Dengue Fever. Perhaps some of you have heard about the recent Dengue Fever scare in Guatemala. In the department of Izabal, there were two confirmed deaths caused by hemorrhagic dengue. Guatemala has a hot and humid climate, with a half-year rainy season, making it the perfect place for mosquitoes and all of the diseases they carry to flourish. Some areas of the country do not have problems with malaria or dengue fever due to the high elevations. In San Andrés we run the risk of both (plus Chagas Disease). There are medications to prevent malaria but unfortunately there are none to prevent dengue fever. You can use a mosquito net and try to keep still-water covered or prevent it from collecting. Besides those approaches to prevention you can blast your house full of instecticides, compliments of the Guatemalan government.

I must say that when there is a health crisis, Guatemala does get its butt in gear. Before there were any reported cases of H1N1, the Ministry of Health was quick to act. The same can be said for their reaction in this instance. There have been mosquito control programs here that kill both the larvae and the adults. But the ante is being upped; across the country in areas where the mosquito that can carry dengue is to be found, fumigators will be close by ready to spray the noxious chemicals all over your house.

Apparently, a few weeks ago, people from the Ministry of Health came round to test the still-waters in our town for the mosquito in question. Pilas (giant “sinks” used for washing clothes and dishes) are basically big breading grounds for the little buggers; they are always full and usually too big to cover. Our pila tested positive for the eggs of the mosquito and so an egg-assassinating, non-toxic, dust is thrown in the water. This past week the home fumigation began. The members of the fumigator team wear huge packs to blow the chemicals over everything that look very similar to the Ghost Buster packs meant for trapping pesky phantoms (they also wear matching suits that make it even more hilarious).

When it was our turn, we did not let them in our room but since we only have control over the space we rent, the owner of the house had the rest of the house sprayed. We also asked that they stay away from our “kitchen”, which is outside, although we did cover every inch of our belongings with spare bags. It was quite the spectacle.

After they finished and some of the smoke had cleared, the team noticed a bush in the front of our house with bugs plaguing it. No one could identify the type of bug but it looked similar to a bug called they call La Esperanza (the hope) or a katydid. I would first like to preface this next part by saying that the family we rent from is great. They are an incredibly warm, humble and gracious family that takes amazing care of us. They are also Seventh Day Adventists, which has not been an area of conflict in any way, minus the occasional proselytizing. It does mean however that they tend to get a little heavy on the end-times rhetoric. When the Doña of the house saw the bugs plaguing in the bush, she started taking about how “it is written” and going on to explain the beginnings of the Apocalypse. Well, the apocalypse was stifled that day by a second round of pesticides that knocked every last one of those insects to the ground. The kitten that lives at our house ate every single one! He was fine, but the day after eating all of those bugs that had chemicals blasted at them, all of the fleas on the cat were abandoning ship. We guessed that the chemicals maybe came up through the skin of the cat, seriously distressing the fleas. The night of the fumigation, all of the little insects started going crazy, running and twitching all over the place, and coming to their end. The next morning, scattered all over our room and outside were the carcasses of ants, spiders, and anything else that came into contact with the chemicals. It was a regular insect graveyard.

It has been several days since the big spray and Mat has been bitten more since the fumigation than before it. So was it in any way effective? I certainly hope so!..

Other funny little stories:

Two days ago, I was making dinner when a home invader sneaked up on me. It was a chicken! We chased her into a corner; I picked her up, and put her back in the neighbor’s yard (assuming that is where she came from). That night, I walked into the garage to go to the bathroom (yes, our bathroom is in the garage), and sleeping on the hood of the pick-up was our friend the chicken. The next day she was still there. She was obviously frightened because she wouldn’t eat or drink. We needed to find her owner. But you can’t just go asking people if they lost a chicken, everyone will say yes. The Don of the house asked around, minding the politics of country life, and eventually found the owners. She has not returned.

Yesterday our home was turned into a place of worship. The Don and Doña hosted a Seventh Day Adventist service in our courtyard. I was supposed to be having a meeting with my girls group but got the boot. The service lasted from 9ish to 12. Luckily, I escaped to the park with the girls until about 10:30. The owners did not give us any notice or ask if it was okay so I went ahead with my plans for the day and made bread in full view of the rip-roaring service. They went for a second round of praise in the afternoon but it was barely two hours. You know, I thought we were patient and flexible before the Peace Corps, but these little disturbances have made us into contortionists. Cirque de Soleil here we come!

Last weekend we went to visit our friends, Emily and Jaime, in their site. They live in a municipality in the northern part of the department Huehuetenango. To get there from San Andrés, we sat through 11 hours of traveling in the bumpy and ever uncomfortable camionetas or chicken buses. It was a beautiful journey though through the mountains, called the Cuchamatanes. There is a section called La Cumbre, the peak, that has a landscape unlike anything you expect to see in Guatemala. You travel all the way to the top of the mountains and arrive at a plateau that stretches for miles. Scattered throughout are huge boulders emerging from the ground. It is breathtaking! Unfortunately we did not get any pictures.

Los Fanjoy, as they are known to us, can see Mexico on a clear day from their kitchen window. Their town is 100% indigenous with the local Mayan language being Q’anjob’al. They live in the mountains where the clouds come together in some of the most amazing formations. Unlike where we live it is very cold. We brought and wore long underwear and fleece. Luckily while we were there the weather was unusually nice. It is the rainy season in the whole country but it is worse in the highlands. For us, it was sunny and warm all day, every day, which enabled us to do a lot of hiking. During our hiking adventures we encountered things that even Jaime and Emily had not yet had a chance to find.

We came at a good time for everyone. The Fanjoys have a great site. They were welcomed into the community from the get-go with a party AND fireworks. They had work from the beginning. While Huehuetenango suffered the second greatest amount of casualties during the 30 year armed conflict (only second to our beloved El Quiché, who had more than twice the number of deaths as Huehue), their town was relatively untouched. Obviously they were affected but not to the point that the people are overly wary or distrusting of outsiders, which has been one of our great challenges.

Last week came a startling and disturbing occurrence that shook them (for more info, check out Emily’s post). We were able to distract them from their worries for the weekend while they kept our minds off of our trip to the US. We ate a lot of great food and did a lot of hiking, which kept us out of our heads and in the moment.

They live in a little club-house with a very giving and open family. We played with kids and drooled over the babies. Mat and I were even able to use the chuj (pronounced “chew”) two times! The chuj is the traditional way of bathing in many of the cold areas of Guatemala and is essentially a sauna. We loved it! And since they use wood to fire the chuj, married couples chuj together to save firewood/money. You use the chuj every 2 to 3 days (or less depending on the economic position of the family) and when you see that it is time to use the chuj, you run your butt home to bathe. It is really a fun ritual and incredibly important culturally. When Jaime and Emily first arrived, their counterpart had to assuage the community’s worries that they were going to change their bathing routine.

Other fun things? Jaime and Emily planning to start a farm/cooperative when they go back to the US and are using their time living in the country to experiment with their future aspirations. They have two very lovely chickens and an extensive garden equipped with a very steamy greenhouse.

It was unfortunate that we had to leave so soon, but we had a lot of work to finish up. Hopefully we’ll have the chance to return…

It is high time we had a work update. Since we are less than a week from being in the US, it is especially pertinent that we write something before we go. Actually we have a couple of posts in the wings so watch out for the triple-post threat!

One of the goals of our program is to train others to give charlas or health presentations in their communities. San Andrés is 95% indigenous (or “natural” as they say here) and whose first language is the Mayan language Ki’che’, while only 5% of the populations is ladino, claim Spanish decent and usually only speak Spanish. People from the communities themselves are going to transmit the health information to their communities more effectively than we ever could. They are already members of the communities and therefore inherently trusted, they speak the language, and can more appropriately communicate the material within not only the Guatemalan cultural context but the Mayan culture context as well. We believe this to be the most sustainable part of our project and I have personally invested a lot of time, sweat, and money preparing everything for the trainings.

Our municipality does not have any promoters (well apparently some are actually contracted to be but they don’t do anything) so we spent 5 or 6 months convincing the doctor, who is also the director of the health center, that promoters are important.

After getting the doctor on board, we put together a plan, wrote up an oficio, something akin to an official letter, presenting the program and listing the different trainings that we would offer in the coming year. We have already successfully held two workshops. The first training took place in July in which we covered basic health and hygiene practices, an introduction to nutrition and how both affect one’s health. This past Thursday we completed our second workshop where we discussed the lack of potable water in Guatemala, illnesses associated with contaminated water and food, how to purify water and food preparation and care (covering food that has been cooked to protect it from flies and other nasty critters/washing foods eaten raw thoroughly, etc.).

We asked the mayor if he could provide the people that attend the workshops with a lunch and/or pay for their passage to and from the meetings. Some of the participants are from the farthest communities and pay upwards of 20Q ($2.40) for the round trip, which is actually a lot of money to the people here being that they are mostly subsistence farmers. Hell, that is a lot for us. The muni denied both requests which was not as much a surprise as it was a disappointment. Despite that, I think those that are coming will continue to participate. Mat and I pay for all of the materials (mostly handouts) and a snack. I wish that we could offer them more but these are the people that have an interest in the advancement of their communities and will continue coming without any other incentive.

We still have 8 workshops to go and plan to teach everything from the flu and respiratory infections to HIV/AIDS and domestic violence. Next May we will have the official graduation!

We have continued working in El Limón giving charlas. *Grant Update* The grant was approved at the beginning of the month and sent to Washington D.C. The check has already been sent to Guatemala but we will postpone it being deposited until after returning from the US.

Unfortunately the school year will be at an end when we get back from vacation and we won’t be able to return to the school where we have been working all year. It is one of the more entertaining and rewarding projects that we have going. The kids (with the exception of one class) are very receptive and the teachers incredibly supportive. The parents seems pretty open to the work as well. Once while waiting for classes to start, we were chatting with a mother whose children we teach. She went on to tell us that she had heard all about “Mariquita Cochinita“, which is the story of a little girl who had horrible health habits and fell ill because of them. Eventually she learned better habits, changed her ways, and lived as a healthy little girl happily ever after. The end. Simple story, right? But the kids love it! Songs are a big hit too or any activity that gets them out of their seats. Anyway, it was a small but proud moment that perhaps some of the stuff we talk about actually sticks in their heads and they even discuss it with their families! Official health class are nonexistent but obviously invaluable.

Computers for Guatemala

In July Computers for Guatemala finally sent the shipment we had long awaited. 10 computers! They were ready for pick-up in another department, Chimaltenango, and all we had to do was go get them. Like all things in the Peace Corps and Guatemala, it was not that simple. Mat piled into a pick-up truck with 4 other gents from the Centro de Salud AND a hallucinating man coming down off of an 8-day bender (he was “pulling floss” out of his mouth and yelling about insects – it is a funny/sad story that Mat should elaborate on in person). Mat spent the whole day getting those computers that, it was discovered, were missing mice and keyboards.

Mat eventually got those computers back to San Andrés. Since then he has been slowly collecting the missing pieces. One day he went with a couple guys from the Centro in the ambulance to buy computer desks. On the way back from Santa Cruz del Quiché (the department capital), they came across a recently flipped camioneta. Luckily no one was seriously injured, mostly dislocated shoulders, scrapes and cuts, but the chickens that were on the roof did not survive the tumble (R.I.P.). They did have to unload all of the desks while the ambulance took people to the Centro and wait until it returned to get them. Last time we were in Antigua he got a great deal on keyboards. Now the computers are only missing mice and power cables. Of course Mat has all of the appropriate software loaded on all of the computers so they are ready to go.

In the last month, I started a youth development group with a group of teenage girls. They are an amazing and energetic group that I’m very excited about. We’ll cover everything from communication to HIV/AIDS. Eventually, I’d like to train them on mentoring younger girls. That is the end goal as of now, but like all things, it has the ability to evolve.

There have been other things going on here and there that I’m sure to be forgetting. I can’t wait to talk to those of you interested while we are home in detail about what we have been doing. Our blog is a very watered down, censored version of our lives here because we really are not trying to ruffle feathers but rather share what our lives and the lives of the people we work and live with are like. I’m looking forward to questions.