After a very long absence, here I am again. We have been gone more than we’ve been home of late. For the record, I’m pretty tired of traveling and would prefer to stay in Temux a while, but that’s not an option. So here’s the update while I can get it in.

I haven’t written since nearly the end of January. We’ve been busy. After I published the last post we took off for Antigua where we met with the Stove Team International, a group of Rotarians, a scientist who specializes in combustion, and a few latin business men who are all working together to make and distribute efficient word-burning stoves. As some of you might  remember, improved wood-burning stoves is one of five technology projects we’re working on here. The Stove Team’s most prominent stove model is quite different from the one the Peace Corp usually uses, so we thought we’d go learn about options. Turns out we met a really fun, energetic group of people, and then we kidnapped their intern, Elke…Here she is in a happy picture with us, on the hotel roof deck looking out over the city, shortly before the incident.

When working with new people, I’d say we’re most trepidatious about whether or not their “development approach” is going to match ours or not. Do these people just give away their stoves or do they charge a price for them? Are they paternalistic or working sustainably? The problem with the paternalistic approach is it works under this great assumption that if we just give a certain thing to certain people we can improve their standard of living/quality of life because they’ll have said thing. This approach assumes the people want what they’re getting, that they understand it’s inherent value, that they know how it will benefit them (be it healthwise, economically, whathaveyou) and that they’ll work to maintain/repair/replace said thing as needed. That’s a lot of assuming, too much really, so it doesn’t usually work out as smoothly as the benefactors hope. This approach also has the nasty affect of training people to receive something for nothing, which makes any future attempts at sustainable development more difficult because the people don’t want to work or contribute money when they were just given everything before. Peace Corp has to deal with this all the time. In fact, our friends had to change their site because they were sent to a town that had thousands upon thousands of euros dropped on it. After three months of trying to find work, they gave up. They realized they weren’t going to be able to work on education with the town’s people, as the people just wanted presents they felt they were entitled to. Teaching people they don’t have to work creates more problems than it solves, no matter how nice people or organizations think they’re being by “donating” said thing to said people. This is paternalism vs. sustainability.

Not only is the stove team working for the latter (sometimes hindered by the former just as much as we are), but we got into some very interesting and prolonged discussions about this topic. The problem is that lots of organizations (including, but not limited to, Rotary clubs where stove team started) don’t understand the damage they’re doing in the name of aid. This is a really hot topic for me, so I’ll wrap this up rather than bore you all with the knitty gritty details. Basically I tried to convince Nancy Hughes, the Oregon Rotarian rep., to launch an educational campaign for the rotarians–and any other social works group who wanted to listen–about this issue, at least until I get back to the states and can do it myself :)… Thing is, sometimes I am very much my father’s daughter, and if you know him, you know exactly what I mean by this. My efforts might have been a little misdirected as Nancy is already incredibly busy with the stoves (after her 2 weeks here she flew home for a day before heading out for a month in Africa to work on the same project), but she took the whole thing in stride, and she bought us lunch at a very tasty restaurant. Thanks, Nancy!

The stove team had lots of things to do that didn’t involve us, so we had some time to do something we rarely do in Antigua–sight see–as we waited for the right moment to steal away with the intern. People should come visit us because this country is really amazingly beautiful, with some cool stuff to do. So here is a picture to entice you. This mostly goes to my sister who wants to go to Mexico for her birthday, and my brother who wants to go to Belize for his honeymoon. Really guys? Really? You won’t get personal tour guides there (and I’ll probably be annoyed with you forever)…Volcanos, Mayan ruins, rainforests, ocean fronts to the Atlantic and the Pacific, mountains, scuba diving, hiking, canoing through the mangroves, kayaking, zip lining…

Sight seeing was fun, but it was a little unfortunate all this happened so soon after our Christmas trip. The longer we’re deprived of these sorts of things, the nicer it is when they happen. Currently we’re just deprived of good ‘ole Temux. On Friday morning we finally lured Elke away from the rest of the stove team, and made it all the way to the capital of our department before the days end. We told her the going wouldn’t be particularly easy. We rolled into town on Friday morning, grabbed some fresh produce and continued to our home. Elke, who’d come in from the US on Monday night was pretty much wiped. In addition to all the travel, her body was adjusting to the food, and the altitude. The family, actually the whole town, was pretty stoked to have another gringo around. They were all disappointed when we told them she was only going to be around for about a week, but they made due with the time they had.

It was really interesting having our first visitor from the states here. We have a very small living space, and we have all these systems for storage, for food, for dishes, for washing. In the states these things seem to be relatively uniform from house to house, but all of that goes out the window when there is no longer plumbing or water. It was kind of funny to have to explain all the details of how we’ve figured out is the best way to wash the dishes at the stream. She got to try the chuj on her first night here, which was good since she was road tired and dirty and it was freezing. The weather did not put on a nice show. It has been mostly cold and rainy and rainy and cold since we made it back from the states. Though the sun did come out a few afternoons allowing us to go hiking and show her the great views. While she was suffering the cold in clothes borrowed from me, we assured her it would be warm and sunny in Quixabaj. We took off for there on Monday afternoon.

We’d given her advance warning that the road was really rough, but we were super lucky. There were only about 8 of us in the back of the pick-up. Our health technician, Aurelio was with us, and the local nurse sat up in the cabin. There were two local guys hauling a couple 150 lb. bags of corn out, which made a really comfy seat for me until they got off at their stops. the weather was amazing. The sun was shining the air was clean and crisp, but not too hot. You could see for some 40-50 miles all around us. After the rather hellish journey we had back from our first visit there, this trip was beyond pleasant. Here we all are, enjoying the ride, Aurelio our local boss, Fletch, Elke, and my view from the corn sacks.

It was just after 3 in the afternoon when we pulled up to the health center; everyone was starving. We went around buying some local produce and canned beans, as the nurse asked a town leader if he could scrounge up some tortillas. He seemed doubtful he’d find any, which was odd, considering everyone here eats them all the time. It took us probably half an hour to fix the food, and the tortillas hadn’t arrived. The nurse went to see what happened to our guy just as he walked in with a stack of cold ones for us to warm up. As he left a little boy came running in with a stack of fresh, hot tortillas wrapped in a towel. Once he left a local woman came with another steaming bundle. We went from maybe not getting tortillas to having stacks of them all over the table. It was comic, really, and every meal after that someone, or two, from the village would show up with more steaming stacks of fresh made tortillas. In the morning a girl came with a huge pot of black beans. We ate the regular Guatemalan fair, but there was a plenty for everyone.

This was our chance to share with Elke an authentic Peace Corp experience. This is really how it goes. By the time we’d eaten, all the local community leaders had arrived for a meeting. Remember, we first went to Quixabaj in September, planning to go back in November. The road collapsed so we couldn’t get there, and by the time they had fixed it was Christmas, so now it’s the first week of February and only our second time staying the night in this community. Our entire project had to be re-explained with the help of our technician, Aurelio, after all the men thanked us for returning to their community, since they thought we’d just high tailed it back to the US after our last visit. So Elke got the full shpeil. We talked with the leaders until they felt comfortable with everything, then we hammered out a very busy schedule for the next day. Oh, and though we’d planned to stay three full days, on the truck ride out Aurelio informed us he actually had to be back in to Santa in two days, so our three work days turned in to one. We had to try and get as much work done as we could in one day.

As the sun went down the leaders all headed home, leaving the three of us and one of the health employees to stargazing in the yard and learning q’anjob’al words for the night sky. It was really just pleasant. We were tired, full, and had accomplished at least a little something. We had a busy plan for the next, so with that we went to bed. And it began to rain, lightly at first, then harder and harder, until it was a full downpour hitting the tin roof of the health center. We hoped maybe it’d stop by morning.

Turns out, the rain didn’t stop the ENTIRE time we were in Quixabaj, much like our first visit actually. We were supposed to visit a community house by house that morning, but to get there we had to walk a mountainous dirt track that was sure to be treacherously slick with mud, “mejor nos quedamos en el puesto” said Aurelio. It’s better that we stay put here until the rain stops, he told us. So we stayed put. The community leader who was to be our tour guide had come by to get us, stayed to talk for more than an hour, and when the rain didn’t quit, he said he’d come back for us later if stopped raining and there was time before our 3 o’clock charla. This was about 9 am, so we had quite a while to kill.

Elke and I fixed coffees and teas for ourselves and anyone else who wanted. I settled in with my coffee and Harper’s magazine Don from the stove team had passed on to me (and the economist! what good reading, ahh…), and the guys unpacked the medical equipment crowding the waiting room of the health center. It rained and rained and rained. The rain brought cold wind with it. Turns out we accidentally misled Elke; there was to be neither warmth nor sun in Quixabaj. By 2:30 we’d had our second fill of beans and tortillas for the day, and the rain was not really letting up. Aurelio waffled back and forth about the 30 minute hike to the health talk, should we do it, should we not? Fletch and I said, “YES, we should do at least one thing while we’re here…” So we donned our rain gear, everyone, and took off for the community where we’d give the talk. We arrived 20 minutes late, because Aurelio couldn’t decide if we should go or not. Then it took another 15 minutes for the villagers to be called to the meeting.

In the mean time, the kids around the school played a came where they tried to push one another in to the gringos, and when we decided to participate by going after them, they would run away screaming bloody-murder. The latter we did just for own amusement. I mean, we needed to be entertained, too. Once their parents finally arrived and were seated, we started the health talk on what germs are and how they spread, bueno. We were about half way through the talk when the village leader interrupted to say we needed to wrap things up because they were now going to begin a parent-teacher meeting at the school. What!?

We literally did this charla soaking wet from the waist down; we’d stood in the back of a truck for 4 hours to get to this place the day before, slept on metal shelving a Cuban doctor turned into a bed about a year ago, and were leaving the following morning at 3:00am. Did they not care that we’d come all this way? In fact, they did care. They thanked us for our nice little talk, even though we weren’t allowed to finish it. It’s just that the other meeting was scheduled first (even though we didn’t know about it), just that using that transport isn’t a big deal–it’s the only thing that exists here and is better than walking for 8 hours; just that most of them sleep on wooden boards with a blankets to cover up. What we did to be there ain’t no big thang.

I was pretty thoroughly depressed as we got booted out of the school for the next meeting, and began to walk back, still wet and getting wetter, in the non-stop rain. A bright spot: the health committee president from the center of town has a son who drives one of the pick-up transports. He knew we had this charla and would probably be walking back, and they met us about 5 minutes into our 30 minute walk to drive us back to the health center. That was super nice, but I couldn’t have felt less accomplished than I did at that moment.

We visited a mid-wife that lived right next door to the health center so Elke could see a home there (and it was one of the nicer ones). Then we walked back to the health center and all put on dry clothes, drank tea, and went to bed. Lucky for Elke and I, we were given the truck cabin as our seats on the way back to town, and were able to sleep. Poor Fletch got stuck crowded in the back under a taurpalin, leaking water here and there, everyone squished tight for 4 hours of bumpy, slow going road.

Arriving in Santa we’d planned to go to our friend Pedro’s house for breakfast then back to the health center for the midwife meeting that had cut our Quixabaj trip short. Then Aurelio told us, really we didn’t need to go to this meeting, there would be another bigger meeting in two weeks where we could give a talk….grrr, ok. So we ate breakfast with Pedro, bought some produce when as the market opened up, and waited for 40 minutes, all of us falling asleep, for the micro to fill up with passengers and take us home. Elke, everyone, this is Peace Corps. Really, there is no better example of the real deal than this. I have yet to understand the oblique communication going on here. I think it’d really help if I could figure it out.

Elke was a total trooper. Our family had a great time talking to her. She had her picture taken with Reina’s baby, as per Reina’s request. Elke wanted to see how people in Guatemala really live. I think she has a good idea now. After a week here, she left to continue south to El Salvador to meet up with more PCV’s working on stove projects there. It was great having you, Elke!

Now, see how much fun that was, everyone? Come visit! More stories are one the way. We miss you guys.