Beach Weekend in Tulate, Retalhuleu

The other weekend thirteen of us decided to take a little weekend vacation to the beach. It was (surprise surprise) an excellent idea. Tulate is in the department of Retalhuleu and because the department of Retalhuleu is a "yellow zone" for the Peace Corps we had to take extra precautions when traveling there. So instead of all of us hopping on a camioneta with our cooler and all of our stuff we hired a private shuttle to take us there and back. It was much more expensive than the alternative but also a lot easier.

Unlike Monterrico, the last beach we went to, this one was only an hour and a half away from Xela. The water is also much much calmer on this beach and we spent most of the weekend in and out of the water and the best part was that the water was warm!    

We had heard from previous volunteers that there wasn't much on the island and to come prepared, but we had no idea just how serious they were. We came with enough food for two dinners and a breakfast, but we were not prepared for us to have to walk over 20 minutes down the beach just to get water (never drink the water in Guatemala!)

Playa de Tulate

Where we stayed

Two of my favorite Peace Corps Peeps, Kelley and Farah

The whole group

Yum lunch

Definitely one of the coolest things that we did while at the beach was releasing a whole bunch of baby Sea Turtles. Apparently the bungalows that we stayed at had a Sea Turtle conservation program and they let us watch as they released them into the ocean! Another plus to the lack of regulations in Guatemala was that we got to pick up a few of the little ones as they made their way into the ocean. I feel like that wouldn't be allowed to happen in the U.S., but we were careful!

Releasing baby sea turtles

Random refrigerator in the middle of the island

A boy and his boat...not quite sure what happened

Then maybe most amusing of all was all of the livestock roaming about the beach. This was clearly not a very touristy spot and it was great.

Our First Weeklong Summer Camp for Girls!

Farah, Luisa, and I all worked together to put on a series of camps for girls in the 5th and 6th grades. GLOW stand for Girls Leading Our World, but the significance doesn't translate in Spanish so we changed the name to señoritas brillantes (bright ladies). First was our camp in an aldea (village) of Luisa's site, San Ramon, next will be camp in my town in December, and then in Farah's site in December. 

Our poster outside of the school

After that first week of camp I am so glad that we have almost a whole month to prepare for the next one. Even though the camp was only four days in the mornings from 8:30-12:30 we finished every day exhausted. There were about 60 girls that came to camp each day. Our camp was based on building leadership and self-esteem in the girls. There is very little hands on learning in Guatemala and students are rarely asked what they think - the focus is on copying down information. So while we did teach them about some very important topics in each one we made sure to make it participatory, asking girls to share their opinions and to present to the class whenever possible, working on their public speaking and confidence.

A trust/team building game. The girl in the back was the only one not
blindfolded and she led her train around an obstacle course via a series
of pre-determined non-verbal signals.

 Some of the topics that we covered were: communication: symptoms of a healthy & unhealthy relationships, self-esteem, leadership, family planning, menstruation, hygiene/fecal-oral contamination, HIV/AIDS, exercise, and of course lots and lots of dinamicas/ice breakers. Some of these topics might seem too advanced for this age of girls, but for some of them this might be the first and only opportunity they have to learn these things. Each of these activities only had about an hour to an hour and a half, but we at least began to introduce the topics many of which the girls had never learned about before. For example there were some girls in their teens who did not know anything about menstrual cycle or how that is related to them being able to have children.

Teaching the basics of HIV/AIDS.

This activity (SIDA o NODA) works out really well because it uses a play on words. In Spanish AIDS is SIDA (síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida) and the verb "dar" means to give. This activity is call SIDA o NODA which is basically SIDA(AIDS or yes it gives (you HIV)) or NODA (no it doesn't give (you HIV)) - and there are pictures of things that either can or cannot transmit HIV (i.e. sharing a toothbrush (noda) or getting a tattoo (sida - of course this will not always transmit HIV, but it is possible). Each small group of girls got two pictures and it was their job to put them into one of the two categories and then explain to the class why they thought it belonged there.

Decorating notebooks

Nametags. The different colors of yarn differentiated the three groups of girls

I took a portrait of every girl in the camp and we printed it out to 

give to each of them along with their diplomas on the last day. 

Taking a picture of a Guatemalan is like taking a picture of someone from the 1900s where they can't smile because the exposure time is too long. Guatemalans do not naturally smile for photos. So I would take a picture of each girl and she would give me a blank stone face and then I would coerce her into smiling. See for yourself. This happened every single time, but here are a couple examples.

 

Trying to get her to smile for her picture

The whole group

Planning all of this was a ton of work, but it was really rewarding in the end and I am so glad that we did it and that we did it together. Next up: my town!

The girls with their diplomas!

Día del Niño

October 1st is the Día del niño (day of the kid) in Guatemala so naturally my schools took this as an occasion to celebrate and cancel classes. I went to Chuisiguan because they usually have good celebrations, but instead of performances they took all of the students into a clearing in the middle of the woods and played games all morning.

Yet another embarrassing ice breaker where the two
blindfolded boys had to feed each other bananas

Pin the tail on the donkey

Chipilin: Deadly or Delicious?

Well neither really although when it is uncooked it is apparently poisonous. It is considered a weed in the United States but it is popular here in Guatemala and in the surrounding countries. I have eaten it in tamalitos (like a tortilla in the form of a tamale) before but this was the first time that I had cooked it. The leaves are high in iron, calcium, and beta carotene and it is super cheap. I payed 1 Quetzal for this whole bunch. It was slightly a pain to cook because I first washed and bleached it (even though you don't have to do it if you cook the fruits/veggies really well), then I had to individually take off every leaf, and finally I cooked it for WAY longer than I thought that I needed to just to make sure it was safe to eat. I combined it with brown rice, tomatoes, and onions and it was actually really tasty and gave me a couple of good meals.

My dinner on my double burner electric stove-top

I Have the Best Friends!

I have the bestest of friends! Today at the post office I found not one but eight postcards with that same stupid picture of me on it. Sending out so much love to Gracie, Dave, Sylvia, Kim, Erika, Dellarco, Laura, Allie, Kathleen, Mia, Steph, Mel, Lucy, Emily, Jack, Eleni, and Audrey. I want to give a special thanks to the mastermind Katie who arranged all of this. I also hear that there are many more en route :)

Also just a plug this new P.O. box seems to be pretty reliable if you so desire to write to me :)

Megan Compaine
Aportado Postal #342
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala C.A.

New Room!

This is super overdue, but...I moved out of my room which I liked to not so affectionately call my cubicle and into a bigger room right next door. Literally the two doors are inches apart, but there is a big difference in size. I will still be using the same bathroom which has no light that I have to walk outside and across the roof deck to get to. This also means that my rent will be going up substantially from 500Q/month ($65) to 800Q/month ($103), but the PC pays for my rent so I'm more than ok with this.

Since moving in in the end of April I have been eating lunch and dinner with my host family. It is a sweet deal because I was paying them 5 Quetzales a meal / 10Q a day to eat lunch and dinner with them (which is about $1.30 a day for the two meals!)! I know I am slightly crazy for passing up this good of a bargain, but I really want to cook for myself at least some of the time so in my new room I am going to set up a little area that I am going to use as my kitchen with a single electric burner (although my new room only has two outlets so this will take up half of them), some pots, pans, plates, etc. This decision is partially to decrease my tortilla intake and partially to increase my vegetable intake.

There have also been a few too many times when the meal my host family serves is not exactly to my taste. It is considered very rude in Guatemala to not eat something that they serve you so I literally eat EVERYTHING that I  am served. The small portions help when the meal isn't my favorite. Cow hoof soup for example was one meal that didn't quite do it for me, but I still drank all of the broth (I couldn't eat the fat like my host family was doing). Guatemalans also do NOT say no. Ever. So if you need to get a little creative with your excuses if you do not want to do or eat something (hence my lactose intolerance so I don't have to eat the non-refrigerated cheese). For example if you are offered seconds on a meal saying “no thank you” (in Spanish of course) is considered rude and you should instead try something like “how nice, but I am full, thank you.” Or “fijese que I had a big snack or my stomach hurts.”

In no other world would I have been excited to move into this place, but I am so happy about the move! I am working on making it seem more home-y and am going to try and paint over the irremovable dirt and smoke stains on the walls. I do have four big windows which is nice.

To the left is where the window to the kitchen used to be. 

Now it is just cinder blocks...I really need to paint

 

I do have some nice big windows

Electricity Celebration

EORM (Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta) Paiz is becoming one of my favorite schools. This is my smallest school with only three teachers where the kindergarteners are in a shack and first, second, and sixth grades share a teacher and a classroom. On one of my visits I found the kids practicing a dance. It turns out that the next day the school was having a big celebration because they were getting electricity! Yay! So naturally I came back the next day to watch the festivities. Of course the healthy schools volunteer in me was thinking "come on... really? Another day when there are no classes?" But I did enjoy this cultural event where the kids danced and sang. It was really a nice event. There were not that many people in attendance. It was mostly mothers. Afterwords everyone was served tea, a tamale, and a piece of bread. It was good.

Maize dance

Carrying in the flag of Guatemala

Kids getting ready for their performances in the kindergarten shack

Many babies and small children in Guatemala drink soda and coffee. I have even seen these two items put into baby bottles and given to children.Guatemalans are in general a very short people. This is partially genetic but also partially from stunting as a result of malnutrition and growing up on caffeine. If you need a reference point I am tall for both Guatemalan men and women!

 

A Guatemalan celebration wouldn't be complete without cohetes (rockets) more like little firecrackers the produce smoke and very loud popping sounds.  It is a tradition here that on  someone's birthday you wake them up very very early in the morning with these little bombas. This also means that you wake up all of your neighbors. I didn't get this on my birthday because I arrived in my site a week before and my host family didn't know me that well, but my old family told me that if I had stayed there another week they definitely would have given me this birthday awakening. Maybe next year.

And one more because she is THE cutest. Most areas in Guatemala have different trajes (this traditional outfit). The one that this girl is wearing is a traditional Xela traje. You can see how this skirt is more puffed out almost like a small hoop skirt whereas the skirts on her friends in the picture above and in the top picture are just pieces of cloth wrapped around.

My Favorite Guatemalan Slang Words: Fijese Que....y Saaaaaaaber

Fijese que...: If you ask a Guatemalan a favor or if the meeting that you were supposed to go to is still happening and they start their sentence with “fijese que...” STOP LISTENING. It's not worth it you already have your answer. The only thing that will ever follow those two words are excuses or reasons for not doing whatever it is you are asking about. This is the Guatemalan equivalent for my dog ate my homework.

Saber: Saber on the other hand is one of my favorite Guatemalan slang words.  Saber is literally the verb “to know” in Spanish, but when you hear “saber” in Guatemala it means loosely “who knows” or “I have no idea.” So naturally I enjoy this word because I usually have no idea what is going on :). I also like how they stretch out the word to really put an emphasis on how sure they are that they have no idea. Saaaaaaaaber is more like it. It is also just one word that says so much. There is no: “I'm not exactly sure about ________ because _______,” just “saber.” Unless of course you are coming up with an excuse in which case it would be “fijese que...”

Custom Made Leather Boots from Pastores

I HIGHLY recommend to any tourist who is spending time in Antigua to take a couple hours to travel about 20-25 minutes in a camioneta (2.5 Quetzales) to Pastores to shop for boots. This small town is known for their leather boots. For a good couple of blocks the street is lined with boot shops literally one after another. They are handmade there with real leather. Most shops have a sewing machine in them and often you can see Guatemalans stitching away. The boots are gorgeous! Most are cowboy boots, but they also offer different styles. They also make boots with the typical Guatemalan fabric up the sides. The prices range from about 225Q-500Q ($29-$65) depending on the style and height of the boots.

I had a pair of boots specially made for me. I printed out a picture of a pair of boots that I liked and brought that to one of the shops. He then traced my foot and took some measurements, I picked out the two different kinds of leather that I wanted and then came back in two weeks to pick them up. They cost me 275 Quetzales ($36). I LOVE THEM! I'm glad that I waited 7 months to get my first pair because I think I might be hooked.

This is the picture that I gave to the bootmaker
(They are the Frye Shirley Strappy boots)