sigh

i have less than 4 months left here.

i will probably go back to America.

i will need a job.

it will not be as good as the one i have now.

i may have peaked.

the boys

in prior photos they had been making goofy faces and doing weird stuff. I told them to just stand there nicely and smile. turns out they thought i was being a little bit bossy

peace

It took about 5 tries to not cut my head off in this one. I realized recently that of all the people with whom i speak with here, the guy on the right is the person that I talk to the most. He's five years old. Most of the conversations consist of explanations of what every single thing in my room is and what it's for, and him making, and me denying the requests for candy/cookies/cake/whatever food is visible to him that is mine. At the end of every day, I ask him what he's done. Always says nothing. Then i go diatribe (you can verb this word) on him about how he never does anything, he takes it. It's good. Coming in at an extremely close second in the "people i talk to the most here constest" is myself.

some pics

Vaccinating chickens for New Castle disease

Where we have our meetings is also a daycare. The kids go crazy when I come. Partly, because they get watches. I always carry markers along with me for presentations and whatnot, so i draw a watch on everyone's wrist. They always want two, but i ask them if they've ever seen someone wearing two watches. I beat them with logic. Look closely on some of the kids' wrists, and you can see their watches.

The kids were really restless this day so I taught them how to play pato, pato, pato gris! or duck, duck, grey duck. None of that duck, duck, goose nonsense.

Those are beds of radishes. She's got a bunch of cucumbers in the back. Says the kids are always running out back to pull some up. Told her she can eat the greens too. Good source of vitamin A

Jacob Overgaard is currently on sebatical, writing a novel.




Ok, seriously though, I know it's been a long time, and i'm writing no novel (i like the way "no novel" sounds, imagine me yelling it!, then it makes sense).

Here are some updates...
-We had a huge 4th of July celebration down here, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, brownies, chex mix, and some beers. We had an open mic too, someone sang the star spangled banner, folsom prison blues, an original rap (silly but funny), and there was some irish music and dancing. It all finished with a giant dance party. Yay America!

-i just planned and executed some "in-service trainings" for the volunteers that I supervise, went pretty well, i think they were happy. Logisitics are, in general, difficult. Logisitics in the third world are...

-i am nearing the point of being the most veteran (and hence wisest) current volunteer down here, there are but two of us left, within the month folks

-I saw a white dude driving a chickenbus, equally as insane of a driver. i've never stared so hard at someone. blew my mind.

-it's raining a whole lot. clothes are not drying. jeans are dirty. luckily, i'm in the Peace Corps, so not such a big deal. I think half the reason i stayed down here was so that i can continue sporting jeans, boots, t-shirts, and sideburns to work. corporate dress codes are frightening to me

-we are currently 2 months and 8 days away from the Guatemalan Independance Day. The school next to our office has already started their band practices. This happens outside. There are a lot of bells, horns, and percussionists. normal class seems to have been postponed. noise canceling head phones

-basketball tournament. we made it to the championship game. it was the stuff of legend. we lost. were winning for 3 quarters, ended up losing by five. heck of a game though. the community really showed up. there were at least 200 people watching the game. I think i had 9 points to include a 3 pointer and a pretty sweet tip-in. super fun game. They gave us trophies, i have this really big obnoxious one. the team told me i had to take it as a memory of Sta. Lucia. nice gesture, however, I couldn't help but think "now i have to pack this at some time to bring home"

-you have a nice day

the word for "handcuffs" in spanish is the same as "wives"

funny that a language would go that far

kind of a chicken/egg situation

I am Jack's Smirking Revenge

in order to feel less like martha stewart on "Granola night" (once a week, i make my own granola), i like to liken it to soap-making night on "fight club".

"tonight we make soap".

minus the rendering of fat, theft of a liposuction clinic, and split personality, it's pretty much the same in my mind.

what part do i play you ask?

let's just say i'm not getting any chemical burns.

pics

Doing a germination test, I obviously just said something that was absolutely hilarious. To do the germination test, we put some seeds in a newspaper and wet it. Then we see. The cilantro did terribly, the radishes, so-so.

One lady's "garden", happy girl, less enthused girl, baby going after a something.

radishes, close to harvest, they'll eat the leaves and actual radish. cucumbers, four plants on right side, growing well.

Germination test.

Having a meeting.

didn't do them justice

ok, so the ladies in those pictures need more written about them.

I like their group a lot. We laugh a lot. I work with a couple of neighboring villages, and they know this. They've asked me, "do those ladies over there joke around like us?" We get off track a lot, much of this has to do with me. I let it happen. As exciting as compost piles, radishes, and chickens are, it's ok to let things get off topic into something we can all laugh at. I've told the other groups that we hardly work here because of all the jokes everyone makes.

one day the debate was, when, or at what point, is a man a "don" or mr. One of them called me Don Jacobo, then another woman said, "he's not don jacobo, todavia es joven", he's still young. Joven is "youth" or "young". So i posed the questions, when does one become "don". this discussion went on for some 5 minutes, never reaching a conclusion. That day, i said "back to the subject at hand" quite a few times, but didn't mind.

a lot of the jokes are made about me. it's a good thing. normally when people can make jokes about you down here, it means they like you. they say that i'm going to take one them back to the states with me. i play along. i've told them that there will be a series of tests and interviews for the final choice.

remember that these are all women above the age of 40, some of them with children numbering into the double digits. ha.

The president of the group is in one of the pics, she's got a big smile and is holding a purse. She was "trying" to get out of the picture when i took it. looks like a pose to me. she was taking me around to see the different gardens. We walked around for 2 hours or so. good times. good conversation.

We talk about the U.S. sometimes. Some of them have children or cousins, or brothers, or sisters, or what have you, that have gone to the states. i tell them how much people that go from Guatemala have to work really really really hard in America and that there is a lot of risk. "but there's money there" they say. i can't deny this. one of the old lady's that looks 80, but is only 60, said her daughter wants to visit me MN. I told her it's really cold.

like i said in the seed buying entry, i don't give these women anything, all i do is teach them how to do things, what to use, etc. there's a lot of development in guatemala that is extremely paternalistic. ngo's will come in and give, not fish, but other food away. they give them all this stuff (seeds, chemical fertilizer, water tanks). many of the people here are hard to work with, because at this point, they expect to be given things, and anything else is not worth their time. i can't really blame them.

not these ladies though. they've done their work. many of them had to carry the soil from other places to be able to plant at their house. those fences made of corn stalks take A LOT OF TIME to make. scary thing- they're doing it on my word.

there are days that aren't easy down here. I question myself sometimes. then there are days like last friday when i took these pictures. These are the days that count. Friday was NOT a shipwreck.

pics

These photos are from the same village that I've been working in since about february. The ladies have done a pretty awesome job so far. I've been super insistent on the need to make a good fence around their gardens so that chickens don't get in and eat everything. They've all just planted, so you can't see much, but it's there, wait for it.

basketball update

we're in first place. have won 5 games in a row.

one or two of those wins may have occurred because the other teams were short players.

one of those wins may have occurred because a team failed to show up entirely.

we've still won 5 games in a row though.

so, i was talking to andy, one of the kids shown in one of my latest posts, last friday.

sometimes, on a friday or saturday night, i go to Antigua, a tourist town with good restaurants/bars/things to do and meet up with friends that happen to be in the area. it's expensive there in terms of my budget/a guatemalan's.

andy asks me "you going out to antigua tonight?". I say "nope".

I ask andy (five year old) "you going out to antigua tonight?" Andy says, "yeah, like i have any money (Suggesting that it was a really dumb questions to ask him solely because of his lack of funds)."

my house

seed purchase

With the 3 women's groups that i have, we've been learning about how to make compost piles, cut the tires, blah blah blah. We're ready to plant now.

When i was in my old site, i sold seeds. I decided to take a different approach to seed attainment now. The villages that i work in are closer to an "urban center", so they have more of an ability to go and make the purchase. That doesn't make it easy. The women have never bought seed before, and it's a rather and somewhat daunting endeavor.

What i am doing now, and hopefully, it's done, and i won't do it again, is literally teach people how to buy seed. It may seem really simple and easy, but it's kind of necessary. Were i to only tell people "go buy seeds", it wouldn't happen, and they may end up getting ripped off. I went around in town and priced the seeds at a bunch of different places in order to find the cheapest and highest quality seeds. Then, we had group meetings to decide what they wanted to plant (ended up mostly radishes, cilantro, cucumbers, and carrots). Then we asked each woman to chip in 75 cents. Today we made the purchase. I asked the women to come in to town, and I met them there, we then went to the store, and they bought them. Now, within the groups, we are going to split up the seed so that everyone has a little bit of each variety to plant in their homes.

Next time, they're completely on their own.

They laugh. I tell them, it's not that i'm a jerk/lazy and don't want to help them out with their seed purchase. I tell them that I want them to be able to do it on their own.

Empowerment.

That was cheesy.

tires

Been working with women's groups teaching them how to cut and prepare tires to plant in. The idea with the tire is to have a place close to one's house, that saves water, can be prepared with a good mix of soil, and is cheap and durable. Tires fit this bill. The machete must be sharp to cut. And, must be several times while cutting. I was joking with the ladies that after the machete is sharpened, that it's like cutting margarine. People don't really have butter, would be lost in translation.

Here they are, planting in the tire

well trained

the kids were playing with some post-it notes of mine. they were writing on them and posting them on my door. without me saying anything, what ended up written on them is as follows;

"No knocking, don't bug jake and do what he says"

"Don't put your dirty hands in jake's food"

"A E I O U"

addendum to the lentils

ok, so make the soup as detailed below.

then about halfway through the cookin', throw a can of corn in there.

then, when you eat the soup, take a whole avocado (chunked), and put it in that bowl of yours with the soup.

i know you're saying, "but avocadoes are soooo expensive here in America!" First off, quit your cryin', second, this is a cost benefit analysis. the benefits of that avocado easily make any cost pretty much zero.

this soup will make you believe in a higher power, or more higher powers.

don't let them fool you

Names: Harold and Andy

Occupations: Unemployed

Crime: Not washing their hands, entering without permission, asking too many questions, not listening.

Quotes: "Bend down, open your mouth, and close your eyes."

"Give us cake."

i wove a twisted web

so, for my own entertainment, i tell the children where i live some untruths.

it started with the removal of my glasses. took them off, pretended i couldn't see a thing.

then i did something that i wanted to blame on somebody else, but i clearly did it. so i said that i have a twin, aptly named jacobo 2.

then this weekend when i woke up one morning i didn't have my glasses on, and one of the kids busted me, but i covered by saying i was wearing contacts, which i do not in fact even own. i added that i was at that time jacobo 2 who does wear contacts.

it gets better.

now that i have it established that i have a twin brother that sometimes makes appearances (we're never in the same place at the same time), i actually complain about my twin when he's not there. this weekend i told andy when i was making french toast for breakfast, that i was actually making it for jacobo 1, and that i didn't understand why i had to make him breakfast.

then, after putting on my glasses, and becoming jacobo 1, i had to finish making my breakfast. when the kid came back, i started to complain about jacobo 2 and how he didn't finish making me breakfast.

the funnest part about it is when i told the kids that i have a twin, how their eyes lit up (might have been a twinkle there). i could just see how in the back of their mind, they knew it wasn't true, but found it irresistible to play along.

jacobo 1

the regular

So here's a recipe that i make quite regularly given its ease, availability of ingredients, and deliciousness. Feel free to add more or less of any ingredient, but whatever you do, make sure that sweet potato makes it in there. it, is, good.

Lentil Soup

2 TBS Olive Oil
2 Cups finely diced onions
3 Large garlic cloves, minced
3 TBS Tomato paste
½ Cup carrot (i think i put in 2 large carrots, definitely more than 1/2 a cup)
1 Cup fresh mint/peppermint, chopped
Salt and Pepper
2 Bay leaves
1 ½ cups green or brown lentils
¼ cup red cooking wine
2 medium sized sweet potatoes, cubed

Sort and rinse lentils. Heat oil in a soup pot over high heat. Add onion and sauté until it begins to color around the edges, 5-7 minutes. Work the tomato paste into the onion, then add the garlic, salt, carrot, bay leaves, mint, sweet potatoes, and cook for 3 minutes. Add Lentils, 2 quarts water, and ½ tsp salt and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the lentils are tender, 25-35 minutes. Stir in red cooking wine. Add more salt, pepper, whatever other seasonings you like. The longer the soup sits before serving, the more flavor it will have.

maybe

ever get that urge to live in a shack on a mountain in the middle of nowhere for the rest of your days?

drink coffee,

play solitaire,

eat home-grown carrots,

grow a big obnoxious beard,

have a grizzly bear as your best friend.