October 21, 2024
When I first flew into Guatemala, I was struck by the ubiquity of green. The whole country seemed to be a forest. From the air at least, all seemed pristine and clean: idyllic. But from such a vantage point, the country was also impersonal, abstract. All I had to go off of were facts from a few books I read and anecdotes from friends who were either from here or visited once upon a time. Now, I am about a month and a half into my 27ish month commitment to this place, and a once unknown land is becoming home. In case you've forgotten (or perhaps I never told you!) I'm with the Peace Corps over here in the Youth in Development sector. We are seven weeks deep in our ten-week training and on November 5th, I find out where my site placement will be for the next two years, wahoo! Right now though, I am in a little town in Sacatepequez about halfway between Guatemala City and Antigua. There are 27 folks in my cohort, and we fill our days with training sessions in the PC office, and language and culture classes in our communities. And of course there is always extra time for card games in cafes and soccer scrimmages wherever there might be a field. We've had to interview jóvenes (kids 13-18 year olds) and youth service providers. Last week, we went to an INEB (basically a middle school), broke into groups and made community maps with the kids. It was basically an exercise in naming and defining the resources and assets their communities have to offer and also gave them space to discuss areas in which improvement is needed in their town. Some kids thought it was an awesome activity, some did not, and some were so tímidos it was hard to tell what they were thinking. But that's okay! I'm sure we all learned something, right? Needless to say, it'll be interesting to see where I end up and what organizations I'm paired with to work alongside of!
Slowly but surely, Guatemala has taken on depth, texture and complexity as I have become immersed in her richness and exposed to her pain. There is an inequity that hangs over Guatemala, tracing its roots back to la colonia. The vestiges of the power structures of those days remain salient today. Very few people control very much of what goes on here. Corporations have weaseled their way in, and subtle marketing has ensured that Coca Cola is a more popular and quotidian beverage than agua pura. A proliferation of junk food and poor harvests have coalesced to make Guatemala the sixth most malnourished country in the world. Recent history is not taught. The civil war is rarely discussed and the collective trauma that many have written about and researched--the memory of victims that the
Truth Commission exhorted the Guatemalans preserve--is swept under the already sodden and trampled upon doormat. Many girls are quite timid, many men quite traditional. Yet women are working outside the home in increasing numbers in order to help their families get by in a tight economy. Chuchos (stray dogs) roam the streets and remind me of the strays in Thailand (a continuing contribution to the reasons I don't love dogs). On my morning runs, my greatest fear is of those dogs, not of other people. The exhaust from the cars often stings my eyes and there is rarely silence outside my house.
But the sun rises gently, and the light drifts softly through the forest as I run. The volcano nearby erupts regularly and the plants outside my room me saludan y me despiden as I go about my days. The food is fresh and usually flavorful; colors abound at most meals. Ojas de plátano wrap tamales, paches and even queso fresco. Corn is in anything and everything-- rice, chuchitos, tortillas, caldos, pupusas, tamales, elotes, atoles, tostadas, pies even. Its sweet scent wafts out of the tortillerias into the street as I walk by around meal times, and the molinera (where the corn is ground up for the masa) is always full of whirring and churning sounds. The walks to the Sunday market are sweet and the time spent cooking with my host mom soothes something inside of me. Her cariño and kindness make me feel seen and loved. Whenever we walk around town, she introduces me as her "chica" and takes a curious amount of pride in my Spanish abilities and that I "como de todo" ( eat everything). I feel a bit like a wee chick being ushered along by a mother hen, even as I tower above my diminutive Guatemalan host. The Guatemalan Peace Corps staff are hospitable and patient, offering their time and talents to each group of trainees that passes through. They are generous with their stories too, sharing with us the horrors they lived through during the war, personal experiences with gender and sexuality in Guatemala, and an abundance of frases chapinas (Guatemalan slang) that we try to weave into our everyday lexicon. We dance and laugh and eat the tortillas that we made together. It's hard to believe we haven't even been here two months, so much feels familiar already.
As with anywhere at any time, Guatemala, this tierra de muchos árboles, is filled to the brim with beautiful and terrible realities. I've barely scratched the surface here. It would not do this place justice to romanticize its glories nor trivialize its pain. The two go together. The darkness and delight are just as inextricably linked here as they are in each of our lives; as cumbersome and ambiguous as such an idea would seem, it is nothing but the truth. I am beyond grateful for the time I've spent here and simply so stoked all that is still to come and the plethora of things I have yet to learn. My brain is perpetually in Spanglish so this update is as well:) Stay in touch! Mail is a no go here, but I am always open to new email pen-pals or texts or voice memos!
vocab:
paches: potato tamales
saludar and despedir: say hello and goodbye
INEB: Instituto nacional de educación básico (school for 13-16 year olds)
chuchitos: a different type of tamal more similar to mexican ones than guatemalan ones if that means anything to you
tímido: shy
pupusas: salvadorian stuffed tortilla
caldo: soup ish meal
atole: type of hot drink
cariño: care
ojas de plátano: banana leaves
photos are of my pals and me on a hike, volcán de fuego as seen from near my town, a trainee vs staff soccer game, my yard in the sunset, my friend in the forest, and my host fam!
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