Guys, I've been in Guatemala for 7.5 months. 

PC has this really silly "life cycle of a Volunteer" infographic which says that I should be reaching right about now a low point in my service.

I should be feeling like I haven't accomplished anything yet and should be feeling lost and not knowing what to do next.

Ding, ding, ding! Winner, winner chicken dinner. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Sometimes I just sit and wonder what *are* reasonable goals for me in my service and what I *should* try to do here. 

It's part of our behavior change model that you have to "precontemptlate" and "contemplate" before you can make any change. Yep, definitely in that phase personally. Can't. Don't. What is goalsetting? 

I think part of the issue is that we as PCVs are natural go-getters, overachievers, seekers. So we're our own hardest critics.

I haven't done *nothing,* even though it sometimes feels that way. I've helped a bunch of women write emergency action plans for their pregnancies. I've taught 75 women about basic family nutrition. I've made connections with people who I can work with on future projects. We had that girl's camp. I've coordinated (for next month) a training activity for all the health district personnel. And I've learned a boatload.

Things I've learned so far:

*The legacy of NGO presence and political support rallying (read: manipulation) by the government has left the legacy of a handout culture in many communities where it is impossible to motivate people to attend trainings without receiving some kind of tangible benefit.

*Food security here isn't always an access or an education issue. Sometimes people have the money, local availability, etc. to put good food on their table and choose to eat rice with a side of tortillas. Maybe they still legitimately don't understand the importance of protein, vitamins and minerals. I think that for some it's harder to change the recipes that have been in their family for generations to include more veggies.

*Alcoholism is a problem. I don't know if I've written about this yet, but I've intended to. The other day there was still frost on the ground when I left for work. While walking there, I saw a young man (18 maybe if I had to guess) lying on the ground on his back in a drunken stupor, wearing a t-shirt and slacks. No jacket. No hat. No scarf. Just lying there in the shade beneath the building.

People come to the health post so drunk they can hardly speak. There's a PC legend that a man in one of the communities we work in died on the street and wasn't discovered for 2 days. Here, people pass out drunk on the side of the road all the time. So, nobody disturbs them. 2 days is a scary thought, though.

*The education system here, phewy! They took science out of the tercero basico curriculum (equivalently about 8th grade) in public schools. 

Three days into classes, the teachers in the entire country went on strike. There are no classes right now. I'm not even sure if I can get to work today, seeing as they're blocking the roads in my municipality.

*God, Guatemala's complicated. We think about the lack of development here, and my first reaction is to blame the civil war/genocide (whatever you want to believe) for crippling the economy, trust in the government, and basic access for rural Mayans. But I don't know anymore. Sometimes I think other factors are bigger than that, but I'm not sure where they come from...

• Reliance on religion to a crippling extent. Now, I'm not that religious but religion is a huge strength for so many people I know. Here, it sometimes prevents people from making proactive health decisions. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard "If God wants me to live, I'll live. If he wan'ts me to die, I'll die in the hospital anyway, so I'm going to stay at home and see what he has in store for me." I desperately appreciate the value of individual choice and individual values and respect these decisions, but they scare me. I'm afraid for the women that make these choices.
• Machismo. I don't know where this comes from in Mayan values, but I do know lack of access to birth control (many times at the husband's decision) makes so many women here vulnerable to poverty, hunger, and death.
• Corruption. Yeah, I know where this one comes from.

My poli-sci professors would be so mad at me for identifying 2 cultural factors as contributing factors to lack of developmental progress. (I'll define development at some point.) 

But anyway, so my life right now is a strange mixture of adventure and work. I need to go into hibernation for a few weeks and just reflect on everything I've learned so far. It's a crazy, crazy world.

TLDR? Read it.

This might come off as a really silly entry. But I want no criticism. It's just been something that I've been feeling a lot lately, and I just want to throw it out into the world.

So. I'm sick and tired of praise for how selfless Peace Corps is. Not really, I revel in it, but that's not the point of this entry.

The point is, I really don't think it's that selfless. 

I left everyone I love and everyone who cares about me and expected them to keep in touch with me and to still love and care about me when I get back. I expect them to write letters and to call me, to spend money sending me packages. I expect them to listen to me cry to them when I feel homesick, whenever I feel homesick.

I expect people to spend hundreds of dollars and their vacation time to visit me.

I expect my parents to still support me financially. My parents brought me so many clothes and so much food for Christmas. To be honest, the only thing that they brought that I didn't ask for was the one that touched me the most. They bought a SmartWool sweater and some leggings 'so I wouldn't be cold'. Weep.

And what's worse. I left my poor parents alone at Thanksgiving when it was the first for both of them without their parents. And they let me do it without complaint.

My friend drove a hard drive across town to my parents house, they brought it to Spain, and I LEFT IT on my sister's counter. It's now in the mail to Guatemala, making her the 4th person who had to spend time, energy and money getting the damned thing to me. I just depend on so many people, and then those same people praise me for my independence and goodwill. 

Well, stop it all of you! It's my turn to say thank you and that you're the truly selfless ones who let me just uproot myself for two years. My poor mother answered a waiter once with tears in her eyes 'you have to let them do what makes them happy' in response to his asking how she felt about me leaving for Peace Corps. She's never once felt betrayed that I just left her and my dad alone, as empty-nesters just to go have an adventure by myself.

I've stopped thinking that the volunteers, the adventurers, are the selfless ones. I think it's the support system we leave behind who all miss us but are always there for us that are truly the selfless ones.

Sorry I'm sappy. But I mean it, you. (Grandma McCalley finger for good measure).

So. First of all, I just got back from Spain, which was great and amazing and you can read all of my feelings perfectly captured here. I don't really want to go too far into my trip to Spain right now becuase it feels slightly out of place on a Peace Corps blog and because I'm so terribly homesick after seeing my family that I'm afraid that if I start to write about it, I'll start crying obnoxiously in the internet cafe. So to avoid that at all costs... see my facebook for photos of the trip, and we'll talk soon.

So, I was walking around my community today and I had a realization. After the realization I thought to myself 'Wow, Rebecca! That is dumb that it took you six months to realize.' But here it is.

So dirt here is dirtier. We've known this since we arrived. People get sick so much easier and so much sicker when they do get sick--well, actually, it's mostly because people don't wash their hands, but that's not the point I'm trying to make....

We've been afraid since the beginning that all the dirt is actually poop. I'm afraid not to wear shoes in my house, and I've become kind of anal about my floors. Which my mom and all of my former roommates will say was not previously in my character.

And it turns out, we were kind of right. At least in the rural areas. I kind of knew that there were no drains in my community. You see soapy water dribbling down from a house and you realize that the drain from their pila goes to nowhere. 

But I just had my insightful realization the other day when I was talking to a very intrepid young man who is soliciting funding from the municpal government for a community drain. 

There are no drains for any pipes in the community. That means rain washes wastewater into the roads of the community. It's no wonder that I just have this icky feeling every time I step onto my floor in socks, no matter how recently I've washed it.

Gross story for the week seems to be a trend for my blog.