Site Assignment

The past few weeks have been jam-packed with activities, from one-day tech trips to the near by department of Chimaltenango, and also a site visit to a current PCV who has already completed one-year of their service in the same program (Sustainable Agriculture Marketing). Rachel (from the other marketing training town) and I were sent to the same PCV in Chimaltenango, so luckily we didn't have to travel too far. We visited Mackenzie, who works in a coffee cooperative and also is involved in a few woman's groups in the area.

The first full day we sat in for the monthly meeting, which was scheduled for 8:30am, in chapín time (that is, Guatemalan time), started just after 9:30. Patience is a key factor here! The meeting consisted of the guys in the group talking mainly about the goals, and they all seemed to repeat one another, probably because they all felt they needed to bring something to the table, even if it was already said, so they wouldn't be looked upon by their peers as not giving something. Mackenzie has been doing a great job with the group, and has also said she's talked to them before about repeating what others have said is not an efficient way to run a meeting. They seem to be embracing it slowly, which is a huge stride. It's a difficult thing, I've been learning, to change people's approaches to things when it seems like something that is so natural to you that change could be beneficial, but that same thing in their culture could be looked on as culturally inappropriate, or it may mean that you don't know something because you haven't said something. Enough of philosophising...

Rachel and I went to one of Mackenzie's woman's groups to make pineapple carrot jam, which turned out great, but we didn't have enough gelatin. Because Mackenzie wasn't able to be there the next day and the women wanted to make more jam, Rachel and I took the opportunity to go their on our own and spent about 3 hours with the women the next morning making a good 10 jars of pineapple carrot jam. On our way back into town, we wanted to make a short trip to the city, and so we hopped on the bus and away we went. When the ayudante, or the bus fair collector, came to us, I told him our destination. He looked at me, smiled, put his hand up and pointing his pointing finger waving it back and forth said "no no no," laughing, and told us that the bus wasn't going to the city, but the aldeas, that is, the small villages out in the country. By that point we had been on the bus for 20 minutes and were in a bit of a state of panic as to what we were going to do, because that was the only bus going to and from the aldeas, and it would only leave an hour after arriving to the final destinations, miles and miles away from where we wanted to be.

After the entire camioneta (read: bus) finished laughing at us, the ayudante was nice enough not to make us pay (he probably just felt bad for us) and actually stopped the bus when he saw a jalón (pickup truck) going back into town. So we hopped off the bus and hopped into the back of the truck and rode with another Guatemalan for the 20 minute ride back. We made it back safely and instead of going into the city, we decided to just go back to Mackenzie's place and relaja, or relax, after we'd been 40 minutes back and forth down a bumpy dirt road, first in an old American school bus and then sitting uncomfortably in the back of a pickup truck, black tarp covering and all.

Fast forward to yesterday: the day all us trainees had been waiting for. We finally got our site assignments, and mine came to a bit of a surprise, even to my current sitemates. My main assignment will be working with a woman's group of artesans in the department of San Marcos, about 300 km from here, but with the state of the roads it takes at least 7 hours to get there!

The assignment wasn´t quite what I was expecting, but it seems like it´s a good organization, fairly organized, and the women are hard'working with goals, so that is already a promising start. I´ll be helping them find markets within Guatemala to sell their products, as well as help them to try exporting to North America and Europe, if all goes well. Additionally, I´ll also have a chance to work with agriculture, as my title suggests, which will be considered secondary projects. I´m really excited for this experience and will update you all once I´ve arrived back from my site visit to tell you all about it!

Hope everyone is well and to hear from you all!