Life in Guatemala: food

Many of you have probably heard us describe our meals here. Lots of beans, carrots, and corn. It's hard to get too out of the box because our kitchen is super simple and our food options are pretty standard.

We mostly shop at the local outdoor market. It's a bright and colorful experience, but it doesn't always smell good thanks to hanging dead chickens, raw beef laying around, and piles of fish. But I think it's much more fun than normal grocery store shopping. Women in colorful traje offer you the best of their products, and even sometimes offer you taste tests! We usually buy carrots, potatoes, green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, and broccoli. There's no option to find out of season foods, so we enjoyed avocado season while it lasted and are now enjoying mango season!

We also go to The Dispensa, the biggest grocery store in town - the only one with a parking lot, to buy our meat. It appears to be the most hygienic place to buy meat because it's refrigerated and comes in plastic baggies. As opposed to the market where meat hangs in the open air and they chop off whatever amount you want. However, The Dispensa is actually owned by Wal-Mart (I know, it's everywhere!) so we try to shop local as much as possible.

There are lots of little tiendas all over town that sell basic products: beans, cereal, crackers, powdered milk. There are also 3 small stores that specialize in importing some of our favorites: brown rice, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, tahini, chickpeas, and canned peas. It's more expensive, but we're grateful that we can even get these products!

Cooking is often a longer process than normal. We have to sanitize most of our veggies by soaking them in a Clorox solution for 5 minutes. Then you rinse them in pure water before eating. For this reason, we hardly ever eat salads (so sad). Salad takes a lot of time to disinfect and even then it's the most high-risk food to eat since everything is wet and raw. It's a lot of work to go through for "rabbit food" as my husband would say.

I think I have branched out with a few things though. My favorite dessert is cookies, but we have no oven so I've made a few batches of no-bake cookies and no-bake cookie dough dip (thank you Pinterest!). I mash chickpeas with a fork to make hummus, but it's still super thick. My newest venture is veggie burgers. A co-worker was a vegetarian for years so she gave me some yummy ideas. I mostly stick to black bean, chickpea, garlic, carrot burgers. My dear husband, who would never eat veggie burgers in the States (how I miss Morning Star) actually approves and asks for me to make them!

And a huge thanks to the many of you who have mailed us seasonings, sauces, and ways to flavor up our meals. Thanks to you we have had some great, flavorful meals at home!

I don't know why I'm making the same face in the above 2 pictures

Two foods that we've really grown to love here are pupusas and empanadas. Pupusas are larger corn tortillas stuffed with beans, cheese, and meat (or whatever you want). They are delicious, cheap, and relatively safe street food. We have developed a tradition of eating them every Friday night. Mmmmm.

A co-worker made great empanadas from scratch and invited us over to teach us. I took notes. ( : We will definitely be making those when we have access to an oven back home!

So that's a synopsis of our food habits here in Guatemala. It's been a different diet for us, and we've learned to get used to the same dishes over and over, but we're thankful for the little variety that we do have. But we've already decided the first place we want to go when we return to the States is Arby's. ( :

Life in Guatemala: home

I thought I'd write a few blog posts about life in Guatemala. The posts are meant to share our lives with you. But also I'm afraid that as the months and years go by I'll forget some of the details of our life here. So this is also so that I don't forget the little things about living here.

I realized that we never posted pictures of our new home, where we've been living since December. We definitely sacrificed space, but it's a cleaner more mold-free home with hot water showers. We are breathing better and showering more frequently (you don't even want to know how much we avoided showering at our old house!). 

So, here's our home. It's basically a 10x18 room, a bathroom, and a storage closet turned into a kitchen. It's tiny, but it fits us and all we need.

This is the view upon entering our home. Bathroom door is at the top of the picture and kitchen doorway is to the right of that.

dresser and closet

office and big screen TV

living room

bedroom (that's the front door at the top right, view from the office)

bathroom

kitchen as you enter (the two towering buckets is our water filter, four burner stove-top on the far right)

dining room (yes, that is our Christmas tree in the corner)

kitchen view from dining room

a HUGE thanks to everyone who has sent us cards, we hang them on our wall and fondly remember you all!

We've enjoyed the challenge of living with less than we're comfortable with. I miss our oven, coffee maker, and microwave, but we're finding contentment with less. 

We're also getting creative, which I thoroughly enjoy. I really, really love the challenge of creatively finding a simpler answer to some of our daily needs. Sure, anyone can go out and buy the next storage gadget or plastic organizer, but when you creatively make it, now that's impressive. ( : For example, I use an egg carton as a jewelry box. We cut out silverware dividers from cereal boxes. We use old milk jugs for storing things. We always re-wash and re-use our plastic bags (but we did that back home too). I never knew it, but I can hang 2 shirts on 1 hanger and it works just fine. And our shoe rack and bedside table are simple, but work just fine.

bedside table made of cinder blocks

egg carton to store jewelry

cut out cereal boxes to divide silverware

old milk jugs cut in half

shoe rack made of cinder blocks and plywood

So, that's the full tour. It's been a happy home for us. The owner has 3 huge German Shepherd dogs, which we call horses (they're seriously the biggest I've seen). We have a nice garden area and locked gate. And besides bed bugs, normal ant invasions, and these weird flying insects that swarm every once in a while, we've been relatively bug free. Our kitchen sprung several leaks during the first rain, but I think it's all resolved now.

Well, thanks for stopping by!

Jenny's labor of love

One thing I've been wanting to do since we arrived is take back-strap weaving classes. The Maya have hand-woven their textiles for centuries using this method. It's historical, it's beautiful, it's a form of art, and it's really difficult. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I spent the entire first class (all 3 hours) rolling 2 balls of yarn. I don't really know how else to explain it. I was handed a Gatorade bottle cap and started rolling the yarn around it.

Before one can get to this step, however, you have to pick the cotton and string it out and then dye it. San Juan (the town where I had my lessons) is known for beautiful, all natural dyes. They use all types of things (beets, carrots, coffee, red beans, lilac, asparagus) and soak the cotton until it takes on the color. They're very soft, beautiful colors and being completely natural they don't bleed.

So my teacher, Elena, did those steps first, and then I came in and took the dyed cotton and wrapped it around a Gatorade bottle cap. For 3 hours. It may sound silly, but my hands would cramp up trying to hold something so small and do the same quick movements over and over. I would take a break and Elena would take over for a bit, and she went like a million times faster than me. It was laughable how bad I was at this simple task.

And after 3 hours, I made a ball of yarn:

My second class I was able to "sort"  the yarn using this Mayan wooden contraption:

It turns out this is a very important step in the process, because the way you wrap the yarn around the wooden pegs determines the design and width of stripes of the colored yarn. I was okay at this step, but Elena was definitely much faster than me. I'd say we did this step for about 2 hours.

Finally...finally...I was ready to begin weaving. I should preface that Elena's dominant language is Tzutujil (a Mayan language). So we were both attmepting to communicate using second languages. If the intricacy of the weaving was not difficult enough, the language barriers only complicated things.
I was so excited to sit on the tiny stool, wrap the back-strap around me, and use the smooth wooden sticks to begin weaving.

But any anticipation soon faded upon putting on the back-strap. Elena wrapped it so tightly around me that I felt like I was being tied into a corset. My lower back and butt soon went completely numb. Then, to my dismay, we had to take a piece of white yarn and separate every single strand of yarn so that every other strand was linked with the white yarn. It was so tedious, my eyesight would fail me after trying to count so many strands of yarn, and don't even get me started on the pain shooting up and down my back.

Separating every single strand

All this and I hadn't even actually started weaving yet. It's such an incredible process! But after separating the strands with the white yarn, placing smooth wooden sticks in precise places, and lasso-ing the yarn to the ceiling, I was ready to begin. Finally!

I was, of course, terrible at it in the beginning. About every step of the process I had to re-do because I would miss a strand or skip a step. Elena had trouble explaining it in Spanish, so she would show me a few times and then expect me to be able to follow perfectly. Not possible for me. I do things much better when I understand how it works, how each step separates the yarn, how each stick pulls down on the strands, etc. But Elena was unable to explain any of these steps, so I tried to shadow her every move, but I was a very slow learner. God bless Elena for her patience!

I could attempt to explain every step here, but if you're really interested let's get together for a cup of coffee and I'll try to explain how the entire process works. It basically turns out to be about 7 steps over and over again.

One step involved pulling up on a wooden stick, which separated the strands with force. I found this step really difficult as I was using my left arm and pulling up at an awkward angle. I soon learned that my 70 year old teacher had more arm strength than me. I had my classes on Saturdays and would still be sore Monday morning at work.

The final touch: tying knots

I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I couldn't be more proud of the entire experience. I loved going into Elena's home and getting to know her family (please pray for her husband as he had to be hospitalized recently). I loved learning a skill, an art, that dates back hundreds of years. I love having full appreciation of the time and work that goes into Mayan textiles. I have such respect for the women who labor for hours, often sitting on the floor, and weave day in and day out. I think each scarf should cost $100 given the amount of work that goes into one. I honestly have no idea how women in their 70's have the eyesight, the nimbleness, and the flexibility to back-strap weave. It's truly marvelous.

But after 12 hours of classes and several sore muscles, the end product is very special to me.

My scarf colors are made from carrot, coffee, and some flower I don't know in English.

It was a beautiful process and I'm so happy to have done it, but I'm not signing up for another class anytime soon. The Mayan women have my full respect, because I honestly don't think I could do it everyday. I tell David that we should seriously consider starting up a chiropractic/massage ministry here for the women who back-strap weave and the men who work in the fields. The lifestyle here is so hard on the human body, I don't think we fully appreciate it.

I'll get off my soapbox, but seriously, if you ever see these hand-woven textiles, please appreciate the time, work, and pain that goes into them. And please, please, please buy them at a fair price. Don't take advantage of one's poverty by purchasing something so cheap that it's a great deal for you but leaves the laborer with barely enough to cover production costs. You'd be surprised at how many women here sell things for less than they cost, because they think better to make a sale than nothing, but it leaves the women with no profit. We can do better than that. Sorry, I really will get off my soapbox now. ( :

If anyone is ever interested in purchasing some of these beautiful scarves (or table-runners, wall hangings, guipiles - all made by back-strap weaving), email me and I'd be so happy to bring one back for you!

*The video below is a backstrap weaving demonstration, filmed by David, that will be used for our future business...which more details will be announced about soon (the website is not yet launched).

Shoes for little ones

Mayan Families operates seven preschools that also act as nutritional centers. The kids receive breakfast, milk, vitamins, and fruit every day at school. This is huge, considering most kids go an entire day just eating tortillas and drinking weak coffee.

Part of my job is to track any health needs that our preschoolers have. This usually involves coordinating doctor visits, following up on any illnesses, connecting our schools with traveling clinics, and doing wellness check-ups every so often. We try to address all of their physical needs, which includes proper foot protection. Shoes here can get pretty bad.

It's always a treat to go to the preschools and hand out shoes to our preschoolers. They are usually in awe at the mountain of shoes we bring and they get pretty excited at the idea of having new shoes.

Apparently shoes taste good too!

And sometimes they get scared. They're just not used to seeing so many white people, I guess.

Often, it's a smelly job. Most of the shoes we give away are used from the US. So we have to sort through them all to find a good fit. But the really smelly part is often when you sit the preschooler on the table and take of his or her shoes to see what size they are. It's not uncommon for a child to be wearing shoes that are 2 or 3 sizes too big or too small. So you never know the actual size until you pull of their shoes.

They also very rarely wear socks. So their little feet are dirty and sweaty and often smelly. Sometimes the older ones get embarrassed and try to hide their feet. But once they actually get their new pair of shoes in their hands then everyone is happy. They carry their new shoes around and don't put them down all morning. They show their new prize to the other kids and to the teachers and it's adorable.

Those days of passing out shoes have taught me many things. One, I have way too many shoes. I buy them too easily and without much thought. Two, I should spend more time being grateful for what I have and less time thinking of what I want. Three, I want to live more by need than by want. I don't know if I've ever "needed" another pair of shoes. My shopping is more frequently driven by want than need. But I'd like to start living and buying and thinking more by need than by want.
Whenever work gets stressful or life gets heavy, I try to get away to one of our preschools. Even if the kids don't know me or recognize me, they always greet me as if I was their best friend; with lots of hugs and smiles and hand holding.

Yovani

I want to share with you Yovani's story because his is a good glimpse into many impoverished family situations here. And that is, messy. Very rarely do we have a family come in with a well-defined problem and a well-defined strategy of how to help. Often it's very complicated, there's a huge history, and 13 extended family members are involved each with their own opinion.

Yovani is 4 years old and has three older siblings. There is no father, and the mother has found herself in a desperate situation. In an attempt to make a better life for herself and her kids, she has chosen the three eldest children and moved in with another man. He has a job and can offer some financial stability.

This leaves little Yovani to live with his aging grandmother, Julia. Julis is aging and frail. She can't afford to raise another child, but she does what she can. She can't offer Yovani a lot of things, but at least he has a family member to care for him.

Yovani and his grandmother, Julia

A few months ago Yovani's mom returned to collect some more of her belongings, one of which being the only bed in the home. Yovani's mom insists that she needs the bed: there are more people in her home. But Julia and Yovani share just one bed and if it's taken from them they are left to sleep on the floor.

The entire situation escalated into a court case, which neither side could afford. Julia and Yovani gave their bed up in an effort to save money from going to court. They came to Mayan Families and explained the whole story and we fundraised for them and eventually got Yovani and his grandmother a new bed.

I remember how much I disliked Yovani's mother when I interviewed her. I didn't want to try to understand her. I wanted to judge her for abandoning her child. If it were my choice that day, I wouldn't have helped her at all. But Mayan Families has existed long enough to know that situations aren't as simple as they may seem, and even those in the wrong need help. Yovani's mother left our office with donations of food and clothing.

When you have so few options, most of your options are poor ones. Yovani's mom later told us that she had every intention of returning for Yovani some day. She probably thought she was doing the best thing for herself and her 3 other children in trying to find them a more financially-stable home.

I could never condone a mother leaving her children, but yet I see it all across the world. When I was in Hong Kong I was surrounded by Philipine mothers who left behind their children and families to work as a domestic in Hong Kong and mail home their salaries. In the US there are many Mexican mothers who leave their families to work in the States and mail money back. When one faces extreme poverty I guess you'll do anything you can to feed your children. Most of us will never know what it's like to have to consider that option.

Poverty is messy and complicated. Those of us looking in from the outside often can't understand it or know how to best respond to it. Sometimes I see people respond to poverty here and I don't agree with the way they're doing it. But at least they're trying. Sometimes we make mistakes at Mayan Families and we judge families too soon. But at least we're trying. And I'm slowly learning that sometimes the outcome doesn't even matter that much. At least we put forth the effort, the time, and the compassion to try. And those who see us mess up or fail, well at least they know that we cared enough about them to try.

Poverty will always exist around us, and those of us with the most resources are most prone to separate ourselves from poverty. It gets too messy so we walk away, because we can. We must fight this tendency. We must step out of our comfort zones, even if we fail. We must try.

Cristobalina

Today a different story of a badly burned victim but with a happier ending.

Cristobalina was a happy 15 year old who taught herself Spanish (she only spoke Kachiquel growing up) and found work making and selling tortillas. But in a moment she bent down to pick something up and brushed against a live electrical line. She was knocked unconscious and woke up in the hospital with no hands and severely burned legs.

Cristobalina lives in a very rural village about an hour outside of Pana. It's a long bumpy ride to get to her town, where children still cry when they see white people because they're not used to such sights. I met Cristobalina my first month at Mayan Families, when she was perfecting her art of drawing using only her mouth, since her hands were gone. I was immediately in awe of this young woman who had overcome so much and was determined to make her life better.

One of Cristobalina's drawings, done using only her mouth

Another of her drawings

Cristobalina went through several surgeries and was finally taken home in a wheel chair. She couldn't stretch her legs because there was so much scar tissue behind her knees. When we visited her, her father told us with tears in his eyes how no one would ever marry Cristobalina in a wheel chair and she would live the rest of her life in her parents home. The Guatemalan culture for women is deeply founded on marrying and becoming a house wife and raising lots of kids. Cristobalina and her family were quite certain none of this could ever happen for her.

But after some major fund raising, great determination and bravery on the part of Cristobalina, and a supportive family, today Cristobalina is walking. She has prostheses on her legs and can walk and even run. She also has arm prostheses. Although they are just hooks for now, she's slowly learning to use them. She still draws with her mouth.

Cristobalina has overcome more in her short life than most of us could comprehend. She told me and a co-worker that when she woke up in the hospital without her hands and after losing one of her feet, she wanted to die. She had no desire to live. She wished she had never woken up. But slowly she began to believe in herself, she found support in her family and Mayan Families, and she pressed on despite her reality. Today she continues to dream. She wants to go back to school, she only finished first grade. And she wants to learn English. She's made drawings for us that we sell as postcards and her story inspires all who hear it. She reminds me to always, always have hope.

Maynor

Maynor is a 9 year old boy who is forced to come to our town, Panajachel, on Fridays and Sundays to beg on the street. When he was two years old he was burnt badly in a house fire, losing most of his foot and badly scarring his legs. He was sent to the public hospital and was treated for a few months, but then he was released and hasn't had any medical care or check-ups since then.

I didn't know Maynor until a couple who was vacationing in Pana brought him to our office. They spoke very little Spanish but saw Maynor begging on the street and wanted to help him. His burn looked infected, with white pus oozing out of it and flies swarming around it.

Maynor spoke mostly Kachiquel, a Mayan language, so we had to have our staff translate from Kachiquel to Spanish and then I translated from Spanish to English. Maynor explained to us that his burns hurt him and he is unable to walk or even stand on both feet because he can't put any pressure on his burnt foot. He told us he would like to go to a doctor since it had been 7 years since he was last treated.

Eventually one of our staff was able to get Maynor's dad's phone number and called to ask him to come to the office. His father looked young, with a back pack full of goods to sell on the street. He explained Maynor's situation and assured us that he was doing fine. We shared our concern over the infection and the fact that Maynor hasn't been to a doctor in 7 years, but the father told us Maynor was healthy and happy.

This began a long conversation with Maynor's dad where we asked if we could please send him to a specialist in the capital who treated burns and could possibly even give Maynor a prosthetic to be able to walk. The father didn't respond. So we assured him we would cover all expenses. The father was hesitant. So we even offered to pay the father a small sum of money to make up for his "losses" as Maynor wouldn't be able to beg on the street the day he went to the doctor. The father finally agreed and they left, saying they'd come back the next week for Maynor's appointment.

That was the last time we saw or heard from the father. We've called numerous times, but he never answers. We can't take Maynor to the capital without parental supervision. And his father is obviously more interested in the money his son makes begging as a cripple than the health or wellbeing of his child.

I still see Maynor on Fridays every once in a while, sitting on a curb begging for coins. I've stopped and talked to him and he tells me that his dad is in agreement to take him to the doctor but just not right now. Maybe in the future. Maybe. But given other similar experiences, probably not.

It deeply saddens me to know that Maynor could be treated medically if only his father would give his support. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon here. We've offered to pay parents to allow their children to go to school, but they decline. Children begging or selling on the street often make more money than adults, so parents want to keep their kids on the street as long as possible. Education and health care don't bring in immediate cash for the family. And when a family is desperate and hungry they only think about today and making enough money for the next meal. They often don't have the luxury of thinking and planning for years to come. This happens a lot here and sadly the children suffer most.

Margarita and Ricardo

I've been asked to share a bit more about my work. My posts have been somewhat vague as to what I actually do every day and what kinds of situations I encounter. So I'm going to try to post every day this week (I know, I'm already a day behind) and share a story from my work.

Ricardo and Margarita are an elderly couple who are part of our Elderly Care Program. They receive a warm, nutritous lunch every day, vitamins, and basic pain medication as Ricardo has chronic back pain from a life of hard labor. Margarita is blind, leaving her unable to work. Visiting them is always a highlight for me, but no matter how many times I go to their home I always have to fight back tears when I leave.

Their is home is a wooden shack, with a dirt floor, and multiple piles of trash and cardboard boxes lying around. The walls and ceiling are black from the smoke of cooking over a fire. There are so many cobwebs hanging from the ceiling that you have to duck when you enter. Neither Margarita nor Ricardo ever had a chance at an education, so their life of poverty appears to be their fate. But there are other obstacles that make their story particularly difficult.

Margarita sleeps in a single bed inside their shack, surrounded by piles of newspaper, rusty pots, and some clothing. Ricardo sleeps outside on a piece of plywood, a thin tarp above him acts as his only shelter. He has no walls around him. He has no protection from the daily rain that comes during the rainy season.

Ricardo showing us his bed

Margarita and Ricardo have a son who has a drinking problem, which is far too common here. He goes out and spends the little money he has to buy home-made, especially strong liquor. He gets drunk and stumbles his way to his parents house. He becomes very violent, very easily if he doesn't find food to steal at his parents house. And this is exactly why Ricardo sleeps outside. To defend his wife. To take the blows and beatings of their son. Many times we've visited him and he is bruised and bleeding, from a visit the night before by his son. But they can't move to another home or purchase a door with a lock because they can't even afford food. So Ricardo sleeps outside, never knowing when his son will come and beat him.

About a month ago we had a volunteer group come to work with Mayan Families for a few days. As I was working with them I came to find out they were a church group from southern Indiana. Small world. Paul, the pastor and leader of the group, had a huge heart and always looked for ways to give. I was taking the group through the market one afternoon when we ran into Ricardo carrying a heavy bag full of scraps from the market. I introduced the group to Ricardo, explaining he's part of our Elderly Program and then Ricardo walked off.

Paul, quite suddenly, turned to me and asked if we could follow Ricardo and help him get home. We left the market to find Ricardo walking up the street in direction of his home. He probably had a good half a mile to walk, with the huge bag on his back. We went up to talk to Ricardo and I explained that Paul would like to help him.

I thought that Paul was going to put Ricardo and his bag in one of our Mayan Families pick up trucks and drive him home. But Paul wanted to carry Ricardo's bag himself and walk the distance home together. I was moved at Paul's desire to sacrifice and journey alongside Ricardo, instead of just "fix" the problem easily and quickly with a pick-up. So Paul, his daughter, and Ricardo walked together all the way to Ricardo's home.

Later on Paul and his group went to the market and bought food for Ricardo and Margarita. For a brief moment their stomachs were full and they were smiling.

Ricardo and Margarita still suffer from poverty. They still go to bed hungry. Ricardo still sleeps on a piece of wood outside. Their son still steals from them and beats Ricardo. But every once in a while someone comes along and lifts their burdens and makes them smile. And those are the moments that keep us here.