Here is one cultural phenomenon that I just can’t quite seem to get the hang of- bargaining. I normally just let my host family take care of it. I learn what vegetables should really cost by watching Estella haggle like pro every Sunday morning at the market. When I wanted to buy a table cloth for my new house, I brought her along to get me the best price possible.
I figure I have a double handicap in the matter.1) Different currency, different market; I have no idea what things should really cost here. 2) I am tall and white; this means I always look like a tourist, and prices are automatically higher for me. Even my host family reminds me of this repeatedly. The only things that I have gotten really good at bargaining for are bananas and DVDs, and contrary to popular belief, you can’t live off of those two items alone. For these reasons, I am pretty nervous to head out to my site and face the shopping world on my own.
Recently I have found myself bargaining for strange things. I can’t decide if I am just becoming a savvy Guatemalan consumer, or if I am being obnoxious and accidentally bargaining at inappropriate moments. If the second is true, perhaps Guatemalans are simply too un-confrontational to argue with the crazed gringa. Take this afternoon for example. I used to pay monthly for my gym membership, but now that I am leaving in a week, I got special permission to pay per visit. Today when I went to pay, the women at the desk told me that it would be Q 15 because I used the treadmill. I innocently mentioned that her husband had told me it would be Q 10 per visit, and all I got in response was an “esta bien.” Is it really appropriate to bargain at the gym? Was she ripping me off, or did I just rip her off?
An even more blatant example of my inappropriate bargaining occurred on the bus the other day. Buses here don’t announce what they charge. Since people usually only travel the same few routes, everyone basically knows what they should pay. Seeing that we are foreigners, ayudantes who collect the fares often assume we don’t know the prices and try to overcharge us by not giving change. This has happened to me and my friends multiple times, and the ayudantes have absolutely no shame when you confront them to get your correct change. Coming home from my site visit, I boarded a bus from Chimal to my training site. I handed the ayudante a 5, expecting Q2 back in change. When he turned to charge the next passenger, I politely asked for my change. I was outraged when he told me that it was Q5 exactly and argued that he should only charge me Q3. Imagine my sense of self-satisfaction when he grudgingly gave me my Q2 in change. Now imagine my embarrassment when I soon remembered that I usually pay Q4 on that route, and when my host family confirmed my fears that some buses do actually charge Q5. They of course, got a huge laugh out of my bold actions and my brilliant reasoning that in the other direction Q5 can get you three times the distance. I, however, just felt like an jerk.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Bus Strike and My Ensuing Boredom
Today I woke up early, got dressed quickly, and was well on my way to getting to the PC center not only on time, but early! Then I received a phone call that there were no buses and the highway to the capital was blocked. Now, I lived in Argentina, so I am used to strikes and burning tires in the middle of the road. But from my experience, these strikes are usually to demand something from the government- a raise in teachers’ wages, more classes in the public university, or better health care. In this case, however, the buses are privately owned companies that are striking to raise pasaje (the amount they charge from one location to another). I guess it almost makes sense if the drivers are asking to raise pasaje and striking against their own companies who don’t want to, but I am not convinced that that is the case. Another possibility is that the strike is to show passengers how much they need the buses so that they won’t get mad when prices are raised. But why wouldn’t a private company just raise the prices when they wanted to? Or it is possibly a problem between unions. I am obviously still missing some important pieces of this puzzle. I will continue to contemplate the situation while I wait for instructions from PC.
While I am here with nothing to do, I would like to share one way in which I have contributed to this country so far. I taught my host-family to pop popcorn in the microwave. Life changing, I know. They have had a microwave for a while, but it was broken until a cousin fixed it. So then I taught them to pop their own popcorn and it was like Christmas. I knew I should have put my microwave skills on my resume.
While I am here with nothing to do, I would like to share one way in which I have contributed to this country so far. I taught my host-family to pop popcorn in the microwave. Life changing, I know. They have had a microwave for a while, but it was broken until a cousin fixed it. So then I taught them to pop their own popcorn and it was like Christmas. I knew I should have put my microwave skills on my resume.
Site visit in one reallly long post
First off- I want to let all of you who dearly love me know that your text messages from the internet worked and made me extremely happy, even if I was to cheap to respond (or you had already signed offline by the time I checked my phone). Thanks so much!
This past week was a big one. I met my Guatemalan counterpart with whom I am going to work the next two years and got to visit my site. At first I was a bit apprehensive about my site placement. From the description it sounded a lot like what I hadn’t wanted in a site. But as we left the Inter-American Highway and wound up through the forest with deep gorges on one side and high mountains on the other, it was love at first site.
Although it is bigger than where I currently live, it has a small town feel. It has wide, nicely paved roads that will be great to bike or run on; these nice roads even stretch out from the town toward the aldeas. It is an athletic community, which has its own 10k every year. The population is mostly indigenous, which means that I will soon be learning to speak Kachiquel, which I am very excited about.
Every volunteer has a host organization and a host counterpart. Our host organization is the Ministry of Education, and our counterpart is the supervisor of 88 schools in the municipality we work in. Laura (my partner) and I have 26 schools out of those 88 that we work in. Luckily, four of those are already certified. Although I was a bit intimidated by our counterpart on our first meeting, a few borderline-inappropriate jokes soon set me at ease. The only problem is that every time he presents us he tells a story about an 18 year old PCV who worked there years ago and asks the school directors to support and help us because, after all, how they would feel if their children were in a different country all alone? Very sweet, but not helping our professional image. Still, he seems very pilas and dedicated to the program. During our week long visit to our site, we got the opportunity to present ourselves so some very large groups of people (something that I guess I’ll have to get used to) and have our first meeting with representatives from our schools. I still can’t decide how that went as there were many jokes made that I didn’t understand, and only about 1/3 of our schools signed up for initial visits. Contacting all of our directors and finding all of our schools will be quite an adventure.
I also found the house/apartment that I will be living in for the next 2 years! I got lucky and am taking over a house from the current volunteer there. The best part is that I can move in as soon as I want because it is in a family complex! Laura and I already cased all of the paint stores in town in preparation for the redecoration of our casas! I think Guatemala will be good for my indecision problems. In the US its torture for me to pick 1 out of the 20 different shades of white that you can find at Lowes. Here we found less than 20 different colors of paint in total. We could decide which colors we liked by walking around town and looking at the colors of all the buildings.
I decided to spend my first month living with a family that the current volunteer is friends with to help me integrate into the community and meet people. The moment I met them, I knew I wanted to live with them even though it will be bucket-bathing all the way. They are so sweet that they didn’t even want me to pay rent and managed to avoid the whole negotiation of rent discussion. Of course, as an American coming from a culture that is all about the exchange of goods, this made me very uncomfortable. I finally called them the day before I left to confirm that I could live there and tell them what I was going to pay them. “ Pay for what?” the wife asked. We’ll see how that turns out.
Guatemalans, from what I have experienced, are incredibly giving and generous. One day on our site visit, three boys from one of the rural schools that the current PCV works in came over and ended up showing us around town a bit. As we were walking, they disappeared into a tienda, from which they emerged with four mangos- one for me, one for Laura, one for the current PCV, and one to share between the three of them. I was deeply touched by this unnecessary and selfless gesture by such young boys.
The same type of hospitality was also extended to us by one of the families the current volunteer is friends with. We were lucky (and unlucky) enough to be in our site the day of the first big rain of the year. Coming from a meeting with no umbrella and wearing nice clothes, Laura and I tried to wait it out in the giant grocery store (yes I can buy cheese and yogurt and all kinds of useful things in my town!), but eventually decided we better make a run for it. I didn’t realize how high the water had gotten until I started running through the street and couldn’t find my way around the currents of water. I must have made a pretty good first impression in the town, running through the streets like a crazy person and yelling things that I hope no one understood in English. When approached the house, I quickly realized that we were on the wrong side of the street, and were basically held captive there by a foot or more of disgustingly gross water between us and the other side. I finally understood the need for the incredibly high sidewalks. I didn’t want to expose my nice flats to that filth, but also couldn’t bear the thought of going barefoot through the muck. So Laura and I ducked into a store owned by friends of the PCV to make a game plan. We were quickly invited in to drink coffee, eat some bread, and dry off while we waited for the water to go down. An hour later the rain stopped and we were on our way, down a makeshift gangplank placed against the sidewalk by our host, so we could avoid the last of the water left in the streets by the deluge.
This post is so long that I decided to give a prize for those of you who made it this far- something to ponder:
What is with the human obsession with death? Why does my host family run to our terazza to watch the funeral processions every time the bells start tolling? Men follow the casket on one side of the street, women on the other, and we stand and watch as the procession winds past our house up towards the cemetery. Are we just that bored??
This past week was a big one. I met my Guatemalan counterpart with whom I am going to work the next two years and got to visit my site. At first I was a bit apprehensive about my site placement. From the description it sounded a lot like what I hadn’t wanted in a site. But as we left the Inter-American Highway and wound up through the forest with deep gorges on one side and high mountains on the other, it was love at first site.
Although it is bigger than where I currently live, it has a small town feel. It has wide, nicely paved roads that will be great to bike or run on; these nice roads even stretch out from the town toward the aldeas. It is an athletic community, which has its own 10k every year. The population is mostly indigenous, which means that I will soon be learning to speak Kachiquel, which I am very excited about.
Every volunteer has a host organization and a host counterpart. Our host organization is the Ministry of Education, and our counterpart is the supervisor of 88 schools in the municipality we work in. Laura (my partner) and I have 26 schools out of those 88 that we work in. Luckily, four of those are already certified. Although I was a bit intimidated by our counterpart on our first meeting, a few borderline-inappropriate jokes soon set me at ease. The only problem is that every time he presents us he tells a story about an 18 year old PCV who worked there years ago and asks the school directors to support and help us because, after all, how they would feel if their children were in a different country all alone? Very sweet, but not helping our professional image. Still, he seems very pilas and dedicated to the program. During our week long visit to our site, we got the opportunity to present ourselves so some very large groups of people (something that I guess I’ll have to get used to) and have our first meeting with representatives from our schools. I still can’t decide how that went as there were many jokes made that I didn’t understand, and only about 1/3 of our schools signed up for initial visits. Contacting all of our directors and finding all of our schools will be quite an adventure.
I also found the house/apartment that I will be living in for the next 2 years! I got lucky and am taking over a house from the current volunteer there. The best part is that I can move in as soon as I want because it is in a family complex! Laura and I already cased all of the paint stores in town in preparation for the redecoration of our casas! I think Guatemala will be good for my indecision problems. In the US its torture for me to pick 1 out of the 20 different shades of white that you can find at Lowes. Here we found less than 20 different colors of paint in total. We could decide which colors we liked by walking around town and looking at the colors of all the buildings.
I decided to spend my first month living with a family that the current volunteer is friends with to help me integrate into the community and meet people. The moment I met them, I knew I wanted to live with them even though it will be bucket-bathing all the way. They are so sweet that they didn’t even want me to pay rent and managed to avoid the whole negotiation of rent discussion. Of course, as an American coming from a culture that is all about the exchange of goods, this made me very uncomfortable. I finally called them the day before I left to confirm that I could live there and tell them what I was going to pay them. “ Pay for what?” the wife asked. We’ll see how that turns out.
Guatemalans, from what I have experienced, are incredibly giving and generous. One day on our site visit, three boys from one of the rural schools that the current PCV works in came over and ended up showing us around town a bit. As we were walking, they disappeared into a tienda, from which they emerged with four mangos- one for me, one for Laura, one for the current PCV, and one to share between the three of them. I was deeply touched by this unnecessary and selfless gesture by such young boys.
The same type of hospitality was also extended to us by one of the families the current volunteer is friends with. We were lucky (and unlucky) enough to be in our site the day of the first big rain of the year. Coming from a meeting with no umbrella and wearing nice clothes, Laura and I tried to wait it out in the giant grocery store (yes I can buy cheese and yogurt and all kinds of useful things in my town!), but eventually decided we better make a run for it. I didn’t realize how high the water had gotten until I started running through the street and couldn’t find my way around the currents of water. I must have made a pretty good first impression in the town, running through the streets like a crazy person and yelling things that I hope no one understood in English. When approached the house, I quickly realized that we were on the wrong side of the street, and were basically held captive there by a foot or more of disgustingly gross water between us and the other side. I finally understood the need for the incredibly high sidewalks. I didn’t want to expose my nice flats to that filth, but also couldn’t bear the thought of going barefoot through the muck. So Laura and I ducked into a store owned by friends of the PCV to make a game plan. We were quickly invited in to drink coffee, eat some bread, and dry off while we waited for the water to go down. An hour later the rain stopped and we were on our way, down a makeshift gangplank placed against the sidewalk by our host, so we could avoid the last of the water left in the streets by the deluge.
This post is so long that I decided to give a prize for those of you who made it this far- something to ponder:
What is with the human obsession with death? Why does my host family run to our terazza to watch the funeral processions every time the bells start tolling? Men follow the casket on one side of the street, women on the other, and we stand and watch as the procession winds past our house up towards the cemetery. Are we just that bored??
Friday, March 12, 2010
Exiting Stuff: My Partner and Texting!
I have very exciting news! After weeks of anticipation, we finally found out who our partners are going to be. Our Peace Corps program is very different in that we will be working in pairs, so it won’t be the stereotypical, only gringa for miles around experience. I was really lucky to be paired with my friend Laura. The coolest thing about this pairing (well one of the coolest things) is that Laura and I have a mutual best friend back at home. Because Laura is from Texas, I am from Florida, and our mutual friend is from California, I hadn’t met her before Peace Corps. I had only been told about a thousand times how much I would like her before either of us even joined Peace Corps. It’s like being set up on the ultimate date.
In other news, I was finally really appreciative of the business-casual-but-outdoorsy type clothes I invested in for Peace Corps, when a morning workshop with teachers was quickly followed by a dusty hike through the mountains in the hot sun. My Patagonia flats really pulled through, though the girls that were hiking with us in their jellies seemed to have no problem. We finally found what we were looking for- the spring that is serving as a new water source for our school. Unfortunately, it appears that their water is being stolen from the tank at the spring and not making it to the school. Hopefully that will be resolved soon.
At school they were also getting ready for the town festival in a few weeks. Every town has its own yearly festival according to the town’s saint. It was interesting to have my evangelical host dad explain to me how almost every town is named after a catholic saint and even the ones who aren’t, have their own saints who the whole town celebrates in a yearly festival. Only then did I realize how many San Somethings there are around here.
Another important news flash! I just found out that any of you can text me for free from the internets. You just have to go to www.tigo.com.gt and click on mensajitos then enter my phone number and text me for free. I can even respond to you back on the computer! So that’s another reason for you to ask for my digits!
In other news, I was finally really appreciative of the business-casual-but-outdoorsy type clothes I invested in for Peace Corps, when a morning workshop with teachers was quickly followed by a dusty hike through the mountains in the hot sun. My Patagonia flats really pulled through, though the girls that were hiking with us in their jellies seemed to have no problem. We finally found what we were looking for- the spring that is serving as a new water source for our school. Unfortunately, it appears that their water is being stolen from the tank at the spring and not making it to the school. Hopefully that will be resolved soon.
At school they were also getting ready for the town festival in a few weeks. Every town has its own yearly festival according to the town’s saint. It was interesting to have my evangelical host dad explain to me how almost every town is named after a catholic saint and even the ones who aren’t, have their own saints who the whole town celebrates in a yearly festival. Only then did I realize how many San Somethings there are around here.
Another important news flash! I just found out that any of you can text me for free from the internets. You just have to go to www.tigo.com.gt and click on mensajitos then enter my phone number and text me for free. I can even respond to you back on the computer! So that’s another reason for you to ask for my digits!
Monday, March 1, 2010
monte-day
All Monday plans were canceled at the last minute…including school…again. I was pretty frustrated at being faced with what I felt like was another day being useless. But then my host family suggested that we aprovechar my free day and go visit their land in the monte. They have been promising to take me for a while, but I haven’t had a totally free day. So in the morning my host mom, aunt, baby sister, and I set off. For the trip I put on my tennis shoes, Berta put on her platform sandals. I carried the diaper bag, Berta carried the baby, and Estella, a machete. Sweet. Their land isn’t far outside of town, but out there it was sunny, windy, and quiet. Beautiful. On their land they plant corn, frijoles, and now they have cilantro- my favorite! They also have peach and avocado trees. I had lots of fun being tall, knocking down avocados with a big stick, and making Berta take pictures. But then host-grandfather, who had been tillin’ the land all morning, had to show me up by climbing up into an avocado tree to bajar some aguacates. Thus, to my list of life goals I added, “to still be able to climb trees when I am an anciana.” (Other life goals include becoming a tuk-tuk driver and growing my own cilantro). Besides the avocados, we also gathered some frijoles, a chilecayote (looks like a watermelon, tastes like…?), and food for the rabbits. I was wondering how we were going to get it all home when Estella produced a big piece of fabric. I loaded up our harvest, tied together the corners of the fabric, and loaded it onto my back. I have never felt so legit in my life. Walking home I realized that if someone were to take a photo of me at that exact moment, it could probably be in one of those Peace Corps brochures that I spent so much time pouring over while I was dreaming about becoming a PCV. I’ve still got another month until that actually happens, but for a day of being useless, Monday turned out to be pretty great.
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