Olvidar = to forget

Baby chickens in a bag (about to be vaccinated!)

View From Libby's Toilet

View from one of the ladies' gardens

Amazing, right?

So it’s been a while. At first, I had nothing new to report, then we went out of town for a week for training (Field Based Training) and then so much stuff happened I got a little overwhelmed. Three weeks ago (gosh, how time flies) the Food Security crew of the Agriculture department all got on a bus and headed out for our FBT in Jalapa, where we spent a week of visiting current volunteers’ sites, and learning a lot about what it’s really like to be a volunteer. The two volunteers we visited are pretty great, and seeing what they’ve been up to is exciting and intimidating at the same time. And we got to stay in the most amazing places. Double bonus.

So the first day, Monday, we headed up to Alene’s site in Los Flores to visit the women’s group she’s working with, see their gardens, and look at their chicken project. Little did I know this would be one of the top most embarrassing days I’ve had in a while. Hurray! As part of our training we have been learning about chicken vaccinations, and how to properly do them. Yikes. So for FBT they planned for us to get some practical application and actually vaccinate some chickens. There are 3 types of vaccinations you can give a chicken depending on what type of medicine you’re transmitting: a injection, which is a normal shot you put in the chicken’s breast; a lancet, which has two needles on it that capture the medicine, and has to be shoved all the way through the wing and pulled back out (imagine poking a pen through cardboard and pulling it back out); and an eyedropper, which is used for the little baby chickies. We arrive at a women’s house, walk past our audience of about 10 women and their children, and file into the chicken pen. A few people grabbed chickens so the others could give shots, and we got ready to begin. Well, this is about the time I start getting extremely nervous, sweating like I never have in my life, and giggling awkwardly. I told my trainer I was really nervous, but he assured me that he would help me out, and that it was nothing to worry about. I got in line, ready for my first try at giving an injection, walked up to the chicken, and….broke down sobbing. That’s right, in front of my boss, I started uncontrollably bawling and shaking, and had to have someone else force my hand to give this chicken a shot. Ultimate failure. I stepped away, dried my eyes, looked up into the faces of my fellow trainees, and felt so embarrassed I could’ve died. Everyone was really nice, but I could tell what everyone was thinking, myself included: “REALLY???” So long story short, I tried again, cried again, tried again, and cried again. It was horrifying. I’ve always been fairly trepidatious about getting shots, but who knew giving them would be worse?? I then had to give a lancet shot to a bird, and failed all over again. Let’s be honest though, if I was bawling about having to put an injection into a chicken, who in their right mind would think I could shove a needle THROUGH a wing? I tried about 4 times, and each time I just stabbed it, and freaked out and ran away. RAN AWAY. Terrible. Those poor chickens were probably more begging for some other gringo to give them their shot. Needless to say, my mom was pretty embarrassed when I told her. Her advice though? “I should’ve let you practice on me before you left!” Oh sure, I would’ve loved to see how that day went. Anyway, after the chicken debacle, we also went to visit some of the women’s personal gardens and see their egg production project. It’s amazing to see how each person tackles their unique gardening challenges.

On Tuesday, we woke up and went to visit a different volunteer’s site in Pino Dulce, where we got to visit a lecheria (dairy processing) in the morning. I’ve never seen cheese made, so it was really interesting seeing that process. Also, the guy that ran the dairy was pretty amazing, since he talked about how he gave the people who looked after the dairy a place to live, and gave away the unusable part of the milk for free to the ladies to feed to their pigs. Just goes to show helping people out can still earn you money. It also reminded me of the time I went on a Mayfield Dairy tour in Tennessee, except I’m pretty sure Mr. Mayfield would die if the saw the lack of sanitation in this place. Not that I’m a huge stickler for rules, but even I was surprised by how little attention was paid to sanitation. But the cheese tasted amazing, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it. After the dairy, we also got to visit the house of the volunteer, which is spacious and cozy, and see her own personal (beautiful!!!) garden. When we returned to the hotel that night, everyone was diligently working on preparing their charlas (small informational talks) for Thursday. Everyone except me. I got bored, and set out in search of a place that would sell a book, magazine, or something to read. What I found instead was the hotel manager and his assistant, who became my new best friends, and even drew a picture for me, and the next night brought me something to read! Random, but hilarious.

Wednesday we went back to the original site to learn about nutrition and cook a delicious lunch with the help of some of the ladies in a different women’s group. We divided up the recipes for lunch, and a few of us headed up the hill to make a radish salad. For the first time since I’ve been here, I found that I had a pretty significant communication problem that had nothing to do with the language barrier. At first, it was very hard for me to find topics to discuss with the lady we were with, since we’ve led such different lives, but eventually we landed on family, and anyone who knows me knows that this is an inexhaustible topic for me. The lunch was delicious, and I now have a new recipe for chicken soup!

Thursday was charla day, and everyone in our group gave a 30 speech, most to a women’s group, but some (including me) to a group of men. All of the talks went well, and it’s amazing to see how much we’ve all improved over the last few months. It’s also funny to see how involved the women get here in games; there is literally nothing funnier than women crawling around blindfolded trying to grab pieces of paper. They had a great time, and were very patient with us. We also traveled to our new hotel for the last night, and Oh. My. God. It was literally one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! We pull up into this amazing green rolling land, where chickens, turkeys, and sheep are roaming around freely, and get out to take stock of where we would be spending the next few nights. The cabins are all thatch-roof design, and spread sparsely enough around so that they easily blended into the scenery. Mountains surrounded the whole places, and the only thing cutting into a perfect view is the zipline cords spread around the place. A short hike takes you past the adorable poolhouse and pool and into the deeper forest where you can zipline across a huge ravine. All in all, definitely a place I would recommend to anyone. That night, after a great dinner, we stayed up sitting around a fire, playing Mafia, and gossiping.

Friday started off rough, since we found out we were to leave that afternoon, a day too early, because of the incoming storms. This meant we missed out on the ziplining, but we still had time for an early morning lesson in soil conservation and terracing. We learned how to construct and use an “a-level” and tried to help out, although the men we were working with did their portion in about 1/10th of the time we did. Way to go, gringos. We traveled back afterwards, and after a brief stop at Wendy’s for a frosty, we were home again, and in my newly cleaned room with my freshly laundered clothes. Oh, the rough life.

Since FBT, we have done a lot of other smaller projects, including a visit to an integrated farm, hearing a returned PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) give a talk on adult education, a visit to AGTECH and ICTA (today, actually), a few more trips to our local school to give talks, and general technical training. The integrated farm was great, and really showed how feasible it is to supply a household with everything they need just from they land they work on. Plus, the family was extremely warm and inviting, and served us fresh ricotta cheese, which was to die for. The speaker we went to hear served in Guate about 20 years ago, and was entertaining, although I definitely have differing ideas on the importance of adult education techniques compared to basically everyone else in Peace Corps. I guess coming directly from a fast-paced, learn-or-you-fail, school environment (thank you, Tech) it’s hard for me to wrap my head around talking to people the way we’re supposed to, with few, general topics, and icebreakers every 5 seconds. I like my information direct and to-the-point. Obviously PC has been doing this way longer than me and so knows way better what works, but it will definitely take some getting used to. Our visits to AGTECH and ICTA were both interesting, not only because we got to reinforce some technical skills, but also because we got to see what long-term aid projects look like here. Both institutes work in research, but also in the betterment of farming in Guatemala, by raising awareness to new techniques and best-practice methods. The school charlas have been a little rough for me, since I don’t like to give a speech to people that don’t really want to listen, and also because I actually really like kids, and want to establish a relationship with them before I bust in and randomly start preaching about veggies. But it’s all good practice, and at least now I’ll be prepared for how hard it is to understand kids.

So that’s all the technical stuff we’ve been doing, but daily life here in Guate is interesting and fun too. Despite the nearly non-stop rain for all of September, I’ve managed to not be a grumpbutt 100% of the time. We’ve celebrated another birthday in the family, when Gerson turned 19 (where I accidently tripped during my birthday hug to him, and ended up holding him a little too long; awesome) and went on an overnight visit to Comalapa for Independence Day (Sept. 15) to meet my madre’s family. Seven girls in one family!!! And they all look alike!!! I was calling everyone madre by the end of our trip. The family owns 2 Saritas (the nice ice cream store here) so I ate about 4 ice cream cones, and later went to the streets to try the “elote loco”, which is an ear of boiled corn covered in mayo, ketchup, salsa verde, and cheese. Holy shit. It’s amazing. When we stayed there, we all shoved into my abuelo’s house, and I shared a mattress with Leslie on the floor, which made me miss my own sister. Sad. I’ve also gotten to hang out with my fellow trainees, and we celebrated another TWO free days, one at some hot springs and one around the town of Antigua. The hot springs were ridiculous, and squeezing 13 gringos into a “private bath” was probably not our best decision. Antigua was fun as well, although we got back a pretty late and had to ride in a camioneta in the dark, which was a little scary. We’ve also made smaller trips to play soccer, visit San Lucas, and even go to a CASA DEL WAFFLE!!! That’s right, guys, we ate at Waffle House. I got ribs. They were amazing. Anyway, I’m sure there’s tons of stuff I’m leaving out, but I’m also sure that’s plenty of blog for one time. The next time I write (exactly one week from today!!!!!) I’ll know where I’m spending the next two years of my life!!! Hurrayyyyyyyyyy.

P.S. Not sure how many people saw this but yea, it's awkward. wtf, America?