-minded and eager guy, so we’ll see what happens to Cunen under his leadership beginning mid-January.

Of course, there was also a plethora of unproductivity on my part during the month, namely lots of movie-watching in bed.  I went to the Chichicastenango feria with Kate and her visiting friend, but managed for the second year in a row to miss the palo voladores – men flying around a giant pole erected in the town square.  FOR ANYONE WHO COMES ACROSS THIS AND WANTS TO SEE THE PALO VOLADOR IN CHICHI: THE FERIA IS DECEMBER 21 AND THEY FLY ON THE 19TH AND 20TH, ONLY.  I had to get that out there, since contrary information is up for grabs on the internet.  Despite that letdown (which I will hopefully avenge in August at the Joyabaj feria, another Quiché town with the same tradition), a weekend jaunt in my favorite place Panajachel made everything right :)  And then before I knew it, it was Christmas!  (Hanukkah was celebrated quietly with Kate and her friend and homemade potato latkes and apple sauce.)  Here they celebrate Christmas Eve, which I spent with my friend Jenny and her family in town.  Most notable moment: when we were hanging out with her married friend and she sent her 6- and 10-year-old girls to the cantina to pick up whiskey!  It was super fun spending time with Jenny and her friends, walking around seeing all the nativity scenes (nothing like American ones!), and of course doing the midnight traditions with her family: setting off fireworks, drinking hot punch, and eating tamales.  I don’t know if it was because we hadn’t really eaten dinner or what, but Jenny’s mom’s tamales were the best I’ve ever had!  I was happy because I’d been dreading the moment lol.  The next day I cooked an Asian stir-fry with Jenny, saw the children’s convite, and watched movies in bed – an almost normal Jewish Christmas!

Mayan nativity scene 

Children's convite

Fast forward a week of literally doing nothing and I was off to the beach for New Year’s!  The weekend started with seeing the American band known for party rocking in concert…fantastic!  Dragging ourselves through heat and hangover, we then made it to Monterrico to meet up with the rest of our group.  I can’t even describe how happy I was…I truly LOVE beaches.  There’s nothing like baking in the sun with sand in your toes and hanging out in the ocean (although I didn’t actually go swimming for fear of the crazy riptide).  Anyone who knows me knows that I am queen of awkward tan/burn lines, and this trip was no exception: I started out with sunblock (dermatologist-prescribed!) on only my face and shoulders, so the rest of my body got super burnt while I managed to actually exacerbate my previous farmer’s tan!  My skin is still prickling, but it was so worth it :)

party rocking! 

sunset at the beach

Now I’m back in Cunen and it is COLD and RAINY.  I’m seriously missing that choking coastal heat right now!  This is a pretty easy week, but with enough work to exceed all that I did last month lol.  January is looking pretty busy, for which I’m grateful.  It’s also austerity time since I spent most of my month’s allowance within its first 2 days…

Give my regards to Broadway…

I can’t believe it’s been almost 2 weeks already since my wonderful vacation home!  It was so amazing and rejuvenating to see all my friends and family after 15 months.  [Sorry if I was particularly socially awkward…I never had much going for me to begin with, but it became obvious that I now need to be re-socialized lol]  It was also a rather surreal experience walking around the familiar streets of Bayside, Manhattan, and Bethlehem after so long.  Most things hadn’t changed – the ridiculousness of Lehigh/Laf, the crowds in New York, my old office at the UN.  But then I found myself being bossed around my outrageous niece, admiring all the cool things my friends have been doing since graduation, and wrapping my head around the fact that my parents finally got CABLE TV, and it hit me how much time has passed (my life in Guatemala generally feels insulated from time, maybe due to the generally consistent weather?).  Even so, I’m glad I waited so long to make my first trip to the States, as I now have less than a year left here to enjoy, rather than being intimidated by more time.  And as much of a culture shock it was to be back in the developed world – excellent shower pressure! hot water from the tap! DRINKABLE water from the tap! food that won’t make you instantly sick! – I’m glad I got a dose of it now so that I don’t feel like a total alien when my 2 years are up.  Let’s just say that I appreciate the little things a lot more now!  And this stint home also proved baseless most of the irrational fears I’ve been developing here: the subway made me a little anxious, but Manhattan did not scare the shit out of me; I felt comfortable in footwear other than hiking shoes and Teva sandals; I didn’t embarrass myself in eating situations (it turns out that I only lose my table manners when presented with meat and only a spoon).  However, I stayed clear of any supermarkets, so I can’t say if my previous fear of them has gotten worse or not!

So now have I settled back into life in Guatemala?  By now, yes, but I didn’t have to for a while.  For starters, my awesome college friend Anais was unexpectedly in the country the weekend I got back, so I got to spend some quality time with her.  Then I had a really helpful training for several days in Chimaltenango on working with kids on school gardens, during which I stayed at my friend Alene’s house (thank you for putting up with me!).  From there I headed to Xela for 2 nights for a GAD meeting, before finally making it back to Cunen this past Saturday.  All of this while hauling a 50-pound suitcase around on chicken buses.  Disclaimer: the bus drivers and ayudantes (helpers) did most of the handling of said suitcase. But still, it was an extremely exhausting journey…look up Guatemala City g Antigua g Chimaltenango g Quetzaltenango g Santa Cruz del Quiché g Cunen (if you can find it) on a map sometime!  Needless to say, I was ecstatic (for the first and probably last time) to be back in site!  And of course to be back with my favorite sitemates, despite them trying to make me feel bad for leaving them… :) 

One week into being really back, things are finally back to normal.  I went to the market Sunday, hung out with my host family and friends in town.  Luckily work has been slow so far this week, since I was NOT ready to pick things up right away!  I began working with a new agricultural group yesterday; they’re really motivated, so I’m excited to work with them, but the community is FREEZING!  Yesterday was additionally my half birthday (left uncelebrated, sad times) and Quema del Diablo (“burning of the devil”), when everyone publicly burns their trash outside.  It’s fairly disgusting, but also serves as the unofficial start to my favorite part of December here: fireworks!  Lighting a sparkler with the embers of your burning trash is totally normal, right?  And today Cunen celebrated the Virgen de Concepción with one of our infamous convites – 20 costumed and (creepily) masked pairs dancing in the streets throughout the day to a live marimba band with a truckfull of speakers.  Apparently it’s tradition to eat tamales for breakfast for the occasion, so my adorable neighbor who always brings them to me (I don’t have the heart to tell her I don’t really like tamales) invited me over to eat with them this morning.  I felt so bad because I guess I didn’t say goodbye to them before I left for NY and they were asking all over town to make sure I was okay when they didn’t see me!

Finally, I somehow managed to not take any photos while home, but here are some highlights from my travels before and after: 

my sitemates and I as TOURISTS for Halloween

at the Sumpango kite festival

with Anais after running all around Antigua

Alene’s dogs that slept with me and Cara

I just uploaded the rest onto facebook :)

E12, HallowEEn, and Elections, oh my

Dear faithful readers,

I’m not sure why you find my life worthwhile to follow, but while I have deserted you for the last month, I at least have some new adventures to report :)         

October started as a fairly shitty month with the onset of Tropical Storm E12…a proper name would’ve been preferable so as to better aim curses at.  It started, as luck would have it, the day of my last activity with the schoolkids.  I should preface this by saying that it almost NEVER rains here in the morning; rainy season in Cunen is characterized by super hot mornings followed by torrential rain breaking the heat in the afternoon.  However, on this particular morning, the rain started as I was dragging my sitemates with me to Trigales for a treasure-hunt-type game that would test what/if the kids had learned from me.  Although I’d planned to have them running all over the school campus and had to instead make drastic changes to keep them from getting soaked and covered in mud, a fun time was had by all and it seemed like the kids did indeed pick up some stuff from my time with them!  As the school year here runs from mid-January to mid-October, I’ll start back up with them next year.

But back to the storm: the rain was bad enough that Peace Corps placed us under “Standfast” (no traveling) and I deftly avoided getting stuck in Uspantan (they had mudslides and no electricity…no thank you!).  My sitemates and I appropriated the situation and renamed it StandFEAST and I must’ve gained 10 pounds…it’s not like I ever need an excuse to eat large amounts of food, but not being able to leave Cunen was as good as any!  Anyway, the rain was practically nonstop and freezing for a week, so everyone was ecstatic when the sun finally came back out with a vengeance, effectively ending the rainy season.  Of course, then I forgot to water my plants for a while…

I did a whole lot of nothing after that (lovely way to celebrate my 1 YEAR IN SITE!  Just kidding, I had a fun lunch party with some friends and colleagues in town), but then miraculously my work picked up and I am BUSY!  Not only did my groups that I haven’t seen in ages apparently want me back, but I’m also helping another colleague do marketing stuff with her artisan groups, which I really enjoy.  However, four charlas in four days is quite tiring and seriously called for a four-day weekend!  Kate, Melissa, and I made our way down to Antigua on the Saturday before Halloween for, well, another eating fest lol.  I managed to blow about half of my November salary on food and drinks, but it was so worth it!  And Halloween was awesome: we brilliantly executed my idea of being…wait for it…TOURISTS!  Haha we had been covertly watching all the middle-aged tourists to best imitate their oddly safari-like look and it seriously paid off :)  The only downside was that we were like the only non-Guatemalans at the bar and it was totally lost on them – they were like, why are you crazy gringas dancing with fanny packs and headlamps??  The best part was the next day when we went to Sumpango – where I lived during training – for the kite festival and saw a tourist wearing Kate’s exact outfit from the night prior, completely legitimizing the costume!  But omg the kites were INCREDIBLE.  The biggest ones had to be 30 feet high and all are intricately detailed with pieces of tissue paper; no paint is used because it weighs them down.  Because yes, they fly, or at least the smaller ones (10ish feet) do, which was a cool part of the festivities.  This time of the year is generally kite-flying season all over the country, but they say in Sumpango that the giant kites communicate with the spirits in the cemetery on November 1st, All Saints’ Day or Day of the Dead.  Who knows if it’s true, but it’s a truly amazing tradition and I was glad to finally experience it, as I was forced to be in Cunen before the start of the holiday last year.

Oh and the Antigua trip was also a bit of a celebration: for those of you who don’t stalk me on Facebook (I don’t understand why not…), I found out about 2 weeks ago that I passed the Foreign Service Officer Test!  I seemed to have done pretty well on the multiple choice questions, though just barely passed the essay section.  Whatever, passing is passing!  I’m currently working on the second part of the process, which consists of 6 short personal narrative essays.  Luckily I’ve had enough (interesting?) life experiences, so I’ve got pretty decent stories.  Now I just need to edit them down to 1300 characters and perfection and submit them in a week!  I’m trying to be realistic because this is the most competitive part and really, my chances of moving onto the next step and being invited to the interviews are quite slim.  But as mumsy reminds me, I am fairly qualified, so we’ll see…wish me luck!

Speaking of international relations, Sunday was the second round of Guatemalan elections, this time to determine the president from the top 2 candidates.  I don’t think I mentioned this, but the candidates were far from ideal and stealing a popular phrase from Peruvian politics, the choice between the 2 was likened to choosing between HIV and cancer.  A significant amount of people I talked to decided not to vote because they were so disillusioned with the options.  But alas, por fin Otto Perez Molina of the Patriota iron fist party won.  I was pretty sure of the results when the fireworks began around 8pm…they were practically in my backyard since I live so close to the Cunen Patriota headquarters!  Today’s newspaper showed that although he carried none of the western part of the country with the exception of one department, he took Guatemala City and its surrounding department, giving him the edge necessary.  He’s for sure the less populist of the 2, but it’s anyone’s guess if he can provide the improved national security that he campaigned on.  Here’s a good article on the situation.

Ok that finally summarizes my life since my last update :)  I sadly don’t have any photos to share at the moment because my netbook is all virus’d up and won’t let me upload them, but I will be sure to get them out as soon as I can.  Now I just have to get through another busy week and then I’M HOME IN NEW YORK FOR 2 WEEKS!!!  Hit me up, amigos!

$2/day Challenge

I was recently looking up development indicators for Guatemala and ran across the inevitable percentage of population below poverty line (over 50%, with a per capita GDP of about $5,000), which got me thinking about poverty lines.  The United States defines the global poverty line as earning less than $1.25/day, but more common are less than $2/day and less than $1/day to determine the poor and super poor.  This is an extremely small amount of money anywhere, especially if you have a large family to feed; luckily even the worst-paid Guatemalan laborers receive a slightly higher wage – men more than women.  Among college campuses, it is not uncommon for students to try putting themselves in the shoes of the world’s poor by consuming no more than $2/day for a week or so, aka the $2/day Challenge.  I always found this intriguing but impossible to do in the States, where you can’t buy anything substantive for $2 (even at 99-cent stores!).  What keeps coming up in my head, though, is that if we are talking about feeding one person in say Guatemala, where standards of living are much lower and freshly picked produce is much cheaper, $2/day (or about Q16/day) is entirely possible.  I earn about $10/day here and here’s a breakdown of what I generally buy in a week (prices and availability change seasonally, of course):

Broccoli: Q2.50/head (small)

Cauliflower: Q3.00/head (small)

Potatoes: Q1.50/lb.

Tomatoes: Q2.50/lb.

Onions: Q1.00/lb.

Güicoy: Q2.00/squash (small)

Peppers: Q1.00 each (small and possibly on the way out)

Corn: Q1.00/cob

Carrots: Q1.00 each

Apples: Q3.00/lb.

Bananas: Q0.50 each

Oranges: Q0.50 each

Pears: Q1.00 each

Strawberries: Q5.00/lb.

Black beans: Q3.00/lb. (raw)

Eggs: Q1.00 each

Tortillas: Q1.00/4

Xecas (kind of like sweet bagels): Q1.00 each

Now this list doesn’t include packaged foodstuffs like rice, pasta, oil, powdered milk, etc., but I’ve estimated that I spend about Q60/week on food.  That’s about Q8.60/day, or about $1.10/day.  Of course, if I went out to eat more, or bought meat rather than eating vegetarian, or ate the amount of tortillas that a Guatemalan eats, then my weekly food budget would obviously be higher.  Even so, excluding my occasional binges in Antigua or Panajachel, and my fancy packaged foods like peanut butter and chickpeas, I am daily succeeding at the $2/day challenge!

Speaking of Antigua, I was just there last week for my mid-service (has it already been almost a year since moving to Cunen??) medical appointments…and to take the Foreign Service Officer Test at the U.S. embassy in Guate!  It seems that I am physically very healthy, a little bit blinder but at least cavity-less, and now far more mentally stable after finishing the test!  Even with leaving Antigua at like 6am, Allie and I arrived a little late for the 8:30 test with another volunteer Damian, who couldn’t take the test because it turned out he’d never fully registered for it.  We finally started around 9am; I finished fairly quickly and had to wait like 45 minutes staring at a blank computer screen for Allie!  Well actually, I’d started doodling on the scrap paper they gave us…which they collected with our sign-in sheets…as I handed it in, I was like, “this is slightly embarrassing!”  I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but I found the test kind of anti-climactic and not all that challenging…I’ll find out at the end of the month if that means I knew all the answers or none of them!  Oh and waiting for Allie was worth it because a Foreign Service Officer she knows, who turned out to be very senior-ranking, took us out to a nice lunch in the embassy dining room (though not as nice as those at the U.N.!) and told us all about her 25+ years with the State Dept. – very cool.  And our after-party in Antigua was pretty freaking awesome :)

Hmmm since my last update, I gave a fun gender-themed capacitation to my Trigales group, cooked black bean burgers with the 6th-graders (they were supposed to be beet burgers, but you know, there were no beets…), trained the new ag trainees on GAD (so sad none of them are coming to Quiché!), and just a few days ago made a tire garden with mine and Melissa’s women’s group in Chiul.  I guess I’d never actually seen a tire garden made during training because let me tell you, it is no easy task!  In case you haven’t killed yourself cutting off most of one side of the tire, flipping it inside out will do the deed.  Plus I had a terrible cold and was probably mildly feverish (belated effects of my flu shot? Or maybe just post-test exhaustion finally catching up).  But we all survived and hopefully the radish seeds we planted will as well!  I’m thankfully feeling much better – three days in bed reading The Help and The Hunger Games, I highly recommend both, is a great remedy – but now I’m staving off the little girls who in the last few days have decided to frequently stop by my house.  I’m hoping they’ll figure out sooner than later that although the gringa has a nice house, she’s not actually all that fun to be around!

Ok I will cut my rambling off here.  I haven’t taken any new photos since last time, but will instead direct you to what looks to be an incredible film about Guatemala: http://lacamionetafilm.wordpress.com/about-the-film/

See you in a month!!!!!

The month of celebrations

With a heavy heart I must announce that September’s celebrations have come to an end.  (Not to worry – only about 2 weeks left until the next celebration, immediately following the Foreign Service exam!  SO SOON AHHH!)  While I’ve only worked about 1 day this month, I can’t say it hasn’t been fun :)

When I left you last, I was preparing to go to Xela and the Xocomil (sho-co-MEEL) waterpark for Melissa’s birthday…and it was awesome!  I’m fairly obsessed with my sitemates, so I knew it would be a great weekend, but add to the equation little-kid (splashing around on water slides all day) and grown-up fun (tremendous Indian food, burgers, drinks, dancing) and we couldn’t go wrong.  Xocomil’s about an hour outside of Xela, closer to the Pacific coast, so although it started raining about 10 minutes after arriving, it was still hot and we were already wet from the slides anyway!  Kate and Melissa’s friend Elizabeth and her boyfriend Alvaro were excellent company, especially as Alvaro used to go there as a kid and his reverted childlike excitement was highly contagious!  We were forced to end the day around 3pm due to a massive storm and headed back to Xela to celebrate Melissa’s birthday like adults lol.  And what would any trip to Xela be without a trip to Hiper Paiz/Wal-Mart for necessities?  It never ceases to amuse me how it remains a store almost exclusively for the rich here…

the girls and I ready to start the day at Xocomil

I did work a bit in the week that followed – making salads with the fifth- and sixth-graders at the Trigales school, as well as a meeting about a project Stephen and I want to do with our green-bean groups.  The plan is to apply for USAID/Peace Corps grants to pay for the process to certify 2 groups in Buenas Prácticas Agrícolas (Good Agricultural Practices).  One group is already almost ready to be certified (they were supposed to receive the certification last year but got kind of screwed over by a miscommunication between NGOs), but both need to brought up to speed with capacity trainings and the necessary safety/hygiene equipment.  We’re hoping to cover the costs of all that, plus the actual certification, with the help of the exporting company that already buys their green beans, and maybe also the muni and Save the Children.  Once the groups are certified, the company will pay them more money for the product; income generation is a main part of the PC Sustainable Agriculture project.  So now we need to start planning and filling out the grant application, but I’m not really sure what the timeline for that is…welcome to development work in Guatemala!

sixth-grade girls preparing a salad with freshly picked radishes

That Friday I also got a visit from Allie, who traveled for 2 days to hang out with me and avoid possible disturbances in her town during the September 11th elections.  Apparently out east where she is, celebrating cowboys shoot their guns in the air, causing problems when the bullets come down…  But Cunen was luckily super tranquilo the whole weekend and the best part was: the political parties were forced to stop advertising themselves for the weekend, so I finally got a rest from all the noise!  Wait, I take that back; Allie and I were woken up at 5am Monday by bombas and cohetes (kind of like fireworks, but without the nice accompanying lights) announcing that we’ll have a new mayor come January.  I was surprised he won, as many people in town described him as very egotistic, but I guess the other candidates weren’t as strong.  One of the losers was hand-selected by an aldea (village of Cunen) that wants to secede, but threats of rioting never took place.  And violence in nearby Nebaj and Sacapulas were localized enough that Allie was able to leave Tuesday morning without any problems.  Except maybe a rounder stomach from all the cooking and lazing around we did!

Wednesday was another fun celebration: a birthday party for Kate’s old host sister :)  Maria Isabel turned 7 and she is the cheekiest, cutest little girl.  I thought it was very sweet of her mother to invite me, since I don’t know the family as well as Kate or even Melissa, and you never turn down an invitation here!  She must have had a good time putting together the guest list, though: 3 gringas, an elderly Evangelical pastor and his wife, an ex-mayor who ran again this year and lost, and a bunch of little girls.  The situation was so ridiculous that I almost started inappropriately laughing during the pre-meal prayer!  But we ended up making good conversation and only lightly touching on the elephant in the room (the recent elections), so that by the time we left, the pastor told us what fun girls we were!  Ohhh I love the random experiences here :)

That was followed by Guatemala’s 190th Independence Day on Thursday!  All of the schools in town participated in the morning parade, which I got to see from my front door as it passed right by my house.  My host siblings and their friends and all the other random children I know were adorable, if not the most talented musicians, dancers, or gymnasts.  (Did I mention the “rhythmic gymnastics” event one of the secondary schools put on for their anniversary?  Let’s just say it was highly entertaining, and you know my standards!).  Unfortunately the customary afternoon games and pig-catching – I can’t even begin to describe how excited I was to see people try to catch a greased-up pig! – were canceled because the current mayor wasn’t re-elected and obviously needed to vent his frustration. 

Cunen in celebration

my host sister (with the whistle) and her friends dancing in the parade

And FINALLY, this past weekend was Noor’s birthday celebration at the lake.  We had a great time prepping in Pana for her party on Saturday night in another lake town, Santa Cruz La Laguna.  The hostel there is really chill and has really great food and didn’t mind when about 20 of us volunteers took over the lounge area for our own use!  It was a fantastic night with people I really like; I definitely wasn’t ready to leave.  But of course I had to and I got back to Cunen yesterday, laden down with more peanut butter :)

The refrigerator-less life

So if you’ve seen photos of my house here, you may have noticed the lack of a fridge.  Nope, not even a mini-fridge.  In other words, my kitchen is less well-furnished than most college dorm rooms.  It also uses a lot less electricity…part of the reason why I haven’t invested in something I’d previous taken for granted is that I pay for electricity apart from my rent and I’m just cheap.  (In my defense, my Q800 monthly rent – a whopping $100 – is quite a drain on my meager paycheck!)  Fridges themselves are also kind of expensive.

But honestly, although my parents cannot comprehend why their spoiled child would choose to live without this marker of civilized life, I really just don't need it.  My host family had a refrigerator and I barely ever used it.  It would be really awesome to have a place to store cheese (I love the expensive “Swiss” cheese from Nebaj and maybe sometimes I find myself daydreaming about cream cheese…totally normal…), but that’s really the only thing I miss.  I drink powdered milk, cook small portions, go market shopping frequently enough and buy only what I need, and being 2 hours from the closest supermarket kind of limits bringing back perishable foods that might just perish on the journey home.  I’ve also learned quite a bit in my situation, such as:

Eggs do not need to be refrigerated.  I’m not sure how long they last, but all the stores have stacks of cartons of them, so I’m assuming a while.

Broccoli starts turning an…interesting…yellow after being left at room temperature for more than a couple of days.

Once opened, homemade jam will last 1-2 weeks outside of a fridge before the inevitable mold starts to grow.

Unrefrigerated left-overs must be re-cooked over high heat for 3-4 minutes.  If not, you run the risk of allowing the bacteria that naturally grows on cooked foods (but not on unnaturally chilled foods) to do some funky things to your stomach.  I didn’t know this at first and just thought my newfound addiction to lentils was taking its toll on my body; my health-worker sitemates soon clarified the issue lol.  Luckily I don’t cook meat, so I think I’m safe from food poisoning.  Even so, the re-heating thing is kind of a bitch because you unwillingly end up frying your left-overs.  That’s fine for say, tonight’s fried rice that could potentially benefit from some more frying to be eaten for lunch tomorrow.  Pasta, however, is a very different story!

Anyway, I’m not complaining; it’s just something I’ve been thinking about lately and I figured life without a refrigerator was probably a foreign concept (haha!) to most of you.  My sitemate Melissa lives 2 blocks away from me and I could always use her fridge.  And I’ve been told that placing a smaller clay pot within a larger one, filling the space between them with sand, and always keeping the sand wet serves the same role of keeping food chilled.  I still have to try that one out and then maybe I can start stocking up on cream cheese!

I clearly don’t have much going on right now if this is the most pressing topic for a life update lol.  (Then again, food has always been a central theme in my mind.)  Work’s been its usual off and on…I actually had a surprisingly good turnout at a meeting yesterday about how to do a market study, I planted an herb garden with a women’s group last week, and tomorrow I’ll be making cucumber salad with my school group.  I may soon have a new women’s group to do cooking classes/demonstrations with, and Stephen and I are starting to plan potential SPA (Small Project Assistance? USAID-funded) projects with our green-bean growing groups.  And really, the non-busy days are also pretty great for Foreign Service studying – I’m all registered to take the test in Guate on October 4th!  My social life has been far more fun: the weekend at the lake with my sitemates was such a fantastic time (plus I got to restock my coffers of American foodstuffs!) and the weekend after was equally great with a classy jazz benefit concert in Antigua with my friend Allie, where we were hanging out for a GAD meeting :)  Now I just need to get through the rest of the week and we’re off to Xela for the weekend, to celebrate Melissa’s birthday in style at the famed Xocomil waterpark! (probably in the rain, but we’ll already be wet, right?)

I’m going to forgo photos this time as all my new ones are on facebook, and instead leave you to ponder what your life would be like without a refrigerator.  Could you do it??  Haha please don’t think too hard about it; you’ll probably never be in my situation!