A Different Kind of Life: "How many of you have a 'toilet' in your house?"

July 29th, 2011

The past few days have been quite entertaining in the aldea. Feria ended on Monday, and since there are absolutely no trashcans people just throw their trash on the ground. Thus, Tuesday morning my counterpart and I recruited the school to clean up the trash. We only had two pairs of gloves in which my counterpart used both of his, I used one and gave my other to one of the girls. The rest of the students picked up the trash with their bare hands. And mind you, after, the only students I saw wash their hands were the ones that followed me back to the Puesto and I reminded them to wash their hands – some of which disregarded the soap until I reminded them of that too. We only had 14 trash bags and all were filled within less than 30 minutes. If we had more bags or gloves in general, this clean up would have been exponentially better. But still- it was still 14 bags worth of trash less on the ground. We then carried it about a half mile up the mountain where we threw the trash in a landfill type of thing. There was already a massive amount of trash there and it had only been serving as a landfill for 15 days. But, guess it’s better that people are using it instead of burning!

Later that day, I played soccer with the girls from the school who I find absolutely adorable playing soccer in their traje. It’s the cutest thing to see these girls running around in Mayan indigenous outfits without shoes while getting super into the game.

The next few days I worked on my charla materials in the Puesto – posters on the ‘Ciclo de Enfermedades’ (Cycle of sickness/contamination), the importance of latrines, Marquita Cochinita story, ways of contamination of agua and prevention, and the importance of boiling/purifying water. After procrastinating all week working on other charla material, I finally did my first charla in one of the schools with the help from my counterpart. The school is receiving their first latrine – or toilet. Before, the students had to use the field for their bathroom. Therefore, I had a little model of a school, a field, and little rocks as examples of their ‘popó’ scattered throughout the field. I then had a model mosca (fly) made of a toilet paper role, with wings, eyes, and body made of white, green, and black bags ive got from the stores here. Anyway, I then talked about the two situations of the school, with a latrine and without, and how the mosca spreads microbios y parasitos from their popo to their food then inside their bodies. My counterpart then finished explaining the cycle of contamination and connected it all. My Spanish was lacking due to my nerves and my counterpart really helped me out a lot. Poco a poco!

I then played soccer again with the same girls from earlier in the week and finally am starting to remember their names- some which include “mediam, dina, adelina, aubra, 3 maria’s, 2 christinas, and at least 2 ana’s..” Oh, all which have second names they use as well – but if I could only remember or pronounce half of their first names maybe I could begin with the second. But, then again… they cannot pronounce my name for the life of them. I was supposed to change my name when I left training, but I couldn’t think of one and kept planning on changing it later..however that never happened. Therefore, I currently have 4 names – Chelly, Charlie, Carla, and Chelsea. I now have figured out that depending on the audience I can sometimes say, “You know, like the soccer team from England…Chelsea!” and, sometimes…they get it and will thus teach their friends. During the soccer game, I kept hearing my name and looked over and two girls were facing each other simply attempting to repeat my name over and over. It was adorable – “Cheshee, Chachee, Charchee, Charlie..?”

Other things not entirely related to work – I have realized my living situation should probably be classified into the family of camping. I have a two-top burner that sits on a bench in my room in which I sit in a chair at its level to cook. I cook beans out of a can, salsa from tomatoes and onions, eggs, and rice…all of which are usually eaten from the pot or pan. And legit cut from my pocket knife (I have yet to buy a real knife). Also, I brush my teeth and wash my face outside...often in the rain. My bathroom is also outside, therefore, when I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom I venture out to my backyard. Often times I find a host of little creatures crawling on the floors and walls that run to little secret hiding places when I turn on the light. It’s like a magic trick. I wish the host of creatures in my room played this game. I often find myself shaking out mostly all of my clothes before I put them on now. When I put on a shirt (from my suitcase) this week, I felt a little itch on my back throughout the morning but couldn’t shake it so I figured it was probably the hook on my bra-strap or something. However, around 10am (4 hours later) I discovered the annoying little itch was a tiny centipede-like insect stuck in my tank top. Jealous yet? Also, the other night I woke up to a constant buzzing in my ear but couldn’t get rid of it, so due to being half asleep I ignored it and fell back asleep. I woke up the next day with about 8 bites on my face and neck. At this point, I wish I had kept up with my malaria pills. Oops.

But, throughout living this camping life and daydreaming about a walmart – where I could purchase a fitted sheet, a lufa, and a normal toothbrush (oh the little things), I have truly appreciated the way Guatemalan’s live. Of course some live in nice houses with normal bathrooms, showers, and everything. But, the majority absolutely does not have this luxury.

In my aldea, LESS than half have LATRINES. This means more than half use the fields for their bathroom. Also, a large quantity does not have running water in the house. This means they use water from the wells, located in the fields where they use the bathroom. No wonder why diarrhea is an everyday activity in their lives. In my next blog, I’ll include the exact numbers with these facts. It truly is incredible. For example, at the beginning of our charla today, my counterpart asked the class, “How many of you have latrines in your house?” I mean, could you imagine in elementary school in the U.S if someone came into your classroom and asked “How many of you have toilets in your house?” We would have looked at them like they had 10 heads. However, this is the reality here.

Well, I have another long day tomorrow so I’m done writing for now. But, thanks for reading and I’ll continue to update as I learn more about my community!