OneWorld Classroom Art Exchange

One cool activity that I did with my favorite little school was the OneWorld Classroom art exchange. It's a pretty neat program where you register a classroom, have the kids draw scenes from their lives / culture / family, send the artwork to the U.S., then in a couple months (it takes a month for anything to get to/from Guatemala) you get a new packet with artwork from all over the world. So once I received all of the artwork I took it into the school and used it to jumpstart a little geography/cultural awareness lesson. One thing that I found in this school was a real lack of both geographical knowledge and knowledge of other cultures. I discovered this when I asked the kids (of grades 1-6) to draw their culture or what was special about Guatemala I got blank stares (and it wasn't because of my Spanish). This is when I realized that it is impossible to know what is so special about your own culture until you know about other cultures.  

Looking at some of the new artwork

Showing where the different pieces of artwork came from

http://www.oneworldclassrooms.org/

Here is a list of some of the things that I find to be special about the Guatemalan culture:

- Over 90% of people in my village are Mayan and speak the language K'iche'

- The majority of women in this area wear the traditional embroidered traje

- Tortillas and tamalitos are staples of any meal and often they are made by hand and cooked over an open stove 

- Large multigenerational families live together

- Babies and children are carried on family member's backs

- Much much more this is just the tip of the iceberg!!

Riding in the Back of Pickup Trucks

I have a confession to make: I love riding in the back of pickup trucks! It's just so different from anything I had done in the States. The wind in your hair, the slight sense of danger. It's great. What is not great is when kids ride in the back of the truck by themselves. This happens OFTEN. It is also pretty common for A LOT of people to be crammed into the back of a single truck. Sometimes on market days they are used almost as public transportation. Locals who have a truck will bring people into town and then back out to their smaller villages and charge a small fee ($.50-$.75) per person.

School field trip 

Small Town Mayors

The Spanish word for Mayor is "Alcalde" and this system is so much different than ours that sometimes I don't even connect those two words in my mind. I see an Alcalde as a community leader. He and his buddies (not sure what their job titles are) show up to inaugurations, celebrations, town social events, etc. It is always all men and they are very important within the community. They wear suits and carry around those long walking sticks/scepters/pieces of wood. Here they are giving a long speech at the inauguration of two new classrooms at one of the schools where I worked.

Chocolate Class at the Choco Museo in Antigua

We ground beans the old-fashioned way

A recommendation for anyone who is spending time in Antigua and likes chocolate! I took this two hour chocolate making workshop twice (once when my friends came to visit and then again when my aunts were here). It's pretty cool and super informative. It starts out with some information about the history of chocolate around the world and the process of making chocolate from the tree to the table. Here is an explanation of the workshop from the website:

"You learn all the steps from the harvest of the cacao in a plantation to the obtention of a chocolate bar. From the cacao beans you will roast them, peel them, and grind them into a paste. This cacao paste is used to prepare the first known cacao drink (invented by the Mayas). the traditional chocolate. In the end, from refined chocolate you will prepare your own chocolate that you can take back home." http://www.chocomuseo.com/

In the class we got to make two different kinds of hot chocolate: traditional mayan style and the old English style. Neither included milk or sugar. The way they traditionally made it here in Guatemala was a more bitter drink and often included blood (the recipe has since changed don't worry).

I also learned more about the differences between chocolates: dark, milk, and white. Dark chocolate is just ground up cacao beans mixed with sugar and the amount of sugar determines the percentage of the chocolate. For example: a 70% dark chocolate has 7lbs of chocolate to 3lbs sugar. Milk chocolate is the cacao mixed with both milk and sugar.

One fun fact that I learned in the workshop was about how expensive chocolate and cacao beans used to be. Cacao seeds were used as currency in the Aztec society and hot chocolate was so expensive that it was only drank by kings. For example: an avocado was worth 3 seeds, 30 seeds for a small rabbit, and 200 for a male turkey. A fun fact about chocolate in the U.S.: M&Ms were developed by the army as a chocolate that the soldiers could take with them without melting. Hence the candy coating. Brilliant.

Our enthusiastic instructor

Molding chocolate with my aunts

Molding chocolate with my friends

Dr. Jill Biden Came to Visit Peace Corps Guatemala

On Tuesday, March 3rd while her husband was meeting with the Central American Presidents in the capital, Dr. Jill Biden the 2nd lady visited the Peace Corps headquarters. She, along with the first lady of Guatemala met with a local womens' group.

Luckily enough for me I just happened to be in the office that day taking my last language proficiency interview (I got mid-advanced!). I was able to listen in on her meeting with the womens' group. Afterwords she came out to talk to the PCVs in the office and take a group picture with us. I was originally told that she had only 7 minutes to meet with us and that there would be no picture, but she was very nice and didn't seem too rushed. It was also special because there was such a small group in the office.

The left behind little souvenirs - presidential M&Ms