I finished my Peace Corps paperwork and reports early on Wednesday, and with a final signature I was no longer a Peace Corps volunteer! I had Thursday and Friday this week to relax before flying home tomorrow. In addition to seeing the final “Harry Potter” film, I had two more despedidas. One going-away party was with my Peace Corps colleagues and our boss, and the other was with Kristine (my friend from the capital) and Sachiko.

I feel like there are no more “good-byes” left in me. After a rough week of farewells at site, I am too emotionally drained to do it again. Luckily, I will see these people again, and an “hasta luego” is a lot easier than an “adiós.”

I return to California tomorrow morning! I can’t believe I’m actually leaving, and that I will not be going home to the cornfields and mountains of my site. It’s going to be weird. I’m tired and I’m ready to go, but I will still miss my life here.

I’ll have a month at home, and in August I return to Harvard to study at the Graduate School of Education. I’m going to get a masters in International Education Policy, hopefully to one day work with the leaders of the Ministry of Education in countries like Guatemala. I had a passion for education and Latin America before I served in the Peace Corps, and my job here confirmed that I want to continue in the field of education. A great education—including life skills—can help youth like my students to achieve a future consistent with their dreams.

Through teaching at rural middle schools, I saw a foreign education system at the local level first hand. Many policy makers do not know what happens in those schools—that ninth graders sit in desks for pre-schoolers, or that teachers get offered tenure in August and the students are without a teacher for the rest of the year (both true stories from the same school). I hope to use my perspective gained in Peace Corps to continue to make a difference at the policy level.

Last week Elizabeth Alter, the volunteer who is replacing me at my site, visited for four days. My job was to show her around site, introduce her at the schools, and set the stage for a smooth transition. She will work in the schools for two years, and her work will focus on training teachers and parents to make “Life Skills” classes sustainable.

I enjoyed the chance to get to know Elizabeth, and we have a lot in common. We’re both super-organized (as she said, “Kate, I am one of the few people who would appreciate this beautiful hand-over binder that you created for me.”). We have a shared obsession of diet soda. More significantly, we both care about development work, and we talked a lot about how to make her Youth Development work here sustainable. My site is in good hands with her!

The introductions at the schools were Elizabeth’s “hello,” but for me it was “good-bye” to my dear students who I have seen grow into young adults over the last two years. If I had to pick a single strength of Peace Corps development work, I would say that the two-year commitment establishes the volunteer as an institution. My students cannot remember a school year in which I wasn’t a teacher, and I am seen as a normal, regular part of the community. It is a longevity and a rapport that short summer trips cannot achieve. The students and three gave me going-away parties (“despedidas”), and they were sincere adolescent gestures from the heart.

The students were really sad to see me go. When I had to tell my favorite class of students that I was leaving, Rogelio screamed in anguish, “¡NO! ¡No puedes!” We’ve shared so much together—through my classes, I’ve seen them grow in maturity and critical thinking, and they have come to respect me and care for me. Good-byes with students and teachers were tough, and there were tears. Some students stopped by my house to say good-bye, which was a welcome break from the incredible task of packing.

I also had despedida meals with my host family and the missionaries. I cross-stitched a table cloth for the Colops, the missionary family in town. I framed a collage of photos for my host family.

(you can click on the collage above to see it bigger)

When it actually came time to leave on Monday morning, I was sobbing so much more than I thought I would. I couldn’t believe that I would never walk through the door to my room or wash my clothes at the pila. I spent a year and a half with the host family, which is the longest that I have lived in one place since high school. Leaving was so emotional because their house and that town became my home, where I had a routine and friends. I was ready to leave and to move onto the next challenge, but the people and the place made my two years were a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it is difficult to see that go.

The consolation that I tell myself and that I told my students is that I will return someday (give me five years). Guatemala is so close to the US that I will be back. ¡Hasta luego!

Note: I have two more going-away parties in the capital, so this blog is not yet finished. Come back for more!

Houston, we have lift off! No, not the space ship, but a more precious cargo: PALOMA! After weeks of stress and many taxi rides, Paloma the cat is on her way to the US, flying as cargo on Continental. As of this post, her flight from Guatemala City has landed in Houston, en route to San Francisco.

Getting her out of the country was daunting and stressful. The vet in Xela had to examine her to issue a health certificate. On the bus ride to Xela, Paloma peed on me. I walked around Xela in underwear squishy with cat urine! Then I had to return to Xela another day, pay for the certificate, and pay a fee at a bank.

Bringing her to Guatemala City was another nightmare. The safer charter buses do not allow cats, so we had to ride on a micro bus. I threw two years of luggage on the roof, and I prayed that it would not fly off as the bus whizzed around the serpentine corners of the Guatemalan mountains. I held my breath at every corner, but we made it! On this trip I also wizened up to Paloma’s peeing problem. She still rode in a canvas bag, and I lined it with wee-wee pads.

Yesterday I took cabs all around Guatemala City to get Paloma’s export permit. The lines were long, and there was another fee. After four stops, I had all the paperwork she needed.

Today we woke up at 3am (the last time I got up that early was for the royal wedding). I packed my stuff, and we departed from the home of Kristine’s parents in Guatemala City. We had to be at the airport cargo warehouse at 4am because it takes three hours to weigh the cat, pay more taxes, get her approved by customs, and load her onto the 7am flight. I was exhausted, but again we did it!

Tonight she lands at 5pm California time. She cannot live with me in grad school housing, so what destiny awaits this Mayan princess in San Francisco?

Paloma will live with my wonderful aunts, Marcia and Suzanne. They are so excited to have her that both of them are picking her up from the airport, “one to drive, and one to hold her.” Both Paloma and I are thrilled that she will have a wonderful home and very open arms to greet her. Paloma will be the femme fatal to the two male cats of the family: Billy and Bob, who weigh 16 and 18 pounds (Paloma weighs a normal 9 pounds).

She will also live with Maddy the dog and three chickens, who will provide the sountrack and the smells of rural Guatemala (nothing like barking dogs and roosters to get you up in the morning).

Perhaps no one said it better than my former site-mate (and Paloma fan) Rebecca: “California will never be the same.”

My two years of service are ending, and I leave my site tomorrow morning! I have so many pictures to post and stories from my last week, and I hope to get around to it on Wednesday when I’m at the Peace Corps office. Currently, my life is packing, cleaning, and cat drama (which will feature prominently in a future blog post).

But as I say a final good-bye to this lovely community (whose identity Peace Corps does not allow me to disclose), here is a picture of me in my custom-made traje skirt overlooking the towel factory and across the valley from the center of town.

When I taught drugs and alcohol this quarter, to me it was not enough for the students to know that drugs and alcohol are bad. To truly be able to say “no” to drugs, students must be able to stand up to peer pressure, and they must be able to think of alternate ways of dealing with stress/sadness/boredom instead of drinking.

I assigned students a project to put all of these skills together: radio dramas. In the outline of the dramas, a friend pressures his/her companions to drink or use drugs. Then the friends respond with one of the four ways to say “no” to peer pressure (which we studied in class). Finally, the friends decide to do another activity—like eating ice cream—instead of drinking. The dialogues that my students wrote were excellent. They wrote about fictional characters confronting tough and realistic emotions, like sadness for losing a girlfriend or low self-esteem for failing a math test. In their dialogues they practiced saying “no” and responding to the pressure of their friends. If they can do in real life what they did for their project, they will be set.

Coordinating with Sachiko, my students and I appeared on her health-themed radio show to talk about alcohol awareness for teens. The students performed their dialogues on the air, and then I guided them to talk about the facts of alcohol and alcoholism.

The students were nervous, but they conquered their fear and truly excelled in a public way. Not only were they applying what they learned in class, but they were role models for other teens in the community. The show was a hit, and people from across town have told me how impressed they were with the students. I am so proud of what my kids learned and what they shared. For a lot of them, this was the first time they participated in a type of community service, and I hope their memories of the day carry forward in more community-based activities.

These three eighth graders biked to class this week. Correction: one of them biked, and the other two hung on for dear life. Their adolescent assurances of “Seño, we know what we’re doing!” did not allay my worries one bit.

For the final class on sex education, Sachiko and the doctoral student Lourdes from the health center came to two schools to teach about contraceptives. I thought the rain/no electricity/leaky roof/honking bus fiasco of two weeks ago was the worst that Guatemala could throw at a teacher, but this week the schools found new ways to make a tough job even tougher.

Throughout the nurses’ entire presentation the first day, the nesting birds in the rafters of the classroom darted across the room and squawked. I vaguely remember that the birds irked me two years ago, but I think the I stopped hearing them mid-way through last year. The constant chorus was a new challenge to Sachiko and Lourdes, but they powered through it.

The next day I planned for Sachiko and Lourdes to teach contraceptives in four different sessions. However, Teacher’s Day (which is tomorrow) is a week-long celebration, and the director wanted us to wrap it up fast so that his vacation could start early. Thus, the school crammed all 120 seventh-graders into a classroom to hear the presentation all at once.

We managed it, but just barely. Lourdes was speechless at the end from yelling so much, and the students practically assaulted Sachiko to get copies of the pamphlets she distributed (why a seventh-grade boy wants a pamphlet on breast-feeding as a way to prevent pregnancy is beyond me). Full disclosure: I knew the students would go nuts over the free pamphlets, so I fed Sachiko to the wolves by delegating to her the responsibility to pass them out. She’s taller than I am. She can fight them off better.

Despite the hurdles, the students asked thoughtful questions and followed along with most of the information. The main message, as always, was: as teenagers, the best decision for you right now it abstinence. But if you decide to have sex, you need to protect yourself by using a condom.

Finally, I have another tale of condom misuse. Lourdes told us that a husband and wife arrived at the hospital saying that their family planning method was causing stomach aches in the husband. When Lourdes asked what their contraceptive method was, the husband explained that every time he slept with his wife, he swallowed a condom…

At the town market this week, there were more livestock on sale than I have ever seen here before. But it wasn’t just what was on sale, it was how it was on sale. If intricate window displays rake in the big bucks for designer stores in New York, then I guess the Guatemalan equivalent is the promenade in front of the primary school.

The goats were so novel that when Sachiko and I chatted at the end of the day, we started our conversation with the same question, “Did you see the goats today?” Unfortunately, goats are not the must-have accessory this season, and I saw the vendor loading all 12 goats into a pickup truck to return them from whence they came. But maybe they’ll be baaaaack.

Eight of the fifteen Youth Development trainees visited me this week to talk about my work, see my site, and teach at one of my schools. Previously I gave two workshops to all of the trainees about the curriculum and classroom management, but seeing a volunteer’s work first-hand and actually teaching the classes is the best learning experience.

First the trainees visited my house (or more accurately: my room). Some of them were blog readers who knew about Paloma, and they asked her to model her royal wedding dress (Paloma did, and with dignity and patience I might add). I talked about the planning process of theater camp, and how to do year-long curriculum planning. I also answered their more practical living questions, like where to get a bedspread or a water filter.

When it came time to teach, the unfortunate trainees encountered worst-case scenario conditions. It was overcast and dark, and since the school has no electricity the students could not see the trainees’ posters or notes on the board. The pouring rain fell through the holes in the roof, creating huge and slippery puddles. The pounding rain also made it impossible to hear anything, and the incessant honking of the buses across the plaza didn’t help. The goal of these training activities was to build the confidence of the trainees, and after surviving three tough hours I told them, “If you can do this, you can do anything!”

I enjoyed getting to know the trainees during my few days with them. In less than a month I’ll find out which one of them is going to take over my work here!

I visited Rebecca’s old host family today. During the visit, there was a lot of commotion in the town plaza—a presidential candidate was coming!

[I have to lay out two disclaimers that pertain to Peace Corps policy. We are not allowed to participate in political rallies, so I viewed the event from the family’s second-story balcony a block away, literally “above the political fray.” Also, I cannot write about Guatemalan politics on my blog, so there will be no mention of the politician nor any political commentary. Just the spectacle of the event.]

The event was supposed to start at 1:30, but there were not a lot of people in the plaza. The plaza filled when 15 school buses arrived, bringing people from the surrounding communities who supported the party or who had received handouts from them.

The event finally began at 2:30 with the political equivalent of a warm-up act. The actors performed a skit about how this candidate helps people, and they tried to lead the indigenous women in cheers. It failed. As any educator of Guatemalans could tell you, in large groups indigenous women do not speak above a whisper (which has been the bane of student participation in my classes). Instead of energizing the crowd to cheer a rhyme about the politician, the speaker settled for, “Raise your hand if you support the candidate!” A few dozen hands raised in the air is not as impressive as three hundred people calling for a politician, but the fireworks more than made up for the lack of sound.

While we waited, 8-year-old Oscar, the most politically savvy kid I know, shared his views with me. He knew all about the divorce proceedings (“The average divorce takes three months, but they got theirs in one month for political reasons”), clerical duties (“If he runs, he has to resign as a pastor”), and campaign promises of the many candidates. He also shared insights like, “That politician looks constipated in his campaign poster.” Or, “The mayors always pave the road to their houses. In this case, I’m OK with it because I live next door to him.”

After candidates for mayor and congressman (“diputado”) spoke, someone came on stage and said that there was an emergency in the capital, and the candidate would not arrive. We had waited over 90 minutes for an anticlimax. The candidate’s slogan is “gets it done.” Not in this case.

The title of this blog post comes from a famous Dominican song “I hope it rains coffee in the fields.” A month ago when my site was a dust bowl of dry earth, I really hoped it would rain. Now that the rainy season is here, I am second-guessing my wish. Perhaps an important final verse of that same song could read, “I hope that it rains, but not so much that the roads wash out and I get covered in mud and have to wash my clothes, which for the record will never dry because it’s still raining coffee.”

Here are the events of an especially rainy day this week:

As I bike around my site, some houses take my breath away. Usually that’s not a good thing. “What were they thinking?” I ask myself. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly of rural Guatemalan homes.

First, I love these two colorful homes. I wish Americans painted their houses like this.

Next, these are the huge and hugely gross homes of my town. These people obviously have money from US remittances, but I don’t think they got much value for their investment. In trying to build a house fit for an American, they went too far. Brick, stone, wood, and glass are all lovely touches…but not when you do it all on the same house. The finished product is a gaudy mess.

The mayor from 2004-2008 left quite a footprint on the town. He built himself two adjacent mansions, and he built the four-storey market building.

In other architectural news, the municipality office was burned down in arson during the mayor's term, eliminating all evidence of how municipal funds were spent. (Further irony: the burning municipal building was across the street from the firefighters, but they didn’t have any fire hoses).

The previous houses may be out of your price range. To put some perspective on this tour, here is a sampling of what a more typical house in my town looks like.

My parents are remodeling our house in California. When I return home in July, if the house in any way resembles the homes showcased above, I will move out.

*update from a previous post*

Verónica Estefanía, one of my favorite students, is dropping out of eighth grade. She stopped by the school this week to finish her paperwork and to say good-bye. She shared with me her family situation (which was different from the news I had previously heard from her classmates, so I apologize for the inaccuracy of the previous post).

She told me that her father and older brother immigrated to Houston illegally four years ago, and recently he has sent home smaller remittances (the greatest source Guatemalan GDP, even more than tourism). Rumors are that he has a drinking problem, but who knows why he sends home less money? For years Verónica’s family has depended on an unreliable source of income and spent money thinking that the money would always come. Now they are short on funds, and Verónica has to drop out to work full-time sewing indigenous dress for Q65 a week (US$8) to support her mother and four younger siblings.

Verónica is the smartest, hardest-working student that I teach. When I assigned the students to research two professions, most students did not even bother to do the assignment. But Verónica investigated three careers. She is the first person to raise her hand in class, whereas most of the other girls are too shy to ever participate. She is full of questions, and we had great conversations last year about life in the US and the difficult consequences of illegal immigration.

I am so, so disappointed that she is dropping out. My site is losing a future leader and one of its few shining stars. I encouraged her to read the newspaper and attend English classes at the library, and she says that she will return to school next year. But typically here, when a student drops out, she is out for good.

Classroom management is a challenge in rural Guatemala. Either because they do not know how or because they have given up, teachers do not enforce classroom rules. Students pass through six years of primary school with no conditioning in the norms necessary for successful learning, and when they arrive in middle school, they (especially the boys) are entitled monsters. Too many middle school teachers are content to shout their lessons over the handful of student conversations and disruptions. Students have never been told to raise their hands to participate—calling out is the norm. Simply put, there are no expectations for student behavior, and there are absolutely no enforcement mechanisms. But not in the class of Seño Katalina.

A seventh grade class on Tuesday was the perfect storm: the students didn’t know me and were unfamiliar with my rules, it was right before recess, their regular teacher was out at a meeting, and we were studying sex ed (a giggly topic). I reviewed my rules at the beginning of class and explicitly stated my expectations for their behavior. However, like going four rounds in a boxing match, I had to pull out all my punches from my classroom management repertoire.

When the students delayed in opening their notebooks and stopping their conversations, I looked at my watch and started taking minutes off of their recess—6 minutes total.

Then when kids were paying for photocopies, one wild child screamed at me, “¡OTRO!” meaning that he wanted another photocopy. I have never experienced such disrespect from a Guatemalan student. I stopped, turned icy cold, and said, “Never speak to a teacher like that. That shows no respect. You are a young adult—act like it.” When that kid returned five minutes later to ask permission to go to the bathroom, I relished answering, “No.” That kid continued acting up, and eventually I had to send him to the director’s office with a 100-word essay assignment.

Then recess arrived. I told the class that I would count to 30 seconds after the bell rang at the end of recess, and if they weren’t in the room by then, there would be consequences. (As far as I know, no other teacher has this rule, and so most students extend recess for five minutes. I seem to be the only person who values classroom time). Despite my warnings, there were six late stragglers. I had already given out extra homework…what other punishment was left?

Taking inspiration from a conversation with a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, I pulled out the ultimate penitence: wall sits. During five minutes of wall sits, the six boys groaned, whined, and sometimes called out in pain. I felt like the Spanish inquisition—inventing terrible tortures to enforce conformity (but they deserved it). After that, I had 100% compliance from the class. No one else dared to test what horrors I would cook up. As I left school that day, the boys jokingly pleaded, “Seño, take us home on your bike! My legs hurt!”

The positive in all this is that the students eventually get it. The students from my classes last year know my rules, expectations, and hand signals. They respect me for it. I obserced a crazy class that another teacher was leading, and when I spoke up the room automatically quieted—they know that I will not talk over them. This week I’m giving a presentation to the new Youth Development trainees about classroom management. I’ll share my repertoire and provide tips…and I’ll definitely endorse wall-sits.

Paloma has a sixth sense for sitting on exactly the thing she shouldn’t be sitting on: a new towel I’m cross-stitching, the shoes I want to wear, and—most recently—photocopies. Although she has a special kitty bed and her own basket, but she would prefer to sit on the pristine, fresh photocopies that I’m laying out for class.

This week the volunteers in my training group from May 2009 (so long ago!) attended our final Peace Corps Meeting: the Close of Service Conference. More than anything else, we celebrated that WE MADE IT! We started as 32 people, and now our group is 21. Among the Youth Development volunteers, we were 16 in the beginning, and now we are a mere 8 people!

In a wonderful change from the US$3.50 hostels where we usually stay, Peace Corps put us in a beautiful hotel where we attended three days of meetings. There was time for reflection, resumé preparation, career search, and logistics of all the paperwork we have to complete before we leave in July. We also practiced interview skills; namely, how to talk about our work here without slipping into Spanglish. Quite literally, a conversation between two Peace Corps volunteers sounds like this:

“Yesterday I went to my aldea to teach a charla, and this joven wouldn’t stop molestaring. All of the other kids are so pilas, but he is not.”

“Do you know when the MARPS conference is?”

“Saber. Oh! On the camioneta the ayudante played the loudest banda music. ¡Púchika!”

During the reflection activities, volunteers shared their thoughts on their service. Some people “found themselves,” some people never want to leave Guatemala, others found Guatemalan husbands, and still more want to change the world in a big way. I could really note the changes in some people in my group.

Peace Corps to me was not about self discovery or the idealism of saving the world. I am much more concrete and realistic than that. I had a passion for Latin America and teaching, and this job was a way to do both of those things while helping people who really needed it. I “found myself” before Guatemala, and if anything my work here confirmed what I already knew. However, there were some new changes in me that I didn’t expect: a love (obsession) of cats, passion for cross-stitching, interest and learning about Japan, appreciation of living in nature, and the amount of TV I have watched (to quote my brother: “Kate, I work in television and am in front of TVs all day…but you watch more shows than I do”).

I have two months left to write my reports, to transition work in the schools to the next volunteer, and to get rid of the mounds of stuff I have accumulated. Not to mention that I have to eat my way through the 30 cans of tuna I have stored in case of natural disaster. There is a lot to do, and I’ll be busy! Speaking of which, I have to sign off to grade papers. ¡Adiós!

May 10 is Mother’s Day in Guatemala, and this Antigua-Guatemala City chicken bus took the celebration to a new level. Balloons decorated the entire bus. Perhaps in a misguided attempt to honor women and mothers, a TV screen on the bus showed videos of sexy young women in music videos.

On another bus, a vendor boarded the bus, recited poetry and Bible verses, and then gave banana bread to all the mothers. Out of respect for the real madres, I declined his offering, prompting laughter from the people around me. In a refrain I have heard too many times here, people remarked, “But she’s so OLD! How is she not a mother?”

Hey, don’t rush me!

My host sister Angela turns 14 today!

We’re having a party for her on Sunday, but today I gave her a present.

Adolescents are not good at long-term thinking or reasoning through consequences, which presents challenges when it comes to teaching them about the long-term risks of alcohol. Emotional dependency and liver problems seem remote to 15-year-old boys who can buy beer on any street corner.

When it comes to alcohol, local culture also sends mixed signals: the Evangelicals do not drink because it is a terrible sin, but alcohol is readily available and the men who do drink get completely wasted (it is culturally unacceptable for an indigenous woman to drink). The teens are caught in a do-don’t double-bind, where the option of “drink in moderation” does not exist. So adolescents either choose not to drink, or they get dangerously drunk.

To get the students to reason through the realities of alcohol, this week I taught a class on media literacy. They examined beer ads and compared the benefits promised in the ads to the real-life affects. What is this ad saying about people who drink? How do media messages compare with reality? Most especially, Gallo beer proclaims that it is the “pride of Guatemala”—is it? The goal was for students to do their own analysis of long-term consequences, and then make recommendations as to whether or not a person should drink.

However, the class hit a snag when the local teacher tried to “guide” the students in reasoning through the long-term effects of alcohol. My co-teacher is Evangelical, and his lecture went like this: “If you have one drink today, you’ll have two tomorrow. By next week you’ll need five drinks. You won’t have any money to buy more, so you’ll steal and end up in jail and then die.” He also believes that any alcohol consumption qualifies the person as an alcoholic.

The teacher completely missed the point of the activity. Just as the kids were almost arriving at a concrete understanding of the consequences of alcohol, the teacher creates an unrealistic connect-the-dots scenario in which alcohol brings certain death. (Only profound professionalism kept me from banging my head on the desk). The teacher also missed the philosophy of teaching: the students learn when they discover it for themselves, not when it is preached to them.

After the lesson, I gave feedback to the teacher about the “discovery” component of these classes. I still need to sit down with him and define “alcohol abuse” (more than 7 drinks a week for a woman, or more than 14 for a man). My job this year is to train teachers to give these classes, and so here’s to hoping that it goes better this week.

Tomorrow is the royal wedding, and Sachiko and I are spending the night at Virginia’s house to watch the coverage starting at 2am Guatemala time. My brother asked, “WHY?” Frankly, there’s not much going on in rural Guatemala (and as a side note, few people here are even aware of the event). We’ll live vicariously through the British.

Speaking of the Brits: for people like Paloma, who does not recognize American independence, the royal wedding is a big deal. Queen Elizabeth’s corgis invited her to the wedding, and Paloma passed along these pictures.

There has been much speculation about Kate Middleton’s dress, and Paloma’s outfit is no less noteworthy. To commemorate the day, she commissioned a couture plaid and sequin dress with hand-sewn embroidery. Never one to break with protocol, she topped it off with a hat. Only a feline fashionista like Paloma could pull off such daring ear holes. Avant garde, no?

Today I taught a class on puberty and adolescence to a group on eighth graders, some of whom were my students last year. I apologized for the repetition; however, when they could only name “getting taller” and “more hair” as the changes pubescent teens experience, I felt less guilty for covering the subject a second time.

So we talked about body hair, wet dreams, and Justin Bieber as a case of voice changes (he can no longer sing the high notes of “Baby” in the original key, and also proving that the teen idol is universal). When we got to menstruation, we ran out of time. “Until next week, you guys!” I said.

That’s when Jonathan, one of my favorite students remarked, “Aww. You were just about to get to the good part with the necklace.”

My mouth dropped open. “You remembered that?” And suddenly breaking away from the Spanish, I exclaimed, “YES!!!” with the fist pump of a World Series pitcher who strikes out the side. They remembered the necklace (collar) with the 28 days of the menstrual cycle (also used for family planning in the rhythm method). Some of this teaching sticks!

Seño Katalina walked home happy today.

Cold, wet weather dampened on the Holy Week celebrations, but the procession must march on.

I was sick with the flu all week (sadly typical at the start of the rainy season. The feces and bacteria in the fields wash into the water and people get sick). I missed the crucifixion reenactment and the fight between the Romans and the “Jews,” but I did venture out on Good Friday to see the alfombras (carpets) that Catholics create to greet the procession as people march about town.

I had two “aha!” moments in my teaching this week. I love it when what I teach suddenly clicks with the students, and in one “aha!” you can see it all fall into place on their expressive faces.

The first moment came during a demonstration in a class on alcohol called “What is a drink?” As we discussed the differences between beer, wine, and liquor, students said things like, “One shot will affect you a lot more than three beers.” Oh, really?

Using food coloring and water, I simulated three drinks of beer, wine, and liquor. The “drinks” all had the same amount of food coloring (representing the alcohol content), but different amounts of water so that the liquor was more concentrated than the beer. When we poured the drinks into three different “stomachs” (2 liters bottles filled with water) the kids were stunned into silence—the three bottles were the same color! The three drinks contain the same amount of alcohol! My students now understand the “concentration” of alcohol in drinks and in our bodies, and never again will they claim that beer is “safer” because it has less alcohol than a shot.

The second “aha!” moment came during a class on puberty. I’m starting the sex ed unit with a new group of seventh graders, and we began with puberty and adolescence. I’m not sure if it was in fascination or in horror (or both), but the explanation of menstruation left the kids speechless. I use a drawn diagram, a fertile collar (to explain the cycle), and a dramatic reenactment of a fallopian tube grabbing a floating ovum (OK, maybe that was what freaked them out). They hung on every word I said as the mysteries of life (and body odor) suddenly revealed themselves. I really like teaching that unit, and I look forward to the weeks ahead.

The sex ed course feels especially relevant in light of data from a survey that my teachers and I recently did at one school. We gave anonymous questionnaires to 189 students to probe their knowledge about HIV and the prevention of STDs. 7 of the male students surveyed said that they were sexually active (4%), and given the underreporting in these surveys the number is probably higher. As much as they would like to deny it, the surveys made it clear to the teachers and to the parents that some students are sexually active, and we need to give the students the knowledge to protect themselves. An especially interesting data point was that 85% of students who were not sexually active said that HIV was very serious, but only 45% of sexually active students thought that it was serious. Their answers help us see the holes in understandings and attitudes between grades and between doers and non-doers, and I’m helping the teachers interpret the data and apply it to their teaching.

Twice a week I go to the market in town, where growers come with fresh produce from neighboring municipalities and sometimes the Pacific coast. Usually I get broccoli, mango, bananas, tomatoes, and onions. The produce is really cheap and really fresh, although most vegetables have a life expectancy of 3 days (they don’t have the genetically modified preservatives of foods imported to the US), and—yes—sometimes there are bugs crawling in the broccoli (an occupational hazard).

The sweet onions that they grow here are a staple of my diet (whole wheat pasta with broccoli, sautéed onions and parmesan cheese). This week the onions, which are slightly smaller than my fist, were especially beautiful and especially cheap.

So when are you coming over for dinner?

As a consequence of my surgery, I am not allowed to ride my bike for six weeks. This has put a cramp in my style as the “gringa ciclista.” Instead of riding my bike to schools up to two miles away, I have to walk everywhere.

Up to an hour and a half of my day is now dedicated to walking to class. The dust tornadoes are miserable, and it gets really hot around noon when I start my treks.

But on the positive side, I can stop and visit with people passing by instead of merely screaming, “¡Buenas taaaaarrrrdddessss!” as I whiz by on a bike. Many times I run into former students who graduated and are continuing in high school. I ask them what they are studying, how they like it, and how it compares to middle school. All of them say that it is a lot of work, and when I ask for their advice to the current middle schoolers, they unanimously say, “Do your homework now because it’s not that much compared to high school.” Amen to that.

I really enjoy running into people. I feel more connected to the community when I can stop several times along my trip to say “hi” to friends. True, some of the boys who are my students just duck and look the other way (as if seeing a teacher outside of class were like seeing a freak of nature), but most students greet me with a polite and enthusiastic, “¡Buenas tardes, seño!”

So for now the gringa ciclista is in retirement, but it is only a matter of time before I pull a Brett Favre and make a comeback.

I am depressed. Today the neighbors across the street are hosting the Lent procession (just like last year). To “celebrate” the event, they played a monotonous funeral march all day at an inescapable volume. It is what a circus music would sound like if the lion ate the ringleader. It is such a downer. I keep compulsively hugging Paloma just to feel alive.

I visited the neighbors a few times to check on the progress of their procession. In addition to taking pictures, I was sure to ask, “So, what time do these idols, the music, and the incense leave the street?”

How about some marionette theater?

Three weeks to go until Easter and already I am going crazy. Why is it that Semana Santa (Holy Week) is so much longer than just seven days?

Peace Corps turns 50 this month as it celebrates the day President Kennedy signed the executive order to create the agency.

To commemorate this anniversary and to look ahead to the future of the agency, Peace Corps Guatemala celebrated at the home of the US ambassador to Guatemala. Almost all 200 volunteers in Guatemala attended, plus Peace Corps Guatemala staff, representatives from the US embassy, and representatives from Peace Corps Washington.

At two hours, the ceremony was too long, but it meaningfully recognized the volunteers who completed their service (like my now-departed sitemate Rebecca) and the new volunteers who swore-in that morning (including Rob, who will take her place).

With less than four months left in my service, I am on my way out. I feel fortunate to be one of the 4,000 volunteers who have served in Guatemala, and I hope the agency will continue to thrive in the years to come.

I had surgery last week, which was not fun. But my mom visited and I got to spend time at a nice hotel in Antigua and at my friend’s house in Guatemala City, which was fun. Under the circumstances, it was a pretty good week.

The surgery went well, and the hospital was sterile without being as white-washed and soulless as in the US. My room overlooked a garden, and it featured a flatscreen TV that was bigger than the TV in our Antigua hotel. I felt well cared-for and comfortable.

It helped that the surgeon was a friend of the Boehm family, my friends in the capital whose daughter Kristine I met in college. My friend’s mother, María Luisa, knew the surgeon because he was her brother’s best friend in high school, and as the surgeon reminded her, “You were my date to the graduation dance!” Their friendliness made me feel comfortable up to a point, but it was strange to hear my medical diagnosis sandwiched between the doctor’s remarks: “María Luisa, your sister was such a knockout!” and to my own mother a flirtatious “Kate is not your daughter, she is your sister!”

After the surgery, my mom and I took it easy for a few days in Antigua. I slept or stayed in bed for most of it, but it was a nice hotel with a nice bed. Sachiko and Rebecca visited me!

I also spent a few days recuperating at the Boehm family home in Guatemala City. I cannot express their generosity and hospitality during my recovery. They accompanied my mom during my surgery, drove us around, and made us feel at home and at ease. They are wonderful!

Now I am at site, welcomed back by my host family and Sachiko. It is a testament to how well the surgery went, and how well I was taken care of by my mom and the Boehms that I feel like I’m coming home from a grand vacation. Although, next time I go on vacation, please don’t cut me open.

If you think you’re having a rough week, take heart:

There's more firewood than horse!

I cannot fathom buying meat that just hangs there with the flies all day, but there are at least 8 carnicerías in town. So I suppose for a lot of people the conversation goes: beef—it’s what’s for dinner.

During a class on careers, I coached my students in writing their resumes. The theme of the day was: “Professionalism! This piece of paper must be perfect!” They were doing well until…

The rainy season gave us a sneak preview this week when—out of nowhere—it dumped rain during a class. Not only could the students not hear me over the pounding of the metal roof, but the roof itself has a handful of holes. Like a reflex as swift as the onset of rain, the students deftly moved their desks into a formation that best avoided the trickle of rain and its corresponding puddles.

Maneuvering through the waterfalls to talk to me in the front of the class was like video game, expertly dodging left and right to avoid the water. Unfortunately, most of the kids’ resumes got wet and smudged. I told them we would start again next week with clean copies. I struggle to teach like this, and more importantly, the students cannot learn like this. Give me shelter!

(I struggled not to title this blog post: You’re LEAVING me?!)

Rebecca is finishing her two years as an ecotourism volunteer in Guatemala! She had started a community tourism project and trained local guides, taught English to over 100 kids, led two theater camps, trained librarians and planned events and the library, and most importantly: she has been an amazing friend to everyone she meets. I feel so fortunate that Peace Corps put us in the same site so that I made a life-long friend.

With seven days to go until she departs, she is busy with going away parties, packing, Peace Corps paperwork, and showing the incoming volunteer around our site. Still, she found time for us this weekend!

Virginia took us to Xela’s most over-the-top convention center and restaurant to celebrate my birthday and Rebecca’s close of service. I passed this place in a bus before, but I had never gone in. The trip finally satisfied my curiosity.

Whenever Guatemala tries to emulate something gringo, it usually turns out somewhere between a bad photocopy and black hole of tastelessness. This convention center fell somewhere between the two. It was aiming for a Nepolianic theme, but it came up a little short. Nonetheless, the food was good! And the garish decorations were entertaining.

Today we held a lunch in Rebecca’s honor here with the host family. Sachiko cooked yet another amazing dish, and we honored Rebecca’s two years and her plans for the future.

Becca, we will miss you so much—so very, very much! Guatemala will not be Guatemala without you! Luckily, St Louis and Tennessee are in the middle of the US, and thus easy to visit! For Rebecca’s going-away present, I created and printed a photo collage of her two years. I uploaded it here in its full resolution (click on the image) in case Becca’s relatives want to print it out.

Last weekend I ventured to Coban, Alta Verapaz, the hot and sticky part of Guatemalan that feels and looks like what you imagine Central American to be. I visited some geologically-fascinating waterfalls and pools. At this spot the Cahabón River passes through a 300 meter-long cave. The river disappears from sight, and all that remains is the water that spills over into a series of beautiful pools on top of the cave, like a very long bridge over the river. The site is known as Semuc Champey, which means “where the river hides beneath the earth” in the Q’eqchi’ language.

I climbed to a lookout point, which was a 45-minute climb up steep rocks in unbearable humidity. Every time a Guatemalan guide passed my disheveled and sweaty self, they would say, “Pobrecita!” To which I replied, “I live in Xela. I don’t do heat!” And the guides knowingly nodded their heads, suddenly full of respect for me—I am the Guatemalan equivalent of a penguin trekking in the Amazon.

Getting there and back was an adventure, but not the good kind. Semuc Champey is a 2-hour drive to Lanquín along nasty dirt roads, plus another half an hour on more bad roads to the river. On the way home, I waited for a microbus to take me to Coban, but for 45 minutes none passed. Finally, a large flatbed truck meant for carrying animals passed by. What choice did I have? The Q’eqchi’ señoras and I hopped into the back on the truck, and we sat on top of the sacks of grain.

Half-way to Coban, the driver transferred us to a different truck. There, an older guy tried to talk to me. He had no teeth and spoke in half-Spanish and half-Q’eqchi’. Added to that, the motor of the truck was roaring, and I couldn’t make out a word of what he was saying. To emphasize the utility of conversation, I exaggeratedly screamed at him that I couldn’t hear him. He decided to sit closer so I could hear (NO! Leave me alone!), and even my fake excuse of “No Espanish!” didn’t deter him. Finally, his stop arrived, and I was alone in the back of a truck in who-knows-where…which didn’t feel safe, but neither did getting off and waiting alongside the deserted highway. Finally I arrived safe and sound in Coban, glad to have seen the site, but relieved to be out of the heat and stress of a dodgy truck.

I turned 25-years-old today! To celebrate, Sachiko took Rebecca and me out for dinner at our favorite Xela restaurant, where I ate my favorite sandwich. After a great meal and good conversation, I threw out an idea that we joked about months ago: What if we go to the casino?

I cannot overstate how out of character it was for me to suggest a casino. When my parents took me to a casino in Reno for New Year’s Eve a few years ago, I pocketed the $10 that they gave me to play. I do not risk money. But tonight, why not try Xela’s only casino, the Fantastic Bingo Lotería. We walked by it all the time, but had never ventured in until tonight.

As we entered the room, the men started whistling and hitting on us (badly) in English. Ignoring them, we approached the computerized slots and tried a few with no success because we had no idea what we were doing. What’s the difference between cherries and a 7? I called the resident expert on gambling: my twin brother Alex (who also turned 25 today). He advised, “Go to the roulette table and bet on black.”

I did. First I put in Q50 (US$6), but the roulette table was computerized and I pressed the wrong buttons and lost my money. Faithful to my brother’s advice, I put another Q20 on black…and won! Over the next 20 minutes, I alternated between red and black, and I continually bet on the number 4 (for my birthday). Luck was with me: I won BIG on 4, and I won regularly on red/black. I finished the night with Q700 (US$88), ten times what I first put down! What a thrill!

Rebecca, Sachiko, and I rounded out the night with a sleepover, tea, and a movie. Thanks to my friends for a great night, my brother for the roulette tip, and everyone who sent me birthday wishes. What a day!

This week my Brazilian Havaianas flip flops broke after three years of dutiful service. I went to Payless Shoe Source in Xela to find replacement shower sandals. These “American Eagle” flip flops were on sale—US$5!

But something was not right. Let’s take another look at the “American Eagle” logo. That’s not the lettering nor the symbol I remember from the American company.

My flip flops did not come with a box, but Rebecca says there is a disclaimer on the “American Eagle” box she got from Payless. It says something like “Payless American Eagle is not related to American Eagle Outfitters USA.” Maybe the box should also say “We apologize for willfully misleading you.”

I know someone famous! Rebecca was in yesterday’s newspaper (one of several newspaper articles about her over the last two years, not to mention her TV spots). She finished training the tour guides and participated in their graduation and grand opening of tourism last week. ¡Qué bonita! And props to Rebecca!

Rebecca returned from job interviews in Tennessee, and she brought me the coolest gift ever: a guitar fly swatter from Nashville.

She also gifted me 10 different flavors of Jello (from blue to cranberry to peach) that are unavailable here in Guatemala. ¡Gracias!

My work this year focuses on handing over the Life Skills class to the local teachers. Whereas last year I taught 90% of the time to model the curriculum, this year the teachers are the leaders of the class. They choose the topics and lessons, and we split the teaching 50-50.

This week teachers taught the classes for the first time, and I observed them and participated in the class discussion. My reaction to their teaching was as mixed as their methods. On the plus side, the teachers did really well when they followed the curriculum. The curriculum is dynamic and participatory. Almost all of the lessons start with an activity where the students experience or do something, and the classes end with discussion questions to debrief the activities and extract how it relates to the topic. It is experiential learning, and it fits well with a Life Skills class.

The teachers’ lessons went wrong when they fell back on the two standards of Guatemalan teaching. First, teachers think that dynamic activities are good. I would add the qualifier that activities are only good IF they are in service of a learning objective. Something fun but pointless is a pernicious waste of time. Two teachers added fun games (called dinámicas here) at the beginning of the lesson. Each took 30 of the 70 minutes, and they achieved nothing. If anything, the students were so tired afterwards that the students were winding down in exhaustion at the same time that the teachers sped up to recoup the lost time. If the teachers had followed the quick and relevant opening activity in the book, the students would have the rush of something fun, and they would also have an experience upon which to base a thoughtful discussion.

The second downfall of the classes was the discussion section. Lecturing is the default setting here, and yet it universally alienates Guatemalan adults and children. Instead of asking the students the questions in the lesson plan, several teachers began moralizing about the topic of the day. I scanned the faces of the students, and not a single one of them was paying attention. Yikes.

During my teacher training courses at Harvard, I learned that “if you the teacher are talking, the students aren’t learning.” Meaning that students only construe understanding when they are thinking about, applying, or manipulating an idea. The discussion questions are supposed to guide the students through this process, and lecturing stymies this crucial reflection. Unfortunately, by middle school the students are so conditioned to listening and not speaking that when I ask their opinion they have none. Students do not participate in class because that is not what schooling is to them, and so teachers lecture even more to fill the silence. How do you break this vicious circle?

In my feedback to the teachers (all of whom have more experience teaching than I do), I complimented them on what they did well. I didn’t offer any constructive criticism because in this context I do not know how. We have a meeting in the Peace Corps office this week, and I’m going to ask other volunteers how they go about critiquing their teachers.

For the record, I do not invent the classes. The volunteers who preceded me chose their favorite classes from five different books and compiled them into the Youth Development Guatemala curriculum. Similarly, I am chairing a committee to write teacher training workshops that will be compiled and passed onto the volunteers who follow me.

It is 8pm and a very cold 40°F here, and I just crawled under the covers of my bed to write a blog entry. Paloma joined me.

Now she’s sleeping beside me, her ears twitching at each tap of the keyboard. If I can overcome the distraction of her silly poses, I will write this week’s blog entry.

Little did I imagine that I would learn so much about Japan while in Guatemala!

By choice Sachiko and I have lived next to each other for almost a year-and-a-half. There’s not much to do here, so in the evenings we sit around drinking tea and talking in Spanish. We discuss the differences between JICA (the Japanese International Cooperation Agency) and Peace Corps. We compare our countries to Guatemala, which is interesting in that Guatemala aspires to be like the US, but currently it is more like conservative and traditional Japan. We talk about the news, like last night when we compared the current sumo wrestling scandal in Japan to the all-too-common sports scandals in the US (Sachiko thought Brett Farve and Tiger Woods were particularly funny/tragic).

For better or for worse, I have introduced Sachiko to American culture: the Twilight movies (we had a marathon one day), Modern Family (her new favorite show), Pixar, smores, Rice Krispy Treats, the Super Bowl, and Halloween, among other things.

I have also learned more about Japan than I ever thought I would. We talk about the Japanese imperial family (and their poor Harvard-educated princess who crumpled under the pressure to produce a male heir). We discuss the very different business models of the US and Japan, and how that affects young workers. We watched Lost in Translation together, along with a thematically similar German movie about a old German man in Toyko. After watching Toy Story 3, we watched the 1988 Japanese anime movie Totoro, whose title character had a cameo in Toy Story 3. Totoro is one of my favorite films ever, with some truly memorable images—I recommend it!

Most significantly, Sachiko has taught us Japanese for the last few months. Every Sunday my host siblings, Rebecca, Rebecca’s counterpart, and I gather for Japanese class. I can now write the entire Hiragana alphabet and read Japanese lettering (even though I have no idea what the words mean).

One of the goals of agencies like JICA and Peace Corps is to raise intercultural understanding, and Sachiko is an excellent ambassador of Japan. Rebecca and I are both interested in visiting Japan someday, and if I go Sachiko has promised to take me to McDonalds and Dominoes so that I don’t starve on sushi.

The past two weeks my students learned about teamwork and leadership, and this week they had to put their new skills to the test. I challenged them to build the tallest and most stable tower using only straws and pins. It had to be able to stand on its own, and I was going to huff and puff to see if I could blow the house down.

There are some budding engineers (and leaders) among my students, but many of the unrealistic but ambitious towers fell spectacularly. A challenge universal to seventh graders entering adolescence was working together with people of the other gender (cooties!), and the groups that could not muster the maturity to include all of their teammates did not win.

After completing the activity, the students and I analyzed the ingredients of a successful team (clear communication, a defined plan, achievable goals, spirit of cooperation, respect for your classmates). I asked them when in real-life we have to use teamwork. And finally, I said that by knowing the ingredients of a successful team, they can identify what is missing in their future group experiences and proactively work to add the missing elements.

In another school we continued discussing self-esteem with a focus on gender. In groups of boys and girls, they identified 10 reasons they are content with their gender. Then they had to wear the other gender’s shoes (or heeled sandals, in the case of Guatemalan women) and answer the question, “if I were a man/woman…”

The comparisons between what each gender identified as their strengths and how the other group imagined themselves as man/woman was interesting. There was consensus about the roles of women, with both girls and boys identifying a woman’s strengths as being a mother, cooking, ironing, and being caring and responsible.

However, what the boys identified as their strengths, and how the girls imagined themselves as men was very different. The boys were content to be men for very physical reasons: they are stronger, they work, they are taller, and they can urinate more easily (of course, there had to be a phallic mention). But when the girls answered the question “if I were a boy,” their answers were all emotional: they would be compassionate, sympathetic, kind, caring, and they would care for their children. In sum, the boys saw themselves as physically macho, and the girls wanted men with emotions.

The teachers and I asked the students why there was this contradiction of a culture in which men cannot access their emotional side even when their women want them to be emotional. For all that the girls said that they did not recognize “machismo” and that they wanted an emotional man, the teachers noted that those kind of men are seen as weak push-overs and that they have trouble finding women. The teachers and I argued that it is a disservice to the development of boys that they are not allowed to access their emotions as openly as women, and we talked about where this comes from and how to change it. Gender is a tricky subject here, partly because the roles are so strictly defined and not at all interchangeable (a man will never wash a dish in Guatemala, and a buffet restaurant is unthinkable because no man would bring his own food to the table). This week is was a first conversation, and we’ll see where it continues next week.

Today Becca turns 24! We celebrated yesterday with my host family. Sachiko prepared gourmet cheeseburgers, accompanied by a whole wheat bun and salad. Dessert was brownies and fruit salad.

For cheeseburger condiments, of course I served Heinz ketchup and Best Foods real mayonnaise (no Maloney would be caught with off-brand mayonnaise). Guatemalan ketchup is too sweet, and the local mayonnaise is too runny for my taste. My host mom even commented on how much she liked the mayonnaise, to which I replied, “No Maloney would have it any other way.”

This week I taught self-esteem to a group of ninth graders. We explored where it comes from, why it is important, and how to build it. The teens wrote lists about themselves and assessed whether their self-image was mainly positive or mainly negative, and how to change their negatives into positives.

Then, as a first step to building healthy self-esteem, we played the “Pat on the Back” game. Each student had a paper taped to his or her back, and their classmates went around writing compliments on their backs anonymously. Later the students read out loud what people wrote about them. It affirmed the students to hear that their classmates thought highly of them.

With another group of ninth graders, we talked about professions. Using materials I had translated from the English-language book “Do What You Are,” the students assessed their Myers-Briggs personality type, and they read about professions matched well with their personality.

14-year-old Lucía (who happens to have the same personality type as me) asked me, “I want to be an astronaut. What do I have to do?” She was serious about her dream, so I invited her and a friend over to my house today to research space careers. First, we went to the NASA website. NASA plans to send a rover to Mars this fall, and you can enter your name and country on their website, and your information will be carried on a computer chip to Mars! We entered their names, and now rural Guatemala will be represented on Mars.

Then we researched the requirements to become an astronaut. It seems like a reach for them: a college degree in math or science, three years professional experience, and sponsorship by a foreign government. But, in fact, the biggest obstacle may be the 5’2’’ height minimum, which is literally a stretch for the typical indigenous woman.

Finally, we researched the career of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. When I was 10, I wrote to Ride, and she wrote me back with an autographed photo! That picture hung in my room for years, and I thought we might get lucky again. So the girls dictated a letter to Sally Ride, and I translated it into English. I’m also attaching a photograph of them, and I’m writing a letter that explains how their interest in exploring professions came about through my Peace Corps classes. We’re going to mail the letter and see what happens!

Rebecca went shopping at the paca last week. A paca is a store (or sometimes just a huge pile) of used clothes from the US that are cheap. A volunteer once found a $300 pair of gently used Diesel jeans for 50 cents!

Rebecca found some gems, which she modeled for Sachiko and me. She also went to the local artisan market (which she helped to create and publicize) and bought indigenous traje. Qué bonita!

Classes started this week, and on Monday I went to two of the four school inauguration ceremonies that were happening simultaneously. I asked the director of the first school what time the ceremony would begin. He said 2:00. I asked for clarification, “Everything in Guatemala starts late, so what time will it really begin?” He replied that with rural parents you never know. So I showed up at 2:30, which is early for most events (here things start an hour late).

I walked into the auditorium to see all of the students already lined up, a handful of parents seated, and the director and teachers on the stage speaking into the microphone. I tried to sneak in without drawing attention to my tardiness, but one teacher announced, “And here we have Seño Katalina! Please come on stage so that the parents can see you and applaud your work.” So much for disappearing into the floor. At that school I felt a bit like a show pony being trotted out in front of the masses (“Look! We have an American from Harvard!”). That school is not invested in Life Skills classes, but a gringa looks good on paper and impresses the parents.

But at the next school inauguration, where I feel like a part of the staff, the teachers passed the microphone to me so that I could give advice to the parents and students. I gave the same two recommendations that the principal of the Community Charter School of Cambridge always reiterated to parents: turn of the TV and do your homework, and READ. The director of the school latched onto my “¡Hay que leer!” mantra and reiterated the same advice to the parents later in the ceremony.

Next followed the chaotic first days of school. Everything happens late in this country (except, somehow, that first inauguration), and so parents were still enrolling their kids on the first and second days of schools. The teachers didn’t have their teaching schedules, but the students did, so the teachers went classroom to classroom asking the students, “Am I with you guys? No? OK, I’ll check the next class.” Even yesterday, five days into the school year, the teachers still had not figured out their schedules.

Predicting chaos, my lesson plans for those days were flexible. For the students entering middle school, I asked, “Today is your first day of seventh grade. Is it too early to talk about high school scholarships?” The message of the lesson was that their grades matter starting NOW if they want a scholarship. Too many of my ninth graders last year were counting on the proverbial scholarship to pay for high school, only to realize that three years of mediocre or failing grades disqualified them. With the incoming students who have a clean slate, we set three study goals for the quarter, and I’ll check back in with each section at the end of the quarter to see how they are progressing.

With the eighth and ninth graders who had me last year, we started a unit on teamwork and leadership. In groups the students tied themselves into a human knot, and then they had to work together to straighten themselves out again. Then we meta-analyzed the process of how they worked together. In the upcoming weeks we will continue to look at what makes a good team member, and how to be effective leaders.

Paloma is obsessed with my hair ties, and she raids my room every night to find the ones that are not pinned down. I finally found a hiding place that was fool-proof: underneath the fruit bowl on top of the water filter on top of the fridge. How could she ever reach such a height and move the fruit bowl?

Paloma had the last laugh. Here is the anatomy of a theft.

Maybe, like Tony Soprano, Paloma has turned to crime because she feels unloved. Duque the dog is the host family’s new favorite pet, and he gets all the cuddles previously reserved for Paloma.

But, of course, I still love my kitty the most.

In a clear case of calling it like it is, these two Latin American companies phonetically named their products after the English word.

I just quizzed my host mom and sister on the meaning of these brands, and they had no idea. When I told them that what they were pronouncing was “food” and “juice,” they thought it was hilarious, and the names finally made sense.

All this talk about bad branding makes me hungry. I think I’ll have some FUD and Yus for lunch!

Last week my town celebrated its patron saint day with five days of processions, fireworks, and really loud music. Each night until midnight the church’s speakers blasted the mass. It literally was the sermon on the mount: the incredible volume ricocheted off the mountains of my site so that the whole thing was heard in stereo.

When the celebrations finally ended, I asked people who the patron saint of January 15 is, but nobody knew!

Here is a video of the procession as it passed by my house. Turn up the volume on your computer, and know that I was partially deaf for an hour after filming this.

This week I held meetings with school directors and teachers to establish a curriculum plan for the year. Whereas last year I planned and taught most of the “Life Skills” classes, this year the schools have to take ownership of the course so that it becomes sustainable. I will teach half of the classes, and a local teacher will give the other half. I will be present during all of the classes to support the teachers and give feedback, but the lesson plan selection and evaluations are the responsibility of the local teachers. When I leave in July, the expectation is that the teachers and the schools are trained in and comfortable with the curriculum, and that they will continue giving the classes. The volunteer who replaces me will not teach students, and instead she will organize youth-themed workshops for teachers and parents.

Even though I called ahead and scheduled meetings, getting the directors to show up was tough. Only one of the four meetings started on time, and in anticipation of their tardiness I brought a book and a camera (thus, the random pictures of goats and school bathrooms on this post).

One school was especially aggravating. On Monday morning I called school A to confirm our Monday afternoon meeting, only to hear that not all of the teachers would be present. I rescheduled for Tuesday. I had to leave the Tuesday meeting with school A early to bike (uphill!) to school B for a meeting, but the director of school B showed up an hour late (time I could have used to continue the meeting at school A). I returned to school A to reschedule again. I came at the appointed time on Thursday for our third meeting, but the director asked if I could come back later because they were behind in their agenda. I said that I had a different meeting with school C at that time, and could we please just sit down and plan the logistics of the year. I know that time is flexible here, but the inefficiencies wear you down—especially when your primary mode of transportation is a bike.

In cultures where communication is indirect (like Guatemala), the background music of a conversation is just as important as what is actually being said. At one school the director again asked if I could teach theater and English, even though I have reiterated for the last year and a half that my job is to implement the Life Skills curriculum. He agreed to co-teach the Life Skills class, but the background music said that he preferred a handout and that he was not thrilled at the amount of work the class entailed for him.

To better deal with unmotivated directors, at a meeting next week the school superintendent will make the directors sign a contract in which they agree to implement the Life Skills curriculum. The superintendent believes that getting the directors’ commitment on paper will help to enforce accountability. Here’s hoping.

I returned to Guatemala, energized and motivated to do my best work for my six remaining months of service. However, no one was happier than Paloma, who made her opinion of my vacation very clear.

Paloma was also very happy with her new presents!

The Christmas holiday was not all good news for Paloma. The host family got a German Sheppard puppy over the holiday. He is a cute, well-fed dog…for now. My host mom tells me that she wants to train it to be “bravo” (“mean”) so that it can guard the backyard. When I asked how you train a dog to be mean, she said leaving it alone for long stretches of time usually makes it angry and suspicious of people. For now he has dog food, but my host mom lamented the cost of feeding him.