On the way up to Pana, I remember thinking there was no way that this place was going to eclipse my amazing experience in Xela. After pulling off to the side of the road to stop at the mesmerizing Lake Atitlan, my doubts were momentarily silenced. We arrive to the town with streets bustling with markets at every inch, street-side restaurants at every corner and gringos from all over the world. As it always is with Team Esperanza, we immediately engage in a provocative discussion with what we want to eat that night. The possibilities were really endless but we finally decided to settle down with this nice Uruguayan restaurant that has an awesome ambience—a pianist playing frank Sinatra, completely open air, endless garlic bread portions and last but not least a server named Raul who would sneak up behind me and yell “CHINO!” If you’ve been reading my blog, you probably know by now that I have become legitimately numbed to that word. Honestly, I don’t mind as long he keeps the huge portions for me going—we even ended up eating lunch together on my last day in Pana.
Kids on the street of Santander
The minute we sit down at the Uruguayan restaurant, a mentally challenged boy approaches us with about 20 woven bracelets in his hand. 5 queztaesl, he says. I smile and mumble a no gracias. Ten minutes later, he is still there except this time he is desperately saying “un queztal, por fa por fa” and now continues to ask for a smoothie, a sandwhich, and basically everything on the menu. We left that restaurant thinking this boy was perhaps the most annoying kid we had ever met. Turns out that this similar interaction would happen almost a hundred times throughout the next few days.
After about the third day, I was thoroughly desensitized—I ignored venders and kids when they spoke to me and waved my hand as if I felt molested. I was able to happily stroll the streets of Santander towards my morning coffee. Then I think it was one night where we found that very same boy sleeping in an atm machine at around 10 p.m. where I really just started to feel uncomfortable with myself—with the way these interactions were going. How could I forget that as christians, we’re called to be in relationships…with God and each other. I have yet to totally form and articulate my thoughts about this subject...talk to me later.
Desensitization and disconnection in San Ann.
We arrive to San Antonio on campaign day early morning to set up when an older lady suddenly falls hard on her side a few meters from us. We stand there in shock as she writhes and contorts her body around on the dirt floor. Petrified, we look up to see women on the streets in their guipiles gesticulating to their heads and waving their fingers. “No. No ayude, su cabeza es mala.” Basically, what they meant was not to help this lady—she was mentally ill and apparently did this often. We finally noticed that her fall had been worse than expected, a pool of blood already about a foot in diameter was forming underneath her body. What the fuck, I’m sure all of us were thinking. Still the villagers were shaking their heads telling us to back off, leave her alone. Amanda immediately knelt down and grabbed her hand while I ran to the farmacia with Annie to get hydrogen peroxide and lots of bandage wrap.
Cleaning the wound, I was inundated with thoughts of incredulity…but more than that, confusion. What was wrong with these people. What had happened to this close knit community, it doesn’t matter if this lady was mentally ill. Later we found out that this lady was prone to seizures and one time even fell into the fire while making tortillas. I remembered learning about the power of social pressures and how they can lead to desensitization in psych ap. The lesson had radically materialized here before our very eyes, the whole town had deemed the lady “loco” and was ready to ignore her and possibly even let her bleed to death. The incident reinforced the idea for me that I have to continually think for myself—to see things through my own perspectives. More importantly, I have to never stop treating people…well, like people. Needless to say, this was not one of our greatest campaign days.
CrediCapaz & Grameen bank
As most of you already know, chris, pav and I have poured in hours and hours over these past few weeks into our modified ROSCA savings model. When Greg approached us and told us that he was planning on launching our first cycle on September 1st, the model really came alive for us. This was something real, something tangible that was going to happen. I don’t know, it feels unreal to actually have contributed something—after years and years in academia, to actually derive something out of our education, our in-depth analysis and our effort and translate it into something that can make a substantial economic impact to the rural constituents of Guatemala. I definitely am going to be emailing SolCom in the coming weeks to find out the progress of CrediCapaz. I’m staying involved for as long as they let me!
Rewind about a week and there we were: me, Chris, pav, and Annie in the headquarters of Grameen Bank, Guatemala branch! (for those of you who don’t know, Grameen Bank is the first microfinance institution started in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus). We had a very intriguing conversation with the regional manager about microfinance, its scope, success indicators, and the formation of solidarity groups among the villagers. It was effin’ awesome.
The conclusion of Team Esperanza
It’s funny to think that after you spent every day of 2 months with the same 8 people, you will suddenly probably never see them again. Heading back to Antigua to rejoin the 20 or so other SEC interns for our final week in Antigua, it finally hit us that this was it for Esperanza, the craziest and greatest team on the face of this earth (half joking). There is literally too many memories to list here—from all those nights at the club where we went f*cken NUTS to Calle Ocho, to the 7 hour car rides where we never had a boring minute. I’ll never forget these guys, they were honestly some of the most zealous, brightest, dedicated, and charismatic individuals I have even worked with. I love California, there’s no other state like it, but as the only west coaster out here with Hannah, some part of me almost wishes that I went to school or lived in the East so I could see some of these guys again. Chris, Pav, Annie, Amanda, Kaveh, Tracey, Marjorie, siempre están en mi Corazón!.
Guate Guate, te amo.
8 weeks flew by like no other. I blinked twice, and it was over. The next thing I know, Hannah and I am sitting there in Miami International among LCD screens and English speakers with a hotdog and bag of chips in our hands. I’m going to miss everything about Guatemala, the good and the bad. The perpetual volcanoes and mountains layered across the blue skies, pollo buses, churrascos, the anarchy of the roads, the bucket baths, reggatone, bargaining at the markets, Yolanda (Antigua homestay mom), Isolina (nebaj homestay mom), Xelapan, Jeffrey, Gallo.
Torrance Blues
I touch down in LAX and finally reunite with my family and friends. I ate delicious Chinese sea food, had coffee with Rob, zhich, funyun, Elena, shayna. The reunion was happy times, but I can’t ever remember feeling so out of place in my life. The only way I can describe it is….right now, everything is just.... muted. The conversations, the 405 traffic, the restaurants. I feel like Frodo Baggins when he finally returns to the shire after his entire quest to destroy the ring and just feels incredibly out of place in midst of the normalcy and the merriness of his old town. "How do you pick up the pieces of an old life? How do you go on? When in your heart you begin to understand, there is no going back."
I guess the question is what to do I do now? I can’t seem to “just chill” like I thought I would be able to. I have about a month till Cal, not enough time to get a job. I’ll probably spend some part of the day reading books, studying some Spanish ( I have enrolled in Spanish 3), to IV leadership summer reading, spend time in prayer, try to figure out how to mobilize kids at cal to make a social impact overseas.
And so here ends the story of my summer in Guatemala. About 2 months ago, I was a depressed and parasite infected boy having diarrhea in my bathroom stall who would give almost anything to be back in the states. Now I can proudly look back and say…it was worth it, holy crap, it was so worth it. Thanks everyone who followed this blog, for the prayers, for the thoughts, for the support. I hope that some of you, through vicariously experiencing my trip to Guatemala will be encouraged to venture out and explore! Get uncomfortable, ] and push yourselves out to the uncharted. I don’t just mean to a foreign country, but just throughout life in general. Take risks, live passionately, get diarrhea!
un abrazo,
Iueh
NUMBERS
50+ The number of times that we saw something so ridiculously absurd that all we could say was “It’s Guate”
50+ The number of times a Guatemalan has pointed incredulously at me and said “CHINO!”
6 The amount of toilets I clogged in Guatemala
15+ The amount of toilet rolls I ended up finishing in my homestay in Guatemala
100+ The number of times Calle Ocho or Te Amo was played on the chicken buses in Antigua.
2 number of visits to Antigua Hospital
30+ Amount of meals consisting purely of beans and tortilla
60+ Amount of ice creams consumed either from Pollo Campero or Saritas. (notice multiply ice creams a day)
50+ Amount of soda bottles consumed(many places cheaper than clean water).
10+ Hikes to beautiful caves, waterfalls, crystalline spring waters, hot springs, etc.
1 Marriage Proposal
3 Drunken sunday homestay parties
1 late night skinny dipping session
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Real World (Guate style) Week 6 Satellite Site: Xela
“This is the true story... of nine adventurous college students... picked to live in an apartment...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World (Guate Style)”
So we arrive to Xela, also known as Quetzaltenango, and find out that we are staying in a bombass apartment. The living room itself was about 5 times my dorm and even though I had to double up with Chris, it was honestly one of the better, if not best living conditions I have had in my life. In fact, I kind of like having a roommate (Albert, if you're out there, I miss you.) Living in the apartment has definitely been an amazing experience. I’d like to think of team esperanza here in Xela as a reality tv show with that narration opening every episode. But unlike the Real World, it’s been great living with each other—there really is esperanza love. We might have had one dispute because we literally went through 3 toilet papers in a day, but that was promptly fixed when someone just jacked a whole roll from a nearby restaurant. The apartment also has wifi so I’ve been pretty wired for the past few days. It’s weird, I can’t be without it for more than 6 hrs now and I actually feel….connected to the world once again(what the hell is going on in California?, palin, and just the GOP in general?).
Xela is a beautiful city, pervaded with bustling market places, bars and salsa clubs. From the looks of its architecture of massive columns decorating most of the buildings, the city is definitely very colonialized. There is also a bakery called Xelapan where you can literally buy all the bread and pastries to feed yourself for a week under 3$. I drop a dime or so every morning for breakfast. Last, but definitely not least, there is…..(wait for it, wait for it) MCDONALDS! I can’t believe so many good things can be packed into one of our work sites.
Who wants to be the next Iron Chef?
The weeks leading up to Xela, we were all extremely excited about how cooking was going to be fun—how we would make Chicken Parmesan, Linguine, and a bunch of other gourmet dishes. Now this all sounds very cute…a group of college students scurrying around the kitchen stove throwing ingredients here and there while excitedly jumping up and down saying “this is gonna be good!” Sadly enough, we discovered abruptly Monday night that quite frankly, we suck at cooking. In fact, all we could actually decently cook was pasta, which we had for 2 nights straight. I hate bland food and carbs, and for the first two nights, I flirted with the idea of just buying 3 hamburgers or chicken sandwiches from mcdonalds. By Wednesday, my diet consisted of xelapan for breakfast, 2 medium pizzas for lunch, and 3 hamburgers for dinner. Mcdonalds had become my primary source of protein and nutrition, and you know that’s bad news bears when that statement rings true. So what did I learn from this experience? One, I love my mom very much. And two, I need to learn how to cook. I’ve never felt so pathetic in my life. Josh, Austin, Tim, ya’ll best be learning to how to cook this summer.
Spanish schools and Weaving Co-ops
One week-long Spanish school, called El Portal, supports single destitute mothers and their children so that they can pay the fees to attend school. Unfortunately, the school’s business has not been even breaking even. They need to increase their students per week by an average of 11 just so they can support these 6 mothers. Due to h1n1, and just the overall downturn of the economy, less tourists are traveling to Guatemala, let alone Xela. On top of that, there are plenty of Spanish schools here which have way more resources, more university connections, etc. We’ve been trying to offer support as to how to cut costs in unnecessary areas, and how to leverage their social agenda to attract more students. (Sidenote: talk to me if you want to learn Spanish in Guatemala so I can give you their info)
We’ve designed a brochure for them, and tried to get them on the major tourist networks such as lonely planet guide and what not. I like to consider myself an out of the box thinker, so when I looked at their somewhat bleak situation, I figured, why don’t we just try to train the single mothers to be entrepreneurs so they can support themselves and their kids to go to school. That way, we bypass the middle man (El portal) so they won’t be having trouble paying their own bills and supporting these women. I’m not sure how good this idea would go over for an organization that has built so much time and effort into this cause, but I told Luke this after our initial meeting.
In addition, we’ve met up with this one weaving coop, to help them paint their place and refurbish it. Although quite honestly, they aren’t going to be having many tourists go all the way out there to buy some woven goods. Perhaps what would be more helpful would be to set up some sort of distribution channel so they can export to the states.
A Hard Day’s Night (And I’ve been working like a dog)
Coming off of two lackluster campaigns in Antigua and Nebaj, I finally had my breakthrough campaign experience last Saturday in a town 2 hrs out of Xela. On Wednesday, when Kaveh and I were doing publicity, I already sensed something different. We were really forming substantial relationships with people who had legitimate eye problems and were eager to be helped. Arriving there at 8:30 am on Saturday, we immediately found out we had the SWEETEST site based in the town’s hospital. The whole vision/product campaign immediately quadrupled its legitimacy in the town’s eyes. On top of that, we already had about 25 people waiting outside. We knew we were in for one hell of a day.
Immediately, we got crackin’ and I (get this) got my own private doctor’s office to perform the eye examinations. I’m not gonna lie, I was scared. I had never done this alone before and I felt so much responsibility on my shoulders. Granted, comprehending slurred and rapid spanish was difficult. But maintaining focus and diagnosing people with the correct eye problems, providing the appropriate solution and ultimately selling them necessary products was more difficult than I thought. Needless to say, after 4 hours of this my head was literally spinning.
I’d like to say I was pretty independent and could handle all the patients by myself, there were so many occasions where I just couldn’t assume anything. I had to ask Luke or someone else with more experience to determine the correct problem. I can’t stand the thought that I might screw someone over or waste his or her money on something that wouldn’t help. Personally, I find that you can’t give people just what they want; you have to give them what they need. What’s sad for a lot of these people is they have eye problems behind our capacity to solve. It’s difficult explaining to people that glasses won’t help, that nothing we have here at the campaign will help and that they need our doctor contact in the city to get surgery or something to that affect.
Nonetheless, I have to say this has been my favorite campaign yet. The people were so amiable, so responsive, and valued my advice so much to the point where I felt the gravity of each word fall from my mouth. On top of that, all the girls and woman were incredibly kissy, I’ve never really been into the whole hug and cheek kiss thing here, but now I’m sort of liking it. Results-wise, this campaign was one of the most successful in the Xela region yet. We sold over 40 glasses, and completely sold out of the eye solutions, some solar lights, and a water filterer. The only bad part (and probably an also integral part) about the campaign was that our assessor, or woman entrepreneur we were supporting decided to quit. She had come off of a lousy campaign a few weeks before, and even though we made her more than 2 months wages in a single day, she decided this wasn't for her. When I heard this, I was infuriated...she had not contributed a single thing to the campaign. Chris and I decided it would've made a hella more sense to take her profit from the campaign and use it to pay the DJ at La Rumba to play calle ocho 90 times straight(and that makes no damn sense at all). The lady only tried this entrepreneur stuff because a peace corp volunteer pressured her into it. Whats hard about development work is that you can't just go to a country and push and pressure the people into doing stuff. There needs to be mutual exchange of information and both the recipient and the consultant have to be passionate and take initiative.
America , F*CK YEAH!!
I’ve never felt so patriotic till I had to spend 4th of july in a third world country. In all honestly, I do love America. We decided to demonstrate our patriotism by obnoxiously singing American songs like “Proud to be an American,” "Star Spangled Banner", and even some Team America (Don’t ask me why). Luke, who’s from Liverpool, couldn’t take it and left after about 15 min. After the patriotic festivities, Pav, Tracey, Chris, Luke, Dan and I decided to celebrate our beloved nation’s independence by going clubbing. We went to a bar then went to a club called “Rumba” to which we immediately requested that the DJ play some Calle Ocho. We freaken rumbaed that club up hahaha. I even met a friendly Guatemalan chica, patricia who spent some time in Venice, CA learning English or something. Though she probably thought I was quite pathetic as I awkwardly gyrated my hips to the lively salsa music. I gotta add this to my checklist of things to do before leaving Guate: learn salsa.
Pathetically enough, I have decided not to climb the highest volcano in Central America due to feedback from other groups that this was in fact “the worst experience of their life”. Four of them, Kaveh, Marjorie, Annie, and Amanda left last night at around 10 pm to climb so that they could reach the summit for the sunrise. It’s going to be lame when I go back to the states and people ask “omg did you climb volcanoes in Guatemala that sounds so hardcore!” to which I will answer…”no…..not really. I just ya’know, used internet.”
Spiritual Epiphanies...expecting God in the unexpected
So a few weeks ago I made the claim that I was here in Guatemala to offer long term sustainable solutions to the poor. I had been laser focused to producing actual results and to solving complex problems associated with poverty that I had refused for the most part, to view this as an experience. But in essence, my whole experience here in Guatemala has just been an opportunity for me to meet God in the most untraditional places. It has really allowed me to see that we have a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted Creator. Examples where I have encounted God:
-through developing close relationships with amazing individuals with different interests, morals, lifestyles, and perspectives. Their dedication and passion to development work has really reinforced the idea for me that God manifests himself in people of every religion and culture, whether atheist, muslim, or Christian. I have definitely experienced God’s love through witnessing the moral impulse of all humanity.
-through finding peace in the midst of frustration with this program as well as myself. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had a very different idea about how this program was going to work and who it was geared towards helping. I also overestimated just how much I was going to contribute to the country of Guatemala. Nonetheless, forcing myself to really wake up each day with a sense of purpose as an act of worship has really allowed me to find God in almost any circumstance—whether after a lackluster day in which I felt nothing was accomplished, or after an amazing campaign like the one we had on Saturday.
-in isolation. Isolation from a fellowship or church has forced me to see God through in my own eyes. To really develop a relationship based on my own experiences and my own testimony. Instead of having a community as a crutch, I’ve really been forced to understand the depth of my spiritual poverty and to deal with it and pray about it. (perhaps more explanation later)
I'm back in less than 2 weeks. It's been one hellof a ride! I miss you all....I'll see you guys soon! Leave comments.
So we arrive to Xela, also known as Quetzaltenango, and find out that we are staying in a bombass apartment. The living room itself was about 5 times my dorm and even though I had to double up with Chris, it was honestly one of the better, if not best living conditions I have had in my life. In fact, I kind of like having a roommate (Albert, if you're out there, I miss you.) Living in the apartment has definitely been an amazing experience. I’d like to think of team esperanza here in Xela as a reality tv show with that narration opening every episode. But unlike the Real World, it’s been great living with each other—there really is esperanza love. We might have had one dispute because we literally went through 3 toilet papers in a day, but that was promptly fixed when someone just jacked a whole roll from a nearby restaurant. The apartment also has wifi so I’ve been pretty wired for the past few days. It’s weird, I can’t be without it for more than 6 hrs now and I actually feel….connected to the world once again(what the hell is going on in California?, palin, and just the GOP in general?).
Xela is a beautiful city, pervaded with bustling market places, bars and salsa clubs. From the looks of its architecture of massive columns decorating most of the buildings, the city is definitely very colonialized. There is also a bakery called Xelapan where you can literally buy all the bread and pastries to feed yourself for a week under 3$. I drop a dime or so every morning for breakfast. Last, but definitely not least, there is…..(wait for it, wait for it) MCDONALDS! I can’t believe so many good things can be packed into one of our work sites.
Who wants to be the next Iron Chef?
The weeks leading up to Xela, we were all extremely excited about how cooking was going to be fun—how we would make Chicken Parmesan, Linguine, and a bunch of other gourmet dishes. Now this all sounds very cute…a group of college students scurrying around the kitchen stove throwing ingredients here and there while excitedly jumping up and down saying “this is gonna be good!” Sadly enough, we discovered abruptly Monday night that quite frankly, we suck at cooking. In fact, all we could actually decently cook was pasta, which we had for 2 nights straight. I hate bland food and carbs, and for the first two nights, I flirted with the idea of just buying 3 hamburgers or chicken sandwiches from mcdonalds. By Wednesday, my diet consisted of xelapan for breakfast, 2 medium pizzas for lunch, and 3 hamburgers for dinner. Mcdonalds had become my primary source of protein and nutrition, and you know that’s bad news bears when that statement rings true. So what did I learn from this experience? One, I love my mom very much. And two, I need to learn how to cook. I’ve never felt so pathetic in my life. Josh, Austin, Tim, ya’ll best be learning to how to cook this summer.
Spanish schools and Weaving Co-ops
One week-long Spanish school, called El Portal, supports single destitute mothers and their children so that they can pay the fees to attend school. Unfortunately, the school’s business has not been even breaking even. They need to increase their students per week by an average of 11 just so they can support these 6 mothers. Due to h1n1, and just the overall downturn of the economy, less tourists are traveling to Guatemala, let alone Xela. On top of that, there are plenty of Spanish schools here which have way more resources, more university connections, etc. We’ve been trying to offer support as to how to cut costs in unnecessary areas, and how to leverage their social agenda to attract more students. (Sidenote: talk to me if you want to learn Spanish in Guatemala so I can give you their info)
We’ve designed a brochure for them, and tried to get them on the major tourist networks such as lonely planet guide and what not. I like to consider myself an out of the box thinker, so when I looked at their somewhat bleak situation, I figured, why don’t we just try to train the single mothers to be entrepreneurs so they can support themselves and their kids to go to school. That way, we bypass the middle man (El portal) so they won’t be having trouble paying their own bills and supporting these women. I’m not sure how good this idea would go over for an organization that has built so much time and effort into this cause, but I told Luke this after our initial meeting.
In addition, we’ve met up with this one weaving coop, to help them paint their place and refurbish it. Although quite honestly, they aren’t going to be having many tourists go all the way out there to buy some woven goods. Perhaps what would be more helpful would be to set up some sort of distribution channel so they can export to the states.
A Hard Day’s Night (And I’ve been working like a dog)
Coming off of two lackluster campaigns in Antigua and Nebaj, I finally had my breakthrough campaign experience last Saturday in a town 2 hrs out of Xela. On Wednesday, when Kaveh and I were doing publicity, I already sensed something different. We were really forming substantial relationships with people who had legitimate eye problems and were eager to be helped. Arriving there at 8:30 am on Saturday, we immediately found out we had the SWEETEST site based in the town’s hospital. The whole vision/product campaign immediately quadrupled its legitimacy in the town’s eyes. On top of that, we already had about 25 people waiting outside. We knew we were in for one hell of a day.
Immediately, we got crackin’ and I (get this) got my own private doctor’s office to perform the eye examinations. I’m not gonna lie, I was scared. I had never done this alone before and I felt so much responsibility on my shoulders. Granted, comprehending slurred and rapid spanish was difficult. But maintaining focus and diagnosing people with the correct eye problems, providing the appropriate solution and ultimately selling them necessary products was more difficult than I thought. Needless to say, after 4 hours of this my head was literally spinning.
I’d like to say I was pretty independent and could handle all the patients by myself, there were so many occasions where I just couldn’t assume anything. I had to ask Luke or someone else with more experience to determine the correct problem. I can’t stand the thought that I might screw someone over or waste his or her money on something that wouldn’t help. Personally, I find that you can’t give people just what they want; you have to give them what they need. What’s sad for a lot of these people is they have eye problems behind our capacity to solve. It’s difficult explaining to people that glasses won’t help, that nothing we have here at the campaign will help and that they need our doctor contact in the city to get surgery or something to that affect.
Nonetheless, I have to say this has been my favorite campaign yet. The people were so amiable, so responsive, and valued my advice so much to the point where I felt the gravity of each word fall from my mouth. On top of that, all the girls and woman were incredibly kissy, I’ve never really been into the whole hug and cheek kiss thing here, but now I’m sort of liking it. Results-wise, this campaign was one of the most successful in the Xela region yet. We sold over 40 glasses, and completely sold out of the eye solutions, some solar lights, and a water filterer. The only bad part (and probably an also integral part) about the campaign was that our assessor, or woman entrepreneur we were supporting decided to quit. She had come off of a lousy campaign a few weeks before, and even though we made her more than 2 months wages in a single day, she decided this wasn't for her. When I heard this, I was infuriated...she had not contributed a single thing to the campaign. Chris and I decided it would've made a hella more sense to take her profit from the campaign and use it to pay the DJ at La Rumba to play calle ocho 90 times straight(and that makes no damn sense at all). The lady only tried this entrepreneur stuff because a peace corp volunteer pressured her into it. Whats hard about development work is that you can't just go to a country and push and pressure the people into doing stuff. There needs to be mutual exchange of information and both the recipient and the consultant have to be passionate and take initiative.
America , F*CK YEAH!!
I’ve never felt so patriotic till I had to spend 4th of july in a third world country. In all honestly, I do love America. We decided to demonstrate our patriotism by obnoxiously singing American songs like “Proud to be an American,” "Star Spangled Banner", and even some Team America (Don’t ask me why). Luke, who’s from Liverpool, couldn’t take it and left after about 15 min. After the patriotic festivities, Pav, Tracey, Chris, Luke, Dan and I decided to celebrate our beloved nation’s independence by going clubbing. We went to a bar then went to a club called “Rumba” to which we immediately requested that the DJ play some Calle Ocho. We freaken rumbaed that club up hahaha. I even met a friendly Guatemalan chica, patricia who spent some time in Venice, CA learning English or something. Though she probably thought I was quite pathetic as I awkwardly gyrated my hips to the lively salsa music. I gotta add this to my checklist of things to do before leaving Guate: learn salsa.
Pathetically enough, I have decided not to climb the highest volcano in Central America due to feedback from other groups that this was in fact “the worst experience of their life”. Four of them, Kaveh, Marjorie, Annie, and Amanda left last night at around 10 pm to climb so that they could reach the summit for the sunrise. It’s going to be lame when I go back to the states and people ask “omg did you climb volcanoes in Guatemala that sounds so hardcore!” to which I will answer…”no…..not really. I just ya’know, used internet.”
Spiritual Epiphanies...expecting God in the unexpected
So a few weeks ago I made the claim that I was here in Guatemala to offer long term sustainable solutions to the poor. I had been laser focused to producing actual results and to solving complex problems associated with poverty that I had refused for the most part, to view this as an experience. But in essence, my whole experience here in Guatemala has just been an opportunity for me to meet God in the most untraditional places. It has really allowed me to see that we have a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted Creator. Examples where I have encounted God:
-through developing close relationships with amazing individuals with different interests, morals, lifestyles, and perspectives. Their dedication and passion to development work has really reinforced the idea for me that God manifests himself in people of every religion and culture, whether atheist, muslim, or Christian. I have definitely experienced God’s love through witnessing the moral impulse of all humanity.
-through finding peace in the midst of frustration with this program as well as myself. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had a very different idea about how this program was going to work and who it was geared towards helping. I also overestimated just how much I was going to contribute to the country of Guatemala. Nonetheless, forcing myself to really wake up each day with a sense of purpose as an act of worship has really allowed me to find God in almost any circumstance—whether after a lackluster day in which I felt nothing was accomplished, or after an amazing campaign like the one we had on Saturday.
-in isolation. Isolation from a fellowship or church has forced me to see God through in my own eyes. To really develop a relationship based on my own experiences and my own testimony. Instead of having a community as a crutch, I’ve really been forced to understand the depth of my spiritual poverty and to deal with it and pray about it. (perhaps more explanation later)
I'm back in less than 2 weeks. It's been one hellof a ride! I miss you all....I'll see you guys soon! Leave comments.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Week 5 Antigua and weekend splurge in Coban
SEC interns reunited
So this week all 36 members came back to Antigua from the four different satellite sites for a week of recap, sharing, and just planning where to go from here. Quite frankly, I was really excited to hear what people had to say about the different products we’ve been selling and about different models for credicapaz (the savings based microfinance). But after a week of meeting at the convent and sitting through hours of overly exhaustive discussion sessions, I honestly think I might have ADD or something.
It’s been encouraging to see how passionate some of the people here are about Credicapaz (which is not surprising because over half of the people here have an Econ background). Our group and another group have what I believe to be the two front running models. What we have is essentially a modified ROSCA (rotating savings and credit) in which every member of a 12 person savings group puts in a predetermined X amount(say 100 Q) in the pot every month. At the same time, every month a different member is selected to take all the money in the pot or essentially the lump sum(1200). People can bid on months they want to withdraw the money and the money bidded is added interest to everybody in the group. This allows for some people to gain access to credit (if they withdraw early before they pay in the full amount), and also allows them to save up for something in the future. Reasons to save for the future might include certain critical harvest periods or special plans to purchase useful items like water filterers or refrigerators. Our model is very much still in the process and Chris, who has already spearheaded CrediCapaz for our group, is working tirelessly.
Nonetheless, I question how much our ideas will actually be implemented here in Guatemala. We only have 3 weeks left, not nearly enough time to see through an entire one year rosca cycle. What do we do once we leave this program? Can we trust that SolCom will actually make this thing come to life? I don’t want them to blindly execute the ideas of a bunch of undergrad university students, but it’s hard to find motivation if we can’t see the outcomes of our work. Development work requires a whole lot of patience and trust. We just all have to buy into the system and just try our best to come up with the most sustainable solutions.
Beans, Books, and…more Beans
Homestay life has been relatively uneventful. I say with utmost relief and glee that Jeffrey has calmed down and has been annoying me less frequently. Since he hasn’t been in school for 2 weeks due to the swine flu outbreak, his dad decided to take him down to the fields to work with him. A smile crept ever so gently on my face when I had heard about the idea. I got to my room and jumped on my bed like a little girl. I muttered, Que bueno. Hell yeah. Break him. Break this boy. Haha, how I love character building in the fields. Jeffrey’s been a good kid though, and honestly I do like him. He only climbed through my window about 4 times this week and only once did he exasperatingly squeeze out a whole bunch of my hand sanitizer and use it like sun tan lotion all over his body.
As I flipped the concluding page of my second book in the past 4 days one night in Magdalena, I realized that I was honestly a pathetic being. Here I am, with a once in a lifetime experience living in the homestay of a foreign country, reading books and watching movies on my laptop every night after dinner. But in my defense, I really am incredibly tired of initiating the conversation after 8 hours of work in Antigua. On top of that, my family is either laboring in the fields or monotonously making tortillas all day. I guess I have decided to just “cut the crap” and only bother them with random questions during dinner and leave them alone after that to watch tv in silence.
And of course I cannot talk about my homestay experience without talking about beans. I really think I have eaten more beans here in this country than I have ever before and that I will ever eat again. I have eaten beans in every size or shape imaginable—black, brown, red, big, small, mushed you name it. What is really bad is that when my family makes beans, they scores of them—I’m talking 3 pots worth. This translates to literally 4 or 5 meals in a row where all I’m eating is beans and tortilla. I think its strange now that I consider even a piece of lettuce a luxury. I’ve had virtually no vegetables or meat here in this country as my diet has consisted of carbs and…whatever beans are.
30 hours in Coban
After spending two weeks in Antigua, I don’t’ think I’ve ever felt more restless to travel and explore Guatemala. We had this weekend off before traveling to our sites to do whatever the heck he wanted and I can proudly say that I capitalized on this opportunity. Xinli was kind enough to organize a somewhat risky trip Coban. Risky because it is 7 hours away and our window for traveling was from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon and also because all of the SolCom staff was advising us not to do it. But here we were a group of ten (me, Hannah, tracey, xinli, Marjorie, annie, rongie, Juliet, shao Lauren), getting into the camioneta bus at 4 am on Saturday aching for something exhilarating.
The drive up was hell. We all stayed in Antigua on Friday night to go bar hopping/clubbing which was actually quite a letdown. Besides dancing with some of the natives, I did not enjoy the atmosphere at all. I felt so many hostile eyes on me coming from older Guatemalan men sitting at the bar. After getting back to our hotel, we had only three hours of sleep before we left to Coban. I was betting on getting most of my sleep on the way up there, but the drive was so terrible and windy that whenever I felt even in the tiniest bit of sleepiness envelope my body, my head would crash violently against the ceiling or the window.
Paradise & Spelunking in Lanquin
We arrived to Lanquin, a town about 2 hours north of Coban at approximately 1 pm and immediately find out we’re staying at a stunningly exotic and picturesque hotel called “el Retiro.” The place had outdoor huts for $4 and hammocks to sleep in for $3. The hotel sits on a plush green hill that has pebbled trails leading to the hotel’s restaurant/bar and—get this, the hotel is sits right along the Lanquin river. It was surreal transitioning from such dirt poor roads to a sudden paradise in the middle of such a rural nowhere.
Later that afternoon, after settling down in the hotel we explored the Lanquin caves. Maybe this is because I have never been to a cave, but I thought this was one of the coolest things I have experienced in my life. The cave was so sweet and unreal, with a myriad of fruit bats, stalagmites and crazy mayan altars where religious and sacrificial offerings were made. I have no idea the significance of any of this stuff and I wish we had a guide to explain things to us but I could always look up stuff on the internet in Xelah where its ubiquitous.
After an hour or so of spelunking, we went tubing. Coincidentally, the lanquin cave is the source of the lanquin river which also led us right back to our hotel! We all got into a tube and went with the rapid currents for a good hour. While it was actually quite dangerous, as there were trees and rocks on the margins of the river, it was mighty relaxin’ jus floatin’ along. I felt like Tom Sawyer or some character in Mark Twain’s river stories. Staring up at the cloudless skies and at the beautiful green hills, I remember feeling such a connection to nature and God, the source of all beauty in this world. I really think I have reached a breakthrough, a few years ago I would never have been able to appreciate scenery. I remember my parents forced me to go to the Grand Canyon and I just effin hated it. I only bumped my ass once on a rock and for a brief 15 seconds I went through a freaken jungle of branches and came out with about 10 species of bugs on me.
Semuc Champey
The next day we went to semuc champey, the premier sight seeing place in Coban. Champey is basically a valley surrounded by a tropical humid forest with many natural pools of different sizes, filled with crystalline mountain spring waters. We hiked up for about 2 or so hours through a variety of beautiful scenes. I can’t think of a better word for this place than “idyllic.” Subsequently, we rushed back to El Retiro for our final minutes in Coban before racing back to Antigua. It was a helluva weekend.
So this week all 36 members came back to Antigua from the four different satellite sites for a week of recap, sharing, and just planning where to go from here. Quite frankly, I was really excited to hear what people had to say about the different products we’ve been selling and about different models for credicapaz (the savings based microfinance). But after a week of meeting at the convent and sitting through hours of overly exhaustive discussion sessions, I honestly think I might have ADD or something.
It’s been encouraging to see how passionate some of the people here are about Credicapaz (which is not surprising because over half of the people here have an Econ background). Our group and another group have what I believe to be the two front running models. What we have is essentially a modified ROSCA (rotating savings and credit) in which every member of a 12 person savings group puts in a predetermined X amount(say 100 Q) in the pot every month. At the same time, every month a different member is selected to take all the money in the pot or essentially the lump sum(1200). People can bid on months they want to withdraw the money and the money bidded is added interest to everybody in the group. This allows for some people to gain access to credit (if they withdraw early before they pay in the full amount), and also allows them to save up for something in the future. Reasons to save for the future might include certain critical harvest periods or special plans to purchase useful items like water filterers or refrigerators. Our model is very much still in the process and Chris, who has already spearheaded CrediCapaz for our group, is working tirelessly.
Nonetheless, I question how much our ideas will actually be implemented here in Guatemala. We only have 3 weeks left, not nearly enough time to see through an entire one year rosca cycle. What do we do once we leave this program? Can we trust that SolCom will actually make this thing come to life? I don’t want them to blindly execute the ideas of a bunch of undergrad university students, but it’s hard to find motivation if we can’t see the outcomes of our work. Development work requires a whole lot of patience and trust. We just all have to buy into the system and just try our best to come up with the most sustainable solutions.
Beans, Books, and…more Beans
Homestay life has been relatively uneventful. I say with utmost relief and glee that Jeffrey has calmed down and has been annoying me less frequently. Since he hasn’t been in school for 2 weeks due to the swine flu outbreak, his dad decided to take him down to the fields to work with him. A smile crept ever so gently on my face when I had heard about the idea. I got to my room and jumped on my bed like a little girl. I muttered, Que bueno. Hell yeah. Break him. Break this boy. Haha, how I love character building in the fields. Jeffrey’s been a good kid though, and honestly I do like him. He only climbed through my window about 4 times this week and only once did he exasperatingly squeeze out a whole bunch of my hand sanitizer and use it like sun tan lotion all over his body.
As I flipped the concluding page of my second book in the past 4 days one night in Magdalena, I realized that I was honestly a pathetic being. Here I am, with a once in a lifetime experience living in the homestay of a foreign country, reading books and watching movies on my laptop every night after dinner. But in my defense, I really am incredibly tired of initiating the conversation after 8 hours of work in Antigua. On top of that, my family is either laboring in the fields or monotonously making tortillas all day. I guess I have decided to just “cut the crap” and only bother them with random questions during dinner and leave them alone after that to watch tv in silence.
And of course I cannot talk about my homestay experience without talking about beans. I really think I have eaten more beans here in this country than I have ever before and that I will ever eat again. I have eaten beans in every size or shape imaginable—black, brown, red, big, small, mushed you name it. What is really bad is that when my family makes beans, they scores of them—I’m talking 3 pots worth. This translates to literally 4 or 5 meals in a row where all I’m eating is beans and tortilla. I think its strange now that I consider even a piece of lettuce a luxury. I’ve had virtually no vegetables or meat here in this country as my diet has consisted of carbs and…whatever beans are.
30 hours in Coban
After spending two weeks in Antigua, I don’t’ think I’ve ever felt more restless to travel and explore Guatemala. We had this weekend off before traveling to our sites to do whatever the heck he wanted and I can proudly say that I capitalized on this opportunity. Xinli was kind enough to organize a somewhat risky trip Coban. Risky because it is 7 hours away and our window for traveling was from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon and also because all of the SolCom staff was advising us not to do it. But here we were a group of ten (me, Hannah, tracey, xinli, Marjorie, annie, rongie, Juliet, shao Lauren), getting into the camioneta bus at 4 am on Saturday aching for something exhilarating.
The drive up was hell. We all stayed in Antigua on Friday night to go bar hopping/clubbing which was actually quite a letdown. Besides dancing with some of the natives, I did not enjoy the atmosphere at all. I felt so many hostile eyes on me coming from older Guatemalan men sitting at the bar. After getting back to our hotel, we had only three hours of sleep before we left to Coban. I was betting on getting most of my sleep on the way up there, but the drive was so terrible and windy that whenever I felt even in the tiniest bit of sleepiness envelope my body, my head would crash violently against the ceiling or the window.
Paradise & Spelunking in Lanquin
We arrived to Lanquin, a town about 2 hours north of Coban at approximately 1 pm and immediately find out we’re staying at a stunningly exotic and picturesque hotel called “el Retiro.” The place had outdoor huts for $4 and hammocks to sleep in for $3. The hotel sits on a plush green hill that has pebbled trails leading to the hotel’s restaurant/bar and—get this, the hotel is sits right along the Lanquin river. It was surreal transitioning from such dirt poor roads to a sudden paradise in the middle of such a rural nowhere.
Later that afternoon, after settling down in the hotel we explored the Lanquin caves. Maybe this is because I have never been to a cave, but I thought this was one of the coolest things I have experienced in my life. The cave was so sweet and unreal, with a myriad of fruit bats, stalagmites and crazy mayan altars where religious and sacrificial offerings were made. I have no idea the significance of any of this stuff and I wish we had a guide to explain things to us but I could always look up stuff on the internet in Xelah where its ubiquitous.
After an hour or so of spelunking, we went tubing. Coincidentally, the lanquin cave is the source of the lanquin river which also led us right back to our hotel! We all got into a tube and went with the rapid currents for a good hour. While it was actually quite dangerous, as there were trees and rocks on the margins of the river, it was mighty relaxin’ jus floatin’ along. I felt like Tom Sawyer or some character in Mark Twain’s river stories. Staring up at the cloudless skies and at the beautiful green hills, I remember feeling such a connection to nature and God, the source of all beauty in this world. I really think I have reached a breakthrough, a few years ago I would never have been able to appreciate scenery. I remember my parents forced me to go to the Grand Canyon and I just effin hated it. I only bumped my ass once on a rock and for a brief 15 seconds I went through a freaken jungle of branches and came out with about 10 species of bugs on me.
Semuc Champey
The next day we went to semuc champey, the premier sight seeing place in Coban. Champey is basically a valley surrounded by a tropical humid forest with many natural pools of different sizes, filled with crystalline mountain spring waters. We hiked up for about 2 or so hours through a variety of beautiful scenes. I can’t think of a better word for this place than “idyllic.” Subsequently, we rushed back to El Retiro for our final minutes in Coban before racing back to Antigua. It was a helluva weekend.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Antigua Blues
Welcome Back Party
The ride back from Nebaj was sad and uneventful. We didn’t want to go back, not after an amazing week with El Descanso(our restaurant/headquarters), Marie Clare, and a great community. As we pulled into Antigua, and into my pueblo, Magdalena, my head ached just thinking about more days filled with ennui. It’s funny, we were coming back to “civilization,” the most touristy place in this entire country but we weren’t relieved one bit.
Expecting a quiet night after 7 hours of traveling, I crawled into my bed after talking to Yolanda and fam about my trip to Nebaj. Little did I know that my night was about to get just a little more interesting. Turns out that we had to go to a birthday party of my homestay’s 7 year old nephew. I don’t know what you know about seven year old birthday parties, but this one had alcohol—and lots of it. There were over 35 family members shoved into tiny chairs at the house and after an hour over 20 of them were drunk. It was great. I remember as I sat there among the laughter and the table slamming, I thought to myself, wow now this is a family.
I met some interesting characters at the party and even got into a pretty good conversation with a 40 yr old uncle who sells piñatas. Five minutes in, after we have developed our own little handshake, he starts to insist that we are “mejor amigos” or best friends. I told him that I do consulting work here to support local businesses and the community. Immediately, he tried to set up a date where I could come give him a charla to help his piñata shop. To which I told him that we don’t really operate like that and we do work for more rural regions. He started to violently raise his voice as he insisted that we were best friends. Scary haha.
The party ended when the family made me dance in the middle of a circle with Yolanda(my host mom) for ten minutes to crazy marimba music. It was definitely one of the most awkward 10 minutes of my life.
The Ecoli strikes back
I never really understood the term “More Money More Problems.” If I had more money, I would not have so many problems right now. Back up to three weeks ago when the doctor prescribed 10 days of cipro for the copious parasites in my body. Because it was so freaken expensive, I decided just to buy 3 days worth and see how I felt and go from there. Stupid stupid decision. I felt better, but while I was feeling better, the ecoli was mobilizing, spreading, replicating, getting ready to tear me up.
On Tuesday, as we were about to go to Mono Loco after a day at the office (apparently there’s free drinks for girls on Tuesday), I began to start shaking and feeling really really cold. I decided to take the bus back to Magdalena instead. The bus ride was terrible, as my stomach started to go nuts also. When I got back around 6 pm, I pretty much collapsed on the bed. I opened my eyes and it was 6 am. Yeah fevers, diarrhea, all that crap over again. Ya’ll have already heard this before. I got my medicine, and am feeling better. I think its incredible how many times I’ve been sick already. Don’t worry about me though; just keep me in your prayers.
Mental breakdown with Jeffrey
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but in my homestay I have this ten years old named Jeffrey. When I first met him a few weeks ago, he was one of the cutest kids I’ve ever spent a substantial amount of time with. Since then, things have changed for the worse. He is really starting to get on my nerves. Two nights ago when I had the most intense fever and diarrhea he climbed in through the window and kept tickling me even though I kept telling him to get out cause I was sick. He later just started throwing peanut shells from his window while I was sleeping. I really have no idea what to do about this random window that connects my room and his—I want to buy a lock, but that would be awkward to install and what not. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a freaken jail in this room when Jeffrey walks on the perimeter it just starts banging on the walls. Oh by the way, these walls are pieces of wood like 2 cm thick.
I normally love kids. There’s something about their innocence, how quick they are to forgive, how humble they are, and their curiosity. But two nights ago and quite possibly still today, I genuinely hated this kid & I don’t hate anyone. I guess I realize now that this is a problem. I need to work on the spiritual fruit of patience, there is something really sadistic about me hating this 10 year old now.
Monterico
So last Thursday, our group minus Kaveh went to a blacksand beach about two hours off Antigua. Everybody either immediately hit the bar or just chilled at the seaside hammocks. Psh east coasters. As for me, I immediately went out for a swim. Let me tell you something about the waves at Monterico, they’re HUMUNGOUS and very close to the shore. I went in to just dip my feet and totally got smashed on my back in a matter of seconds. There was a point where I was swimming as hard as I could back to shore against the under current( and I was still getting blasted out to sea) when I thought “Okay—this is a problem.” It was incredible to be so vulnerable and at the mercy of nature. The water was also super super warm, warmer than all the bucket baths I’ve been having here. Makes California beaches feel like Antarctica. I also met this random Nicaraguan here on vacation who learned English in Jamaica or something. This guy knew how to enjoy life, he answered all my questions in the same format “fucking __________ man.” When I asked him when he was going back to Nicaragua, he answered “fucking whenver man” to which I just started busting up laughing til I had tears in my eyes. Josh and Greg you guys make fun of the way I talk, you gotta here this guy.
Praying with a calm heart
I think I never realized how panicky I am when crises hit till Guatemala. I want to intervene, I want to do something to alleviate my situation. My prayers hold an internal sense of panic because I honestly believe that I am more critical to the situation than God is. One night where I just couldn’t sleep, I was a doing a devo on Mark 4:40 when Jesus calms the storm and when he says Do you still have no faith? I have learned that I need to trust and rest. Before I take it upon myself to do anything, I need to “calm my heart, seek his will, make myself receptive to Him, and just wait for his timing.” I think I’m learning to apply this process with everything in life—with development work, academics, relationships, everything.
Overall, my trip here is picking up speed, I can’t believe it has already been four weeks. I have one more week in Antigua then Xelah and Solola. These next few weeks are going to go by so fast man! But I still miss you all and am eagerly awaiting my return to the states. Thanks for the support and for following this blog, please comment!
The ride back from Nebaj was sad and uneventful. We didn’t want to go back, not after an amazing week with El Descanso(our restaurant/headquarters), Marie Clare, and a great community. As we pulled into Antigua, and into my pueblo, Magdalena, my head ached just thinking about more days filled with ennui. It’s funny, we were coming back to “civilization,” the most touristy place in this entire country but we weren’t relieved one bit.
Expecting a quiet night after 7 hours of traveling, I crawled into my bed after talking to Yolanda and fam about my trip to Nebaj. Little did I know that my night was about to get just a little more interesting. Turns out that we had to go to a birthday party of my homestay’s 7 year old nephew. I don’t know what you know about seven year old birthday parties, but this one had alcohol—and lots of it. There were over 35 family members shoved into tiny chairs at the house and after an hour over 20 of them were drunk. It was great. I remember as I sat there among the laughter and the table slamming, I thought to myself, wow now this is a family.
I met some interesting characters at the party and even got into a pretty good conversation with a 40 yr old uncle who sells piñatas. Five minutes in, after we have developed our own little handshake, he starts to insist that we are “mejor amigos” or best friends. I told him that I do consulting work here to support local businesses and the community. Immediately, he tried to set up a date where I could come give him a charla to help his piñata shop. To which I told him that we don’t really operate like that and we do work for more rural regions. He started to violently raise his voice as he insisted that we were best friends. Scary haha.
The party ended when the family made me dance in the middle of a circle with Yolanda(my host mom) for ten minutes to crazy marimba music. It was definitely one of the most awkward 10 minutes of my life.
The Ecoli strikes back
I never really understood the term “More Money More Problems.” If I had more money, I would not have so many problems right now. Back up to three weeks ago when the doctor prescribed 10 days of cipro for the copious parasites in my body. Because it was so freaken expensive, I decided just to buy 3 days worth and see how I felt and go from there. Stupid stupid decision. I felt better, but while I was feeling better, the ecoli was mobilizing, spreading, replicating, getting ready to tear me up.
On Tuesday, as we were about to go to Mono Loco after a day at the office (apparently there’s free drinks for girls on Tuesday), I began to start shaking and feeling really really cold. I decided to take the bus back to Magdalena instead. The bus ride was terrible, as my stomach started to go nuts also. When I got back around 6 pm, I pretty much collapsed on the bed. I opened my eyes and it was 6 am. Yeah fevers, diarrhea, all that crap over again. Ya’ll have already heard this before. I got my medicine, and am feeling better. I think its incredible how many times I’ve been sick already. Don’t worry about me though; just keep me in your prayers.
Mental breakdown with Jeffrey
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but in my homestay I have this ten years old named Jeffrey. When I first met him a few weeks ago, he was one of the cutest kids I’ve ever spent a substantial amount of time with. Since then, things have changed for the worse. He is really starting to get on my nerves. Two nights ago when I had the most intense fever and diarrhea he climbed in through the window and kept tickling me even though I kept telling him to get out cause I was sick. He later just started throwing peanut shells from his window while I was sleeping. I really have no idea what to do about this random window that connects my room and his—I want to buy a lock, but that would be awkward to install and what not. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a freaken jail in this room when Jeffrey walks on the perimeter it just starts banging on the walls. Oh by the way, these walls are pieces of wood like 2 cm thick.
I normally love kids. There’s something about their innocence, how quick they are to forgive, how humble they are, and their curiosity. But two nights ago and quite possibly still today, I genuinely hated this kid & I don’t hate anyone. I guess I realize now that this is a problem. I need to work on the spiritual fruit of patience, there is something really sadistic about me hating this 10 year old now.
Monterico
So last Thursday, our group minus Kaveh went to a blacksand beach about two hours off Antigua. Everybody either immediately hit the bar or just chilled at the seaside hammocks. Psh east coasters. As for me, I immediately went out for a swim. Let me tell you something about the waves at Monterico, they’re HUMUNGOUS and very close to the shore. I went in to just dip my feet and totally got smashed on my back in a matter of seconds. There was a point where I was swimming as hard as I could back to shore against the under current( and I was still getting blasted out to sea) when I thought “Okay—this is a problem.” It was incredible to be so vulnerable and at the mercy of nature. The water was also super super warm, warmer than all the bucket baths I’ve been having here. Makes California beaches feel like Antarctica. I also met this random Nicaraguan here on vacation who learned English in Jamaica or something. This guy knew how to enjoy life, he answered all my questions in the same format “fucking __________ man.” When I asked him when he was going back to Nicaragua, he answered “fucking whenver man” to which I just started busting up laughing til I had tears in my eyes. Josh and Greg you guys make fun of the way I talk, you gotta here this guy.
Praying with a calm heart
I think I never realized how panicky I am when crises hit till Guatemala. I want to intervene, I want to do something to alleviate my situation. My prayers hold an internal sense of panic because I honestly believe that I am more critical to the situation than God is. One night where I just couldn’t sleep, I was a doing a devo on Mark 4:40 when Jesus calms the storm and when he says Do you still have no faith? I have learned that I need to trust and rest. Before I take it upon myself to do anything, I need to “calm my heart, seek his will, make myself receptive to Him, and just wait for his timing.” I think I’m learning to apply this process with everything in life—with development work, academics, relationships, everything.
Overall, my trip here is picking up speed, I can’t believe it has already been four weeks. I have one more week in Antigua then Xelah and Solola. These next few weeks are going to go by so fast man! But I still miss you all and am eagerly awaiting my return to the states. Thanks for the support and for following this blog, please comment!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Week 3 Nebaj
The worst morning ever
So the morning that I leave to Nebaj, I feel something all too familiar in my stomach. Something begins to grumble and swirl and I immediately dash towards the toilet. I swear there would’ve been a terrible accident if I had been a few seconds late. (This is part of the reason that many an afternoon I contemplate buying diapers) But I digress, after unloading my waste—I had one of the most discouraging moments ever. After realizing that I once again had diarrhea, I also realized that the toilet paper had run out. I had to embarrassingly shout for more from outside the house. Trust me, it gets worse. There wasn’t any toilet paper in the entire house so Yolanda sent her daughter to buy some from a tienda nearby. All this time I’m waiting in the bathroom with my hands in my face just thinking about awkward and embarrassing the situation was.
I don’t want to complain anymore about my morning, but subsequent to this incident I was given a mayo sandwich for breakfast. When I say mayo sandwhich, I mean two pieces of bread with mayo in between. Not only that, but the mayo irritated something in my stomach and I had to use the bathroom again.
Nebaj-tastic
On a lighter note, the ride up to Nebaj was one of the most beautiful yet insane 7 hour trips I have ever taken. The roads here are terrible to say the least, as we were U turning every minute up the mountain. I’m honestly surprised none of us barfed. Despite being carsick, I was surrounded by beautiful scenic mountains and farms—all facebook worthy that I’ll definitely post later. All 9 of us in team Esperanza chose two songs to burn on a CD to listen in the car and for some reason we got really addicted to a Somalia freedom song. After much anticipation, we arrived to a village with dirt roads and scattered debris. Nebaj actually just suffered from intense bombings during the Guatemalan war two decades ago.
Strangely enough, I really like this place, moreso than Antigua. It really is just perpetually surrounded by beautiful mountains, hills and clouds. The people are also quite amiable, although I did encounter a drunkard yesterday who was a little too friendly. When he saw me he immediately ran up to me and yelled CHINO!! and gave me a humungous bear hug for like the most awkward 15 seconds of my life. People were surprised at how unalarmed I was. Yeah well I’m used to it—I’m from Berkeley, duh.
Asian Sensation?
So on Wednesday we went to a village called Xexucap to advertise for our campaign we’ll be having there this Saturday. We’re going to provide free eye exams and also have prescription glasses available for purchase along with water filterers, seeds, wood burning stoves, etc. It was actually fairly difficult to communicate with many of the people there because interestingly enough, their Spanish was extremely broken too. Part of the reason the indigenous stay uneducated and politically ignored is that they lack the Spanish speaking ability and primarily speak dialects like Ishiel & Quiztche. Simply put, there were a lot of obvious gestures and pointing to pictures in our conversations.
Anyway, as we stopped to rest at a school, I sat down to take a sip of water. I kid you not, when I look back up there are about 20 kids crowding around me. Just staring. A kid points at me and tells the other students “Es un Chino. Un Chino!” I playfully introduce myself and ask for their name—to which I get absolutely no response other than their curiously fixated eyes. Yeah, I knew what was going on, I took Asian Am 20a—they were racializing me as an oriental. I really think that these kids thought they were seeing an extraterrestrial for the first time. Annie later told me that last night her family was asking her if she had ever seen a “real Chinito.”
And that’s just how the Guatemalan culture is. They’re extremely blunt and somewhat insensitive. When they see someone thin they call them flaco (skinny) and when they see somewhat kind of obese they say gordo (fat). Of course you already know what they say when they see an asian. Interestingly enough, I find this all so…refreshing. It’s nice to take a break from all the PC-ness in the states. Here the people are so transparent and open to offend one another.
Credi Capaz & Peanut Butter
So far in Nebaj I have been assigned with two others (one from UConn and one from Duke) to work on a project called CrediCapaz. We’ve found that microcredit hasn’t been successful here in Guatemala because people are unable to pay off what they owe—thus, they end up borrowing from another microfinance bank to pay it off. We’re trying to find someway to get these people saving so that they bear no risk when they need money. With this money they can have some money for emergencies, they could start their own business, or even buy useful products like microwaves and refrigerators. I guess this concept is called “savings based microfinance.”
So we’ve been going around doing surveys with questions we’ve come up to figure out the best system to implement here. Unfortunately, there is little faith in banks here…apparently a bank a few years ago that most of the villagers had their money in just one day up and bounced on them. There are two systems we are thinking about implementing, one is called ROSCA (a group savings system which grants no return) and ASCA (with returns). I won’t bore you guys to death with going too in-depth, you can read up on them online if you want.
We’re also starting a peanut butter business for the locals. Hopefully if the business is a success, we can have teens at our school, Centro Explorativo, make it so they can self fund the school’s books, teachers, etc. We seriously just whipped out a blender, bought a huge bag of peanuts, oil, salt, and sugar and experimented yesterday. It actually tasted pretty damn good. We’re still in the process of figuring out the best way to penetrate the market and how to leverage the health benefits of peanut butter. Yesterday we were going out giving out samples and getting feedback—it was kind of funny because nobody here has ever tried peanut butter before in their life. I can imagine how intimidating it would be when a bunch of gringos carrying a jar of some brown stuff and try to shove a spoonful of it down their throats.
Balllin’
So Nebaj is by far much more rural, much poorer than Antigua. So when I arrived here, I was expecting an overcrowded shanty with a dirt floor, a hole in the ground as the toilet, and just maybe, just maybe, my own room. Man was I wrong. The place I’m staying at is SO nice by Guatemalan standards. The house is actually made of cement and has tiled floors. In addition, there is a shower (but it only has cold water) so I opted to take the bucket baths instead. Not to mention that there’s a freaken guitar here which I was finally able to tune. Man I literally jammed for 2 hours straight when I saw that thing lying alone in the corner all dusty. And for some reason my room has three beds. I’m not really sure what to do with this…I was considering pushing the three together to make one humungous bed but I thought that’d be a bit too ostentatious and greedy of me. Instead I’ve been rotating each night. Just because.
The family here is really different, I got the whole single mother and one child thing going on here. Unlike in Antigua, where I have like 8 children always wanting to play and like 6 aunts and uncles, its just the three of us. My mom’s name is Isolina, an elementary teacher at the local school here. We have great 1.5 hr long conversations after dinner till she goes to sleep about my day, Guatemala, Nebaj, differences in culture, and projects Soluciones Comunitares is working on. She’s really sweet and I’m planning on teaching her some guitar before I leave.
NBA finals
These past few weeks have been frustrating to say the least. You know that you’re in a developing country(or at least in central America) when they don’t play the freaken NBA finals on tv. Instead, they have 5 channels of reruns of Barcelona vs. ManU and Mexican Soccer League. Last weekend while I was still in Antigua all the interns went bar hopping and I swear out of 50 tvs, 0 had my beloved Lakers on. It’s been frustrating to say the least…after watching almost every single game this season (3 hrs every night is not conducive to my studying habits), I can’t watch my team possibly win a championship. Nonetheless, I have to say I am incredibly proud of them for dealing with their Jekyl and Hyde tendencies against Houston and Denver.
La campaña & dealing with disappointment
So on Saturday we all went to our first visual campaign in a village about an hour away from Nebaj called Xexucap. We basically gave free eye exams to find out what glasses they needed and then sold it at a very cheap price. Most Guatemalans have one of two eye problems: presbyopia(a natural condition in which people over the age of 35 lose the ability to focus on close objects) and pterygium(a growth on the surface of the eye as a result of long exposure to UV, dry conditions, dust, and smoke). It’s amazing when they finally get their glasses and they find out that they can still read, still weave, etc. Most people just assume that its normal that their eyesight is deteriorating and that there is nothing they can do about it.
I gotta admit that I am sorta feeling disappointed and at times helpless here in Guatemala. While we are providing access to essential life-changing products, I thought the focus would be more on empowering the entrepreneurs. Simply put, I had this overly romantic idea that we would be like infiltrating brothels and teaching ex prostitutes how to earn an income through selling our products. Our entrepreneurs here, while probably somewhere near the poverty line, are not the poorest of Guatemala. I guess it’s a reality check, I’m not going to change the world through a summer abroad internship—but I still believe that I’m meeting and serving God here somehow and that’s all that matters.
5 weeks left till I return to the states, this week went by really fast. I miss yall back in California, please comment.
So the morning that I leave to Nebaj, I feel something all too familiar in my stomach. Something begins to grumble and swirl and I immediately dash towards the toilet. I swear there would’ve been a terrible accident if I had been a few seconds late. (This is part of the reason that many an afternoon I contemplate buying diapers) But I digress, after unloading my waste—I had one of the most discouraging moments ever. After realizing that I once again had diarrhea, I also realized that the toilet paper had run out. I had to embarrassingly shout for more from outside the house. Trust me, it gets worse. There wasn’t any toilet paper in the entire house so Yolanda sent her daughter to buy some from a tienda nearby. All this time I’m waiting in the bathroom with my hands in my face just thinking about awkward and embarrassing the situation was.
I don’t want to complain anymore about my morning, but subsequent to this incident I was given a mayo sandwich for breakfast. When I say mayo sandwhich, I mean two pieces of bread with mayo in between. Not only that, but the mayo irritated something in my stomach and I had to use the bathroom again.
Nebaj-tastic
On a lighter note, the ride up to Nebaj was one of the most beautiful yet insane 7 hour trips I have ever taken. The roads here are terrible to say the least, as we were U turning every minute up the mountain. I’m honestly surprised none of us barfed. Despite being carsick, I was surrounded by beautiful scenic mountains and farms—all facebook worthy that I’ll definitely post later. All 9 of us in team Esperanza chose two songs to burn on a CD to listen in the car and for some reason we got really addicted to a Somalia freedom song. After much anticipation, we arrived to a village with dirt roads and scattered debris. Nebaj actually just suffered from intense bombings during the Guatemalan war two decades ago.
Strangely enough, I really like this place, moreso than Antigua. It really is just perpetually surrounded by beautiful mountains, hills and clouds. The people are also quite amiable, although I did encounter a drunkard yesterday who was a little too friendly. When he saw me he immediately ran up to me and yelled CHINO!! and gave me a humungous bear hug for like the most awkward 15 seconds of my life. People were surprised at how unalarmed I was. Yeah well I’m used to it—I’m from Berkeley, duh.
Asian Sensation?
So on Wednesday we went to a village called Xexucap to advertise for our campaign we’ll be having there this Saturday. We’re going to provide free eye exams and also have prescription glasses available for purchase along with water filterers, seeds, wood burning stoves, etc. It was actually fairly difficult to communicate with many of the people there because interestingly enough, their Spanish was extremely broken too. Part of the reason the indigenous stay uneducated and politically ignored is that they lack the Spanish speaking ability and primarily speak dialects like Ishiel & Quiztche. Simply put, there were a lot of obvious gestures and pointing to pictures in our conversations.
Anyway, as we stopped to rest at a school, I sat down to take a sip of water. I kid you not, when I look back up there are about 20 kids crowding around me. Just staring. A kid points at me and tells the other students “Es un Chino. Un Chino!” I playfully introduce myself and ask for their name—to which I get absolutely no response other than their curiously fixated eyes. Yeah, I knew what was going on, I took Asian Am 20a—they were racializing me as an oriental. I really think that these kids thought they were seeing an extraterrestrial for the first time. Annie later told me that last night her family was asking her if she had ever seen a “real Chinito.”
And that’s just how the Guatemalan culture is. They’re extremely blunt and somewhat insensitive. When they see someone thin they call them flaco (skinny) and when they see somewhat kind of obese they say gordo (fat). Of course you already know what they say when they see an asian. Interestingly enough, I find this all so…refreshing. It’s nice to take a break from all the PC-ness in the states. Here the people are so transparent and open to offend one another.
Credi Capaz & Peanut Butter
So far in Nebaj I have been assigned with two others (one from UConn and one from Duke) to work on a project called CrediCapaz. We’ve found that microcredit hasn’t been successful here in Guatemala because people are unable to pay off what they owe—thus, they end up borrowing from another microfinance bank to pay it off. We’re trying to find someway to get these people saving so that they bear no risk when they need money. With this money they can have some money for emergencies, they could start their own business, or even buy useful products like microwaves and refrigerators. I guess this concept is called “savings based microfinance.”
So we’ve been going around doing surveys with questions we’ve come up to figure out the best system to implement here. Unfortunately, there is little faith in banks here…apparently a bank a few years ago that most of the villagers had their money in just one day up and bounced on them. There are two systems we are thinking about implementing, one is called ROSCA (a group savings system which grants no return) and ASCA (with returns). I won’t bore you guys to death with going too in-depth, you can read up on them online if you want.
We’re also starting a peanut butter business for the locals. Hopefully if the business is a success, we can have teens at our school, Centro Explorativo, make it so they can self fund the school’s books, teachers, etc. We seriously just whipped out a blender, bought a huge bag of peanuts, oil, salt, and sugar and experimented yesterday. It actually tasted pretty damn good. We’re still in the process of figuring out the best way to penetrate the market and how to leverage the health benefits of peanut butter. Yesterday we were going out giving out samples and getting feedback—it was kind of funny because nobody here has ever tried peanut butter before in their life. I can imagine how intimidating it would be when a bunch of gringos carrying a jar of some brown stuff and try to shove a spoonful of it down their throats.
Balllin’
So Nebaj is by far much more rural, much poorer than Antigua. So when I arrived here, I was expecting an overcrowded shanty with a dirt floor, a hole in the ground as the toilet, and just maybe, just maybe, my own room. Man was I wrong. The place I’m staying at is SO nice by Guatemalan standards. The house is actually made of cement and has tiled floors. In addition, there is a shower (but it only has cold water) so I opted to take the bucket baths instead. Not to mention that there’s a freaken guitar here which I was finally able to tune. Man I literally jammed for 2 hours straight when I saw that thing lying alone in the corner all dusty. And for some reason my room has three beds. I’m not really sure what to do with this…I was considering pushing the three together to make one humungous bed but I thought that’d be a bit too ostentatious and greedy of me. Instead I’ve been rotating each night. Just because.
The family here is really different, I got the whole single mother and one child thing going on here. Unlike in Antigua, where I have like 8 children always wanting to play and like 6 aunts and uncles, its just the three of us. My mom’s name is Isolina, an elementary teacher at the local school here. We have great 1.5 hr long conversations after dinner till she goes to sleep about my day, Guatemala, Nebaj, differences in culture, and projects Soluciones Comunitares is working on. She’s really sweet and I’m planning on teaching her some guitar before I leave.
NBA finals
These past few weeks have been frustrating to say the least. You know that you’re in a developing country(or at least in central America) when they don’t play the freaken NBA finals on tv. Instead, they have 5 channels of reruns of Barcelona vs. ManU and Mexican Soccer League. Last weekend while I was still in Antigua all the interns went bar hopping and I swear out of 50 tvs, 0 had my beloved Lakers on. It’s been frustrating to say the least…after watching almost every single game this season (3 hrs every night is not conducive to my studying habits), I can’t watch my team possibly win a championship. Nonetheless, I have to say I am incredibly proud of them for dealing with their Jekyl and Hyde tendencies against Houston and Denver.
La campaña & dealing with disappointment
So on Saturday we all went to our first visual campaign in a village about an hour away from Nebaj called Xexucap. We basically gave free eye exams to find out what glasses they needed and then sold it at a very cheap price. Most Guatemalans have one of two eye problems: presbyopia(a natural condition in which people over the age of 35 lose the ability to focus on close objects) and pterygium(a growth on the surface of the eye as a result of long exposure to UV, dry conditions, dust, and smoke). It’s amazing when they finally get their glasses and they find out that they can still read, still weave, etc. Most people just assume that its normal that their eyesight is deteriorating and that there is nothing they can do about it.
I gotta admit that I am sorta feeling disappointed and at times helpless here in Guatemala. While we are providing access to essential life-changing products, I thought the focus would be more on empowering the entrepreneurs. Simply put, I had this overly romantic idea that we would be like infiltrating brothels and teaching ex prostitutes how to earn an income through selling our products. Our entrepreneurs here, while probably somewhere near the poverty line, are not the poorest of Guatemala. I guess it’s a reality check, I’m not going to change the world through a summer abroad internship—but I still believe that I’m meeting and serving God here somehow and that’s all that matters.
5 weeks left till I return to the states, this week went by really fast. I miss yall back in California, please comment.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Week 1-2 Here we go here we go
So I am jumping on the bandwagon and writing a blog myself about my 8 weeks here in Guatemala. I’ll be writing weekly, so here begins my journey. Look for nuggets of wisdom, development perspectives, spiritual epiphanies, and from what I hear, bad-bad bathroom stories.
A sort of homecoming…
I touched down at Guatemala City at about 9:50 pm after almost an entire day of traveling. (I left my house at around 7 a.m.) I arrived at the hostel I would be staying at for the next few hours with Hannah. Staring down at a huge root looking structure and the tiny slightly dirty beds in front of us, a thought suddenly inundated us. We were going to be here for 2 months. What. The. Random. It seemed like only yesterday that we were furiously filling out our final essays in our blue books in Berkeley. Oh wait, it was just yesterday. We laughed at how random this whole trip for a good ten minutes. There was a sick desperation to our laugh—as if to say omg what have we done and omg are we going to come out of this alive.
The next day I arrived at my homestay family to which point it really hit me that I was in a developing country. As my hostmom showed me my room, I couldn’t help but feel homesick for my small little dorm in Berkeley. The pink decrepit walls had holes leading to the streets, a picture of Jesus, and a Santa covering up a bigger hole. On top of that, my ceiling was a piece of tarp. Está bien? She asked. I gulped. Yeah, this was going to be quite an experience.
Nonetheless, homestay time has been rather enjoyable. My mother Yolanda is pretty sweet and is responsive and patient with my terrible Spanish. Every day I get back from Antigua at around 6 and talk to her and her three daughters while they make tortillas (by the way, my house is a tortilleria…we sell tortillas). One of the daughters is actually my age but I don’t know much about her except that she has a kid who she breastfeeds during dinner. They’re all friendly and one of them is….dare I say pretty? (don’t worry I didn’t come to Guatemala to go wife hunting). I play with the kids every day, apparently my family has about 8 of these. We play soccer in the stone streets with all the neighbors old school style.
“I got diahrrea in Guatemala”
Arriving to this country with an entrepreneurial mindset (after all, this is Social Entrepreneur Corps), I have decided to start my own t-shirt company for tourists here in Antigua. The slogan will be “I got diahrrea in Guatemala” accompanied by an image of a bucket. Por favor, allow me to explain. At around 6:43 am on Wednesday, I woke up and immediately had to use the bathroom. There’s a Chinese proverb that says the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. As I clutched the toilet paper little did I know that this was the step in a long messy journey filled with diahrrea and feverish outbreaks. I sat out the training sessions in the lounge for pretty much two entire days with Hannah and others who were also feeling sick. Every day, more and more casualties rolled in, clutching their stomachs with that defeated look in their eyes. I find it strange now that I think back how our conversations centered around our diarrhea. A typical conversation would begin with “how is your poo?” To which one would respond, “thanks for asking I actually got a few solids this morning!”
After 3 or 4 days of intense diarrhea and fever, I decided to check out what exactly was wrong with me. I headed over on Saturday to Antigua to take a stool test. So when the nurse handed me a small cup and a tongue stick, I honestly thought that I was supposed to poo inside the toilet, then fish it out into the little cup. I decided I would save myself that disgusting process by swiping the toilet with the cup. When the nurse received the cup she asked me why my poo was “como agua” to which I told her that my poo is basically like water right now. Apparently I did the entire process wrong and had to poo in the cup directly. I felt embarrassed , laughed it off and got back to business in the bathroom.
So the verdict finally came out 45 minutes later. I had salmonella and ecoli, I remember when the doctor saw my results. It was one of the most frightening experiences ever when I saw his eyes light up and click his tongue. All I could think in my head was holy crap please God not swine flu. Luckily it was just parasites…yeah just parasites laying their little eggs in me and strategizing on how to screw up my next meal. I don’t know how I got salmonella and ecoli, but its most likely somehow from drinking some unpure water (which I had already religiously avoided) After taking the antibiotics I feel a lot better.
On birthdays
Hannah’s birthday was May 30, last Saturday and I guarantee that she will never ever forget it. Not because she had to go to the hospital, not because she found out she had salmonella and ecoli as well, not even because she had an allergic reaction and had swollen eyes the size of tennis balls and intense heart burn, but because she got to spend it with me. Surprisingly enough, my birthday didn’t come close to being as terrible as hers. God gave me a great gift that morning, solid pieces of poo. heyyy guys, I missed you(you know you’ve gone crazy when you’ve start talking to your poo). I felt a sense of accomplishment and pumped my fist as if I was mamba draining a game winning shot. My birthday ended up being just another normal day, I can’t really say that I even remembered for most of the day. Apparently neither did my parents, until two days later when they referred to me as “birthday boy” at the end of their email. Ah, I’m going to have to celebrate this when I get back home. Brazilian bbq anyone??
Pollo buses
Basically every morning I need to take a one hour bus to Antigua—these buses are freaken nuts. They call them chicken buses or pollo bus because they literally shove 100 ppl into a normal sized school bus like chickens. What happens is they are constantly racing other buses to get to the next stop so what they do is they make you get on then later crawl or squeeze through to ask you for money while you’re moving. The kids are usually the ones who collect the money and its insane what they will do to get to the back of the bus. I saw a kid climb through the window and crawl on the top of the bus all the way to the back while the bus is going like 60 mph. Needless to say, after every bus ride I feel nauseous.
So why am I actually here?
Every afternoon we have been reading articles and discussing different models and theories about development. On the macro level, there are two head honchos with quite drastically different perspectives on how we should attack poverty. Jeffrey Sachs is an economist who is urging the doubling of aid in order to fund his millennium project to officially end extreme poverty as we know it by 2025. I remember he had a huge time article a few years ago—one of the most provocative I ever read. On the other hand, there is Bill Easterly, a guy who is criticizing the tragedy that over $2 trillion has been spent over the past few years that just hasn’t reached the millions of babies dying of malaria and stupid causes like diarrhea. He criticizes he millennium project because nobody in the entire project is responsible for accomplishing anything—there is no accountability.
We also distinguished the difference between relief and development. It’s strange to think that relief…going somewhere and giving out free supplies can actually hurt an undeveloped community. It has also happened to be the case here in Guatemala that relief work is thwarting development work efforts. If entrepreneurs are trying to make an income by selling eye glasses, they’ll run out of business the second a few foreigners come into their town with eye glasses to give out. Helping people is a lot harder than just having good intentions. We really have to critically analyze the pathways from the inputs to the outcomes.
Social Entrepreneur Corps uses a development tool known as the microconsignment model. What we do here is run a full on needs analysis of what the indigenous population here needs, and try to provide access to these products. Now, the most interesting aspect is the distribution method of these products. For instance, our two popular products so far have been eye-glasses and filterers. What we do is then train entrepreneurs (usually women) to take these products and sell them to their respective villages. Thus, these impoverished women make a steady source of income from the commission they make from selling the product. Unlike microfinance, there is no chance they can go in debt because if they fail or decide they don’t want to do it, they can simply return the products, no harm done.
Some buzz words: sustainability, grassroots, building the bridge, savings based microcredit, access.
Ecoli, Salmonella, & Jesus
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:2).
I don’t think I really really understood what James was saying until this week. Some of you have asked me how I am doing and how was my first week in Guatemala. In many ways, it was one of the most physically painful, emotionally draining and loneliest weeks of my entire life. In other ways, it was a week in which I took huge leaps in my faith. In the midst of a swirling stomach and a blazing fever, I finally was able to pray “Lord if it brings me closer to you, then bring it on. Not only that, I will consider it pure joy.” I don’t want to go too much into this on a blog because I really had a very personal moment with God in which I was so aligned with what he wanted for me: true fulfillment and maturation. Ask me about it later.
Nonetheless, I am now really starting to appreciate the country in a strange way. It's beautiful and really I am incredibly pumped to go out to different more poor and rural parts of the country. Next week I'm heading over to Nebaj...one of the most rural villages here. Internet will suck, so....hasta la semana próxima!
A sort of homecoming…
I touched down at Guatemala City at about 9:50 pm after almost an entire day of traveling. (I left my house at around 7 a.m.) I arrived at the hostel I would be staying at for the next few hours with Hannah. Staring down at a huge root looking structure and the tiny slightly dirty beds in front of us, a thought suddenly inundated us. We were going to be here for 2 months. What. The. Random. It seemed like only yesterday that we were furiously filling out our final essays in our blue books in Berkeley. Oh wait, it was just yesterday. We laughed at how random this whole trip for a good ten minutes. There was a sick desperation to our laugh—as if to say omg what have we done and omg are we going to come out of this alive.
The next day I arrived at my homestay family to which point it really hit me that I was in a developing country. As my hostmom showed me my room, I couldn’t help but feel homesick for my small little dorm in Berkeley. The pink decrepit walls had holes leading to the streets, a picture of Jesus, and a Santa covering up a bigger hole. On top of that, my ceiling was a piece of tarp. Está bien? She asked. I gulped. Yeah, this was going to be quite an experience.
Nonetheless, homestay time has been rather enjoyable. My mother Yolanda is pretty sweet and is responsive and patient with my terrible Spanish. Every day I get back from Antigua at around 6 and talk to her and her three daughters while they make tortillas (by the way, my house is a tortilleria…we sell tortillas). One of the daughters is actually my age but I don’t know much about her except that she has a kid who she breastfeeds during dinner. They’re all friendly and one of them is….dare I say pretty? (don’t worry I didn’t come to Guatemala to go wife hunting). I play with the kids every day, apparently my family has about 8 of these. We play soccer in the stone streets with all the neighbors old school style.
“I got diahrrea in Guatemala”
Arriving to this country with an entrepreneurial mindset (after all, this is Social Entrepreneur Corps), I have decided to start my own t-shirt company for tourists here in Antigua. The slogan will be “I got diahrrea in Guatemala” accompanied by an image of a bucket. Por favor, allow me to explain. At around 6:43 am on Wednesday, I woke up and immediately had to use the bathroom. There’s a Chinese proverb that says the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. As I clutched the toilet paper little did I know that this was the step in a long messy journey filled with diahrrea and feverish outbreaks. I sat out the training sessions in the lounge for pretty much two entire days with Hannah and others who were also feeling sick. Every day, more and more casualties rolled in, clutching their stomachs with that defeated look in their eyes. I find it strange now that I think back how our conversations centered around our diarrhea. A typical conversation would begin with “how is your poo?” To which one would respond, “thanks for asking I actually got a few solids this morning!”
After 3 or 4 days of intense diarrhea and fever, I decided to check out what exactly was wrong with me. I headed over on Saturday to Antigua to take a stool test. So when the nurse handed me a small cup and a tongue stick, I honestly thought that I was supposed to poo inside the toilet, then fish it out into the little cup. I decided I would save myself that disgusting process by swiping the toilet with the cup. When the nurse received the cup she asked me why my poo was “como agua” to which I told her that my poo is basically like water right now. Apparently I did the entire process wrong and had to poo in the cup directly. I felt embarrassed , laughed it off and got back to business in the bathroom.
So the verdict finally came out 45 minutes later. I had salmonella and ecoli, I remember when the doctor saw my results. It was one of the most frightening experiences ever when I saw his eyes light up and click his tongue. All I could think in my head was holy crap please God not swine flu. Luckily it was just parasites…yeah just parasites laying their little eggs in me and strategizing on how to screw up my next meal. I don’t know how I got salmonella and ecoli, but its most likely somehow from drinking some unpure water (which I had already religiously avoided) After taking the antibiotics I feel a lot better.
On birthdays
Hannah’s birthday was May 30, last Saturday and I guarantee that she will never ever forget it. Not because she had to go to the hospital, not because she found out she had salmonella and ecoli as well, not even because she had an allergic reaction and had swollen eyes the size of tennis balls and intense heart burn, but because she got to spend it with me. Surprisingly enough, my birthday didn’t come close to being as terrible as hers. God gave me a great gift that morning, solid pieces of poo. heyyy guys, I missed you(you know you’ve gone crazy when you’ve start talking to your poo). I felt a sense of accomplishment and pumped my fist as if I was mamba draining a game winning shot. My birthday ended up being just another normal day, I can’t really say that I even remembered for most of the day. Apparently neither did my parents, until two days later when they referred to me as “birthday boy” at the end of their email. Ah, I’m going to have to celebrate this when I get back home. Brazilian bbq anyone??
Pollo buses
Basically every morning I need to take a one hour bus to Antigua—these buses are freaken nuts. They call them chicken buses or pollo bus because they literally shove 100 ppl into a normal sized school bus like chickens. What happens is they are constantly racing other buses to get to the next stop so what they do is they make you get on then later crawl or squeeze through to ask you for money while you’re moving. The kids are usually the ones who collect the money and its insane what they will do to get to the back of the bus. I saw a kid climb through the window and crawl on the top of the bus all the way to the back while the bus is going like 60 mph. Needless to say, after every bus ride I feel nauseous.
So why am I actually here?
Every afternoon we have been reading articles and discussing different models and theories about development. On the macro level, there are two head honchos with quite drastically different perspectives on how we should attack poverty. Jeffrey Sachs is an economist who is urging the doubling of aid in order to fund his millennium project to officially end extreme poverty as we know it by 2025. I remember he had a huge time article a few years ago—one of the most provocative I ever read. On the other hand, there is Bill Easterly, a guy who is criticizing the tragedy that over $2 trillion has been spent over the past few years that just hasn’t reached the millions of babies dying of malaria and stupid causes like diarrhea. He criticizes he millennium project because nobody in the entire project is responsible for accomplishing anything—there is no accountability.
We also distinguished the difference between relief and development. It’s strange to think that relief…going somewhere and giving out free supplies can actually hurt an undeveloped community. It has also happened to be the case here in Guatemala that relief work is thwarting development work efforts. If entrepreneurs are trying to make an income by selling eye glasses, they’ll run out of business the second a few foreigners come into their town with eye glasses to give out. Helping people is a lot harder than just having good intentions. We really have to critically analyze the pathways from the inputs to the outcomes.
Social Entrepreneur Corps uses a development tool known as the microconsignment model. What we do here is run a full on needs analysis of what the indigenous population here needs, and try to provide access to these products. Now, the most interesting aspect is the distribution method of these products. For instance, our two popular products so far have been eye-glasses and filterers. What we do is then train entrepreneurs (usually women) to take these products and sell them to their respective villages. Thus, these impoverished women make a steady source of income from the commission they make from selling the product. Unlike microfinance, there is no chance they can go in debt because if they fail or decide they don’t want to do it, they can simply return the products, no harm done.
Some buzz words: sustainability, grassroots, building the bridge, savings based microcredit, access.
Ecoli, Salmonella, & Jesus
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:2).
I don’t think I really really understood what James was saying until this week. Some of you have asked me how I am doing and how was my first week in Guatemala. In many ways, it was one of the most physically painful, emotionally draining and loneliest weeks of my entire life. In other ways, it was a week in which I took huge leaps in my faith. In the midst of a swirling stomach and a blazing fever, I finally was able to pray “Lord if it brings me closer to you, then bring it on. Not only that, I will consider it pure joy.” I don’t want to go too much into this on a blog because I really had a very personal moment with God in which I was so aligned with what he wanted for me: true fulfillment and maturation. Ask me about it later.
Nonetheless, I am now really starting to appreciate the country in a strange way. It's beautiful and really I am incredibly pumped to go out to different more poor and rural parts of the country. Next week I'm heading over to Nebaj...one of the most rural villages here. Internet will suck, so....hasta la semana próxima!
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