What's Been Going On You Ask?

Okay so it's been 3 months since my last post, let me update you! First lets take it back to November and GLOW camp. GLOW, which stands for Girls Leading Our World, is a leadership camp for adolescent girls that originated in the U.S. Finally the manual was translated to Spanish, and in November 2007 we put on the first GLOW camp in Guatemala which we translated to Estrellas de Hoy (Stars of Today). The camp was a great success! We gave talks on Nutrition, HIV/AIDS and Sex Education, Exercise/Well-Being, Culture Sharing, and a Panel of Guatemalan female community leaders. In between the talks we had several other activities which included journaling, camp fires, pizza making, nature walk, and Tye-dye t-shirt making. The camp was special because the idea of a camp doesn't culturally exist in Guatemala. The idea of asking parents to part with their children for a weekend was very weird in and of itself, add to that the presentation of themes and activities that the adolescent girls don't usually encounter made for a risky endeavor. Quite frankly I was a little scared. I volunteered to talk about sex-ed, and ended up reviewing the female sexual organs including the menstrual cycle , how a baby is created, and when one should have sex (suggestions). At first when selecting this theme to share with the girls I envisioned American girls who had already, for the most part, encountered this topic. When I finally came back down to earth, I realized who I would be dealing with: Guatemalan adolescent girls who come from VERY traditional backgrounds where sex simply isn't discussed. It was likely that a good portion of these girls had never learned about their own bodies in this way. I live in a community where women have gotten married at 13 and 14 and had their first child within the following year, not understanding how it all came about. I also live in a community where no one, or very few people know what a condom is (that's another story). So needless to say, I got a little freaked about how I was going to present this information without offending. Also how was I going to fully educate the girls if somethings I couldn't say? For example I originally had a brief statement about orgasms, because it comes up in conversation about the clitoris, but I was advised (probably correctly) to omit it. Okay fine, but a girl should know these things, am I right? I also then had to exclude Gspot talk. But the talk was very successful even without these details. Although, if the girls can't even here the information from liberal Americans when are they ever going to hear it? My talk on how a baby is created involved a PG- rated illustrated story with dialogue demonstrating the dialogue of planned parenthood. The conversation between the man and woman focused on whether they were ready to have a child and take care of it - provide a house, educate it, feed it, and have a steady income to take care of it all. The talk went so well that I was motivated that I could potentially reach some people in my town, we'll see.
So about the condom story. A good friend of mine, Gloria, was telling me one day about a friend of hers who met a man, had sex once, got pregnant, man denied everything, and she was left with child and without money to care for it (since traditionally the man works). The first thing that came to my mind was condom. So I took a risk, because even though Gloria and I are friends, we've never talked about sex before, and started talking about condom use. I informed her that if a condom had been used, at the very least her friend would've been left with hurt feelings when the man dumped her instead of a child to take care of for the rest of her life. Turns out my 21 year old friend Gloria didn't know what a condom was. As I began explaining it to her I remembered that Peace Corps gives us condoms in out medical kit. I invited her to come see one, but also felt the need to say that I only have them because they're a part of health maintenance, not because I have sex (I'm telling you my town is very traditional... if a man and woman are seen together having a good time people automatically assume they're intimate). So what do you know she comes up and I walk her through the process of opening a condom and how it's applied. She thanked me for showing her, and I was happy that I took the risk to show her. She could've been really immature about it, or thought things about me for having it, and in such a small town I have to keep my reputation very pure. So this is what I'm dealing with. Not all of Guatemala is this traditional, just where I live. Here are some pictures from the GLOW camp.