Oh dear... Year three?

Oh dear... hi stranger. I forgot to write to you. Well I didn't completely forget about you, you were always there in the back of my mind, guilting me into writing a post. Well, I retaliated. And it turns out that my uncouscious retaliation was so rooted that I forgot my own blog address. Well, I found it, I'm here! I had to google myself - it turns out that there are more obituaries and now defunct Jewish Esther Spindlers' than these blog posts on google. Creepy, I know.

Lucky for you, I ended my retaliation a few days ago when an encounter with an immigrant traveler moved me so much that I decided right then to share it with you. It's all quite poetic really, but today, I changed my mind. I realized it had been so long since we last e-did this, that you'd probably be wondering what I was up to. Well, I was supposed to end my service in July, and hem... I stayed. I'm staying here a third year just because I wasn't quite ready for i-pads, car insurance, 3-D TV, and a blackberry.

Here's a quick recap of Spring/Summer '11 - I was busy being a lunatic, trying to finish my infrastructure project (thank you for those of you who donated!!), coordinating regional HIV workshops, and helping with volunteer training. By the time I had to make the life decision on whether to end or extend my service, I realized that I had never gotten the chance to just stop and breathe. How could I bring to fruit my daydreams of Spain, Tibet, graduate school when I was still on fast-forward mode?? There was no real rationality behind my decision really, except for intuition telling me, "Estoy happy."

Thinking about it now, I guess I just never really transitioned into what was supposed to be my last few months of "rehabilitation" into the oh-so modern society. Truth is, I didn't have your cliche "I'm going to find myself writing among mud-hut villagers," type of experience (for the record, that does NOT exist in peace corps Guatemala.) Rather, I spent my last two years living in quite an urban town and meddling myself into any committee, project, work-anything I could get my hands on (don't worry, I think I still found myself.) In the end, I was so busy that I decided I needed this third year just to begin my year-long "rehabilitation" and adaption to this strange world that now exists without me.

I don't regret my decision. I got the chance to move to a different part of the country in a new site, and now I get to travel and visit volunteers, and work with a conterpart organization that I CHOSE to work with (I'll be working in reproductive health with a great organization called Population Council.) Basically, I get to do whatever I want because if you've made it two years, that's just what you get. It's street cred I guess.

My goals for year 3? Take the GREs, apply for grad school, re-americanize?, work on health promoter manuals, work on reproductive health education with sex workers, visit volunteers, and organize field trips - lots of them. So please have high blog expectations! A heart-warming blog entry on immigration is up first! As well as the usuals - ramblings about room floodings, flea problems, travel mishaps, diarrhea (presently active) and cultural awkwardness... You know the deal, get excited folks!

So thank you loyal and probably bored reader for two years of life, laughter, and sharing our own little piece of humanity.

And pictures please---



Picture of a valley on a recent trip to Huehuetenango to visit a volunteer


my new house! with my new Guatemala mum! and Tay'in's two new chucho siblings!


One of the toughest decision of my service - Getting Tay'in fixed.


My now-old health post counterpart and I during a good-bye trip they threw for me!


Myself and two other volunteers, tiara and sarah, during our Close of Service Conference


One of the women from our infrastructure project with her new stove!


Health Commission, families, and village leaders at our infrastructure project inauguration

Drink up baby and look at the stars!

I have a bad habit: I take too many pictures. Which I guess wouldn’t be too bad if I didn’t wait to edit and share them every other blue moon. Well you guessed it, this is what I’m doing right now, deleting, editing, posting pictures of me, my life, my happenings of my last few months. I guess this entry is a pathetic attempt at taking a break and processing. Anywho, going through all these pictures always inspires some sort of glorious, touching blog entry, and well this one is perfect, as I sit here approaching my last few months of service.

I look through pictures of volcanic hikes, health promoter graduations, dog obsessions, hiv meetings, vagina monologues, bottle bench construction, material deliveries, stove demonstrations, random travels and wonder if I’ll ever look back at these, and smile stupidly, chuckling to myself, “wow, I had no idea what I was doing, or even who I was.” You know sort of how we look back now at our college pictures and think, “wow, well that took about 10 years off my life.”

I’ve always liked to look back at my past as a series of different lifetimes, you know there was Esther, the painfully shy child, then Esther, the obnoxious All-American prom queen, then the stubborn, opinionated, college savage, then the lost travelling European bum, which then returned as a jaded, disillusioned NYer, which gave birth to the present Esther writing to you now. Who do I think I am now? I’m not sure, I suppose a sort of strange awkward jungle animal, maybe even an enlightened baboon.

I guess all this philosophical jargon is my attempt to explain how far I am from who I was, or who you knew.... as me. I find it hard to even remember who I was before coming to this country. Who am I now? Well I guess, I’m more patient, believe it or not, but still very much erratic and spontaneous. I go to sleep at 8:30PM, I get woken up by an anxious dog who lives day and night for me to take her out every morning. I hike to work now, and I still think of things I miss on the way up the mountain, snowboarding, fast internet, efficiency. I spend my day trying to spit out a mayan language about .000000001% of the world knows, just so people here like me (I think they do, they do!) I spend my days accustomed to seeing bare-footed children, dogs pying on fresh lettuce in the market, and being fed strange, mysterious meat. I spend my weekends between hiking mountains & volcanoes and of course, hanging out with friends, and bitching about well, what exactly we’re doing here. And yes, I’m still single (surprise!!)

The truth is I feel completely happy here, I feel at home. So people ask me almost every day what will I be doing when I leave? Well, I don’t know, I suppose I can just stay. The truth is I don’t picture a life outside of this Guatemalan bubble here anymore. Am I scared? Not sure really. Maybe I’m scared of not being able to tick fast enough to the world’s clock again.

Alas, you know me… I’m always looking for a new adventure, a rebirth, and thus far, these include - teaching English to Buddhist monks in Nepal, learning how to sing like a gypsie in Spain, volunteering in a health program in Liberia, learning Mandarin in China, and definitely not going back to school…. Just yet.

As usual, all of this can be summed up in one song, actually this time, it's an Elliot Smith lyric: “Drink up baby, and look at the stars.” I haven’t stopped saying this to myself lately, and as I drink and thirst away (don't worry not literally) and absorb all that’s Guatemalan around me, I keep looking at the stars, rather they be Liberian, Nepalese, Chinese, Spanish, Cuban or just plain Guatemalan stars.



A 6AM view of Guatemala, from the tallest peak in Central America - Volcano Tajamulco, which I just hiked recently.


Volcan tajamulco's shadow from the peaking sun behind and the super moon still awake ahead!



My dog, Tay'in and I, on top!







Little Juan Carlos, a regular on the blog, and his mum, during material delivery day for my stove and cement floor project!



Girls playing on our jumbo eco-bottles during our bench construction

Good Night Ms. Guateland

For a person who loves to write, you'd think that I'd be a weekly blogger. Obviously, not the case - proof: I'm wishing you happy new year! in... March. Jesus, I'm a terrible writer. It's not you really, it's the whole blog thing. I'm suppose to sit here and write about daily happenings of my last few weeks on some sort of simple, superficial level that's cheeky, funny and yet sincere. Well god damn it, that's hard.

What I really want to talk to you about is what's going on inside...me. So this blog is an ode to me, old narcistic me. I've been involved in a pretty serious relationship here, with a country I call Guateland, and while I try to explain to you blog after blog what it's like, narsicistic Esther decided that today I should instead share this poem, song, or whatever you want to call it - Good Night Ms. Guateland (and please don't judge, I'm not into the whole rhyming bs):

Another night, a day´s fight
I take a drag, I exhale
The watchful night
I try to listen, I can´t tell


Between Full moon whispers and
Sleepy rooftops, dying fuels, burnin’ bolos,
Hopeful evans, rusty trumpets,
Quiet chuchos, mayan mountains,
Rambling ghost and Lost souls….
I´m nowhere, but I´m with you
Good night guateland

I´ve got a skeleton
Deeper than your grave,
I keep my eyes open shut
Because the more I see,
The less I hate
I quiver a sweet song to you,
With winds that whisper
“Mi dulce guateland”

My love, my hate, my sadness,
My hope, my Jesus, My god…

My god, you´ve ripped my jeans,
Stained my sleeves,
You´ve torn me raw
My heart bleeds,
Bleeding, bleeding you
I am you, I am nothing, you are..
The dream I lived in my sleep

Between Full moon whispers and
Sleepy rooftops, dying fuels, burnin’ bolos,
Hopeful evans, rusty trumpets,
Quiet chuchos, mayan mountains,
Rambling ghost and Lost souls….
I´m nowhere, but I´m with you
Good night guateland

You´re my bittersweet love song
Ms. Guateland
I sleep, I sleep, I dream, I wake..
I wake, I´m awaken
But I´m tired now…
I mumble lost letters
Of a dying song…
Good night Guateland.


So just a few words this time folks, but hopefully you'll spend some time figuring this poem out, I'm still trying to grasp my head around it.

Saludos,

Esther

Holiday LIVING with HIV-Positive Kids

Dear you - Let me first admit this... I'm about to cheat on you. I haven't spent endless hours writing to you today, today you get something different, you get an article (which is why I'm cheating). That's right, an article, don't worry it's still MY article, so here goes and I hope your interest in this might one day forgive today's unfaithfulness:

It’s holiday season in Guatemala once again, and for those of us who are sticking around, this often means endless days of snowy day-dreams, turkey-gravy drools and general hot-cocoa nostalgia. This is my second holiday season here in Guatemala, and while I find myself thinking of all of those things once again I’m also thinking about children. No, not the millions of children that seem to rule Guatemala and our lives, but a few orphaned Guatemalan children I had the chance to encounter in a recent visit with a few other PCV’s to Hospicio San Jose. Like many orphanages, the children there are ordinary, happy and giddy, except for one minute difference: most of them are HIV positive.

Hospicio San Jose was opened in 1989, in San Lucas, Sacatepéquez, as a clinic for individuals who were terminally ill from tuberculosis and other infections. As the HIV epidemic spread to Guatemala, the Hospicio also began taking-in individuals infected with HIV/AIDS, as many hospitals at that time refused to take such patients due to stigma and general lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS. It didn’t take long for the hospice to begin receiving their first HIV-positive babies and children who had been abandoned by parents all over the country. Today, the hospice has over 70 children and offer external services to hundreds of HIV-positive adults. The hospice employs over 70 personnel, including doctors, nurses, care-takers, educators, psychologists, social workers, lab technicians, volunteers, a dentist, and even a physical therapist, all working in a vast and sophisticated complex of buildings which include a clinic, chapel, research laboratory, offices, cafeteria, dormitories, and playground.

During our visit, we got the chance to observe a waiting-room charla, where an educator was giving a charla on stigma and discrimination to HIV-positive adults. One particular moment caught my attention when the educator asked, “What happens when an accident happens, what is the first thing you will have to say at the hospital?” Only one woman shyly bowed down and answered, “Soy VIH positivo.” At that moment, I realized this had been the first time I had been around so many HIV-positive individuals, I bowed my own head down too, trying not to stare, as if I were rudely intruding in their private, personal lives. I was perplexed by my own reaction, why did I feel so out of place, so ashamed? Was my own verguenza my way of playing into stigma and discrimination too? In the end, what was so different about these individuals? The answer I know now is this: nothing at all.

And this is the exact message that the Hospicio tries to convey every day to their patients and visitors. It is a space where individuals can become comfortable and talk openly about their problems and their every-day lives, and realize that they are, after all, just like everyone else. You don’t have to sit-in a waiting room charla to understand this, it can be seen all over the walls, with messages and articles of hope, happiness and life. The hospicio’s logo says it all, “Estoy Feliz de Vivir.”

The hospicio is a perfect metaphor for the transcendence of HIV/AIDS since its emergence in the 1980’s; it is no longer about death, but it is about a culture of life. Exhibit A - While at the hospicio, we were shown pictures of babies that had arrived at the hospicio at the brink of death, but the pictures we saw subsequently completely shocked me: pictures of those same babies, older, bigger, full of life and even quite plump (the educator even joked about dieting one of the kids). But perhaps this is the most important point - With the help of clinics such as Hospicio San Jose and the advancements in antiretroviral medications, the face of HIV/AIDS is changing. It is no longer an epidemic portrayed by a scrawny, lifeless body on a hospital bed, but rather by a happy and healthy child. And I hope that if there’s anything that you can take away from this article is that you start thinking about HIV/AIDS as life, as opposed to death.

As I step back into memories of walks through halls filled with children, Christmas trees, adornments and toys, I remember what one of the educators mentioned to us, “Lo que mata no es el VIH/SIDA, es la estigma y discriminación.” So I challenge you. I challenge you to visit the center, heck to talk to my crazy-ass, I challenge you to help end this stigma and discrimination in your communities. Finally, one of the last things I asked was how the children would be celebrating Christmas this year, the same educator answered something like this, “Well, the same as everyone else, with a big dinner, and of course, lots of fireworks.”

Anyone who wants to donate school supplies for the children next year or is just interested in visiting or learning more about the center, please contact me, Esther, at spinej17@gmail.com or anyone else you know on the HIV Committee.

Sharing Shameless Shame

I suppose blog entries are a 21st century e-journal, only difference is that in today's journal entries, nothing is kept private at all. Month after month, I shamelessly share bits and minutes of my life with you, via memories that have been forever engrained in technological gadgets, such as exhibit A, this photo:

What on earth is litte esther doing? I'm cutting toe nails. That's right, I decided that for one day, one of my women's groups (who are receiving the stove and cement floor projects) would get their very own FREE special treatment at a Guatemalan beauty salon, complements of me, Esther, the salon owner (products sponsored by mum's Burts Bees delivery a few weeks ago). I know what you're thinking, I'm crazy!!! Maybe I am... But every great idea has to come from a touch of dillusion right? So that's right we did it, with the help of two other women, we set up shop in the house where we regularly meet in the village, and went at it.... At the first station, the women washed and soaked their hands and feet, and then applied a home-made hand/feet scrub (made of sugar, olive oil and water):


They then proceeded to station #2, where I cut their finger and toe nails (Still got that first picture stapled to your brain shutter right?), this was the toughest part... And I gotta admit, I shed a few sweat drops, some of these women's toes had probably never been cut in their life. Some of the toenails were rotting, some were so thick I couldn't even cut trough because of the thickness, some had funguses and just plain old weird things. I don't want to gross you out, I just want to make you understand some of the hygienic conditions that we often take for granted in our American sterilized world that's all. Was I grossed out? Not really... Was it hard? Yes. Many of the feet and toe nails were disfigured by the lifestyle these women endure. These women remind me of war generals, holding the fort in the barracks, cooking on dirt floors, hauling wood, constantly cleaning, and taking care of the little soldiers. What was hard for me was holding their hands and feet, being so close to them, and yet feeling so distant from them, being useless to do anything other for them, but to make them feel nice for one day.

Station #3 - Wash away the home-made scrub and apply lotion (the now worlldy famous coconut Burt's Bees, holla mum!) I kept trying to explain that only a little was necessary, but the women were too cute, taking huge chunks of the cream at one time, soaking their arms in coconut goodnness:

So Why do I do these things? Because of moments like these:

Those are some of the 60 somewhat-odd women, two hours later, smiling happily heartedly for one day. So you get your answer right? I love my job.

Among some of the completely ridiculous things that happened to me in the last week were my health promoters feeling-up my bum-bum. Yes, you read correctly, and I didn't misspell either. Their one year training is almost coming to an end, and they have been begging me to learn how to inject. Yes, that's right, I said inject. Obviously, I was hesitant, but after thinking about it long and hard, I decided heck why not? they're committed, they're few in numbers, and heck, I'm not gonna do it, I'll get a nurse to show them. Well joke was on me, because Ms. nurse wanted me to be their bum dummy so they could learn exactly where to inject on a butt cheek:

Conclusion: Hem, awkwardness = confianza at its best (ie/ when health promoter jokingly drums my buttcheek a few times)

Hot dang, sharing shameless shame is fun.

On a more serious note, one of the little soldiers I've mentioned here and there is little Juan Carlos. I met little Juan Carlos over a year ago randomly in one of my villages; at the time he was about to turn two and weighed only 14 pounds. He could not walk, could not eat, he was non-responsive. Dad was a drunk and mum did not speak much Spanish for me to communicate with. I spent an entire day running around trying to get them help with different agencies; the hospital wouldn't take him because he was not "acute" enough, while another agency could not give him the formula he needed to get better (bureaucratic bs I won't bother going into). All that could be given to them were bags of food at a later time (which was never given).

I worried alot about the little fellow, wondering if this family would just disappear off the health center's radar; I thought that little Juan Carlos would just become another marked grave. This was a really tough time in my service because I realized how useless I was to the complex problems that turmoil Guatemala and poor rural families.

I found the family again randomly in July while doing house visits for my stove and cement floor projects. I was ecstatic to meet them again, but Juan Carlos had not gained that much more weight... Here is a picture of him during that time:

The mother agreed to participate in the project and came to every single health lesson (she hasn't missed one to date). Meanwhile, I came in contact with a new nutritionist who began working in my municipality, and we agreed to have her come with me during a house visit. Words are alot easier than actually coordinating work in Guatemala... That never happened, and I still kept bothering the NGO who works in the village about him; they told me that medicine was being given to him, but the last I had seen him last month, he still looked in bad shape.

Then, yesterday, I decided to pop in the family's house during lunchtime to see how the little soldier was doing, and this is what I saw:

Juan Carlos was smiling, trying to talk, attentive, looking at me, looking at everything around him, trying to play with my camera, calling for food, EATING food! I don't think I could ever make you understand how happy I was, how happy his mother was, as she spoke the most Spanish I had ever heard her talk to me in my life, talking about he's going to start walking soon, and how much better he's doing after finally receiving medicine. We talked a bit more about her children, and she explained how she has 5 children, or rather she had 7 (as she let out a small laugh), but 2 died. And that's not a laugh because she doesn't love her children, but because that's just life and death in rural Guatemala. But this time, I know she understands that it's different... Juan Carlos is going to get better, he's not going to die. Juan Carlos is up to 18 pounds, he'll be three on December 27th, and I'm still thinking of a present to get him on his birthday... Any ideas? Let me know!

Ok novel is almost done, I swear. I ran into the nutritionist today, by chance. And I told her the great news about Juan Carlos, and she just responded simply with something like this, " well when you told me about him, I contacted the NGO and was able to get him started on the formula treatment (basic mix of peanuts and chocolate formula), so thank YOU for not letting go of him." And it was as simple as that, a matter of life and death in the hands, words and contacts of the right people.

It's 7:44pm, which means novel must end so a tired brain can rest. Thanks for letting me share the shame.

Saludos.

Esther