WHAT WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM LAGUNA CHICABAL

I'm so proud to be featured as a guest blogger on my great friend, Lindsay McNamara's blog.  She is working hard stateside to make this world a better place and I am always excited when our paths cross.

Here's the link to her blog to check out my most recent post: http://lindsaymcnamara.com/2014/07/02/guest-blog-what-we-can-all-learn-from-laguna-chicabal/

I hope everyone's summer is off to a great start!

Immigration Through My Eyes

I’ve been in Guatemala for about a year and a half now.  Yet, I still don’t know what it’s like to be Guatemalan.  I know only what it’s like to be a white girl in a small indigenous village.  I could live here my whole life and I would still never be able to tell you how it is to be Guatemalan.

Still, my perspective has changed.  I’m not the same person who left the States 18 months ago.  The following quote has decorated my desktop for sometime because it rings so true:

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere.  That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”

-Miriam Adeney

I will never be completely home again not only because I will miss those whom I have come to love so dearly here in Guatemala, but because my perspective has changed.   I spent the first 21-years of my life in lily-white suburbia, but have now created a home and a life in Latin America.  My views on many issues will never again be seen through the simple lens of my own upbringing.

That’s because I care about Guatemala.  I don’t always like it, but I always care about it.  So, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the heart-wrenching news of child immigrants, crossing the border without parents, was not only important to me, but also headline news in America.  Though I may not completely understand either side’s view, my US Citizenship and time in Guatemala has given me a unique perspective on this issue.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t given me any answers, but I thought it would be worthwhile to share with you my thoughts.

Parents in Guatemala want the best for their children, just like parents in the United States.  So, what a twisted world it is when a parent believes their child is better off without them in a foreign country than she is at home.  I don’t think I could ever bring myself to make this same decision, but I am also certain that I would never raise my child in Guatemala, particularly a daughter.  So, my unanswerable question is, “After seeing the realities of childhood in Guatemala, how can I blame parents for looking out for their children the best way they know how?”

Unfortunately, this is the best way many parents know how to take care of their children.  One of the earliest and most disturbing things I learned about Guatemala is that success here is defined by going to America.  When you ask children what they want to do when they get older, it is not unusual to hear them say they want to go to America.  It is much more unusual to hear that they want to move to the city to get a job, or be a doctor, or continue their education past high school.  It’s as if the whole country has given up on itself.  The only way they see to provide for their family and make something of themselves is to leave Guatemala.

The widespread desire to immigrate to the US, either legally or illegally, exists despite the well-known danger of the journey.  It’s not unusual for a Guatemalan to leave for the States and never be heard from again.  It is a hazardous trip, but one many feel they must make in order to make their life count. 

Those who do make it to the States send back money, which essentially supports the Guatemalan economy.  They stay for as long as they can, because, if they are illegal, once they leave they must make the very perilous journey again if they wish to go back to the US.  For this reason, there are many father-less families in my small village, even teenagers who have never met their father because he has been in the US their whole life.

To make matters worse for Guatemala, the US makes it a priority to send back the illegal immigrant criminals.  Gang members and drug lords return to a country with low literacy rates, ineffective law enforcement, high unemployment, and many father-less children.  I understand that the US can not be the world’s policeman and the world’s warden, but by sending the worst criminals back to unstable countries while keeping many of the same country’s most hard-working and educated citizens, we are truly preventing any nation from “developing”.  (If you know English in Guatemala, chances are that you are fairly well educated.)

Like I said, living in Guatemala hasn’t provided any answers.  If anything, it’s made the whole debate about what the US should be doing right now more confusing.  However, it is clear that in the long run the real way to reduce immigration is to help make Mexico and Central American countries ones that their citizens want to stay in.

It’s a dark day in Guatemala.  Last year, the country celebrated the conviction of Rios Montt, the first leader to be convicted of genocide in his own country.  However, the ruling was quickly overturned for procedural reasons.  This May, the Guatemalan Congress passed a resolution denying the occurrence of genocide in their country.  These events weigh heavily on a country still recovering from a 36-year-long civil war.  The cruelty of the war, which ended in 1996, left a legacy of violence, directly contributing to many of the country’s current problems.

Sex slavery, drug routes, rape culture, murder with impunity, inadequate educational institutions, and the inequitable fruit and coffee industries are just some of the reasons I would not want my children to live in Guatemala.  All of these things have worsened over the past few years in a country that is only a three-hour flight from Miami.  Those of us in Guatemala are not surprised to see people leaving in increasing numbers and if more Americans knew what was happening here, they wouldn’t be surprised either.

Yet, the US can not play babysitter to thousands and thousands of parent-less immigrant children.

So, as we search for solutions, I ask only that you learn about why people are making what has to be one of the toughest decisions of their life – sending their children on a dangerous journey to a different country.  Secondly, consider how immigration policy in the US affects these Latin American countries.  In the end, their problems are truly our problems because their citizens will continue to risk everything to leave until there is opportunity at home.

Expectations vs. Reality

Hello All!

I have now been in Guatemala for a whole year!!  (WOW, where did that year go?)  I have one year left and it's interesting to see how the reality of Peace Corps has already been so different from my expectations.  Here's a look back at what I've learned so far!

Expectation: Spanish was going to be impossible to learn.
Reality: It's rough to learn a new language and sometimes it's really frustrating to feel like my personality still doesn't show through while speaking in Spanish, but I have definitely "learned Spanish" and the fact that it is my second language no longer really affects my work.  I have actually grown to really love the language and I hope that future jobs allow me to use and continually improve my Spanish skills.  It's a really neat feeling to realize that your vocabulary has expanded without really studying - just speaking and listening to Spanish on a daily basis.  I guess when you need Spanish to eat and work and make friends, your brain just gets to work.

Expectation: I would be camping for two years.
Reality: I live in a house complete with a full kitchen, an "activity room", and even a dog.  While I usually spend a few nights a week without electricity and/or water, my life is pretty comfortable.  I can get internet access using a USB I can get to the second biggest city in Guatemala in just about an hour.  To be sure, I miss certain comforts from home - like washing machines, dishwashers, and cars - but I love my little village of Cajolá and I am comfortable here.

Expectation: I would be constantly battling bizarre illnesses.
Reality: To be sure, there are some nasty bugs you can pick-up here and I've caught my fair share of them, but it usually passes quickly.  My least favorite illness so far has certainly been the fleas, which seem to plague me.  Let's hope this good fortune continues.

Expectation: I would have a hard time keeping busy.
Reality: There is way too much work to do!  My days are full and (generally) happy!  While the work description was initially quite vague, I now have more ideas for the work than I know what to do with.  My official counterpart, the superintendent of my schools, is very "machismo" and difficult to work with, so I have identified health center staff, principals, and teachers who are much more rewarding to work with and who have many ideas of their own.

Expectation: All of my work would be in my village.
Reality: While most of my work is certainly right here in my village, there is a lot of interesting work that many volunteers do for the Peace Corps organization.  For example, I worked on creating a Peer Education manual that volunteers and Guatemalans alike can use to implement Peer Education programs in their schools.  One of my favorite Peace Corps tasks was working on the monitoring, reporting, and evaluation team.  We wrote "data sheets" for new project objectives, created tools to help volunteers with the MRE process, and then helped our peers to report on their progress using Peace Corps' official Volunteer Reporting Form.

In the end, my life is different than I imagined and I am also happier than I ever imagined I could be in Peace Corps.  I have an amazing network of Peace Corps friends and Guatemalans with whom I can commiserate on the bad days and celebrate with on the better ones!  It is the people I have met who have truly made my service what it is.  I already dread the day I have to say good-bye to them.

Well, one year down and one to go!  Thanks for reading!!

¡Feliz Navidad!

I have now spent more than 10 months in Guatemala and these ten months have brought me tremendous happiness as well as abundant opportunity to learn a thing or two.  So, here are  10 lessons learned from my 10 months in Guatemala:

1.    You can not rationalize the irrational.  You just can't.
2.    Good people exist everywhere.
3.    No one is going to stand up for you if you don't stand up for yourself.
4.    It's better to do your dishes as you go along and not let them pile-up.
5.    You never stop missing hot showers.  Don't ever let anyone tell you that you will.
6.    Sometimes, the best thing you can do is close your eyes and repeat to yourself, "This is fun."
7.    Having fleas is the absolute worst.
8.    There is no replacement for being flexible.
9.    It's okay to do nothing once in a while.
10.  Families are created and exist in the strangest of places.

Here is a picture of my Peace Corps family.  Christmas came a little early to Cajolá when 12 of my favorite Peace Corps Volunteers came up to celebrate!  With a little bit of teamwork, we ate 2 stuffed chickens, 5 pounds of mashed potatoes, 2 dozen carrots, 2 pounds of green beans, a squash casserole, 40 dinner rolls, a strawberry-chocolate cake, and brownies!

I can't believe I've only known these fools for ten months, because I have never been closer with a group of people in my entire life...

P.S. We actually are happy; we're just using our Guatemalan picture faces.  They almost never smile in photos!

Merry, merry Christmas to all!  I hope that you enjoy celebrating wherever you are and whoever you're with!

A Camp in Cajolá!!

Last week was one of the craziest of my life because my sitemate and I pulled off a camp for the boys and girls of Cajolá!

This process started about 3 months back when we approached the health center and told them about the idea for the camp.  We asked the health educators if they thought it would be useful and what health problems they thought we could target with the camp.  They enthusiastically responded that they wanted to bring a camp to Cajolá and they wanted to give girls and boys the tools avoid adolescent pregnancies.  (There is currently an effort in Cajolá to end pregnancies in girls younger than 14 years - yes, that is a major problem.  Cajolá has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in all of Guatemala.)

So, we decided that we would have a week long camp geared towards kids ages 11-16.  Girls would come in the morning for four hours and boys would come in the afternoon for four hours!  Over the next few months we worked with the eleven health educators to solicit funds for the camp, invite participants, and plan the lessons.  Each day was designed with a different theme and each educator was assigned to a specific day.  The health educators were responsible for attending their assigned day and designing the lesson plans.  The results were varied.

A few educators took to planning with gusto; they scouted for resources, asked questions, and prepared materials.  A few other educators didn't show quite the same initiative and left my sitemate and I scrambling to prepare materials at the last minute.  All in all, we were more happy than frustrated with the participation of the educators and very pleased to receive such support from their boss and the coordinator of the health center.

The week before the camp started, Whitney and I put on a two-day workshop for the educators titled, "Effective Strategies for Teaching Health".  This is definitely the part of the camp process that I am most proud of.  The workshop covered everything from the learning cycle to preparing for lessons to gender equality in the classroom.  I hope to repeat this workshop with my teachers sometime during the school year and I hope that other volunteers have the opportunity to replicate the workshop in their sites.  Here is a picture of the coordinator of the health educators leading a session on the "learning pyramid:

Finally, it was time for our camp to start!  We didn't know quite what to expect and tried to prepare ourselves for anything that may happen.  The theme of Day 1 was "Our Camp".  We played games, got to know one another, talked about self-respect, and drew flags to represent ourselves and our futures (pictured below).  The surprises of the day included the fact that the kids who came were younger than the kids we expected and the boys were way wilder than we expected.  My favorite moment of the day was when a health educator was talking about self-respect and one of the Cuban nurses shouted out, "If a boy tells you you are ugly, you tell him he's ugly!"

So, we adjusted our lesson plans to suit younger kids and decided we couldn't ask the boys to stay engaged in any one activity for longer than 15 minutes.  (Hence, many capture the flag breaks like the one pictured below.) 

We got excited for Day 2, which had the theme "Our Values".  We talked about leadership and put on skits where the girls and boys acted out situations that gave them opportunities to be leaders (pictured below).  We talked about respect.  The boys created some rules for the camp that we relied on for the rest of the week and really helped them to be more respectful campers.  The girls created flowers that showed how different each of us really are (see picture below).  We also learned about teamwork through some really fun games.

However, Day 2 was not without it's struggles.  A boy got bit by a dog while we were playing basketball and we had to take him to the health center to get vaccinated for rabies.  He was a real trooper and continued to come to the rest of the camp.  Also, on Tuesday afternoon, many of the health center staff find out, that at the end of the year, they are getting laid-off or transferred to a different health center.  This really killed morale and the health center staff stopped coming to the camp, with the exception of the a nutritionist and two amazing Cuban nurses (one of whom is pictured below) who came everyday.  This was a big, big downer for Whitney and I who had invested months in the health center staff and had really seen this camp as a collaboration between Peace Corps and the health center.

Luckily, in the true spirit of development workers, Whitney and I were prepared for just about anything and we had other Peace Corps Volunteers to help in case the health center staff fell through.  These traveled from near and far to help and share their expertise and we couldn't be more thankful. 

The theme of Wednesday, which was the most fun day if you ask me, was "Our Bodies".  The nutritionist came to talk about nutrition (pictured below) and we drew plates of a balanced meal.  We also played hygiene jeopardy.  Best of all, one of the other Peace Corps volunteers talked about exercise and led us in a Zumba class (pictured below).  All of the kids participated and it was an absolute blast.

The theme of Thursday was "Our Families".  While the younger kids played games (pictured below), the older kids talked about puberty, the dangers of adolescent pregnancy, and played a version of the game of Life, which highlighted the financial benefits of staying in school, having fewer kids, and waiting til later in life to have those kids.  It was a lot of information on some very heavy topics.  So, of course, we ended with some games!!  All of these lessons were very tricky to navigate culturally.  We could discuss the science of each topic, but had to be really careful about the opinions that we gave, especially concerning birth control.

Finally, Friday came, and with it the theme "Our Futures".  Both boys and girls attended camp together in the morning as we created our "life plan".  Each kid wrote one sort of exercise they wanted to continue doing, the career they wanted, something they wanted in their future family, three goals that they had, and they drew their future house.  Probably the highlight of my whole week was seeing that a little boy had written, "I want an intelligent wife".  Then, we celebrated with more games and finally had a diploma ceremony.  Pictured below are all of the graduates with their diplomas:

At the end of the day, like most things in life, the good outweighed the bad and I am so happy that I had the opportunity to share this experience with the kids of Cajolá.  They have been out of school since October, which means many of them have barely left their house in the past three months.  I am happy that together we learned, we danced, and we acted silly.

The health center in Cajolá was just ranked 320 out of the 334 health centers in Guatemala.  I am certainly not happy about this, but it did make me feel a little better that it wasn't just Peace Corps Volunteers that they are having a hard time working with.  Next year, with new health center staff and a few lessons learned in our back pocket, I hope that we can do an even better job creating a camp experience for the kids of Cajolá!

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: School Year 1 is over!

Instead of the usual cheerful pumpkins, crisp apples, and bright fall leaves this October brought something it never has before - the end of the school year!

During my first school year, I was concerned mostly with getting to know the schools and having them get to know me.  At each of my 14 schools, I completed introductory visits, school mapping with a class or two, and formal baseline evaluations. 

With all of this time in the schools, I learned that there is a lot of work to be done, but a lot of people to help me do that work!  I have begun to identify the movers-and-shakers of each school to help me put some plans into action over the next school year (which begins in February)

So, here is where the schools stand right now:

• Many schools have to burn their trash, often right in the middle of the children's play area.
• I did not see one kid wash their hands with soap and water after using the bathroom.
• Some of the school kitchens create a lot of smoke which often leaks into classrooms.
• Many of the schools have gym teachers, although I have some ideas about how to make gym class more effective and fun.
• Teachers are supposed to be teaching health twice a week, but this never happens.
• A few schools lack water, bathrooms, classrooms, or faucets to wash hands.
• All schools serve their children snack every day!
• Some schools have begun to cultivate school gardens!

In each school, the Healthy Schools program, which is national, government initiative needs to be strengthened by strengthening the administrators (principals and teachers) in charge of it.  There is plenty of room for growth and plenty of people who want to see that growth happen.  I will spend much of my school break planning for the "Year of the Healthy Students" which I will roll out in my communities next year!  Much of my job is just to provide the enthusiasm to focus some of the work that happens regarding the program!

Until February, my Peace Corps service is sort of a "create-your-own-adventure", so stay tuned for some of my fun in the Health Center and with the youth of Cajolá!

Here are a few pictures from my school visits!

Kids' Group

One thing that most people probably don't know about the Peace Corps is that it is about much more than "world peace and friendship".  While this remains the vision of Peace Corps, the way this goal is accomplished is through cutting-edge development work.  Like the rest of the development field, Peace Corps is setting its sites on SUSTAINABLE development.  For the volunteer, this means lots of reporting, monitoring, and pausing at every step to make sure that their work is sustainable in their community.  While the whole "sustainability" thing is the very point of Peace Corps and the reason I was attracted to this organization, it can make slow-moving work in a slow-moving country, go even slower.

So, every once in a while, you have to cut yourself some slack and do something because it is FUN.  That's where Kids' Group comes in.  I was lucky enough to inherit this awesome group of kids from previous volunteers who had worked with them in my site.  They are a happy, intelligent, kind group of kids and I love working with them. 

We meet one or two times a month.  I simply put a sign up on my door a few days before and they come to my house for games, cooking, and a little bit of learning thrown in.  Recently, I've been inspired to focus our activities around environmental education.  This is something that I think can be really fun, but right now there really isn't space for it in my primary project.  

This week, we composted!!  We began by identifying organic and inorganic trash and talking about what we could do with each type of trash.  Then, we moved on to learning about composting and making our very own compost with California red worms!!  We cleaned up and enjoyed a well deserved snack afterwards!

It might not be the most "sustainable" or "important" aspect of my work, but spending an afternoon with these bright kids always feels like time well spent!