A Beautiful View

Too Good

I had a very special moment today. I was standing on the roof….There was a beautiful two o’clock breeze, whipping my skirt around and blowing the sheets into my face. As I reached up to pull a clothes pen off one of my shirts, I was suddenly bombarded by a plethora of thoughts:

WOW. I washed all my clothes by hand, bent over the washboard this morning before my day even began. And they’re actually clean.

I’m still wearing my apron, which means I cooked my own meal today.

I’m standing on my roof in Guatemala overlooking a beautiful village that’s actually on the side of the mountain.

I can’t believe I made it to Guatemala.

This is exactly what I always dreamed of.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly realized that life is everything you ever wanted it to be? That although it’s messy and difficult and exhausting, it really is just what you hoped for? Of course nothing is just how you imagine it to be, the details never match up, but going into a big life change you can at least daydream about how you hope you’ll feel. Well today was one of those days where—while I didn’t exactly visualize myself up the a roof on a beautiful spring-like afternoon taking down my laundry after cooking dinner—it’s the kind of scene I hoped for.

It’s one of those rare moments in life when everything slows waaaaaaaaay down and you feel like you’re outside of yourself, observing your own life from a distance for just a snapshot of a moment. It’s almost like you can stop time and reach out and grasp each thought as it leaves your mind and enters the atmosphere—“I can’t believe I’m actually here. I’ve thought about a moment like this once, in a beautiful day dream, but this is actually my life and it couldn’t get any better than it is right now in this moment. If it somehow managed, I might explode.”
Maybe this sounds a little sappy to you or maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about but I hope everyone gets to experience this feeling at least once in their lives.
While praying the other day, I started thanking God that I’ve been able to have several of these moments.

The first time this phenomenon happened I was a sophomore at Emory: I was with Manu studying outside at the picnic tables between the main library and the Business School. The sun was strong and the canopy of pink and white blossoms swayed lazily over the perfectly manicured grass. The sky was an unusually deep blue and there wasn’t a cloud in sight; a cool breeze occasionally danced through the patio. In that moment, sitting there with a dear friend at the University of my dreams, studying the wonderful creation we call the body, I was struck with the reality of the situation: I have everything I’ve ever wanted in this life. Nothing could make it more perfect.

Since then there have been more magical moments: stunning summer mornings in picturesque Maine, waking up with the sun at 4:30am to have an early Bible study to the melody of the ocean waves crashing against the rocks; traveling from the northern mountains of Thailand to the southern beaches with new friends from all over Asia; laughing with a classroom of high school freshman about a completely inappropriate but admittedly hilarious sexual comment as a sex-ed teacher after college; driving down the deserted highway at 2:00am with my sister, laughing boisterously about the night’s salsa dancing adventures and making snide and conceited remarks about all the “characters” we encountered; the whole family packed into the kitchen fixing the world’s best gourmet, semi-homemade pizza, watching movies and making ice cream creations on a Friday night.

One of my new favorite verses says God will outdo himself when it comes to blessing you. That He takes pleasure in making life good for you. Well I know this to be FACT. There is nothing to do but use the two most terribly inadequate words in the English language to express my gratitude to God. When He said “I want you to have the fullest and best life conceivable”, those weren’t empty words! Thank you God for being part of my world and for blessing me with everything that is good in my life.

Workshops Guatemalan Style

So we had our first round of workshops with our teachers this week. It went surprisingly well. Of course it was workshops Guatemalan style but it was great to see what the future will look like and get a better grasp on what to expect/how the two years with Guatemalan teachers will be.

What exactly do I mean Guatemalan style?


1.) I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Guatemalans can really enjoy themselves during group activities and games. We started the workshop off with an icebreaker: We’re all in a boat…a cruise to be exact…sailing to our favorite vacation destination when the boat hits a rock and begins to sink. Thank God there are life boats. BUT, they only fit……FOUR people. FIND A LIFE BOAT, QUICK! You would not believe how quickly these mostly middle-aged teachers transformed from normal adults into giggling, pushing, shoving fun-loving kid-like creatures, fighting to form groups of four and cold-heartedly turning away their comrades to find another life raft. After a few rounds of this game we found ourselves in groups of eight where we attempted undo the human knot (where everyone grabs hands with someone across the circle and once you’re all tangled you up you try to undo yourselves). Can I tell you how into this they were? They were coaching and directing and hopping over and crouching under and sliding through, laughing and truly enjoying themselves. It was refreshing. I just know in the US people would try not to enjoy themselves too much because, who knows why, but it’s waaaaaay to uncool to take actually enjoy yourself during fun activities once you’re over 12 years old. Every time we do an activity I never cease to be amazed at how almost every single person really devotes themselves not only to the task but also to having FUN. I love it!!!!! We also had the ole’ carry the egg on a spoon and spin around three times and come back game during the snack break. They enjoyed that too : )

I wish Americans could be more like this! I've never seen anything like it and could never imagine it on American soil but I think we could learn a lot from Guatemalans about being able to let you hair down and have a good time : )


2.) Guatemalans are very eager to BEGIN. It was a little hard to explain the human knot activity because everyone started after the first “take your right hand and grab the hand of the person across from you.” Since everyone had already started grabbing random hands, we had to go group to group to explain because everyone stopped listening after the first step. Even when standing there coaching them, sometimes they still didn’t listen because they’re already trying to figure it out! It’s very different from the American way where you more of less wait to hear the directions or if you start early you do it quietly so you can still hear what the end goal is…or at least so everyone else can.

3.) Like Thailand, people are pretty obsessed with their phones. (Not that people from the US aren’t obsessed with their phones too, but it’s on a whole new level!) We had a real problem with people answering their phones during the workshop’s two sessions. We also had plenty of people step out to take a call (which is the more American way).

4.) Talking during the workshop: MAN did we have certain people who would sit in the back (or front) of the classroom and talk…I mean TALK like you would outside at a picnic table with your friends when no one else is around. It’s extremely hard to get used to this and on first day I was so flustered I screwed up half my lesson plan. I’ve noticed that a certain level of talking/side-conversations is permitted, or at least tolerated, in the average meeting. Our first meeting with our 21 principals was our first introduction to not-whispered, full-fledged side conversations but on a smaller scale. The more people there are, the more side conversations become a problem. We had over 80 people every day so you can imagine what it was like trying to manage them all! I finally took to just stopping completely and waiting silently until the guilty parties noticed or until another teacher told them to be quiet.

Thankfully however, these talkers irritated a fair amount of their colleagues enough that often the other teachers would ask for silence! Very encouraging! We’ve started a competition between the 21 schools and have announced that we will be deducting points from schools whose teachers are disruptive! I think next time we will also establish “classroom rules” such as no side conversations, no cell phones and no leaving early!!! Thank you : )

5. CRAFTS. Man oh man do Guatemalan teachers LOVE to do crafts. Of all the things the teachers said liked most on the feedback form, the number one answer: the craft. We asked them to bring scissors, glue, crayons/markers and a cornflakes box (everyone eats cornflakes) to make the one of the three items we had just explained. WOW …the room was quieter than it had been all day. The colors were flying, the scissors chopping away….people had out rulers so that their lines would be perfect. I have NEVER seen anyone…child, teen, teacher…artist…ANYONE work so hard on a craft in all my life. We tried to call a meeting for the principals during the craft time so that everyone could leave on time together….can I tell you that they told us they would rather do the craft and stay after? It was SERIOUS.

So all in all the workshop was successful. We learned a lot and bonded with our teachers. Obviously there are things that I love and hate about this new culture but overall, I really like it! The workshop was a great experience and I'm looking forward to more fun games and crafts in the future : )

The best going away party EVER!

So before I left, my beloved host family in Sacatepequez threw me the best going away party EVER! Here are the photos : )

Some people were napping....

other people were working/karate chopping each other. We filled, I mean FILLED that pinata with candy! Here's a great view of the patio all decorated! (Guatemalans are SUPER into decorating, we must have working for three hours on getting everything all set up). Before we ate, we beat down a pinata. They let the little guy take a swing without a blindfold since he still lacks all coordination lolThis girl reminds me of myself as a kid. She's super rough and tomboyish and can always comepte with te guys. She definitely did some damage to that poor pinata!

But it was host sister that finally cracked it once and for all. I was so proud to catch this action. See the candy flying through the air? When it finally broke, half the candy flew into the pile (the kitchen sink!)

But no one seemed to mind scooping it out!

There were TWO great cakes. Cake # 1:
Cake #2 and some hungry guests: (cousin, aunt, godsister and her kids)

We enjoyed our a piece of both cakes and of course a cup of Pepsi under a canopy of balloons!

Host dad decided to wear the destroyed pinata as a tribal headress.

All in all it was a marvelous day! We laughed, we cried, we gorged ourselves on cake, we opened presents and told jokes. I will always remember this family because no matter what we're doing there is always a lot of love and a lot of laughter. They spent a significant amount on this goodbye party. This was just one of many ways that they show me how much they care : )

What? I was helping pop the balloons so we could clean up.

A mosque...so close to ground zero?

Excuse the typos I know there will be as I angrily scrawl these words after hearing this at a friend’s house on channel 7 news.

“The big debate in New York: should a mosque be built just two blocks from ground zero?”

SERIOUSLY? I don’t know, perhaps the real question we should be asking is, should we even allow those of Arab descent within 10 feet of ground zero?

What an UTTERLY ridiculous question. How is this even a debate? We should be ashamed that this made national news and that people from other countries now know that someone even raised this absurd “concern”.

No, you know what, our first step should be?...to evict all Arab, Arab-looking people or Arab-lovers (kind of like nigger-lovers but without the blatantly derogatory ethnic reference) from a 10 block radius of ground zero. THAT will make us feel better AND keep us safe because God only knows that those brown people from the Middle East are planning another attack.
Would you like to hear some direct quotes from town forum on this issue? I know you’ll enjoy them as much as I did:

Woman #1: “It’s humiliating that you would build a shrine to the very ideology that caused the attacks of 9/11.”
Man #2: “This is an insult to all those who died.”

Can someone please explain to me just how the dead are being insulted by a group of ordinary people, almost undoubtedly completely unrelated to the group of people who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, building a place of worship in New York City?
This is an appalling display of ignorance, prejudice and perhaps racism. It’s so amusing to me that Americans consider themselves so progressive and open-minded and educated compared to most of the world. The existence of this argument exposes the myth and puts on a pedestal the fact that not all American’s are all that educated or open-minded. We’re so eager to protest human rights violations, tyrannical governments, sexism and racism elsewhere in the “less developed” world but our own quite, semi-concealed form of racism and prejudice is just as ugly, ignorant and hurtful.

WAKE UP!! Attributing general qualities to members of one race, religious group, sexual orientation etc is called stereotyping. The location of ground zero should have no bearing on the construction of a mosque. If that’s the way we’re thinking, we should forbid white people in southern states formerly part of the Confederacy from having housekeepers or other forms of domestic help because once other white people in that region had slaves and we know they probably have racist tendencies. I hope someone at that community forum slaps those people across the back of the head and fills them in on how all Arabs or Muslims do not subscribe to the ideology that caused the attacks and that saying such things is ignorant and embarrassing.
WHEW…glad I got that out…..all my hostility is released and I am happy again!

What am I doing here?

So what do I actually do here in Guatemala?

My work partner and I Cristina are volunteers in the Healthy Schools Program. Essentially, this program recognizes that if one wants to change any type of behavior within a society, the most effective, long-lasting, far-reaching change agents are the children of that society. As I’ve written previously, Guatemala, like many third-world countries, has limited access to health knowledge. Therefore, hand washing, the idea of trash cans or throwing trash in a designated area, any knowledge of germs, parasites and transmission of diseases doesn’t really exist. It’s difficult to grasp the gravity of the situation in just a few words, but essentially, there is a great need spread basic healthy knowledge. In order to combat the lack of health knowledge and resulting absence of healthy habits, the director of the Healthy Schools program, a Guatemalan Doctor, has designed a way to start implementing healthy habits in classrooms across Guatemala.

The Healthy Schools program has three important parts:

Part i) helps the schools fill out grants to get the infrastructure necessary to practice healthy habits. Many schools have latrines or flushable toilets but no place for the students to wash their hands or perhaps lack water all together. As Peace Corps Volunteers, it’s our job to connect schools with NGOs (non-governmental organizations or international non-profit organizations) who are willing to help fund projects like a hand-washing station or flushable toilets or a water storage tank. In an effort ensure community investment and sustainability, the NGO provides one third of the funds or labor for each project, the parents another and the local government the last third.

Part ii) ensures that the teachers are teaching health concepts twice a week and are practicing healthy habits with the students every day. Walk into any classroom and all the students can tell you health means washing hands, eating healthy foods, bathing, brushing teeth etc, but the vast majority rarely if at all actually do these things (kind of how Americans know they’re getting fatter and should skip the fast food and hit the gym…but don’t). Having the knowledge of what you should do and still not doing is certainly not unique to the third world. Therefore, the most important part of the HS program is creating an environment where it is easy to be healthy. Each classroom in the school has a “Rincon de Salud/Health Corner” where each student has his toothbrush and paste, towel, toilet paper etc handy. By creating a “Hand-washing and Teeth-brushing Schedule” the students and teachers will know exactly when their class can go out to the hand-washing station to get ready for snack or at which bell they should start brushing their teeth after snack is over. By establishing a routine and having resources handy in the Health Corner, the schools are creating an environment where being healthy isn’t all that difficult, thus (theoretically) reducing resistance to the big change that is actually occurring.

Part iii) (isn’t actually defined as a major component of the HS program but I think it’s vital to the success of the program) is designed to educate Guatemala’s teachers about concepts such as, “what are germs?”, “how do they enter our bodies?”, “what can we do to protect ourselves?”, “why should I brush my teeth”, “what are cavities?” etc. With the lack of basic health knowledge, in my opinion it is futile and foolish to implement the previous two steps without propping up the healthy habits with the knowledge of WHY or HOW. The average American knows about germs and cavities. The average Guatemalan does not (of course these are a generalizations). By implementing healthy habits without giving the teachers the proper knowledge to teach their students what soap actually does and how germs are too small to see, it’s not difficult to see why a kid could just as easily skip the soap part and still reasonably think he is being healthy by washing with water until his hands no longer look dirty.

Since I’m working on being less long-winded : ) that’s all for now!

Oh, except I think it’s important to mention that in the newest phase of HS, the volunteer pairs are in charge of implementing the program in an entire municipality of schools. In our case, that means 21 schools. All said, the numbers come out to: 1 superintendent, 21 principals, 257 teachers and 7,113 students. WHEW!!!! (But some of our fellow peeps have 37 schools so we are lucky!!)

Pray that we would know how to best split up the work, that we can be effective despite the big numbers and that the teachers will be supportive and energetic in starting the program in their school!

My Poor Ear Hairs: Is Everyone OK in There?

So I’ve been meaning to write this for some time now but with the move I just haven’t had time. I hope you enjoy the description as much I enjoyed writing it : )
Guatemalan evangelical church is a very interesting place. I mentioned earlier that here it is soooo not necessary that one sing on key (or in the key for that matter : ) . I’ve had a few interesting experiences with this aspect of church in particular.

I remember one time specifically a few months after I arrived—we were singing a slow song. Now, I generally like slower songs when we sing them in church, but that day, it was almost painful. Imagine 25-50 people all singing a song at half the speed of Amazing Grace (just to clarify, that’s reaaaaaaally reaaaaaally slow). But imagine each one of them singing a different note at that pace. How many notes are in the musical scale? I’m not sure, but Guatemalans in the rural evangelical church are excellent at using all of them! Going into the sixth verse, one of my eyeballs actually rolled up in my head and I think I whimpered. Thankfully everyone except the two year old in front of me was enthusiastically belting out the words so perhaps no one will ever know my pain...unless that kid’s a snitch-mouth squealer.

My second experience was similar, except much, much, much closer to home. So there’s this little book that’s similar to a hymnal in which all the songs are written in Spanish. Sometimes my host mom flips open to the song so I can sing along, which is really sweet cause I usually just end up clapping till my hands are red and making up whatever words I want in English….let me tell you I was not blessed with songwriting skills so it is rarely a beautiful experience lol For some reason, even though every knows all the words to every song by heart (there’s no projector screen and even the little kids know all the words!), host mom turns and starts sharing the songbook. Unfortunately for those little hair in my ears that are supposed to pick up sound, that also meant that her mouth was angled directly at me ear. Poor little hairs, that was months ago…they’re still trying to get to an upright position. Host mom is one of the most enthusiastic aka LOUDEST singers in the church…but also completely, 100%, never hit the right note in her life tone deaf. In an effort to ignore the stinging in the back of my eyes, I joined in, humming my own unique verse as loud as I could. Nonetheless, I swear I felt a drop of blood fall from my ear onto my shoulder. My ear hairs, those fighters, used those glorious moments when she took a breath to brace themselves for the next verse. It was rough……these words cannot describe how extremely loud and extremely not on key the song was…..inches away from my face. Thank goodness I can look back on this experience and laugh though : 0 )

A few other interesting points to note:
It must be a really nice break for new moms to come to church (which is always at night) because they don’t have to watch their babies. The little guy get passed around the entire congregation to whoever wants to bounce them on their lap: from the grandma who looks like her wrists might not be strong enough to hold the chubby ball of energy to the 5 year old in the back row who is only 3 inches taller than the baby. It’s cute. It’s like they’re a big family.
I really like that everyone shares in the church activities. Every night someone new leads the songs rather than the same ole people like we do in the States. Also, they call the pastor “hermano pastor” which means brother pastor. I like the way they he is still called brother—it’s kind of equalizing. Sometimes I feel like people treat pastors, especially in the black church, like they have this mystical power that makes them superior to the rest of us. Also, if there’s an announcement and someone wants to comment, they are free to interject and explain a bit more or add their two cents. I like how overall the service just…goes and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Plus everyone shares in the responsibility and leadership.

So there are my experiences in the evangelical churches I’ve attended here in Guatemala!

***Please do not take any comments I have made as being judgmental or negative. This was written as I experienced it and is in a comedic light but certainly not intended to make fun of the evangelical church in Guatemala and is no way intended to be derogatory. YAY!