Fun times with PIES

(warning: this is long post where I try to summarize some of my thoughts on what I did at PIES. I'm not sure who is still reading this blog, but this might be long and boring if you are not someone like my parents... but it does include pics, so you can just look at those.)

Yesterday was my last day volunteering with PIES. I really enjoyed my time there and feel so lucky to have found them. In coming to Guatemala, my intentions were pretty vague: gain more international public health experience, hopefully in maternal and child health. I didn't really know that would take me, or if I would even like where it did, but PIES turned out to be a perfect organization. In my short time with them, I learned a lot about the health of the women and children of Guatemala, primarily indigenous women, and how organizations are working to combat the major health problems.

Midwife trainings: The work that PIES does is vital to health of mothers and children. When I was able to go to the midwife trainings, I was more of an observer than a helper. I would, when needed, help write names and register women. Over 60% of Guatemalan women are illiterate, the second worse in the world, so I would help write names when women couldn't and take their fingerprints. And at least this made me feel useful. But it was through these where I felt like I was learning the most. A midwife is considered a Mayan doctor - she uses herbs, conducts post birth massages and ceremonies. But given how important a fundamental "medical" understanding in giving a healthy birth, the emphasis on formalizing training and enforcing it is much stronger, then say for the bone healer and spiritual guide. During these trainings, it was clear how important they were. I appeared that many of the women weren't confident in their roles and didn't know the answer to basic questions. Limited economic resources and mistrust in chemical medicine, require families to hire a midwife, as opposed to going to a health center or hospital. Given that there are fewer and fewer midwives, some who don't have a lot of experience are called upon to attend a birth, and this is where problems usually arise.



(juanita with the fake baby and placenta)
On the other hand, a small number of the women at the training had a deep understanding of how to properly attend a birth and all the possible complications. These were also the ones who spoke to the group about the importance of learning this information and unifying. Midwives are often blamed for anything that goes wrong during pregnancy. In order to prevent this, they need to educate communities that things do go wrong during birth, so if the midwife says it's better to go to the hospital, the community needs to respect that and see that it's for the health of the mother - not accuse the midwife of not doing her job.



(Doña Esperanza hard at work)

Traditional Mayan Medicine: I spent most of my time in the office working on this program. PIES has a mission to increase the awareness, acceptance and respect for traditional mayan medicine. After bringing together a network of Mayan doctors, they have been working with medical schools with the hopes of implementing a mandatory traditional mayan medicine course in the medical curriculum. I spent one day at a workshop for 6th year medical students on Mayan medicine. While one day was not enough, the students were extremely interested. Many stayed after to ask questions about patients they had seen who had described medicines they had used that the students didn't understand. I'm really lucky to have been able to work on this topic, because it's clear that for the guatemalan health system to improve western medicine needs to understand and incorporate mayan medicine. If not, it will continue to alienate a large number of people who will not seek the services they need.
While it seems that the mayan doctors are older and not being replaced by the younger generation, many Guatemalans - even the ones who live in the city - do adhere to some traditional practices. If doctors don't understand what these practices are and why they are done, there could be serious health complications.

In transcribing 11 interviews by different mayan doctors and mayan medical experts, I saw some basic themes: 1) Guatemalans use mayan medicine primarily because they don't have the resources for "chemical" medicine. 2) Mayan doctors (bone healers, midwives, etc...) have a gift. At some point in their lives they realize they have this gift and it becomes known that they are now a practicing mayan doctor. Usually they realize they have a gift through a sign or a dream, or someone else telling them that they do. They then become an apprentice to learn all about it. 3) They all said that Mayan medicine is important because it is of the ancestors and has cured people for thousands of years, and therefore must be taught and preserved. 4) Mayan doctors are important because they are available at all times of the day and are in people's communities. If someone is sick, they can only go to the hospital when the office is open, but there is always a mayan doctor who can help heal.



(Doña Angela, who wanted her picture taken)

I also worked on other various projects such as making materials for the Women's groups. As part of a government program where women receive formula for their under 6th month old, they must be present at a workshop that PIES gives. Marta asked me to put together some materials. I first thought the theme was anemia and that they wanted a powerpoint (Dona Esperanza, the old midwife, and Marta told me this). I then still thought the theme was Anemia, but understood that they wanted a large poster - printed I thought. The next week, Dona Esperanza told me the theme was actually Healthy Prenatal Care. I somehow realized that they didn't want a poster printed, they wanted it painted - on cloth. So, I whipped out my 8th grade art skills and painted 5 posters on cloth representing hygiene, healthy eating habits, midwife checks, etc... While it was very bizarre, it was a nice blast from the past and putting together science projects.

All in all, my time at PIES was never boring. A lot of self initiation was involved, but it was a wonderful group of women who I hope to work with again someday. I also gained the experience I was looking for, understood some of the PIES and Guatemala faces in improving health and health care, and feel better prepared for the three years of study ahead of me.

La Senora de la Refra

I don't think it would be right to leave Guatemala without having mentioned refracción, or snack time. I didn't really get a good idea of the significance of refracción until I started working at PIES. Primeros Pasos, which is primarily American, doesn't really have the same culture around refracción. But, in working with PIES both in the office and in the communities, I soon learned. Most countries outside the US take more time for food and it plays a larger symbolic role in daily life. But, I think what strikes me the most about refracción, is not that they pause and eat around mid morning, but the quantity and quality of the food - as well as how much care goes into it and how important it's place is in the culture.

I'm not sure how many Guatemalan's eat breakfast, or what the culture is around breakfast. The younger people I worked with in the office skip breakfast in order to be able to sleep longer before going into the office (sound familiar?). I think if you have someone to make you breakfast - eggs, tortillas, refried beans, etc... - then you eat it, if not, you don't. Just a guess though. Anyway, by the time 10:30 rolls around, people are hungry and ready for their 30min food and coffee break.

PIES' office is on a side street in a residential area of Xela. It's about a 10min walk away from my house. Sellers seem to know that there is an office there, and I think there might be others on the street, because many walk down the street daily selling all sorts of things. There is the fruit truck with a large megaphone on the top that announces what fruit it has that day and how much it costs; the tortilla man on a moped that comes everyday at noon, honking his horn; the ice cream cart with its bell around 10. I've also seen/heard bookcases (a man walking down the street with one small bookcase), pizza, and a banana lady.

So, it's no surprise that everyday between 10 and 10:30 comes the "Refra lady" or "La Senora de la refra." With all her food in a basket on her head, a stool and usually 1-3 kids, she enters in the office, sits in the lobby and waits for PIES employees to buy something. She usually has a pretty good selection: empanadas de pollo, or cheese, tostadas, some other fried dough shaped like a log with meat or beans. Other days she has chicken sandwiches, tortilla with sausages, or ham sandwiches. She also has an Atol, or Arroz con Leche - hot rice or corn based drinks. Whenever she arrives, Emilia the Admin Assistant, calls everyone in the office to let them know that she has arrived, and 90% of the people in the office buy something. They then all sit down to eat it in the office kitchen.

On special occasions, birthdays and good-bye parties, the staff makes refracción. My most memorable refracción in the office was on the Director's birthday. I was sent out in the morning to buy the food for it. We were making ham and cheese sandwiches, on white wonder bread, with tomato and onion, mayo, ketchup, ham and processed sliced cheese (yum!) with chips on side. I was taken with how much care went into making these sandwiches and how crucial they were to the celebration. They almost seemed like the center of the party. It doesn't seem like you can take a morning break from work without eating a big, hearty "snack." For my despidida - goodbye party - Emilia's mom made chicken tostadas with an awesome, not too spicy, chili sauce. It's always amazing to me that after all this food, people are still ready to eat a giant (also homemade, in the office kitchen) lunch around 1:30.


Refra is equally as important when we are in the communities. During the trainings with the midwives, there is always a midmorning break. While the food is not as elaborate, mainly cookies or bread with highly sugared "coffee," it would never not happen. Even if the workshop is running way behind schedule, you have a long break.

Even though refra isn't elaborate during the workshops, lunch is. They all end with lunch for the participants, and the lunch is not a boxed sandwich with an apple and bag of chips. Just like the Refra lady, a woman arrives with lunch for all. She comes armed with a giant pot of whatever she's made - soup, chicken or beef is sauce, etc... - rice, tortillas, tamales, spicy sauce and coffee. She brings real plates and silver wear and everyone gets served one by one. I think this meal is part of what gets the women to come each month, this is probably one of the few times a month they eat meat. I wasn’t able to figure out exactly how much these cost, but PIES is accountable for all the meals provided. The main reason we register people is so that we have a name for each meal provided. As most of us probably do, while these lunches and refra are really time consuming, expensive and a often a long distraction from work, I wish that the US cared just a little bit more about meal time.

Nebaj to Todos Santos

My friend Meghan from Boston came down for a visit last week to do the 6-day, 40 mile, trek from the town of Nebaj to Todos Santos. Since I arrived in Xela I´d been wanting to do this trek and I was thrilled to be able to share it with the good friend and rock-star hiker that Meghan is. The trek was pretty incredible, my writing and the pics won´t do it justice, but hopefully you´ll get a good enough sense of it to make you jealous. There were only 3 of us on the trek, (Me, Meghan and Kathryn) plus two guides (Jon and Brandon).

To give you a rough idea of what area we walked through, here is a map: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2859271

One of the most interesting and difficult things about this hike was enjoying it for all of its beauty, uniqueness and coming upon small towns, all while knowing that these the people of this area have recently suffered so much. The Cuchumatanes mountain range, where Nebaj, Todos Santos, and the area in between is located was one of the areas most affected by the civil war. The mountains made is easy for the guerillas and the army to hide. The people in the small towns, with little communication to the large towns or outside world often provided food ans shelter for guerillas, but were also the largest victims and pawns of the war. During 1981 and 1982, the most gruesome phase of the civil war, numbers of entire villages were burned and destroyed. The army and the guerillas used civilians however they pleased to prove whatever point they were trying to make. Civilians rarely knew what the fighting was about, who was a guerilla and who was the army (the army tried to confuse people), and suffered the most casualties. Today, they suffer the highest rates of poverty and illiteracy.

Walking through small remote towns, it was hard not to wonder what these families had lived through, how they were coping today or how things had changed, and how life would have been without 30 years of war. The majority of those in the 10-20 family towns that we walked through did not speak Spanish. Nebaj is in the K'iche' speaking area and Todos Santos is in Mam speaking area. I wish I could have learned more about the history and people of the area over the course of the trek. It was hard not to feel guilty or fake enjoying the beauty of the mountains, knowing that it was just that that had caused these people so much pain. So, with that in mind, here is a run down of this wonderful trek.

Days 1 and 6 of the trek were spent traveling. It took about 6 hours to get to Nebaj from Xela. We got there mid-afternoon, settled into the hostel we were staying in for the night and then explored the town. Kathryn, Meghan and I then explored the town. The appeal of Nebaj is really the mountains and trails that surround it. So, after wandering through the cemetery and the market we felt like we had seen most of the town. The cemetery was pretty typical except for the large number of identical looking crosses for tombstones and large white rooms full of crosses and candles. Given the my limited knowledge of Nebaj, I wondered if the rows of identical unmarked crosses were victims of mass killings and the rooms with crosses for those who disappeared. Similarly to Santa Anita, there was a mural that represented the history of the village.

For the rest of the 4 days, we walked about 10 miles a day. The terrain changed everyday, even drastically over the course of the day making for some incredible landscape. The days weren't too long, 6-8 hours of walking a day, with long lunch breaks and arriving to our sleeping place between 3 and 4 each day.


Day 1: Beginning around 8am, we set off on our trek. It was uphill pretty much from the start. We first passed the town of Acul, an example of a "model" village. In the mid 80's, the Guatemalan Government built model villages for the international community to see. Journalists and others were coming to Guatemala and the government would take them to these villages to say "See, nothing's wrong! Guatemala's in great shape." Most of the international community knew that these were just a front. Just outside of Acul, is a cheese farm owned and run by 3rd generation Italians. Apparently, they refused to leave during the war until they were repeatedly threatened and warned by the army that they would not be protected. They then returned when it was safe and continue to have their farm and hotel that is paradise in Guatemala. We then walked through the town of Xexucap to Xexocom, where we slept in a community building/school. We ate dinner with a family in Xexocom and had a Tamascal - a steam bath (the same that midwives use to do their massages, the clay structure that most families have outside their houses). I learned that Tamascals are used by people instead of bathing, so we were given buckets of water and soap. It was a really nice way to end our first day of hiking.


Day 2: We began the morning at 3:30am so that we could be at the top of 85 switchbacks to have breakfast and see the sunrise. I had been anticipating this early morning since I learned about it. So as soon as we had the 3:15 wake-up call, I sprang up as if it were 9am. This was the longest uphill of the trek, and doing it that early is actually quite nice. You get it over with and have a great satisfying breakfast, where you look straight down and can just see what you've come up. Amazingly, when we were on our way up, at around 4:30, 2 guatemalan women and one man, who must have been in their 60's were heading down with their flashlights, headed who knows where. Maybe to one of the farther towns to work, or buy food for the week, who knows. All I know, is that I was thankful this was the only time I was going to go up this hill, all the while it was just part of their routine.

After a nice long breakfast, we went up the rest of the switchbacks (a total of 109 - Meghan counted) and the rest of the day was fairly flat. At this point, we spent the next two days hiking through towns where there are no roads. (but they did have road signs...) Towns appeared out of nowhere, like the towns of Chortiz and Canton Primera, where we spent the night. Canton Primera, was a little strange of a town. I'm not really sure why, but we all go the weirdest vibe from it. I think it had something to do with it being built on a hill, so it didn't have a central area where the people could congregate, hang out and give it a friendly vibe. It was also the dirtiest place I'd seen in a while, with trash strewn everywhere. The school that we stayed across from looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. From the school, we had a great view of the valley we would be descending and ascending the next day. Regardless of the weird/sketchy vibe of Canton Primera, we were all so tired from the long day that we ate our pasta dinner and slept like logs.



(Meghan at Canton Primera with a view of where we headed on day 3 and the road sign, through the towns with no roads.)

Day 3: A 5:30 start took us down the valley to El Pericon River for a breakfast and water filtering session. Day 3 had been described to us as the day with 2 hills: "the bitch" (yes, its politically incorrect but fitting for the short, but extremely steep hill) and the Hill of Terror. One hill was soon after we left for lunch, and the other towards the end of the day. Guatemala doesn't really have wildlife. It used to, apparently, but I was told that the army and the guerillas killed it all. So, we didn't see many animals on our trek, except for sheep. There was a remarkably large number of sheep herders - mostly women and children who would walk with the sheep and sticks. I wasn't able to figure out what they used them for as the towns where the sheep were were so far removed from large cities where they could sell meat or wool.




(right before the first nasty hill, and at the top of the second)

After heading through San Nicolas, where we bought food for lunch and fresh bread (a random woman baker, don't know how they discovered her) and headed towards the Hill of Terror. It reminded me of the Incline, by Pikes Peak - steep, a little too long, and has a false summit. But the view from the top makes it worth it. And lunch at the top was a great reward. From there we headed down to the road and a small town where we took a truck to the town of La Ventosa. While there are Microbuses, Chicken Buses and Pick-ups that go to La Ventosa, the first thing that happened to dive by was a large truck. While they were headed in our direction, I wish we had realized that we would be sitting on organic fertilizer the entire way, before we got in. I had never smelled it before, but soon realized that it's rather disgusting. At first, it smells like a mixture of chocolate and coffee, but in a bad way. Let's say I couldn't get rid of that smell, that made me feel naseous, all night - even after a Tamascal. I get sick even just thinking about it.

Guillermo and his family live in La Ventosa. Guillermo's son was a student at the school that Quetzaltrekkers (the group we treked with) supports. His son then became a guide for 8 months and is now studying to be a teacher. So, Guillermo and his family are family of the Quetzaltrekkers and he received us that way. After a tamascal and a nice dinner, we all headed to bed ready to climb La Torre the next day and head into Todos Santos.

Day 4: La Torre is the highest non volcanic point in Central America at 3870 meters. Geronimo was our guide for the day and so I got some good time to ask him all my questions, and probably drive him a little crazy. Geronimo was a member of the Guatemala Civil Patrol, this was an aspect of the war that I knew little about. Many men were forced to join the Army and be part of the Civil Patrol. The Civil Patrol was used to do some of the hardest work during the war. They were put on the front line, sent into villages where the army would most likely be attacked and forced to guard posts with little or no food. Geronimo is one of the two people (voluntarily) responsible for guarding the Torre. It's a natural reserve, but one of the two of them head up to the top everyday to keep it clean and safe. He said that everyone knows that the two of them guard it, keeping robberies and other unpleasant activity to a minimum. When we got to the top of the Torre, I realized that this spot was more to him then a place he guarded. During the war, the army forced him to guard it. So, he spent months up at the top, in the cold suffering of cold and hunger. "How much suffering" he kept saying. The people in his town, and the neighboring ones suffered so much, he said. The house where the army general used to stay is still there, along with a UN tower.




(Geronimo and the group at the top of the Torre)

I learned other fun facts from Geronimo. Things like, 1) the price of sheep has gone down and there is no market for wool, so he just holds on to his heard. 2 of his 11 children take them up the hill towards La Torre to eat grass during the day. 2) His town was thrilled that Tigo, Moviestar, and Claro - the three Guatemalan Cell Phone networks - built towers right up this hill from his house. (I had asked if the people disliked the towers, since the were on someone's land). He said no, they were great - people could communicate now and they were paying the owner of the land a lot of money to rent it. 3) He also showed me caves where Mayan priests come to do their ceremonies (complete with a bottle of Quezetalteca- cheap Guatemalan rum).

Geronimo lead us down the mountain, a good 2 hours of steep downhill. He had brought lunch for us to - rice, beans, tortillas and hardboiled eggs to eat halfway down. This was some of the steepist downhill I've ever done, and the only thing I was sore from on the entire trip. Once we got down the hardest part, Geronimo and his four dogs that had come with us (and eaten tortillas) left to take a pick-up back home. The last time the dogs did this trek, Geronimo didn't leave quickly enough and one of the dogs followed the trek all the way to Todos Santos. It took two days, but the dog eventually found its way back home. Impressive, huh?

It was then - finally - just another two hours to our final destination: Todos Santos. Todos Santos is characterized by the continued use of traditional dress, especially for the men. It's rare to find men in traditional dress in Guatemala, except for Todos Santos. It honestly gives the town a totally different vibe, you feel a little out of place, and especially a lot more like a tourist. In the same vain, the town has been able to implement laws, or social codes, that other guatemalan towns wouldn't be able to. For example, they drove out and then outlawed all western clothing stores (unfortunately, I can't remember why). Todos Santos also had a big problem with drinking. Therefore, they recently outlawed the selling of liquor and this has really helped. The only place you can buy liquor in Todos Santos, is at the language school. However, the language school will only sell it to foreigners, not Guatemalans.

The town is fairly wealthy, as it was hit hard by the war (even though this wasn't a good hiding area for the army and guerillas) and there are a lot of people from this area in the US. Houses are large and brightly painted, and American Flags painted into the sides of the houses are easy to spot. Throughout a number of the small towns, you saw many women weaving on their porches - something that I hadn't seen on any of my other travels in Guatemala.

We spent our last night of the trek in Spanish School, eating a nice meal and looking back on how much we had walked and what we had seen the past 5 days. It was an incredible trip that I'm so lucky to have been able to do in my final weeks in Guatemala. I also need to make sure to say that we didn't get rained on. Given that this was Guatemala, in the rainy season, this was pretty incredible. It rained every night, once we were settled in, but never (except for one short drizzle the final day) while we were walking.




(a group of Todos Santos boys watching a soccer match, and Meghan sporting the TS´s hat!)

Walking for fun

It is a luxury to be able to hike. We willingly put a 15 pound bag on our back and climb up physically challenging mountains, for fun. We have nice backpacks that distribute the weight so that we don't hurt our upper or lower backs, shoes so that we don't hurt our ankles, etc - you get the point. On our 3:15 morning, as we are hiking up in the dark we passed 2 60ish year old women and a man coming down the mountain with their flashlights. I could guess that they were walking to town to work, buy food or supplies, or something along those lines. Either way, they were going to have to walk back up these 109 switchbacks. Unlike us, who ate breakfast two-thirds of the way up to watch the sunrise, this much walking is a part of their lives, not something they tell their friends and families that they accomplished.

In Canton Primera, a family that had just been deported from Kentucky could not understand what we were doing. Kathryn had told them she was doing this trip as her vacation. "You are walking on your vacation?" They asked multiple towns. If you look at it that way, it is a little bizarre.

When I got back to PIES and told them what I had done, Marta made a joke saying it was like the immigrants walking to the US. We then had a short conversation about how truly difficult and dangerous it is for people who do walk to the US. I was lucky to have food, water, shelter, etc... They walk for days and days, worried about getting caught, bearing through whatever weather might come, with children or pregnant.

So, I'm really lucky, blessed, privileged to be able to do treks like this, and continue to do treks like this.

PIES de Occidente

As I've mentioned, I've been volunteering with PIES de Occidente. PIES stands for Promotion, Research, Education and Health (in Spanish, obviously) and has a number of women's health programs that have been really interesting to learn about, and pertinent to what I'll be studying just soon enough.

PIES isn't really used to having volunteers, which has worked out well for me. This means that I pretty much get to dictate my own schedule and decide where I want to go and what I want to do. This also means though that if I don't talk to the right person on the right day, I'll miss the boat and spend the whole week in the office. So, I've learned where the schedules are kept and am comfortable enough with the staff to ask if I can tag along. I'm usually most "helpful" when I'm in the office, so I try to balance those days with going to the communities.

PIES has a small staff: Cristina, who I spend a lot of time with, is the director of Communications; Marta, my initial contact, is the director of programs; Dona Esperanza, Dona Angela, Dona Angelita and Juanita, are the midwives and facilitators for the majority of the programs; Pattie, Dtra. Aurey, Emily, Raul and few other miscellaneous people that I'm not really sure quite yet what they do. I know some work in a small back office on their computers a lot. Since PIES also operates 2 clinics, I think one or two of the women are also doctors. I feel really welcome amongst all these people by now. It's a nice atmosphere in the office, they eat together, snack together, chit chat and when every one is in the office (maybe once a week) it has a nice homey feel. I'm the only foreigner, so I get to practice my spanish much more then when I was at Primeros Pasos and actually feel like it's improving - which is a great feeling.

PIES has a few programs that it appears are dictated by what funding comes around, although I'm not really sure how it works exactly. One of USAID's main focus in Guatemala is Maternal and Child Health, but I haven't quite figured out how large of a role they play in guiding organizations, like PIES's, work. In 2000, due to the high rate of maternal death, Guatemala instituted a law that all midwives had to have a certification card. Each month they have to attend a training, and they have to attend a full year of training before they can receive the card. To keep their card, they have to continue attending each month and take a test as long as they work. When a family registers their child after it's born, the government requests the name and number of the midwife, and the family can get in trouble if the midwife isn't registered. This incentivizes the family to only work with a certified the midwife. I've gone to a few of these trainings (including the one with the "interesting" games) which has been informative - I knew little to nothing about the complications of giving birth - and culturally insightful. These have also given me the opportunity to go to small towns, see small health centers and understand how things get done.

PIES also has a domestic violence program, including two radio shows every Friday that touch on a different topic related to domestic violence. Marta estimates that 70% of all Guatemalan women have suffered some form of domestic violence. These groups bring together groups of women to begin raising awareness around domestic violence and teaching communities that it is not part of a normal relationship and should not be tolerated. I was able to go with Marta one day to Concepcion, a town where they want to start a group. We went to the Justice of Peace and Police Station to see how many women had reported cases (a relatively new thing in Guatemala) and what their status was. Not suprisingly, the majority of the reports (11) were done at the Justice of Peace then at the Police Station (3). It was unclear what action had been taken other than a report filed.

The two other main program are the Comites and Mayan Medicine. Pattie, works with the Comites. The idea behind this program is that each town have an Emergency Committee that is trained and knows what to do in case of an emergency in the town. PIES works with them to find the women to form the group, help them understand their roles and what to do in case of an emergency. I only attended one of these training sessions and am not sure how they are working. I've heard that they are hard, primarily because the women themselves don't really understand why it's needed if they've never had one before. But that's another topic for another time.

I've learned a lot about Mayan Medicine since working with PIES. This is mainly because Cristy has needed the most help, transcribing the interviews I helped her with 2 months ago. She is making a documentary on Mayan Medicine (an a brochure) for Guatemalan medical students. The idea is that they need to understand it, and acknowledge it, even if they don't practice it or believe it. Their patients are going to come in having tried it first, and it will scare people who already hate hospitals even more if they don't try to work with it. PIES has already started by giving talks to the doctors at the main Medical Schools, with hopes that they will make one class part of the curriculum and increase acceptance and awareness. The 15 min documentary will be distributed in a few schools to help begin this process.

I haven't written much about PIES because it doesn't really feel like I've "done" much. As I reach the end of my time in Guatemala, it's starting to process. I'll write more about it, and these different groups that I've visited over the next week.

Killing time, the Guatemalan way

I've been meaning to write a new post for some time. Not a whole lot of exciting things have happened this past week and half. Since, I've done most of the day trips around here I don't feel the need to travel every weekend. Not wanting to miss a day at PIES to take a day or two for travel, I've stuck around Xela. There was a housemate's 30th birthday party, I've gone back to Los Vahos, the natural steam baths, played Ultimate Frisbee, and done a fair about of cooking with housemates. I was going to write a bit about the various things I've been doing with PIES. However, my day yesterday was so bizarre (another "cultural experience") that I had to share.

I went to San Martin for a midwife training. My understanding was that it was supposed to be all day. I was interested to learn what the midwives were learning and to see how PIES run it's training sessions. Also, I was excited that this one was going be in Spanish. The past 2 that I had gone to had been in K'iche, so I had some difficulty following along. I was going to go to San Martin with Marta, the woman who I have mainly been working through. However, a death in the family meant that Dona Angela would be doing the training instead. For those of who you might remember reading about the birth I saw, Dona Angela was the midwife.

The topic of the day was "Post-birth hemorrhaging." This is number one cause of maternal death for at-home births. So, the topic was extremely important. The doctor at the San Martin health center gave a presentation for about an hour. I'm not really sure how much the midwives actually learned from the presentation, but that's a blog topic for another day. There was also a brief presentation on the Swine Flu, or H1N1. I'm not sure how much the midwives got out of that talk either. During the doctor's presentation, the Health Center staff asked me if I was doing a presentation or if I had something prepared. A few minutes later, I realized that this was because Dona Angela didn't have anything prepared either. I'm not sure if Marta didn't tell Dona Angela what to do when she asked her to fill in, or if Dona Angela forgot. Either way, this hour presentation was all the material they had for the day and they had 3 hours to kill before morning snack and lunch. Letting the women out before lunch was not a possibility. They did have a special mother's day lunch planned after all.

What they did to fill the time was what I found most bizarre and interesting. They decide to play games. I was asked a few times if I knew of any "dinamicas" that I wanted to lead. While I didn't want to lead any, I did give a few suggestions that they didn't really like. Milton, one of the health promoters from the clinic has some balloons that he really wanted to use. So they played a form of hot potato with the four, deflated, balloons that he had. The four people who "won" the hot potato then had to go to the front of the room. The goal was now to be the first person to blow up your balloon and then sit on it. So, the four midwifes got in front of their chairs and prepared to race. The woman who won seemed very excited and the prize was a plastic rose.

The second game consisted of 4 pieces of yarn, about 3 feet each, each with a small piece of candy tied to the end of the yarn. Again, they played hot potato to choose which two women would go to the front of the room. One the two women were chosen, they went to the front of the room and were given a piece of yarn. They had to put the candy-less end of the yarn in their mouths and their hands behind their backs. One the count of three, using only their mouths they had to essentially "eat" the yarn. (Imagine having to suck up spaghetti with your mouth, but it's wool yarn instead) The first person to reach the candy, again, "won." However, they both got to keep the candy. This game was played twice. I couldn't tell what the midwives thought of these games, but the health center staff seemed pleased with themselves and that they had successfully killed about 45 min. I left wondering what had just happened.

A birth

I actually got to attend a live birth this week! It was a pretty incredible experience, I’d have to say.

I was in Concepción, a town about 30min outside of Xela where PIES has a clinic. The clinic has a doctor who is there 2 days a week and a nurse full time, but the midwife, Dona Angela, is the primary attender of the pregnant women who come in. Women come into the clinic for their prenatal checks and to give birth. I was in Concepción with the director of the Domestic Violence program Marta, and 2 other women from the office. They were gathering information at the justice office and police station on how many cases of domestic violence had been reported, what the follow-up had been, etc… At around mid-morning break time (refraccion) we stopped in at the clinic to have our bread and coffee. When we got there, we found out that there was a woman in labor in the 2-room clinic. Wanting to see a birth, and thinking that this might be my only chance I asked if I could stay, and I did. For the sake of this blog, I will call the woman giving birth Maria and the father of the child Jose. I don´t actually know their names.

Maria was 31 and having her 5th child. She had started to go into labor at around 9am, and her water had still not completely broken when I got there around noon. She was walking around the room trying to get her water to completely break. I learned from Dona Angela that this is normal for women who have had many children. Apparently, the water can fully break hours into labor - for women with many children the child often comes soon after the water breaks. At about 2 (2 hours after thinking that the baby would be arriving soon), Dona Angela was getting impatient. Therefore, it was not unusual that Dona Angela, fully broke Maria´s water herself by sticking her index finger up the birth canal.

The staff at the clinic was very laid back about the whole thing. At noon, Dona Esperanza went into the room to see how Maria was doing. The staff was trying to figure out when to eat lunch. If Dona Angela thought that the baby would come soon, we would eat lunch afterwards. If not, we would eat now. Dona Angela decided that we should go ahead and it as she said - a phrase I hear a lot that day - "Falta un poquito" (a little more time).

I entered the room with Maria, her mother and a friend at around 1pm. We spent the time in between contractions talking and chit-chatting. Dona Angela and Maria´s family would speak in Mam and I would listen, not understanding a word, but enjoy watching their grand hand motions and animated speech. I gathered that they weren´t talking about much. At one point they started looking at Maria´s mother´s shoes and I think were talking about prices and where she bought them. I would speak with the nurse who was in the room too - only to provide back up. She would explain things to me and help me get a sense of what was going on.

Maria was almost totally silent through out the other births. While I heard that many women scream from the pain, yell "no, no, i don´t want it" and other things of the sort, Maria did not say a word. You could tell she was in pain, because as each contraction came, she would tap on the bed post, calling over her mother or husband and then have an extremely pained looked on her face.

Around 2:30, Dona Angela and the nurse started to express their concern about the birth. Maria´s contractions weren´t getting closer together, at times it even seemed like they were getting farther apart. For a while Dona Angela had been thinking that the baby was close, but was now starting to get worried. Her stomach was soft, while during the end of labor, it should be hard to show it´s contracting. You could see the black of the baby´s head, but for some reason it didn´t want to come out. Dona Angela and the nurse knew that taking her to the hospital would be a bigger risk then keeping her at the clinic, given how close she was. They decided that she needed to be in a better position to push. Her mother and husband who came to her side during her contractions were pushing her down, rather than keeping her in a position where she could use all her force to push. Maria had refused to lay on the bed with stir-ups, which didn´t help. To help give Maria sustenance and to get rid of all the bad blood before the baby is born, Maria drank a fruit nectar and raw egg concoction. Yum!

Dona Angela sent the family of the room and took matters into her own hands. We moved the bed, propped Maria up, and the nurse stood behind her. The entire time I am standing right at the end of the bed, so that I can get a good view of the birth, they tell me. This helped and soon after progress was being made and a 3:20 a baby girl was born. She weighed 9lbs 12oz, which is why they think Maria had so much trouble.

There were a lot of things I didn´t realize about birth. One, once most of the head comes out, the entire body follows in what feels like one second. Secondly, it´s not really over for the mom who now has to push the placenta out too (which takes anywhere from 10-30 min). The umbilical cord is really long and Dona Angela spent some good time looking at it. She said that you could see all the children Maria had in it. I´m still not really sure what she meant by that. It was really incredible to be a few inches away from Dona Angela as she cut the cord, cleaned the baby and handled the placenta.

The placenta - by the way - is given to the family who then buries it. Dona Angela put it in a plastic bag and the family threw it into the sacks they had brought. As if it were a t-shirt. I found that a little disturbing.

After the placenta came out, the baby girl was cleaned and placed in crib while Dona Angela dressed Maria. Then, Dona Angela blessed the baby with a candle, followed by the grandmother, and the baby was dressed. I have never seen a newborn in so many clothes! She looked like a little sausage when Dona Angela was done with her. 3 sweaters and a fleece blanket as a diaper, plus being wrapped in another fleece blanket. The baby was then handed to the mother for the first time, about 40 min after birth. It was interesting to me that she wasn´t handed over sooner to the mother. Other people in the room (at this point, other relatives had arrived too) and they had had a chance to hold the baby before the mother. Even when Maria left, she went in a separate car then the child.

The family asked me where I was from and told me what an honor it was to have me there. Dona Angela had been telling them that I was going to be a woman´s doctor (not really sure where she got that from, but she is a bit old). I told them it was for me as well and thanked them for the opportunity. They then asked me my name, and said how much they liked it. Maybe they would name their daughter Laura Estefanie. In Guatemala, you don´t have to name your child for a month. So, who knows, maybe Concepcion will have a new Laura.

A weekend with a Midwife

While I was in San Martin with Dona Esperanza last weekend, I spent a day visiting her patients. Friday night over dinner, I asked what she was doing on Saturday and she whipped out her notebook and showed me her schedule. It was written in pencil, in small writing and looked something like this:

7 – 9 Chuj/9-12 visit patients/lunch/2-6 visit more patients/dinner/wait for birth.

So on Saturday, we did more or less that.

The Chuj is essentially a steam room, located outside many houses. It is constructed with cement sides and a tin or cement top. One corner has a big pot with room for a fire underneath and the other side has a bench to lie on. You fill the big pot with water and start to boil it to produce heat and steam in the chuj. The chuj barely fits two people, so it doesn’t take that much to heat it up. Many indigenous houses have built outside because they are commonly used for healing or post birth. A mother who has just given birth traditionally is given a bath in the chuj for the first 4 days post birth and the newborn is given one when it is 8 days old. The mother’s chujs are supposed to relax the body, warm the shoulders and chest to produce milk and close the uterus. The newborn’s is to relax it after the umbilical cord falls off. (This is a picture of Dona Esperanza's Chuj - not the one we used for the woman. That one was at her own house)


We walked over to the new mother’s house at around 7:15am. After being introduced, we began to prepare the chuj. As was pretty standard for most of the weekend, the father/husband of the family was not around. The son (about 12) and one of the daughters (about 10) chopped wood for us to use and we began to make the fire. About an hour later, the chuj was nice and hot. While we waited for the chuj to get hot, we made sure everything else was ready. Dona Esperanza asked for some branches of a particular medicinal leaf that she would use for the massage inside the chuj. The grandmother went for the leaf and in the meantime, the other children and family members did the household chores around us. Once ready, the new mother and Dona Esperanza got in. They put a cloth over the door of the chuj, to keep the heat in, but I was told to stay close and look over the cloth so that I could see what was going on.

Dona Esperanza and the mother to be got undressed, and the mother laid down on the bench. I was relived to see that they got undressed, but also surprised. Traje, typical dress, is very heavy to begin with. However, given how covered and modest the women usually are, I was surprised they would get completely naked. The entire massage lasted about 30min and the woman rotated positions throughout the entire massage. From what I could see, (it was a little difficult to see everything given the angle I had) there were two basic techniques used. One was wetting the bunch of medicinal leaves with the hot water and swatting them all over the woman’s back, stomach and chest. The warmth of the leaves and bath on the chest and upper back is to help produce more milk and I think something else that I’m not sure of. The second was massaging the stomach and uterus. Dona Esperanza later showed me exactly how she massaged the woman. With both hands she started on the outside of the left and right side of the stomach and massaged inward, then worked her way in to tuck under the uterus from the outside. This massage is supposed to help close the uterus.

After the chuj, Dona Esperanza and the woman put on a few clothes and crawled into the woman’s bed to bring their body temperatures back down. The family provided some Atol, a typical corn drink, to restore energy. It was a special kind of Atol to be good for the mother, and it was so thick and tasteless that I could barely drink the 10 sips I felt obliged to take down.

When Dona Esperanza was dressed and ready, we said goodbye to the family and headed off to visit other patients. She was very tired and hot from the chuj for the better part of the morning. It was probably a mix of her heavy and hot dress and a little bit of being tired from the long work week she had just had. We visited 4 patients total through out the day. We would have visited more, but it was raining pretty heavily in the afternoon. I learned that this means we don’t go visit patients, instead we stay in the house. (I have often gotten stuck places since the rainy season has started, and learned that Guatemalan’s don’t like to travel in the rain.)

The routine for the prenatal checks was pretty much the same for all the women. Dona Esperanza isn’t medically trained, but she is trained to be able to identify the basic warning signs, advise her clients on what to eat or what to do for pain, and when to tell them to go to the health center and be seen by a doctor. She doesn’t make appointments with her patients. She goes to where they live, knocks and the door and tells them that she’s here to check up on them. The women lead us to their rooms, we close the door to prevent kids from looking in, and the woman shows Dona Esperanza her pregnant belly. Dona Esperanza felt the woman’s belly to check the position of the child. I got to feel some fetus’ heads, elbows, and a butt as well. It was pretty cool as I had never touched a pregnant belly, or poked and prodded one. I don’t know if the women loved me “learning” on them, but Dona Esperanza wanted to teach me. After that she asked if they had constant headaches or saw lights, pain in any part of the body, if they were taking their vitamins, took blood pressure (which I learned how to do too) and how they were feeling in general. We saw women who were 5,7 and 9 months pregnant and only one was told to go to the doctor.

I’m not really sure how many checks she does before the women give birth, but I think it just depends on how much energy and time she has on the weekends. Dona Esperanza works at PIES Monday through Friday doing trainings for other midwifes. She gets paid 350Q (roughly $40) per birth, including prenatal checks and the chuj, which is a fair amount of work given that she’s always on call.

Other than seeing how Dona Esperanza works, it was fascinating to go into so many people’s houses. In half of the cases, the house consisted of 2-3 big beds per room and a kitchen. In others where people appeared to be a little more well-off, there were more rooms and the houses were just a bit bigger. They were rarely decorated, with minimal furniture, accessories and wall decorations. Some had gas burners, most had just a place to burn wood, but thankfully there was a chimney so the smoke didn’t fill the kitchen. Only a few had a TV as well. Space was really tight and I tried to imagine 5,7,8 or more people living together in these houses. These were the houses that I had walked by in small towns, or passed while on the bus from one place to another. Entering them, and being with Dona Esperanza, was a rare opportunity that I was thankful to have had.

(this is Dona Esperanza's outside kitchen - the wood burning stove for long cooking items)



And another shot of the land right around her house

So much to learn

Dona Esperanza and I left the office around 5pm and were walking to the bus stop when she passingly mentioned that her power went out after the storm on Thursday. It wouldn't be back on until the technition came on Monday, she explained. As the words "no hay luz" (literally, there is no light) were coming out of her mouth, the word "headlamp" instantly popped into my mind. This was me realizing that I had forgotten mine. "I forgot my flashlight" I told her, thinking maybe, just maybe she would tell me to go home and get it. "Don't worry," she responded, "we have candles." It hit me just then that I would be learning more this upcoming weekend then I initially realized.

I have recently starting working more with an organization called PIES de Occidente. Among other women's health programs, they work to train midwives in the surrounding towns - often up to 2 hours away. It was through PIES that I met Dona Esperanza, a midwife, somewhere in her 60s, who lives in a small town outside of a small town called San Martin. I asked Dona Esperanza if I could spend a weekend with her sometime, in hopes of seeing a birth. While I didn't see a birth (there are somethings you will never be able to predict) I did have a fascinating weekend for so many different reasons.

While I "did things" for most of Saturday, there was also lots of downtime. While I spent most of this time reading, or hiding from the rain, it was in this time that I also got to see how Dona Esperanza and her family live and had a little glimpse into what life is like in a small, small town. Lack of power, totally normal, especially during the rainy season, meant that we went to bed earlier, and ate dinner practically in the dark - so I did a lot of sleeping too.

Friday night I got the tour of Dona Esperanza's house. The actual house consists of 2 large rooms and a kitchen. One room was where I stayed, and the other is where she and her daughter sleep. The bathroom is close, but disconnected from the house. She showed me the medicinal plants that grow right around the house, the chicken coop (to sell when they get big), the pig (also to sell when it gets big), and the fields of potato and corn. I learned that many people buy various livestock when they are small to sell when they get big. I wasn't able to figure out how much money they actually make off of the animals. You would assume it was a fair amount for all the labor and food that goes into taking care of the animal. But I'm not sure.

Her sons and their wives live practically next door in this 6 house town that Dona Esperanza lives in. One son works in Xela, so he and his wife live there during the week. The other (who is married with 2 kids, one on the way) works the fields of potatoes, corn and beans. The beans are not for selling, they grow only enough to eat. She seemed very proud of all the land that her family has - or that all the land around her house was her family's. One daughter, who is 19, lives with Dona Esperanza. She just graduated from high school with a degree to be a secretary. She has yet to receive her papers from her school that certify her for work. Therefore, she takes care of the house (cooks, cleans, feeds the animals, shops, etc...) while Dona Esperanza is at work. Dona Esperanza's other two daughters are married, and live with their husbands in the large San Martin. Her other son spent 50,000 Quetzales (roughly $6,000) to go to the US two years ago.

At our candle-lit dinner the first night, I heard about the degeneration of the Guatemalan family. Dona Esperanza and her daughter believe (as apparently many other Guatemalans do) that Guatemalan youth are increasingly rebellious, not listening to their parents, doing their homework, lacking ambition, and greedy. They equate this to the large number of fathers who immigrate to the US and leave their children to be raised by their mothers. The mothers then have a hard time discipling their children and being a single parent, and the children get used to having money and just want to spend it on junk food and toys. When the fathers do return, it is too late for them to play a significant role in the upbringing of their children. Children claim they don't know that parent and it becomes difficult to discipline the children at all. So, fathers go to the US seeking a better life for their children, sending money home, wanting to save enough to build a nicer house, maybe buy some land. In turn, they get blamed for the increase in gangs, and rebellious, greedy teenagers.

Betty's (Dona Esperanza's daughter - the one who lives with her) church has a series of activities on Saturday for parent's and children that dealt with the loss of morals and values in Guatemalan society. Betty also shared with me that on Saturday morning she had gone to a youth conference at her church about abortion. She was aghast at how many illegal abortions occurred in Guatemala (roughly 600,000 - according to the video she saw). If that many happened in Guatemala, think of how many children were murdered worldwide, she stated. The following morning I learned more about her religious beliefs. She was Evangelical, while her mother Catholic. She was very active in her youth group and fascinated with religion. She had once been involved in the wrong crowds - those friends were now married, had illegitimate children, divorced, etc... Through the encouragement of her brothers and sisters, and the church, she now had a better group of friends. While her mother disapproved of her boyfriend, because he didn't finish high school and lacked profession, he was active in the church as well. It was important to her that they both have the same beliefs.

When the weather was nice Sunday morning, I sat outside for a while reading and observing. The wood stove (for long-cooking items such as beans and corn) was ready to go. Since they lived off the main road, vendors walked around going to houses announcing what they were selling. A fish seller, a bread truck and some leaves that Betty bought to wrap her tamalitos in. Although, before purchasing them she asked the 6 year old girl selling them, "who is selling these, your sister?" The girl nodded and Betty gave her the money. Dona Esperanza had worked already that morning (I'll get to that later), so after breakfast, Betty cleaned the house, swept, washed dishes, fed the animals, took a shower, and got dressed up (by my standards) to go into town and do the shopping.

I learned how to make tortillas that morning. Mine kept ripping in my hands, although I was able to get them relatively round. We stuffed them with refried beans and then fried them. I was pleased that I got to take care of the frying while Betty did the dishes. Made me feel like I was contributing in one way or another, seeing as I made one tortilla for every 4 Betty made. For breakfast we then ate rice, tortillas, empanadas (the stuffed, fried tortillas),

While we were cooking, a truck with a loud speaker drove by and made an announcement for a parent's meeting at the local school. I've recently become aware that communication, or reaching people to let them know that something is happening, is a challenge. This was a "duh" moment for me, (of course these people don't have internet, or the resources for teachers to copy meeting announcements and send them home) but I just hadn't thought the logistics through. So, in this case, a truck with a man that speaks over a loud speaker is the way people learn about meetings.

The complexity of culture was hard to ignore this weekend. How long would it take for me to feel like I had a grasp on the Guatemalan people? With all the different Mayan languages and cultural groups, was that even possible? The nuances of culture are endless, so how does one like me work effectively in these communities? These are the reasons there are so many development programs that miss the mark, I guess. There is much to reflect on and you all are reading my random initial thoughts. So, I got much more out of these 48 hours in San Martin then I had expected, and I didn't even mention all the prenatal checks and traditional post-birth steam baths...

Santa Anita La Union

Marissa and I spent this past weekend at a small town called Santa Anita La Union. Santa Anita was founded in 1998 and is an organic coffee and banana community owned by 32 families. Given that only 32 families live in this town, I was quite impressed with everything it had: 2 schools, a basketball court, a library, 3 tiendas (small stores out of people's houses) and a church. Plus, the hostel and Santa Anita educational center where we were staying.

Let me start by saying that none of these 32 families are actually from Santa Anita. The signing of the Peace Accords 1996, brought an end to the civil war that plagued Guatemala for 36 years and killed 200,000 people, left 40,000 "missing" and internally displaced 1 million (Guatemala currently has a population of 13 million). The government and the guerilla forces fought each other over indigenous and equal rights to land, education, social programs and an end to racism. The atrocities that occurred during the war, especially the early '80s, are too horrific to write here. Entire villages were wiped out in the most inhumane ways. While the fighting stopped, many believe that nothing really changed. The government still discriminates against the indigenous people, is corrupt, and has not acted on many of the resolutions that are in the Peace Accords. However, immediately following the end of the war, the government did develop the Land Fund for displaced guerillas. The Land Fund was a loan giving entity that enabled communities of people to buy land and rebuild a life and home for themselves.

This is how Santa Anita La Union was formed. These families came together and created a coffee cooperative. Marissa and I were lucky to be the only two on the official tour that weekend so we got a lot of personal attention. The town was very quiet, and while you saw some children and women, there was not a whole lot going on. After our lunch with one of the women, in her house in town (a very very good cook), Guillermo took us on a tour of the farm. The farm is more of a forest and has two Miradors, with views of the valley, and a waterfall.

I knew the coffee process was long and hard, but I didn't realize it would be that long! Beans are picked october through december and carried to the "beneficio," the processing plant. The beneficio is in a central location, which means that you are putting a big bag of coffee beans on your back and walking it, possibly, a few km to the beneficio. Once the beans are there, you sort through to make sure that there aren't any unripe ones. Then, your bag is weighed so that the coop knows what share of the profits to give you. Your bag then gets poured into a vat of water where to sift out the good and bad beans, before it's sent to the depulper. When coffee is picked off the plant, it looks like a red berry. What we think of as the coffee bean, is the seed inside the berry. The depulper separates the berry from the bean. The pulp is used as fertilizer (organic coffee growers spend a lot of time the rest of the year drying out the pulp and then putting worms in it.) The coffee beans go through a series of washes before they are taken up to the town where they are laid out to dry. Those who are responsible for the washes have to get up at 3am to go to the beneficio so that they can spend the day working their own land. Once laid out on a giant patio, someone gets to move them around every hour so that they don't burn. The beans are then ready to be toasted, bagged and sold.

This whole process is just for when the coffee is ripe. During the rest of the year, each family works on their piece of land cutting back plants that aren't producing anymore, fertilizing the land, picking the bananas (there are also banana plants), making sure that the coffee plants are getting the appropriate amount of light, etc... For families that have no extra hands, this is an enormous amount of work that doesn't bring in a whole lot of profit. The woman who we ate our meals with had three boys ages 7,5, and 3. The saturday that we were there, the 7 and 5 year olds were out there helping dad. If we had not been there, and paying her to cook us meals, she would have been out there too. Sunday is their only rest day. While Santa Anita coffee is now sold on the fair trade market, which is how most of their profit is made (justcoffee.coop) they are not making money. The farm didn't really produce coffee for the first five years, and with a 12% interest on their loan the community struggles. They seem to have a good business sense (eco-tourism, selling coffee and banana bread in Xela, fair trade) but it's a tough business. Especially when there are big land owners who can afford more effective machines right down the road.

After an afternoon learning oodles about coffee and watching the documentary made about Santa Anita (you can watch it online at voiceofamountain.com, highly recommended), we were ready for bed! The next morning, we had a talk with one of the ex-guerillas who started the farm. He gave us a basic history of guatemala, the political parties, his own politics and gave us a little look into the life of someone who lived in the mountains for 17 years. Many families fled to Mexico and the male and sometimes female joined the guerilla forces. It was amazing to imagine this man living in the mountains surrounding Xela and in southern Guatemala for that long. Especially since this is the life of so many people here who are trying to rebuild their lives. The majority of young people, however often don't believe the stories and atrocities. But, I guess that's what happens when you don't live it, and those who did live it try to forget it.

I have a newfound appreciation for fair trade goods, the need to support local farmers and an appreciation for farming in general. It was a worthwhile, educational and impressionable weekend.

Did I tell you about the drunk guy?

You know those drunk guys on the street, that come up to you, say something incoherent or bizzare and then stumble onto the next group of people, and say something incoherent to them? Well, imagine having one of those sitting next to you on a four hour van ride, with only you and three other people in the van.

The easiest, and not too expensive, way to travel from San Cristobal, Mexico to Xela is by shuttle. Shuttles are vans, organized by tour companies, that take you all over the country. Getting over the Mexican border is far more complicated if you don't take a direct van, because you end up waiting a lot, taking at least 4 if not more buses, and end up paying the same amount. For all of these reasons, I took a shuttle to and from Mexico last week.

My trip to Mexico was pleasant, my trip home had an interesting character who went from making me slightly uncomfortable when he first got on the van, to extremely uncomfortable by the time he got off.

Raffa is a 40 something year old Mexican Artisan with dreds. As he boarded the van and took the seat next to mine, I got a huge wafe of pot and beer - a lovely combination at 8am. He was very chatty, telling us that he was an artisan, a citizen of the world, had lived everywhere, etc... He asked us all where we were from (Isreal, Mexico, France and the US) and then started spitting out whatever words he knew in each language. The French guy and Mexican were traveling to San Pedro on Lake Atitlan. San Pedro is a popular location for pot loving folk, and is know for its 'chill' atmosphere. Raffa, was also traveling to San Pedro (lucky them), and instantly got to talking about everything he grows and sells. During this first 30min or so, I was thinking that it was going to be an interesting ride and I wished this guy didn't talk so much.

When we hit the first town outside of San Cristobal, Raffa asked the driver if he could stop for some juice. He got some juice, a bottle of water, and a six pack of beer. I didn't ever see him drink the juice or water. While he was in the store, the Mexican tells me to watch my bag and be careful. Awesome. After his first beer, Raffa starts to roll a joint in the van. His coordination wasn't that great, so this took him a while as the pot kept spilling everywhere. Once it was rolled, the driver refused to let him smoke it in the van, to which Raffa responded by having his first hissy fit, followed by another beer.

With each beer, Raffa gets more animated. As the three of us in the back start to pretend to be sleeping, Raffa starts harassing the driver and the Isreali guy in the front seat. He wants the radio on, and the driver won't turn it on, so they start to fight over it as Raffa moves into the front to turn it on himself (this happens a few times over the course of the trip). He starts talking to me, even though my eyes are obviously closed. When I don't respond, he taps, then wacks, my feet to get to me to respond. The next two hours are much of the same. Raffa goes through cycles of beer, harass front seat, harass backseat, get annoyed when people don't pay attention, ask same questions over and over (I was Sarah for the whole ride), cry, beer. When telling us a story of needing to visit, or having, a child in HueHue (a town on the road to Xela) he starts to bawl, and look for a hug. I discovered that Raffa is very a very sensitive person.

In case you haven't guessed it already, Raffa is very very drunk when we get to the border at the end of the three hours ride. I was curious as to whether they were actually going to let him into Guatemala. They did. Things started to take a turn for the worse at the border. We had about an hour wait until our next van showed up (the cars don't drive over the boarder, so you have to switch. don't know why.). Over the course of this hour, I try to distance myself from Raffa and sit in the shade where he couldn't see me. He proceeds to drink another 8 beers and starts talking to all the other people who are standing around. He comes over to us (I'm now sitting with the other 2 people on my van) to ask us when the driver is coming, every couple minutes.

When the driver finally arrives and we unload our bags, Raffa is so happy that he goes up to the driver, hugs him, starts to cry and won't let go. As soon as the driver gets out of the hug, he leads us over to the car and says "He's drunk" to which I respond, "yes, very." Now we all start to wonder whether the new driver is going to let Raffa into the new van. From inside the van we see the new driver, the old driver, and some man chatting - obviously about Raffa. The new driver goes over to him and appears to tell him that he can't come in the van. Raffa starts to cry and follow the driver around. This continues for a few minutes until Raffa walks off for a bit. He finds another tourist who is smoking a cigarette and decides that he wants it. When the tourist won't give it to him, Raffa starts to reach for it. The tourist still refuses and Raffa decides to head-but him (ala world cup finals). Now he's definitely not coming into the van. He and the driver have one more exchange and Raffa sees another van slowly driving by. He opens the door of this van and tries to cram himself in it. He is kicked out, gives one last teary look at our van and storms off, leaving one of his bags behind at the border.

S&L's Guatemalan Adventure

If you're reading this, you've probably already read Steve's recount of our wonderful week together (or will go do it right now?). Here, I'll lay out a few more of the details and even a few pics...

So, Steve was very right when he said that in 8 days you can actually do a lot. We did cover a lot of ground and he got to meet all the different kinds of buses that Guatemala has to offer. He discovered something new about me: I do get car sick. I don't know how excited he was about that, he probably could have done without. Guatemalan travel is very slow, to say the least. You wouldn't think given how crazily the bus drivers drive (even the first class bus drivers are a little scary at times). But, it takes about 4 hours to go 125 miles, on one of the good highways. The construction, stopping to pick people up, get gas, or wait until the driver is done fixing the broken down bus, are all possible reasons for the long journeys. For a country that is only the size of Tennessee, it takes forever to get anywhere. All of this is to say that it was a good thing Steve came for 8 days, and he spent a good 30 hours of it in a bus or in the back of a truck. He was quite the trooper.

Semuc Champey was beautiful and truly a natural wonder. Unlike other parts of Guatemala I had seen, this northern part is jungly, humid and lush. The park has the limestone pools of turquois water, where you swim in the not to chilly water and then hike around. We hiked up the Mirador, where you can see the pools from above and the mountains that shoot up from the river. It would have been amazing to be the first to discover them.

There are also a number of caves in this area. The second day we spent two hours in the caves. All carrying candles we explored, swam in cave water, and jumped off of giant rocks into pools inside the cave. I would have had my camera had it not been so wet... Steve had to tie his flip flops to his feet so that he wouldn't loose them in the cave. Maybe this should be new look for him, no?

We then took a leisurely tube ride down the river by the caves, and later that day in the river by the hostel as well. Steve amused me and we went tubing twice in one day. Now that's love. The water level wasn't high so we scraped our butts on the bottom a few times and moved slowly down the river, but I loved every minute of it.

From there, it was off to Antigua. Very colonial, Antigua was completely different then anything I'd seen in Guatemala. Touristy, clean, and modern you feel like you are in an alternate universe. It has tons and tons of churches. Some are restored and well kept, others have been devastated by multiple earthquakes and have a long way to go before people will be able to use them again. And yes, our hotel room had tons of mosquitos (at least 20 when we got back from a walk). But, we did go to a great wine bar where I had a wonderful glass of Malbec, for the first time in months - I didn't miss boxed wine one bit.

The next morning we hoped over to the Lake Atitlan. I was really excited for Steve to see the highlands of Guatemala. More of the climate that I've been living in, the Lake, which is surrounded by three volcanoes, speaks to me in a way that the tropical climates and jungles don't. Plus, now Steve was getting to see how varied the climate and terrain really is. At the lake, we took the boat to Jaibalito where our hotel was. This hotel, Casa del Mundo, had been highly recommended to me by countless people, and as soon as we got there I understood why. Built on the side of the mountains of the lake, the hotel is an escape from everything. Every room has a view of the lake, you can swim, eat and just hang out in a place where you feel like you are in a world of your own. Prior to arriving, I was excited to explore the different towns on the lake. Once we got there, I really just wanted to hang out at Casa del Mundo and do some of the walks/hikes right around the hotel. We did some exploring - a little hike to Santa Cruz, a boat ride to San Marcos - but for the most part enjoyed being together in a beautiful, resort like place.

I could have stayed there a good bit longer, but Xela - and shopping in Panajacel (the touristy, big town on the lake) - were calling. So, a few scarves, placemats and a good and packed chicken bus ride later, we were in Xela. I loved showing Steve where I live. We went to the market, central park, up the big hill right outside of Xela where you can get a great view and out to an amazing Medeteranian dinner. I tried to have Steve taste as many typically Guatemalan, or only in Guatemala, foods - I don't think there was much complaining on his end about that.

His trip went by far too quickly. But, I'm so happy that I got to share some of this time with him and now when I say "I went to cafe Babylon" he'll know what I'm talking about. That's a nice feeling.

Mexico part tres - Palenque

In between my few days in San Cristobal, I made a two day hop to Palenque ruins and Agua Azul. Palenque is an ancient Mayan city that dates back to 100 BC. It is 15 square km with over 500 excavated building of the 1400 or so that have been discovered. Because it's deep in the jungle, it wasn't discovered until the 1700 by the Spaniards. It's not nearly as large as Tikal, and I didn't feel like there were over 500 buildings to look at. But, you can climb to the top of most towers (apparently unlike many other sites) and many of the buildings are much better preserved and renovated.

I set off early Wednesday morning for the 5 hour bus ride from San Cristobal to Palenque. My bus was at 7:30, so I left the hostel about an hour before since I didn't really know where the bus station was. After following the directions on my map, I looked up and there was an actual bus station. I couldn't believe my eyes. Everyone had told me that the buses in Mexico were really nice, but I wasn't expecting this. In Guatemala, a bus station is a corner where old school buses pass, or are there waiting screaming locations as you, and hopefully if you are lucky you pick one up that isn't crammed with 100 people and has a place to sit. Bus stations in Mexico are actual stations. You have a ticket, a seat number, a schedule of departure times and even a waiting room with a place to buy snacks. Pretty impressive. The bus ride was easy and long. I've realized that I get a lot more car sick then I ever thought I did, so I've been dreading travel lately. But this one was ok. We even had movies and programs to watch. When I expressed my awe to the woman sitting next to me she said "this isn't even a nice one."

Once I got to Palenque, I headed out on the search for a place to stay. The town around the ruins isn't much to speak of. So, I headed towards the ruins where there are places to stay inside the national park that surrounds the ruins. My goal was to find a place close the park, where I could sleep on a hammock for the night. Thankfully, without too much trouble, I was successful! I stayed at a very nice place called Mayabell that had a mixture of everything from cabanas with air conditioning to camping and covered areas where you could hang a hammock.

The ruins were impressive and it's always fascinating to try and imagine people living in this great city over 2000 years ago. There were great views from the top of temples that made the steep climbs worth it. Given that it was Semana Santa though, everything was packed. There were tourists everywhere, which took away a little bit from the experience.

After about two hours of wandering around, I headed back to the hostel to enjoy being in the outdoors. And let me tell you, I had the most amazing nights sleep in my hammock. Luckily, I had brought my sleeping bag. Others who didn't ended up having a few cold hours in the middle of the night.

The next day I headed with a tour to 2 waterfalls that are on the way back to San Cristobal. Unfortunately, everything was again packed with people, but the waters were still beautiful. Misol-ha is the smaller one of these two with one main pool and 35 meter waterfall. The water was chilly and refreshing.

Agua Azul, is a very popular destination. It has over 2km of waterfalls and small pools. It was amazing to see how large it was. Each time you got to a spot, you thought there couldn't be anymore pools, but there were. I was in heaven and tried to swim in as many spots as I could.


Afterwards, I made the long journey back to San Cristobal, watched more movies on the amazing buses and headed back to my hostel. I'm now back in Xela, feeling a little out of place after the two weeks of travel. But, I'm ready to start volunteering again and tomorrow will be heading to some women's groups with PIES, my new place of work!