Today was the earliest campaign we have gone on. We left at 6am to get to Salquil to give our campaign. This was the first time I really experienced a language and cultural barrier between me and the indigenous populations that live in Guatemala. Most people we have dealt with have Spanish as their secon language and speak Ixil, their indigenous language, but can understand and converse in Spanish. It has actually been better at times because Spanish for both of us is a second language and the conversations happen at a great pace. But, this aldea was the farthest outside of the city center we have gone and most of the people of Salquil spoke no Spanish. I would try to give an eye exam and the person would be silent and not want to talk to me. I would try to give a stove survey and the people would look at me with a blank stare. I felt a lot more useless today than other campaigns. But this also made me appreciate having an asesora (the local entreprenuer we work with) with us. She was able to communicate in their language and successfully give eye exams and figure out their problem and offer a solution.
The people of Salquil were especially interested in our stoves. Stoves are a really hard product to sell because they have to be installed into your home and they cost a lot more money. To get a person to verbally commit to buying a stove and follow through with their commitment is a really hard process. We had an idea to try out making a stove Charla- an informative session giving the people all the information about how to buy a stove, the prices, and how it works. We had prepped yesterday and there was a lull in the eye exams and we actually gave a Charla! Katie and Varun talking in Spanish and the asesora translated it to Ixil. It was kind of hectic at times and the asesora was a little shy but it was definitely a great way to put our foot in the door about how to give a good Charla. There are defintiely things we need to talk about more and things we should have left out but glad we got to really experience how we were received giving an informative talk to people who truly were interested in stove. Hopefully the talk will turn into sales in the next few weeks. It is hard to see the outcome of our work since stoves are such a long process product, but we know all of our little efforts will add up.
In total we sold three water filters, a dragon stove, and 7 glasses. The other group sold 22 glasses and a rocket stove! It was definitely a successful day despite some of the obvious language barriers.
We returned home, exhausted from our work and the long drive and relaxed in Descanso. I started the movie Good Will Hunting with Muoser and I am excited to finish it tomorrow. We then took a tuk tuk tuk to return to our home stays in the rain. The test I had helped my brother study for apparently went badly because we had studied the wrong stuff! oops. He also has two exams tomorrow but was to tired to study tongiht and is waking up at 5am to study before his school at 1.
For dinner we had chicken fajitas with broccoli which were delicious! But, the best part of dinner was talking to my home stay mom Nilo. We stayed at the table for over an hour talking. At first it was mostly about how sad we were that I was leaving and how I should stay for longer. We talked about how students in the past have not played with her kids and just been in their room on the phone with the door closed and dont like to talk to her. She then asked me what careers are good careers and to tell her sons what they should study. She said the only jobs you really can do after college here is study for become a teacher, an accountant, and one other I don't know the English translation for. I told her how much schooling is necessary to get careers in the United States and how much more schooling I am going to have to do if I want to become a doctor. We then talked about how different it is that I do not live in my home for all of the year because I am at college and how far away all of my family lives. She said in Guatemala there are only two universities and you only go over the weekends, but you always live with your family.
We then got onto the topic of relationships and how young people get married here but how it is so common for the marriage to end in a large fight and the husband just abandon the family. She said it is better in the United States because she thinks there is more communication between couples and it is more common and accepted to get a divorce. She got married when she was 19 and her husband left her for the United States. We talked a lot more all in spanish and I really enjoyed it. Really makes me not want to leave this family!
There was a cat that got into our house tonight and Nila was screaming and shoeing it away. I told her about the cat bat in my room in my other home stay and how I wanted to stay here forever! Really sad how little time is left in this home stay. Only 3 more nights! Going to be running very early tomorrow morning again....until tomorrow!
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