Christmas in Salacuim

After much debate of how and where we were going to spend Christmas this year, we finally decided to stay home and experience the holiday through the eyes of Salacuim. There were many events that led up to the day and we could feel the excitement in the air as Christmas Eve approached. About a week ago, Corby helped one of our neighbors, Don Ramon, wrestle a pig in a nearby community so that he could cook it for his Christmas dinner. Not very many people can afford to purchase an entire pig, which goes for about Q500 ($65), but he was planning on cooking the meat and selling it for all those that wanted a special treat.


Corby and Don Ramon with the Christmas pig

For us, it is difficult to get used to a green Christmas, especially since we have been hearing about all the snow in Minnesota this year. We struggled to find creative ways to make it feel like Christmas while it was 80 degrees. Luckily, a large coconut tree feel down in our front yard a couple days before Christmas, which allowed us to use the palm branches for a makeshift tree- lights and all.


Decorating the Christmas Palm

Christmas Eve is the biggest day of celebration for Guatemalans. We spent our day helping neighbors make the traditional meal of tamales, which consists of corn paste, a chile sauce and a small piece of chicken, all wrap up in a banana leaf. After being here for almost 2 years, I finally found myself liking the taste of tamales, but that has worn off over the last few days.


Preparing tamales with the Prado family

We spent the evening at church with our friends and neighbors, singing the same Christmas songs as we sing in the states, only in Spanish. There were endless invitations afterward to join families in their homes for tamales. We were overwhelmed by the spirit of the season as people welcomed us and shared their food and company. Corby and I had a difficult time consuming 2 tamales at every house we went to and as a result we have over 10 sitting in the refrigerator right now.
At midnight people lined the main street, some sat with chairs in their front yard and everyone threw firecrackers. The entire town was alive with excitement. The Catholic church walked through town in a procession singing songs and people spent the rest of the night into Christmas Day with their families, eating and socializing.


Catholic Procession through town

While we missed being with our own families at home, we look forward to next Christmas when we all will be together again and cherish the memories of Christmas in Salacuim. We are heading to Belize for the New Year and are looking forward to seeing a new part of Latin America.

¡Próspero Año!

2008 Scholarship Recipients

We are happy to announce that we have selected 5 new students to enter our program in 2008. About 6 weeks ago an exam was given to all 6th graders and the top scoring students were selected to participate in the Scholarships for Salacuim program. Each student has been offered a full 3 year scholarship to complete junior high in Salacuim as long as they complete the rules of the program and maintain their grades.


The 5 newly selected students for 2008- all entering 7th grade


Our program this year will solely be focused at the junior high level, as the community committee takes over in our absence. We are also grandfathering in the 4 junior high students from last year that have successfully completed the 2007 school year.

This week we had our first meeting with the new students and their parents to introduce them to the program. We are really excited about this new group as we feel they have already proven their intellectual ability through the exam and are ready to tackle the challenges of 7th grade. They really seem like a great group of kids and we look forward to working with them in 2008!


Russell, Reyna, Sherna, Maria, Jener

Cell Phones coming to Salacuim!

We've been hearing rumors for at least a few months now that the cell phone companies have been visiting the area around Salacuim and doing feasibility studies. Obviously, we've been anxious to see if the rumors are true. We've lived here for almost two years now, always with limited communication. There are a few public telephones that grab a cell phone signal with a large antenna from distant cell towers, but the result is always a scratchy connection and a 65 cent/minute charge to call the US. There is also a telephone at our NGO's office which works on a satellite connection, but its plagued by a 2 second delay and strict limits on personal calls (especially frustrating when speaking Spanish as a second language).

Also, about six months ago some new towers went up across the Chixoy River in the Quiche department that gave everyone a sort of hope that maybe their phones could grab signal in special "spots", in fact the large open field next to our house has had a faint signal if you stand in the right place for enough time and learn the tricks such as shutting-of and restarting your phone 3 times in succession while raising your left hand in the air. This ghost signal has created a culture of small groups that congregate in these "spots" with their phones every night, partially to make phone calls but also to pass time.

This is all about to change, as this week we noticed a large metal object growing in Salacuim's skyline, a shiny new cell phone tower! The rumor is that we will have real cell phone signal before Christmas. A team of 6 Colombian and Nicaraguan workers (better described as Trapeze artists) are throwing up a 130 meter tall tower that promises cheap, clear phone calls and the ability to actually receive calls in the last few months of our Peace Corps Service.

Construction Methods:
Although these guys don't have all of the safety gear required in the US, I'm impressed with their use of resources. There is no crane, but they can secure a metal section of ladder to the tower with rope and use it as a boom. From there they run a rope through a pulley system to the rear wheel of a pickup truck up on blocks. To lift sections of the tower, they start the pickup, put it in gear and use it as a crane.

Development:
An adviser to our NGO talks about development of the area as a balance between infrastructure, education, political organization, and environmental conservation; calling them the 4 "capitals". Things like education and political organization are just as important to the development of Salacuim, but they are intangible, hard to see, and actually take more time.

Infrastructure, however, is very tangible and visible. We arrived in Salacuim about 10 years after they were connected to Cobán with a gravel road. The electricity came about 4 months before we arrived, and a previous Peace Corps volunteer told us about the drastic difference: TV's, later nights on the street, etc. Earlier this year, all of the side streets were leveled and lined with gravel; a huge improvement to the steep, slippery paths of before. Offices have also been built for the local organizations: the youth group, the farmers group, and the womens group. In the near future, running water and road paving projects are in the works. We have to look at how much the face of this area is changing and just be amazed.


Tower construction acrobatics


The tower construction site is the most popular community gathering spot


Use of pick-up as a crane

Lunch with the Senators

During Joey and Stacie's visit, we got a phone call from the Peace Corps office inviting us to have lunch with a delegation of US Senators that were in the midsts of a tour, meeting with presidents of several South American and Central American countries during the Senate's Thanksgiving recess. Only 6 Peace Corps volunteers were invited, including us because I happen to be the only PC volunteer in Guatemala with North Dakota roots and both senators from North Dakota were part of the delegation.

Kari and I were split between tables, my place was with the ND senators while Kari was with the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the US ambassador in Guatemala. It was a unique experience for me to have lunch at a small table with 2 senators and their wives. I was impressed at how interested they all were about the life of a Peace Corps volunteer, and I think my Dad was just as impressed when he received a personal phone call from Byron Dorgan the day afterwards to let him know that his son was doing well in Guatemala.



Kari & I with North Dakota Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan


Kari & I with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

After-Thanksgiving Visitors: Lewis family

After a visit from Courtney & Eric, we got to be hosts for another week for the long awaited visit from my brother and sister: Joey and Stacie. We had a great time, catching up with their lives and showing them around a few places we know in Guatemala. The highlight of the trip was the 3 days we spent in Salacuim, although we had some bad luck with heavy rains while they were here. We also had the chance to visit with our original host family (for the first 3 months of Peace Corps training, way back in January of 2006) and climb an active volcano. Here are some the pictures from their trip.


Lewises at Sachicha Waterfall


At our house in Salacuim


With the kids from our original host family


Lewises on Pacaya Volcano


Lewises at the Biotopo del Quetzal

Thanksgiving Visitors

Here are a few highlights from our Thanksgiving trip. Courtney and Eric came from San Diego to join us for a week in Guatemala. We spent most of our time in Salacuim, but we were able to do a few things that we have yet to do in our own site, including a very muddy hike through the jungle to the other side of the park. We celebrated Thanksgiving with amazing Cuban food in Cobán and enjoyed our time together catching up and sharing our experiences with them.


welcome to Salacuim


a muddy hike through the jungle to Rocja Pomtila


Courtney and Maria (scholarship sponsor)


spending time in Salacuim

Benpec el Castaño, Historic Day

Today the neighboring town to Salacuim, Benpec el Castaño, held a ceremony where the community members received titles to their land after a long and arduous process. This town is only a 30 minute walk or a short bike ride from Salacuim, and Kari & I often go there to visit the river for swimming or just to pass time. Our Peace Corps site-mate Nicole works with a womens group from Castaño that makes hand woven fabrics. I've worked with their community association this year to form a group that was trained in the principles of community tourism. So this community is really part of our Peace Corps "site"; we've made friends and memories there.

It was special to see a group of farmers that have never owned land, achieve something that will benefit them and their future generations. As Guatemala has a long, long history of land rights struggles, it's encouraging to see that at least some local farmers are receiving the basic necessity to build a better future for their families: a title deed to their land.

Here are the few of the details of the purchase:

• 75 families received land, all as part of an farmers association
  
• each family will receive about 12 "manzanas" of land (about 21 acres)
  
• Each family will pay subsidized price of Q11,800 over a maximum of 8 years for their land (through the local association)
• The community will also receive support with various production projects to help them get started (pineapple, cacao, reforestation, cattle, and tilapia)
• Their are about 1500 acres in the community, and the sale price (from a private owner to the government) was Q2,400,852.50. This implies that the land is worth about $210/acre.
  

Guatemalan Units of Measurement

Guatemalans use the metric system, but they are still kind of trapped between rural farmers who still use their traditional units of measurement and influence from US English units. You buy gas by the gallon, drive stretches of road in kilometers, and you plant corn by the cuerda. Below is a list of distance and area measurements used in Salacuim, Guatemala.

Scholarship Exam

We had a great turnout for the scholarship test that was given this week to all students in Salacuim that had completed 6th grade and have the desire to continue studying in 7th grade next year. The reality is that about half of these students won't be able to go to school next year, and essentially all of them will have difficulties finding money to buy supplies or uniforms.
So for many of these kids, doing well on this test and winning a scholarship through this program is the only chance they have to study next year.

Although several scholarship students will be grandfathered in this year, new students will all come from this group. The program hopes to select about 5 new scholarship students, depending on the success of fund-raising.

We are especially proud of how much the community collaboration has developed in a year. Last year, Kari and I picked scholarship students based on personal relationships and perceived needs. Right now, we have the support of teachers, community organizations, and of course the small committee that will be in charge of management after we leave; all supporting the dream to create a small, sustainable program that will create opportunities for children and develop leaders.

Something to Think About

With only five months left of service, I find myself trying to understand the situation Guatemala is in and what my future role can be. There is a strange feeling in knowing that I will someday leave and go back to a fairly comfortable lifestyle. I often feel guilty and at times very excited. It's a difficult balance. After living in Salacuim for nearly 2 years, I truly feel concerned for the people of my community and wonder what their future holds.

Currently Guatemala has the highest percentage of people living below the poverty rate in all of Central America at 56.2%. Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1 a day and moderate poverty is less than $2 a day.

Here are some interesting comparisons between Guatemala and the U.S.

Guatemala/United States
Illiteracy rate: 30.9%/1%
Infant Mortality rate: 29.7 of 1,000/6.27 of 1,000
Fertility rate: 3.7 per woman/2.09 per woman
HIV prevalence: 1.1%/0.6%
Population below poverty level: 56.2%/12%
Age structure: 1-14(40.8%) 15-64(55.5%) 65+(3.6%)/
1-14(20.2%) 15-64(67.2%) 65+(12.6)

Other Guatemalan Facts...

Average duration of schooling is only 4 years
Only 3 of 10 children graduate from 6th grade
More than 2 million children do not attend school
(mostly indigenous girls in rural areas)
Infant mortality rate is the highest in Central America and the 3rd highest in the hemisphere
50% of Guatemalan women have given birth before the age of 19
20% have 2 or more children by their 18th birthday
Contraceptive prevalence is 43%, the 2nd lowest in the hemisphere
49% of Guatemalan children under the age of 5 are chronically malnourished
Only 41% of births are attended by a doctor or nurse, lowest in the hemisphere

information provided by www.cia.gov, www.usaid.gov

Laguna Lachuá National Park Brochure

It's been over a year in the making, several rough drafts and months waiting for funds, but finally the new park brochures are finished and should be printed soon. Even though Laguna Lachuá has been a national park for over 37 years, very few promotional materials exist. This may be one of the reasons it remains one of the least visited parks in all of Guatemala. We hope that by distributing brochures and posters to all the major travel agencies in the country, it will encourages some tourists to take the long journey to check out, what we would consider, one of the most beautiful areas in Guatemala.

Ecoregión Lachuá

Ecoregión Lachuá is where we work. Kari made this map as part of some new eco-tourism promotional material.

Álvaro Colom Visit to Salacuim

Guatemala is in the heat of a campaign leading up to it's presidential elections on November 4. Salacuim history was made today when this small aldea of 2,500 people received its first ever presidential campaign visit from Álvaro Colom. He came in a helicopter, talked for about an hour and then his team accepted letters of request from community members seeking community projects if he were to become president. Afterwards, there was squabble around the truck that was throwing out 50 cent bags of kool-aid and little pieces of bread to the locals.

Carpe Diem Visit to Lachuá

Last week we had the good fortune to be hosts to a group of 15 Americans that came for a week long visit to Laguna Lachuá and Salacuim. They came with a ton of energy and willingness to contribute to community projects in the area. They were in week 4 of a 3 month long trip through Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica (link to their blog); all of them learning to speak Spanish and doing community service along the way. I think they all really enjoyed being in our area: visiting the Laguna Lachuá Park, learning about the hand made weaving from TESA (women's group that Nicole works with), working really hard pouring a cement floor in the youth group construction project, harvesting corn with a local farmer, helping to clear weeds from a reforestation project, sifting dirt for the tree nursery, and helping out on a Tilapia farm.

We felt lucky to host such an active group and watched a wonderful exchange of cultures between the locals and the visitors. Most of all I also enjoyed playing in a competitive basketball game with people taller than me.


Helping mix concrete by hand


Learning how to weave

Trip to Chiapas, Mexico

We've been bogged down with work lately and feeling like our "Close of Service" date that is only about 6 months away is looming, as we're trying to complete various projects. I recently finished up a community tourism training class with a group young people from the neighboring town of Benpec el Castaño which had been keeping us tied down every Saturday for the last few months. We are also pushing to finish a construction project, where the local youth group (JAGUAR) is adding on a study space to their community library. We are in the thick of organizing the scholarship program for the school year that starts next January. Kari is busy with designing some eco-tourism promotional material and website improvements for the Laguna Lachuá National Park. Kari and Nicole have had a few meetings to try to create a young girls group to help promote leadership and self-esteem. Of course there are lots of other important community project ideas that have always been delayed, with the thought "we'll have more time for that later".

I'm also thinking about trying to soak up as much as I possibly can from our precious little remaining time....I've never taken the hike to Rocja Pomtila from Salacuim through the thick of the jungle, I haven't learned more than basic conversations in the Q'eqchi' language, we've never traveled to Xela on the other side of the country, I've only hiked up 1 of the 20 volcanoes higher than 2000 meters in Guatemala.

So, last weekend we made a quick get away to Chiapas, Mexico with our site mate Nicole. I had heard about a National Park called the Lagunas de Montebello that wasn't supposed to be very far from our site. We left early in the morning on Saturday and got to a town called Tziscáo in the afternoon. On the way we crossed the dusty, unmanned border crossing near the town of Ingenieros, Guatemala and spent the rest of the weekend wondering if anybody would check for a stamp in our passports. The Mexican side of the border greeted us with paved roads, a nearly empty micro-bus, and a semi-cautious driver (now that's what I call a developed country). The scenery was beautiful and we found a little cabin to stay at right next to a sweet little lake. Here are a few pictures from the trip....


Kari on one of the famous rafts made from the local cork trees.


View from 5 Lakes lookout


Kari and I at one of the lakes

2008 Scholarship Program

As many of you know, we have been working with a community based organization to take over our responsibilities with the scholarship program when we complete our service in April of 2008. We will both still be very much a part of the program and the overall management, but will rely on the Salacuim committee to oversee the day to day administration and management.

We recently finished a website that illustrates all the details for the coming year.
We invite you to read and share in the success and possibility with us once again.

www.lachua.org/scholarships.html

2007 Scholarships for Salacuim Video

A new way to celebrate

September 15th is Guatemala's Independence Day. This year it happened to land on a Saturday, which conflicted with the majority of the church schedules in Salacuim. It also would be an incredible mistake to celebrate independence day and have parades and activities on a weekend. It's not a traditional Guatemalan event unless the kids get out of school for at least a week.

This year, Salacuim decided to do something different. They decided to have a fair. Most towns in Guatemala have their yearly fair dates set and it's a big deal. Salacuim has never been a fair town. We are the town that longs to have a fair, but have never been fortunate enough to have one. This year we were inundated with people from all around the region, just waiting to see what kind of activity we could put on.



Monday started out with a huge parade down the main street of Salacuim. The entire town came out to watch. All the schools participated and it actually turned into something much bigger than I expected. In the afternoon, there was a mass exodus to a nearby field where the first ever Salacuim rodeo was held. Everyone gathered around to see the best bull riders in the area take their turn. The energy in the town was amazing.



On Tuesday we celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a horse race in our front yard. The street that runs in front of our house was converted into a racing strip for horses. A rope was hung across the street between two poles. On the rope were little rings with ribbons. The object of the game was to run your horse full speed, as the rider tries to put a pencil through the ring. The event started to get a little unusual for us when they hung a live duck upside down by its feet and it soon became part of the competition. Corby did a nice job illustrating the event in his blog below.



As nightfall came, the park in front of our house was transformed into a midway. Complete with carnival games, a makeshift movie theater and dancing. That night, it was apparent to me that our little town is changing and will continue to evolve no matter how slowly the movement seems to be at times. Whether the changes are good or bad, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride to live where we live over the last couple days and to be part of the events that brought the town together.

City Duck, Country Duck

Recently, the stories of two ducks with similar, gloomy fates have recently served to compare and contrast the differences between cultures.

This past weekend a domestic duck living in an ornamental pond in a high-society downtown St. Paul Minnesota hotel(our hometown before we came to Guatemala) was brutally attacked by a hotel guest that apparently ripped its head off in the hotel lobby informing the other guests that he was hungry. Farther to the south in rural Guatemala, we were witnesses this week to a "pato encebado" contest as part of a local celebration where a group of cowboys hung a living duck up by its legs and then shaved and greased its neck; all of this with the objective to take turns attempting to pull its head off with their hands during passes on their galloping horses.

The real lesson in all of this is found in the reactions of the society. In St Paul, the assailant is facing a felony with up to two years of jail time and a $5,000 fine while a high class hotel is considering some sort of increased security or fencing system to protect the rest of their ducks. In our town, the winner of the contest was awarded a prize of Q200 and much of the normally very reserved indigenous crowd really got their spirit up with shouts such as "¡arranquela hombre!"


City Duck


Country Duck

Read story of St. Paul Hotel Duck: http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1440073.html

The Stuff That Happens

Last night Kari and our site mate Nicole were the judges in a mini beauty pageant in Salacuim. The event was aimed at selecting the "Novia del Ganadero", or the "Cattleman's Girlfriend" who will be involved in the upcoming rodeo in late September. The biggest highlight/lowlight of the afternoon was a toss-up between when the stage collapsed breaking a kid's leg, and when one contestant lost control of her galloping horse and almost trampled the crowd. The lowlights aren't really a laughing matter, but you can't help but see a general trend and compare/contrast to the States.

With about 7 months left before our scheduled return to "normal life", I've been thinking a lot lately about how precious every day of our experience down here is. I can't say that I enjoy the typical daily chaos I've learned to put up with: a shrieky blown-out speaker system pounding 20 feet from my desk on all day on a day when I had planned to catch up with computer work, or upsetting Kari with my inability to track and kill the huge spider with the egg-sack that had just climbed into her clean clothes pile, or the megaphone charged vehicles that decide to park on our street and blare presidential ads at 7am, or the holes in the office roof that send us running to cover everything up if a storm passes. (these are all events from today, except the spider which was yesterday)

But at the end of the day sometimes you just have to soak it all up and appreciate the experience as a whole, think about what a challenge you've overcome to adapt, cherish the soul-filling energy that comes with overpowering the daily obstacles, and be thankful for the stories that come with it.

Here are some more pictures from last night's event...


The Judges




The contestants

Children of the week

In about 2 months, students will be finishing up the school year in Salacuim. We have one final group of kids to highlight before the year is over; our other junior high group. They all attend a fairly new and private school in Salacuim. The classes are small and there are 3 teachers that switch off teaching different subjects. It's a little more structured than the telesecundaria and this will be the first year that they will graduate a class from the school. There is a lot of talk lately as to weather or not the school will be around next year. It was started up by a local family of teachers as another alternative to learning in Salacuim, but they are renting a building which will not be available next year and looking at a lot of costs that are keeping them down.


name: Ofelia Xe age: 20 grade: 9th
favorite subject: spanish favorite sport: basketball
future goal: to be a teacher

Our town (or maybe Guatemala in general) has a reputation of making a lot of options for the same thing. Whether it's over 15 political parties on a ballot for president, 6 different churches of the same religion for our tiny town or 2 different junior highs, they like to divide rather than unite their efforts to make one outstanding system.


name: Leobardo Pop age: 15 grade: 8th
favorite subject: math favorite sport: soccer
future goal: to own a business

This group of kids has presented a special challenge to us. Only by chance, within this group we are dealing with our only single teen mother, who is struggling to balance school and taking care of her child. We also have one girl who has lost her mother and lacks a female influence in a machismo society. The challenges have surfaced in terms of not having a sufficient elementary education to understand complicated junior high topics and the results have been low grades. For some reason we have had to push this group to excel more than others. They have all risen to the occasion though and we are hoping that this year will end in success for them.


name: Narcy Ac age: 18 grade: 7th
favorite subject: q'eqchi' (mayan language)
favorite sport: soccer
future goal: to be a teacher


name: Ilce Choc age: 15 grade: 7th
favorite subject: q'eqchi' (mayan language)
favorite sport: basketball
future goal: to be a nurse

Regardless of all the obstacles, they are all getting a second chance to succeed this year. An opportunity that would not have been there without outside donor support.