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.