So I’m currently sitting in my impenetrable mosquito net fort writing this and I’m not even sure where to really begin. This last week has been one of the most busy/crazy/adventurous weeks of my life. I cannot believe it has only been 7 days, it feels like it has been about 3 months. Also, I feel I need to say the mosquito net is less for mosquitos and more for scorpions (Xook!! Xook!!), tarantulas and cockroaches, but I’ll get to that.
I’ll start with my situation. I am living in a smallish village for the next two months of training that is composed mostly of Spanish families with some Mayan families. I am assigned to learn Q’eqchi and therefore am living with a Mayan family in a beautiful thatch house and now have two new sisters and a new brother. I also have what seems to be a million cousins. I have no electricity or running water and get to take bucket baths every day, which are quite refreshing if you do them during the day while you are still hot but freezing if you wait around too long and are stuck doing them in the dark with a flash. I walk around the village saying “yo’os, buenas, hello” and kind of go from there depending on what they respond back. The five of us Volunteers that are here for training are also working at the local school here. This whole week one of the teachers has been sick so they just took his class and put it with my classroom so we have had about 60 kids jammed into this tiny little room, so teachers be thankful for subs.
The Peace Corps offers a fairly unique job in a variety of ways. For instance I challenge you to find any job in the States where this situation would arise: The first full day here (Saturday) I woke up at 7:30 and then sat around for about an hour in the ab’ (hammock) reading to my little sister. At around 8:30 I decided to see cousin Darrell (another Volunteer whose Na’ is my Na’s sister and therefore we are cousins as well now) to get a new flash because my nice brand-new one decided to not work, which made my first night a pain seeing as if you remember I don’t have electricity. I get to his house to see him down the road filling up buckets of dirt and putting them on his bike to make himself a shower. Apparently he had been doing this since about 5:30. Therefore I decided to be nice and help him finish his shower by carrying buckets of dirt and then water on bikes to his house for the next hour and a half to two hours. At lunch time my Na’ came over and the whole family proceeded to make fun of me when they learned I had woken up at 7:30 (again, it was Saturday). At lunch I learned to make tortillas with my Na’ (they pick the corn themselves from the farm, wash it, take it to the grinder, and then form and bake them themselves) when my host dad starts yelling something and I look up and there is a huge scorpion about 8 inches from my face on the wall (it was probably only 3 or 4 inches long but that is a big enough scorpion for me). About two days later there was also one right outside my door when I woke up, so I am very glad for this net. We also see tarantulas and cockroaches all over the place and we saw a bright green snake that was probably 7 feet long while running in the bush last night. Anyway, after lunch I went to the river to wash my clothes, which was quite an experience. I was the only guy doing laundry and all the women were looking at me and going off in Q’eqchi and laughing and I can only imagine what they were saying. In conclusion, before I had been in this village for 24 hours I had already built a shower, almost been stung in the face by a scorpion, and done my laundry in a river. And that was just some of day one.
The next days have been just as full and nearly as exciting, but this is already long so I won’t bore you with too much more. I have spent a lot of it entertaining my 3 siblings and Darrell’s 6 siblings (or it could be said my 6 cousins). They are all under 13 so they have a ton of energy. I will also say that going to church with 8 kids (one of mine stayed home) is a trip and a half, especially when that service is 3 hours long. In addition, I will note that waking up is not a problem. There are dogs everywhere that bark very loudly very early, the grinder across the street starts going off very early, and the roosters apparently did not get the memo to wait until they see the sun to start crowing. My life would be a lot easier if I could only eat a certain chicken and just fantastic if they would let me eat two certain chickens.
I will leave you with some moments where all you can do is just laugh and appreciate life in general. Jun: you are walking home from church when your 20 year old uncle pulls up on his full sized bicycle and your 3 year old sister just jumps on the handlebars like it is no big thing and they ride off into the distance. Wiib: you are playing kick ball and you get a ground rule double over the barbed wire fence and your 5 year old cousin just starts climbing the fence without shoes on to retrieve the ball. Oxib: While walking home from school you hear “Jonatan! Jonatan!” and you look around to see your 7 year old cousin about 25 feet up in a tree picking mangos in some random person’s yard. Kahib: You are going to the well to get some water and a kid who cannot have been more than 12 years old is driving a truck with two huge containers of water in the bed away and spilling the water everywhere because he cannot shift properly. Hoob’: You get home to see your Na’ piercing your sister’s ears with a needle and some alcoholic solution and the only reaction your 7 year old sister makes is clenching her teeth before the first ear and then no reaction for the second ear and your 3 year old sister brags that she only cried for one ear. With all that being said and how incredibly busy and worn out I am after only a week, I feel I can safely say that there is not much better than laying in the hammock studying Q’eqchi with you little sister in your lap holding the flash so that you can actually see.
Playing soccer with the siblings and cousins
Kab'l
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