Camionetas: Classics

My favorite camioneta classic? The Spanish version of “My Heart Will Go On,” hands down. The words may be different, but the feeling is the same every time it is played on the camioneta. It occurred to me while enjoying the melodious tones of this classic on a recent trip, that I spend way to much time on these sardine-can-like-vehicles-of-joy to not be writing about them on my blog.

When pondering the mystery of the camioneta, the first thing to consider is the issue of where all of these circa-1980 U.S. school buses came from, and how they got here. The sheer volume of their presence throughout the country is staggering. Did they all caravan down through Mexico? Were they shipped on a ship? Taken apart and transported piece by piece? It may always remain a mystery. But here they are, the Guatemalan versions of “pimp my ride,” painted bright colors and decked out with racks, rails, ridiculous stickers, and tassels. Each bus company has its own color pattern so they can be recognized from far off and can be boarded with barely a full stop. On these babies, the rule-of-thumb is three to a seat and “corranse pa’ atras jovenes.” This is simply a friendly reminder to keep squishing towards the back in the aisles as more people pile on from both ends. The very daring hang out the front and back doors and on the back ladder as we pummel down the highway at break-neck speeds.

But the bravest and most agile of all is the ayudante. His job is to pass through the aisle collecting bus fares, which vary depending on your starting and ending locations, and you just have to know. Because the aisle is often packed with people, ayudantes are a mix between shape-shifters and monkey-like humans. The worst are the fat ayudantes who force you into strangers’ laps when they pass. But the best pass through the press of people nimbly, or collect fares through the window from the outside of a moving bus. They scurry up to the roof from the front of the bus, and magically appear at the back door for more fares.

Camioneta drivers share my father’s view that the biggest one on the road wins, but apply this belief with much greater conviction in the absence of concretely enforced traffic laws. During a traffic jam the other day, my camioneta simply veered off into the lane of on-coming traffic and continued on its way. When faced with approaching cars, we moved a “lane” over to the left, which was actually just the cement area in front of all of the stores on that side of the road. I’m still not sure how we finally got back into our lane.

I like riding camionetas for the music, the company, and the leg room, but most of all, because they are the major form of transportation here, and help me feel like I do actually live here. They link the whole country, and are surprisingly reliable despite the general lack of an apparent schedule.

Unfortunately, camionetas have recently become an area of concern for those who monitor our safety as PCVs, and of great danger for many who rely on them for daily transportation. In the past month there has been a string of bombing and grenade attacks on camionetas (and other buses) leaving Guatemala City. I’ve heard that these attacks are related to the extortion of bus companies (which is a common reality here), competition, and politics. For now we are not allowed to use these buses to leave the capital, which basically means for me no more movies or grocery shopping trips there for a while. But for Guatemalans who have to travel in and out of the capital for work every day, it’s a much more serious risk they don’t have the choice to avoid.

Our Job and Some Thoughts on Development

Its raining again, I don’t know if you can tell by the picture. It reminds me of college when we would put too many clothes in the dryer and they wouldn’t dry. I couldn’t wait for the rain to stop, I had to do laundry, so I put on my rain boots, rain pants, and rain jacket, grabbed my umbrella, and made the trek across town where I have found someone with a washing machine who I pay good money to wash my clothes. Its totally worth it. My clothes and my hands love me for it. What I have yet to find, is a dryer. All that to say, its raining again, and thus I have decided to sit down and write an overdue blog entry.

There have been many things over these past few weeks that I have wanted to write about:
1) The ride we got to school with some men buying pigs who drove us all over creation while one of them told us about his experience in the US. His view on the welfare, “the US is great because the government pays you to have kids and you don’t have to work,” almost made my liberal self want to abolish all social welfare programs.

2) The teacher who called a requirement to celebrate the Day to Abolish Child Labor a farce because “children work because of poverty.” This teacher made me realize the irony of this requirement passed down from the Education Supervisor’s office. A majority of the children who would be participating in these activities would go out later that afternoon to work in the fields to help support their families.

3) Here is the big one- our job and development.

After finally visiting all of our schools and completing my first three months in site (I can’t believe it took that long), I have made some observations about development both regarding my program, and other organizations that work in our schools. There are a multitude of charitable organizations that work in my town that cover a broad range of topics. Usually they come in, provide aid or projects, and leave. It has, and will continue to be, our privilege to see the impact of these organizations over the short term, because, as our APCD is always telling us- in development, 2 years is the very short term.

We have seen a school where all of the materials were donated to build latrines, but after building one, the parents decided that they didn’t want to build the others. So there the materials sit behind the school, where the children go to use the bathroom despite two flush toilets (which don’t work anyway) and one latrine. In another school, an organization donated tooth brushes and even taught how to brush teeth. The children all brought the toothbrushes home and promptly forgot about them. Now that we want them to bring the toothbrushes back to school, they all seem to have disappeared. In both of these cases, materials were provided, but from what I can see, what was lacking was information and follow up. If the parents of the first school don’t have latrines in their homes or know why using them is beneficial to their health and well being, they have no reason to want to build them in their school, and the children have no reason to start using them. Same with the toothbrushes- without a why, they are useless. And simply providing a “why” is not enough to change habits, it takes time, repetition, and lots of patience to change communal knowledge and practices.

Sadly, because so many organizations have operated in this way here, when we arrive at schools, it is what is expected from us. We constantly have to explain that we don’t have material resources, but that we bring information and support. Many schools react positively to this different approach, but I don’t think that they all realized that this program requires a significant amount of work on their part.
Another recent experience drove home for me the importance of institutional change in development. Our work here is mostly grass-roots, working from the bottom up. I feel that this approach is important to understand and really serve the needs of a community, but I am not convinced that this approach alone is productive in making real change.

Schools here receive money from a few different government programs, one specifically provides for materials to maintain the school infrastructure- brooms, wastebaskets, soap to wash dishes, etc. There is a very specific list of items that may be purchased with these funds, and receipts must be turned in. We saw that “soap” was on the list, so we have been suggesting to schools that they use these funds to buy hand soap. In a recent meeting with our supervisor, we found out that schools are only permitted to buy soap with which to wash dishes and rags, and not hand soap. The list includes floor wax, but does not include hand-soap or toilet paper. That means that if a school wants to purchase these items they have to ask the students’ families for the money, or buy them out of their own pockets. This is an example of how institutionalized health priorities are here. If not even the government thinks that it is gross to wipe with your hand and then not wash-up after, well good luck with the schools and the students. These basic supplies are never going to be available in all schools unless there is a change on the institutional level.

I hope that our program will be successful in tackling these development challenges. Laura and I are the first 2 volunteers in what is planned to be a 20 year program. Hopefully over those all of those groups of children that start in kindergarten and practice healthy habits through sixth grade, something will stick in the schools and in the communities. Our APCD is also working to get Healthy Schools made into a law; maybe this will be helpful in making changes on a higher level that will support teachers in making hygiene and sanitation a priority in schools.