The Guatemalan Feria

What happens when Guatemalans get together to celebrate their patron saints? Fireworks lit off within 10 meters of their 450-year-old church, that's what happens. (As an aside, when the first shell went off, I nearly hit the ground, certain that some sort of gang warfare had just broken out. The man next to me commented, "Don't worry! It's just fireworks." I might have pointed out that in New York, we rarely light fireworks 30 feet away from a crowd of 400 people. But no need to get into all the complexities of cultural differences in risk perception, or we'll be here all night.)

My reaction to feria last year might be chalked up to cultural differences. The whole thing struck me as crowded, uninteresting, and mildly grungy. The streets were filled with rigged carnival games, marimba bands, "costume dances" where grown men gyrate their hips for hours on end while dressed as Xena Princess Warrior, ladies selling peanuts and bland biscuits in ring shapes. Impromptu cantinas covered in Gallo beer advertisements, food stands selling lots of exotic stuff that scream trouble for the digestive tract, strange drunk men, carnival rides ready to break apart in mid-air and throw their riders to certain death. In case you don't get the idea, space is rented to the vendors in units of 1 square meter. A Guatemalan feria is a US county fair or street festival on steroids.

Now that I've come to know the feria, I could talk about it from the perspective of the town and its significance in local culture, for better or for worse. I could talk about the human need for community and collective ritual and holidays centered around those things. I could... But instead, feria comes to mind this year more from own perspective. This year I realized my need for community; my need for collective ritual; my need for a holiday I could participate in. This year the feria struck me differently.

It might be that this was my first feria living in the center of town, away from my Evangelical host family, my first feria free to experience the Catholic culture here. My first feria since I've made good friends here. My first feria where there were people I was excited to run into on the street and pass time with. My first feria where I had someone to drink a beer with, watch fireworks with, eat cheese-filled tortillas with.

It might be that this was my first feria where rather than being surrounded by strangers, rather than feeling isolated by fright or indignation or indifference, rather than being the unwanted foreigner, I was finally invited to participate among friends.

It might be that this was my first feria where it felt like my town, and not just someplace I was living.

It might be that I was finally home.

Gender and identity in highlands Guatemala

One of the gals?

One of the guys?

I sometimes forget that I am a light-skinned, grotesquely tall alien. Then someone takes my picture in a group with local people and I’m reminded why small children usually either react to me with fascination or abject fright.

Yet beyond that, I put up these two pictures to illustrate an issue of identity that has been central to my experience here – gender.

I grew up in a small town in upstate New York wanting to think that my gender didn’t matter, that being female didn’t make me significantly different from any of my male peers. I distinctly remember the first week of third grade, when my teacher asked for some strong boys to help her hand out the math textbooks. The comment struck a strong chord – placed by whom and when, who knows – but I put my hand up and volunteered; and later that year I went on to beat all but two of the boys in my class in arm wrestling. I still remember so clearly those early affirmations that gender in itself is not a limitation.

So I guess it was odd for me to experience, coming here, that local attitudes surrounding my gender really did limit me, much more so than in the US. Having always wanted to be “gender-blind”, I didn’t really perceive it a lot at first. Yet over time I became more aware of the general inflexibility of gender roles - and accompanying attitudes. I also became more aware of my place as a pant-wearing female, smack dab in the middle of the two gender worlds, seemingly receiving the worst of both of them, especially as a foreigner to boot.

In a place where identity is assessed principally on two axes (first, foreigner or local; and later, female or male), I felt especially out of place, since locals – once having identified me as a foreigner - could not confidently place me on the female/male axis. I felt unwanted in either camp: uninvited to go work in the woods, even when I asked; uncomfortable walking alone at night; heckled by drunks in certain neighborhoods; plagued by the sense that my counterpart was frequently ignoring my comments and proposals; questioned by everyone whether I was afraid to live on my own. Yet neither was I invited to chit-chat with my female counterparts, or asked to help them at events, and am still met with skepticism that I can do my own cooking and cleaning.

It seems like I ought to offer some sort of breakthrough, a turning point to all of this; but there hasn’t been one, really. I’ve simply gone about figuring my identity here by getting to know more and more people, trying to prove that there are things I am capable of even if I can't fold 100 tamalitos in an hour or plant an acre of potatoes by hand in half a day. Overall, my experience hasn't been tough as some have it out in the really remote villages, and being female has given me a distinct advantage with the wonderful women's groups here.

And I've had the numerous little rebellions: taking joy in carrying heavy things in front of and with my counterpart and the park guards, wielding a machete, hiking fast with open enjoyment; fixing technology; wearing corte when it's appropriate; and always requesting in a quiet but firm way the respect I feel I deserve - not as a foreigner or a woman, but as a person.

[Note: 4/22/2013: As I remained longer in my community, I realized that like in many cultures, age was another important aspect of identity and social hierarchy. Being male would not have automatically brought me respect.  I still think that being a foreigner, first, and of ambiguous-but-female gender was more principal to the way I was perceived than age.]

Staying vegetarian in the Peace Corps

Former volunteers told me before I went that it would be impossible to stay vegetarian in Guatemala. I had also heard there would be an enormity of fresh vegetables available. Coming from the school of “eat what works for you”, I wasn't put off by the idea of meat-eating culture, but I was definitely wondering how I would get along as an omnivore.

It turns out Guatemala does offer a beautiful variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as legumes and ground nuts and grains. You can thrive here on a vegetarian and even vegan diet for a fraction of what it would cost in the US. Imagine buying a weeks' worth of fresh fruits and veggies - a head of broccoli, 2 lbs of tomatoes, 2 lbs of onion, garlic, two avocadoes, two bunches of fresh greens, a lb. of potatoes, squash, a half dozen carrots, a half dozen bananas and a pineapple - for less than $7. Yup. That happens to me pretty much every week.

At the same time, I’ve eaten more meat in the past 16 months than I had in the 12 years preceding Peace Corps. Hmm. So, why the curious contradiction?

The first months were easiest. I was living in a training town near the capital with a family that had hosted vegetarians before. The first visit to my permanent placement also seemed to portend great things when we stopped on the road with my counterpart at a restaurant that had black-bean burgers. Black-bean burgers, I tell you! That seemed the perfect moment to frontload to my counterpart I didn’t eat meat, before he could offer me any. Phew, good to get that one out of the way.

OK. Right. Fast forward two weeks, Good Friday, my counterpart invites me up to the park with him and a friend for a little picnic. It’s our first bonding opportunity, and let’s just say they didn’t bring black-bean burgers. Some people might not understand this, but at that moment, preserving my counterpart’s ego was way way way more important than preserving my vegetarian diet.

That was the gateway meal. After that, I quickly learned that avoiding meat was not worth the social discomfort for me. First of all, it is very rude here to refuse food without a culturally-appropriate rationale. Another thing is that most people (like my counterpart) just don’t understand the phrase “I don’t eat meat” the way I do. Most families consume meat infrequently – at most twice a week. It’s the special food to break up dietary monotony and celebrate occasions. It’s also expensive. A pound of chicken costs about the same in my town as it does in the US, while unadjusted average family income here is roughly 1/27 of what it is in the US.

So, it sort of makes sense vegetarians are scant here. Why would you avoid eating something that is rarely eaten and only to celebrate special occasions? There's a cultural divide there that can be tough to cross, and when I don’t know the person well, I definitely accept the meat. If no one’s watching and my body feels like meat is just not preferable at the moment, I sometimes squirrel it away for Oliver and my favorite street dogs. Fundamentally what it comes down to is that my desire to maintain social harmony is stronger than my belief in strict vegetarianism.

Objectively speaking I think accepting meat has helped me build confidence with people here, but it was really a personal choice. No one absolutely forced me, and I'll admit I am quite a push-over sometimes. My advice to vegetarian future PCVs is not to stress out about it. Peace Corps is unlikely to put you in one of the few countries where you’ve got to eat lots of meat to survive, and if you’re like me it will be a time when you have more fresh, cheap vegetables than you know what to do with. And if a little chicken has to slip in there occasionally, well, at least it’s probably free range!

Immigration Stories: Money, Borders, and Tuna Fish Sandwiches

Immigration is a central force of life in my town. Everyone I know has a family member who has lived in the US. What’s more the municipality estimates some 5,000 to 7,000 people from my town still reside in the United States, some with legal residency and others not. Some have been as long as 15 or 20 years without returning to see family, without seeing the sons they conceived. Some will never return, due to dangers in the crossing, trouble with gangs or drugs in the US, fear or distaste for returning here. Many are children, US citizens, who have never seen Guatemala and rarely have heard their parents’ mother tongue.

If you can even imagine the scale of this migration, at one point there were over 700 men from my town working in the same turkey slaughterhouse in North Carolina. There are few families here now without a big US-style house, improved-wood-burning stove, electricity and running water. Many have much more: a television, a computer, a video-camera, a car, a gas stove, a hot-water heater, money to send the kids to high school.

If life has improved significantly in my town since 1990, I would argue it is not for the major part due to the work of NGOs or the central government or well-intentioned Peace Corps Volunteers. It is because thousands of people – completely outside of any formal system - risked their lives, sacrificed their families, their children, and comfort, worked 60 hours a week for years, with little recognition or benefit, save for the knowledge of an exchange rate that would favor their savings back home.

There are real people behind these stats, some of whom you may know over there, and many others that I know here- still trying to calculate the balance of the gambit they made years ago.

Take my friend Elida for instance. Life has not been easy for her since she returned to Guatemala after 12 years away. Her eldest son was 4 when she and her husband left him with his grandmother and took off. He won't talk to her anymore. Like other young men in town, the memory of the betrayal has all but poisoned him, and he grows his hair long, wanders around with a local “gang”, has quit school, drinks heavily. He openly detests his younger siblings, ages 8 and 10, both US citizens– and recently provoked a serious fistfight with his mother. Meanwhile the guilt sits on his mother's back, unmoving as she quietly goes about reconciling reality with the dreams that pushed her to cross two borders and leave behind her child.

Her youngest kids had a tough time at first on returning to Guatemala. They were picky about local food (tamales, herbs, boiled potatoes), teased at school for not speaking Mam, struggled to read Spanish. They acted out, missing their father and their old lives. The most animated I saw them was when we made tunafish sandwiches once, for the first time since they'd returned to Guatemala. They ate happily, chatting on and on about the US, asking for seconds and even thirds. Such a simple thing with so much memory, meaning, comfort behind it.

Months later, they’re adjusting somewhat and doing alright in school. Their mother is heavily involved in the Catholic church and weaves to make extra income and pass the time. And perhaps their father will finally come home this Christmas. But they're haunted by their older brother, who has physically hit their mother on various occasions. Their mother, for her part, is not sure she believes herself anymore when she says her husband will be coming soon.

Given the wide the effects of immigration - greater financial security and material comfort, loss of cultural and social identity, familial disintegration, and increased consumerism – it would be impossible to say that immigration has been all good or all bad for my town. It has been both. It is both. It is the people’s solution, and one that they will always try to employ so long as it is so difficult to make a good, steady living here. It turns out that economic desperation is something you can't legislate away.

A Day in the Life: Walking in the Woods

A day in Peace Corps is definitely going to vary depending on your country, community, and program. It’s also going to vary a lot by individuals. So the day I share here isn’t that representative of a “normal” day, because such a thing is hard to define! But it does represent an important part of the whole experience. Let's call it, "Walking in the Woods".

6:30 am: My first alarm goes off. I snooze it twice, springing out of bed at 6:50 with 10 minutes to get to the muni.

7:12 am: I roll around to the muni, my counterpart isn’t in sight, the muni pick-up is gone, and seems to have left me. Wondering how I’m going to get up to the forest to give the educational walk I’m scheduled for. I wait for my guiding partner to show up.

7:20 am: I fumble through an unnecessary but gratifying conversation in Mam to buy two rice paches for breakfast in the plaza. I eat them standing there on the spot.

7:31 am: Turns out my counterpart went to get saplings in the municipal tree nursery. He arrives, we pile in and are on our way up to the forest. My partner and I separate from my counterpart at a crucial junction - he continues on to reforest with another school - and we walk about 20 minutes through the forest to reach the recreational center.

8:29 am: We make it to the center. Plenty of time to sweep inside, flush toilets, and brush up my partner on the plan for the hike.

8:31 am: Surprise! The kids arrive in pick-up truck, rather than on foot as we expected. All 25 mob us, greeting us in the traditional manner, bowing their heads so that we can touch them one by one. They’re all considerably younger than we thought, 1^st and 2^nd graders rather than 6^th graders.

8:57 am: The kids have shaken out the arrival excitement, stored their bags in the visitors’ center and are assembled on the basketball court bleachers. Since we've only really practiced a curriculum geared for adolescents and adults,, I decide on the spot to focus the walk on the theme of “the senses” and paying attention to the forest. My partner isn't comfortable improvising, and I don’t speak Mam - the kids' primary language - so we’ll see how it goes with me leading and her doing evaluations in Mam.

10:30 am: We arrive back to the visitors’ center. The hike went well, aside from the constant distraction of blackberry bushes, which the kids attacked with uniformly ruthless enthusiasm. (Yeah. Leave No Trace. Forget about that one.) I feel like although it was a short time, most of the kids felt a spark, that precursor to a positive emotional connection with the forest and a great step to actively caring for it. At a minimum they learned what a volcano is, and why it's not good to cut down the endangered Guatemalan Fir (Pinabete)! I have to remind myself that each walk is just one tiny step in a long process.

11:00 am: The two teachers prepare lunch, steak with tortillas, orange soda, and refried beans from a can.

1:15 pm: Lunch eaten, we close up the visitors’ center and the teachers give us a ride back to town.

2:19 pm: We missed the muni’s lunch break, but I go home to relax and end up reading awhile.

3:30 pm: I arrive back in the office. Despite the Friday atmosphere, my officemate is working on a revision of a trash management plan due Monday. I take advantage of the moment to discuss with her and my counterpart about setting aside funds for trash management in the park.

5:00 pm: As usual, ideas are zig-zagging around without direct treatment, visitors interrupt the train of thought, and when the hour arrives, we leave without any really firm agreements. What’s more important, after all? Work or the weekend?!

5:15 pm: I arrive at home. My head is full– the last week of the month always feels this way. But writing out my to-do list and next month’s calendar will wait for Saturday morning, and I’m glad I don’t have any real plans for the weekend. I eat a snack and write for awhile.

8:13 pm: My boyfriend shows up online! But first I’ve got to make dinner.

9:30 pm: I eat and we chat a bit. This is always the highly anticipated event of the day.

10:31 pm: Off to sleep! Looking forward to a relaxing Saturday morning. And then it's back to the woods again on Sunday!

Guest Post: Mom & Dad's 'Hobbit' Adventure, Part 2

In Mom and Dad's 'Hobbit' Adventure, Part 1 Mom talked about their trip itinerary and the highlights of their trip. Here she addresses her "most memorable experience", as well as some of the challenges and lessons learned.

Hobbit Adventures in Guatemala, Part 2

My vote for most memorable experience: Steph’s birthday party, attended by approximately 100 of her friends, colleagues, and neighbors. It was an overwhelming, exhilarating and Monty Python-esque introduction to her town, including:

-- Steph’s posse of energetic and enthusiastic neighborhood kids, who appeared en masse the moment we arrived and who unloaded rental chairs, swept the floors, and made decorations for the walls.

-- Our introduction to Oliver the cat: the “gifts” he left strategically placed around the house, apparently as a token of his displeasure at being left alone for several days.

-- The thick cloud of smoke that filled the house when Steph’s friends decided to heat a large pot of water for tea on the woodstove (never before used by Steph), and discovered too late that the flue was not working properly.

-- Awkward but wonderful conversations in a mix of beginner English and phrase book Spanish.

-- Songs and speeches - a standard feature of any Guatemalan party. Don and I were called upon to make remarks, which Steph appropriately embellished while translating.

-- The ladies who, with no advance plan, seamlessly fed 100 people (including an inebriated fellow who wandered in off the street) in a room the size of a one car garage.

-- The hospitality and generosity of Steph’s friends, neighbors, and colleagues, who greeted us so warmly and who brought many gifts.


Guatemalan challenges:

o- Remembering not to use the tap water for teeth brushing.

o- Remembering not to eat raw/undercooked veggies (and the consequences of ignoring this rule).

o- The unavailability/unreliability of hot water, even in the fancier hotels.

o- It’s a noisy place! Traffic, thin walls, loud parrots/roosters/music

o- It’s a crowded place! People are used to cramming into small spaces – chicken busses, pickup trucks, markets, sidewalks, etc. North American concepts of personal space do not apply.

o- It’s a traffic free-for-all! As Mario pointed out, Guatemalans do what they want when they want, without much regard for traffic rules and the personal safety or comfort of others. There is no hostility or malice involved, no yelling at other drivers or pedestrians; it’s just an accepted fact of life.

Lessons learned:

-- Cleanliness is a relative concept. I now understand what Steph meant when she arrived home at Christmas and announced that she would eat off our kitchen floor.

-- Time to start studying Spanish! I had forgotten how frustrating it is not to have the words to express oneself. Communication is the key to understanding each other, and having the right words is the first step.

-- Having more options and more amenities does not necessarily translate into having more happiness. The people we met in Steph’s hometown seem very content and fulfilled, even though they live in what most Americans would consider “Third World” conditions. Since arriving home I have been struck by how the proliferation of choices and “conveniences” seems to increase stress, rather than reducing it.

-- It was humbling to realize how much I have taken for granted and how little I have understood about the lives of people in other countries. Experiencing another culture (even in the limited way that we did) opens the door to real understanding.


Thank you, dear Steph, for creating this amazing experience, and for your endless patience in guiding us through our Guatemalan adventure. As any true adventure should, this experience has changed the way we think and feel. My heart and my head are full of Guatemala, and I will never be the same.

Editor's final note: Seeing the impact it has on my parents, I see how direct, personal, human exchange between people of different cultures is crucial for the future of our increasingly connected species. It's true you have to be careful as a tourist in a country like Guatemala not to get over your head - but when you push yourself just a little bit out of your comfort zone, the lessons can be profound.

So take a day or a week or a month. Get to know the world from another culture's point of view. The lessons will almost certainly linger long after the adventure's finished!

Guest Post: Mom & Dad's 'Hobbit' Adventure, Part 1

A month ago my parents landed on my doorstep for an unforgettable two weeks of intercultural exchange, great coffee, and family bonding. Read on to hear from my mom about our itinerary and trip highlights.

Hobbit Adventures in Guatemala, Part 1

Those of you who read this blog know Steph as a person who seeks out new challenges and who embraces the adventures that come with traveling to new places and meeting new people. So it would be reasonable for you to assume that she learned her adventurous ways from her parents. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Don and I are hobbit-like in our devotion to the familiar and our anxiety about the unknown. The words of Bilbo Baggins (from Chapter 1 of The Hobbit) come to mind: “We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them.” Of course, we all know how that story turns out…

So imagine our amazement when in early June we found ourselves in Guatemala, having the biggest adventure of our lives. (Editor's Note: In case you are wondering, the picture above isn't an actual town. It's the "Mayan village" at La Azotea, a cultural center/coffee farm & museum outside of Antigua!)

Our Itinerary:

June 1 and 2: Arrived at the Guatemala City airport, where Steph met us and arranged for a taxi to the lovely resort town of Antigua, about an hour away, where we spent two days and nights.

June 3 and 4: Took a four hour shuttle bus ride from Antigua to the city of Xela (also known as Xelajuj, also known as Quetzaltenango) in the highlands. It was like traveling to the top of the world! Spent two days exploring Xela and visiting with the family of Steph’s sweetheart (fiancé?).

June 5, 6, and 7: Arrived in Steph’s town about a half hour drive from Xela. Met 100 of her friends and colleagues at her birthday party (see more on this below!). Stayed at Steph’s apartment, visited her worksites and got an up-close look at her day-to-day life in Guatemala.

June 8, 9, and 10: Returned to Xela where we met up with Mario, our host and guide for our stay in the Boca Costa (Pacific Slope) region of Retalhuleu. We stayed at Mario’s beautiful nature preserve and coffee farm, Reserva Patrocinio. We visited Comunidad Nueva Alianza (a coffee and macadamia cooperative where one of Steph’s fellow Peace Corps volunteers lives and works) and a Mayan archeological site, Tak’alik’ Ab’aj. Mario drove us back to Xela on Friday, where we celebrated Steph’s birthday with family at her favorite restaurants and cafes.

June 11-12: Returned to Antigua by shuttle and spent an afternoon and evening enjoying the town, before bidding a reluctant farewell to Steph and Guatemala.


Here are a few of the many highlights from our trip:

o- The shuttle van ride from Antigua to Xela over breathtaking mountain heights, with some interesting young adventurers as our fellow passengers.

o- The birthday party for Steph’s future mother-in-law in her postage stamp -sized living/dining room in Xela, with 8 adults, three children, four birthday cakes, and a riotous mix of Spanish, German, and English conversation.

o- The striking beauty of the volcanoes and the tropical forest at Reserva Patrocinio.

o- Getting to know Mario, owner of Reserva Patrocinio, who is the antithesis of “business as usual” in Guatemala. (In other words, his goals are ambitious but realistic, and he has the skills, focus, and resources to accomplish them.)

o- Spending so much uninterrupted quality time with our accomplished, intelligent, resourceful, perceptive, fun-loving, and compassionate daughter. [parents are required to say these things!]

Look forward to Part 2 to hear about the lessons that ultimately came out of the experience for my parents!