Some Pictures

Where I live!

I went to Todos Santos, Huehuetenango where they celebrate November 1st with their town fair and horse races.

The people of Todos Santos wear their traditional dress everyday. The men wear red pants and a blue jacket and women wear a blue corte and huipil.

Some of the women from the group Fe y Esperanza that I just started working with.

Middle schoolers show off the bottles they've been filling.

The recycled wall we've been working on.

Update and Request for Help

Things are going well in Cantel! Our bottle inaguration ceremony was a success last Friday, with the mayor pledging support for the project, a women's group that I just started working with coming out and bringing almost 30 filled bottles, and about 40 architecture university students lending their construction expertise. My Peace Corps program director came to visit on Tuesday and it was great to be able to show him our progress and get his advice on what to do in the future.



Besides filling bottles, I've also spent time this week teaching a women's group to make banana bread using a pot on top of their wood-burning stove as an oven, attending middle school graduation, and doing an HIV/AIDS workshop with a group of 24 midwives at the health center. The Peace Corps AIDS workshop is very participatory and a lot of fun. I've done it several times now with groups of middle-schoolers, but it was the first time I've done it with a group of women, the majority of whom couldn't to read or write. It was interesting to see how the dynamics played out a little differently but all of the women seemed to enjoy it and were very excited about recieving their diplomas at the end.



Kate and I are also busy planning a theater camp, 'Adolescentes en Accion', for the month of December. A couple of weeks ago, we dressed in costume to present the idea at four Cantel middle-schools. So far, we have 30 kids signed up and are hoping for about 20 more. Beginning November 30, we are hosting theater games, auditions, and rehearsals on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Then on December 19, we will perform 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' for the Cantel community. Of course, you are all cordially invited too! :)



I had a great time on speech team in middle school and can personally attest to the success theater has in inspiring self-confidence and public speaking skills. It isn't something taught in schools here, either, so we are hoping that by offering a unique opportunity for middle-schoolers we can help promote these as well as creative expression, leadership and teamwork. We are also throwing in some environmental themes and making sets and props out of recycled materials!



I'm very excited about this project and have my fingers tightly crossed that it will be a success. This is where you come in... we need your support to make camp possible! Without funds for paint, cloth to make costumes, and a few other materials Dorothy won't be able to make it to Oz. Just a few dollars goes a long way in Guatemala and Kate, the kids of Cantel, and I would all be incredibly grateful for any help you can give.



To make a tax-deductable donation, you can write a check made out to 'Friends of Guatemala' with 'Rebecca Allgire-- Cat. II' written on the memo line. Checks can then be mailed to:

Friends of Guatemala
P.O. Box 33018
Washington, D.C. 20033



The 'Friends of Guatemala' fund is run by a former Peace Corps volunteer who now lives in Guatemala. He will then deposit the money in an account that Kate and I can access to buy theater supplies.



Thank you so much and feel free to leave a message or send me an e-mail if you have any questions at all. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!







P.S. Whenever I explain Halloween to people here, I always tell them you have to tell a joke to get your candy-- St. Louis style. I still can't get over that other places don't do that. Take care and enjoy the chocolate!

Under Construction

Construction is underway on our bottle wall! On Wednesday, the school director, an agriculture teacher, and I went to present the project at the Universidad de San Carlos here in Xela. Two sections of architecture students and their professors are going to come and help us out with the more technical aspects of construction. I was nervous about presenting to a lecture hall of students in Spanish but it went really well.

Afterwards, we ran errands for the director and went out for cake and coffee, even though the teacher's class was just hanging out at school not doing anything. I don't think I'll ever get used to the Guatemalan school system where it's no surprise at all if teachers just aren't there for class ....

Yesterday and this morning we've then been working on digging a trench for the wall's foundation and making sure the bottles are especially full with plastic bags. It's great to be able to see visible progress on this project!

My good friend and sitemate Kate, who lives in one of Cantel's surrounding communities, was nice enough to say that I could post a link to her blog on here. She's much better about blogging than I am and has some great pictures of Cantel. Her blog is: www.katalinachronicles.blogspot.com. Thanks, Kate!

Environmental Education Workshops

Last week, our office sponsored workshops on environmental eduacation with Cantel's elementary schools. We had about an 80% participation rate from schools, with 120 teachers representing 18 primary schools. Each day was a little different-- some days were a bit stressful with 40 teachers, some days were small with only 8 or 12, and on the last day a preschool gymnastics competition was going on right next door making it difficult to even think. Overall, though, they were very well-received by the teachers. We had a good time and I think it's a good start. Unfortunately the school year here ends in about two weeks, but when classes begin again in January I'm hoping to get more involved with the elementary schools and do follow-up activities on what we talked about in the workshops.

I've been attacked by people more than a few times who ask me what I'm doing here teaching about the environment in Guatemala when it's really developed countries, and the US in particular, doing the most damage. It's sort of difficult to explain, and in some ways its a fair point, so I was grateful when a teacher asked me instead what differences I saw between the environmental situation in the US and Guatemala. I thought that was an interesting question and made me think about it myself as well.

The way I see it, it's true that the states are doing more damage, and what is needed there are huge advances on how to reduce and recycle trash, cut down on car-usage, etc. However, because waste management doesn't exist in Cantel or in most parts of Guatemala, and because of deforestation of the nearby mountains for firewood and more space for agriculture, you can see the environmental problems more strongly here-- and right now, if we don't teach kids about how to manage their own trash by at-home recycling, compost, etc. and the importance of protecting the trees, rivers, etc., it's only going to get worse here.

I also joined a basketball team last week, but our first game was cancelled because the other team didn't come. Hopefully this week, we'll get to play!

Guatemalan Independence Day

To celebrate its 188 years of independence, Guatemala went all out with school parades, marching band competitions, and kids doing relays with torches. It's been a fun week but I think I've good on all of these things for at least another year now.

On the 14th, one of the middle schools that I'm working at asked me to be a judge for their 'civic altars'. Each of the ten classes was assigned a department (like states) of Guatemala and had to decorate their room to represent their designated region. They then also had to present on the geography, economy, traditional dress, etc. In every single class, they also gave each of us judges typical food from that department. In other words, I was given TEN lunches in one day and since there were only three of us judging, we really did have to try everything. That afternoon I was not feeling so great, but now just thinking about it makes me laugh.

On Tuesday, for Independence Day itself, I went to Xela with my sitemate Kate. Xela is the home of the Central American fair, which people come from all over to see. We decided to brave the crowds and watched at least a couple hours of the parade before we got bored and decided to head to the acutal fairgrounds. We each bought some typical fair food and wandered around marvelling at how many stands selling the exact same things manage to stay in business.

Yesterday my host sisters Maydi and Iris, who are 21 and 23, invited me to go try out the rides at the fair with them-- so I found myself back in Xela again. Luckily it's only about 20 minutes away. We actually had a really good time, even though the cheaper 10Q price (a little more than a dollar) was reflected in my also lessened confidence in the acutal safety standards of the rides. Everyone survived though, with lots of screaming and fun had by all.

Next week, we're starting with workshops for all 220 public elementary school teachers on how to implement environmental education in their schools. I'm nervous but am hoping it's the start of a good working relationship with schools in Cantel.

Visitors!

My family came to visit last week and it was great to show them what my life is like here. We started off with two nights in Antigua, where we climbed Volcán Pacaya, went to a coffee farm and the organic macademia farm, and took all of the tourist pictures possible.

Then it was off to Xela, my favorite and nearby Guatemalan city where we hiked up (in the pouring rain) to a Swiss restaurant with an awesome view of the city, stayed in a nice hotel that used to be a prison, got delicious chocobanano licuados at Doña Pancha's chocolate shop, and went to the Fuentes Georginas-- beautiful hot springs only about 20 minutes from Cantel but with a completely jungle-like feel to them.

My favorite part of the visit was showing them around Cantel. Their visit happened to land during Cantel's town fair, meaning the normally empty central plaza was full of vendors, concerts, and fireworks that I was 98% sure were going seriously hurt someone. My host dad took to calling my dad 'Don Jaime', which just makes me laugh, and it was great to show everyone that I'm not the only freakishly tall person from the States. For my mom's birthday on the 15th, one of my best friends here invited us over for dinner, baked a cake, and her dad played the accordian and sang ¨Las Mañanitas¨, the traditional Mexican birthday song that they use here sometimes too. My little friend Sarita, who's seven, just told me today, ¨I know who your family is! Your brother's really tall and wears a yellow shirt. (This is true, because he only wore Mizzou shirts.) Your mom takes pictures. Your dad wears a big hat. And you're their daughter!¨ I'd say that sums up the Allgire family pretty well.

My parents also brought me a new camera, so I can finally post pictures! The internet is not going too quickly right now, so only two for the time being, but more are soon to come.

My house! I live in the added-on room on the roof. It's all wooden inside making it all the more treehouse-like. My favorite part is the balcony, which looks out over the town square.

Cantel's church, decked out for the fair with streamers. This is right next to my house.

What do you do actually do there?

To be honest, in these first couple of months I've asked this question myself a lot of times. Things are finally starting to come together, though, and I'd say I more or less have four main work areas.

1. Like my program says, my technical title here is a Sustainable Community Tourism Facilitator. We're working on getting funding to build a visitors' center in our communal forest and staging a cleaning campaign to make an interpretive trail in a really pretty area people use right now to throw their trash. Sometimes I do other random things with tourism too-- for example, a group of girls from Xela came to help clean up our hot springs area on Sunday and so I coordinated that.

2. Environmental Education. I still work in one middle school twice a month teaching environmental ed. We're also recieving books for elementary school teachers and workbooks for all elementary students from a Swiss NGO-- 3,000+ students! I presented a plan for implementing this at a meeting of all the school directors on Friday and am going to a a workshop this upcoming Friday to get the books and learn how the NGO wants us to train teachers to use them.

3. Trash management. Our office is working hard to set up recycling and a sanitary landfill in Cantel. My program director at Peace Corps knows more about trash than anyone else I've ever met, so he's helping us out quite a bit. The mayor seems receptive, which is great, and I think more than anything else this would be a big help for Cantel. It's still in the veeeeery beginning stages, though, so we'll see how it goes.

4. I haven't actually started yet, but on Saturday, a youth group that my counterpart is involved with is having its last workshop with middle school kids on citizenship participation. Our idea is to get these kids to form an environmental group. We could do summer-camp type activities, leadership, etc. I'm hopeful about this too and I think it could be a lot of fun.

Other than that, I still spend a lot of time cooking with people, hanging out with my host family, and teaching English to kids and to a guy in town who won a scholarship to Canada but doesn't speak much English. It's crazy to think that I've been in Cantel for almost four months now and am glad to see that work is finally starting to come together.