This Friday I had the opportunity to venture out to the largest city in Central America: Guatemala City. So a little background, Cementos Progresso is a huge company here (if I remember correctly from my Peace Corps Spanish/cultural classes, it’s owned by one of the 10 wealthiest families in this country) and they have been gracious enough to donate 200 bags of cement for the Mayan Educational Center. So, in order to discuss this exchange of cement, Cementos asked me to pay them a visit at their central office in Guatemala City. So my indigenous counterpart and I headed off to the big city! We woke up at five in the morning for the five-hour drive (it would have been even longer if we had taken a chicken bus but fortunately we went in the muni car).
There were a couple small but notable cultural differences that struck me and wanted to share. The first is how incredible the disparity is between rich and poor. On a daily basis, I interact with people who are struggling to make ends meat and then I’m standing in this enormous city with designer stores, huge malls, and luxury cars driving everywhere. It’s crazy! It’s so easy for us Peace Corps volunteers to think of Guatemala as a poor country, which it is, but because we’re not exposed to wealth we forget that people live just like people in the United States. But that’s not even what struck me very much because I already had an idea of that due to classmates and friends who studied in the States and are from Guatemala. What stood out were the reactions of my counterpart, Juana, who is indigenous.
I came to find out that Juana spent seven years of her life working in Guatemala City for a clothing factory. She told me stories of how she went from being part of an industry sewing line to being an inspector. The clothes would get sent in big shipment to the States and if the shipment was rejected for imperfections, no one would get paid. Her normal working hours were 7am to 7pm and there were many times when she worked for 24 hours straight. And these overtime hours weren’t announced in advance but were announced on a loud speaker at the last minute while you’re fantasizing about getting off your feet and going home. I didn’t even want to ask what the pay was, although looking back I should have. She eventually ended up going back to Canillá because her mom demanded that she return home, I’m sure there’s more to that story but I didn’t pry. It was weird to picture the person that I work with on a daily basis, who isn’t that much older than I am, as someone who puts together garments that I’ve found in the States with the label “made in Guatemala”.
Another interesting encounter was when we went to the mall. We were walking around and I had to go to the bathroom so we entered the mall. Juana quickly told me there aren’t any bathrooms in there which I knew was wrong because of our PC Guate visit. So I rushed to the escalator and Juana starts freaking out a bit. “Oh, I can’t go up those things.” Seven years living in the city and you’re afraid of escalators!? Very interesting. I assured her it would be okay but she looked pretty mortified so I told her to wait there and I would be right back. Then when we arrived at the Cementos Office, we had to go to the 12th floor which meant we had to go on the elevator. Once again, with a look of horror she asked if we had to go on those things. I smiled and told her unless she wanted to walk up twelve flights of stairs; we were going on the elevator. Luckily, her hatred for walking outweighed her fear of elevators. While we were waiting for our appointment I told her that in Disney World there’s this ride I went on where you get in an elevator and go up super high and it just drops you. “Santo Dios” (Oh my God) she replied.
So that’s about it, nothing too earth shattering but it made me pause to reflect.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Currently my counterparts and I are working on a pretty amazing project (if I do say so myself!) that focuses on two main objectives: empowering the indigenous community in Canilla and tackling trash management. Watch this video to check out the details and I hope that you can help us make this project a reality with a donation.
Go to www.globalcfc.org/projects.html for information on how to donate!
paz y amor
Carolina
Measuring the immeasurable
This past week Peace Corps volunteers from all around the country are filling out their VRFs. Essentially, the VRF is a way to quantify the work that we do as Peace Corps volunteers. As with any job, you need to be held to standards and you need to prove your work, especially when you’re being funded by government tax dollars. But what’s been difficult for me to grasp is how to quantify development work. It’s an age old question and certainly not one that I’m going to solve. But the bigger issue here is whether or not I want to spend the rest of my life trying to prove value.
The people I work with are “pilas” basically on the ball. They’re very driven, busy, motivated and I believe that they truly care about the work that they do and doing it well. So then clearly I’m not going to be going around the office giving workshops on how to help empower women when they know better than I do. I’m a fan of subtleties. I enjoy leading by example in a quiet and humble manner. I think it’s catching on as well. But how do you measure that? How do I say, the fact that I’m always talking about water and exercise has caused my co-workers to drink more water? Or that my counterpart now goes running in the morning. I didn’t give a taller (workshop) about running. It just catches on. I can’t put in my VRF that every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon I go with my other counterpart to her K’iche’ lessons and essentially serve as a teacher’s assistant. Is that helping my community necessarily? No. But the ladinos are certainly interested as to why this American actually cares enough about K’iche’ to go to these classes.
On the other hand, you have these large institutions that are in the business of development. They’ve got metrics and deliverables…but what does that really mean? How does one measure impact. Furthermore, how does one measure long term impact? To measure means that the impact has to be quantifiable, it has to be tangible. How can you measure morale? How can you measure confidence? How can you measure pride?
As I’m sure all of you know by now, I’ve become incredibly interested in the Mayan population. The culture is fascinating to me and I’ve always been drawn to issues concerning race. Here, the culture that differentiates Guatemala from other Central American countries and what really draws tourism is the Mayan culture; yet, most people find the Mayan population to be slow, backward, and worthless. This culture created some of the fundamental principles of society! And they’re slow? Perhaps it is difficult for them to grasp modern technology…but it would be for anyone that spends the majority of their time still doing manual labor and without access to education, health services, and technology. I ran into this guy on my way to Nebaj (a region in Northern Quiché) who said “it’s great that our ancestors didn’t write anything down; imagine what would have been stolen from us.” I never thought of it like that. There must be an incredible amount of knowledge within the Mayan population (especially among the elders) that is in threat of being completely wiped out. So what do they do? Continue to preserve their oral traditions that could diminish completely due to modernization or encourage to take the oral into written form? Something to definitely keep in mind.
But I digress. The point is the Mayan population. So I’ve done a handful of talleres with the Mayan Council but I really feel as though my impact is my presence and my continued interest in wanting to learn about their culture, customs and giving value to what they do and how they serve the community. How can I put that in a VRF? My counterpart thanked me the other day for taking the time to be with them for pushing them to become better. I wasn’t exactly sure how I did that, I’m usually sitting in a room while they all speak K’iche’ and I try to follow along with the splash of Spanish they throw in. But if that’s what it takes for a group of people to feel valued, wonderful!
I know there’s no way to fix how I have to measure my service, it has to happen. I just wish there was a way to communicate the intangible, the immeasurable, the aspects of service that truly make this rollercoaster ride of emotions, ideas, experiences worthwhile and meaningful. The reason why I decided to dedicate two years of my life to the Peace Corps.
The people I work with are “pilas” basically on the ball. They’re very driven, busy, motivated and I believe that they truly care about the work that they do and doing it well. So then clearly I’m not going to be going around the office giving workshops on how to help empower women when they know better than I do. I’m a fan of subtleties. I enjoy leading by example in a quiet and humble manner. I think it’s catching on as well. But how do you measure that? How do I say, the fact that I’m always talking about water and exercise has caused my co-workers to drink more water? Or that my counterpart now goes running in the morning. I didn’t give a taller (workshop) about running. It just catches on. I can’t put in my VRF that every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon I go with my other counterpart to her K’iche’ lessons and essentially serve as a teacher’s assistant. Is that helping my community necessarily? No. But the ladinos are certainly interested as to why this American actually cares enough about K’iche’ to go to these classes.
On the other hand, you have these large institutions that are in the business of development. They’ve got metrics and deliverables…but what does that really mean? How does one measure impact. Furthermore, how does one measure long term impact? To measure means that the impact has to be quantifiable, it has to be tangible. How can you measure morale? How can you measure confidence? How can you measure pride?
As I’m sure all of you know by now, I’ve become incredibly interested in the Mayan population. The culture is fascinating to me and I’ve always been drawn to issues concerning race. Here, the culture that differentiates Guatemala from other Central American countries and what really draws tourism is the Mayan culture; yet, most people find the Mayan population to be slow, backward, and worthless. This culture created some of the fundamental principles of society! And they’re slow? Perhaps it is difficult for them to grasp modern technology…but it would be for anyone that spends the majority of their time still doing manual labor and without access to education, health services, and technology. I ran into this guy on my way to Nebaj (a region in Northern Quiché) who said “it’s great that our ancestors didn’t write anything down; imagine what would have been stolen from us.” I never thought of it like that. There must be an incredible amount of knowledge within the Mayan population (especially among the elders) that is in threat of being completely wiped out. So what do they do? Continue to preserve their oral traditions that could diminish completely due to modernization or encourage to take the oral into written form? Something to definitely keep in mind.
But I digress. The point is the Mayan population. So I’ve done a handful of talleres with the Mayan Council but I really feel as though my impact is my presence and my continued interest in wanting to learn about their culture, customs and giving value to what they do and how they serve the community. How can I put that in a VRF? My counterpart thanked me the other day for taking the time to be with them for pushing them to become better. I wasn’t exactly sure how I did that, I’m usually sitting in a room while they all speak K’iche’ and I try to follow along with the splash of Spanish they throw in. But if that’s what it takes for a group of people to feel valued, wonderful!
I know there’s no way to fix how I have to measure my service, it has to happen. I just wish there was a way to communicate the intangible, the immeasurable, the aspects of service that truly make this rollercoaster ride of emotions, ideas, experiences worthwhile and meaningful. The reason why I decided to dedicate two years of my life to the Peace Corps.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)