Bobby's World

Meet Bobby, or if you're on head-scratching terms with him, you can just call him Bobito. Like all other dogs in Guatemala, he is referred to as a chucho (street dog) instead of perro (dog). I bet that if dogs had the same rights as humans, then chucho would probably be considered a derogatory term used against perros... but let's not get political.

Bobby is no ordinary chucho- he is Alpha Alpha male- yes, I used two Alphas with a capital "A", and for good reason: I have seen him kick the you-know-what out of other chuchos who try to show him, and does he ever show them right back. Think of Chuck Norris in form of a dog- that would be Bobby.

But as rough and tough as I make him out to be, Bobby is by far the friendliest chucho I have yet to meet in Guatemala. Most chuchos are known for causing Peace Corps Volunteers quite a great deal of grief- getting chased by one on your way up a mountain to visit a group is not always the best way to start off your day.

However with Bobby, instead of chasing me, many times he escorts me to and from communities that can take up to an hour to hike to, or follows me around town while I run errands. Decorated with battle wounds and machete scars, Bobby fears nothing- not even fear itself.

Bobby has made quite the name for himself in the community. As he accompanies me through town, children will call out his name as if he were a local celebrity... but I guess he kind of is. He almost never barks, but when he does I know it's for good reason: he's chasing away a bolo (drunk) from the street.

Thanks for being such an awesome chucho, Bobito!

Bobby greeting me in the morning.

Taking a siesta in the AMMID office while I get some work done.

Patience is Bobby's middle name- he'll wait for me anywhere- a true gentleman.

Bobby hanging out at the embroidery workshop.

Bobby showing Kelly and Amalia who's boss- maybe it's "dominance" that is his middle name?

As ferocious as he may be at times, Bobby has a soft heart- and a way with the ladies. Chuchas want him, chuchos want to be him.

Wearing the Pants

As if being a 5'10" white woman with a swimmer's build (thanks to 15 years of freestyle and butterfly) in a town where the average height for women is probably 5'2", and for men about 5'5" didn't make me stick out enough, wearing pants make me stick out even more.

Or is it the opposite?

I have never been big on getting dressed up, never mind wearing a skirt or an actual dress - I can count on two fingers the number of times I wore either in 2009. Just simply not my wardrobe of choice.

But in my town, seated on a mountain top in an indigenous Maya-Mam region, it's the only thing almost all women wear, except for the odd gringa and ladina (non-indigenous Guatemalan woman).

Indigenous communities in Guatemala all have a traje, or suit, that is distinct to their town or village. The shirt is usually a sporadically designed blouse, bursting with flowers of any and all colors, or intricately weaved designs that usually cover the entire güipile.

The corte, or skirt, is actually a long piece of thick weaved cloth that is wrapped just under the breast bone, and then held up with a faja, or thick, but narrow, piece of cloth that is wrapped around like a security belt high at the waist.

As beautiful as some of these trajes are, the history behind them are less than impressive. When the Spanish came to what is now Guatemala, they wanted to control the movement of the indigenous population, so they made each town and village their own distinct traje (one for men, one for women). This way if someone were traveling from one town to another, they would be easily identified as from a different area or region.

A bit imperialistic, to say the least, but there are still a number of towns that proudly wear their traditional traje everyday- probably the best known town in Guatemala is Todos Santos Cuchumatantes in the department of Huehuetenango (where I also had a Huehue fun Christmas in 2008), because not only do women wear their traje, but men as well, and it's really quite beautiful.

Imagine never having to worry about what you're going to wear, but knowing that you'll be looking your very sharpest every single day- even though you are wearing the same thing as everyone else- men in their pants, women in their skirts.

But me? In a skirt? Or even a dress?

Instead, I am a woman of the pant.

And quite literally, too.

Although Spanish has its own terms for "white people," the most commonly known being gringo or gringa, Mam has a few different words that locals use to describe any gringos walking around town.

Despite my Mam being limited to a few useful phrases and words, I am still able to pick out when people are casually talking about me on the street, whip myself around at lightening speed and take them by surprise. It's kind of fun, because they're usually amazed that the gringa understands what they are saying, even though it's only a word or two I can pick out that makes me realize that I am being spoken about.

So what are these mythical words I speak about, you ask?

meisha - (Mam) depending on who you ask, this can either mean person with brown hair or whitey. Pretty much all indigenous people have jet black hair- and unfortunately due to the high rate of malnutrition in Guatemala, some indigenous people have a reddish/orange-ish tint to their hair, which is a prominent sign of chronic malnutrition)

ẍnula - (Mam) [rough pronunciation: shnoo-la] literally meaning woman of the pant

k'ẍtyan - (Mam) [rough pronunciation: ki-kshtian] literally meaning man of the woman of the pant

I don't take offense to these, as long as they're not used by complete strangers to try to talk behind my back in Mam without them realizing I in fact do understand they are speaking about me, in the very least. But even then I suppose it doesn't offend me as much as it gives me satisfaction in knowing that I can outsmart someone in their own language that I know close to nothing of.

But do I take offense to gringo?

Absolutely. It's gringA!

Unfortunately you cannot see, but I am holding true to my ẍnula label- complete with pants.

Kelly and me dressed in corte and a güipile with our good friend, Juanita, and her two children Brenda and Marcos.

Mayan What??

When I got my Peace Corps invitation to serve in Guatemala in July 2008, my title was "Sustainable Agriculture Marketing Facilitator." The only marketing experience I really had was a two month internship I had two years earlier and a semester of marketing in both undergrad and grad school (where my group and I "marketed" our service- We Got Gas! A fake gas delivery service), and as for agriculture... well... does playing in the dirt when you're a kid count for anything? I didn't think so. And let's be honest: if Peace Corps had known how many plants had died as a result of me not watering them while my parents would be away for extended periods of time while I was in high school, then agriculture probably would not have been the area of choice for my placement officer.

During PST (Pre-Service Training), it was made aware to us what kind projects were going to be in our near future, and surprisingly enough, one of those projects had NOTHING to do with agriculture at all: artisan handcraft marketing. Of the eight people in the marketing training group, three of us were girls, so we were certain that it would be one of the three of us, due to the nature of the work it would entail (working with 10 women's groups- much easier to build confianza if you're a woman).

The day we found out our sites, pretty much everyone was shocked to learn that I had gotten the site with the artisan group- my other friend, Sara, has a strong art and design background, but because Peace Corps says they really try to match up sites with people's personalities, I suppose something about me must have screamed "ARTISAN!" Maybe. I didn't think so, but something must have...

When I went out for my site visit, a grueling eight hour bus trip, which I still make almost once a month for some kind of Peace Corps activity or another, I got the chance to get to know some of the ladies and the products they make.

One product in particular that they make are... ready for this? Yarmulkes. Kippahs. Yamakahs. Yes, my little indigenous Mayan ladies make Judaica products.

Crocheted to perfection.

As a marketing volunteer, my main goal was to of course increase the sales of the women's products- but how? Online sales seemed like the most logical way, but there was one slight problem: none of the ladies knew how to use a computer.

I tackled this, and my counterpart, Isa (who has a grade six education), now can do simple word processing, create documents, etc., but this still isn't sufficient for her to be able to handle online sales, since I honestly couldn't expect her to learn all the intricacies of the internet within another year. So how would I make this idea a sustainable reality?

Luckily there are a number of artisan organizations that have helped out the ladies in the past, and continue to do so- training them in the process so they not only continue to have work, but expand their knowledge of techniques and designs, as well.

One particular organization, Mayan Hands, have been selling the ladies's kippahs in the US for a couple of years, but has just recently launched their online store. When I found this out a few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to speak with the director of Mayan Hands about the pricing for the kippahs, and in order to make our's more competitive to the other kippah-crocheting Mayan ladies (yes, we have competition IN Guatemala, believe it or not), we talked about where costs could be cut... and voila. It seemed all too easy, but I guess sometimes that how things work out.

So, my friends, readers, followers, etc., please take a minute of your time to look at the beautiful products my ladies make on the Mayan Hands website.

These are probably the best selling products the ladies have; it's the best percentage of profit they make from any product, and it has one of the quickest turnover rates in terms of production, so rest assured that the ladies are getting a very fair price for their work.

The main goal behind the artisan project for the ladies is to provide food security for their families. San Marcos suffers from one of the highest rates of malnutrition in Guatemala, and my town has one of the highest rates in the department of San Marcos. In addition to artisanal training, many of the ladies are also apart of the association's agriculture groups, where they learn about nutrition (cooking classes), compost piling, building family gardens, etc., so they can utilize their money they have earned through their artisan work to provide better food security for their families.

Many of the women are single mothers, so this also provides a job opportunity for them that is near by their house. Many rural Guatemalans find themselves taking jobs down on the coast at coffee, banana and sugar cane plantations, thus forcing them to leave their families, towns, sell all of their animals and work in less than acceptable conditions.

This art gives many of the single parent ladies the possibility to stay in their communities with their families and still be able to earn a living by themselves, give educational opportunities to their daughters, contribute to build their self-esteem by them making financial decisions on their own, and in the process, empowering them.

The colors of the department of San Marcos (red, green, yellow and black). But because they look like rasta colors, I like to call these kippahs "rastakahs."

Doña Aida, Doña Isa (my counterpart), Doña Olindia and Doña Wilma with an assortment of products (including wine bags, yoga bags, scarves and coin purses) the ladies from 10 communities have made.