Stories to tell my gringo friends.

Beautiful blue skies after 2 weeks of non-stop rain and clouds.

This always happens. I am so happy and proud of my blog posts, that I don't want to write any more. Or I think that I don't have anything to write about. So what has been going on since October 11th? Well mid-October saw the end of the rainy season. And it was quite the glorious moment to wake up not only to the sun, but to perfectly crisp, blue skies, as well. (I am forgetting how to correctly use commas, my 12th grade English teacher would be disappointed.)

Once the rains subsided, I was able to go back to school, which meant about 3 days of teaching. Then classes ended for the year, and they don't start up again until January. Here in Guatemala, the school year is January to October-November. And it would look like The States has more vacation time, but with all the holidays and meetings they cancel class for, it actually kind of evens out. So what is my plan until then? Well I have a bunch of planning to do for the next year, but most of that will be done tonight and tomorrow as I prepare for Reconnect. This month itself is actually very busy. I have been stuck (sometimes literally) in my site for about a month, and this month I will be stuck out-of-site. I have a full week and a half of meetings at the main office in Santa Lucia, and then I head to the beach for 4 days (yay!). Then it's back to Santa Clara, and I have no clue what I will do with my time. I am going to participate/help plan the HIV/AIDS activity on December 1st with my local Puesto. But that is all for official plans, but, in Guatemala nothing is really ever official, so SABER(who knows)! I have had a lot of time to think this month, and I have a couple ideas floating in my head, but the plausibility of those ideas needs to be worked out.

Crazy things that have happened since my last post (mostly negative, but funny now, stories):

-I was running a couple weeks ago, which I have started to do in Santa Clara, and not every single person laughs when I run by. Only most, yay, progress! Anyway, I was a block (not even 30 seconds) into my jog, and I had my earphones in. When I pass people I just wave, or if I can breathe, I say Buenos, etc. So I had my earphones in and I saw this man in front of me. I figured he was saying hi, so I gestured my hand to wave. Then he grabbed my arm, and was saying something I couldn't hear. So I took out my earbuds, and I didn't know what I was expected. He lifted his arms, as if imagining that he wasn't able to put them down. Then he said "gorda". I said "NO", and ran off. I was so mad, I couldn't think of anything else to say. I was running, in my own little world, and you thought it was important to stop me (make me leave my little world), and tell me that I am fat. Thanks, buddy. I have been called fat many times in site, but this one was the worst. I don't think that word will ever not sting. (I know all that sticks and stones stuff, but it still does sting.) I definitely wasn't expecting that when I came to country, but it's definitely another challenge to overcome.

-I left for the Sumpango kite festival on Monday, and I was getting on a bus heading from Km. 148 to Chimal. The bus was coming from San Marcos, and, naturally, it was super crowded. So this 50+ man made a small space for me next to him, and I said "gracias". He started asking me all these questions that regular Guatemaltecos ask me. Where do you live? Where do you work? How old are you? Are you married? Where are you going? I said Antigua, and he said he would be there later that weekend. He asked me if I like to dance, and I lied and said no. Then he told me he had been divorced 3 times (red flag!). Then the seat next to me opened up with more space, so I happily moved over. I saw him get out a piece of paper, and he was writing something. And next thing I know he was giving me his phone number, I had, literally, just met the man 5 minutes earlier. While trying not to be grossed-out, I politely said"no gracias". But that's not the worst part of the story. We had to sit next to each other for the next 1.5 hours. No, that's not awkward at all.

-My last story. So this happened with one of my students. I was having a really rough day teaching, and I was excited to teach Tercero because they are usually so good. So I did my lesson on careers, and I was then informed that it was my last day to teach there (not good communication, as usual). So I was saying how lovely it has been to get to know all of the tercero students, etc. (The schools I teach at have three levels, primero(1st), segundo (2nd), and tercero (3rd). So after tercero, I don't teach them again). So, the students were asking me questions about where I live, if I like it here, etc. And one girl raised her hand and asked "Que es su sexualidad?" (what is your sexuality?). I think my whole face did a double take, and I thought there's no way I heard that right, so I said "Como?, as if to expect a different question. She asked the same question again. I have never been asked that question in my life. So I quickly answered "Me gusta hombres" (I like men). Later, I thought about what I should have said. Heterosexual. Or I maybe could have opened the door to the discussion of homosexuality. Maybe this girl was questioning her own sexuality or just wanted to learn more about people who are different than her. Or I could (and should) have gone the "it's none of your business" or "that is very inappropriate" route. Then we could have opened a discussion about the importance of boundaries between a teacher and student, and that in the professional world you would never ask this type of question to a teacher or colleague. But, no, I had to go the "me gusta hombres" route. I thought about it, and I have literally never been asked that question. Where I come from, be that the United States or the South, you do not ask that kind of question, ever! I mean it just never occurred to me that I might be asked that question. It should have since I live in a culture in which the people get married between the ages of 14 and 20, and I am 24 and unmarried. So, that question was one for the memory books. Then the next question makes it ever better. She asked me "Cual es los nombres de sus padres?" (What are the names of your parents?) I told her, and she had a couple more questions, and then I left school for the day. But still, her first question is about my sexuality, and the second is what are my parent's names. Really?!? What a random assortment of questions.

Those are my stories for this blog post. Guatemala continues to surprise me. Love it!

Paz y Amor

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain

I thought I loved the rain. The rain always gives me the opportunity to be lazy, which is a hobby of mine. The rain always lets me sleep with the soothing sounds of water falling on my window. The rain evokes me to think about meaning and understanding of my life and others. I have always been the person who was excited for it to rain. While the rain would be a hassle for others, I would be smiling, inside and out.

My values have changed. It been raining since I arrived in Guatemala, which was almost 6 months ago. Now I was warned of the “rainy season”, so I wasn’t caught off-guard by all this rain. I was, however, caught off-guard by my reaction. Reasons I don’t like the rain here in Guatemala:

1.     I am always wet. My hair, my clothes, my skin, etc…I am never wearing the right shoes. I don’t want to wear hiking boots (which are my rain shoes) to school every day. I am trying to look professional.

2.     It’s so much more slippery. Now I am clumsy, but with the rain I fall even more. The dirt gets packed down, and then turns a shade of green. The shade of green means that it is very slippery. I get so many more looks when I walk on the slippery, packed dirt, because I am concentrating hard and going very slow.

3.     My clothes are never dry. Since I don’t have a dryer or a washer, my clothes must dry outside. And 60 degrees with hard rain is not a suitable environment for clothes to dry.

4.     Not being able to leave my town or go to school. The reasons being mudslides, cresting rivers, etc…

5.     I can’t enjoy this beautiful country as much as I want to. I go outside less, which is some ways is kind of nice, but mostly is absolutely awful.

6.     Boredom.

I have come to this conclusion over the past week. This week has been very rainy! On Tuesday, I woke up and it was raining hard! In Guatemala, it never rains in the morning, only in the afternoon and night. On Tuesdays, I have my school in Pasajquim, which is 1.5 hours away by mini-bus. It is a very long ride, with very bumpy, dirt roads. On Tuesday, I was worried about my ride, if it was raining in the morning; I hope the roads are okay.  The rain stopped, and I went to school. When I got home at 5, it started to rain hard. As I went to bed that night, the rain was so loud. I had to use earplugs to be able to sleep. I woke up on Wednesday, and it was still raining hard. Hello, Tropical Depression 12-E! Not good. Wednesday, we had no electricity until about 1. Schools were canceled, and Peace Corps put us on Standfast. (Standfast means that I can’t leave Santa Clara.) I taught UNO to my family, and we played for about 3 hours. The electricity finally came back on, and I could charge my phone (I was down to one bar, which isn’t good in situations like these). On Thursday, classes were cancelled again. Yesterday, I was supposed to have a Peace Corps meeting in Sololá, which I was looking forward to, and that was cancelled.

Now I come to boredom. What have I done with all this time? Well I have played UNO with my family. Tried organizing all my papers, which I didn’t finish. I have spent a lot of time on the Internet. What have I been watching? Well I downloaded Modern Family, Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office. In the movie department, I watched V for Vendetta (Occupy Wall Street reminded me of this awesome film), Horrible Bosses twice, and I am currently downloading Magnolia. I have finished one book, and am halfway through the next one. Could I have done some work, yes! I am so bored, that can’t see myself doing any.  It’s not logical at all. I hope to do some today, but I don’t have a lot of faith in myself in this area.

I haven’t seen blue skies in I don’t I know how long. I haven’t seen the sun since Monday or Tuesday. I might be having affects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I am trying to enjoy the lovely sound of rain, but it gets difficult when it’s all you hear. I know walking to my mirador of the lake would really boost my spirits. However, it’s raining, and it’s too cloudy to see Lago de Atitlan anyway. This rain is supposed to end soon, so I will get my lake view in a couple of days. And no pictures have been taken this week, because I didn’t want to get my camera wet.

And, I should mention this. There have been many mudslides, cresting rivers, falling rocks, etc with this particular storm. Right now, even if I wanted to go to San Juan, Sololá, or Xela, I couldn’t.  So many people have been affected by this storm. There have been more than 20 deaths. I don’t have it that hard; I am just bored and dealing with a small case of SAD. There are people who have lost their family members, homes, cars, and businesses all in a matter of days. I am keeping those people in my thoughts and trying to be positive about their future.

Anyway, I know that by early April, I will be saying “Where is the friggin’ rain???? I want it!” The grass is always greener on the other side.

Paz y Amor.

Parties and Teaching

What to write about this week? Well last week, my family had a birthday party for my two sisters. They told me about it about two days before, and I already had plans to go to Pana, but they kept hounding me and I was guilted into going. It actually ended up being really fun. It started at 2, and ended at like 6. It was nice just to watch the kids play. I led an awesome game of musical chairs, they really liked it! My host sisters, Andrea and Vivian, each had kids over from their classes, they had their own cakes, and they got some awesome gifts. (I got them each some nail polish!) It was also really nice to be able to bond with the adults in my family. For example, I bonded with my host dad's mom. Who I thought only spoke Quiche. Nope, she speaks awesome Spanish. After an awesome dinner of Tamal and Coke, I crashed into bed.

Let me explain what Tamal is. In other parts of the country and the world, it is called Tamales, but in my family in Santa Clara, it is called Tamal. So you place rice, a piece of chicken, and some sort of sauce inside a big leaf. I can't remember the name of the plant, but I remember what it looks like. (I am being a bad Peace Corps volunteer now, not remembering an important part of Guatemalan culture!) Then they wrap the leaves and cook all the Tamals together. For instance, at the birthday party, they cooked a lot of them. They were put in a very large pot (I probably could have sat in the pot, that's how big it was!). And the pot was placed under the wood burning stove.

Finished product! So delicious!

This week I also had the volunteer leader of Youth Development, Jessica, come and help straighten out my life. She came on Monday, and because of our meeting, I now have a lot of new ideas for the future. Well the reason why I am writing this was I wanted to make a point that I had a great morning, so I can write about my afternoon. So I went to my school here in town, and I had three charlas to give. My charla with Primero (1st in middle school, like 5th or 6th grade) went well, as well as it could go with Primero. Then came Segundo. Ahh Segundo. At this school, there are two classes of Segundo, so I put them together to give them the charla. Well these classes do not like to go into the other room for some reason. Whenever I tell them "Ok, let's go to Segundo B's classroom", they stare at me and each say "No quiero (I don't want to)". This same thing has happened for the past three weeks, so when it happened again this week, I was not going to let it slide. I went into Segundo A's classroom, and told them to come. They didn't. I went back a couple minutes later, and they were just chatting and now staring at me. I told them that "I don't have time for these games" and "I am the teacher, you all are the students" in my strictest, bitchiest voice. I was so mad! And then some of them still wouldn't come to the other classroom, so the director had to come and get them move! The director!

So after 10 minutes everyone was finally in the same classroom, and I could give my charla. It didn't go well. It was a charla on self-esteem, and I was going to do the activity where you have a piece of paper with your name at the top, and you pass the paper around, and your classmates write nice things about you. When I did this activity in middle school, like 12 years ago, I kept it for years. I would look at it when I was having a bad day, and it would help me feel better. Basically, it helped me raise my self-esteem. Because of this, I was so excited to do this activity with my kids. Well the problem was that instead of writing positive messages, some students were writing mean things about one another. I was so disappointed in them and a little in myself. In middle school you already have low self-esteem, now these kids are going to have lower self-esteem, because of what the mean ones wrote, and partly because of me, because this is my activity. I had no way of knowing which kids were the ones writing the bad words, but I would suspect the boys. I had to get some responsible girls to help me cross out words like "Diablo" (devil), and write words like "bonita". At the end of the activity, I gave a small lecture on the importance of being nice to your classmates, and how disappointed I was in the students who chose to be mean. I also said more on the importance of silence and respecting the teacher. It's not like most of them listened, but at least I said it.

This school is my worst, as far as discipline goes, and I have a lot of work to do in that area. Work with the students, teachers, and parents regarding discipline. My time at Catholic school, most notably St. Ann's, is coming back in a major way. While I hated my time at St. Ann's, and I still think that they were way too strict on middle schoolers, it was very disciplined. I want all of my kids from that Segundo classroom to go to St. Ann's and get a lesson in discipline. With homework slips, being quiet, and walking in straight lines. I know that I was lucky to go to St. Ann's, not to say that my Mom and Dad didn't have trouble paying for my sister and I. (It was expensive!) But I did have that opportunity. My parents really cared about my education. Not to say that the parents here don't, but there are different priorities. However, just because I did got to a strict, kind of expensive, Catholic school, doesn't mean that I don't think every child deserves that type of discipline. Especially in this culture, where education isn't has highly valued as it is in the States.

I never would have thought that I would be a teacher in a foreign country. Chelsea, a teacher? The jury is still out on the verdict there. But I am trying my best, and trying to improve my patience with my kids. But it was because of my education and the discipline I have that I was able to get here, and I want all of my students to know that. I didn't fly here with my own money. I flew here because I was qualified, because I had discipline with my studies. (Side note: Whoa, I am turning into my Dad, with the focus on "You need more discipline" and "You need to focus on your studies".)

Here are some pictures from the past week(ish):

Guatemalan women preparing food for the birthday party. 

Sunset in Santa Clara :)

Birthday girl, Andrea

Birthday girl, Vivian!

Me and my host parents

Paz y Amor

Môj otec, mi padre, my papa

Nels Anders Swanson, 1952-2007

I have been dreading this week since I found out I was accepted to the Peace Corps. Four years ago tomorrow, my life changed forever. I was a junior in college, sitting in Economics class. I looked down at my phone and saw that I had three missed calls in a span of a couple of minutes. Very odd, considering you don’t call over and over unless it is an emergency (I didn’t live in Guatemala, where they call over and over just to chat.) I had a voicemail, and it was from Bam. Now my grandmother, who my family affectionately calls “Bam”, is not a crier, at least she wasn’t back then. The voicemail was Bam with a VERY cracked voice telling me to call her back. I immediately knew something was VERY wrong. I started to cry as I listened to the voicemail, crouched down in my seat during class. I immediately grabbed my things and left the large auditorium where class was being held. I went out the back door, and as I went down the stairs to exit, I called Bam back. She answered as I was making my way to the door. I opened the door and felt the warmth of a beautiful October day. She gave the phone to my mom, and my mom said the six words that forever changed everything “Your dad has had a stroke.” The October sun faded away, and everything seemed to become dark.  The rest couple of days were a blur, and on October 4^th, 2007, we took my papa off life support and he passed on.

This is an oldie. My papa and I at a gallery opening.

Now back to the here and now. This week has always been difficult for me, as is to be expected. The past few years this anniversary has had its events. A Vandy-Auburn game on the first anniversary, the biggest family fight I have ever had on the second anniversary, and last year, my mom, sister, and I all got tattoos. This Tuesday will be the fourth anniversary, and I am not sure how I am going to handle being without a physical family presence. I know everything will pass, and it will be fine. I kind of don’t like it, that I am trying to make it just another day, it should be memorable. By Thursday, I will be back to my normal self. My current plan for Tuesday is to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of my Dad’s favorite movies, and have a beer. How am I going to get a cold beer into my house without putting it in the refrigerator and without letting my host family see? Something I need to work on.

Dad and I at a Reds game. Our last photo together.

This blog is all about me, and to help me with my grief over the day, I thought I might write some things about my Dad. My dad and I always had a special bond; I was definitely “Daddy’s little girl.” My sister still makes fun of how I got basically anything I wanted when I was around him. During the last couple of years of his life, I was in college, and that is when we really started to bond. During high school, I was still “the apple of my father’s eye”, but we would have many disagreements. Ok screw disagreements, we would have yelling wars. We Swanson’s know how to yell, it is in our blood. I think it was because I was a teenager. During college, that cooled down a lot because we didn’t live in the same house. We would talk about sports, the Swansons, movies, and about what was happening in our days. It was great. He was my dad. I miss him so much and what I wouldn’t do to hear “GERFFFFFF” one more time. My dad liked to make up weird nicknames for our family. I was Gerf, Hannah was Catish, and my Mom was Gam. Amazing parents raised me, and we all had a wonderful bond, and we still do.

Me, Papa, Mom, and Hannah at Uncle Bennie's wedding. 

Now I am in the Peace Corps, living in Guatemala, and for most of the day, I don’t speak English. I know that my Papa would be proud of me, and I am sure he would call and would want to know all of the details of my day. He would be so proud that I have learned a foreign language, and that I was doing my little part to make a difference in people’s lives. He would obsess over the safety. Right before he died, I was thinking about studying abroad in South Africa. One of the last emails I got from him (we were big emailers!) said some thing like “I think its great you want to go to Africa, but why not go somewhere safe like France?” It always makes me smile to think about it. I miss him, and think of him lovingly and humorously daily. 

Paz y Amor

Fotos desde el mes pasado

So, again, I have not posted in a while. Which really surprises me, because this month was kind of boring.  A lot of waiting for things to happen. This month I had a great time in Pana, elections happened!, went to Sumpango, and then back to site for more boredom. But I am finally on track with my schools, I hope! This week, I started to give charlas everyday, which I could not be more excited about.

So I have also been thinking how much I want to create a photo blog, however I just can't see myself as a person with two different blogs, with two different sites. So I have decided to make this blog more photo focused, maybe with my favorite photos I take from the week or something. I also need to investigate if there is a place here in Guatemala that can develop film. I have a nice Nikon camera in Nashville, but it's not digital, so I couldn't put it online. But I could play with aperture, shutter speed, etc, which I can't do on my current camera. I don't know, I should probably think about it some more. I might get my family to bring it when they come and visit me.

So these are my favorite photos from this month.

These are some people from Pasajquim, which is one of my aldeas. They are watching a parade of people , during the inauguration of a new building for one of my telesecundarias (like a type of middle school).

Jovenes wearing traje

A woman watching the inauguration of the building.

Una mujer looking into one of the empty classrooms...

Pana at sunset. :)

A man and child watching the Independence Day parades 

Marimba at a quinceañera in Sumpango.

Until next time. Paz y Amor.