the land, the beauty, the pain

So here I am, blogging in less than a week but this has been my first week of work and so much has happened that I feel the need to share. Now that the teachers' strike is over we finally got to start visiting our schools. Our plan that we made a month ago was to visit two schools a day, which we have been doing. Sometimes it makes sense to visit only two schools because they may be far away (I mean farrr away) and there are no other schools nearby. Other times there are more schools nearby, which we realized on Tuesday on our visits, and it could be possible to visit more than two schools. We didn't do that on Tuesday, though, because the schools didn't know we were coming and we didn't want to show up unannounced. We want to try to see if we can do at least 3 schools a day when it is possible though because it would be a lot more efficient. We have 27 schools between the two of us (me and Lohmo that is) and, so far, we have visited 6. At this rate it will take a month, which is fine, but starting in a month late to begin with makes it feel like we are behind. 


So let me tell you about how these school visits have been going. Our first day of visits we had to take a microbus at 6 am that drove an hour through the mountains and forest on a gravel road to the town the school was in. Not bad. The school was right on the side of the road and so it was easy access. Since we didn't know how to get to the second school the director assigned two sixth grade boys to be our "guides" if you will. We were told this school was close. We start walking for 15 minutes on the same gravel/dirt road. All of a sudden the boys stop and say, "Okay we have to go this way," and point up a tiny mud/dirt path going straight up a mountain through the forest. Lohmo and I laughed, obviously thinking it was a joke. No joke. Mind you, I had on a dress with leggings and flats - hiking attire? I think not. We ended up hiking straight up this "path" for an hour in the blazing sun. The muddy patches did not help either as I had on shoes with very little traction and almost slid right down that path several times. We were so hot and bewildered that this was the way to the school - how could it be?! We finally get to the school and are greeted to a tiny school made of sticks that is just one room. There is one teacher, who is also the director, and about 30 kids that span grades one through six. Incredible. We probably stayed a whole ten minutes since it doesn't take long to talk to one teacher and present yourself to essentially one classroom. Probably best since we most likely frightened them with the copious amounts of sweat we were dispelling anyways. Luckily, we didn't have to return by the way we came up. There was a road after all that led to that school but it was just a longer route. Fine by me. I probably woulda slid down that mountain if we tried to go down the way we came up with the shoes I was wearing. Later we found out that that second school was one of our inaccessible schools due to the fact that it is so far away, so completely isolated (there's literally nothing around except mountains, trees, and lots and lots of coffee plants), and so hard to get to. Honestly, though, I would trek it out there because it was so beautiful. The land in Guatemala does not seize to amaze me and bedazzle me. We were literally at the top of a mountain looking out at vast greeness with not even a soul nearby. Just us and Mother Nature. Mmmm.


Two days later we set out for another set of school visits that had a similar unexpected surprise. We were told we had to walk to this school with the teachers because there was no transportation available to the area. There was no warning of about the length of the journey or degree of difficultly. Regardless, I decided not to wear my flats this time. Good thing because it turned out we had a two hour hike straight up a mountain this time. I don't know if you understand when I say straight up a mountain. It is very literally incline 100% of the time. Let's put it this way: I didn't know if I was going to make it at some points. My legs hurt so bad at times that I thought they were going to give out. We were all struggling. It felt like the never ending ascent. We made it though and once again were bewildered by the amount of pain and time taken into getting to those two schools. These teachers walk that everyday, five days a week. Man, if I did that every day I'd be in the best shape of my life. Anyways, it is amazing that they trek that every day. Maybe they do it because they have to or maybe they do it because they want to - either way, it is admirable. These schools were even more isolated than the last one I mentioned. I don't think transportation could get up there if they tried - way too rocky. The children all spoke Q'eqchí, an indigenous Mayan language. Only the older kids could understand Spanish and so we needed a translator for the rest of the kids when we were presenting ourselves. 


Now, I realized something when we were at these schools. It is one thing to tell someone what the Healthy Schools program is and what it is that we are doing and set out to accomplish. It is a whole other thing actually doing it successfully. As a volunteer in a new site that has never heard of the Peace Corps, or Cuerpo de Paz, before and has no idea what Healthy Schools is, it is a very difficult job to come into a community and say, "Alright, we are going to teach you personal hygiene habits and we expect you to do them." Obviously we don't say that exactly but essentially that is what we are doing. Looking at those kids today I saw how dirty they were. I understand that they are extremely isolated with limited resources and barely any money. I felt a moment of despair almost and helplessness. How were we, two young Americans, going to get these kids to come to school clean? It seemed like such a ludicrous and unattainable goal in that minute.  Later, though, when visiting the second school down the street, we were talking with the director. He was so motivated for the program and talking about all the work we could accomplish together and how we could really change these children's lives, whether we see the impact or not. He inspired me and made me realize that all it takes is a leader in the community to work with you and support you and things CAN get done. I'm not saying it is going to be easy and I know there are many struggles and frustrations ahead, but that doesn't mean I am not excited because, if anything, it makes me want to do this even more. 


On our 2 hour hike back down we had some stunning views again of the green mountains that surround our town. It might be a bitch to climb up them but they sure are beautiful. When you're walking down them and pause and look around, you have one of those moments where you can't believe where you are and what you are seeing. It's the intimate feeling of it just being you and Earth; feeling her essence. It's one of those moments you know you just can never explain to people unless they experience it too. That feeling is worth the pain of getting up there, that's for sure.

Guatemalan mishaps

So I ended my last blog hoping I would have some good news to share and out of the things I listed two of those happened! First of all, I found spinach in the market, which is great and brings me happiness. Secondly, the strike has ended - hooray! We found out about a week ago that the government and teachers had finally reached an accord. However, since this past week was Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is so heavily celebrated here I feel like it is bigger than Christmas, there was supposed to be no school anyways for this past week. That meant strike over but classes resume tomorrow (April 25). So needless to say I am way excited about about finally being able to begin work and visiting my schools.

Since Semana Santa is such a huge holiday here a lot of Guatemalans go on vacation. As a new volunteer still in my first 3 months of service I could only travel within my 3-hour rule. Luckily for us Baja folk, there are so many beautiful places to visit that our within 3 hours of us! So we took a couple personal days and went out to Lanquin and Semuc Champey. For those of you who do not know what Semuc Champey is, it is the 8th wonder of the world - it has to be! I mean, that's been stated before, but really after seeing it I believe it. It is an area of the Cahabon River where a natural bridge of limestone forms where most of the river flows underneath but forms turquoise pools above the "bridge" formation. People go swimming from pool to pool and you can jump off big rocks into the deep parts or just sit in the shallow part and soak it all in. There is a hike you can do up to the Mirador where you are way high up and can see all of Semuc Champey and it is breathtaking. Let me say one thing though...man am I out of shape! It's embarrassing almost how fast one can get out of shape - it sucks. So in hot and humid conditions and with a still healing sprained ankle we were struggling up this hike. Warning: it is really steep and people with longer legs have an advantage here. Every step is worth it though so I'm happy I did it.  

Semuc Champey

So some other highlights of my trip. We paid to do this rope swing a guy we met had told us about. We paid before we saw it and I had assumed it was like a small tarzan type swing that you held onto and jumped in the river. Oh nooo...I was quite mistaken. It was a giant swing made of rope that you had to sit on and would throw you high up in the air, about 15-20 feet, into the middle of the river. It was so scary looking! Not to mention that there were huge rocks at the edge of the river so you had to jump when you were at the highest point because you needed to make sure to be far in enough. So, naturally, I freaked out at first and didn't know if I could muster the courage to do it. But after watching everyone else do it, it made me really want to do it because it did look fun. So I did it and screamed and it was awesome! So exhilarating. So everyone was repeating it and I wanted to do it again. So here I go, feeling brave and comfortable, didn't even scream this time. But, oh wait, here comes my moment to jump off the swing and I don't know what or how it happened because it all happened too fast but somehow when I pushed off the swing I kinda went more to one side causing me to flail towards my left side. Well, I landed in the water all on my left side rather than straight up. Falling from that height felt like a steel train ran into my entire left side. Think like belly flop extreme all on one side of your body. The hit was so hard that it knocked the wind out of me. So here I am surfacing to the top trying to swim to the edge of the river but I couldn't breathe from the impact. At that moment I was like, "Oh my God, ow, I can't breathe, I'm gonna drown!" I was trying to so hard to breathe but I just couldn't and obviously this led me to swallow water. So, yes, I was essentially drowning. Thankfully the Guatemalan instructor guy ran down and grabbed my hand to pull me out which saved me. I coughed up the water and was fine and alive but MAN my entire left leg and left side of me torso was killing me! It turned really red and swelled up. I now have a giant bruise up my entire leg on one side and it still hurts to walk. Haha It is laughable, I admit it. I'm still glad I did it because it was really fun aside from almost dying. 

My treacherous fall

My other highlight of the trip: the caves of Lanquin. So there are these large set of caves that are close to Semuc Champey that the same river flows through. There's a tour you can do through the caves by candlelight that you can pay to do. So I went and did it with two other volunteers, Kata and Maggie. No one really explained the tour to us except that you used a candle and that the river ran through it. Well, let's just say that I don't think any safety regulations were really used here, I mean I understand it is Guatemala but I was still shocked. The caves are pitch black, I'm talking total darkness. And the only light you have is the candle you are holding plus a crappy head lamp the guide wears that hardly lights up. The caves were cool and really amazing to check out, but it was hard to see much of them because of the darkness. We had assumed there would be maybe some candles along the way to illuminate a bit more in order to see what we paid to see. Nope. And then came the parts where you reached the river. It was deep and we had to actually swim holding a candle in one hand. Obviously mine went out after the first swim. I had my Keen sandals on and man are they heavy when they get wet! I didn't think we would actually have to swim since we had candles but I was wrong once again. So swimming in the dark with sporadic rocks surprising you in the middle of the river while holding a candle is no easy task. So there was a lot of climbing of sketchy Duct taped wire and ropes. It was all good until we reached the end and you could jump off a big cliff into a deep small pool. After that we were like, "Okay where is the exit?" And the guide goes, "Oh there is no exit here. We have to turn around and go through the whole thing again." This would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that our candles were about an inch big and would go out soon - very soon. And did I mention, our lovely guide forgot to bring more candles. Awesome. So I hadn't mentioned this before but we were doing the tour with this big Guatemalan family. They weren't the best people to do the tour with but we were dealing with it. At this point in the tour, they INSISTED that we continue and see more of the caves and then turn around. Clearly, they were not putting two and two together and realizing that our candles were about to go out and we still had to return the way we came. So this quickly turned into a long and unnecessary argument between me (along with Kata and Maggie) andthe Guatemalan family. I was telling them we should just go it made no sense to continue and risk being stuck in these huge dark caves with no candles. They just did not seem to get it. So we argued back and forth for probably twenty minutes, all the while losing precious candle time. Meanwhile, the tour guide is just standing in the middle saying nothing. I was utterly confused as to why he was not taking initiative in this situation. I kept asking him why he wouldn't do something and he kinda just stood there saying he didn't know what to do...are you kidding?! We were freaking out and this was quickly turning into a nightmare. Finally, after all of us being fed up with the situation, we all asked the guide to make up his mind and just tell us what to do. After brief hesitation, he said, "I think we should go back." Wow, at last. So even after he said that the Guatemalan family still wouldn't budge. Talk about stubborn. At this point we were just so frustrated and tired of it all we just started walking and they eventually started, SLOWLY, moving. We ran into the next tour group halfway through and thank God and our angels they had an extra candle they gave us (by that time we had already lost some candles). So we made it out. We spent 2 hours and 15 minutes in that cave and it was only supposed to last 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. That's why we ran into the next tour group. I was just happy to get out and see sunlight. 

So I know it kinda sounds like the trip was a bit disastrous but it was actually really great and I had so much fun. That place is truly beautiful and it just makes you feel so thankful for the beautiful planet we have been blessed with. Such a natural wonder. So after my mini-vacay I was happy to be home and to relax because I was exhausted. Instead, however, I was greeted by a continual series of D-storms. Yup. I've had diarrhea since getting home yesterday morning and still do. But that's just what life in Guatemala is like. I can't be mad or upset because it wouldn't be Guatemala if it weren't for all these little mishaps that occur throughout my days. So Happy Easter to me as I spend my day in bed and/or on the toilet. At least I'm home and have my own bathroom. Hopefully next time I write I will be unbruised, with normal bowel movements, and working happily ! Happy thoughts...

Strike: no kale

I've made it about 2 weeks in site - halfway through the first month, woo! It's crazy because it doesn't feel like I've been here for 2 weeks because I have done nothing, or at least it feels that way. Not my fault though. Starting this past Monday the teachers in Guatemala started a nationwide strike against the government. Apparently, the main reasons for the strike are because 1. Some teachers haven't been paid for months 2. The government promised them a raise last year for this year and it hasn't happened 3. The government hasn't been giving enough money for the school snack or doesn't give it at all - keeping in mind that in some rural schools in poor communities the school snack is the major caloric intake they get for the day. So the strike seems pretty legit but what sucks is that the government hasn't responded and it's been a week. While the teachers are striking there is obviously no school - think about that for a minute...nationwide most schools are out. That's nuts. So, since my program is Healthy SCHOOLS it means we haven't been able to start work since being here since the strike coincidently started upon our arrival essentially. It's weird because I have so much free time which can be nice but then there comes a time where you get bored. I wanna start working already and establish a relationship with our schools and communities. I want to feel settled and with routine. Oh well, though, what can ya do. Meanwhile, I will cook long meals, continue to look for housing, lay in Lohmo's hammock, take "community walks" and watch movies until the strike decides to end. The tough life. Speaking of housing, my room I'm renting isn't terrible. It's quite cute and cozy but I can't wait to find my own place with my own kitchen and my own privacy. As much as I love being with people I also love having my own space. Also, my bathroom smells so FUNKY. No, I did not D-storm in it. It smelled before I even moved in. I don't know what it is, maybe the drainage? Who knows but it's foul and I hate going in there because of the smell. Tomorrow's mission: light some incense in there. Maybe the incense will also make all the spiders living in there go away because there are way too many for my liking. 


Other exciting news? Ah yes, I experienced my first earthquake ever yesterday. Well the earthquake was actually in Mexico but it was felt in Guatemala. It was early in the morning and I was lying in bed trying to go back to sleep but the noise from everyone in the house was preventing that from happening. I then realized my bed was rocking from side to side and of course me not coming from an earthquake prone area that is the last thing I thought of. I thought I caused it from turning on my side and then I thought they were doing something upstairs causing the walls to shake. Well, wrong and wrong. Later that morning I was checking the news online and saw news on that earthquake and then it all made sense. I need to start remembering I am in an earthquake prone country. Other than that, the only other really exciting news is food related. 1. I found chard today (haven't found spinach or kale yet in this area :( ) and ate a fresh salad - it's unbelievable what a big deal that is! 2. I bought powdered soy milk. Who even knew that existed! Now I can eat cereal so great news all around. Hopefully next time I write I have more exciting news to relay, such as the strike ending (!) or finding a home or finding spinach (I think kale is a lost hope). Life must go on...