The Billy Mays Effect

Gone are the days of staying home from secondary school sick, laying in bed with a high fever and watching endless hours of Billy Mays screaming at me, convincing me that my toilet bowl looked like it hadn't been cleaned since 1982, and then further convincing me of why I needed a product that could help me with that problem I never had- but then he would double the amount of OxiClean that would be sent to me, at half the price! Done.

All right, so I never actually watched infomercials (that much), but we have all seen, and skipped past, the pitch for MagneScribe, the pen that not only magnetically attaches to giant, nerd alarm-sounding lanyard (so not only do they convince you that you lose every pen you have ever owned, but that you need a giant digital clock hanging around your neck because you are always running behind). And all this with their "revolutionary magnetic technology." Coulda fooled me.

So then why on earth am I writing about infomercials in Guatemala? I don't own a television, thus ruling out any and all possibility of even having to think about them.

But the camioneta (bus) rides. Oh, the camioneta rides. The sixteen hour round-trip schlep it takes me to get from my site to the Peace Corps office. Whether it's food vendors or beggars, the rides are never quiet or relaxing. But inevitably, on almost every ride comes someone who is Guatemala's version of the Billy Mays-style infomercial (please read above disclaimer for sentence structure).

Step 1: Always wear sunglasses to avoid eye contact so you cannot feel like you are being as deceptive as you really are.

Step 2: Showing some kind of medicinal plant that is actually not in the product will automatically increase the likelihood of sales.

Step 3: Show a few grotesque photos of infections and fungi that none of us have probably ever had (this would be the convincing your audience of having an ailment that they do not actually, nor probably never will, have).

Step 4: Still focusing on keeping the attention of your potential clients, take out the product and perform an over-dramatized product example.

Step 5: After over-dramatized product example, state an overly-exorbitant price that they could get this phenomenal product for in the pharmacy, but hoy en día (today), the price will be slashed to one fifth of the retail value.

Accountability to Donors

I am in the midst of my biggest challenge in my Peace Corps service: trying to implement an actual micro-credit program that would actually remain functioning (hello, sustainability) after I finish my service at the end of this October. Scary (both implementing the micro-credit program and finishing my service).

There are ten groups of artisans who crochet, weave, tailor and embroider products- some groups only specialize in one area, while some of the more advanced groups specialize in more than one area. There are about 130 women all together, most of whom are illiterate / have not had much schooling, so that makes the whole "teaching business concepts" on my end of the deal that much more of a challenge... not to mention the language barrier (because most of the ladies have not gone to school, they have a poor level of Spanish- worse than mine ;-P). But they are all very lovely women who are very good at what they do... but they just don't "get" the business aspect of things.

The way the artisan component of AMMID works: they get funding from an outside organization for specific projects, workshops and outings (for certain groups of women to be able to see what other groups of other organizations from different parts of the country are doing and how they work).

The problem with the funding for the workshops is that the four intermediate groups receive funding (capital) for materials to make products. The idea behind this is that they will practice making specific products and designs, which they will then sell, keep the product for themselves and reinvest the capital (given by the donor organization) to purchase new materials, so they can keep on making products to sell, and continue to reinvest the base capital in new materials each and every time they sell their finished product.

Fíjense que, the women are not doing that- instead of reinvesting, they are keeping the capital (to buy whatever- food, clothing, etc.- they see it as a donation to them, for some reason) and wait for the next workshop to come around for them to get new capital for new materials, and it keeps going through this vicious cycle.

This is a huge error on part of AMMID, which I am trying to rectify. We just had our monthly meeting two weeks ago, and I am working on a micro-credit proposal plan. AMMID's funding will end in December 2011, and currently they are desperately searching for new future funders (which I am also helping them with- creating a blog and Facebook page explaining what AMMID is with Chico, the guy in charge of this project).

The way I see it (and I have told them this), is that if they don't have more control over the capital given by the donor organizations, they they will not receive funding from other future organizations (who will basically view them as being irresponsible with the previous funding).

AMMID's argument has been that if they do implement a micro-credit program, they they will lose a lot of the artisan members- well, if that's so, then at least the ones who are willing to do it the correct way will be the most successful in the end.

I am really pushing for this because the way it is right now is not sustainable, it's not being handled like a business, nor is it an ethical way they are handling the donor's money. I think they are just afraid they will lose numbers, but are not looking at the long-term affects, which I am trying to showcase.

It's quite a challenging situation, but it really is something that needs to be done if they want to continue on in the years to come. The idea would be to create an administrative change within the organization itself (more control of the donor money), which would need to be approved by the board of directors of AMMID, and then also do charlas, or "talks," to each group of artisans about the issue-related business concepts, i.e., how the entire process is administrated, reinvesting, repaying on time, cost of production, etc., for them to see why this would be beneficial for all parties involved, themselves included.

Time to go put on my game face.

I don't give a...

Basically, I've been letting my dog (did I mention I have a dog? I guess that calls for another post explaining) sleep in my room on the mat that my site mate, Kelly, had her dog sleep on. Chula has been sleeping in my room for at least two weeks now without incident.

House trained!

Or maybe not.

I have yet to clean up all the "stuff" Kelly left in the spare room, including the "I don't give a shit" note she taped up on her kitchen door a few frustrating months before her completion of service (this very well could have been around the same time her brand new MacBook, hidden under her bed, got flooded under eight inches of mud after her house flooded due to drainage problems that have since been fixed).

I woke up to a funk and wandered into the other room.

What can I say? At least Chula has a sense of humor (and good aim).

More training to come...

Apparently Chula didn't either.

Hungarian Polka

Sorry, I'm too lazy to rewrite this in English. Try Google translate if you're really itching to find out what I wrote- or just learn Hungarian.

Már egy jó ideje nem írtam egy magyar blog beszámolót, többnyire azért, mert mióta itt vagyok Guatemalában, alíg van alkalmom magyarul beszélni- esetleg hetente egyszer vagy kétszer anyukámmal telefonon eldumálunk, de azon kivül nagyon nem... legalább mostanáig.

Amikor először idejöttem november 2008-ban, akkor valahogyan idekerült egy olyan japán önkéntes, aki magyar szakot végzett egy japán egyetemen. Igazából nem tudom, hogy ki jobban lepődött meg azon, hogy másikunk magyarul beszél, de hát jó móka volt.

A srác azért nem csinált túlságosan sokat itt- ahhoz képest, hogy "önkéntes munkát" akart végezni és tanulni akart mezőgazdaságról, egyszer sem fogta magát kertészkedni- hanem inkább a szobájában ült egész nap és spanyolul tanult... egyedül.

Na, szóval az volt az első tapasztalatom egy magyar beszélő emberrel itt Guatemalában, de nem volt sok közös témánk! Hamarosan el is ment... és igazából nem mondhatnám, hogy az itteniek hiányolták!

Most fastforwardoljunk egy kicsikét (még teljesen folyékonyan beszélek mangolul / Hunglish)- egy közös ismerős révén találkoztam egy igazi magyar önkéntessel, Lilla, aki már egy ideje él Antigua, Guatemalában, de nem régen beköltözött egy házban, és meghívott, hogy maradjak náluk és csináljunk gulyás levest és pogácsát a szobatársainak, mivel már hónapok óta igérte, hogy csinálni fogja. Az első magyar tál, mióta Buffalo-ban voltam augusztusban és két héten keresztül tömtem magam az anyukam kosztjával (gondolom legtöbben tudjátok, hogy ez nem egy lehetetlen dolog... sőt!).

Magyarul beszélni, magyar kosztot készíteni, magyar zenét hallgatni egy magyar baratnővel... egy isteni álom volt!

Akkor jöttem rá, hogy mennyire fontos nekem az én magyarságom, amikor ezeket az apró kis dolgokat újra csinálhattam ennyi idő után.

Az elkészítés kép története:

Odaértem, amikor már egy ideje főzött a marha hús.

Csak is magyar paprikával lehet igazi gulyás levest főzni!

Az apróra vágott zöldségek.

Főzni nem lehet zene nélkül.

Jól megszortuk magyarországi paprikával.

Jól megkeverjük...

Házi tejföl a fokhagymás pogácsához.

Na... az történt, hogy valahogyan odaégett a paprika az edény aljára, és hát sajnos ki kellet szűrni az egészet mivel annyira keserű lett a gulyásnak az íze. Közben a Lillának kellett jóga órát tartania, úgyhogy rám maradt a gulyás főzés, pogácsa elkeszítés feladat. Életembe még nem készítettem gulyást, sem pogácsát. Nagy elszántsággal nekiálltam... de azért még előtte felhívtuk anyukámat, ne hogy kétszer rontsuk el. Lilla elindult. Rám maradt a feladat.

Füstölt szalonnát újra sütjük, amíg kijönn belöle a zsír. Kivesszük a szalonnát (és talán megesszük), és hozzáadunk jó sok apróra vágott hagymát, amíg üvegesre párol.

Füstölt szalonna.

Újra megszortam jó sok paprikával.

Frissen vágott fokhagyma a pogihoz.

Fokhagymás pogácsa massza.

Nagyon, nagyon sokáig hagyuk állni, amíg a hús nem fő meg.

Kár, hogy az illatát nem lehet feltölteni a blogspot-ra!

Időben jött a Lilla a pogácsát elkezdeni.

...és nagyon finom volt.

Egy álom valóra vált!

A társaság.

Az első kostolás előtt. Nagy volt az izgalom!

Ilyen pogácsa volt...

...meg olyan is!

Egy kis jó kis csípőssel annál finomabb.

Enélkül nem ment volna!

Holy, Week!

Holy Week is quite a big deal in Latin America, to say the least. For a Christian-dominated country where religion is the centerpiece of practically any event- be that a casual monthly office meeting or good-bye party- Holy Week is kind of a big deal.

Although last year I thoroughly enjoyed Semana Santa with friends at Guatemala's No. 1 surfing destination, Sipacate, the 8 hour bus trip turned into a 16 hour nightmare- packed buses with people hanging out and riding on top, and two-lane roads turned into five-lane standstills that lasted forever, which left us walking a good stretch to avoid the bus that had turned into a Finnish sauna- minus the cold weather and drinks to look forward to directly afterwards.

So, because of a combination of traveling to the Peace Corps center two weeks in a row, as well as not seeing the festivities in town last year, I opted to stay put and take advantage of my five-day holiday in site. And that's exactly what I did.

There wasn't much going on Wednesday and Thursday, but I was looking forward to the processions and the decorative rugs (made from colored wood shavings) on the streets on Friday. My site mate, Lauren, is involved in the youth group at the Catholic church in town, so I made sure to ask her what time the processions would be so I wouldn't miss them.

The night preceding Good Friday I got a phone call at 315am. Half-asleep and confused, I picked up. It was Lauren. I got a bit of a fright for a second, thinking something may have happened with her. She told me she was outside my door and she needed my hose to help make the rugs on the street.

I hung up and checked the time again. Yup, indeed it was 315am, and she left with my hose.

And Lauren had officially become culturally integrated.

Much to my dismay, when I woke up in the morning I ran straight to the bathroom. It seems like I have been having an on-again, off-again stomach bug since late December, and unfortunately that caused me to miss all of the processions in town. By mid-afternoon, though, I was feeling a bit better so I ventured out into town to see what was going on, but sadly everything had finished up, and all was left were the chalked outlines of the rugs on the pavement.

All photos care of Lauren:

The rug-making commenced at 230am- ¡púchica!

Bittersweet: after 7 hours of hard work, it gets walked on. Así es la vida.

Lauren had mentioned that a group was going to the (newly-filled with fresh water) town pool on Saturday morning. I jumped at the opportunity to do some long-awaited laps and just enjoy a peaceful Saturday morning at the pool.

Or so I thought.

As we approached the pool, there was a sizable crowd gathered along the fencing. We paid our Q1 ($0.12) entrance and made our way in and started off by jumping off the high-dive into the deep end. It was so nice to get back into the water- I didn't realize how much I missed it until suiting up and getting in.

After about an hour or so, they announced that there was going to be a swimming competition. Music to my ears! Lauren, Abby (another PCV from the next town over) and I lined up beneath the diving boards. Three gringas competing against one another in front of what grew to be a crowd of 300+ conservative indigenous spectators.

I never heard cheers so loud.

Although it was fun to compete against Lauren and Abby, I wanted to race some locals. Since the women's competition only consisted of the three foreigners in town, I took it upon myself and entered myself in the men's competition.

Eight indigenous men that do hard manual labor in the fields everyday, one gringa, 50 meters (two laps).

Oh- did I mention I swam for 15 years- competitively?

I just thought it was too good of an opportunity to let slip through my fingers- I mean, when else would I be able to show half the town- men, women and children- that women can excel over men in sports? If that wasn't good enough, I also managed to impress everyone with a reallycrappy flip turn.

One thing I did feel bad about- and did not know- is that there was a monetary prize for competing. I tried to decline, but Q50 (~6.25 USD) for the women's, and Q25 (~3.12 USD) for the men's competition was shoved in my hand, with the promise that I would buy a beer for Elvio, the prize distributor.

The crowd around and inside the pool- this is only about one quarter of the people who were watching.

Some had better views than others from high above.

The diving competition with fully-clothed participants- sneakers included.

Lauren's award-winning dive that won her 1st place in the diving competition. The gringas dominated.

But it wasn't until the next evening that I was basking in my glory. As I was walking down my long cobblestone road into town to get some dinner, I passed by three boys. They asked me when I was going to go swimming next? I asked if they wanted to race me?

Their response? "YES!"

The Second World

Though I am not the author of this, I thought some parts of it were well-related to some aspects of Guatemala- namely in the bigger cities, such as Xela, Antigua, and Guatemala City, but even better related to Hungary.

The Second World

The defining characteristic of a Second World country is the non-absorbent napkin. From Moscow to Valparaiso, if your café napkin is a square of waxed paper that takes grease from your lips and spreads it to the rest of your face, you can be certain of encountering the whole constellation of other traits common to those industrialized countries where people make less than $20,000 a year (specifically: clean but strong-tasting running water, the Ford Fiesta or its local equivalent, new trains on old tracks, pavement as on ongoing process rather than an accomplished fact, metal buckets on dirty ropes, dogs of uncertain provenance, merchants hosing down their section of sidewalk, manhole covers left open, sixty-eight satellite dishes on one roof, cheap plastic washing machines that fit in a bathtub, paper currency that rapidly gets filthy, a complete absence of vending machines, streets that don't drain, iron fences around suburban homes, good but watery beer, kiosks fulls of cheap plastic toys, sidewalks with little square lakes where tiles are missing, affordable cigarettes, escalators with wooden steps, the cinder block as the unit of construction, toilet attendants who sell grey toilet paper by the square and receive tips in a little plate, train stations and theatres with fifty glass doors but only one of them open, rectangular buses that belch black smoke, elevators with little inner doors that have to be closed by hand, the complete inability to ever make change).

Canadian Ballet

Living in Latin America, for what is now my twentieth month, has allowed me to grow quite a nice, thick layer of skin to ignore comments, and even at times unwelcomed gestures (a firm drive-by glut-groping was my initiation during the second week of training for, what I would later discover, would soon expand to other parts of my body).

It has frustrated and disgusted me the way men treat women- as mere objects that just happen to cook, clean, wash and bear and care for child after child (including the husbands themselves)- and God forbid they open their mouths and express some sort of formed opinion after putting up with ridiculous behavior or bad news bears! Oy vey.

Anywho... for quite some time now I have flirted with the thought of having the roles reversed- that is, what if it were the women who degraded men in both a verbally and physically derogatory manner?

And of all places, in Guatemala?

"Ha, impossible!" you laugh to yourself.

Oh, but I beg to differ.

This morning I left my site at 8:30am (with one hour notification!) to Antigua to attend the swear-in ceremony of the latest training group at Ambassador McFarland's house in Guatemala City (the brownies that are served after the ceremony are to die for which is the real reason I traveled seven hours in an uncomfortable bus).

After switching buses in Xela and getting as comfortable as a 5'10" woman can get in a school bus from 1983 (read: knees up to my chin), I popped in my earphones and start jamming to- what else? 80s classics.

Unfortunately that was under-toned by five rowdy 16-22 year-old girls, who were just plain obnoxious. I though I had escaped them after transferring buses, yet again, the Antigua-direct from Chimaltenango, but they had followed me up on the bus and sat directly in front of me, continuing with their wildly boisterous behavior, peeving off not only me, but the neighboring passengers as well.

And it was not until the ayudante, the dude who collects the fare, came around that my opinion on these girls changed. Completely.

After collecting the money from the back of the bus, where we were seated, he turns around to head back to the front of the bus and the ring leader, bleached blonde hair pulled back into a tight pony-tail, with layers upon layers of make-up caked onto what looked like her face and g-string hanging out of her pants, lifts up her hand and gives a good crackling slap onto his bum.

"Dale, papi, dale!" shouts her friend sitting next to me.

He slithered back up to the front of the bus, tail between his legs; horrified, humiliated, dumbstruck.

Uncomfortable.

The next time he came to the back to collect the fare of new people who came on the bus, he made sure to back up a few steps before turning around.

The humane part in me felt sorry for him- for a hot second.

I suppose it would be unfair in assuming that this guy should be categorized with the majority of men I have met in this country, but let's not kid ourselves either: he probably had it coming to him.

And it was so awesome to witness.

It's funny how people can dish it, but when it is handed right back at them- even in small portions- they run away like frightened 5-year-olds.

"Qué rico te ves!" - these girls kept at it like it was their job.

And it was when and where these girls got off that I quickly realized that it probably was their job- as Canadian ballet dancers. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, please find the official definition here.)

Nevertheless, they made my day.

Dentistry For All

For the past 15 years, my town has had the privilege of hosting a group of mainly Canadian (with the odd American) dental mission, Dentistry For All (DFA), based out of Calgary, Alberta for two weeks, with an in-town clinic in the center of town, and a second satellite clinic that moves to a different village each day.

It started off 15 years ago with a single dentist, Dr. Dennis Bedard, who came to just pull teeth (which, according to all the dentists I have spoken to, is not nearly as hard as the saying would make one think), and it has turned into a five-week tour of Guatemala- the main focus being my town, where the dentists stay for two weeks, and the rest of the sites (in the departments of Sacatepéquez, Guatemala and El Petén) get one-week visits.

This, being my second year translating with the group, I can truly say that this organization is phenomenal. Hands down. No questions asked. I mean, dentistry put aside (no offense guys), they would still be #1 in my book for one sole reason: they are the reason why my ladies have had such a success with their kippahs- for a good number of the dentists are Jewish, and when they found out there was a kick-ass amazing artisan group in town, they asked my indigenous Mayan ladies if they would be up to the challenge of crocheting Judaica products- namely, kippahs?

And of course the answer was ax!, or yes in Mam. And truthfully speaking (or writing, I should say- errr, write), it has made me a bit verklempt, as the ladies are one of just two groups in Guatemala (that I know of) that produce and sell their kippahs online to an international market.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Anywho, back to the dentists... all in all, about 20 dentists, oral surgeons, assistants, hygienists, sterilizers and techies came to town for the two weeks- some of them returning for their umpteenth time, while it was a first-time visit for many of them. The procedures they offer range from simple, such as general cleanings, fillings and extractions, to more complicated- we're talking root canals and wisdom teeth extractions.

As I mentioned in last year's post about the dentists, they have imposed a Q5 (~ 0.63 USD) charge per procedure up to Q20 (even if more than four procedures are done), so that the service will be valued, since Q20 per person can be quite a bit of money for many of the families here in town. The money then goes back to he host organization, AMMID, the local NGO I work with, and it is used for additional projects.

The time, effort and work everyone has put in to make this work year after year, both in Canada and in Guatemala, is incredible. Peace Corps /Guatemala started a (silly) new policy that does not allow PCVs to translate for groups, and I quite honestly was pretty bummed that I was not going to be able to work with DFA this year, but thankfully because of timing, we were given an exception. (FYI- after quite a bit of uproar from the volunteer community, as well as a six-way Skype conference call between the Volunteer Advocacy Council and Peace Corps / Guatemala management, we came to the conclusion that this kind of work is actually pretty legit for all parties involved- however an official decision is yet to be announced).

If you would like to learn more about DFA, or if you are in Canada and would like to buy some awesomely beautiful artisan products that my ladies make, visit either link below (they only ship within Canada).

http://www.dentistryforall.org/

http://www.dentistryforall.secure2cart.com/products.html

Packing up after the last day. This photo does no justice to the amount of work, hauling, unpacking, organizing, repacking and more hauling of hockey bags full of dental equipment and medicines. You guys rock.