My Kitchen

All 5 of those windows are my kitchen

I have been cooking for myself. I found that when I was eating exclusively with my host family that I did not get enough vegetables. So when I moved into my new house I rented two rooms. One is my bedroom and the other is this kitchen. To get to my kitchen I have to go outside and downstairs.

As you can see in the picture on the left, the tin roof doesn't completely cover my kitchen – there is an overhang that overlaps the roof so I guess they felt no need to use more tin. This means that all kinds of things fall into my kitchen. Sometimes I am startled half to death by a chicken, turkey, or cat landing loudly on the tin roof over my head.

My host family left those two huge bundles of corn to dry in my kitchen. I like them as decoration although I kept on hitting my head on one of them before I rearranged my table.

I never knew that mold likes cement so much, but it is a big problem here, especially during the rainy season. Luckily there is a pretty easy fix for mold: spraying bleach mixed with water. 

My pans and mold

Under my toaster oven, water filter, egg carton, etc. is a plancha. Guatemalans use this to cook by lighting a fire inside. More on this later.

My industrial-sized stove top (the gas tank is behind it)

My shelves. This is where I keep my plates, silverware, etc. I keep all of my produce in the green basket covered by a towel. I also cover my silverware with a cloth (second shelf from the top) because the dust and dirt problem is so terrible that otherwise they would be constantly dirty. 

Here are some of the issues that I have with my kitchen:
- I have to get to it from the outside which is annoying in the rain.
- I don't have a refrigerator.
- There is no source of water anywhere on the same level of the house. This means that I am constantly hauling water down stairs to fill my water filter to have both drinking and cooking water.
- I have to bring my dishes upstairs to wash them.
- The tin roof doesn't fully cover my kitchen so rain water, dirt, and leaves are constantly covering everything in my kitchen. The cats have also discovered this entrance to my kitchen so I have to put my bread under a big bowl so that they don't eat it. Side note: Guatemalan animals are a lot like Guatemalan people. They love to eat bread.
- There is only one exposed lightbulb in my kitchen. This means that it is pretty dim in there at night and I have to prepare my food at an angle or else my body blocks the light on what I am preparing completely.

It's not much but it gets the job done. 

Guatemalan Mop

It is really quite practical and I for one am going to use this technique back in the States. This has probably already made its way there, but I haven't seen it. Here in Guatemala I have not seen a single conventional mop. Just these. They are so easy to make and economical too!                 
- All you do is cut a rectangle of an old towel.                                        
- Cut a hole in the center.              
- Put the broom handle through the hole and voila!  
                                                                          
It's also easy to clean because you can just take the towel part off and wash it.

My Third Guatemalan Wedding

The Bride and Groom are in the center with their backs to the camera.
The man standing up is giving the bride and groom advice. This advice-giving
and well-wishing takes up a big chunk of Guatemalan weddings)

Apparently Guatemalans only like to get married right after I move into a new house. Obviously it has taken me a while to blog about this since I moved to this house last November. Guatemalan weddings are nothing like American weddings. Naturally it is hard to generalize. I have been to three different weddings here. All of them were very different, but all three were very different from American weddings that I have been to or heard about.

First of all they have all been morning / early afternoon weddings. Each one started out with a breakfast at a family members house where they set up tables and benches outside under a tent. Secondly all three couples were married by a lawyer. The weddings were done in a combination of K'iche' (the Mayan language) and Spanish. There is never any dancing (probably because I live in a predominantly Evangelical town). After the ceremony there is lunch. As a goodie bag each time I have gotten a bag of bread to take home.

What has varied from wedding to wedding was what the bride and groom wore. The first wedding I went to the bride wore the typical Mayan traje. The second she wore a white dress, and the third she wore a more every day looking traje with a sweater. In the first two weddings the groom wore suits, and in this one he was dressed more informally.

I found this wedding to be a little awkward. I had only just met this family and moved in with them a couple weeks earlier so I was still getting to know everyone. The tables were very segregated by status as determined by gender. The bride and groom sat in the middle of the table of men who were served first by the women. As a guest of honor and resident gringa I was invited to sit at this table. It turned out fine, but I felt out of place next to the bride and groom whom I had never met and surrounded by the older men. Oh well it certainly was an experience. And I got two meals and a bag of bread out of it.

 Hearty breakfast

An Extra Long Memorial Day Weekend in Guatemala

So I felt like last week I was really on a role, work-wise. Monday-Thursday I gave presentations to both parents' groups and teachers. All of which I think went well if I do say so myself :). Now I don't think that I have blogged much about the level of productivity here in Guatemalan schools. It can be low. The school day is only from 8-12:30 and there is about an hour taken out for snack and recess. It also seems to me that there are an endless number of days where the kids are not in classes for activities such as: sporting events for the kids, sporting events for the teachers, cultural days (I really am glad that they proudly celebrate their Mayan heritage), holidays (Mother's Day, teacher's day, etc.), and time off when there are all-teacher meetings (because with school as only a half-day teachers couldn't possibly meet in their afternoons off). So as I was chugging along with my week I began to hear from the directors (principals) of the schools that there is no school Friday, May 23, or Monday, May 26 (Memorial Day in the U.S.A.), because teachers from each school are competing against each other in soccer and basketball. Sounds like a worthwhile event to cancel two days of classes. Not to me. So, although I am definitely not in the U.S., I am getting a nice long Memorial Day weekend.

Toothbrushing Charla with Parents

My favorite is the little boy in the front holding up his new homemade toothbrush

Part of my job as a Healthy Schools Volunteer is to work with parents' groups. If I can get kids to wash their hands and brush their teeth in schools that will be amazing, but if I can get them to do it at home as well that will be even better. I haven't worked in a school in the States, but I imagine that the involvement of parents (mostly mothers) here is much greater. Each school has a rotation of all of the mothers who make snack for the kids every day. This means that every day about 5 mothers come to school to make the snack. I find this amazing. I think it might have to do with the fact that a lot of the mothers work out of the home caring for the kids or work in informal jobs (i.e. a little store that sells snacks, soda, etc. out of their home).

Also my schools are willing to give me time at their almost monthly parents' meetings to give a talk on health subjects. They also will call all of the parents there when I have a charla (lesson) to give them. So far I have given talks to parents on basic hygiene practices such as hand washing and toothbrushing. There is usually a good turnout, too! The talks that I have given usually about 60 parents (again mostly mothers), which is the majority. Most of the parents have multiple kids in the school. Big families are still the norm here. 

Presenting to parents is not without it's challenges. In the area that I live, all of the parents speak K'iche' the local Mayan language and if I am lucky about half of them also speak Spanish. Therefore I have to have someone translate my Spanish into K'iche' for me. There is also a very high rate of illiteracy among the parents. I am used to presenting with powerpoints and poster papers with limited words, but I have had to become creative with finding ways to demonstrate and explain using pictures. The sign in sheets are another potential issue. With illiterate parents they cannot write their names so I bring along an ink pad so they can put their thumbprint instead. 

Here are some pictures from one of my toothbrushing charlas. In my talk I taught them how to make homemade toothpaste and toothbrushes. I had each person make a homemade toothbrush. This is where you take a little stick like a tongue depresser, wrap a small piece of cloth around it, and tie it on both ends with dental floss. The toothpaste is made out of baking soda, salt, and water. Once they were completed I then had them all go outside and brush their teeth using the homemade toothbrush and toothpaste. 

Getting homemade toothpaste (not going to lie it tastes really bad)

Yes, that child on the floor is eating junk food

Happy Mother's Day from Guatemala

I am dedicating this post to my Mom who I love so much and miss every day.

It's amazing - I am just starting to repeat holidays in my site in Toto. I arrived April 23, 2013. Last year I went to the Mother's Day celebration at a school. This year I decided that once was enough and celebrated with my new host family instead. Mother's Day in Guatemala is always celebrated on May 10th which means that this year it fell on a Saturday (one day before the U.S.). So Saturday morning I lead arts and crafts with my host siblings and Minako, the Japanese volunteer that also lives in the house. We made lots of cards in four different languages and even a couple of paper roses. It was a lot of fun.

After the activity I was invited to their Mother's Day lunch in which both my host parent's mothers were in attendence. They only speak K'iche' so we didn't talk much, but it was a really good lunch of spicy chicken, a cole slaw-like salad, and a cake.

Most of us with our cards

Princess and I. She is so adorable. She used so much glue attaching
hearts to the inside of her cards that she glued all of them shut.

Like most things in my life right now my Mother's day was very multi-lingual. 

Minako showed us how to write Happy Mother's Day in Japanese

I love you Mom in K'iche' on the left, Spanish on the right, and English on the bottom

Xela is Also Happy

By now I'm sure that those of you in the States have seen a plethora of those Pharrell Williams Happy videos. Well here is one more that is just so happy I couldn't help it. Xela (pronounced Shea-la) is the official nickname for the department of Quetzaltenango in Guatemala. Xela is much easier to pronounce than Quetzaltenango, don't you think? There are some great views of Xela in this video. It is like a mini musical tour. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93raztH6lYQ    

The Sugar Problem

Sorry I haven't posted a blog in a while. April was a crazy busy month filled with holy week, an awesome visit from my parents, and a school gardens training. 

So this funny little green triangle dude is holding up a sign that says "sugar with IRON." Normally I am all for fortified food items, however I have heard a lot of Guatemalans say that they get their iron from sugar. Now I haven't done the calculations, but I'm pretty sure a person would become diabetic before they got their daily recommended iron intake from sugar.

On the whole Guatemalans consume what I consider to be a ton of sugar daily. Like in the U.S. sodas are extremely popular. Unlike in the U.S., both kids and babies are given soda (I have seen both soda and coffee poured into baby bottles). Soda is also commonly called "agua" or water. This is why it is important to specify "agua pura" pure water if you actually want to get water in Guatemala. I am an avid coffee drinker, but I told my host family that I don't like it so that they wouldn't serve me "coffee" at dinner. I put "coffee" in quotes because what they make is more like warm sugar water with coffee flavor. Needless to say not my favorite.

Puppies!

My host dog had five adorable puppies! They are going to sell them in the market for 50Quetzales ($6.45) each! I'm not going to lie I am tempted to get one, but I am showing great restraint (although I think I would pick the one on the top left with the two spots on its back).  

Happy Post St. Patrick's Day

My St. Patrick's Day came and went without the usual celebrations and greenery. Except for my breakfast. My town is mostly Evangelical but I don't think that even the Christians celebrate St. Patty's day here. So I made my favorite breakfast which just happens to be totally green. 

My recipe for Green Eggs (minus the ham because I don't have a fridge):

Put a lot of spinach in a blender - I have the magic bullet small blender so I just fill that up

Add 3-4 egg whites (or fewer whole eggs)

Blend

Cook

Enjoy! 

It's a great way to get in your veggies! I also like to add Chia seeds for a little bonus. 

I also like to accompany most of my meals with guacamole. It is finally starting to be avocado season here so nice ripe avocados cost about 1Quetzal each (13 cents!). 

English Homework Helper

I taught a week long BEGINNER English class during school vacation to four teachers. (I don't have a picture of it or else I would have blogged about it before). We just covered the basics like: the alphabet, simple greetings, colors, body parts, and conjugating verbs in the present tense. I really enjoyed it and I think that the teachers did too. They especially liked the "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" and alphabet songs. After our last class they took me out to lunch at the new small fast food fried chicken and French fries place in our town as a thank you. I am hoping to replicate this class again, but in the meantime I just help some of the teachers and my host siblings with their English homework when they need it.

The problem is that most teachers are obligated to teach English but there is not a single teacher that I know of (I work in 10 schools) who actually speaks English - or can have a simple conversation in English. So what they are teaching the kids I have found to be sometimes incorrect, if not grammatically then at least in pronunciation. It also puts me in an awkward situation with my host siblings when I see that they got a question marked wrong that they really got right or when their teacher's sample answer is completely off. I took a picture of my host sister's English book. Her teacher had written out the answer to question #1 which I have written below:

Q: What date does your school year begin?
A: I am my class the 2/24/14

Oh boy.

Another thing I noticed was how strange the questions in the book are. It made it very hard to answer. I.e.:

Q: What does the Principal wish to you?

What on Earth? This makes me wonder if my Spanish books back in the day were this bad. Probably.

Picture disclaimer: this is one big mess and she later realized that she wrote the answer to #5 in #4s spot. My other host siblings are much better at English.

This pretty much describes it in GIF form:

http://howapcvputsitgently.tumblr.com/post/86102804366/when-i-found-the-5th-mistake-in-the-national-english

Ecological Park in My Site

A short 5ish minute walk from my house there is this really cool ecological park. It just opened up a couple months ago and it is really nice. There are trails through it, although the entrance is on top of a hill so any way you go you are in for a pretty good climb coming back. It costs 5 Quetzales to get in (about 64 cents). They have a little soccer area, swings, a slide, waterfall, and a stream. I am hoping to use it to do some good environmental education in my schools. Below are some pictures that I took when I went with a couple of my host siblings one afternoon.

The bridge was kind of bouncy which didn't seem like a good sign

Princess and Jamie

Greenhouse / baby tree nursery

Carnival or Fat Tuesday in Guatemalan Schools

Yesterday, Fat Tuesday, is commonly known as Carnival, or Dia de los Innocentes (Day of the Innocents) in Guatemala. I was invited to a celebration at one of my schools and boy was I unprepared for what I would walk into. For one thing I should have picked up my own arsenal of confetti first. Apparently the tradition here is to wear masks and throw confetti (called pica pica) and colored hollowed-out egg shells (called cascarones) filled with confetti at people. Call me a wuss, but the eggs actually really hurt because they didn't just throw them they slammed them into peoples' heads. I legitimately almost left before the event finally started at 9:30 I was already so covered in confetti. The vast majority of kids were wearing masks which ranged from homemade to store bought. A bunch were made of the same construction paper cutout which made me think that more than just one school day was taken for this event. Such is life in Guatemala.

The event started with each grade dancing. There were no choreographed dance moves. It was more like the just stood in a line and wiggled around while music was playing. The Kindergarteners were super cute (see first picture) below). After dancing they had the "cascara fight" where they threw what seemed like pounds of glitter, confetti, and egg shells at each other. Me being the new person I feel like I got the most glitter and eggs cracked on me. This was literally the least pleasant. I kinda tried to stand up against the wall of the school so at least I wasn't attacked on all sides. When I got back I took a shower, but even today I am still finding glitter. It really is the herpes of craft supplies.

Only two of the older kids wanted to dance

ALL of those specks are confetti

Getting hit in the head with a cascaron filled with confetti

Getting hit in the head with a cascaron filled with confetti

His egg creation

A bunch of kids wanted their pictures taken as I was leaving - they are so cute it's hard to be mad at them even if I was covered head to toe in confetti and glitter.

Puro Campo

My poor mint plant. So I saw that my it was looking sparse and unhappy but I just attributed it to the chilly weather. Then I saw this (it is the little plant on the ground) and now I know:

Puro campo - pure country life

The Most Fun

I was asked the other day what the funnest part of my day to day life in site is. Normally I would reply in a tongue and cheek manner that there is nothing fun to do in my town, but this isn't completely true. I decided that the funnest parts of my day are usually the unexpected surprises. I think I wrote about this earlier, but my motto is just say yes (especially to invitations) even if I don't really know what I am saying yes to. I rarely know what I am getting into, but it usually works out. This goes hand and hand with "be flexible." I had my afternoon planned out (albeit my plans weren't set in stone or all that exciting), but when my host sisters knocked on my door and told me that they were cooking sheep's heads I grabbed my camera and headed out. They cooked the heads and feet over an open fire of special branches and leaves that will give them a special flavor. The feet will be made into "caldo de pata" hoof soup and then we will eat the brains. Side note: I have had cow hoof soup and it is probably one of my least favorite things that I have ever eaten. This is all being prepared as a special treat for my host brother's birthday.

My host sister Maria

Minako and I in our courtyard

I think I would call this a smile mixed with disgust

I am apparently eating all this tomorrow night. Wish me luck!  

Dados de Salud

aka health dice. Why do so many things just sound better in Spanish?

Anyway, they are a healthy schools tool. Each side of the die has a different body part on it: nails, hands, face, hair, clothes, feet, or occasionally one of these is swapped out for something like lice. The idea is that each morning in every classroom the teacher will throw the die and they will check the body part of whatever side lands face up. It is to make a game out of daily hygiene and also to add a random element to the checks to hopefully motivate the kids to be clean all of the time. Trust me they aren't.

Every month all of the directors in the district that I work in have an all day meeting (8-12:30). At today's meeting I did a sort of arts and crafts with them and had them make their own dados de salud. Guatemalans love arts and crafts. It was a hit. Now hopefully they will replicate this activity in their schools so that each classroom will have one. I'm not holding my breath, but it's a start. Other notable things that happened in the meeting: my counterpart, the superintendent, announced that someone in the department of education is trying to put a stop to sports days. My thoughts: PLEASE DO. Also, after the meeting I had two different directors come up to me and say that they too would like to work with me. YAY! I'm going to do my first visits with them next week.

All of the directors (there are more dados hidden in the crowd)

The Chicken Bus Song

The other weekend a group of us went to Lago Atitlan for a little R&R and gringo time. We stayed at the Iguana Perdida a nice fun hostel which is right on the water in Santa Cruz la laguna (a short boat ride from Panajachel). On saturday night they had this bomb BBQ, cross-dressing (they have a costume closet) and live music. Basically it was a good time. The band sang this chicken bus song and it was so funny and so true. Turns out this guy wrote it and he has a music video. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGZJvbkCjEA

P.S. All of the "chatter" between verses are typical chicken bus sounds. Ayudantes (the men who collect money) calling out where the bus is going, people selling gum or fruit on the busses, etc.

The guy from the music video is in the red pants

Oh and we also met this guy (I feel like he is a regular)

Breakfast view at the Iguana Perdida

Wild

I just finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I liked it, but found it a little hard to get into her story when I didn't really like her as a person. Not the point. In it she mentions that in general, men lose more weight hiking the Pacific Crest Trail than women: “I’d lost weight too, just not as much as the men – an unjust pattern I’d observed across the board in the other male and female hikers I’d met.” This is the same general pattern that happens in the Peace Corps: men tend to loose weight while women tend to gain weight. This is simply not fair, but sadly mostly true. A couple of girls in my training class have gained over 10 pounds since arriving in Guatemala while some of the boys are noticeably skinnier. I lost weight in training (mainly because I was sick/having intestinal problems for the majority of it). However, since then I have gotten back to where I was before I left.

The Resturaunt Doesn't Sell Tortillas? No Problem

So Guatemalans love the fast food restaurant Pollo Campero (Country Chicken) which is basically a fried chicken fastfood chain. It is so well liked that when I told my host family that I was going out for a friend's birthday they immediately asked me if I was going to Pollo Campero. The answer was no. I have actually never eaten there, but I did accompany my host family there for a 'cafecito' (snack) during Semana Santa (holy week before Easter). It is expensive compared to eating at home or at a comedor (informal resturaunt) where meals are usually around 15 Quetzales (~$2). I think a chicken sandwich meal with fries and a drink costs around 55Q (~$7). So anyway here it is considered a little bit of a treat.

Well anyway there is one small problem with Pollo Campero from a Guatemalan standpoint. They don't serve tortillas. And for most Guatemalans a meal is not complete without tortillas. To solve this problem at every Pollo Campero that I have seen there are at least two women sitting right outside with a basket full of hot tortillas to sell. Problem solved.

The woman on the left is selling tortillas (in the basket under the yellow cloth)

Transaction in front of the drive-through (the tortillas are in the basket)