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.