other perspectives

So, yes, the trip is technically over, but there were a couple of last posts I wanted to put up.


I got to spend my last few days with the awesome Peace Corps people, Jaime (Jim) and Emily, pictured above supporting me as I was sick as a dog in Antigua. Although, for the most part, I felt like I reached a lot of the same conclusions as they did about Guatemalan life even in my much shorter period of time, we did have some different experiences.

For one thing, they knew that the Ministry of Health's budget was cut by a large percentage in order to finance Mi Familia Progresa, the program my host mother worked for. Mi Familia Progresa is a direct payment to women for keeping their kids in school, taking them to the doctor, and attending health talks. To me, it seemed like a good idea and not unlike what Jim and Emily are doing (they give health talks), but it turns out it's not so great in practice. There isn't enough money for it, and many of the women just get beat up by their husbands so they can take the money and go drink. I guess maybe paying the doctors and nurses at the clinics was a better use of health funds.


The other thing we differed on were tiendas (pictured above.) These little stores are found every few houses and sell pretty much anything you need on a daily basis. I thought they were kind of awesome: because you can always get fresh food, you don't need a big storehouse, you don't need to use a refrigerator, you can do all your purchases on foot (I think Guatemalans would find the idea of needing a car to go to the grocery store rather absurd, whereas it's one of the main reasons Americans won't give up a car), the food supply system is very robust (unlike America where several corporations control everything), and I also find the ease with which one can become a store owner or entrepreneur in general kind of appealing (no health codes, little startup cost.)

But, it turns out that there are downsides to the tiendas. They (of course) mark up the products- matches are 5 for 1Q at the market, but 1 for 1Q in a tienda. (They're probably 10 for 1Q if you go to the supermarket in Soloma.) So, families that are pretty poor are routinely paying 5x as much as they need to for basic supplies. It also (according to Jaime) contributes to a larger mentality of never planning ahead, and in fact, never having a need to plan ahead. And, it creates enough income to support a whole bunch of people who are not actually adding any value to the economy- they're not producing or improving anything, they're just transporting it to another place and marking it up.

I came across the not-planning-ahead mentality when I bought food for several days, and my host family ate a lot of it up the first day- they're just not used to my odd custom of stockpiling food.

I highly recommend Jim and Emily's excellent blog. I'm currently in the process of reading it from the beginning.

great and horrible

Upon returning, my mom said, “it doesn’t sound like the trip was that great, huh?” It was great... I had lots of incredible experiences that would be highlights of an ordinary packaged trip (guided trek, bus tour, study abroad program...)

These included:
-playing soccer with middle school girls
-drinking atol while watching chicks hide under their mother
-learning to wash clothes in a pila
-learning to make tortillas after taking the corn to the mill to grind
-learning to bathe in a Chuj
-getting an impromptu Q’anjob’al lesson from an old lady in a store
-being invited to stay in a house
-putting a little girl’s shoes on the right feet
-playing “which toy did I take away?” with a little boy
-watching a marimba band rock out in a wood shop
-having many “where are you going?” conversations with old people who speak no Spanish

But, I lacked many other everyday experiences... like walking on pavement, recycling a bottle, having a bathroom inside the house, turning on a faucet, or hanging out with anyone. I think the following things would have made my trip much better:

-having another outsider with me
-having a cell phone
-having a bigger project
-having a deck of cards
-staying with a family the whole time
-paying subjects
-knowing about the supermarket in Soloma

Having weighed the pros and cons- and without really being sure if it’s a classic case of liking what you suffer for- I’m somewhat sure I want to go back at some point in the next year. For one thing, the Peace Corps folks will still be there, and since I’m in SLA, it might be time for me to study people learning Q’anjob’al as a second language- I’d be able to study not only Jim and Emily, and the two new volunteers in a nearby site, but also Mariana and whoever else I can scare up who married a Q’anjob’al speaker. For another thing, why not put to use the connections I made and the tips I learned this trip? So, who wants to go with me?

Guatemalisms

Here are some phrases I didn’t notice before going to Guatemala, before I forget them all:

refacciones- snacks
para servirle- at your service
agua pura- drinkable water
frijoles volteados- really blended-up refried beans
atol- hot drink made of corn flour
mosh- hot drink made of oatmeal flour
gracias- said to everyone at the table at the end of the meal, even if they didn’t help prepare it (e.g. even to other diners in a restaurant as you leave)
buen provecho- proper response to “gracias” at the end of the meal
plancha- wood-burning “grill” stove
chuj- traditional sauna for bathing
corte- skirt made of lots of fabric (unshaped in any way) tied at the waist with a long belt
tarda (mucho)- it takes a long time
falta un poco- it lacks a little (e.g. rice that isn’t done yet)
de plano- obviously
pila- water basin/sinks
bueno, pues- to end a conversation
chompipe- turkey
tinaja- water jug
lo vas a tirar- you’re going to drop it (literally, ‘throw it’), said to kids
chupar- to celebrate by drinking (this one is funny, because it literally means ‘to suck,’ so I tried to get around it by saying “celebrar,” which cracked them all up because it means to celebrate something by praying. I’m still not sure if there’s a word just for ‘celebrate.’)

amoebas

So, I'm down in touristland-- Antigua-- and it's amazing how much more I appreciate it now than at the beginning of the trip. The toilets flush! (during the daytime when there's water pressure.) There are sinks with soap and sometimes even paper towels! The cheap hotel I'm staying in (thanks, Peace Corps people) is clean enough that I could go barefoot!

But, in keeping with my earlier Antigua experience, something has gone horribly wrong, and that something was a falafel. Jim and Emily didn't get sick from it at all- it came with lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, which I normally would eschew, but they make up at least half of the falafel experience AND the store had a water filter on the tap (and was run by a British guy.) So I ate it. Cue two days of lying around in bed because in a horizontal position is the only time my stomach doesn't hurt.

Antibiotics are doing nothing, so it's probably amoebas (a parasite common to here). But it's Sunday, so no medical attention. I bought a get-well kit of Coke, Gatorade, water, white rice, some packets that are supposed to "restore your intestinal flora," and (on the recommendation of the girl at the hotel), a packet of chicken noodle soup powder. It's supposed to restore the salt you've lost. Improbably, the chicken noodle soup seems to have done the most good of everything, enabling me to venture out to a nearby youth hostel and see Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I really didn't have particular goals to accomplish in Antigua because I've been here before and was only coming back to get some books from a Linguistics organization in a nearby suburb. But, the contact person's phone has been turned off for two days (straight to voicemail), and he hasn't returned my email, so it looks like the books are going to stay here (maybe Ryan can get them in the fall.)

The moral of the story? No matter how clean someplace seems, do not eat raw vegetables in 3rd world countries.

Hike

The fellow pictured here invited me to walk to an aldea with him to give his cows some salt. His family used to live there, but now the house is pretty much abandoned- they just store some random stuff there, like cow salt dishes.


He walks there (an hour) about twice a week to check on the four cows, who have an enormous green space with a stream for water (hence the ‘healthy glow’ they have in this photo). The cows are rotated between the area around the house and this field every two months, in order to let the grass grow. They just sell the cows- they don’t milk or eat them.


On the way, we passed a defunct hydroelectric plant:


And afterwards, we went to this waterfall, which involved a lot of scrambling and a somewhat dubious lookout point. It’s really enormous- it falls all the way down to tierra caliente- but was kind of hard to see.


Following the waterfall, we hiked directly up a hill for an hour in the (unusual) baking sun, which just about killed me- but at that point it was a point of pride to finish the 5-hour circuit on foot.

Modernity

It’s funny which artifacts of modernity have arrived here, and which haven’t. It primarily has to do with the portability of the objects. Putting up a cell phone tower and having everyone buy cell phones? Easy. Adding insulation to houses so they could be heated? Hard. Buying a car? Easy. Widening and/or paving the road? Hard. Creating a reliable supply of drinkable water? Hard. Hopping in your brother’s car and driving down to the spring to get some water when yours dries up? Easy.

The linguistics stuff I’m doing is pretty much done, but I feel like I could also write a paper on the mechanics of everyday life here. The pila is a favorite of mine. It can be filled by rain (through elaborate gutter systems), by a tap (which sometimes has water and sometimes not), or by carrying water. It’s usually full- in this shot it’s empty because Mariana was washing the tank. To wash things, you scoop the water up into the sinks with the red or blue basin, and it drains through the pipes that hold up the sinks. It’s ideal for taking an uncertain water supply and evening it out by storing water when available.


Every house I’ve been in has two stoves- the wood-burning “grill” is for making tortillas and making meals for the whole family, whereas the gas stove (with accompanying gas tank) is for making a quick pot of instant coffee or cooking something that has to be really hot. You’ll also note the microwave, which is hardly ever used, and never at night, because there’s less electricity then.


Mariana also has a refrigerator, but there are only about five things in it. Other families get by just fine without. Milk is powdered and cheese and meat are rare. There are a lot of people around to eat up leftovers quickly, food can stay hot on the stove, and the food sources are so close to the eating locations that things don’t go bad. Even the butcher doesn’t refrigerate meat (shudder.) There’s no need to stock up on anything because there are little stores every few houses- in less than two minutes you can get eggs, or sugar, or toilet paper, or matches, or whatever you might have run out of.


Basically, if all the corporations and government services stopped tomorrow, we’d be screwed, but rural Guatemalans could switch from lights to candles and carry on as usual.

fotos

Here are the aforementioned urchins in some of their cleaner states- the boy is four and the girl is five. For whatever reason, the boy calls me “señor.”




And a four-headed chicken:

The Old Man and the Milpa: