Alexandra Kamler
Antigua, Guatemala
On the plane to Guatemala City, I kept looking around and noticed the old women. Women with summery dresses that skimmed right past their knees, sensible black close toed shoed and long beautiful black hair. Recognizing the history of Guatemala I couldn’t help but think about all that those women had seen and experienced and here they still were, humble and gracious as they told me about their lives. One of the challenging aspects of learning about the culture in Guatemala is that one learns most from that which goes unsaid. For me this takes a bit longer to grasp because I am looking for the gaps and listening for the silences.
I came to Guatemala with the understanding that I would fit into an organization, smoothly transition and quickly learn from and work with the community to create sexual health education classes. However, I soon discovered that Orís’ dedication to serving the community was the very factor that forced the director, Andrea España Marmol to close its doors. Class status runs deep in Antigua and having indigenous women and patrons from other socioeconomic strata come into Orís and sell their wares threatened the landlord’s ambition to keep Orís and the surrounding neighborhood a “high-class” area.
Since Orís will not be able to open it’s doors for a bit of time, two women with whom I have worked on different health projects in Latin America who had previous work experience in Guatemala came down and helped me assemble a team of people from the community I would work with. Together our group, which is almost exclusively Guatemalan, except for myself and a health worker, is restructuring the sexual health education curriculum that I came with so that it functions for the group of teenagers here in Antigua that we will be teaching it to. During one of our meetings, Lucre and Andrea informed me that most of the girls they know are unaware as to what exactly is happening to their body when they go through menstruation. José, the firefighter working with us, recounted stories about delivering babies to girls who were only 12 years old themselves. In recognizing this reality, Alex and myself, the two who are not from Guatemala had to restructure the way in which we think about what being a 12 year old girl means as we strove to create curriculum that would appropriately and responsibly deliver information about pregnancy prevention. We are trying to be aware of the assumptions Alex and I come with regarding what we think the students’ base knowledge about their body is. So we began reforming the curriculum and are starting with the very basics; body parts, reproductive systems, names, functions etc.
This upcoming week I will be training the group on how we are going to present this workshop as we are scheduled to begin teaching in the classroom at the end of the week. We are going to a high school in Antigua called INVAL, which stands for Instituto Normal para Varones ‘Antonio Larrazabal.’ Our group is made up of firefighters, paramedics, health workers, community leaders, and students. We are trying to create a curriculum that could potentially be given to any teacher in the school so that it can be used if he/she so desires in her classroom. We will be holding training sessions for teachers interested in getting the curriculum so that the ideas and activities are understood clearly. We also intend to train students that are interested in the workshop so that they can, if they desire, be a student who is well versed on issues relating to sexual health. We are hoping that they can serve as a resource for other students who may feel more comfortable asking a peer rather than a counselor or teacher once we have finished the workshop. However, if students do have questions we have set up an email account so that no matter where any of us are around the globe the students can ask questions without the shame or intimidation that often accompanies talking about issues as delicate as one’s own sexuality, doubts, and how to care for oneself with someone face to face.
So far, I am not exactly ‘fitting into’ an organization as I had previously thought. Rather, I seem to be working with community leaders and interested parties in designing and implementing curriculum for high school students and teachers. When Orís re-opens we are going to start the workshops that I had originally thought I would conduct. These workshops will be for adolescents, women, men and couples regarding the different aspects of caring for yourself in ways that are healthy and work for each person’s particular context. The community center aspect of Orís will allow a space for the community, apart from the workshops, to come and talk about issues that may be difficult to talk about with others in their community. But all that will come later. Right now, we are primarily focusing on the curriculum and our meeting when we propose it to the Director of INVAL on Monday. Wish us luck!
Saludos y abrazos de Guate,
Alexandra Kamler