Jeanette's Page - I'm in the Peace Corps in Guatemala
Welcome to
Jeanette's Page
Gig 'Em, Aggies, Class of 95
I'm in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. I arrived in March of 1997. Jeanette is returning on May 22, 1999. Twenty Seven Months of peace Corps Experience. Send me an email at jeanettebettes@hotmail.com .
Jeanette's Main Photo Pages
Comments based on recent letters and conversations from Jeanette:
November 15, 1998
Jeanette has relocated, been in the hospital for a week, and hosted one of her best friends since the last update. I have also reorganized the pictures. They are all on the pages above
June 23, 1998 - Major News from Guatemala
Jeanette is moving to a new site. She is going to Palestina in the district of Quezaltenango. This is further south than she was but at an elevation of about 300 mettes higher. She is at over 3000 meters. She will be doing the same things in Palestina she was doing in Soloma. There had been problems in Soloma and she was the only PCV there. There are two others in Palestina.
Best news yet - she is only 45 minutes from the second largest city in Quatemala, Quezaltenango. the nickname is Xela, pronounced Shay-la. In Xela she has a mail box that does not go thru Guatemalan mail at all and she has an email address.
Her words about it:
so anyway, here i am sitting in my new email hub- alternativas. the guy
that owns this place is from the states and is super nice! it works the
same way as the place in antigua. you have to put my name in the subject
place in order for it to go in my box. also, i have bought a mail box
here. the mail NEVER touches guatemalan mail system. you mail it to
miami, they split it up among the three offices in gautemala, then bus it
directly to here. anyway, the average time to receive mail is 4-8 days-
including packages! so when you wanna send on up a package of grape nuts
or a tape of everyone talking (like at memaw's party
) or something, don't hesitate because now i'm sure to get it.
May 22, 1998
We talked to Jeanette this week and she is in Antiqua and Guatemala City (Guate is what everybody calls it) through the end of the month for Spanish Training and annual physicals. She has one year left and has been there for almost 15 months.
News:
She and one of her site mates had their solicitude (grant) accepted for several hundred stove kits. The grant is for about $3,000 to help people buy and build stoves that will cook on three to four pieces of wood per day. Most women cook over open fires with their babies on their back or strapped to their front. Lung ailments are a common cause of childhood death. Also this helps the deforestation problem by reducing the amount of wood needed.
This is her second grant. The first was for latrines for the schools and some homes. Again, the local person has to partially pay and then build the latrine.
The smoke that we hear so much about coming from Mexico is also coming from guatemala. Chiapas is one of the Mexican states with the most fires and it borders Huehuetenango where Jeanette is. She said she could see the fires and smoke plumes all around her village. She said that the smoke is very bad there, but interestingly enough, the people who live there including her had no idea how or why the fires got started.
Personally, she is doing well, but is lonely as she is the only PCV in Soloma now. Her one site mate has been travelling working on some seminars and will be gone a total of several months. Please write her and offer encouragement.
Newer Pictures
New Pictures(Click Here, it may be slow, there are several new pics)
Archived Letters & Notes
General Information
We can't email Jeanette. She is in a town called Soloma about 40 miles (5 hour bus ride thru the mountains) north of Huehuetenango. The nearest phone is in Huehue (short for Huehuetenango and pronounced "way-way"), so phone calls are few and far between. Soloma also has no post office, so right now she is only getting mail once a month from the Peace Corps office in Guatemala City, another 5 hours away. She has set a personal goal to live on her Peace Corps salary of a few dollars a day and she is seems to make that work. They are supposed to live like the people of Guatemala and not rich American tourists. Most of the volunteers, including Jeanette, suffered from various stomach ailments the entire first three months. She thinks she has finally conquered the stomach problems for now and that everyone continues to fight this problem throughout their stay
She is teaching health and nutrition in a number of Mayan villages. She works with teachers, parents, and children teaching the basics including washing your hands and your food, boiling your water, building safe latrines, proper diet, etc. Most of the Mayans speak one of the more than 100 Mayan dialects and Spanish is their second language also. Last time I talked to Jeanette she spoke several Mayan words and they all had a very guttural sound mixed with Spanish sounds.
The people of Guatemala (and their children) are warm, friendly, and beautiful
drop me a line and my parents will mail me any correspondence.
