primer dia

Today was my first day of work! It was rather productive. I woke up early to get started on my article and began by researching what Project HAARP is. Project HAARP stands for the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. The government has already spent $250 million tax-funded construction and operating costs.The research facility main activity is probing the ionosphere by sending it continuous or pulsing radio waves to get insight on basic natural processes and phenomena in the ionosphere. The research can also show how the ionosphere affects radio signals, mitigating the negative effects to improve communication and navigation systems, and use radio waves to send foreign-sent killer electrons out of orbit to protect national technology and electronic system. Extremely Low Frequency Waves could be developed to enhance submarine technology and observe underground activity in targets such as North Korea and Iran. Conspiracy theorists have blamed the HAARP for creating all kinds of natural disasters such as floods, droughts, hurricanes, even the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and of affecting human health and behavior. A Russian report has accused it of potentially having devastating effects capable of altering the magnetic field of the Earth, causing the magnetic poles to change and thus affecting the weather and the earth, and able to destroy aircrafts or satellites passing through its waves. Although HAARP is a science research program, it's funded by the Pentagon and the military, causing people to doubt its supposedly benign purpose and make all kinds of hypotheses about the true purpose of the facility. A scary thought is that scientists don’t know the potential consequences of this probing of the ionosphere in the long run, and although they are experimenting in a small section just above Alaska, so one could say in their airspace, this could have adverse effects over the ionosphere in other parts of the world if not the rest of the ionosphere.
After that research I basically started writing my article using only the knowledge I've accumulated throughout my trips to Guatemala - readings, articles, testimonies, history lessons etc. Then I googled the theme of my article and found a dozen of really interesting articles and papers about it that will help me gain a broader view and get some facts straight.
In the afternoon I went with the Oficina de Mujeres de la Municipalidad, OMM, to a small community outside of Xela called Xecharacoj. One of the interns, Leslie, gave a workshop on how to organize a "junta directiva", or board of directors, and reviewed the roles of each person to facilitate the formation of a junta directiva for this group of 33 or so women who then voted on 8 different candidates to fulfill 8 different leader positions. It was a really interesting experience, and I really got a sense of how much I take for granted. Leslie did a "dinamica", or game, to break the ice: they played hot potato and 5 women went up and did the chicken dance and they split up into groups and Leslie gave them an optical illusion in which they had to decide as a group which was the longer line. Every woman had to stand up and say their name, and some of them presented themselves and added a little something about how they felt. One lady thanked us for being here to teach them what they don't know and to help them be less afraid by creating a sort of safe haven where everyone is able to speak their mind and heart, participate, and value themselves. Some other ladies barely got off their chair, mumbled their name, and sat right back down in embarrassment. I knew before hand that indigenous women are very shy and afraid to speak up because of historical repression and omnipresent machismo, but seeing some ladies struggle with having to simply say their names in front of women they know was pretty intense. Having to explain what an organization is and how a junta directiva functions is also something I thought was pretty obvious, but apparently it isn't. OMM is really helping these women take charge of their lives and value themselves, I'm very happy to have the opportunity to observe what they do and how they affect women's lives directly. Although I was the only gringa and by far the tallest person in the room, I felt welcome and viewed not just as a white person volunteering for 2 months and a half but as a woman, and even if our realities are worlds apart, we're in the same boat and all support and understand each other in some special way.