A Death in the Family

This past weekend was quite an emotional experience.  Only a week before, the patriarch of the family, Ceferino, 76, was completely healthy, waking up at 5 every morning and working until dusk.   Tuesday, I came across him when he was out working in the milpa (cornfield), and he told me he was feeling a little sick, and he thought he had the gripe (means the flu, but is used generally here to describe a host of illnesses).  Wednesday, he was feeling a bit better.  Thursday night, however, he was rushed to the hospital in San Marcos because he was having trouble breathing.  Friday morning, his daughter Lidia told me that the situation was grave, and that she and her siblings were heading down to the hospital to see him.  When they returned in the afternoon, they thought he was doing a bit better.  Saturday morning, I woke up to go running with Deysi and Mildred, but they didn’t show up.  Instead, I opted to get a long run in.  When I got back, I ran into the girls near the house and asked them why they hadn’t come.  They informed me that their grandpa had passed away during the night.

I walked up the little hill to the house to find a huge crowd of people in the courtyard, all crying.  I was wearing running shorts and a t-shirt, and was covered in sweat, so I quickly ducked into my house to pull myself together.  There were neighborhood women using my pila to wash clothes and blankets for the family, and other people were using my bathroom, so I didn’t feel comfortable bathing.  I toweled myself off, ate a 
bowl of cereal, and prepared myself to offer the family what consolation I could.

I stepped out of my house to find that the crowd of visitors had grown exponentially.  In Guatemalan culture, when someone dies, everyone who knows the family comes to the house to offer condolences, and the family feeds everyone that comes to the house for a few days following the death.  In the case of my family, this amounted to hundreds of visitors on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (one of the members of the family estimated that between 700-1000 people visited during that time).  Every guest was offered coffee, bread, and a meal.  It was quite a production.

I won’t go into all the details of the funeral, because this post would turn into a novel of sorts, but I will say that, through all the sadness, something truly beautiful took place over the weekend.  I had the opportunity to spend time with my host family during a very trying time, and as a result, I became closer with them than I would have ever thought possible.  They insisted that I eat every meal with them, and they invited me into the various rooms of their house to pass the time.  During this time, I had a bunch of opportunities to talk to them about myself and my culture.  They asked me what funerals are like in the United States, and I explained that it depends on the religion of the deceased.  Then they asked me about my religion, which is a subject that I’ve been a little nervous to broach with them, since I’m neither Catholic nor Evangelical, which are pretty much the only two options around here (when someone asks you, they don’t ask “what religion are you?”, they ask “are you Catholic or Evangelical?”).  I decided to take the opportunity to explain that I’m Jewish, and then explain a little bit about Jewish culture.  They were both understanding and accepting of my differences.

After the burial on Sunday, I returned to the house with the family, and one of the daughters of Ceferino, Imelda (mother of Deysi and Josue), invited me into her family’s room to watch to Spain v. Brazil soccer game.  We all sat on the two beds, and all of them fell asleep within minutes.  I quietly took my leave, exhausted from a very intense weekend, but content with the relationship I now had with my host family.

Sorry there aren’t any pictures to accompany this post… There was not an appropriate time to pull out my camera during the weekend.

A Week in the Life...

Sorry it’s been so long since I posted…  I knew I’d be bad at this whole blogging thing.  I’ve been in my site for almost a month now and I absolutely love it here.  My house is coming along really well, and I feel like I have almost everything I need to live very comfortably.  My schedule right now is pretty laid back, since school here is only ½ day, and I don’t yet have a ton of work to do out-of-school.  

On Mondays, I visit the telesecundaria in Tojcheche from 1:00 to 4:00.  Tojcheche is an aldea that is a 25 minute walk (all uphill) from my house.  The school in Tojecheche is my smallest, with 64 students.  A telesecundaria is one of the types of básicos (middle schools) in Guatemala.  Telesecundarias have televisions or projectors in the classrooms, and the classes are given using a video curriculum.  There are teachers as well; however they are paid very little because, technically, they are just facilitators.  The problem in Tojcheche, however, is that there are no televisions in the school.  Each classroom has 2 or 3 textbooks, and nothing else.  For this reason, the teacher slowly reads out of the textbook and the students copy what is read, word for word, in their notebooks.  As I sit in the classrooms to observe, I continually wonder what, if anything, is being absorbed by the students.

View from my walk to Tojcheche

The school in Tojcheche

Boys working on community mapping project in Tojcheche

Girls working on community mapping project in Tojcheche

Walk home from Tojcheche, trying to beat the rainstorm

 Tuesdays, I go to the Instituto por Cooperativa in aldea Chixal from 1:30-4:30.  A por cooperativa is a básico that functions somewhat like a coop school in the United States, with support coming from the government, the municipality, the teachers, and the families.  This is my second smallest school, with 67 students.  Chixal is located on the other side of a sizeable river gorge.  It takes me about an hour to walk there, and I typically arrive sweaty and out-of-breath.  Despite the hike, I really like the school in Chixal.  The director is a university graduate, and is constantly telling me he is at my service for anything I need.  Like the school in Tojcheche, Chixal has very few resources, however I think that the quality of the instruction is possibly slightly higher. 

The river valley I traverse to get to Chixal, which is located on top of the hill on the right side of the photo

The School in Chixal

Chixal

View from Chixal, Volcan Tajamulco in the middle, behind the clouds

Better view of Tajamulco (tallest mountain in Central America) from Chixal

After school on Tuesdays, my sitemates and I have “family night,” and we get together to cook meat and speak some English.  It’s really nice to have one dinner a week with my fellow volunteers.  My sitemates are Lauren, from New Orleans, who is a Healthy Homes PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leader – a third year volunteer in a leadership position).  Lauren has been in Comitancillo for 2 years, and will be here for 9 more months.  Charlie, from Ohio, is a Food Security volunteer, and he’ll be around until November, when he will be replaced by a new volunteer.  Emelye is from New Mexico and she was in my training class, however she is a Healthy Homes volunteer.  We also have Tina, originally from Saudi Arabia, and now more or less from North Carolina, who lives in Tuilelen, an aldea about 40 minutes away by bus.  Tina was also in my training class, and is a Healthy Homes volunteer.

Charlie grilling on family night

My sitemates!

Wednesday is the day I go to aldea Taltimiche from 1:30-4:30.  Taltimiche is a 45 minute walk which more or less takes me over a mountain.  I think it’s a little better than the river gorge, because I get to end on a downhill, which tends to reduce the odds of me arriving dripping in sweat.  Taltimiche is a slightly larger school, with 144 students.  The director has a habit of canceling school without telling me, or just not showing up, so I haven’t actually gotten a chance to spend any time in the classroom yet.  The students in Taltimiche have taken to me pretty quickly however, and I think it will be fun to work with them, if I ever get a chance.

Looking back at Comitancillo from the road to Taltimiche

View from the walk to Taltimiche

The school in Taltimiche

Thursday is my “office day.”  Technically, I spend the whole day, from 8-5, in the office of my counterpart, the superintendent of my schools.  Right now, I don’t really have 8 hours of office work to do, so I go to my biggest school, the INEB in Comitancillo, and play basketball in the morning.  I’m officially a member of the girls primero sección “b” basketball team, which basically means that, yes, I’m on a 6^th grade girls’ basketball team.  I need to note here that I really suck at basketball.  What I lack in shooting skills, however, I more than make up for in height.  I’m about a foot taller than everyone else out there, which makes me their secret weapon when it comes to defense.  I blocked like 10 shots during our last game, and we won 48-6.

Thursday evening, I have my Mam class from 5-7.  Mam is the local language in Comitancillo, while Spanish is their second language.  Learning a completely new language is proving to be pretty difficult…  I’ve mastered a few greetings and the numbers 1-10, and that’s about it.  The crazy thing is that I’m learning a third language using my second language.  I think the classes are helping my Spanish skills a little bit too.  Even though I don’t know much at this point, everyone loves it when I throw a word or two of Mam into a conversation.

Friday mornings, I go to the INEB in Comitancillo, which is by far my largest school, with over 250 students.  I spend the whole morning there, from 8-1.  Luckily, it’s only about a three minute walk from my house.  As with my school in Taltimiche, various activities and cancellations have kept me from spending any time in the classroom at this point.  I have a feeling like this will be my most challenging school, mostly because of the size, but also because it seems like the students aren’t as well-behaved as the ones in the aldeas.

The INEB in Comitancillo

Saturday, I eat lunch at the home of Wendy, the director of the telesecundaria in Tojcheche.  Wendy and her mom are attempting to teach me how to make tortillas.  I must say that I am getting better!  Last week we made blue corn tortillas and caldo de res (soup with beef and veggies), and it was quite yummy!  Like me, Wendy is 26 years old; however our lives are so different!  She is married and has two young children.  She’s also the director of a school, and works in her family’s store in the mornings.  I really like Wendy, and I think we’ll become good friends over the next two years.  Two days ago, she called me in the morning to tell me to stop by her house because she had prepared me a lunch that I could take home and reheat.

Sunday is market day, and I really enjoy walking through town and talking to people.  I’ve been here less than a month, however wherever I go people already know my name and want to stop and talk to me!  On Sundays, I buy a bunch of fruits and veggies, which are crazy inexpensive here.  I don’t know how I’ll be able to go back to buying $3 avocados in the U.S., when I can buy them here for 50 centavos (about 7 cents).

For the most part, that’s what my weeks look like.  I’m so new around here, I haven’t started up or gotten involved in any secondary projects.   During the week, I also spend time with my host family.  I occasionally join them for a meal, and I like to sit and talk with Lidia and Imelda, two of the women in the family.  Two of the girls, Deysi and Mildred, spend a lot of time with me.  We like to play basketball and soccer together, and they come over (sometimes with a whole crowd of neighbors) to watch movies about once a week.

Movie night at Lucy's!

I’ve also been trying to run more, however I’ve had some sort of bronchial infection since my swearing-in about a month ago.  After I run, I tend to spend the rest of the day coughing up nasty yellow stuff.  Regardless, I’ve been on some beautiful runs.  The people here are accustomed to seeing people run, and I always feel perfectly safe.  I even get to wear shorts!  Deysi and Mildred are probably going to come running with me this Saturday.

All things considered, I’m really happy, and I feel blessed to be living in Comitancillo.  The village is very tranquil, with virtually no crime.  I’ve yet to feel unsafe or threatened when I’m out and about.  When I met with my APCD (program director) a couple of months ago, he asked me what type of site I wanted.  I told him that I didn’t have a bunch of prerequisites or requests, because I was open to anything.  The only thing I told him was that I wanted to feel safe.  I feel like he put me in the perfect place.  I don’t think the next two years are going to be easy, however the fact that I have a home and a community that I love will certainly help.