Christmas Anticipation in Guate

As always, a lot has happened since I last posted (which is why I was busy not posting), so I will be sure to write some kind of synopsis of that last three to four months, very soon. It's been a whirlwind to say the least.

Nevertheless, I'd like to send my greetings to everyone in my support network from afar. If it weren't for letters, emails and visits from friends and family back home, my time here would not have been nearly as balanced and impacting in deciding how I hope to live my life in the U.S. and knowing the people by whom I want to be surrounded. Furthermore, if it weren't for the Guatemalans with whom I live and interact on a daily basis, I wouldn't have learned nearly as much. I'm grateful for all of you and I am excited to reunite in 2011!

Merry Christmas. Happy new year. Be well.

Still here...

It’s been over five months since I made my last post. If I was in college, I would have completed my longest stint abroad with little to no contact or update stateside. Here, I blinked and all that time just slipped by. While everyone in the U.S. is beginning a new school year, marked by new responsibilities and more structure after the long summer days, here in Guatemala, we’re wrapping up the school year and moving into the dry season, which is a welcome relief to see days completed with clear skies and sun.

I can’t cover it all; rather, I’ll make a semi-manageable list of some the anecdotes from the last five-plus months. I’ll do my best to record some highlights.

The 10 Best Things of the Past 5+ Months

1. Taking a day-trip to Lake Atitlan and visiting Pura Vida with my teachers of Chiquilá. The day was dedicated to learning about sustainable environmental practices and the potential of using plastic bottles filled with plastic, inorganic trash as “bricks” to construct walls for our pending kitchen expansion project.

2. Turning 25! I’m a quarter-century old. I came into Peace Corps when I was 23 and suddenly two birthdays have past me by. I look back on pictures from my 24th birthday and it feels like a lifetime ago – everything about my Guatemalan livelihood is different now.

3. Briefly crossing the border into Mexico for a quick vacation to San Cristóbal, Chiapas. Another PCV friend and I made the trip for a little diversion from Guatemala. Neither of us had been out of the country for over nine months.

4. A week-and-a-half-long visit from a close college friend. Miriam, was here researching service organizations and getting glimpse of Guatemalan culture, experiencing everything we could pack into ten days. We talked about vocation, life and laughed at pictures from our freshman year of college. And of course I celebrated another U.S. Independence Day in Guatemala, so Miriam participated in the epic Peace Corps Fourth of July party.

5. A nearly two week visit from my parents. After nearly a year of not seeing each other, my parents landed in Guatemala for a whirlwind adventure for their second time (their first visit being in 2007 when my sister and brother-in-law were PCVs). We set out for a brief visit to El Salvador and lounged on the Pacific Coast, before heading back to Huehuetenango, where they stayed in my site, visited a school and traveled down rough roads with gorgeous views. We laughed and cried – both crucial for the full experience.

6. Racing, racing, racing. I ran a half-marathon in Antigua, followed by a half-marathon in the mountains of Huehue, followed by a 10k in Chiantla. Perhaps the second of the three races was the hardest…of my life. My parents were still here, so I sent them up to the summit of the Cuchamatenes (the mountain chain in Huehue) with a Spanish-speaking taxi driver (my parents speak English of course), while I ascended 4,500 feet (reaching an altitude of 11,000 above sea-level). In a word: painful.

7. An epic day trip with my site-mate one weekend to Copavic recycling center in Cantel, near Xela. Copavic is the only place (at least relative to where we live) that recycles glass, so we went with two filled bags (“bags” being large grain sacks) of recyclables in tow, watched artisans blow glass and returned with our own useful blown glass dishware. In all regards the day was an adventure with stories that would likely only be funny if you had been there.

8. Sharing culture. This has been part of my job all along, but the number of English classes I’ve been teaching in site has exploded. I can never get enough of the conversations in the streets, meals with friends, or runs with Guatemalans who have rarely run for pure enjoyment before.

9. Independence Day lands on September 15. It’s a hard time to get anything done in school, but spending Independence Day in my community (as well as any other major celebrations) was exciting. My site-mate and I took pictures of all the kids in the parade and mouthed the words of the Guatemalan National Anthem that we knew.

10. Everything that has happened via candlelight. The electricity has gone out a handful of times in the last few months, but pass time spent in the dark is always more charming. Being without lights is a time for games, food, conversation and innovation. I’ve eaten tamales in the dark twice. I might think differently if the electricity was out all the time.

It’s been a full five months. I imagine the next five will be even more packed.


Re. point #4: My friend Miriam and me after a day of singing and lesson-observing at one of my schools.


Re. point #5: Part of my American family and part of my Guatemalan family merged during my parents' visit in August.


Re. point #5: My parents and me in Antigua before they returned to the U.S.


Re. point #6: Peace Corps friends and me at the Antigua half-marathon.


Re. point #7: My site-mate, another Peace Corps friend and me at the Cantel recycling center, practicing for our wine and cheese parties when we're stateside with hand-blown stemware.


Re. point #9: The Independence Day parade in San Se.

Bartering, Trading and Paying It Forward

My time in Guatemala is dwindling down to the final months. On a U.S. timeline, I might still have a pretty long haul forward, but in my Guatemalan mindset, I’m beginning to know what will get done and what just can’t be completed in the next seven months.

So though I wouldn’t really say I’m wrapping up, I’d say the big picture just isn’t such a far off eternity from now. And as I’m thinking about the end, I’m starting to think about the best parts of Guatemalan culture and wondering how I can incorporate those into my American lifestyle.

During training, we spent a long time examining culture and forming strategies for integrating once we landed in our respective sites. I remember reading about individualist versus collectivist concepts of self. The individualist puts his or her needs before those of the group and values self-reliance. Meanwhile, the collectivist depends on the group’s wellbeing to uphold the individual and values the importance of relationships.

Living with a host-family has been my most important experience of Peace Corps. I was hesitant to continue living with a family, wanting to regain some independence; however, it’s the interdependence of each other that I’ve learned to love. They help me. I help them. Everybody benefits.

Our typical collectivist interaction might follow this pattern: one of the kids uses some of my supplies for a school project, or one of the adults asks me for a couple of cloves of garlic for something she is cooking. Within a couple hours, the family invites me to sit down for afternoon coffee (a Guatemalan tradition, after the day’s work is done and sunset approaches) and fresh baked bread. Or perhaps I cook some kind of strange American dish for dinner (and it’s always fun to see their reaction when I say that a recipe like curry is Indian, but is popular in America…or any other variation on a dish that was imported into American culture) and give someone in the family a taste, someone else will turn around and give me a taste of their own tradition.

I know it will be different, but if I can have an open door with tangible and intellectual resources alike, to share in America, I know we’ll all have a better global understanding and compassion toward humanity, as long as our bartering and trading all circles back to paying it forward somewhere else.


Four of my Guatemalan roommates and me during the September 15 Independence Day celebrations.

Simply Simple

As I write, I’m relaxing amidst Semana Santa (Holy Week). Virtually everything in Guatemala has shut down for a few days and I have no choice but to enjoy the week for what it is. Guatemalan celebrations are usually rather prolonged events and if my inherent American fixation on time controls me, it’s grounds to drive me crazy.

I’ve been thinking back on the last year lately. I remember that Easter last year was my first big holiday away from home during my Peace Corps voyage. It was sad to be away from family, but I was also grappling for legitimacy in the community where I had lived for a mere two weeks. Fortunately, 12 months later, I have goals to drive me forward, friends with whom to enjoy passing moments, and a slightly more relaxed mindset to understand that if something doesn’t happen in a given day, there is always tomorrow.

I can’t say that every moment of Peace Corps can be civilly summarized in a short story or sound like an introspective look within, but such is the case in life. Still, the moments that are great, are the ones on which I’d rather center my focus and summarize my year in-site.

A kid asks to play a game or watches me cook. A friend asks me to play soccer or teaches me to break-dance. A woman tells me to take a seat on the bench outside the store while we chat. An acquaintance shouts my name in Mam, Kuẍ (koosh), and we have a mini-Mam-dialogue…Tinb’aj teya…Nchin b’eta. Another Peace Corps Volunteer calls me just to tell a funny story of what just happened to him or her. These are the snapshots that make life interesting, entertaining, pleasant, significant, and hilarious.

It’s the simplest moments that are most meaningful at the end of each day. Most of my pictures from Peace Corps illustrate such moments. The photos aren’t always great: I’m sweaty, my jeans have been patched five times over, or I feel ill. But those are the real moments.


Game night with friends. Age is irrelevant sometimes.


Another small friend who entertains me while I work in my room.


Kids flying as I spin them. One of their favorite routines, as well as one of mine...until I'm dizzy.


My break-dancing teacher and me practicing a basic move.


Why be clean when you can be stained with paint? On Día de Diablo (Day of the Devil), December 7, painted devils run in the streets and stain bystanders. Así es la vida.


Peace Corps friends always fuel me with positive energy before another week of work faces me.

Feria Fever

Feria (fair) happens once a year in San Se. The week-long festival honors Saint Sebastián who the pueblo is named after. Feria might be compared to town fairs or town “days” in the U.S. For my whole life at home, I experienced Maple Grove Days, where I worked at an over-populated pool, marched in a parade, or enjoyed fireworks. And in college, the city of Northfield became like kin to me, as I studied the story of the defeat of Jesse James and the Younger Gang, square danced with locals, watched the rodeo, or ran in the 15k.

In neither Maple Grove Days, nor Jesse James Days, did I ever feel pressured to witness and participate in everything…EVERYTHING. Since feria comes to San Se just once a year, Guatemalans do not take such attractions lightly. Peace Corps automatically forces an early bedtime, either due to waking up before dawn to travel up a mountain to school, or having friends who are 10-years-old or younger, who naturally go to bed earlier than a 20-something; however, my early bedtimes of the year past, made the feria all-nighters more challenging. If someone saw me making my way home at midnight, I was forced back to the park to watch people dressed in large cartoon-character costumes dance.

But perhaps it was the rueda (Ferris wheel) that proved most challenging in the wee-hours of the morning. The irregular eating schedule of constant street-food grazing might have been grounds for my Pepto Bismal dessert tablets, but for the first time in my amusement-ride-history, I felt nauseated. The rueda was operated with a small motor (maybe the size of one that belonged to a riding lawn mower), but the vueltas (turns) were fast enough to instill fear in even the most seasoned riders. Riding companions included an 11-year-old friend, a 21-year-old friend and her mother, and my site-mate. My total number of rides likely reached a dozen.

When the last day finally came and everyone seemed to be wandering in a sleep-deprived haze, we watched an impressive fireworks display and reveled in the community of San Sebastián, regardless of the long recovery time feria eventually forced.


A view of town from the medium-sized Ferris wheel, taken on one of many rides.


One of the more disturbing, yet awesome, costumes in the parade. The King of Pop is big in Guatemala.


A snippet from the grand finale fireworks at the end of the week.

12 months; 52 weeks; 365 days…

Written January 6, 2010

I’m at the year mark. I’ve officially been in the Peace Corps for one year. I have three months to go, before I’m at my year mark for having been sworn-in as a volunteer, but I think a year in-country was one of the first major hurdles.

And while a year has flown past me, relatively quickly, it’s a good time to think of all that passed in one year. In the last year, I have…

…said goodbye to friends and family at home, unsure when our next reunion would be.
…learned Spanish for the second time and used it to communicate, rather than complete a worksheet in high school.
…learned how to live on my own in a new world.
…intercepted four different families and lived with each for varied periods.
…eaten at least half my weight in tortillas and tamales.
…become an elementary school teacher of sorts.
…kept in contact with friends and family through emails, letters and phone calls, and come to know who is among my closest support network.
…seen two friends and a sister get married.
…said goodbye to my first Guatemalan host-mom who passed away in November.
…climbed to the highest point in Central America.
…ridden on public transportation day-in-and-day-out, ranging from large vans, pick-ups, trucks, and converted school buses (or otherwise known as the infamous camioneta or chicken bus).
…waited…and waited…and employed, as one fellow volunteer coined, “Zen levels of patience and cultural sensitivity.”

It’s been an enlivening, exhausting, thrilling, challenging, thought-provoking experience with about 100 different adjectives at the same time. I hope the next year continues to force acceptance, awareness, goals, justice, appreciation, humility, solidarity, values and progress.



Victory Climb - the summit of the Volcán Tajumulco. One year down.

Christmas in San Se

Once the fireworks began, Christmas had officially arrived; friends and family hugged and we got to eat our tamales. This was the very ambiguous sign for which I waited and anticipated the whole week before Christmas. As far as Christmas celebrations go, I can’t say that it was like anything I’ve experienced in the past, but the anticipation and the waiting and the quiet, followed by a fury of crackling in the streets and cheering from houses in the small pueblo of San Sebastián, led to a very rich experience to remember – one of the capstones to my first year in Peace Corps.

In years past, I’ve become accustomed to a church service in the early evening or late night, depending on the year. Relatives came to my family’s house, or we went to their houses. We would eat a big dinner. And often times, late at night, before we would go to bed, we would open gifts and prepare for more celebrating the next day.

Planted in my small town in Huehuetenango, I waited with the other Guatemalans who treated every hour until midnight much like any other day, completing various tasks or spending time with friends in nearby houses. But once 11:30 came around, we gathered and watched the clock, more than ready to eat and rejoice in the fact that Christmas had arrived.

I spent a couple hours with one family, waiting, watching the fireworks fill the sky, and devouring tamales in the half-coma that sets in when I wait to eat dinner after midnight. Later, I greeted my own Guatemalan family, the ones with whom I’ve lived during my months in-site, and gave the gifts my parents sent to share in the celebration from miles away. I ate four tamales and we went to bed around 2:30AM.

Christmas Day was rather tranquil, as we woke up late and lounged around, I played games with the kids, and we ate another meal. I’ve intercepted and adopted an entire family.

Oh, and the fireworks: if I ever had to describe my imagery of the Apocalypse, I’d likely describe Christmas Eve in Guatemala. Firecrackers burned in the streets and soaring explosives launched from house patios. Sometimes, in chaos, there is reason to celebrate.


Friends from town and me - just after midnight on Christmas.