Welcome all to the blog once again! We have a few updates...
Sarah was offered a chance to do a workshop on Domestic Violence for the women's group that meets monthly at the Catholic Church at our town... here are some photos:
Power and control wheel for Sarah's Violence Prevention charla with the women's group at the Catholic church in town.
The women making their posters of different aspects of how violence affects the community.
The women's group! (background: Jesus) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bonus: Our English class
Our weekly English class. We had them run a race to match colors from Spanish to English.
Sarah teaching the colors.
Mat teaching some grammar.
That's it for now! Have a great weekend and try to stay warm in February.
It has been a while since we have been able to write anything on the blog.Just thought we should give an update.Basically it was a rough transition from the beach back to site.Why can’t all of our sites be like Monterrico?But we are still here!The last two weeks have been somewhat busy.Here are some of the exciting things that we have been up to:
We have continued working in our rural community with a couple of charlas this month.We gave the last one on Sunday and it was crazy!This drunk showed up and was speaking some wild mix of Spanish, Ki’ché, and English.The leader of the community, Roberto, was pissed but he couldn’t really do anything about him.Due to this, we were afraid that the message was lost.Luckily, Roberto is amazing and will review what we covered.Mat met up with Roberto later in the week and he told Mat that they are really happy about the work we are doing.And while there are troubles with language at times, we make our charlas short and simple (plus we are constantly repeating EVERYTHING) so they are getting a lot out of the presentations. And we are a form of entertainment for them as we provide lots of laughter since we are always making asses out of ourselves and are continually talking about poop. There are so many days when Mat and I feel so much hate for our program so it felt damn good to have someone tell us we are doing good work.
We are hoping the doctor will help us get to working in 2 more communities with adults.But he is of the “there’s no rush” mentality so even though we are constantly bugging him it could be a while before we get going.In the meantime, when school starts in the next two weeks, we are going to start giving our health charlas in 4-6 schools (2-3 per week).We also give English classes to about 30 people (from ages 12 to mid-40s) on Tuesdays and Fridays.We tried to avoid doing English classes for as long as possible but so many have asked us to give them that we finally gave in.We had our first one last week and it went really well.Actually it was very fun!Plus we have been able to meet some new, good people.
Mat is planning the computer café for the Centro.Thank you to all who sent or plan on sending money!!!The community and we are very grateful to everyone for their support.You are all Buena Onda (good people) and amaze me with your generosity!While I am throwing shout outs, thank you to those who sent Christmas cards.We received Aunt Mary’s first of course.But also Joe Allan, both sets of parents, Grandpa Allan and Grandma Allan, and the Joliat grandparents!Thanks for the cards.It was fun to get so much mail!
Mat has also been busy helping out his friend who owns the local internet café.He has been doing free tech work for him and has found himself helping out about 3 days a week.He loves it. And when he is feeling less than thrilled about health charlas, he can go listen to the sweet, sweet hum of computers.
I have begun working on my secondary project: a series of presentations on the prevention of violence against women.With the wonderful help of SARNCO of Columbus, I have some great resources ready to be put to use.I also got together Guatemala specific information (stats, the law, etc.) and hope to make a pamphlet to give to various schools, churches and community groups in the next couple of weeks.For those of you interested in my series:1. Intro to the concept of Gender and how gender roles play a part in violence.2. Violence against Women 3. Rape and Sexual Assault 4. Sexual Harassment 5. Healthy Relationships.
Besides work stuff, we have been trying to get the internet.It is a little modem that the cell phone companies sell which then uses the cell towers/satellites for signal.It won’t be super fast here but will be great for research and emails.The problem is that the companies have the worst business model: make it as hard as possible for the consumer to buy your product.We had to get together so much crap.Three months of banks statements from both US and Guatemalan accounts, copy of passport, three months of some type of bill (which is in a Guatemalan’s name and it doesn’t matter whether you even know them-they just want to see some bills!), and even a copy of a Guatemala’s license.They may want more.We are waiting to be authorized at the moment.We have also been thinking about moving but we have very limited choices:adobe house and possibility of Chagas or living with one of Guatemala’s finest, a cop.I guess we could stay put too but if we get internet, we need to find a cheaper place to live.
That is about it for now.We would also like to add that it feels good to no longer be working for “W”.Work it Obama!
Here are a few pictures from the New Year.Love and miss you all!!!
¡Bienvenidos a 2009!
Antigua, Guatemala
Mat and Sarah hanging out at our favorite place to crash, Dia Verde.
The fabulous (L-R) Thea, Ellen, and Emily!
(L-R front row) Zach, Amanda, Lynn, Ashley, Ellen, Thea
(L-R back row) Dan, Mat, Sarah, Emily
(photo compliments of Lynn)
The famous Arch street where we rang in the New Year with some colorful friends!
(photo by Lynn)
Very vibrant!!! (again Lynn)
Mat and Ashley (below) with (L-R) Thea, Ellen, Lynn, Zach, and Sarah up top.
(Many thanks to Lynn the superhero for being the only one who brought out the camera!)
Cafe 2000, January 1: Mat, Ellen, Zach, Ashley, Dan
We just got back from Monterrico after a week of some serious vacation (click on the link to see more information). It's on the south coast and the town is very relaxed and truly feels like a chill Central American coastal town. Thatch roofs, sand roads, and lots of skin! It was a lot of fun. I have a lot of photos today.
Here are a couple of pictures from our site, first:
HOT!
Sarah showing off our orange-lacquered friend tofu, swiss chard, and sweet potato masterpiece.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now on to vacation pictures!
Our room in Monterrico. Notice the quality mosquito net. Still itching as I write this.
View of the cabaña (vacation home) we rented for a week.
Sarah, Thea, and Ellen relaxing.
Zach and I drowning
Thea, Kaying, and Ellen relaxing on the beach.
Christmas dinner! We had grilled fish and fried shrimp.
L to R: Thea, Kaying, Jane (standing), Anne, Ashley, Sarah, Zach, and Dan.
L to R: Sarah, me, Ellen, Thea, and Kaying
Ellen opening presents (Hi Ellen's Mom)
Dan showing off his white elephant gift with style.
Sarah and I, very tired
Sarah and Ashley singing and dancing
We took a canoe ride through the mangrove swamp one morning. Good view of the volcanoes.
L to R: Fuego, Agua, and the small two peaked one is Pacaya.
Sunrise in the mangroves
Dan and Ashlee
Mat on vacation
Sunset on the beach.
Baby sea turtle! They release them every Wednesday. People can pay 10 Quetzales (local currency here) to release them. There is some objection to the practice but at least they're working to conserve this vulnerable and cute species from extinction. Monterrico is famous for it's sea turtle sanctuary. (photo taken by Zach)
Dan, Sarah, and Ellen posing before they released the turtles. Zach is wearing the backpack and yellow hat.
For the rents
Homemade umbrella for when the sinus infection made me say "no more sun"
Me, Sarah, Thea, Ellen, and Kaying (photo taken by Zach)
Big ass toad! That is a 1.5L bottle, not the regular 600ml. Thing was HUGE
After one month of constant noise and buzz, the feria has finished! Less drunks and fireworks!
Here's a little something I wrote up at home:
NOVEMBER 30 END OF FERIA --- I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was as tranquil and relaxing as ours! We spent a nice night hanging out with a few close friends at La Iguana Perdida on beautiful Lake Atitlan (see pictures below!). It was nice to get away from the town for one day because right now the yearly feria is winding down. And when I say winding down, I mean fireworks and firecrackers until 3 or 4 in the morning. Thankfully today is the last day. It’s a great cultural experience and all but after about a month it starts to grate a little bit. It’s like the band at 5-7 in the morning (for a month, I guess that’s how things roll in Quiche). Ten years from now we’ll be waxing romantic about how fun it was to put up with those little annoyances, but for now I’m happier when they end. Work moved pretty slowly this week but I was able to get into contact with a guy about possibilty donating computers. He’s already offered me a few computers but I have to set up a meeting with the alcade (mayor) of our municipality to try and reach an agreement about the state of security in the health center. I’d like to have him secure it so that they can have a truly functioning lab environment… with a projector and all so some teaching can happen – maybe even by me! I’m trying not to get too excited about it, but it’s becoming more of a possibility as the months roll on. (Thanks to Sarah and Ana Isabel for all of the support and encouragement in this process! Couldn’t have done it without them) Well, I’m more of a visual person so I’m just going let the pictures do the talking! I hope December goes well for everyone. Don’t freeze! It’s the start of our dry season here so I can’t really feel everyone on the snow and ice and cold. I think it hit 85-90 in the sun today! Sorry… ;) *UPDATE: It is now tuesday and the temp dropped back down to 50 and cloudy. Grr!*
We are a married couple serving in a small rural community in Guatemala. The program we are assigned to is called Rural Home Preventative Health and we work in the small villages outside of our town by empowering community leaders through extensive training to take preventative health education into their own hands. See "What We Do" below for more details.
The views expressed in this blog do not represent those of the Peace Corps or the United States government and are solely those of the writers, Sarah Allan and Mathew Crane.
Power and control wheel for Sarah's Violence Prevention charla with the women's group at the Catholic church in town.
The women making their posters of different aspects of how violence affects the community.
The women's group! (background: Jesus)
Our weekly English class. We had them run a race to match colors from Spanish to English.
Sarah teaching the colors.
Mat teaching some grammar.
Baby sea turtle! They release them every Wednesday. People can pay 10 Quetzales (local currency here) to release them. There is some objection to the practice but at least they're working to conserve this vulnerable and cute species from extinction. Monterrico is famous for it's sea turtle sanctuary. (photo taken by Zach)
Me, Sarah, Thea, Ellen, and Kaying (photo taken by Zach)
Leidy, Lindsey (the baby), and Dilan.
More typical (and awesome) headdresses. They only bust these bad boys out for the special events it was great to get a few shots while we could
Random market shot. It would have been better if it weren't so blurry :(