It Was a Big One

The peace and quiet of the dark tropical night was shattered when my roommate Peg leaped on my bed and started screaming. “There’s a snake on the floor and it’s having babies!” Fumbling for a flashlight I could see that it was true and we tried to escape the bedroom, one of the two rooms, plus bathroom, that composed our small house in Centro Uno of Nueva Concepcion.

Escape was the number one priority but proved to be difficult as the snake was parked in front of the door near Peg’s bed. The second door was used as a makeshift “closet” where we hung our bridles, hats, horse brushes, etc. Our 200 book book-locker was resting on the floor next to my trunk in front of the door. In our nervousness it took forever to shove things aside and try to control our shaking fingers to open the never used latch.

Escape we did, running screaming down the path in our garden, out the front gate, down the dirt road a block away to the handsome young perito agronomist’s house. Our hero, Francisco arose to the occasion and trotted out of his house pulling up his pants with one hand and brandishing the machete with the other. He soon dispatched the intruder, which turned out to be a 6 foot long poisonous coral snake eating a lizard ( hence the appearance of having babies ) We were indebted to him for saving damsels in distress and thereafter put on our shoes and checked out the floor carefully before walking to the bathroom in the dark.

Lynn

Stories wanted from Guate VI, sample entry w photo

Hola

At our reunion we requested that each Guate VI-er post at least one story from their Peace Corps experience. Many stories warmed the air as we talked, and it'd be great to have them in writing and illustrated with photos. Dennis said that he had written stories for the Antigua paper and that he'd post them here. Let's each add to this collection. Here's a photo that ends the Comalapa mural outside the school, a reminder of the important contribution that the young people of Comalapa have made to history. We can do the same.
It was easy to upload this photo by pressing the photo icon at the top and selecting one from my photo file. We welcome your contributions! Con abrazos, Felisa SantaMaria

Guate VI: why we are blogging (Felisa)

Hola Guate VI! and our Global Audience

In London listening to traffic, after work pub goers on street below and still in Guatemala in spirit. I still haven't landed since returning from our reunion in Guatemala 7-15 July, 2007. I am still climbing up to the altar at Chichicastenango, viewing the murals in Comalapa, listening to the fountain at The Cloister, eating together at Dona Luisa's, laughing at our stories. I still am in that spirit of our being together, exchanging ideas, amazed at the connection. Such a depth to that connection, hard to believe that it has lasted for 40 years, that we can acknowledge what we did during our two years' of Peace Corps work and the preliminary three months' training in Puerto Rico. What riches we received, how that experience changed our views of the world from being a privileged minority of 2% of the world to being with the less privileged living on less than 50cents a day in the mid sixties.

To give a bit of context for those not in Guate VI: 36 US citizens succeeded in being selected to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala from Oct 1965 to July 1967 after three months' training in Arecibo, Puerto Rico (July-Sept 1965). Training included outward bound (drown proofing, rock climbing, four day hikes); technical, agricultural and community development subjects, physical training, Spanish and working in the community. The majority of the group were sent in pairs to do community development and agricultural work on the Pacific coast of Guatemala in newly settled areas where there were no communities. Lack of communities and paved roads, 110 degrees in the shade and 'frontier lawlessness' tested individuals' staying power. A few married couples were sent to the highlands to work in cooler Mayan Indian towns with interesting culture, others to special projects such as building 'Schools to Schools', dairy processing or cooperatives. Notably, everyone completed the two years' assignment. One was just about to board a plane heading back to the US early and turned back, saying, 'I can't leave my group'.

This 'blog' is for our Guate VI group to share our experiences from 1965 to 1967 plus other stories from some of our group members who have returned to live, visit or maintain contact in Guatemala. As one of our group. a tough Texan rancher, said tearfully at our 40th reunion, 'I [we] received more than we ever gave to our Guatemalan friends'.

We celebrate a time when the world was less complicated, had poorer communication infrastructure, was learning the lessons of the Vietnam war. For many of us it was our first time out of the US, the first time to learn a foreign language, much less be expected to use it to communicate for work. We were sent away for two years, and somehow we survived, it made us 'global citizens' and we have prospered for having had those two special years. This blog will be our space for sharing stories, what we want to to savor, ponder and share.