Adam Ventures

Volcán Santa María (large) & Santiaguito (nub on right slope)

Today marks 1-month that my fellow Sustainable Community Tourism PCVs and I have been in our sites. And what a month it has been! There are two things to be said about a Peace Corps experience. The first is that the days go by like months and the months go by like days. The second is that a Peace Corps experience is an emotional rollercoaster.

It has taken me a month to post another entry to my blog to kind of equilibrate with my new reality. Before moving here I lived in a conurbation, of sorts, of 25 000 people that was not 20 minutes away from Antigua, a touristy town with much to offer. In contrast, I now live in a town of 1200 people that is 1 hour away from the nearest city. It was a big adjustment and one that took a while. Whereas I had my choice of panadería and tined to get my snacks from, I now have just 1 panadería (still haven’t found it) and 4 tiendas (none of which sell Coca Cola!). Whereas I had a bus leaving for Antigua every 20 minutes, I now have 3 that leave all day. Whereas I could see my friends with no more than a 5 minute walk, I now have to plan out a weekend in XelaOr Xelajú, the Mayan name for the city (and also department) of Quetzaltenango and travel 2 and a half hours to see them.

It was a big adjustment to make and while I was adjusting I felt a little down. And it is never a good thing to post a blog entry when you are feeling down. But I am feeling better now about it all and I am excited to have received this site.

Since the last blog post the most important event to have occurred was our swearing in. On March 25th, 2011 Sustainable Community Tourism and Healthy Schools trainees became full-fledged volunteers. It was a grand occasion because it also coincided with Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary. It was such a big event we made the front page of the nation’s best newspaper (http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/Cuerpo-Paz-celebra-anos_0_451154918.html or here in English).

The event was held at the US Ambassador’s house in Guatemala City. Each trainee was able to invite 2 people from their host family so my mom and her sister came.

Me with my mom (left) and aunt (right). And it's a Guatemalan carry-all.

Santa Catarina Crew

In addition, there were many current PCVs in attendance as well. The event itself was a little boring and they ran out of food quickly. Later that night we had a blast though. How could you not with 200+ PCVs running around Antigua for fun and merriment?

After swearing-in weekend we went to our sites. For almost everyone else that means heading through XelaOr Xelajú, the Mayan name for the city (and also department) of Quetzaltenango but for me that means heading along the southern coast in an un-airconditioned bus in a tropical country. While the bus is in motion it’s hard to get too hot but when it sits in Mazatenango for 20 minutes you really feel the heat.

My first couple weeks in site were spent mostly helping out in the community organic garden (bok choy, herbs, vegetables, chiles, raspberries) or in the worm composting bins. However, since then we have developed a work plan:
Mondays — trail maintenance and construction
Tuesdays — community organic garden
Wednesdays — worm composting
Thursdays — flexible day, meant to be used for community events
Fridays — a day for me to run personal errands or errands for the association
Saturdays — a day of rest
Sundays — teaching English to 70+ kids and some adults

More on what each of those entails in future blog posts.

I also received my first package in the mail! Thanks Gram and all those involved in getting my soccer cleats and peanut butter chocolates here. There were very much appreciated. But what an adventure trying to get to it!

My community is an aldeaan outlying rural village of a larger municipality of El Palmar, Quetzaltenango, which means that anything sent directly to me stays in El Palmar. Therefore, I had to travel an hour and a half to El Palmar to receive my package. But I had never been to El Palmar before. Alone and unaided with but a few ideas of how to get there, I found the correct microbuses (think 15-passenger vans loaded with people, so many people that the first leg of the journey I had to hang outside the micro) and eventually found my way to El Palmar. Great, now where’s the Post Office? I arrived in El Palmar at 2pm on Friday and it was raining. I had to be back at a location 45 minutes away in an hour and a half in order to make the last bus to my site but up until now I had yet to locate the post office. I found it, but I found that it was closed as well. In the rain and with no knowledge of the layout of the city I asked around. As it turns out, the postmaster doesn’t hold regular hours at the Post Office. Everyone just knows to go to her house. “Oh, how do you get there?” I ask. “It’s above the health clinic on a little street.” Descriptive, no? But I found it! And my Reese’s peanut butter goodies were soon parted.

This past week was the major celebrated week — not day, week — in all of Guatemala. The week before Easter is called Semana Santa and its celebration takes on many forms. Locally that means that sweet bread (pan dulce) is baked on and before Tuesday to hand out to kids carrying dolls depicting Judas on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday evening and overnight the kids from the junior high create an alfombra, or rug, made of colored sawdust that stretches from the school at one end of the community to the church on the other end. There are various designs and icons that are made with the sawdust.

I’m sure it was all very beautiful. I was otherwise occupied with a bout of the Ole Bacterial Infection. Name a symptom of getting sick and I had it. Scratch that — my nose wasn’t running. And due to the fact that it was the holiest of weeks here all of the pharmacies (pharmacies that are an hour away, mind you) were closed. Luckily, a visitor who was visiting Loma Linda from Denmark left behind some medication that helped me get rid of the bacteria. Thanks, Cecilie!

Speaking of Cecilie, she spent several weeks here in Loma Linda graciously volunteering her time to help in the community organic garden, worm composting, cutting firewood and pacainaa decorative leafy plant exported to the US for use in floral arrangements for her family. She enjoyed her time here so much that she designed a flyer highlighting Loma Linda and giving advice on how to get here. She stuck these flyers up in XelaOr Xelajú, the Mayan name for the city (and also department) of Quetzaltenango about a week and a half ago and we have already received our first visitor as a result of the flyer. Congrats, Cecilie!

In other news, I have visited the nearest river here, the Río Ocós. It’s about a 30 minute hike down a steep hill and a 45 minute hike up that same hill. But it’s worth the effort expended!