viernes, 4 de noviembre de 2011

Kite Festival. Dia de los Santos.


November 4th, 2011

              Once again, it is election weekend. In Guatemala, the winning party needs to win by over 50% percent; however, during the last election on September 11th, this wasn’t the case and therefore, this weekend elections are being held again. Since SPJ (our site) was at medium risk for manifestaciones, my sitemate and I got relocated to another site. Out of the 270 some odd volunteers, only 7 of us needed to be relocated – go figure.  However, luckily we got relocated into the city of Santa Cruz del Quiche which apparently is not at risk for any uproar.  So, right now my sitemate and I are enjoying the free coffee, warm showers, television, and relaxing atmosphere of the hotel.  This is definitely a relocation vacation if I ever heard of one.  In September when we were relocated, we went out to a really rural aldea and stayed in 2 hotels. The first hotel was pretty much underground thus being really dark, cold, and boring. The next hotel was great –owned by a great family but definitely no warm water (or wait, actually any water at all). However, after 3 or 4 days, Jacob and I had already finished 2 books each and were ready to pull our hair out in boredom.  Therefore, Jacob and I could not be any more excited that we are staying in a great hotel in the ‘city’ where we will be able to venture out and do many more activities (go to the market, run, have running water, take WARM showers).
           So that leads me to finally being able to write a blog. I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks and am excited to finally be able to share it. At work, I’ve been working hard on preparing for my girls group called “Estrellas de Hoy” or “Stars of today” and my two soccer camps. The girls group in English is actually known as ‘GLOW’ or ‘Girls Leading Our World’. It started in Romania by a Peace Corps volunteer and is now in many countries including Guatemala. Various PCV’s throughout Guatemala have held GLOW camps or clubs which consists of girls ages 12-18 who learn about leading a healthy life, leadership, self-esteem, culture interchange, etc.      
                 Therefore, about 6 weeks ago I started a GLOW club in Primavera where the girls will meet every other Thursday. So far we’ve had 3 meetings including 1) A welcome meeting where they learned what the club will be, 2) the importance of exercise and 3) the importance of washing fruits/vegetables.  During the importance of exercise meeting, I gave a charla summarizing the things I learned with my wonderful Exercise Science degree and instead of just playing soccer they split up into three teams and had races including a potato sack race, wheelbarrows, 3 legged race, spoon with egg, and dizzy bat (and heather- no dizzy bat is not only a drinking game). The theme was how there are many forms of exercise and any activity that can increase your heart rate, even jumping in potato sacks, can be considered exercise. The meeting I had on Thursday was to teach them how important it is to wash the fruits and vegetables we buy from the market and what illnesses/parasites/worms we can get from not doing so (including giardia, solitaria, ascaris etc.) For the activity they properly washed carrots, cucumbers, peppers, and apples with soap/water, cloro, and peeling.  Each girl then had a little snack with the fruit mentioned above and some watermelon while we discussed what we learned that day.
                Next Thursday we have another meeting where they will learn about hand hygiene and create porta pillas (little hand washing stations made from a bottle, rope, and soap).

Here is actually a little calendar of what’s planned:
6 de Octubre – “Bienvenidos”, Formar un Comité (Presidente, Vicepresidente y Secretaria), Calendarios, Preguntas y Respuestas
 20 de Octubre –“Una Vida Saludable I” La importancia de Ejercicio
3 de Noviembre – “Una Vida Saludable II” La importancia de Higiene Personal – cortar, limpiar, y pintar uñas, Hacer ‘Porta Pilas’
10 de Noviembre –  “Una Vida Saludable III” Nutrición Balanceada – Los grupos de comida, Ensalada de fruta (higiene en la casa en la preparación de comida)
15 de Diciembre– “Intercambio Cultural” Mapa Mundial y clase de ingles
12 de Enero - “Intercambio Cultural” Idiomas de otras países, frases común en otras idiomas en otros lugares del mundo, ej.- francés, alemán, japonesa, portugués
26 de Enero – “Liderazgo I” ¿Qué es un líder? ¿Qué es una dama? Lideres mujeres y sus retos, PowerPoint de líderes mujeres en la comunidad
9 de Febrero – “Liderazgo II” Presentación de los lideres que ellas admiran. Una lideresa de la comunidad va a venir y platicar con las señoritas sobre sus vidas, opciones para el futuro y contestar preguntas
23 de Febrero – “Los Valores/Las Metas” ‘¿Qué vamos a hacer/Que vamos a ser en el futuro?’ Vayan a compartir sus valores/metas/aspiraciones/experiencias


               I also had the girls’ soccer camp this week but due to feriado “Dia de los Santos”, not many girls could come. The first day only 10 girls game but I learned that it is much easier to teach with smaller numbers. At first I was a little disappointed that after all my promotion , planning, and writing a solicitud to the muni, only 10 girls came. But, at the end of the day I was still content that 10 girls came despite it being a holiday. The next day, maybe about 15 girls came along in addition to 2 boys which I allowed since I was lacking in numbers. Next week there will be two days of a boys’ soccer camp. Anyway, the camp ended at noon; however an hour later they came back to play again. I had the girls group at 3:30, so we continued to play until the beginning of the group. So, all in all the camp lasted about 5 hours with the girls’ group right after for almost 2 hours.
            When I finally got a ride home in the back of someone’s pick-up at the end of the day, I was exhausted and felt like I could never kick another soccer ball in my life.  Mind you, that morning there was a road block due to protests and a pick-up dropped me off about 2/3 the way to my aldea.  As a result, I walked for about an hour with a large back pack and costal filled with about Q40 of vegetables, 1 soccer ball (luckily the other 7 were already in the aldea), lunch, a water bottle, plates, silverware, napkins, and my charla materials (including markers, crayons, colored pencils, a ruler, tape, scissors, and 3 posters). Needless to say, after that walk, 5 hours of soccer camp, 2 hours of GLOW club, getting sunburned, that pick-up ride back to my town was the best thing I could have asked for at that point. (Aaron- you know exactly how I felt at that moment).
                On a non-work related note, I recently had the amazing opportunity to truly experience what is “Dia de los Santos” or “Dia de los Muertos” in the Guatemalan culture. However, it’s not actually just one day but rather about 3 or 4. First, I went to the cemetery in SPJ one afternoon with my boyfriend to pay his respects to his father. When we arrived, his brother, cousins and aunts/uncles were already there laying flowers.  The cemetery was filled with people decorating the beautifully colored tomb-houses. To me, the cemeteries here look like little villages of miniature houses painted light greens, yellows, blues, and purples.  The next day we woke up at 4AM to leave for his home town and to attend the kite festival in Sumpango.  We arrived to the house he grew up in around 8AM where I was greeted by his large family. After eating breakfast with his brother and sister-in-law, we went to another room to drink coffee with cousins. Right after that, we went to his aunt house where we were given Pepsi and bread. Then, we went to the cemetery to pay respects to his mother and brother where we met even more of his large family. The cemetery was crowded with people visiting loved ones, selling kites, corn, chicharon, fiambre, amongst many more chapin types of food. We sat around the tomb-house eating, eating, and eating, all while the family asked me a thousand questions from life in the states to when I’m marrying their nephew.
               Finally running on chapino time, we arrived to the National Kite Festival in Sumpango around 3pm (4 hours later than planned).  The weather was great, the kites were beautiful, and I was in great company with several other Peace Corps volunteers. It was a wonderful afternoon of sitting in the sun watching the attempts of the kites fly. That night we had a great meal in Antigua then went home just to wake up again at 3:30AM to catch a bus back to site by 7:30AM.
            When I got back to site is when (after getting sick several times) I headed to my aldea for the soccer camp.
                  So that leaves me to this weekend, where I am thoroughly enjoying this hotel of wireless internet, television, running water, and clean towels. Last month during the last session of elections is when supporters of the losing party in our site started burning tires in the streets and threatened to burn down houses, 3 days after the election. We also got re-located then but when we came back 2 days later is when this incident occurred. This is when my boyfriend, Venoni, came running in my house yelling in fast Spanish to grab all my stuff because people were burning down houses and we had to leave. Therefore, Peace Corps decided to relocate us once again for this weekend of elections. Generally, our town really is calm though so don’t worry! Peace Corps is really on top of their game constantly monitoring media and weather for any dangerous plights.
                Well that’s all for now! This week I’ll be busy with the boys’ soccer camp, GLOW group, and a meeting on Thursday in another town.  Then the week after that, our training group has “Reconnect” which is a week-long session of training and Spanish classes and then that Sunday I will be on a flight to the USAAAA  to see my friends and family who I haven’t seen in almost 7 months by that point. Can’t wait to see yall in exactly 2 weeks from today! 

 Kite festival in Sumpango. Some of these kites actually fly with the ardent help from some determined folks who run full speed in attempt to put them in the air. 



Thank you Aunt Vicki, Uncle Pete, and Matt for the opportunity to give these kids a soccer camp; an opportunity they would never have had without you guys! 



Attempt at making something like an American hotdog! Actually was quite delicious!