Beibi Shawer

That’s how you spell “Baby Shower” phonetically in Spanish. I went to my first and probably last baby shower the other night. I wasn’t sure if baby showers were a female-only event in Guatemala or not. I figured since I was invited they may have taken some liberties with the with the event and opened it to males, but I was the only one.

But it was interesting to watch and participate in to an extent. However, when I was “giving words” to the mother to be, my novia Meli’s sister, Lourdes also known as Luli and Negrita[1], I felt really awkward for two reasons. One, I had to do this meaningful thing in Spanish, and two, I had to do it while a match was burning out and felt like I was doing some “cultish” ritual in a Christian girls dorm, and I felt like a woman.

Luli said she was surprised by the shower but it didn’t look it by the outfit she had on. Her chocolate blouse, slacks and high heel shoes and olive green cardigan (same colors as the Bailey’s wedding), which accentuated her enormous stomach (she’s due in a month, and she’s 4’ 3”) seemed a bit weird to wear to a family meeting, which is what she was told she was coming to.

The games weren’t as suspenseful as they could have been since everyone knows she’s having a nena, girl, but miraculously that was always the outcome: dropping the egg, popping the balloons, blowing out the candles; got girl every time. Kinda wigiboardish, and again Christian-girl-dorm-cultish.

All in all it went really well. Everyone had fun during the activities, everyone got a least one piece of cake, and two chuchitos, directly translated: little dogs, they are like tomales, but smaller and always have chicken in them, and tea and/or Pepsi. And of course we sang “Happy Birthday” in English, Guatemalans do that whenever there’s a cake, seriously. It was a delightful experience.

[1] which is the Spanish name for my dog since Gabriela is kind of a common name here. So when people ask me what Gabe means in Spanish instead of Gabi I just you can say Negrita in Spanish. Mama Meli, my grandma here, still wants me to legally change her name.

I got a dog

I need to mention that I bought a dog three weeks ago. Her name is Gabe, which about a week ago I realized that I had subconsciously stolen from the Gate’s old lab, family friends. That was disappointing, but it’s done now.

She already know the name, and I love it because Guatemalans can’t say it. They don’t have the G sound, and nothing ever ends in a short “ba” sound either. So often they’ll be way off and say Kevin, or a bit closer and say Yabay. I give that one to them, especially if it’s their fith try.

She is a lab-boxer mix I bought from some missionaries that Seth was staying with when he was working here in Guatemala. She’s a great dog.

I think whoever said that imagination is what separates us humans from animals was full of it. So many times when I call Gabe and she’ll come running towards me then suddenly stop, stare intently at my shoes and begin to prowl slowly towards them like a cheetah approaching a grazing gazelle. Then she’ll pounce and vigorously try to break the neck of my shoe laces.

Now this is not the behavior that I wanted to see. I wanted her to come up to me waging her tail and perhaps sit politely waiting for my affirmation, but how can be upset with that? And you can’t tell me that isn’t imagination either. You can’t say that she thought my shoe or the rope bone was a unsuspecting mouse, she knew what she was doing and she was imagining.

Also, having this dog has drastically changed my daily conversations here in Guatemala. It used to go Buenos días, Buenos días, and usually nothing more. Sometimes a “how are you?” then how long have you been here? but most times they jump straight to the personal ¿Como halló aquí? which directly translates: “How do you feel here?” but how I like to think of it as: “Are you accustomed to the life here?” which may be more accurate. Then “Oh that’s nice, ¡Qué le vaya bién!” which means, poetically translated, May it go well with you!

But now conversations go: “What a cute little dog, buenos días. How much was he? Oh, it’s a she. They weren’t any males in the litter? (they’re quite sexist when it comes to dogs) Are there more? No? Vendamela. Sell me yours. No, come on, sell me yours. What do you feed her anyway? Just dog food! Hmm. She sure is a beauty, sell her to me.”

Or many times people just say ¿Cuanto? How much? or ¿Compro? Can I buy?

I think when she’s bigger this insistence on buying her will subside. It seriously happens 5 to 10 times a day. Reason being, that in a developing country where 2 in 3 rural children are under-nourished not much food gets down to the dogs. In a litter of 10 in normal for 2 or 3 to make it. That’s just how it goes.

So when they see an energetic, playful puppy that doesn’t have her ribs showing, they have to have her. Who cares if she’s not a macho, male. They like males because they don’t have babies nor go into heat. Spading is practically unheard of here.

Now many of my conversations end with: “Well, what are you going to do with her when you leave? When are you leaving, anyway? Oh, well, sell-her-to-me when you leave in a year and a half. ¡Que le vaya bién!”

Elección de Señorita

That means “Beauty Contest.” That one I knew because I was robbed after one with my friend during the town fair. However that wasn’t mentioned. Aniversario del Instituto that one I picked up alright. It was just one word I couldn’t understand: Calificador. That means judge, well judge particularly for beauty contests. (Just tried to find it in the dictionary to check spelling. Not there. That consuls me abit.)

I think it can also be shortened to calidor, which they might have used when the student of the high school in Campachan asked me to be one next Wednesday, which was yesterday. In any case, I didn’t know the word, and I am sure elección was not used. However, I felt I just given a pretty good lesson in the high school, and didn’t want to show any Spanish weaknesses, so I just said: of course, I’d love to.

Later that day I asked the women in my office what calificador meant or something that sounded vaguely close to that. The first thing I thought was, oh no, first I don’t want to endorse that sort of woman demeaning activity, especially in a society so filled with machismo, and after being robbed, well even before being robbed after one, I was thinking one 5-hour beauty contest would do me for this lifetime.

But I’m glad I unknowingly said yes. It’s a completely different experience when it’s “performed” by a high school in village of 70 people and you have judge (calcular) it, and perhaps give a speech in Spanish at the end. It’s more like a talent show that has three girls that do most of the dance acts.

Unlike the Tejutla show, all of the entertainment was in town. Actually, they did get a pretty good lip-sync girl from the village on the other side of the mountain. In between the particapaciónes of the three contestants practically every student in the school: sang, danced sometimes quite provocatively (so much so that one time I couldn’t take a picture because I was sitting in the front row as a calificador’s table, and I didn’t want to seen as a one of those guys), or lip-sync which at it’s best is sexy dancing, and at it’s worst a 10-year-kid wearing shades, a telephone headset, and baseball cap to one side, stepping off beat and looking terribly nervous through two ranchero songs.

My favorite was the kid who looked 8 but was probably 13 at least. He sang his own songs, scared as hell, but not to bad a singer, probably the best. And what gestures. Every climax of the chorus his hand would raise in a fist every sinew taut, eyes squinting, teeth bared and still mostly hitting the notes. He was the highlight. I’d have given him Señorita del Instituto, first place, if I could have. (see flickr for more pics)

My nervousness about presenting the award turned out to be unwarranted. Nobody cared what I had to say, they just wanted to know who got what. Of course I said the expected and cliché thing anyway, “It was hard to the choose the winner among such beautiful and talented contestants…” They didn’t need to listen.

Also, the great thing about beauty contests in Guatemala is everyone gets something; there are no losers. If there are five candidates, there are five awards. You still have feel bad when you get Señorita Simpatía, “Miss Nice Girl”, or perhaps better translated “Miss Congeniality.” However, we made that one second prize, even though I think it’s usually last. How can you judge someone’s “niceness” from a couple dance acts in different outfits, and a memorized expressionless speech which you don’t understand all of anyway? I gave them all and 8 out of 10 in niceness.

shiny silver pistol

Well, again much has pasted since my last post. I´ve gone home and seen my family and some friends, I´ve been robbed twice, and been visited by two good friends from the States. Almost all of which were great experiences (the second robbery wasn´t fun).

The first wasn´t that bad. I was on a bus early morning when three sleepy looking men entered the bus and sat in different places on the bus. After about five minutes the middle man who I was closest to pulled out and cocked a shiny silver pistol. My first thought, ¨Oh, hey, we´re getting robbed,¨ then, ¨Sweet, I have my iPod, but shoot I also have my camera which is not a scheduled item on my personal items insurance (that means there´s a 100 dollar deductible on it)¨

They immediately searched a few men they thought might have a weapon or might put up a fight, strangely I, the gringo, was not one of them. I think then the guy with the gun went and kept it on the driver and the ayudante (guy who takes the money) telling him to keep driving but not too fast. While the other two men methodically went through everyone´s things including all pockets.

This is where it gets really strange. When one of the men came to search me with his cellphone flashlight. He took everything out of my pockets wallet, cellphone, change and threw it on the seat. Then looked in my wallet which had around Q200, not a huge sum but something, about 26 dollars, and some credit cards, then he shut the wallet with out taking anything and threw it on the seat. After this, he continued to go through my backpack felt where my iPod and camera were but didn´t bother to find the opening. I had mixed feeling about this failure on his part, because I wasn´t exactly sure how this deductible thing worked. After that he told me to stand up so he could see if I hid anything in the seat cushions. I this point I found out that my Spanish isn´t so good when I´m being robbed.

¡Párate! ¡Párate! He kept shouting, however I´d never heard this command in the tú form, because it´s kinda rude even in the best of circumstances, even parents use the usted form when telling their son to do something, but really, I think it was an appropriate use in this case. After the fact, I wished I had hide the iPod in the seat and left the camera in the bag (it´s a really old iPod). But how could I have known? And if I had known that would be insurance fraud or something terribly close, collaboration or coordination or something.

In the end, they peacefully left the bus with all of our bus fares and maybe a few nice cellphones and watches and things of real value. I wouldn´t have lost a thing except for that the ayudante owed Q50 in change.

Guess, I´ll get to other recent events later. I can´t write a short blog.

El martes, y world traveler missionary friend

Much time has passed since my last blog. I´m now working in two schools and with two community groups. Currently, I am exclusively working with ADICTA´s groups with the possibility of working with one of Intervida´s groups in the future. However, right now I would like to focus and do good work in the four communities I´m in right now.

On Tuesdays, I work in a village just down the road from my house called Villa Nueva. This is my favorite worksite thus far. I´m working with a small school there that has about 65 1st through 6th graders and only two teachers. This is a quite common ratio in Guatemala, and in fact, a bit better than most.

I met these teachers as I was walking back from Tuisinsé which is where I go on Thursdays. They were very open to starting a school garden, and also wanted a English class, and help with their new donated computer lab, which they hardly know anything about. So I´ve had my hands busy with this school, and have really been enjoying it. This is the school that I´ve quasi recently posted a bunch of pictures. Yesterday we finally planted! I really hope we have some success. The kids seemed to be really into it.

I´ll talk about the other communities and my activities there in upcoming blogs... do you believe me?

In other news, I saw Seth, my world traveling missionary ex-roomate from U, this weekend. (http://sethbarnesjr.theworldrace.org/) It was a great and surreal experience. Great in that we caught up and had good conversations. And surreal in the fact that I played Settlers of Catan, a good strategy board game, Halo 1, and took the best two showers I´ve had since coming to Guatemala at the missionary´s house in Chimaltenango. It was kinda like being in college again.

Jueves, Viernes, Tarantula

Thursday and Friday are now my favorite days of the week, and possibly Wednesday too. I have successfully unwed myself with ADICTA and I believe that now we have a more healthy relationship as divorcees than we ever had while so intimately united.

Thursdays I now work in solely in Tuisinsé (possibly Wednesdays too) and Fridays in Armenia. As already reported, I told one of my NGO's that I was not pleased with my current working situation. I said that I wanted to work more on my own and focus on only two communities to start, because as things were, I was not accomplishing the goals of my program: to start family vegetable gardens to promote better nutrition in the homes of subsistence farmers.

ADICTA was very supportive of my taking initiative and helped me select and a couple nearby villages. Tuisinsé is right across the valley from my home, it's on one of the ridges below Tajumulco if you're looking at one the photos from my front porch. I could hike there in two and half hours I think. So far I've only hiked from about half of it and taken the surprisingly good public transportation they have here for the rest.

Yesterday, I visited a home near Tusinsé and we planned out their garden together with a neighbor. I'm going to return there Wednesday and we're going to plant, then I'm going to the neighbors house to help her plan her garden.

Side note: While in training I thought how can I teach these people anything; they are farmers, they're great-great grandparents were farmers. What's a punk kid with a philosophy and English degree and 3 months of training going to be teach them. However the truth is that many of the farmers here know how to grow corn and beans and that's about it. They have no or very little experience growing hardly ever any experience growing without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. My program promotes organic methods because it more feasible for the families because it uses resources that they already have, is safer and produces vegetables with more nutrients.

Side-Side note: Unlike in the states it's not a fad of the rich and informed to eat organic and local here, it's natural and a necessity. However, here chemical and organic produce is not differentiated in the markets. You could ask the vendors who are also the growers but of course they will say anything to get you to buy. So on the downside growers are not rewarded with higher prices for using organic methods like they are in the states, because here the people just want to buy the biggest watermelon. They don't care how it got that way or perhaps that it has less vitamin B, they just want that big one, and they'll pay more for it.
However, none of that really applies that much to my work because I'm working with small family gardens. The produce is for feeding the family, so it's irrelevant what price they can get in the market for it. The important thing is that it's feeding them (and feeding them well) and hardly costing a thing.

As you can see, I have faith in my program.

Back to my recent divorce from ADICTA, I went to Armenia today and was able to help advise Doña Elda Días with her little garden that already looked quite beautiful but was lacking a few major elements and later another family. Then afterwards in the group meeting we fixed up the demonstrative compost pile so it will actually start composting and made some progress on the group garden! It's really good to finally get into some work that I can sustain and have complete of which I have complete control. Meaning it's not dependent on program of ADICTA or Intervida which may or may not receive funding. This I can simply do.

In other news, this Tarantula scared the hell out of me a few nights ago. I was throwing a beetle out of my room that landed on my head while I was reading so I went to throw him out of the room and felt something touch my bare feet so I looked down and found this delightful little creature. I´ll post more pictures on flickr shortly, but I´m out of free space this month.

I was telling my landlord, Don Catilino, about it (he likes to come and hang out almost every night and chat. I think he's quite worried about me, and thinks me a bit odd for living in a house by myself.) When describing the incident, I just used the word "araña," spider, and after viewing the picture, he said, "no that's actually not a spider that's a 'tarantula!'" so he gave me a little life science lesson and then reprimanded me for not killing it. I really ought to have caught it and put it in a glass jar. I think Don Catilino is greatly entertained by me.

Volcan Tajumulco Yet Again

Tajumulco looms over my village Tejutla at a height of 4,220m or 13,845 ft. or 2.62 miles above sea level, making it the highest point in Central America. If you have a clear day you can see into Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, volcanoes around Xela, and if your really lucky volcanoes surroundingthe capital. It takes 4 to 6 hours to ascend and 2.5 to 4 hours descend.

Paul, Maureen, Kelly and I climbed it yesterday. It was the girls' first time, Paul's second (read about his first and my second on his blog), and my third. Kelly is a volunteer in village about an hour and a half from Tejutla, and Maureen is a volunteer in Huehuetenango. We were planning to climb and descend in one day, but bought 3 sleeping bags and a 3-person tent to share amongst the four of us in case something went terribly amiss. Or in case the weather looked like it was going to clear up, and we wanted to freeze our asses off in order to see a stunning red sunrise from the top of Central America.

We began hiking around 10am and it was a pleasant hike for the first half, mostly cloudy with some views. However, by the time we reached the summit there it was completely overcast with occasional distant thunder.

We had lunch on the peak around 2pm, grasping onto the slim hope that we would catch a glimpse of the crater, rumored to be used as a soccer field by some Guatemalans, or the afore mentioned spectacular scenery, but it only grew colder and the distant thunder became not so distant.


3:00pm: As we were descending it began to sprinkle, then rain,
then hail and rain. At first it this was fun and nice little something to take my mind of my aching right knee and exhausted and quivering legs. However, after sometime the awareness of my muscular fatigue returned and now I was cold, wet and a little worried we wouldn't make it to the base in time to hitch a ride back home to Tejutla.

But, of course, we arrived at the base at 5:30pm and twenty minutes later were able to catch a bus going our way. After arriving in Tejutla, we took hot showers changed put on dry clothes and made soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and watched a movie. All of us quite pleased with our decision to return and were not at that time freezing our four wet asses off on the mountain in a three person tent.