Palomas de Paz Entre Batallas de Chinas

The entire week prior to Easter is really big here as I am sure it is in all of Latin America. There are huge markets, processions, festivals, crucifixions, alformbras (carpets made out of flowers and colorful sawdust placed into beautiful designs made for the processions to march on), people in gorgeous traje/traditional clothing, tourists from all over and well you get the idea. Up until the Friday of Semana Santa I had been working in the park, basically doing manual labor which I have become accustomed to, but luckily Thursday two of my buddies came down from their sites to visit. Brandon from the department of San Marcos and Ben from Quetzaltenango came down to the lake to hang out and watch the Toronjeada which is a tradition in my town. I’m not sure how the Toronjeada was started but it basically consists of two teams (young males), that stand in the middle of the plaza in town, have bags filled with oranges, and two large mounds of oranges on each side….and basically throw big ass oranges at each other for an hour and a half. I asked my host family why they do this and the response I got was something along the lines of: to inflict pain/suffering on other people similar to the way Christ had suffered. The three of us were not formally invited to this event but sometime late Thursday night we just decided that we would show up and participate. Yes, we decided this over some casual drinks and we were all talking about how the battle would go down, it would be like the movie Patton with Willem Dafoe at the end in super slow motion and dramatic, arms up in the air taking multiple bullets to the back and CLEARLY he should’ve been dead by that point but still holding on for dear life. Ha. We imagined diving to take an orange in the chest to save one of your buddies and after crawling on the ground trying to get to safety or reaching/crying out for help to have someone drag you off the field. That night we made a pact to do it. Friday after noon came, and the day couldn’t have seemed gloomier than it was. The entire week had been foggy, cold and wet so this day was no different. We start our walk to the plaza in town around 3 o’clock; we were all really nervous and were questioning our decision to go. We stayed strong. The majority of town came to see the battle and was lining the entire square 3 or 4 deep, but they were far enough away to avoid any ballistic oranges to the face. The market which stands 2 stories or so tall was covered with many black tarps to avoid damaging the people/stores that are located inside, through the spaces in the tarps you could see little round Chapin faces eager to see the fight.  So here we go walking into the arena, all eyes are on us, we are surrounded by my townspeople, and it’s cloudy as hell and dead silent. We walk in the municipal building in town and find in a little room the mayor, all my coworkers in the muni, a bunch of elderly men in traje who just looked like some wise council, the news channel (Guatevision),twenty or so young/angry looking Guatemalans some of which already had fucked up faces or black eyes coming into it and us three. The mayor was talking about the rules and how important this tradition was for the community he then continued to pour mixed drinks for the warriors of the fight. The drinks tasted like rubbing alcohol with a splash of 7-up. After the speech, we were all drinking and smiling but you could tell some of the guys couldn’t wait to fuck us up. Guatevision interviewed us, then we drank our drinks and made our ammunition bags, strapped them over our shoulders, filled them with oranges and headed out to the battle field. We walk on and choose our team, and slowly but surely oranges start to take to the air…delicately at first but then lasers aimed at the face. As soon as we started, it started to downpour…the conditions were perfect. IT WAS A FIREFIGHT!! (Guess the movie).The fight lasted an hour and a half, we all took our fair share of hits but we were able to land a few against the other team. Brandon was a crowd favorite and got them hootin’ and hollerin’ a few times with his dance moves and his 1 on 1 battle with a crazy Chapin. Fearless. Ben too, sin miedo and went head to head with Jerrett the volunteer of 2 years and blasted a veteran orange thrower in the face that made him think twice about participating next year. I can’t throw, but I was fortunate to land a few…but I did however get blasted in the back (see fb pic) and made it out with 3 less significant bruises. In the mist of it all the muni was giving shout outs to us. The fight ended and we were soaked and sore but we all had huge grins on our faces. Vale la Pena. The two teams joined in the middle and we gave props to one another, there were no grudges held. We went inside to have another drink, (a guy fell and hit his head/unconscious and bleeding he was simply moved out of the way) and to shake hands with all the superiors and tell them we’d be back the following year. Exhausted we returned to my house and the walk there was awesome too, we felt like celebrities and as if people were “ooooing” and “aaaahing” it just seemed like they had mad respect. Haha. So, yeah that was the Toronjeada.

What does it mean to be a Volunteer?

So forgive me, this is a kind of intense blog…just something I needed to get off my chest.

Take a minute and ask yourself what you think the typical Peace Corps volunteer is like. Do you imagine a well rounded person, who works hard, is respectable, has high values, and possibly a tree hugging hippy who is trying to save the fucking world? Something like that, right? However you may think of them I’m sure we would agree and just say that they are good people. There are definitely those types of people in PC but sadly there are those that make me wonder, what the hell are you doing here? For instance, in our training group the week before swearing in a trainee was kicked out for writing an EXTREMELY offensive blog. I won’t even mention what he wrote about, but if you read it you would be like who is this jackass?? I remember some of his cohorts feeling bad for him and saying he would have been a good volunteer…WTF you want that douche working with kids?!! I don’t know which is worse; people doing stupid things or those that feel sorry for the people that do stupid things. Whatever, his ass got what he deserved.

Now just into our third week of being actual volunteers, every weekend I have heard stories of others getting together and just acting like fools. Maybe it’s just the excitement of finally having some of our freedom back, or just needing to not give a damn for a while, I get it. I have witnessed it in person, I have heard it through the grape-vine how they behave, and it’s just really disappointing. You would think that it was college part deaux, or just anything other than the PC. There are those who seem not to be able to let go of there American lives and every weekend is just an excuse to over do it. Maybe it will calm down but I doubt it, since the veteran volunteers seem worse than the noobs.

Yeah, I realize that Guatemala is an intense country with problems on its own and it could be incredibly stressful living here. Some volunteers definitely have it worse than others (no water, electricity, latrines…etc) but we are only here for 2 years. Two years. A short amount of time. It’s funny to see volunteers paying hundreds of dollars to bring extra food into the country like Guatemala doesn’t have ANY or receiving multiple packages from home weekly with NECESSITIES that they just absolutely cannot live without (purses, shoes,…bullshit stuff). Not to mention the volunteers who have better living situations have nicer places now than they probably would have in the states and of course decked out with modern shit You wouldn’t even believe that they live in a third world country. It must be a rough life. TWO YEARS. Think about all the shit the people in this country have to deal with DAILY and you are still living better then most of them, you can’t struggle? Not even for a little while? We came here to be self-less and try and do some fucking good here. So do it.

Bottom line is…yeah it’s hard but at least we all get to return to our “normal lives” in the states, and be successful or travel or whatever the hell you do when you are done. But if you join the Peace Corps to live out more of your forgotten college years or just live life like you would have in the states…what the fuck is the point? GO HOME.

I know I sound like a curmudgeon, but I just think people should be better down here and not do stupid shit. But in someway seeing and hearing these stories could really help someone realize what not to fall into or realize that they want a better PC experience for themselves. Now I know what I want for my time here, I know how I want to walk away from this experience. That’s all I got to say about that.