Happy Holidays, Felices Fiestas, and Tb’anelxix taq’en Qman te Kyaqilx

 

Making Chuchitos with my host momma!

Friends and family, Happy Holidays, Felices Fiestas, and Tb’anelxix taq’en Qman te Kyaqilx. I am filled with warmth thinking about the love and laughs that everyone will be sharing over the next week. I will be doing the same with my beautiful and kind host family here in Guatemala! We were warned that this is a hard time of year for volunteers. That’s an understatement. This is my first Christmas away from my family and I can already feel my eyes welling up as the reality sets in that I am far from home and far from comfort. But this experience is about challenging myself to be present here, with my new family, my new community, and new traditions, and new friends. I have been welcomed with open arms, generosity, and a whole lot of curiosity. “Seño, are your eyes real? Do you paint your hair?”  I can say for a fact, no day is “beige” here; there is always a new taste, a new smell, a new color.

This week, one of our chickens had TEN lil pollitos (baby chickens)! They’re the absolute cutest and I’ve had the best time feeding them, watching them hobble around, and discover their new world. I’ve started naming them! I’m so excited to watch them grow over the next two years. My family promised not to eat them until my two years are over here! Vamos a ver… As far as Christmas plans, I’ve had so many different people, from my veggie lady in the market to my work partners, offer their hearts and homes to me for the holidays. I’m really excited to exchange traditions with them. In my family, back in the states, our family, Christmas Eve tradition is to read two versions of “The Night Before Christmas” – The original and the Cajun version. The Cajun version has always been my favorite to read. I loved the challenge of pronouncing each strange, Cajun word! I also loved that in this version, alligators pulled Santa’s sleigh! So this year, I decided I couldn’t let this tradition go. Why not add a THIRD version?! So y'all best believe, I butchered my way through the Spanish "Night Before Christmas" and kept the Usdin/Bingler tradition alive!

On top of that, I celebrated my first Noche Buena (Christmas Eve)! Here in Guatemala, the Noche Buena tradition is to stay up until midnight, drink ponche (warm fruit punch), and share stories. Once it hits midnight, hugs are given to every single person in the room, cohetes (fireworks) are set off, and dinner is served! And that’s only the beginning… My Noche Buena lasted until 3 am! We lit sparklers, had a fogata (bonfire), roasted angelitos (little angels aka marshmellows), and ended our night with a 2 am game of soccer! Today, we packed up lunch and had a picnic/cookout along the most beautiful river. It was so great to meet new family members today and to also be introduced to them as the “nueva hija” (new daughter). It made me feel absolutely loved and reassured that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my first Christmas away from home!

As for all y’all, I hope every single one of you experience laughter, gratitude, and happiness this holiday. I know in my little community of Guatemala, we will be raising a glass of ponche to you all tonight!

Noche Buena!

Host mama, brother, dad, and abuelo on Christmas Day!

Christmas meal! Frijoles, tamales, queso, and pollo!

Our little pollitos! (PSA: these were not the ones eaten for our Christmas meal)

Bienvenido a San Lorenzo!

*Writing this post after I experienced my FIRST earthquake! 5.7 magnitude! All is well. Currently sippin' on some weird tea my host mama made to calm my nerves. She's the MVP. 

Bienvenido a San Lorenzo! Today marks a week that I’ve been freezing my buns off in my new community of San Lorenzo, San Marcos, Guatemala! It is an incredibly beautiful little town of 1,000 people. We’re located waaaaaay up in the mountains (elevation: 8,000 ft)! Which means this lil southerner is muy frío. It’s so cold here that on my first night, my host momma lightly knocked on my door and entered with a hair dryer in one hand and an extension cord in the other. I didn’t ask questions. Before I knew it, she placed the hair dryer on full blast, under my covers to warm up my lil toes! We made some awkward eye contact and then both of us totally lost it, cracking up, laughing. It was a solid first bonding moment.

 This little town of San Lorenzo that I live in has never had a Peace Corps Volunteer so you can only imagine the looks I get when I sit in the park reading, journaling, or trying to saludo (greet) people in my gringa accent. Because I’m opening this site, I do not have a site mate or anyone to show me the ropes. So it’s just me, myself, and I exploring, schmoozing, figuring out transportation, and trying to regatear (bargain) at our Mercado. It’s been a slow process of adjusting and I think everyday my emotions range from joy, to fear, to excitement, to “what the hell am I doing”, and back to complete gratitude for this experience. But apparently, this roller coaster of emotions is normal. Then again, the notion of normal in Peace Corps is completely NOT NORMAL. For example, my 5 am alarm clock is our pet chickens, and by pet chickens I mean they’re living the good life until my family gets hungry. That goes for our pet pig too! I was so excited when I saw a huge pig in our backyard and immediately named it “Chicarrón”. I decided we’d be friends. Well, turns out he’s our Christmas meal soooo that friendship isn’t going to last long. However, each new morning, I wake up and congratulate us both on for making it another day.

As far as the humans in my family, I’ve got a host mama (Doña Judith), host papa (Don Byron), and a thirteen year old little brother (Byron Pablo or Colocho). We live in a simple house. I live downstairs and have two rooms. One serves as my bedroom and the other as my little kitchen. It’s getting pretty cozy and the set-up process has kept me busy! I asked a local carpenter to make me a set of shelves and they turned out to be beautiful. I also visited another town and got a mirror cut and mounted to hang in my room. My next task is to hang my pictures with some handy string and paper clips (Peace Corps life). But in order to do this I need to learn the Spanish words for hammer and nails. For my kitchen, I bought a little gas stove and my family has been teaching me how to not blowup the entire house by placing a wet rag over my gas tambon. They’re seriously the best! They bought me all the basics I needed for my little kitchen like sugar, salt, storage containers, and a knife! They even took me shopping to the next big town (about 45 minutes away) and I was able to find powdered soy milk!!! Also pancake mix… Now if only I could find some Zatarans jambalaya mix (wink wink care packages)! Even though I’ve got my little kitchen, they still have the kindest souls and offer me meals. I think they’re so keen on eating meals with me because they have so much fun having me try different types of hot peppers. They’re also amazed that this gringa can handle the heat!! They crack up watching me add the spiciest peppers to my beans. It’s kind of become my party trick!  Seriously, they always ask me to show visitors that I can eat a Chiltepe straight up, in one bite.

            So far, I’ve met the teachers from my school, the Centro de Salud staff, the police force, and my supervisor! I was also invited to attend our town’s Christmas tree lighting where very strange games such as, how many tortillas can you fit into your mouth and who can peel this orange the quickest, were played. It’s very strange and a bit lonely at times to be the only foreigner in my little town. But I’ve encountered so many caring, interested, and kind souls in just a week here. I can’t wait to call this beautiful town my home for the next two years.

P.S. Still don’t have wifi and don’t know if it’s even a possibility up here in the montañas so my Internet access is limited and expensive! But I will at least be able to check in once a week so if anyone’s got questions or just wants to say hola – email me at jbingler@gmail.com

Learning how to "hacer" tortillas with my Host Mama!

My lil' kitchen 

Market Day!

IT'S OFFICIAL, Y'ALL! IMMA PCV!

MAMA I MADE IT! Guess who’s officially a Peace Corps Volunteer?! After 8 weeks of (literal) blood, sweat, and tears, 35 of us made it to the finish line and took the official Peace Corps oath. The US Ambassador to Guatemala led us in our swearing-in ceremony! I was the first member of Bak’tun 6 (our training class) to become a volunteer! Which was pretty sweet but to anyone reading that went to high school with me and remembers me trying to cross the stage to get my diploma, yeah, this was worse. I was the opposite of cool, calm, and collected under pressure!!! The excitement was just too much. I seriously fumbled over whose hands to shake, and with which hand to shake them, and pretty much forgot how to function during my official picture with the ambassador. But hey, who cares, cause I’M A PCV! To celebrate, we were taken to a “retreat center” (it was a nunnery), had a campfire with smores, a dance party, and just relished in our last night all together! The next morning, we hiked Volcán de Pacaya. This is one of three active volcanos in Guatemala and it’s absolutely gorgeous.  The entire time we were hiking, it felt like I was walking on another planet! The clouds would roll in and out, revealing the incredible lava fields surrounding us. Once we made it to the top, we got to roast marshmallows over the heat rising from the volcano! I walked around on my own, just trying to be present, and process the incredible joys and obstacles I will be facing over my next two years here in Guatemala. The journey has only JUST begun.

Youth in Development (finest group out there)

More accurate representation of our group

Breaking it down with our Language and Cultural Fellows!

Chin Q'olb'en Tey

"Love rushes into the absence that is loss, and that love brings inspired action. If we are able to give ourselves to the loss, to move toward it rather than away in an effort to escape or deny or distract or obscure, our wounded hearts become full, and out of that fullness we will do things differently and we will do different things." - Norman Fischer.

My heart’s been so heavy this past couple days. With all the tragedy that has happened in Paris, Beirut, Cario, Mali, and around the world, I miss my support network of family and friends back in the States more than ever. I would give anything to cook a meal with my mom and talk about how to find peace in times when the world seems so dark around us. These past months, I’ve had my moments of strength and courage and then days like today, where I still feel like the scared, lost 22 year old that boarded a plane to Guatemala 2 months ago. But right now, I’m staying present, continuing to focus on the little victories, and moments of peace I find through my work here as a PCT.

Two days ago I received my site placement – aka where I’ll be working, living, and experiencing life as a Peace Corps Volunteer for the next TWO YEARS!!!!!! Each different project (Youth in Development, Healthy Schools, and Maternal & Child Health) has a different tradition and way of presenting each volunteer with their site placement. Luckily, for us YiDers, our program staff is super pilas and creative. Our big reveal was an absolutely memorable one (thanks Patrick, Bani, and Rocio!). We were all brought outside where there were posters with names of 7 different sites laying on the ground. They were spread out in the formation of the map of Guatemala. Our project managers told us to walk around and look at each poster to get a feel for where we would all be placed in relation to one another. It felt so exciting and nerve-wracking to walk around each poster, knowing that one of those posters represented the site I would call home for the next two years. Next, we were blindfolded and one by one, we were led to the poster that was our site. Once we were all placed, they counted to three and we removed our blindfolds! The first thing I did was look up, towards all my fellow trainees/friends and noticed how far away they were from me. My heart dropped with the realization that in just a week, we would all is heading out on our separate journeys. But I was also filled with gratitude for the mere fact that Peace Corps brought us all together in the first place. Then my roller coaster of emotions shot me right back into reality. I looked down at my feet and the poster that sat at the tip of my toes read “San Marcos”. My jaw dropped. The first week I arrived in Guatemala, the Country Director mentioned that two Peace Corps Volunteers would be sent to San Marcos with the task of reopening it. It was closed in 2012 and the two currently serving volunteers there had to be pulled abruptly due to the heavy presence of narco-trafficking. Never in a million years did I think I would be one of those two volunteers to open San Marcos! Panic, fear, and excitement crept over me when I saw that I was standing over San Marcos. It's an incredible honor and I'm so touched that my program staff has that level of confianza in me! But oh man, it's also a lot of pressure! I will be heading into a community that has never seen a YiD Peace Corps Volunteer. I will be starting from absolute scratch, building relationships, establishing trust, and trying to make a difference, all while at an elevation of 8,000 ft! Yup, this little southerner who grew up BELOW sea level will be living in the mountains for the next two years! 

A little bit about San Marcos:

My department is home of the largest volcano in Central America, Tajumulco. From my little community, I will have a clear view of the massive Tajumulco. But honestly, I could have a view of a hill and I would be excited! It is also home to the Quetzal, which is the national bird of Guatemala. The Quetzal is Guatemala's national symbol of freedom, but unfortunately it is facing extinction. I remember in my first weeks here, my host dad told me about these beautiful birds that can only be found in a few areas, like the cloud forests in San Marcos. As far as my community in San Marcos goes, we've got a whopping 1,000 people! I am actually so pumped about this and have already set a goal to know EVERYBODY! I am in a region which speaks a Mayan language called Mam. In my community, 40% of the people speak Mam. I have already begun Mam language classes and let me tell you, learning a third language in your second language (Spanish) is SO HARD. But it’s an awesome challenge! I am so eager to learn more. 

Everything is moving so fast here. It's surreal to look back to the day, 8 weeks ago, that I said goodbye to my family, through tears, and boarded a plane to Guatemala. I have already seen some of my lowest lows and highest highs. I cannot imagine what these next two years will hold. However, what I do know is that while fear comes with a journey full of the unknown, so do excitement, meaning, and growth. I’m alive here. My heart is here and that’s how I know I belong here. 

Melanie, Amy, Kat, Ben, and Chrissy during our site reveal

San Marcos in red!!!!! Come visit! 

Día de los Muertos

I grew up in a city that is infamous for putting the “fun” in funeral. In New Orleans, we’re known for second-lining down the streets, often times with a daiquiri in hand, dancing on top of caskets, saluting a life well lived, and the passage of a departed soul into a new life. I never understood why the rest of the United States wasn’t quite on the same page when it came to death. Well, luckily, I’ve landed smack dab in a country that thoroughly understands there’s no better way to commemorate death than with a celebration of life!

This weekend, here in Guatemala, Doña Aura and Don Rodolfo had me put on my best so we could head to the cemetery to celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Families here spend days cooking, arranging flowers, and repainting graves (in the most brilliant colors) of their deceased friends and family. On the actual day of Día de los Muertos, they head to the graves, with all the food, flowers, and even booze (NOLA style) that they’ve spent weeks preparing. It’s a day to drink, eat, laugh, cry, and celebrate around the grave of their deceased, loved ones. This was my first Día de los Muertos experience and it will live with me forever. We woke before the sun, headed to the cemetery, and with my arm linked in Doña Aura’s, we joined the crowd heading towards the cemetery. The cemetery was absolutely packed, full of everyone from my community- from the tortilla lady to the bollo who lives at our local Cantina. Everyone was headed to pay their respects. I was overwhelmed by the spirit and light radiating from every colorfully painted, flower-covered grave. Kids stood on the tombs of their deceased, family members, flying barriletes (kites). I took in each moment, watching hundreds of kites in the sky, illuminated by the sun. I was completely present and humbled in every way that my family invited me in to participate, cook, laugh, cry, and celebrate life with them these past couple days.