FINAL ADDRESS

I finally got a P.O. Box! This should be my address for the next two years - no more changes I promise!

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

I love letters, but so far the mail system has proven to be unreliable so please if you do write to me please number your letters! Also take a picture of it so that just in case I don't get it you can e-mail me the picture. I hope to be hearing from you!

Elección de Madrina aka the Beauty Pageant for Teachers

     One good piece of advise that I received from a fellow PCV was “agree to participate even if you do not know what you are participating in.” Before she said this I had already done this numerous times. In fact, I feel like the majority of things that I do in my community fall under this rule. My latest example was the election of the “Madrina” which turned out to be a beauty pageant for teachers put on by my school district. Four teachers out of the ten schools that I work in participated in this event. It was set up very much like other beauty pageants with different sections each of which involved different outfits and little speeches. One of my schools had set up a stage and a runway on which this event took place. What was different were the categories and the outfits. The categories were as follows: 

- Choreography - the four contestants did a cowboy waitress themed dance complete with flannel and cowboy hats

- Traje de fantasia – strawberry shortcake, snow white, tree fairy, and a star princess with a duck friend?

 - Traje tipico – each contestant wore the traditional huipil and corte from their town. One of the cool things about the fabric and patterns of the Mayan traditional dress is that each area has their own.

- Dynamicas involving audience members (of course) and a couple of student performances.

- Traje deportiva – two of the women were golfers, one was an archer and the other was a tennis player. I'm pretty sure that none of these sports are actively practiced in Guatemala or at least are not very popular – it is all soccer, soccer, soccer!

- Traje de gala – formal wear – two woman wore the traditional huipil and corte and the others wore more Western dresses.

Clearly a lot of time and effort was put into this event and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I have some good videos from this event and once I can figure out how to upload them to my blog I will put them up!

This is how smokey the room was after her fireworks dance

This dance was odd. They looked like little dancing businessmen

A Little Entertainment

If you are looking for a fun mindless activity I highly recommend these two websites. They make me laugh because most of it so accurately describes some of what I am going through! Enjoy! 

http://howapcvputsitgently.tumblr.com

http://whatshouldpcvscallme.tumblr.com

Here are a couple of my favorites:

After a Month of Tortilla Tallying

Here it is. The grand total of my month of normal tortilla eating. I ate 98 tortillas! If anything I ate fewer tortillas because I was keeping track. I think that this is probably average or below average for Guatemalans. To avoid further embarrassment this will be the last time that I post my tally on my blog. 

What I do for a Warm Shower

I ARRIVED IN GUATEMALA EXACTLY FOUR MONTHS AGO!

I just finished reading Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project." I thought that since the perpetual rain of the rainy season has me a little down that it might be an insightful read. There wasn't anything that I found revolutionary in there, but I did like her advice: "don't postpone a task that you can do in one minute." I want to try and apply this to my life.

She mentions how periods of deprivation sharpen pleasure which is more commonly known as absence makes the heart grow fonder. I don't know if this has even been more true than my feeling towards being able to get into a hot shower whenever I want. I MISS IT! The general layout of my house is very open every individual room opens up to the outside. Therefore, as soon as I step foot out the door of my room I am outside. This means that I sometimes need full rain gear to go to the bathroom. There is also no light in my bathroom so at night I have to wear my headlamp. Anyway, there is a shower downstairs, but sometimes (often) there is no water. This means no water for showering, flushing the toilet, or using the sink. This usually doesn't last for more than a day at a time. The water tank that is connected to the shower is heated by my host mom's wood burning stove (ovens are used for storage - there is no refrigerator in my house which is why I told them I am lactose intolerant and can't eat the cheese that they pull out of the oven). So there is only hot water for a shower when there is water AND when my host mom has just made a meal on the wood burning stove. I take a lot of bucket baths. Luckily for me if I really need a shower sometimes my host mom will heat up a bucket of water for me to use. I guess this is kind of what you expect of being in the Peace Corps. I'm just happy that I have internet and a cellphone so that I can communicate!

I just got this e-mail from Urban Outfitters and laughed a little...oh if only they knew

Luckily my bathroom is also a small step up from this one here 

San Bartolo Aguas Calientes or Why I Took a Bath with 20 Other People

This past weekend I went to a little welcome get together for a couple of us new volunteers in Totonicapan. We had a delicious lasagne lunch and then headed to the baños. These are little pools that are filled with natural hot water from the mountains. They were like big communal hot tubs. Guatemalans really bathe here. We all brought shampoo and soap and took bucket showers on the side of the pools. I was impressed and will definitely be coming back! It also only cost 1Q to get in! Meaning almost 8 people could go bathe for the day and swim in the pool which also has the thermal hot water for $1! It seems like it is a good Guatemalan family activity. There were husbands washing their wives and vise versa and women washing their children. I saw an extremely old couple rinsing each other - both were covered only at their waist. Although most people wear clothes over a bathing suit (and there were definitely no bikinis) some women took off their tops or barely covered themselves to really get a good wash. 

While I was there I heard "Senyo (short for Senora) Mega" (the n on my name is rarely pronounced or sometimes if it is it is as an afterthought after a hard A - like MegAaan). A couple kids were there from two of my schools and they recognized me. I guess it would be hard not to notice a group of gringos talking in English. It was kind of neat and I spent some time talking to them as I was getting the shampoo out of my hair. 

All clean - this is the first time that I wore shorts in public in Guatemala -
it isn't socially acceptable for women to wear shorts - I took them off ASAP. 

Luisa and Bill - they are the two who live closest to me 

Panajachel and Lake Atitlan

The Peace Corp's Volunteer Advisory Council planned a weekend in Panajachel a little tourist town on lake Atitlan in the department of Solola for us. It was part a welcome party for us new volunteers and part a despedida (going away party) for the volunteers who are going to COS (close of service) in the next couple of months. There were over 50 of us there in total. Saturday they chartered a boat to take all of us around the lake for four hours. Unfortunately I came down with a mild case of food poisoning and for much of the weekend had to stick close to the hostel. Needless to say I was bummed. I didn't get to go on the boat ride, but I did buy some fabric from the market after much bargaining, sat with my feet in the cool water, and enjoyed hanging out with the other PCVs.

Just a couple of us

Business must be good 

Barbies in traje! 

E.O.R.M. Paiz

I think that I visited my worst off school the other day. EORM (Escuela Official Rural Mixta) Paiz is about a 30 minute walk from my house mostly along back roads which should be fun once the rainy season really starts. This school is in bad shape. The kids were dirty many of their shoes were so old and falling apart that I could see their dirt covered feet. The kindergardeners are in half of a wooden shack with a tin roof. There is absolutely no insulation. I sat there in my Northface and pants and practically all I could think about was how cold I was. I couldn't imagine the girls in their traditional skirts and sweaters. Come to think of it I don't think that there was a light in the classroom which might have been why they kept the door open. This school did have a more traditional cement building with the kitchen (kids eat snack at school every morning) and two classrooms. Get this: first grade, second grade, and SIXTH GRADE were all in one classroom and thought by one teacher. Third, fourth, and fifth had another classroom with another teacher.

On the bright side I did see a teacher pass out soap to some kids and had them wash their hands before snack and some kids did brush their teeth after snack. These are two main objectives of Healthy Schools so I was extremely happy with that!

Kindergarden is on the right half of this shack 

Large gaps between the boards in the walls and the teacher's desk

The girls

The whole class 

More Photos!

I also have put up two facebook albums. These have some of the same photos, but also a lot more!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4414534121931.2146575.1246140026&type=1&l=41baaa0dbc

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4751472065169.1073741825.1246140026&type=1&l=c88a634da8
I will keep adding pictures to this album (Puro Chapin) - keep checking if you so please and please do!
"Chapin" is a nickname for Guatemalans. So you can say a person is a Guatemalteco or Chapin.

Instagram

I thought that I would put up some of my photos for those who do not have instagram. If you do my username is: m3ganrose9

Kids being nosy

This photo was taken from my seat at the first wedding I went to

Chucho (street dog)

Drying clothes

Paintings on the ruins of a church

Courtyard in Antigua

A 'bolo' or drunk - they are seen passed out on the street in broad daylight