I have an address! I have an address!

Katharine Curles
Apartado Postal no. 142
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala C.A.

YAY!
If you want to send me snail mail, I'd LOVE it!  Envelopes are much better than boxes because they don't get "inspected indefinitely" in Guatemala City.  My dad has proven that you can send anything in an envelope...  he got 1000 flash cards and a flattened box to put them in! 

Extraterrestrials take over English finals

I have so much to say about Xela, my new family, my new job, and my new life, but formulating the words to express it is a bit challenging until I process everything a bit more.  In some sense, this picture says more than my words ever could.

Just ask for Betty

“Just ask for Betty”

 Those words sum up the past week.   Over the past week, the five of us volunteers had our last week of language school, held in a Mayan village located in the cornfields.  Before we left, Marcia was briefing us a bit on what we might encounter and said, “for some of them (the volunteers), it involved bicycling for twenty minutes on little kids bikes… through cornfields.”  I thought that was so funny that I wrote it down.  I didn’t take her seriously.

And then, we got to school.

The trail to school

The first day, Tito, the coordinator of our school, picked us all up at the Seminary where we were staying and we drove out of town with him and the other teachers.  He turned up a dirt road and the van shook as we cruised up through the potholes.  He stopped “on the side of the road” (which in most of Guatemala I’m learning is more in the middle, but people don’t seem to care too much…) and the teachers piled out and walked down this skinny path through the cornfields.  We followed, and about 30 yards later, came upon a building that was perfect for school. As we met our teachers and began class, I thought – “this is perfect!” After being in Xela for a few days, I had come to realize that I am not really the cookie cutter city girl.  Walla Walla has cut me out with a more rural edge.  Studying in the corn felt normal.  I liked it.

The clothing line of trajes at the house

After class, we walked back through the corny path (sorry… I had to do it) to the road and met our host families.  Laura and I were with one family that was running late and Andrew, Tina, and Juli were with the other; the families are relatives.  We all had lunch together and then this adorable 10 year old girl showed up with her little purple bike and said that she would take us to her house.  As we began walking, Laura asked where she lived and she pointed.  Fifteen minutes later, I asked her if a horse that we were passing was hers – she looked at me like I was an idiot.  Probably 20 minutes (or more) later, we showed up at her house.  It was quite a hike through fields, along the river, and up and over a pretty decisively steep hill.  There were a few times that Laura and I just looked at each other and laughed; we were the ones who would be riding the little kids bikes to school (for the record, they are purple and have baskets and riding them is like BMXing on a trail covered in potholes and people who speak one of two languages: Spanish which you kind of know and K’itche which you have no idea about, no matter how hard you try to learn).

The normal bike trail... you have to be sure to go straight...

Karina showing us her school uniform

 When we got to the house, we were immediately surrounded by kids (we were quite the novelty… later that week when we were walking to the store, some kids at a house down the hill yelled “It’s the Gringoes!” and suddenly tons of little faces occurred frantically trying to get a look). We met the pigs, cow, chickens, eggs, puppies, and played clapping games in the empty chicken pen (empty because the chickens were anxiously waiting for the opportune time to sneak into the kitchen).   The mom tore us away at one point to show us our rooms and as she did, she casually mentioned how it’s a good thing she washed the blankets because there were fleas.  She didn’t mention washing the fabric cot mattresses that had the remainders of food on them and when she left, Laura and I were both a bit nervous.  Then, Laura (who, I might add, has dreads) saw a flea on her.  That’s when we went into overdrive and used ½ a bottle of bug spray on the cots and all our belongings.   Somehow that worked, and the crisis was avoided.  I think that our frantic prayers to not have to deal with fleas on top of the outhouse that didn’t have a door and was next to the stinky cow may have had something to do with that.

Every meal that we had with our family consisted of corn.  We had corn café (yes… in the Mayan world, at least this one, café’ is a delicious hot drink made out of corn and vanilla… I’m in love with it), corn pan dulce, and corn tortillas (I tried to make some and my kind host mom said, “that one can be for the chickens”) to use as utensils.  The second most used ingredient is limestone.  We witnessed limestone being used as the second ingredient in corn tortillas, to build houses (the cement), and to kill ants.  I was told that it’s used in tortillas because it’s a natural antibacterial, and I have seen it used in construction at Roche Harbor, but the ant killing?  If you have any leads, let me know… 

The community feel was palpable.  In this community, it was known that all you really need in life is family.  Corn and lime are important too…

Which brings me to Betty.  As we were getting ready to leave, the family was really sad (as were we!).  I promised them that I’d come visit but I needed some information.  The mom gave me the bus information and her phone number.  When I asked what their last name is in case I got lost she said, “just as for Betty”.  This was so cool for two reasons.  1) a group of girls from the Walla Walla class of 2010 decided to just call me betty for the first while I was there… it, in a strange way, was one of the most welcoming things that could of happened and 2) The people in the town care about one another so much that they are on a first name basis.

I’m excited to go and ask for Betty.

Importance of Culture

“In Guatemala, we have customs and they are very important. We do things a certain way.”

Those wise words were spoken by my host mom the other night when I offered to help clean up the mess from our full family operation of making paper balloons with pictures of the kids from the preschool (which is a whole other story of deilghtfulness…). It was 9:30pm, the bedtime of most Guatemalans, and there was paper ALL OVER the floor of the kitchen. Not to mention the glue all over the table serving of evidence of my over-exuberant use of the glue stick. I offered to help clean up – it seemed like the sensible thing to do and my bedtime just has not managed to adjust to the Guatemalan time zone (aka 10 or 11…) so I had time. Rosa responded, “you don’t clean at night – night is for rest, not work”. When I looked confused, Rosa said her wise words about customs. And, since that conversation, I have spent a lot of time observing and contemplating customs.

There is the custom of rain. When it’s “demasiado lluvia” or “hace frio” (too much rain or too cold), the world pretty much stops. It’s been a pretty wet week this week and consequently, the preschool has had only 14 out of the 24 kids appear at the door in the morning. It is widely believed that if you get wet, you’ll get sick, and in a land without health insurance or disposable incomes, being sick is not a good thing.

There’s also the custom of fiestas and “dia de…”. You may recall the blog about Dia De Indepencia. Well, today was another dia… “Dia de los Niños”. It is a day that is devoted to celebrating kids and allowing them to celebrate. The preschool went to Pollo Compero in Antigua because it is the closest playground and they played and had lunch. They returned for piñatas at house and cake and toys. We also had a fiesta at our language school and I learned some customs and rules about piñatas as we destroyed the bee.

Rule 1: There are 2-3 lines required. The long one on top is best when it can be slippery so the piñata can easily slide across. All my ideas for lines this morning were not good enough because a) they were not safe or b) they provided too much friction. The result was a spool of electrical wire.

Rule 2: When there are no kids involved, everyone, without any limitations of age or ability, is fair game for being chanted into smashing the piñata

 

Rule 3: All people smashing the piñata will inevitably look silly so you may as well embrace it.

 Rule 4: When there are no kids involved, the adults who grew up grabbing candy are really good at getting it. I think us students collectively got as much candy as any given professor.
Rule 5: When the piñata won’t break, smash it without a blindfold. When that doesn’t work, just tear it up with your hands.

Another custom I love is the importance of family. There is little to no concept of postal mail and very little internet access. The Antigua post office only has 400ish mailboxes. Totally crazy! (This custom may mean that few people receive Christmas presents on time this year…) Most people seem extremely content with their family and live very close by. I live with a 15yo girl and 11yo boy and tonight we played Uno for 3 hours with random dance parties interspersed in the game. They seemed totally happy and content with family night… it was pretty cool.

Finally, there are a ton of indigenous customs that we had the opportunity to observe Thursday. We went to San (insert a saint’s name that I just forgot here) Aguas Calientes for a presentation of customs by some delightful women. They showed us how people made backpacks, baby carriers, basket holders for your head, and many other things out of a blanket. They even let us try!

 Then, they told us about the customs of the blankets – if you have a striped/plainish blanket (I think I’m using the blanket word very loosely… it’s much fancier) and it’s taken from you, that guy will be your husband. For the wedding, it is necessary to make a blanket for the future mother-in-law. These blankets are gorgeous and take 6+ months to make or 6000Q to buy (that’s a lot). If mama don’t like it, the wedding’s off.

We got to see them grind coffee…

Make cool things out of reeds (that’s my new goal for the year…)…

Weave…

And then there was a mock wedding where Tina got to marry a European guy.

Finally, we made tortillas, had some soup and some coffee, and perused their work.

After seeing all the work these women/the indigenous people/this culture originally puts into daily tasks, I understand why it’s necessary to keep nights sacred and away from work. Maybe that’s not a bad idea for us either…

The Umbrella

I did it.


It’s shameful, but I did it.

I bought an umbrella.

I’m not sure if it’s universal, generational, within my group of friends, or just in my head, but I have always thought that umbrellas as a sign of weakness…. Maybe not weakness, but a means of not fully embracing who I am… someone from western Washington who, up until my move to Walla Walla, had seen more days of rain than sun in my lifetime. The only other umbrella I have other had in my possession was an umbrella that was in my car when I absorbed it in high school. That umbrella was left in my trunk by my mom, and like the iron and ironing board left by Doug and Shan in the basement in the Juniper house, it was left in its original place, in its original wrapping.

But then, I came to Guatemala during the rainy season. And rain here is different. Harder… more vengeful… and has greater effects when you’re reliant on chicken busses and your own feet to get around town and the villages. Being wet and then getting into your car and testing the defrost’s strength is a luxury not available here. So, I have purchased an umbrella. Not only that, I purchased a cute, light green umbrella with stars (if you’re going to fall into the realm of shame, you may as well do it with style). I do refer to it as the umbrella of shame, but I bought it. And I admitted it to my fellow northwesterner, Elizabeth, when she visited this week, so I feel rather accomplished. And once/if I actually post this blog, I’ll feel even more accomplished.

As I’ve been thinking about the identity shift that has gone into this umbrella purchase, I have begun to think about the other shifts of identity/who I am. The things that Guatemala has done to me, in only a matter of a month. One of the most prominent of these things is that I’m less busy. Tonight, I came home at 6, after a fun ride on the steps of the camioneta (chicken bus…) (another check on the things that would get you arrested in the US) and I went with my host brother and mom to deliver food to a friends’ house, racing my host brother up the mountain. My mom really likes to take care of people and makes extra food for lots and lots of people. I counted today and I think she feeds at least 60 mouths a day… I told her that and she just laughed, like its no big deal… for a girl who can’t cook a quesadilla on the stove, that’s a HUGE DEAL!

Anyway, I have digressed… after we went to their house, my host brother found two balloons and told me that he could keep them in the air for a really long time. We proceeded to have a competition between him, the sister, and me seeing who could keep them in the air the longest. The mom even came and made a guest appearance! As we were playing, I thought back to my life from birth until May 2010 and I can’t really remember any time that I have come home early, before dinner, and had time to just hang out and chill, trying to keep balloons in the air as they bounce off the tin roof. I would feel panicky… “maybe I should swim, I have to have more homework to do, what to do list can I make for tomorrow? Can I check something off now? Maybe I have time to get a bike ride in before dinner… oh wait, I still don’t know how to take the time to learn how to cook…” and so forth… My lack of panic, and increase in joy continued after dinner as we played Uno and had mom, kids, and random gringo dance parties and laughing attacks for almost four hours. I even forgot I had to pack… and that was written on four different to-do lists!

Well, I’ve embraced the shame of having an umbrella, dropped the panic of having freetime… maybe next will be ditching the lists… maybe not though… it’s only been a month, I think Guatemala has much more in store for me. More than I can predict or write down on a list.