Eat, Sleep, Work...

:: Getting Around On My Own ::

I've always thought of myself as one of those people who can't do anything alone. There has always been someone around to go with me to the store, to a movie, for a walk, to dinner, basically for just about everything. Think about it, I'm one of four kids and I've been with Hannover for almost 8 years now. Of course, living in Boston changed that a little bit. I had to get comfortable with doing things by myself. I suppose that I could have called someone up to say, "Hey, I'm going to Target. Do you want to come?" The truth is, that I assume everyone else is busy living their own life, so I rarely ask someone to come with me - unless they live under the same roof as I do. Also, that is a relatively easy thing to do when you have a car. Of course, picking up and going somewhere by yourself is also pretty easy to do when you have a car.

So living in Guatemala City has been an adjustment. Partially because I still have trouble asking people to accompany me. More-so because I don't have a car, and because everyone keeps warning me that I shouldn't ride the local buses. Apparently they are frequent targets for robberies. So, if its not safe to walk alone, and its not safe to ride the bus, what is left? I either call a cab (my cab driver Mario has started to say we're BFFs) or catch a ride. I haven't felt this dependent since high school. The plan is to buy a bicycle. I think I can make it the 1.8 miles to work, right?

:: The Routine ::

So this week was much calmer than the previous ones. I thought I'd be going with the team from the Post-Deportation Human Rights Project (PDHRP) in Zacualpa for a tour that included visiting parts of northern Guatemala and southern Mexico. Plans changed. It took a while to get things figured out, but it looks like that tour will have to wait until maybe next month. So, this week was much more about settling into a routine here at "home" in the city. It became - up early, maybe workout, shower and get ready, wait for my ride, go to work, get lunch at the little home/restaurant around the corner, home around 6pm, walk to the grocery store or convenience mart to buy something to cook, or walk to another local home/restaurant or street vendor for dinner, go online to catch up on TV shows that I'm missing (mostly: Glee, Grey's Anatomy, Community, How I Met Your Mother), gchat/facebook/email/kill-time, go online to talk to Hannover via google voice or skype, go to sleep. Somewhere in there I'll work in some reading - maybe I'll read as I wait for my shows to download. In other words... nothing very exciting happened this week. So let's talk about work:

:: Medical Monday :: 

Monday we went to the Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguro Social (commonly called "IGSS" but they pronounce it like a word - sounds like "eeks"). It sounds like it should be the department of social services, but it is actually the community medical clinics. We were accompanying a client who has a horrible medical history. She had a constant pain in her stomach for years and the doctors kept telling her its gas, or a hernia, or that its just in her head and she should seek counseling (seriously, they said that). She is actually a nurse for IGSS, so after consulting with her co-workers she asked for a colonoscopy - but her doctors refused to give it to her because she's not over 40. At some point she was in the hospital for "observation" for two weeks - but all they did was give her antibiotics and painkillers.

It took at least another year before they finally ran the test that revealed that she had a tumor growing on her intestine. When she went in for surgery, they told her that none of the other organs seemed to be effected - and that they would probably just take out a piece of her large and small intestine. Well, when she woke up she found out that not only did they take out part of her intestine - but also her uterus and ovaries! Let's not even talk about all the health issues involved with that.

Later, someone finally runs a colonoscopy and finds that she also has colon cancer. So that's the reason we were there today. She was about a month past-due on her chemotherapy treatments. The first time they gave her the treatment, the second time they refused, the third time she came back with an attorney from MTM and they gave her the treatment, the fourth time she came alone and they refused, and now she was showing up again with an attorney from MTM in hopes that she would get her chemotheraphy treatment. Long story short - Jenny from MTM fought with every doctor in the clinic and worked her way to the top guy until they finally requested the medication she needed from another clinic. They had said it would take at least two hours to get there - it was there in 20 minutes. We stayed there almost all day just to make sure that she was getting her treatment. We had also called attorneys from PDH: Procuraduria de los Derechos Humanos (which is like the national department of human rights) who came to accompany her, and had arranged for a meeting with a representative from Congress to discuss the issues she had been facing in getting treatment.

Lessons learned: (1) being poor and needing medical attention is a nightmare, especially in Guatemala. (2) doctors in Guatemala are not scared of lawyers. At least, they are not as scared of lawyers and lawsuits as people in the U.S. In the U.S. we have a legally-oriented culture. Not only do we watch legal TV shows - like Law and Order, Boston Legal,  or even The People's Court - but we also are very accustomed to taking people to court whenever anything goes wrong. So doctors have malpractice insurance - just in case they get sued. Here, that legal culture just does not exist. And even if it did, the common perception is that the guy with the fattest wallet who can pay off the judges wins.

:: Other Work-Time Highlights ::

Child Prostitution:  Yes, this is one of the many fun topics I've been exposed to this week. It's not something people really want to talk about, but it happens. On Thursday morning we attended a presentation by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Abuses and Trafficking) revealing the results of their study of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of male children and teens in Guatemala. It is not really something I had heard much about before. When really young girls are involved in prostitution they are generally being held somewhere discreet, probably against their will, and someone else is running the business. With boys, there is a totally different story. They tend to be living on the street, or children of adult women sex workers, victims of child abuse and neglect, and they are simply poor and prostitution is a way to put food on the table. There is more autonomy, but the truth is that behind the scenes there are a number of power dynamics and groups that are recruiting boys into prostitution or trafficking them to cities where there is higher demand. Unlike the girls, the boys are rarely regarded as victims or at risk children in need of services. Instead, they are seen as sexual deviants. Furthermore, even in cases where there is sexual abuse and rape of young boys - those cases are rarely prosecuted since the laws are mostly directed towards protecting girls and women, and since there is such a great stigma associated with being a male victim of sexual abuse. 


What happens when you break-up with your boyfriend who is growing marijuana on your land: Yes, this is one of the cases that came to MTM. Granted, it was much more complicated than that. It involved two break-ups. The first was between a woman and her husband and resulted in the husband's parents kidnapping their little girl. When the woman showed up with the police to get her daughter - the in-laws threw rocks at them! The second break-up was between the woman's mother and her boyfriend. Since the boyfriend, plus the daughter's husband, and her three sons were growing marijuana on the mother's land - it was not a pretty break up. Now the mother and daughter are being threatened by all the men in their family because the men think they are trying to report them for illegally growing marijuana. So the question is... how do you protect these women from the men's threats of violence, and get the baby daughter back from the in-laws, all without calling attention to the growing of marijuana because the women would also get in trouble for having it on their land?




:: A Taste of Guatemala ::


Finally, I'll end this entry with something a little more light-hearted, food. These are pictures from the few times I've actually remembered to bring out a camera before or during a meal. Of course, pictures of food are never as good as the real thing. 


These are called "Cuchines" (possibly spelled "Cuxines" with the x = sh sound ) This one of course was broken in half and I split one half open so you could see what the seeds look like. The seeds are a shiny black, but are covered in this white, fluffy, cotton-y stuff that you can eat. I assume most of you have either read Charlotte's Web or have seen the movie. These seeds feel and taste exactly what I imagined Charlotte's egg sac to taste and feel like. I know, that sounds ridiculous but there is no better way to describe it, besides they carry it in their mouth so its totally appropriate to think of that. Soft, fluffy and sweet... These we bought on roadside as we were heading down "the coast" from Coatepeque last week.

These are "Rellenitos". It is fried banana with sweet black bean filling. The black beans are cooked with cinnamon and sugar and then made into a sort of paste. The rellenitos are generally sprinkled with sugar - much like those sugar covered donuts. They are a type of dessert and they are really good. The second picture is there mostly to show what my meal was that day - a chicken sandwich and a rellenito - all for 15 Quetzales ~ approximately $1.93

Typically this is what my lunch looks like. This particular day it was breaded pork chops with rice and potato salad. There is always rice, but the meat and the vegetable side vary. When I'm at work I generally buy lunch from a lady who lives down the street. Everyday she makes 3 meals to choose from, a meat, a chicken, and usually a soup. It costs 12 Q ~ $1.54. It tastes much better than this picture looks. PLUS, we alway get a stack of about 15 fresh handmade tortillas for 4 Q ~ $0.51

These apparently are called "Patches". They are wrapped in a banana leaf. They look and sort of taste like tamales - not Mexican tamales but more like the Salvadoran tamales I've tried. Only instead of being made with maiz, they are made with potatoes. Also, very very good. (The first one is what it looks like wrapped, the second one is unwrapped - this one has a pork filling.)  6Q ~ $0.77

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Days in Guatemala: 21

Date of Return to U.S.: TBD - First Week of May

Graduation Date: May 27, 2011

California Bar Exam: July 26-28, 2011