JULIO.

(Thursday)

First, I should thank my mom for graciously sending me a care package via someone who arrived here yesterday! I finally got my peanut butter and new socks among other things, and I couldn’t have been more happy. I am almost at the end of my fourth week, and all of the dirt covering pretty much everything I own is seemingly permanent. I miss taking REAL showers (I have yet to have a showerhead spray water on me) and I strangely have persevered a singular pair of socks that are only when I am in my bed – my efforts to keep some part of my life clean.

Today was a tumultuous day for the organization. While I am only versed in what I heard from others, I am still trying to formulate my opinions on the situation. Guatemalan labor laws dictate that all workers must be paid minimum wage (somewhere between 40 and 50Q a week?), in addition to a 250Q bonus each month and 6 weeks vacation throughout the year, not including holidays (mind you, workers get 3 week days off for the fair). However, it is a struggle for an organization like this to maintain local employees at those standards with the little money that they have. Instead of some of those benefits, the organization pays the workers well and provides them with other needs (money, food, they all received new work boots last week). Apparently, the workers came together as a union and contacted the Ministry of Labor to file a claim that they have not been receiving appropriate benefits. The Ministry arrived today and all hell kind of broke loose. The workers are demanding that they receive all the money that has not been granted to them for this year and back pay from the time each of them began working with the organization. I do think the claim is valid. I say this only because I imagined what this situation would be like if I were in their shoes in my own country, needing to feed a family and myself. Although I understand the financial difficulties of an organization, it is a worker’s right to be awarded an appropriate amount for their work, and an employer’s duty to do so. At the same time, there is a perception that because it is an American organization that it is made out of money. This fact is obviously not true, as non-profits struggle everyday to find enough funds for materials, staff and other random operational costs. I’m not sure how it will all play out, but I will most certainly be interested to see the results of this new, and fairly sizeable battle.

I moved into my homestay yesterday, and so far it has been an adventure. Blanca and Emiliano are my host parents, and Yani, who is 12 and loves Michael Jackson and Argentina, is my host brother. Tonight when we came home, they were cooking dinner, and Blanca brought out photo albums and tried to feed me different types of meat she was making (“me encanta carne,” she says), and Yani told me about school, and Emiliano and I talked about futbol and school and my family…and needless to say, although I only understand about half of what they were saying, I will be most certainly speaking a lot of Spanish around here.

I finally received the Engineers’ Report from Earthship, so I plan on sifting through that over the next several days. I had an interesting talk with one of the volunteers this morning (she is a WOOFer! so jealous), and we were talking about our perceptions of the management of the program and the development of these massive building projects. It was a good talk because I found myself asking all of these questions as far as wanting to see the feasibility of these methods being used in different environments, and wondering about how these operations would flow with different organization and management styles, and how these grand engineering decisions were made without a formal engineer on staff. I’ve finally gotten past the shock and awe stage of my time here and can start digging deeper.

(Friday).

This morning the organization had a meeting in Chimaltenango with the Ministry of Labour. They explained the situation, showed some of the organization's video, and essentially were able to escape fines and having to pay the workers their backpay. The workers also have to sign a document agreeing to cede their money and continue working under the current wages. In one sense, this is great for the organization because they won't be bankrupt from having to pay all of those funds, but on the other hand it's terribly unfortunate that the workers are having to essentially give in or lose their job. The Labour laws of this country should've have been assessed prior to hiring so much staff (both Guatemalan staff and US staff), and should've been acknowledged from the start. Just because this is an American organization operating in another country doesn't mean that the workers don't deserve the rights afforded to them by their own country.