Field Based Training
The Guatemalan countryside is like nothing I have ever witnessed
before. I want to say ‘rolling hills’
but I think the more appropriate term would be ‘rolling mountains’ spread out
as far as I could see. Everything below the
horizon was green and the sky a brilliant blue with puffy white clouds that
appear before your eyes. I have felt the
sensation of walking in a cloud before: foggy mornings and humid Florida air
will do that, but I have never before stood on a mountainside and watched as a
cloud moved at eye level directly into my path.
I have traveled through the twisting mountain roads of the
Appalachians and Southern Rockies, but I’m finding it hard to make comparisons between
those mountain ranges and the never ending maze of switchbacks, steep cliffs and
teeth-clenching curves that are the Guatemalan Western Highlands. I realized that bridges through the mountains
are almost non-existent; if there is a ravine, the road navigates around
it. There are no gradual inclines and
very few dynamite-carved paths through the volcanic rock, just switchbacks that
make you rock in your seat and hope that you don’t tear a hole in the bus’s
brown pleather seats with your white-knuckle grip.
Field Based Training, or FBT, gave us the opportunity to see
how current volunteers are living. We
started off the long weekend by visiting the Areas de Salud in both Xela
(Quetzaltenango) and Totonicapán. An Area
de Salud is the equivalent of a State Health Department in the US, so we were
very privileged to be given tours. We
also met with JICA, the Japanese version of the Peace Corps. It got me really pumped up to see some of our
potential counterparts!
I spent the rest of the weekend living with another
volunteer in one of the furthest, most rural sites. It. Was. Amazing. This was one of the areas that had
experienced genocide during the civil war.
The ‘cortes’, or traditional Mayan skirts, that the women wear in this
area are red in honor of the blood that was spilt during the war.
Travel to and from this site was a story in and of itself.
(Oh, I should clarify here that I can’t post names of specific sites on the
internet. There have been problems with
people internet stalking PC volunteers, calling their homes in the US and
pretending that they kidnapped volunteers.
Not fun, hence the lack of specific site names…) Anyways, it was about a
1.5 hour ride in the Peace Corps van to get from Totonicapán to the capital of
Quiche. From there it was another 2.5
hour ride in a microbus or ‘micro’ to another city where I changed micros again
for another half hour ride to my final destination. Dramamine was my best friend.
I need to give a short description of these micros. They are what I would normally call a ‘church
van’; those vans that can safely fit eleven or twelve people. Well, not in Guatemala. My entire concept of ‘fitting’ has changed
since I have lived here. ‘Fitting’ means
we are going to squeeze 20ish people (25 if you put people on top) into a micro—the
door may or may not be closed in order to achieve this phenomenon. During one of these exercises in human
contortion, my micro whizzed past another sardine stuffed micro as we were
barreling through the steep mountain cliffs.
The ayudante, the guy that gymnastics through the micro to collect
everyone’s fare, leans out the window and shouts “MUY TRANQUILLO!!” to the
driver of the other micro. I just about
lost it!
OK, so back to FBT. I
was amazed by how well this volunteer had integrated herself into her
community. She stopped and introduced us
every couple of feet in the pueblo to the people she knew. I’ve seen now just how outgoing I need to be
in order to successfully get myself into the community. I have my work cut out for me, but it’s
doable!
I went with two other PCTs and a handful of other volunteers
to hike up to a waterfall. I think it
took us three micro rides to get to the pueblo near the waterfall. As we walked to the trail head, a man came
out of his tienda and asked us if we were going up to the waterfall. After confirming his suspicions, he told us
that we needed to pay him Q5 each to walk up to the waterfall. We asked if he had identification to prove
that he wasn’t just trying to rip us off and he couldn’t prove that he had a
legitimate right to ask us for money. We
explained to him that we were volunteers living in the country; we were not
tourists and explained that when some of the volunteers went a few weeks
earlier, they didn’t have to pay. Realizing
that we weren’t going to be duped, he let us continue on our way…interesting
experience and I’m glad the current volunteers were there to help us navigate
through it!
The path to the waterfall wound through the Guatemalan
forest and was often traversed by families toting horses laden with crops and
branches, men with heavy packs on their backs and women balancing giant baskets
and buckets of food on their heads. I
was amazed by how sloppy and uncoordinated I felt struggling to hop from rock
to rock without falling into the ankle deep mud when these women traveled this
path, probably daily, in sandals with 50 pound weights balanced on top of the
heads.
I could hear the rushing stream and waterfall before I could
see it. The path turned around the
mountain bend, and like a misty curtain, the waterfall appeared between the
trees. It only took a few minutes of
standing near its base to become completely drenched by the cool water
vapor. After getting our fill of the base
of the water fall, we traversed back up the side of the mountain to dry off in
the sun (and some of the volunteers went swimming).
I need to add in a
quick quip about my amazing ability to laugh at myself. I know I have the worst balance ever. I love hiking/climbing/outdoor adventure
stuff, I’m just really, really bad at it.
I literally ate dirt on this hike.
When hiking down hill, it is not that uncommon to fall. Most people fall backwards onto their butt. Being conscious of the camera that was in my
butt pocket, I turned mid-fall and landed on my face in the foliage. Yes, I am that person.
On the return trip from the waterfall I had one of the most
surreal experiences of my life. Four of
us were going back to the same site and needed to change micros at a
crossroads. As we stood waiting at the
country crossroad, one of the volunteers ran into the tienda and bought us bags
of water for 50 centavos each and mango suckers. We waited for a good 10 minutes and a micro
had yet to arrive. At one point, a
pickup truck stopped. The passenger in
the truck was from the same pueblo as the volunteer I was staying with, so we
jumped into the bed of the pickup.
I leaned up against the cab of the truck and looked out
across the rolling milpas fields. The
sun warmed my skin and I enjoyed my mango dulce and bag of water. The four of us sat facing each other with our
muddy legs tangled, laughing and sharing stories. It was something out of a movie. In the grand scheme of things, that 20 minute
ride didn’t really mean much, but for some reason, it made me realize that I
can survive the next two years. Even amongst
the chatter from my friends, the wind whipping around the cab and the
struggling chug of the engine, I distinctly heard God telling me that I can do
this. This is where I am meant to be right now.
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| Cloud sweeping in! |
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| Making Vida Cereal at a Club de Embarazadas |
