Raising Oliver: 6 Lessons Learned

AKA: Everything I know about parenting I learned from my Peace Corps pet^

(^I know my mother is sarcastically thinking, “Oh, great! What skills you have. Maybe my grandkids will pee all over the house, too!” – Don’t worry, Mom! I promise we’ll get it together before then.)

I’ll put it out there that for better at times and worse at times, I might be a bit sensitive and a worry-wart (especially when it comes to cute fuzzy things, e.g. I distinctly remember getting a chocolate bunny for Easter when I was 4 and crying my eyes out over the idea of eating it.)

So having a pet in Guatemala has been a great training ground for me for the emotional challenges of larger life including, I would think, actual parenthood. While the stakes are a lot lower here (pet versus human child), the risks are, I'd argue, a bit higher (callous neighbors! poison! millions of ferocious street dogs! flash floods! i could go on...) So it is a legitimate "training-ground", in its own way.

So, what am I in process of learning about parenting?:

(1) If you love them, you have to give them some degree of freedom.

This is obvious, right? But not something that comes to me instinctively. I would love nothing more than to keep Oliver locked up inside my house all day, and in fact tried for quite some time. The problem is that he is clearly not meant to be an indoor cat. He gets antsy, whiny, and poops in my bed. So it doesn't work for me, and it doesn't work for him.

This clearly applies to humans, too. We've got to get out and face the real world, to some degree, at some point. A life with good health, positive relationships, and material security, but with no freedom, variety, or adventure, is probably not a truly happy one.

(2) Related to #1, You can’t protect them from everything, and maybe that's a good thing.

My heart got torn out of my chest one night when Oliver was wandering outside at my old house and got into a fight that left him shaken, with a deep wound on his arm. But he probably learned a good thing or two about street fights, I'd imagine.

(3) Enjoy them while you can!
It seems just yesterday Oliver was a tiny 3 lb. bean bag curled up under my arm, pawing my stocken feet, living contentedly enclosed in a 150 sq. ft room, and rabidly chasing anything that moved. I could cut his nails, put him in a 10" x 10" box and carry him to the moon and back, wear him as a mitten, etc. Now he's about 20 times that size, eats like a horse, and would rather see me bleed than play good-naturedly or let me pick a measly flea off his neck.

(4) You're not going to win all the battles.

OK. So Oliver wants to pee in the corner of the bathroom while I'm peeing? That's fine. At least we're restricting it a little bit. The kitchen and my bedroom are still sacred, pup.

(5) Sometimes you have to make them do things they don’t like, for their own good.

Antibiotics via that gross powder suspension. Vaccinations. Bus rides to the vet. Nail clippings. Bathing. Flea combing. Not all that controversial until you're on the sharp end of 10 claws powered by an irrational dragon-cat. Or, I imagine, an irrational screaming toddler.

(6) Let's hope my kid doesn't have discipline issues, because I am not going to be the one to solve them.
See #4. Really doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it. At all. I'm unfortunately prone to slow reaction times and forgetting to enforce the household rules. Maybe when the time comes we can work out some sort of good-cop compensates for spacey-cop routine with my boyfriend.

At the end, though, what can I say? Perhaps like real parenting, having Oliver in my life has been totally worth every stress. Thanks, my little love!


This post is particularly time-appropriate, since my own parents will be setting foot down in Guatemala for the first time this Wednesday, for 12 days of vacation (including my 25th birthday!). Having your kid in Peace Corps must feel at least a little bit - or way worse - than letting your cat roam the Guatemalan streets; so thanks, Mom and Dad, for supporting my decision to join Peace Corps! I'll look forward to posting about our trip, and perhaps we'll see a snazzy guest post from each of them about our adventures.

Intercultural Communication, 101

I think that in any town, region, or country, you are bound to find a variety of people, and thus, a variety of communication styles. Even so, people in my town happen to err on the side of being more 'indirect' than not on the direct-indirect spectrum, and my formal counterpart himself tends to have the most indirect of local tendencies. I myself tend to err on the direct side, and since we come from opposite perspectives on communication, I think our time together has led to lots of personality-expanding learning experiences for both us.

Some days I feel as though my counterpart and I have come to our own sort of peace: he is more direct with me, and I'm more indirect with him, without being too timid or too pushy. Other days it still seems as though we are communicating from different planets using walkie-talkies that someone's little brother accidentally dropped in the toilet.

In my first three or six months I was in a flexible, more passive mindset, open to getting my bearings and learning “when yes means yes and yes means no” (in the wise words of our training director). Now that I’m in my last year, I'm going to admit that I hear the clock ticking: I'm impatient, stir-crazy, and antsy to get something substantive done. It's still crucial to remain flexible, but in this context, attaining fluency in “indirect-speak” has been on my mind more than ever.

In that spirit, I present to you a sampling of common phrases, translated from "indirect-speak" (What You Say) to "direct-speak" (What You Mean):

What You Say (WYS): Yes, that is totally necessary. I agree.

What You Mean (WYM): The idea may interest me right now in this particular second since you happen to mention it, but the honest truth is that I would probably watch paint dry for 24 consecutive hours than follow through on what you’re proposing.

WYS: “Yeah, that’s what I’m looking at, that seems good to me, we’ll do that.”

WYM: “It seems that I genuinely agree with you, since I am nodding and making eye contact with you, but in reality I’m actually mentally planning which fields I’m going to be planting potato in next weekend, I’ll get back to you on that idea next year, if I remember.”

WYS: Let’s have a meeting on the 13th.

WYM: Actually, let’s plan to have a meeting on the 13th, but it’ll actually be held a week earlier, and we’ll call you between two days and two minutes before to let you know.

WYS: Okay, we’ll leave at 9 tomorrow.

WYM: If I’m feeling punctual, I’ll roll in around 10:30.

WYS: Yes, I will be there tomorrow.

WYM: I would really love to be there tomorrow, however, since I already have six other obligations for that same time, it will be difficult for me to actually arrive. However, I hope you will accept my agreement to be there as an apology in advance for my absence.

WYS: Yes. I’d love to.

WYM: Probably not.

WYS: Yes, that’s fine.

WYM: No, not likely.

You also have subtle differences in communication. Aside from downright fibbing and an aversion to saying no, local (and you could argue, generally, Guatemalan) language is simply more formal and protracted. For example, instead of “Could you pass me my pen please?”, you have to say, “Could you do me the big favor of passing me my pen?” or “Will it be that you can pass me my pen?” or “I don’t know if you could do me the big favor of passing me my pen?”

Another clear example: the ubiquitous “welcome” and “acknowledgements” that must be given at every public forum, lest people be put off by the informality of it all. What in the US would be, “Thanks everyone for coming”, turns into: “Before everything else, I just would like to thank everyone for their presence today, anticipating their valuable efforts in carrying out this small project which we are carrying out, and which I am sure will prove to be quite valuable for us.”

Obviously, there is a lot of room for indirect-communicators to be perceived as long-winded and pointless, and for direct-communicators to be perceived as downright rude. And then you also have the other side of indirect speak: What You Say is What You Mean, but the listener is reverse-translating into Oblique Speak, converting WYS/WYM into What He or She Understands. I’m getting better at recognizing such situations, but this has happened to me several times when I forget about cultural differences, and chatter away to people as if I were at a sorority social, thinking they will appreciate my friendliness, e.g.:

What You Say/What You Mean: [to a person who is arriving late]: Gosh, you must have a lot of work to do today!

What He/She Understands: I am personally offended by your tardiness, explain yourself.

WYS/WYM: “Don’t worry, there’s no rush, we’ll be here until 5.”

WHSU: “There is a rush, be sure to get back to me by 5!”

(If there really was no rush, you wouldn’t say anything at all. That’s the assumed baseline state of existence.)

Communication is something I love and have always felt fairly good at, and so it came as a surprise to me how frustrating and tiring it could be. I realize now that my cross-cultural exposure was low before coming to Guatemala, and the challenge was something I really needed to grow as a person. All part of the process of identifying and stretching my limits...

Show me your mental map; Techniques for navigating a new cultural landscape

One of the most valuable benefits of Peace Corps service, I think, is an extended-length, purely experiential lesson on culture. So what is culture? I read a few things for a graduate sociology class once about culture, but in the past year I’ve had the chance to live it and reflect on it quite a bit. Ultimately I think the metaphor of culture as a shared “mental map" – which I first came across in Earl Babbie’s work, I think – is particularly helpful.

So culture: comprises the shared features of individuals´ mental maps that indicate, like those of any map, both the nature of reality and how to navigate that reality.

To borrow the idea from Babbie and sociology and develop it a little further from my own perspective: From birth we develop a mental map which is somewhat congruent with that of others around us, most heavily influenced by family, friends, teachers, and other influential persons. Every person has one of these maps, and each map bares differing similarity to others´ maps. Our map may be close that of our parents´ or totally different, but we will usually share quite a bit in common. And the thing that helps bridge differences in our native state, city or town, especially our native households, is that we know the landscape intimately. That helps us to converse about a common feature even when we have differing representations on the map. We come to know the subtle range of differences in the representations of these features, and form a catalogue of these representations that we can refer to.

As a PCV not only are you are surrounded by people with a very different mental map than the one you hold onto, you are in an unfamiliar landscape, as well. You don't even know what variation is out there or what features are necessarily important. You’re frantically trying to sketch out new features based on what you hear and observe of others. But rather than the 18-21 years you had to form and test the mental map that you carried with you when entering the adult world of the US, you have about six months to make some sort of usuable map of your new landscape, and learn how to orient your own pre-existing mental map with the local map – whenever and however it is necessary.

Sounds tough, and it is. But, it’s do-able. It’s also indispensible to surviving and working in the local culture.

One easy example is cold beverages. My mental map tells me that cold foods may not always do good things to my stomach. I know that Guatemalans´ mental maps usually tell them that it is a bad idea to drink cold things when you have a sore throat. If I feel skeptical that it´s a good idea to take a cold drink I´m offered, I say I´ve got a sore throat. Works like a charm. I don´t have to drink it, and no one is offended that I won´t take what they´ve offered.

To be fair this is kind of a lame trick; I am not getting people to understand my mental map – just manipulating theirs to make it coincide with my own. But what's easier? Tell someone I've got a cold, or give a three-hour lecture on hygiene and microbe pathology? While these tricks are useful, genuine intercultural exchange takes a lot more work.

What I am finding as a PCV is that depending on the person, getting people to really understand my mental map -- and understanding theirs -- takes a lot of time, patience, and conversation. Even then there are people – for example, rural male farmers or very old people - with whom I feel I can never really communicate a significant part of my mental map, or understand a significant part of theirs. (That is, the unique part other than what almost all humans have in common, by virtue of certain biological and physiological realities.) Rather, if I want to communicate with them, I have to adapt my mental map to theirs as much as possible. Yet this is challenging, since we’re talking about something that is largely inaccessible to me due to social and linguistic barriers - the mind of a rural farmer or an elder.

So the natural solution around this is that I gravitate to work most with people whose mental maps are most compatible with mine: young people, school teachers, and young to middle-aged women, that is to say, people with malleable mental maps or whose experience and perspective more closely matches my own. No matter how similar the perspective, you are usually wisest off in trying to guide people to understand, or at least follow, your own mental map using their own. The more similar the two maps are, the easier it is for us to actually communicate our maps to each other. (And the more able and willing the other person is to share their map so that I can understand it, incidentally.)

But no matter how effectively you can bend, mimic, adapt, guide, even with good friends in my town I’m usually left feeling that there will always be significant portions of our mental maps that will be mutually unvisited and misunderstood. And, it’s always treacherously easy to get stuck in the woods, trying to figure out what to make of our conflicting map information, and with no compass to mediate our surroundings. In which case, a shrug, a smile, and a change of conversation do wonders.

Note: In response to a commenter; it's not that I want to spread my mental map - and it is of course crucial to absorb and understand others' maps - but the point of my post is that effectively communicating the discordant features on my map, while often very difficult, is sometimes necessary both to achieve common goals and to form genuine relationships. Thanks for that, though - this hits on a crucial point in "development" work generally- the dangerous waters of "they should think like I think!"

Halfway there

I almost can´t believe that we swore in as volunteers a year ago today, but I am quite happy to believe it. I´m happy because it´s not been the easiest year of my life – nor most of ours – but we lived it!; happy because it´s been one of the most worthwhile years of my life; happy because I finally see some projects, and the productive work I so crave, lining itself up for this last year. Peace Corps is a crazy rollercoaster – a better explanation of which deserves its own post - but for the most part I feel quite content with where I am, what I´m doing, and the relationships I´ve formed.

Today all of PC/Guatemala´s volunteers - including those just swearing in and those just COSing - sat down in the capital with PC staff, host families, and a handful of dignitaries to commemorate Peace Corp´s 50th anniversary and watch the new volunteers swear in. It was good timing for a celebration; lately it has felt like more is happening in site, both in the confidence I have with people and the concrete projects we´re getting rolling – for interpretative and orientational signage, environmental education with women and schools, an active and successful tourism committee - and – perhaps – even a municipal recycling center.

I know not all of these projects may work, but I feel immensely satisfied just to have arrived at this point, to have managed to plant the seeds in the ground. Even knowing there have been plenty of times when I could have been more proactive, worked just a bit harder or put myself out there a bit more, I also know that I put in my fair share of patience, flexibility, and understanding to get to those seeds planted. And, evening knowing that not all will germinate, I think they will bring something to fruition that is more positive than not.

So looking around at my fellow volunteers and the ones about to start, listening to the speakers reflecting on the accomplishments of the volunteers about to COS or extend their service - I didn´t feel jealousy or the sense of ´¨what-if¨ or aimlessness that has pulled at the back of my brain for some of my service: just the sense of having hard-earned a few days´ pause, a dark beer, celebration with good friends.

Moving into my own place!

It’s been awhile since I’ve last blogged – not for lack of ideas, so much as lack of time. And a lack of attention span, too. Living in semi-urban Guatemala is like keeping both the TV and stereo going full blast. I think it wears out the mind. Or at least, the mind formed from a young age in a small town in the US where the loudest thing around is the occasional dog barking, ambulance siren, or ice cream truck. But at least in the midst of the insanity, some ideas for projects are coming together.

More on that later, but the big news - related to wearing out and lack of time - I have finally moved out of my host family’s house! I lived with them for almost an entire year. The move wasn’t inspired by any particularly acute stimulus, rather a slow build-up of thoughts and wonderings along the theme of: “Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice to…” I find it tough to explain it to local people when they ask me why I left, because I really love the family, and there wasn’t one particular reason.

There were a few obvious drawbacks to being with them: lack of control over the general cleanliness of my environment, lack of space and organization, feeling like I was constantly on stage - all of which were definitely draining me mentally. I never felt like I really had space to think. I also was looking forward to the March-June fly and low-water season with less than excitement, and by default had to leave Oliver to wander freely all day, which led to a couple close calls with street dogs.

Moving out has helped a lot. The neighbors all respect my privacy, I have soo much organizing space it’s glorious, and I have a 50 gallon water tank all to myself. Plus there aren’t any flies in this part of town yet. Oliver is pretty content; he can go up on the porch whenever he wants and I don’t have to worry about him fighting with street dogs. I’ll get to see my host family a few hours every week, which was about equivalent to the amount of really quality time I was spending with them before anyway. (I feel like my relationships with them reached the comfort zone plateau awhile ago - that is to say, our relationships have developed most of their potential, and putting a lot more time into it doesn't really make that much difference.) Plus the family next door is plenty noisy so I don’t feel really lonely. And as an added bonus the Catholic church is a lot less noisy than the neighborhood Evangelical church where I used to live.

The current drawbacks? I don’t get to come home to a hug from my little host brother nor greetings from the fan club, although I’m amassing a new one here; It’s freezing in the house since no one uses the woodstove; incidentally this house has few windows, and I love natural light; there’s no tamales or leftovers; I don’t have access to even a square foot of land; and I have lots more responsibility: I have to buy and cook everything I need; I’m going to have to figure out what to do with my used toilet paper and Oliver’s litter; I have to cart my food scraps over to a neighbor’s; no more washing machine; I have millions of little house maintenance things! The toilet is already seriously backing up which I am taking as an unfortunate sign. And I do live alone, which is a little less secure than I was with the host family, although I live in a busy neighborhood.

That said, I feel like this was a really positive change. Most people will ask me something like: Aren’t you afraid of being on your own? With the obvious undercurrent of: Does this mean you want to entertain unsavory men-folk? Drink alcohol? Do who knows what else? More than being in danger, a woman without chaperone is a very dangerous thing here. I get the idea that society needs to keep behavior in check by directly enforcing collective norms and such. It can’t necessarily trust its members to police themselves through indirect pressure. Yet I don’t think I’ll be up to anything too scandalous- maybe drinking a glass of wine while listening to bluegrass and organizing my kitchen cabinets ;-) I’m pretty sure the neighbors will get over it.

Confessions as we near the one-year mark

I’m coming close to approaching one year as a PCV. For me, this brings some highly mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’ve made it nearly a year – and there comes with that a strong feeling that the worst is over and the best is yet to come. There also comes with that a visceral comfort in my routine and surroundings. On the other hand, it brings a lot of self-doubts. I’ve been here a year, with what to show for it? Mostly relationships, a semi-successful English class for teachers, a completed tourism diagnostic, and lots of ideas about what could be done this year and in the future. But those hardly seem like professional results.

I just feel skeptical that I will guide our office to accomplish much more in this year - in terms of the overall "plan" - than I did in the past year. I know that it's been really important to wait things out and build confidence with people, but what if I still haven't done enough to lay groundwork for this next year? What could I have accomplished this year - or still accomplish - with a more-thought-out plan, greater persistence, more contact with the community, less fear of offending people, less fear of walking alone, less of a religious insistence on sitting back and observing? What could I have accomplished if my head and heart hadn't been floating detached from me for the first months here, living from phone call to phone call and e-mail to e-mail with my significant other?

It becomes difficult to sort out where the external challenges begin and I end. Was it I who was detached or did my surroundings work to detach me? Or both? The real gist turns in my mind: what could have been done differently in this past year, whether by me or someone more capable?

But the reality neither is nor was that simple. I am not and was not separate from the challenges I’ve faced. They are part of me and I am part of them; I have to face up to that. The past always seems less messy looking back than the present feels… and I think a large part of this experience is accepting that lesson. But I would really like to strive for greater clarity in what I’m doing in the present, while accepting my internal and external limitations.

Taking a Mayan Sweat Bath

One of the things I really enjoy about my Peace Corps life is bathing in the Mayan sauna/sweatlodge. The temascal or chuj (in Mam) was historically a small round hut made of adobe and mud, built to hold in heat from the fire which heated the water for bathing. It played a very important role in cleansing, healing, and general well-being. It still does.

Despite all of the changes that have occurred to my town's culture since pre-colonial times - due to colonization, civil war, globalization, mass male exodus to the US and a town economy based on remittances - the chuj remains omnipresent. We are but half an hour outside of a major city. The influence of modernity is palpable - yet almost everyone in my town still baths in chuj one or two times a week.

Why? I will let you all, readers, decide that for yourselves. The modern iteration of the chuj is a little cement-block building, painted black on the inside, with a low bench, a hearth for heating water, hot rocks to create steam (like in Scandinavian saunas) and sometimes a cold-water spigot. It's tiny; to get inside, you have to stoop over, and precariously balance your weight on the buckets of cold water or a handle or whatever might support you.

The hot air sucks you in for a second and you can't remember what you're supposed to be doing. The heat and steam are intoxicating, the low candlelight dances, you've found another world of being. Washing, okay, right. You sit down, take off your bathrobe - place it off to the side in a dry place. Gingerly scoop some scalding hot water into the mixing pot, then from the cold water bucket, until the water is bearable. The heat will be getting to you at this point, so pour the water all over yourself - careful not to take off your headwrap - you'll get sick if you wet your hair at night.

Also, my friends, forget your swimsuits. Chuj is taken naked, or almost entirely naked. At this point you'll take a loofah and dip in some jabon negro - caustic black soap. Scrub yourself up good. Ask your host mom to get your back. Rinse. Repeat. Not hot enough? Throw a little water on the rocks - but not too much. Many a gringa has gone running for less.

If your family still keeps some of the medicinal traditions, you may take a swath of elder leaves, heat them over the rocks, and gently hit yourself with the swath repeatedly. Elder is known for its healing properties.

After a time you'll note that you're sweating and that a layer of grime - what they call "grasa" - seems to be lifting itself from your skin - and your mind. Go after the skin with your fingernails, or if you're feeling adventurous, a chunk of pumice. After you bath regularly in chuj you'll noticing this layer disminuing each week.

This is no bucket bath, friends. Forget that purgatory of frigid air and luke-warm water rushed past like any other mundane ritual. This is purification on the highest level.

When the grasa's gone, it's time to get out. And just in time- the heat can make you dizzy, even nauseous - signs you've stayed in too long. Wrap yourself up good and squeeze to get out into the chill air. It'll hit you and you might wobble a little bit, but at least there's no cold water or snowbank to jump into here, like the Finns would advocate. Are you kidding? You'll have the flu for a year!

Lie down on your bed under a blanket or two, before getting up to dry off and put on pajamas. You'll feel the cleanest, and most relaxed, you have in your life. And at last you'll have an idea why your neighbors rarely rely on those hot-water showers they installed.