The past two weeks have been a whirlwind! I moved in with a Q’eqchi family in
Armenia on Wednesday the 2nd.
Luckily they speak a lot of English so I am able to communicate with
them as well as learn a lot of Q’eqchi.
The parents’ names are Martin and Victoria. There are three kids: Edwin (13), Adrian (10), and Alvin
(4). Edwin is in the southern city
of Punta Gorda with his grandpa, so I haven’t met him yet. The other two kids are great, though. They keep me busy constantly. For instance, one morning, they woke me
up fifteen minutes before my alarm clock.
When I told them I was going to sleep for a little longer, they decided
to create a mound of buckets and peak over my wall to watch me sleep. After that I decided that sleep was no
longer an option, so I crawled out from under my mosquito net and opened the
door, at which point Adrian asked, “We will play cards?” Needless to say, no cards were played
that morning, partially because I had school and partially because I was not
very happy about losing fifteen critical minutes of sleep. I think he learned
his lesson though because no one has woken me up early since, at least
intentionally. This is just a
dramatic example, though, of how an average day is at home. When I’m not in class, I’m constantly
moving and entertaining the kids, something that is both loads of fun but
exhausting at the same time.
The experience to this point has been just what I
expected. I live in a small wooden
house with a thatched roof. I
don’t have electricity, and I get internet only once a week when we go into
Belmopan. At times it can get
tough, but overall I’ve loved it! My
house is on a road with five other volunteers. Two of them live with families that are relatives of my host
mom. Because of this, we are
always getting together to hang out at the grandma’s house. At nights, instead of watching the
newest episode of the hit TV show, we play Uno and hang out under my solar
light. It’s crazy how much not
having the option of television can bring families closer together. Just observing the interactions of
other families in the community, it’s crazy how much of a difference it makes
not to have that amenity. I’ve heard stories of host kids that wake up and
start watching TV right away. Technology
has become an addiction for those that have it.
So far, the only major problem I’ve run into are the other
inhabitants of the house: rats. Rats
are one of those creatures that I used to defend in a sense. I always felt that they were a little
misunderstood. This feeling began
to change around my third night in Armenia. For those that don’t know, rats love thatch roofs. They also prefer to come out at
night. This wouldn’t be an issue
if I didn’t enjoy sleeping at night.
The first night I heard them was a shock. My room isn’t very big so when they move, it sounds like
they’re crawling on my mosquito net or under my bed. There have even been times when I’ve felt them running at
the foot of my bed or on the wall behind my head. They leave their poop everywhere and even gnawed on one of
my hats some. For about 3 or 4
days, lack of sleep was killing me.
Last Wednesday, I was able to get some ear plugs from the nurse. This helped immensely as far as sleep
is concerned. The poop, however,
still exists. Rat poison was the
next alternative. They ate it but
still didn’t die. I’ve brought up
getting a cat with my host family and they seem to not mind the idea, but I
just feel like that’s a lot of responsibility. The most recent approach that my host dad has devised to rid
the home of rats is to stay up late in the dark with a pellet gun. If you give the rats about five
minutes, they start to come out.
Then you shine a light and shoot the rat. It’s the more aggressive approach to getting rid of rats but
it has been surprisingly effective.
It’s an unfortunate situation, but he’s gotten five so far and I’ve been
able to sleep.
Outside of the rats, though, it really has been incredible
here. I can only hope that I’m as
lucky when I get to my permanent site.
The first Saturday in Armenia, a fellow volunteer, my host dad, and I
went out to a Mennonite village called Springfield. It was an incredible trip. We walked about four miles to get there, but the final
destination was totally worth it. It
was beautiful and completely different than anything I had ever seen
before. I’m living without
electricity and was still stunned by the seclusion that they live in. Our final destination was the saw
mill. Here, they sit a 10 year old
in the middle of a group of horses.
His job is to get the horses to run in a circle which, in turn, moves a
saw. When I say saw, I’m talking
about a high powered saw that cut through four trees simultaneously, not just
some dinky horse-powered saw. The
whole set up was an engineering spectacle.
The trip back home was also exciting. It involved many different modes of
transportation. First there was hitchhiking the horse and buggy…
Then there was hitchhiking the rusty truck…
Then there was trudging through a jungle that didn’t really
have a path…
It was so sick! Definitely what I thought I was going to be
doing when I signed up for the Peace Corps. Later that day, we had our first movie night. It was a huge hit! We watched Finding
Nemo. There were about 40 kids
there from the community, much more than we expected to have for our first
event. The next day, my host
family and the other volunteers that live on my street got together for a big
family (all of our families are related).
It was great to hang out and have that time to get to know the families. After we finished eating, we played
soccer for about two hours.
Last week was not much different than my first few days in
the community. I spent a lot of
time in class and trying to get to know my host family better. I also began to develop a daily routine. I get home form class and then go on a run
or hang out with the kids some playing soccer. Then my host family and I get together and have dinner. After that, the other volunteers on the
street come over and we study some Q’eqchi and play Uno with my host
family. It’s nice to have that
family bounding time.
One of the main aspects of last week was that we were having
Teamwork Week. On Thursday, our
cohort had its first literacy night.
Some of the girls in our group read the Bearenstein Bears to a group of
about 30 kids. The main goal of the
night was to have the kids in the library so that they could read some if they
wanted to, but not many of us, including myself, thought that would really
happen. To our surprise, the night
was a huge success! We had to
force the kids to leave because we had to close up the library. They were so excited to read or have
someone read to them. It was
awesome! On Saturday, we had our
weekly movie night where we continued the theme of the week and watched Lego
Movie. My host brother asked me to
sing the “Everything is awesome” song to him afterward because he couldn’t
really understand it at the time (his English isn’t great). Since that point, though, he and
everyone else in my family have been singing the song. It’s pretty funny. Then on Sunday, we had a teamwork
gameday/info session for the kids.
We had the same group of about 40 kids show up, so that was great. We taught them with a short lesson in
the beginning, and then played a few games to have them implement what they
learned. In the end, one of our
volunteers asked, “So what did you learn from today?” One of the girls who was
very shy and had been quite throughout the day raised her hand and said, “When
we work as a team, we can do anything.” That about summed it up. We couldn’t really say anything to top
that, so we moved to the bonfire that we had made and roasted some marshmallows
with the kids. The week was a hit!
Aside from Peace Corps work and promoting teamwork, it was a
great weekend with the host family.
On Friday night, my host dad bought a chicken to eat. Unfortunately, it escaped during the
night into the forest in the backyard.
On Saturday, everyone was on a manhunt to find that chicken. In the process of hacking through the
forest with machetes to find that chicken, my host parents found a cave. It was a pretty tight squeeze, but once
you got through that, it was super deep.
There were all kinds of bats and stuff. It was so cool!
It was really smooth on the sides, so there is talk that it could be a
Mayan tunnel but the skeptic in me thinks that it once had a water way running
through it. Either way, it’s still
awesome! After that, we went to my
host dad’s farm. On the way, we
tried all sorts of fruits straight off the tree/bush. We had cohun nut, crabble (which I think is crab apple), the
heart of bird-of-paradise (we think that’s the name), and fresh sugar cane. It
was a great weekend!
I think that about sums up the past two weeks. I know it was
a ton, but internet is iffy so I can’t update the blog as often as I’d like...
Sorry ‘bout it.
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