International Women´s Day

Happy International Women´s Day to all the ladies reading this site. Today was a fabulous day. I was supposed to spend the morning ¨helping¨(in other words observing) at a conference at an all guys school, something I´ve only had to do once, and really didn´t enjoy because the guys tend to be rude. Instead I got to go to a women´s conference at the Roma Theater in honor of today. Then teaching today made up for all the rough days in the past. And trust me, there´ve been rough days. Such as yesterday when the other 2 teachers didn´t show up, and I had the whole school for 3 hours. Okay, that´s alittle dramatic, the ´whole school´consisted of about 15 students because most ditched. Still with kids from 8-17 it was impossible to get anything accomplished and was incredibly frustrating, especially since noone had the notebooks they were supposed to. Anyways, today was great, because for the first time ever, all 6 of my students present had their homework (my previous hw record was 3 out of 6). We also made a breakthrough on our study of fractions, and learned to convert from improper to proper and vice versa. This was huge as Monday I had to teach my 17 year olds what a fraction is and how to add them and it was quite a struggle. Then for social studies I took advantage of the fact that it´s Women´s Day, we´re studying the family, and all 6 present were girls. I gave them a typical but abbreviated Harding marriage talk on how to find a decent man. I didn´t intend to, but domestic violence is really bad here, and they´d never heard it before. I asked them what they could do to make sure future husbands treat them well, and they came up with hope and pray. They told me the role of a woman is to clean and raise kids (Paul, you´re not allowed to make any comments) and when I asked them their rights, they said death. They were half kidding, but also half serious, so I went on my little rant on deserving respect and refusing to settle for less, and practical things to look for in a guy. Then we talked about the influence of women. I told them that they always hear that the youth are the future, but it´s the mother who is the 'alma de la casa' and she raises the kids. She teaches her sons how to respect women and her daughters that they deserve to be respected. Her relationship is the model that her children will follow whether good or bad. It was amazing watching them, they have never been so attentive. I don´t think these girls have ever heard that they matter, they deserve respect, and they have a huge influence in the world. Nothing else I´ve done in the past 3 weeks may have mattered, but I hope they got something out of today.

Guatemalan KKK?

Okay so not really, but that´s what the Encapachados (or something like that) remind me of. This week the university students have been dressing in gowns alot like the KKK, only purple or sometimes green, complete with face masks and pointy caps. Then they go out into the streets blocking traffic and demanding ¨donations¨. I don´t think they´re actually dangerous (I refused them money, and they didn´t do anything) but they do look pretty intimidating. And I guess if you´re in a car, it´s alittle harder to get past them. Even though this is very much illegal the police do absolutely nothing because they´re essentially afraid and powerless. The few times they have intervened in the past, I´m told it got pretty violent and resulted in the deaths of several police officers. It´s kind of like the donations the university students require of local businesses. Those who don´t pay up the required amount get their business painted over. On a predetermined night, they all parade down the street singing and carrying on and make a big party of it. Again, the police leave them alone because they can´t really stop them.

On a side note, I saw a headline reporting that the KKK is alive and well in the US and is now targeting the Hispanic population. I didn´t get to read the actual article, can someone tell me if it has any legitimacy and what the deal is with that?

Farm and Lake

So I don´t think I ever got around to writing about it, but a couple weekends ago I went to a coffee and macademia nut farm that is a cooperative run by the workers (very rare in Guatemala). For anyone interested, here´s the website: http://www.comunidadnuevaalianza.org/history.htm
Of course, it leaves out all the interesting parts like the workers showing up in the middle of the night to kidnap the corrupt brother of the previous owner who was trying to take back the land, only to find he had been tipped off and had escaped, or the part where he threatened to send thugs to kill them and they stood their ground saying they were willing to go to war over their land. Or what it actually meant to have to live off the land for so many years, and how even though the previous owner declared bankruptcy they´re being forced to pay his debt, etc.

This past weekend I went back to Lake Atitlan. I spent the first night in Panajachel, where I´d already been. Then Saturday we took a boat to San Pedro for about an hour. I´d heard it was known for drugs, but wow! There´s seriously nothing there economically speaking. The entire town only exists for the drug trade. It´s entirely made up of the Arastafarian crowd (forgive my spelling), and it´s like stepping into a different universe that has lost all contact with reality. Then we went to San Marcos and stayed there for the night. San Marcos was great because coming in from the lake there aren´t any streets, just little footpaths through the jungle, and then one road that passed through the ¨center¨which consisted of 2 tiendas and a church. Leaving was pretty scary. The lake was in really rough shape. The people getting off from San Pedro (only 1/3 the distance from San Marcos to Pana where we needed to go) just kinda shook their heads as they walked by and wished us luck. They looked pretty rough and all their stuff was soaked. They could hardly get off the boat onto the dock which was collapsing. A couple told us not to get on the boat, even if we had to stay another night, that it just wasn´t worth the risk, and that it took them over twice as long as it should to get there. So we ended up hiring a pickup truck which wasn´t really all that much safer. The tires were completely bald and on the uphill sections the engine got so hot we had to move, and it smelled like it was about to die at any moment. On the downhill sections the brakes were squeaking, and all the girls were pretty scared while Jeff was going on about what a rush it was. But we made it back to Pana, and then to Xela without further complications, other than having to change buses about 3 times.

Current Events

So around 2 weeks ago 3 El Salvadorean ex-officials and their driver were murdered. As it turned out, they were killed by the Guatemalan police. It was a huge deal, and all over the new and they had to come up with the culprits pretty quick (a sorry attempt to burn the car wasn´t sufficient to hide the bodies). So within a day or 2 they arrested 3 Guatemalan police officers. Then within another day or two, the police officers were murdered in their ¨high security¨jail cells. The police are promoting the story that the drug cartel did it. Right... with no inside help, they broke in, murdered them, then snuck back out? Anyways, there are pretty much 2 possibilities. The officers were completely innocent, but they needed a scapegoat (and were protecting the real culprits) and had them murdered to close the case... Or option 2... they were in fact guilty, had been promised money, but instead got murdered to prevent the possibility of them ratting out who gave them their commands.
Other news... within another day or so a police officer was murdered here in Xela, one of the guys we saw on a couple of our trips to the office the other week. It was completely unrelated to above situation, and rumor has it, it´s because he didn´t get along too well with his boss.... I really hope it´s not the guy PDH is working with.
Meanwhile, I´d like to point out the irony that with police and government officials dropping like flies, the US media is focusing on some sinkhole which I saw about a 10 sec. media clip on, and don´t even know where it´s at.
And finally to wrap up, Bush is making a trip to Guatemala this month, but hasn´t yet announced the day for security reasons. I´m not sure if he´s really brave or really stupid. Everyone I´ve met down here (Guatemalan and US) pretty much agree with Chavez that Bush is in fact Satan. There are plenty of people who´d love to kill him, and those that don´t are worried that someone else will, and this will cause more problems for their country. Meanwhile many of the Americans are eagerly awaiting his arrival as they want to join the Guatemalans in the anti-Bush protests.

Going to Church

At Harding the topic of being a Christian and believing in God, but not going to church seemed to come up alot. There were alot of reasons: I go to chapel and Bible class everyday anyway, they´re too big and I don´t feel involved, I don´t get anything out of it, it´s too hypocritical etc. It kind of surprised me to hear some of the same (and to me very American) arguments come up here. Francisco and I were debating church and essentially organized religion. He said that it´s believing in God and being a good Christian and living your life accordingly that matter. The church is hypocritical, doesn´t really promote change, and is essentially the opium of the people. I agree with most of what he said. The churches here and in the States have alot of problems. I agree that it´s not about having an expensive building and an established hierarchy, and telling people things are bad, but not doing anything to change them. The difference is in what you do with that. To me, that´s all the more reason we need to be proactive in the church and work to improve it. If it´s not lining up with God´s desire for his church, we need to change it, not abandon it.
It´s like human rights here in Guatemala, it´s a pretty messed up situation which we could decide to have nothing to do with. But instead of giving up on it because of it´s problems, there are people working to try to make things better, even if it´s a slow messy problem. The point is, you can´t do it alone, you´ve got to have support and other people helping you. That´s one thing that´s so important about church, people meeting and working together. Just as believing in the importance of human rights (and even trying to improve them, but doing it alone) isn´t going to change anything, so believing in God and even doing what´s right (but doing it alone) isn´t the way to change the world. We need help and support and the church provides that.
I feel obligated to mention at this point that for all my talk about the importance of going to church, I´ve only actually gone twice since I got to Guatemala. Just wanted to put that out there in the open...

More on Apathy

Si no tienes nada que vale la muerte tampoco tienes nada que vale la vida.

If you don´t have anything worth dying for, you don´t have anything worth living for.

People have occasionally accused me of being a perfectionist, and this isn´t true. My problem is, I expect people to want to be perfect. I expect people to never settle for ¨good enough¨but to always want to do better and find ways to improve things, not just themselves but with everything in life. It´s naive I know, and yet I can´t shake this conviction. For this reason, I cannot handle apathy of any kind. I cannot understand it and I cannot forgive it or look past it. So I realized yesterday that I really dislike Guatemala. It´s the most apathetic place I´ve ever been and I can´t get past it. There are other problems here, but we´ll just stick with one for today.

Anyways, as to the title, yesterday I was not up for the fight. I am ashamed to say that I stood back and watched. At the same time, I would make the same decision if I had to do it again. And I hate it. The other teacher and I were walking to the bus stop yesterday and came up on a really bad fight between 4 guys. And I stood at the bridge and let Pablo (who is 20 years old and about my size) take on the situation alone. He managed to difuse the situation, possibly saving one guy´s life. It kills me that I did nothing. And that I tried to talk Pablo out of walking me to the bus stop in which case, no one would have helped the guy. I understand the other two women who were watching from a distance, I did the same. But I cannot understand the (adult male) shop owners who stood around watching. Especially in a community that´s tiny, and where everyone knows each other. I didn´t find out until later that even though they were significantly bigger than me, they were actually teenagers. But the shop owners would have known these boys, why wouldn´t they step in? I hate that as a female, I cannot step into this situation. And as a result, I become the very thing I most despise (and cannot forgive) in other people.

Carnaval and Teaching

Yesterday was Carnaval, otherwise known as Mardi Gras. I'd heard alot about Carnaval, the parades, costumes, fairs, and how in Guatemala they have Cascarones which are eggs filled with Confetti, that the kids go around breaking on everyone's heads. So I was excited about seeing my first Carnaval and was talking about it at work. Until my supervisor looked at me with shock and started talking about how erotic it is, that it's really vulgar and there's alot of drinking. Oops. To be honest, I thought it was unfair, because while that may be true of countries like Brazil, it's completely different and very mild in Guatemala, which is obviously what I would have been referring to. Anyways, I went to Calvario in the afternoon to check out all the activities, and even had a cascaron cracked on my head. It's most lively at night but I didn't go back. They say it gets kinda crazy and that the older kids fill the eggs with random things like flour, or just use real eggs. Which would've been fine except they are also known to use grosser things like urine, and tend to target foreigners. No thanks.


So I survived my first day of teaching today (not including random improv lessons in English). I know bigger words in Spanish than 12 year old Guatemalans, wahoo... It went pretty well. Except for the part where I had to improv the second class. We (or apparently just I) had an understanding that I would teach Science on Wednesdays and Social Studies on Thursdays. As if I wasn't stressed out enough about teaching in Spanish, I had to wing a 30 minute class on Social Investigation. I had a great stall strategy... make them participate and get a discussion going. But they wouldn't speak, I had to drag every word out of them. Also, I somehow managed to go from teaching 3 lectures a week (1 in English), to being responsible for 4 entire classes including coming up with homework, tests, and giving them grades. And they gave away my English class, so it will all be in Spanish. And it went from being a 3 week commitment to 4 weeks (they had to cancel the week they were going to be studying agriculture). Wow, I guess it really didn't go all that well. I mean, it seemed like it did at the time. They like me, and I covered the material I was supposed to cover...