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

Danza Folklorica (Traditional Mayan Folk Dancing)

I was planning on doing another ordinary school visit when I was told that one of my ten schools was hosting a cultural performance day so to speak where students from different schools would recite poems, sing songs, and do traditional dances. This turned out to be amazing. My "workday" consisted of walking 20 minutes to my closest school and from 8-12:30 watching children artistically showcase their Guatemalan and Mayan heritage. In my area almost everyone can speak at least a little K'iche' and for a lot of people it is their first language. I don't think that this event fell on a special day (Guatemalan independence day is September 15), but clearly SO MUCH time and effort was put into this event. One of the more unusual performances was the dance of the monkeys (pictures 5 and 6). The kids who performed wore the most beautiful traditional clothing and the outfits were so ornate. The more I know of it the more I am in awe of the beautiful Mayan culture and I feel so lucky to be living here among it. I am also very grateful that almost everyone in my town and in the schools I work in speaks Spanish!

A mix of traditional and modern clothing 

Traditional huipil (top) and corte (skirt)

Crazy Camionetas

Public transportation buses here are called "chicken buses" or "camionetas" in Spanish. Everything about them is crazy. First of all they are all old american school buses and most of them are all pimped out, some with lights and almost all of them painted with designs and colors. I don't know how they all get down here. I wonder if they all get driven down here through Mexico when we are done with them in the states. The drivers of these buses also practically drag race them down the street. They go so fast! It is common for buses to try and pass each other on the road. I also like to to describe them as "club camioneta" because many of them have TVs in the front and all of them blast loud party music in both English and Spanish.
Guatemalans are speed bump happy. There are SO many speed bumps on every street! It takes about 20-25 minutes on the camioneta to get from Antigua to my old house and there are 26 speed bumps along the way (yes I did count them). I am trying to start a photo series of camionetas, but here are a couple pictures to help you get an idea about what they look like.

Puesto De Salud (Health Center)

This past Sunday I spent the morning (8-1) working at the Puesto de Salud (health center) in my town. There is a woman (probably around my age) who also rents a room in the house that I am living in. She is here Thursday-Sunday working in the health center. She says the health center is pretty well staffed during the week with 9 people working there, but on the weekends she is the only one so last Sunday I went and helped her out. I think this was probably my most productive I have felt since becoming a PCV. The pace of work is just slower here and I am having a hard time adjusting. For example in our first three months in site our main goal is community integration oh and we are supposed to visit our ten schools. But back to the health center. I spent the morning weighing children and babies, passing out vitamins, and recording all of this information. I'm not sure if I am going to help her out every weekend, but maybe I will if it gives me an excuse not to go to an Evangelical service for three hours. My host family is Evangelical and they do this twice a week.

Tortilla Tally, Water Filter, Yanet, and a Cow Detour

So I have mentioned that Guatemalans LOVE bread, but what they love more are tortillas. I don't think that they eat a single meal without accompanying it with AT LEAST 3 tortillas and that is a conservative estimate seeing as that is the number I usually eat. Lets make that number 5. I have tried my best to stay away from tortillas, but they use them to fill up, so if I don't eat at least a couple of tortillas I will most likely leave the meal still hungry. So I eat tortillas. I have started a tortilla tally and am planning on recording the number of tortillas that I eat. I really wish that I had started this from the beginning, because I am sure that by now it would be a ridiculous number. I mean just look at my tally so far - that was only started 2 days ago!!

After a month of only drinking bottled water I finally got my Eco water filter put together and purifying my water! The tap / pila water isn't safe to drink and it comes out of the faucet with little chunks of something in it. My host family only burns their trash so I am glad that I am no longer having to find creative ways to use my empty plastic water bottles. I refuse to burn my plastic trash and am only burning paper. On the bright side all of my organic trash goes to the two pigs in the backyard that my host family owns.

This is one of my billion host siblings. Her name is Yanet (Guatemalans saying Janet). All of the girls in the family like to model and have pretend runway shows. Yanet is in my opinion one of the best. She is three years old and is adorable. Especially when she wears the traditional Mayan traje!

Also today I had to take the long way from my house into "town" because there was a cow grazing on the path that I normally take and my host brother told me that I shouldn't walk there because the cow would kick me or step on me or something. There are normally pigs and sheep grazing in this path, but this is the first time that I had to take a detour because of cattle.

Salsa and Soccer Saturday

This past Saturday was a fabulous day. At 8am I arranged for my host dad to drive me in his pickup truck to the city of Totonicapan to pick up a dresser and table that I bought from a Peace Corps Volunteer who is leaving in a month. I paid my host dad 150 Quetzales (~$20) for the two hour drive round trip and helping me move everything (I live on the second floor). My 16 year old host sister and 9 year old host brother were also going to Totonicapan so they rode in the back part of the pick up truck for the whole hour ride down the Pan American highway. This seemed highly dangerous to me, but they made it. Finally after three months of being in Guatemala (we arrived February 13) I am finally not living out of a suitcase!! Although I did have a file cabinet in my room when I lived with my first host family that worked pretty well as a makeshift dresser.

That afternoon I took a two hour salsa lesson in Xela (pronounced Shea-la) the big city with some other PCVs and locals. This was a lot of fun and only cost 20Q (around $2.50)!! Needless to say I plan on doing this every weekend. Later that night we went to a Xelaju soccer game and then spent the night in Xela because buses do not run at night and it wouldn't be safe to take one even if they did. We stayed at the Gato Negro hostel right in the center of town for 60Q each ($7.75) with a large free breakfast in the morning! I highly recommend all of the above experiences. Also I apologize if you are tired about reading about how much things cost here, but I am constantly amazed at how cheap things are here so I am probably going to keep writing about it.

All in all it was a great weekend and I am so happy to finally be able to unpack! (Pictures of the soccer game will be added soon!)