Noche de Brujas (Night of the Witches)

Happy Halloween to all my friends stateside! In Mexico and Guatemala, Halloween is referred to as Noche de Brujas or Night of the Witches. It is NOTHING like American Halloween - no candy, carved pumpkins, ghost stories, trick or treating, or costumes. I'm definitely feeling some fomo (fear of missing out) with all the fun Halloween parties going on back home! Anyone wanna send over a carrier pigeon with one of the following: candy corn, pumpkin seeds, or last years Halloween costume?

Speaking of slow ways to get mail, I want to take this time to give a huge shoutout to my one and only momma who sent my FIRST letter! It may have taken a full month to actually get here but better late than never. For all y’all who might be thinking that the art of letter writing is dead, it totally is not. So dust off those envelops, stamps, and if you’re feeling crazy, you can even write me in the cursive you learned in elementary school. I’ll attach my mailing address below in case I’ve inspired you! I promise I’ll write back and cherish your letter for at least two years! PSA: I can’t receive any packages, which means consuming boxes of Mac and Cheese and soymilk is only feasible in my dreams but thank you to those who have tried!

Josephine Bingler, PCT
Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps
3a Calle 6-48, Zona 1
Santa Lucía Milpas Altas, Sacetepéquez
Guatemala, Centro América

On my side of the world: Today is Dia de Los Santos (Day of the Saints)! My family got up around 5am, we gathered our offerings (food, alcohol, flowers), and headed to the cemetery. For days, we have been preparing food and beautiful flower arrangements to bring with us to the cemetery. Clearly, my host ancestors were down with a good time because my host dad made sure to pick up some coronas to leave at their graves. The reason for leaving offerings to the deceased is because on this day,  it is/was believed that their ancestors would rise from their graves to eat, drink, and be merry during the night. The next day, family members would return to the graves and all the food/booze would be gone. They truly believed that their deceased relatives ate everything and were now resting fat and happy! Well, it turns out it ended up being the bollos (Guatemalan term for drunks) who would stumble into the graves to steal the alcohol and then when their drunchies (drunk munchies) kicked in, they would eat all the food around the graves! I could not stop laughing at Don Rodolfo telling this story. Today many people still hold onto the belief or hope that their ancestors do rise during the night to eat their offerings, but really it’s the bollos and the chuchos (dogs). Tomorrow, we'll be returning for Dia de Los Muertos for an even bigger celebration of the lives of the dead! 

I also just got back from four amazing days at FBT (field based training). Our training class was split up and assigned to live with a currently serving volunteer in their site. My site was about 5 hours away in a department called Totonicapán. It was a beautiful site, very different from where I’m currently living. The population was heavily indigenous and the first language spoken there is Quiche. I was in awe of the culture, the food, and the beautiful, traditional traje (clothing) the women wore. In Guatemala, each indigenous community has their own special style of traje. You can identify where a woman is from just based on the style, pattern, and colors of her traje. During my four days, I helped with an English class, a cooking class, played in a soccer game on a completely female team (woo girl power), took a beautiful hike with some local jovenes, visited the mercado (market), and soaked up all the amazing Peace Corps advice that my volunteer had to offer. It was a really great time to reflect on what my future in the Peace Corps will look like! Here’s a little peak into my FBT.

Mackenzie teaching her English class to count using frijoles

Cooking Class! We made pizzas!

 

 

Our morning hiking crew! I was in full workout clothes, while they wore their traje.

Actividades Diarias

It feels good to be back home in my home away from home! After a 4-day evacuation, my host family greeted me with hugs and my favorite dinner of fried plantains, queso blanco, tortillas, and black beans. Even my favorite bottle of “PicaMas” hot-sauce was sitting next to my plate! To my sister, Anya– Tabasco and Crystal definitely have some competition... bringing you back some PicaMas! I finally feel tranquila (calm) and things are getting back my new definition of “normal”.

My language class facilitated our first activity with youth today! Our activity was called “Actividades Diarias”. Our goal was to get a better idea of a typical day in the life of a Guatemalan youth. This information would allow us to see gendered differences in the lives of Guatemalan youth, determine free space for planning future groups/activities, and serve as an introduction to time management! We had a week to plan our activity! This meant figuring out all the logistics- find a space, a time, some enthusiastic jovenes (youth), purchasing our materials, stepping up our Spanish game, and most importantly, figuring out our refa (snack) for our jovenes. Originally, we hoped to have 30 something jovenes participate but we quickly realized that we set the bar unrealistically high, considering we had less than week to prepare. When the day for the activity actually came, we got our first real-life Peace Corps lesson…. Only two showed up. But these two were so totally up for our activity and pumped to participate! We played a really fun dynamica (icebreaker) where you pretend you’re a celebrity (Messi or Shakira are always the most popular- I chose Rigoberta Menchu). It was a great way to earn a little trust and break our jovenes out of their shells! After playing our dynamica, we began our actual activity, and provided our jovenes with markers and posters to create their daily schedules. We discussed their perceptions of their own free time; how they could better utilize it, and when they thought would be a good time for youth activities. I also couldn’t help but notice the gendered differences in their daily schedules. Where the boy had free time to platicar (chat) with his buddies, the girl was helping prepare meals, tidying her room, or washing clothes. This seemed to come a surprise to the boy. In the future, I would love to have the boys create a schedule of what they perceive is a girl's daily activities and vice versa. It would really interesting to look at their different perceptions of each other’s days.

Facilitating an entire activity in Spanish was definitely a challenge! But the information we got was really valuable and important for the future when I’m trying to plan activities for the youth in my community.

Tomorrow, I am headed off to a rural, indigenous community to stay with a currently serving volunteer for four days! Word has it I’ll be helping facilitate cooking classes for the youth in her community! I’ll let yall know how that goes and if I’ve perfected my tortilla making skills!

My language class! 

Me checking out Oscar's daily schedule! That's our refa in our hands... choco strawberries!

Adrianna with her Actividades Diarias

The whole crew!

Bastante lluvia!

Hola todos! It’s been a little while and here’s why… For three days, rain had been wrecking havoc on my little city and most of Guatemala. That meant a whole lot of quality time with my host fam, drinking coffee, watching telenovelas, and catching up on the latest Ciudad Vieja chisme (gossip). Sunday night was the worst of it. It sounded like freight trains coming through the house. On Monday morning, I received a call that I needed to pack a bag and prepare to be evacuated within an hour. This was distressing and confusing news to deliver to my host family. I was being taken to a safer place with shelter, water, electricity, and food. The privilege of being an American, Peace Corps volunteer was thrown in my face.

I stood in the kitchen, hugged my host mom for thirty seconds longer than usual, and told her I would call the moment I could to check in to see how they were fairing. The feeling of guilt and sadness clung to my soaked clothes as I hopped into a government jeep with four other volunteers. None of us really understood why were being evacuated, but since we didn’t have much access to news, we had to put our confianza (trust) in Peace Corps. We knew they would only be acting in our best interest.

Once we arrived at our “consolidation point”, a hotel near Antigua and the Peace Corps office, the country director and other staff greeted us. We were told it would likely be four days before we could return to our host families. We learned that the highest risk for landslides is actually the days after the rain stops. When the sun comes out, it dries the top layer of the soil, leaving the lower layers of soil loose and fragile, and when this layer shifts, it can create massive landslides. Earlier this month, a landslide in El Cambray (about 2 hours from where I live) killed 130 people and 300 are still missing. The country director and staff explained to us that if things were to get serious, our host families did not need to have the extra stress of making sure we were safe, but instead needed to be prioritizing their own family’s needs/safety. The last thing I would want is for Doña Aura and Don Rodolfo to have to worry about taking care of me during an emergency. For this reason, I was a bit more at ease leaving them behind until the weather conditions got better.

During our consolidation, we spent a lot of our time making the best of the situation. We shared stories about our hopes and fears for our future service, playing card games, watching movies, and speaking ENGLISH! Each day, we walked to the Peace Corps office for medical, technical, and safety sessions and hoped to receive news that we would be returning to our families. On Thursday, we were told we would be going back to our families that evening! I couldn’t wait to be back in the kitchen with Dona Aura and sleeping in my own bed under my mosquitero (mosquito net). Even a dinner of frijoles and tortillas couldn’t bring me down!

As hard and upsetting as it was to leave our families, PC Guatemala did an incredible job of keeping us safe and informed. It’s a really reassuring feeling that in the face of serious danger, Peace Corps will do whatever is needed to keep us safe. However, the privilege that comes with being a volunteer and an American here in Guatemala, is definitely something I will continue to grapple with. I know that no matter how bad things get here, I have a way out, a home, and family to return to in the United States. And for this reality, I am so fortunate and humbled. 

Olé, Olé, Olé

Today, I played in my first chamusca in my community! I’ve been waiting for this day since I arrived in Guatemala. A “chamusca” is the Guatemalan term for an informal, soccer game. It comes from the word chamuscar, which means to singe. Many, many years ago, in some of the poorest areas, kids would ball up panty hose, cloth, and paper to make a soccer ball. For the last goal of the game, they would light the ball on fire and play until a goal was scored or it burnt out. Luckily, my first chamusca didn’t involve any fire, except for the volcano, El Fuego, that was erupting miles away from us.

It took me 15 days in site to work up the courage to get involved in a chamusca. Everyday that I got out of Spanish class, I would stare longingly at the groups of boys playing soccer games on the fields near my house. My community actually has 3 soccer fields! But calling the other two fields is being generous. One “field” is a cement, basketball court with two makeshift goals under the basketball hoops and the other is a gravel lot with metal poles for soccer goals. These games are so fun to watch. But I decided a gravel lot or cement basketball court might be a little rough for my already messed up ankle and me (not looking to get medically separated by Peace Cops before my swear-in date). So I decided that if I were really going to try and get out there to play in a chamusca, it was going to have to be the real deal in “El Estadio” (The Stadium). In El Estadio lies the one legit, grass soccer field in Ciuded Vieja.  This field is regulation size, with lines, and soccer goals (with no nets, but hey, ya take what you can get). It also has the most breath-taking panoramic view of all the mountains, volcanoes, and fields that surround the city. I’ll post a picture of the view below!

For the past week, I’ve gone to the stadium with my guy friends. It’s always a bit intimidating to even just walk in there because it’s filled with local guys who definitely aren’t used to seeing a girl in there. I’ve seen so many games with the ages ranging from eight years old to completely, grey-haired, men with serious game! But what I haven’t seen is a single female soccer player. This got me thinking of ways to intergrate into the soccer culture as an young, American, female. So I bought a soccer ball for 60 Quetzales (about 8 dollars). It was pretty expensive for a soccer ball here but I figured it might serve as a distraction from the fact that I’m not a Guatemalan dude. I decided that if I juggled around a bit on the sideline with a new soccer ball, maybe I had a chance of being invited to play. IT WORKED! After a lot of staring, I finally got asked to play by a group of boys. We played until it got too dark to see the person in front of us. I returned home, totally pumped up, and with a fresh vocabulary of Guatemalan slang. I told my host dad all about it and he was just as excited, even a little proud I think! After dinner, we watched a soccer game on TV together. Tomorrow, I have plans to play with the same boys tomorrow. I’m really hoping I might encourage more girls to join me in the future chamuscas, but for now, I’m just happy I found a way into the soccer culture.

Here's a pic from a trip to Pachalum where we did some activities with the jovenes!

The incredible view of the volcanoes from the stadium.

Home Away From Home

First off, I want to say that all the Peace Corps volunteers here are safe. As some of you may have seen in the news, there was a terrible landslide here. It’s one of the worst in Guatemala’s history and many people are still missing. So please keep Guatemala in your thoughts and prayers as those affected try to find ways to heal during this tragedy.

I am writing from an Internet Café in my new town of Ciudad Vieja. I’ve been living here for a beautiful eight days! I’ll be living here with my host family for the next two months. Peace Corps calls this your “CBT” site, which stands for Community Based Training site. Here is where I’ll live with a local family, study Spanish six hours a day, integrate into the community, and work in some of the schools. It’s already been an amazing experience getting to know my community. In just my first week here, I have been introduced to the mayor, the police force, and the director of “Escuela Fray Matis De Paz” who invited us to observe “Dia de Los Niños” (a yearly celebration of kids across Guatemala). The next day, he invited us to each observe a classroom. I got to sit in a Social Studies classroom and nervously introduce myself to 24 middle-schoolers who had never heard to Peace Corps or New Orleans. I’m not totally sure I got the Peace Corps message across in broken Spanish, but at least they now know where Jazz music comes from!

There are two other volunteers in my city. We take our 6 hours of Spanish class together everyday! We each live with different host families, all within blocks of one another. My family consists of 4 people (or 8 if you want to count our pets- one dog and three turtles). My host parents are Doña Aura and Don Rodolfo. I have a sister who’s my age named Magnolia and a brother who’s in his 30’s named Jose Rodolfo. I couldn’t have landed in better hands here in Ciudad Vieja. They are the sweetest, most loving, caring family and I feel honored to be a part of their lives for the next two months. I spend most my time with Doña Aura. My favorite thing about her is that she clutches onto me every single place we go. She always links her arm in mine, places her hand over mine with such care, and off we go making groceries, saying our holas and buenas to everyone we pass, and visiting her family members. We’re quite the pair!

On my first day here, she took me around town, ushering me into various houses to meet her friends and family. We would sit down for a cup of tea/coffee and I’d be asked five questions by her friends:

1.“Are you Catholic?”

2. “How big is your family?”

3. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

4. “Do you want a boyfriend?”

5. “Want to meet my son?”

Then onto the next house for another cup of coffee and those five questions once again! Everyone is so kind and welcoming here. It’s been exhausting but it’s also been so fun to practice my Spanish and get to know everyone in my small town.

I also love spending my time in the kitchen with Doña Aura at night. The sweet smell of her frying plantains is enough to draw anyone into that kitchen. I like to sit and watch her cook while I do my homework. Mom- I know you’re probably concerned that I’m not helping her cook and I promise I offer all the time! Doña just cracks up at how slowly I peel vegetables so until she can think of a task I can handle, I’m stuck on the sidelines, observing! This weekend, I’m hoping to get into the kitchen with Doña and prepare a Guatemalan dish!

I am so lucky to say that everything so far has been beautiful. I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t had my rough moments. My first night in my homestay led to my first breakdown, looking at all my family pictures, listening to Norah Jones, and crying while eating a bar of chocolate I brought from the States. I’ve definitely asked myself a million times, “Can I really do this?” But there are those little victories, like getting a few extra free tortillas and a smile from the tortilla lady, that remind me that I can handle this. Everyday, I wake up excited, nervous, and filled with anticipation for what the day will bring. Then I’m served a plate of beans for breakfast and a little part of me cries for Greek yogurt and fruit… but hey, it’s all part of the integration process!

*Side note: I have electricity, which is AWESOME! But I don’t have Internet or hot water… that is not so awesome. So it may take a week or so until my next post! but I promise it won’t be a week till my next shower! MISS YALL! Also, here's a lil peak into my life here! 

Here's my cute lil bed! Also, you know you’re in Peace Corps when you’re mandated by the U.S. Government to sleep under a mosquitero! 

Don y Doña's beautiful courtyard. That’s a volcano in the background!

This is my host mom, Doña Aura and her fresh coffee beans. She processes her own coffee, grinds it a special way with rice, corn, and wheat, boils it twice, and serves a fresh cup every time. It’s hands down the best coffee I’ve ever tasted!