Colorful Camionetas: Guatemala's Public Transportation

If you have ever visited Guatemala then you will be well accustomed to camionetas or Chicken Buses. They are old American school buses that once we are done with them are sold at auctions, driven down through Mexico, given a killer paint job, and used as public transportation. I feel like American school children would like going to school a lot more if they could get on these tricked-out school busses each morning. To be clear, these are old American school buses that were considered too old to cary around a below maximum capacity number of elementary school children. So naturally they are deemed suitable to carry around as many people as can physically squeeze through the doors.

                            

If you do ever find yourself on a bus in Guatemala here is a tip: most busses have ayudantes (helpers) who are in charge of collecting money and putting large bags on the roof. Busses do not have Charlie Cards or any type of pre-paid plans like there are in the U.S.A. and you don't pay when you get on the bus. You get on the bus and take a seat (if you are lucky) and later the ayudante walks through the bus to collect the money. Know how much your trip is going to cost! Ayudantes are notorious for aprovecharing (spanglish for taking advantage) of people. Stay strong! I cannot even count the number of times that ayudantes have tried to overcharge me. It is getting less frequent as my Spanish is getting better, but it still happens too often!

A couple friends of mine and fellow PCVs put together a tumblr of camioneta stories. They give you a better idea of what being on a camioneta is like. http://camionetadiaries.tumblr.com/  

 

One thing about public transportation in Guatemala is that people often come on the bus to sell you things, ask for money, or to preach. These are frequent occurrences. I like the kids who come on the bus with a bag of hard candy and little packs of gum. Other things that are sold on the bus are: Pollo Campero boxes of fast food, soda, bags of cut up fruit, coconut water in little plastic bags, bread, chuchitos (like tamales), and miracle medicine that they claim can fix just about everything. There are also a surprising number of people with sick or mangled children, missing limbs, or beggars. It is the camioneta sermons that usually go on for the longest amount of time (and later pass through the buss for donations). I tried to take a little video of one camioneta sermon without drawing attention to my camera. Turn the volume wayyyyyy up to get the full effect.

Busses get CROWDED. There is absolutely no such thing as maximum capacity on these things. The normal number of people to a seat is three across. On each side. Meaning that when the bus is full people are sitting six across so that the people on the aisle usually only have one butt cheek on the seat. After that people still manage to pile into the isles in between all of these people. It gets tight. I have both stood and been the third person on a seat for hour-long bus rides and it is not fun.

Sometimes you have to make your own seat

In order to save money, people will often have their child stand in front of them in the seat so that they don't have to pay an extra bus fair. Makes sense to me if they are only taking up one space.

2 adults, 4 children. Later another adult joined them.

Learning How to Assemble Toilets...Something I Wasn't Expecting to Learn

I never could have imagined all of the things that I would do or learn while a Peace Corps Volunteer. I am constantly surprised. I am lucky enough to have gone to a number of trainings put on by both the Peace Corps and local NGOs. One such training was put on by Agua Para La Salud (Water for Health) in conjunction with the Peace Corps. In this training we brought counterparts and learned to assemble, disassemble, and unclog toilets.

I'm glad that I learned how to do it.... but don't call me if you need a plumber.

Screwing the tank in. (p.s. family and friends I do not want
to see this picture everywhere, thank you very much!)

Here is the list of trainings I have received to date: intensive Spanish language instruction, Mayan language instruction, cross-cultural training in non-formal education, project design and management, situation management, community analysis, personal safely, preventative health, HIV/Advanced HIV, Gender and Development, improved practices for school gardens, leadership, monitoring, reporting, and evaluation, tools for improving water, improved wood-burning stoves, sanitation and hygiene at schools, education theory, improvement of school gardens and methodologies to improve work with very young adolescents, water sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, food security, and project design and management. The Peace Corps has given me the opportunity to learn a great deal about topics that I never though that I would study and I really appreciate it!

Living that Rural Farm Life

The other day when I was walking back from visiting a school I saw that there were a bunch of people gathered around the space adjacent to my house where members of my host family keep a couple cows and pigs. I asked them what was going on and they said a calf was born a few hours earlier. Luckily I got to see this little guy after he was all cleaned up.

All of the kids and adults were petting the newborn calf. I enjoyed this because he was oh so soft and because here in Guatemala I don't often see people petting or otherwise being nice to Animals. Here in the campo and even where I lived outside of Antigua, animals are used to serve a purpose. This purpose is usually to protect the house. This calf will serve its purpose too, in time, but for now it was nice to see everyone treating it nicely.

Frequent Electricity Blackouts - Se Fue la Luz

Instead of saying electricity Guatemalans use the word luz (light). So instead of saying the electricity went out they say the light left (se fue la luz). This makes sense to me. From what I have seen, Guatemalans out in rural areas seem to be more unplugged than the people I know in the U.S.A., therefore it is mostly the light they notice is out when there is no electricity.

Here is a song with the chorus: "Se fue la luz en todo el barrio" "The power went out in the neighborhood." I think the song is quite catchy and I sing it whenever there isn't any electricity.

The electricity was out in my town today from around 8am-4pm. Schools here don't generally turn on the lights in the classrooms so this didn't really seem to affect them. In fact that is something that I have noticed about Guatemalans in general. They don't turn the lights on until it is completely dark out. I'm guessing that this is to save electricity. I admire this, but I still like a lot of light in my room.

Power outages are a part of life here in Guatemala and are more frequent in the dry season. My site seems to have more constant electricity than some of my friends', but we still probably lose power at least once a month. One thing that volunteers joke about is our PC service ruined candlelit dinners for us. If you have electricity for goodness sakes use it!

Happy Carnival (Fat Tuesday) from Guatemala!

Confetti everywhere

Carnival isn't quite celebrated here like it is in Brazil with the sparkling bikinis, elaborate headdresses, and parades. The culture here is a little too conservative for that (the bikini part). This has really changed me. I no longer feel comfortable wearing shorts even in touristy areas such as Antigua or Panajachel and would never think of wearing them in Xela or close to my site.

Guatemala does however have a more vibrant celebration of Carnival than I have ever seen in the U.S.A., especially in the elementary schools. From what I have seen it is counted as an in-school holiday. Kids and teachers come in, but there aren't classes. The tradition here is to wear masks and throw confetti and colored hallowed-out egg shells at one another until everyone is thoroughly coated.

Above is my new sitemate. He will be continuing the Healthy Schools Project after I leave. Part of my job in my last couple of months is to facilitate his integration into the community and project. When telling him about Carnival I told him that kids throw confetti and gave him two packets of glitter. I thought that the epic confetti/glitter battle that goes on would be better left as a surprise. I was not adequately warned on my first Carnival and showed up without anything to throw back. It's a shame you can't really see it in this picture, but besides the confetti on his shirt he is covered in glitter. 

I did not take other pictures today, but HERE is the link to my blog post about Carnival in a school last year.

The Jungle / Meat in my Site

I just finished reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I would say to sum up the book: you did not want to be eating sausage or packaged meat back in the day. Truly grotesque.

Not to worry, it's not anything like that in my site. However, I eat completely vegetarian in my site (and mostly vegan with the exception of eggs and little individual sized milk boxes). Trust me this is not by choice as I miss meat, cheese, and yogurt a lot. I do this because I don't have a refrigerator and have lived without one for the past two years. My host family doesn't have a refrigerator either so I would have felt weird having another expensive item that they don't have (for me, my lap top and camera are non-negotiable for my work and life here). Not only that, but the butchers in my town don't seem to have refrigerators either. In addition, the meat is left hanging out in the open all day. I bet it would be ok if I cooked the meat well enough but I'm not going to risk it. I do have meat occasionally when I eat with my host family on Sunday nights and have never had a problem, so it must be ok.

Chicken sold on the street on market day

One of the butchers in my town

Two Year Anniversary in Guatemala!

Today marks the two year anniversary of when I arrived in Guatemala on February 13, 2013! Wow I can't believe that my Peace Corps service is coming to an end. April 1 is my official shipping out date. In some ways I am SO READY to leave and in others not at all.

Besides hitting the two-year mark another event that really got me thinking about the end was my groups' Close of Service (COS) conference. In the Peace Corps, Volunteers are allowed to COS up to 30 days before or after our official COS date, so it is important that they have this conference in advance so that we can all be together one last time. So the Peace Corps put us all up in a nice hotel in the outskirts of Antigua for our three-day conference in late January. My training class is unusual in that we all get along surprisingly well and still like to do things in BIG groups. Any trip we take generally includes over half of our training class. After our COS conference we organized a trip to the beach. Only three volunteers out of the whole group didn't go. In addition, overall my group hasn't lost many volunteers. I don't believe that any training class finishes with 100%, and out of 28 only four have left the country and they were all for medical issues that would be better cared for in the States. Not to brag, but Bak'tun 5 who swore in as PCVs in December have already lost 5 people from their group for a myriad of reasons.

Each group in Peace Corps Guatemala has a different name and my group is Bak'tun One. Bak'tun means "the big change" and this term was used to describe the time when some thought the Mayan calendar indicated the end of the world in 2012. Luckily this didn't happen and my group arrived just a couple months later. Bak'tun One. We are number one for a reason. Those two phrases are on the front and back of the awesome shirts we made and are wearing in the picture below.

Healthy Schools

While we were still in our pre-service training we selected a class speaker. This person spoke eloquently at our swearing in serve to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, at our mid-service conference, and last month at our COS conference. I loved her speech so much that I asked her if it was ok if I published it on my blog. I think that it really nicely captured some of the emotions that we are all going through right now. Here is Luisa Jaramillo's COS speech:

"'To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before.' (Rollo May) 

We came to Guatemala as Peace Corps Volunteers because we don’t want to live a life on accident. Because we believe that the most challenging experiences are also the greatest. We came here to work towards the changes we wish to see both within ourselves and as citizens of a global community.

The journey hasn’t been easy and I think for us all it has presented challenges that we couldn’t have imagined. Not surprisingly, the most difficult of these challenges weren’t the physical hardships but rather the psychological ones. The loneliness that results from engaging with a culture and community that operates so differently from our own. The constant and unyielding unwanted attention that made us feel still more alone, at other times threatened, and always enraged. The chronic fear of chuchos as an ever-present physical and emotional threat. 

We have all changed in many ways. Some changes we are aware of, others will be more noticeable to our loved ones at home than they are to ourselves, and others still will only become apparent with time. 

Most of us are undoubtedly feeling the stress of concluding our work in site.  The guilt or anguish of what we didn’t accomplish. The uncertainty of what lies ahead and how our experiences here will impact us both positively and negatively for the years to come.
Certainly we have made a difference. Maybe we didn’t do what we came here to do. What we thought we would be doing. Or accomplished what we hoped to. People do the best they can when they can. We did the best we could when we could. 

We have accomplished a great deal as Bak’tun One. We have all had a significant role in shaping the on-going development and implementation of our respective projects. Each of our services has been unique to our own individuality, previous experiences, respective sites, and the connections we made in our communities. But no matter the task, no matter the project, we were all cheerleaders for progress. Inciting our work partners to take initiative, to identify needs in their communities, and to work with perseverance and passion to address these needs. We shared our passions for health, education, women’s empowerment, and for life more generally with those we encountered. 

We have crafted a home for ourselves in a community that was unfamiliar to us two years ago. We have formed meaningful life-altering relationships with other Volunteers. And through our service we have embodied two of the most significant values we share as American citizens, the values of diversity and perseverance that unite us. We have also learned a great deal along the way. 

Learned how to challenge ayudantes who have tried to overcharge us on the camioneta. Learned to let go when meetings start late, when plans go astray. To deliver palabras at a moments notice and exchange long goodbyes. 

Other, deeper lessons have enabled us to become better versions of ourselves. More apt to identifying our needs and more willing to communicate them… prepared to advocate for ourselves and for the causes we believe in. More willing to accept that life is one complicated mess, that everyone carries a heavy burden, that we all have different parts to play and we must all be allowed to play them. 

We have become badass facilitators, creative geniuses, capable Spanish speakers and less accomplished English speakers. 

These are the experiences that unite us, both the positive and the negative. This is the life we will look back at with admiration, asking ourselves how we had the willpower and the strength to keep on keeping on. 

It is the end of an era. 

The chapter concludes for Bak’tun One. All of the members of Bak’tun One. Let us now take a moment to think of our friends Brian, Alyssa, Maggie and Habie. And send good vibes their way. 

Life is about the inconsistencies, about the uncertainties. It is what makes every journey challenging but also interesting and rewarding. And although they couldn’t be here with us today, they are an integral part of our service, our experience as Peace Corps Volunteers and our legacy. 

We are about to find out what lies beyond this surreal, meaningful experience that was our Peace Corps service. As President Obama said, today we turn the page."

All of it rings so true to me, but especially the part about our work. How we know that we made a difference, but it probably wasn't the difference that we were expecting to make. Whenever I wish that I had somehow done more I keep repeating to myself: "People do the best they can when they can. We did the best we could when we could."

I cannot believe that I am almost done with my Peace Corps service! In some ways it feels like I just got here, but more often than not it feels like I have been here forever. I've rented the same room for over a year and made it my own, successfully worked a job in a language that I didn't speak when I arrived, and made new lifelong friends. My life is here now and I'm going to be sad to leave. Although I am super excited to be around my family and friends and get back to all the modern-day conveniences such as: a refrigerator, oven, and laundry in my house. It will be nice to be home again. 

I still have a ton of things that I want to accomplish before I go back to the U.S.A.. For one, I have 70 drafts of blog posts that are not yet completed. Which means I'd better get cracking. It is the end of an era, but it's not ending just yet. 

InstaGUATE Update

Below are more of my Instagram photos from Guatemala. My username is: m3ganrose9

My aunts who came to visit me in Guatemala

Statue in Xela

Trash dump in the Xela bus terminal

Wood burning stove

Selling pillows

Vendor napping in Panajachel

Vendor napping in Momostenango

My host parents

After the Xela 1/2 marathon

My host family's cat

Lake Atitlan

Carrying wood

Kayaking on Lake Atitlan

Sewing machines

Leather smith in Pastores 

Jocotes (fruit) in front of a fountain in La Merced church, Antigua

Vendors in Antigua

Drying clothes on the roof, Lake Atitlan

Sheep on the Loose in Front of my House

The building on the left is my host family's/my house. We live right off of a dirt road. I live in a rural village and sometimes I am just really struck by this fact.The latest example was when this herd of sheep went running past me in front of my house seemingly without an owner. 

By the time I saw the sheep running at me and got out my camera I was only able to take this 3 second video. It gives you the general idea, though. 

My 16-Year Old Host Sister Got Married

...and everyone was happy about it.

Maybe partially because one night she ran away with her boyfriend and then decided to get married a month later. Jeimy (my host sister (pronounced hey-me not like Jamie)) and her boyfriend have been dating for one year and four months. It is my personal belief that if you still have to include months in how long you have been dating then you have not been dating long enough to get married!

The wedding started started at around 6:30/7am with breakfast in my host family's kitchen and yard, but my day started at 5am when I woke up to men shouting and music blaring - they were raising the tent right outside of my door. The entire wedding took place in the bride and groom's houses. The groom's side of the family had breakfast and lunch at his house (apparently within walking distance) and came for the ceremony at my host family's house. Jeimy's family had breakfast and lunch at our house. Sometimes the culture of women serving men really gets to me (it is extremely rare to find a man cooking, cleaning, or washing clothes). My latest bout of really? that's happening? was at lunch when I saw a woman unwrapping her husband's tamalitos and then handing them to him.

Here is the rough run-down of events (all events were done partially in K'iche' and partially in Spanish):
Thursday night: pre-wedding celebration dinner (smaller affair in my host family's house.
Saturday 5am: set-up for the wedding began
6:30: Guests start arriving for breakfast of beans with pork cracklings and an egg
8:30: the "service" started which was basically speeches and advice-giving.
9:00: the groom's family arrived and more advice was given
10:30 they passed out candy - Guatemalans are devoted to their mid-morning snack (and subsequently now so am I)
10:40 the lawyer arrived (for a very evangelical town all weddings that I have been to have been done by a lawyer)

Food for the wedding. All the cooking was done in our house

Leaves to wrap the tamalitos

Left to right: me, my host mom, Jeimy the bride, her fiancé

People ate wherever there was room

Lunch: pepian (traditional Guatemalan dish) with rice and tamalitos

Women serving breakfast: egg, pork crackling, and beans

Assembly line to pass out the food

Morning set-up

View taken from the door to my room

Jeimy told me that she is planning on continuing studying but her husband isn't. He only completed the 9th grade. She said he doesn't like school. Ninth grade is also on the higher end of the spectrum in my town, sadly enough.

Things you will not find at weddings in my predominantly Evangelical town: wedding cake, alcohol, dancing, caterers, wedding planners, or wedding photographers. 

This was my fourth wedding I attended in my town. I am so happy that my host families have included me. Weddings in my town are so much more informal than any wedding I have been to in the states. I couldn't imagine a foreign exchange student tagging along to a wedding. Each wedding was different from the other and completely different from anything I have heard of back home, so I blogged about all four of them. Here are the links to my blog posts from weddings number one, two, and three.

Just as there is no one way to have a wedding in the United States, here too there are different traditions even within my small town. Three of the brides wore traditional traje and one a white wedding dress. The bride in the white wedding dress held the ceremony/food in a salon whereas the other three had them in their houses. In two of the weddings family members formed an assembly line to move the bride's things out of her house during the ceremony. All weddings took place in the morning and followed the general format of: breakfast, friends and relatives giving advice to the bride and groom, the lawyer officiating, lunch. All served a soda in a glass bottle with lunch and gave each family a little bag of bread as a party favor.

Her wedding was on June 13th. Just yesterday she came back to visit for the first time and she is very noticeably pregnant.