I thought it would be fun to show you all a few of the crazy bugs we've encountered here. Without further ado...

This bad boy is called La Madre de Alacrán (which means The Mother of Scorpion). They're harmless and only come out at night but get pretty big - this one was about the size of my pinky.

Giant grasshopper. About the size of Sarah's hand...

Kittens! Their mama, Fuscia, just gave birth to them about 3-4 weeks ago. They are adorable.

muestra = sample

Here's a workshop that Sarah gave today. The 3-hour charla was about the sanitation and hygiene before, during, and after the birth: How to avoid infections, when/where to cut the cord, stuff like that. The health center holds these charlas for the comadronas (midwives) every month.

(Thanks to Emily Crawford for the materials)

"How to cut the Umbilical Cord"

"The three clean things":

Clean hands

Clean place of birth

Sterilized tools

"Things to watch out for with the Placenta"

Try to make sure that the membranes are complete.

You could imagine them as if they form a bag.

Lately, we’ve been a little quiet about what we’re doing. I happily report that it is due to being somewhat busy. That’s right, busy, I said it. As Mat wrote, we had some additional training a few weeks ago, including an HIV/AIDS workshop that four people from our Centro de Salud attended. Ever since coming back to site, we have had so much support from the Centro. I think they finally “get” what it is we do and how we can be utilized.

So right now we are planning, planning, planning. We are teaming up with the Centro’s Healthy Adolescents program and will work with the four schools in the urban (I use this term loosely) area on Mental and Sexual Health Education. We are also working with the Ministry of Education and Centro’s Healthy Schools program as educators in any of the 21 healthy schools in the muni that want/need help giving health charlas, concentrating on hygiene.

This past Tuesday, we presented a plan for training every micro-region of the muni on HIV/AIDS to the development committee for the community, called the COMUDE. The micro-regions split the 60 communities into 12 groups. We plan to have 1 or 2 trainings per month until we get through all twelve micro-regions. Leaders of the community, women’s groups, or anyone interested would be encouraged to attend. Unveiling the plan to all of the leaders was a bit nerve wracking due to the subject matter. There was a statistic in the presentation, 75% of the cases in Guatemala are passed between heterosexuals. When I came to this part, I defined heterosexual. Then I went on to say that when discussing HIV/AIDS, people have to get rid of their stereotypes relating to it, including that it is an illness only passed between homosexuals. When I dropped that bomb, there were several gasps and many mouths dropped. I really enjoyed myself.

Finally, the biggest project will be the recruitment and training of Health Promoters. Health Promoters are people who would do what we do: give health charlas based on the needs of the community. And since they would already be members of the community and speak “el dialecto” (the Mayan language K’iché), they would be better able to deliver the information. This is the part of the project that Mat and I believe is most sustainable and worthwhile, and we are therefore both nervous and excited for it.

The computers are no longer the pipe dream they once were either. Thanks to all of our amazing family and friends, we will be able to reach the goal of 10 computers and maybe even have enough left over to buy a projector, making training the Centro’s staff and eventually the youth easier. We are so grateful to you all!

Other random stuff: I hope to get a weekly women’s health group going at the Centro for the women of the “urban” area. I was also recently elected to be our program’s (Rural Home Preventative Health) project representative for the Peace Corps’ Gender and Development Committee (GAD). Basically I am the go-to-gal for the people in my program for gender related charlas. It also involves doing some training and helping out with fundraising. And Mat already mentioned that he is our department’s rep on VAC. Go extra-circulars!

For you cat lovers out there, one of the cats that hangs out at our house, Fusia, just had three kittens. They are adorable but I bet they already have fleas. I will try to snag fotos when they are a little bigger. Besides that we are baking and sharing the goodies with friends and neighbors. Pretty good way to exchange culture! Lemon Bars and Brownies are a big hit.

I can hardly believe it's the end of the first week of March! It's been quite a week... we started on Monday with IST (In-Service Training). Went and watched how some stoves are built in a small community about two hours away from the Peace Corps office. Second and third days involved more technical training and sitting for long periods of time. We then had the two-day HIV/AIDS workshop with our counterparts. It was very informative and interactive, and we think our counterparts are ready to give information and prevention tips to our community in a better fashion than before. We'll see come the 1st of April.

I am now officially the new VAC (Volunteer Advocacy Commission) Department Representative for El Quiche. Sounds fancier than it is - I basically voice concerns brought up to me by people in my department and organize the welcome parties. The other volunteer bowed out so I stepped up to the plate for a bit. We'll see how it goes...

So Sarah went home and I am in Antigua. We've rarely travelled separately so it's a bit strange, but other volunteers do it every day and it's really nothing out of the ordinary. I hopefully get back Monday, and if not I am stuck in the cabacera another night.

no pics this time around, been using the camera less because the rechargable batteries crapped out and I'd prefer not to use disposables if I can avoid it (plus they cost a hell of a lot of money)

have a great month and I hope it's a lamb

Some thoughts on the musical choices of Guatemalan transport

Mat and I went to Santa Cruz del Quiché today to run some errands. As usual, we took one of our friendly camionetas, known in the English speaking world as "chicken buses", to the capital of our beloved department. Fortunately or unfortunately it was a rather uneventful ride. As I am sure we have touched on before, camionetas can be a life-altering experience. If you are very unlucky, like our dear friend Ellen, the driver loses control and flips the bus, or only slightly unlucky like Mat and get puked on by a motion-sick child who can shoot vomit great distances while you happened to wear a pair of pants with a hole in them, allowing for the throw up to find its way to the underwear, or whether it is just your average uncomfortable ride, being packed in like clown car while some woman´s breasts hang on you left shoulder, the camioneta is sure to be an experience.

However I do not believe I have ever talked about the musical choices of the camionetas. You have your highly popular ranchero music which I am not sure how to describe except to say that it is like a state fair had an affair with the polka and came out with ranchero. Needless to say, it is not our favorite. Of course there is the marimba, the country’s national instrument - neat to see in person, but gets old after a couple of songs. Then you have your more tropical selections like salsa, meringue, cha-cha but these are rare for us in El Quiché (very unfortunate). And how could I forget the wonderful Reggaetón which is a mix of Reggae, Hip Hop and even R&B, the rave of all the teens here with a lot of videos including close-ups of women shaking it “like a Polaroid picture” to quote Andre 3000. These are pretty much your run of the mill musical stylings likely to be encountered on the local transportation.

However, there have been a couple times where it was a very memorable musical experience. Let me first take you back to an earlier moment when Mat and I were on a camioneta back to our site. There were only 5 other passengers of mixed genders left on the bus, all of whom were over the age of 50. A song came on the radio which had the chorus of “Métalo papí, métalo” which translates to “Stick it in daddy, stick it in.” Everyone just sat there like it was the most normal thing in the world but I was trying my hardest not to laugh out loud. I am still surprised the ayudante (person who collects the money) didn’t change the station.

Today was even better though. We opted to take a microbus back to our site. They are a more comfortable ride but tend to be packed tightly. To be exact, there were 26 adults, 1 young girl, the driver, and the boy collecting money. Anyway, the musical selection of the microbus happened to be some classic songs in English. No I am not talking Beatles, Led Zepplin, or Zappa. We were treated to a great mixed CD with songs like “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “It’s a Heartache,” “Rock and Roll Girl,” and “Playin’ with the Queen of Hearts.” So who went to the US, spent some time there and then after hearing the diverse array of music available to him/her decided this was the mixed CD for him/her? Seriously! Then came the climax (HA!)…”Afternoon Delight.” Whether it was the song itself and its content of lovers meeting to get busy before the sun goes down, the lyrics of which were unknown to our fellow passengers or my associations of the song with Arrested Development, I was definitely laughing out loud! And those near me certainly gave some curiously disturbed stares, not that that is different from most days.

Oh it was great. I can’t wait to see what my next ride has in store for us!

It's February! Here are some photos!

Things are going relatively well here. We were offered the use of the kitchen and a bigger room tomorrow, so things are looking up. Work starts next week, more or less. Nothing much else to report. I think we're both homesick and lazy.

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Jabón Liquido (Liquid Soap) charla with caserio El Limón

Modifying a USB "y" cable with a female port so we can use the modem. Soldering irons are only Q15 here! Still working a week later...

Sarah showing off her skills with the new toaster oven. Homemade wheat bread!

What happens when I ask for a tall table.

Shot of Sarah cooking from the patio at night.

View from the roof looking north towards Utspantan and ultimately, Mexico. The big cloud formation to the left is more or less due north.

Front of the house! It looks nice, and it is, but we also share the house with 5 other Guatemalan renters.

*Bonus: Dad teaching pre-teen to ride motorcycle on far left of shot*

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have a good mid-february!

Welcome all to the blog once again! We have a few updates...

Firstly, we moved! Yep. We were paying too much at the other place. We have a little less space here but it's more private and actually nicer in a lot of ways. No screaming kids outside of our bedroom window every day, at least (we used to live next to the health center in town).

Cool shot of the courtyard

Sarah is cooking in our "kitchen", which is really outside. We need some tables still

Our bricky room. Yes, brick.

Sarah making flour tortillas. They were yummy - we made fajitas!

Power and control wheel for Sarah's Violence Prevention charla with the women's group at the Catholic church in town.

The women making their posters of different aspects of how violence affects the community.

The women's group! (background: Jesus)

Our weekly Spanish class. We had them run a race to match colors from Spanish to English.

Sarah teaching the colors.

Mat teaching some grammar.

That's it for now! Have a great weekend and try to stay warm in February.

just noticed that on the right it has 2008 *and* 2009

sweet.

also, i found mouse poop in the printer paper tray yesterday.

te amo, guatemala. te amo.

Saludos a todos y todas, It has been a while since we have been able to write anything on the blog. Just thought we should give an update. Basically it was a rough transition from the beach back to site. Why can’t all of our sites be like Monterrico? But we are still here! The last two weeks have been somewhat busy. Here are some of the exciting things that we have been up to: We have continued working in our rural community with a couple of charlas this month. We gave the last one on Sunday and it was crazy! This drunk showed up and was speaking some wild mix of Spanish, Ki’ché, and English. The leader of the community, Roberto, was pissed but he couldn’t really do anything about him. Due to this, we were afraid that the message was lost. Luckily, Roberto is amazing and will review what we covered. Mat met up with Roberto later in the week and he told Mat that they are really happy about the work we are doing. And while there are troubles with language at times, we make our charlas short and simple (plus we are constantly repeating EVERYTHING) so they are getting a lot out of the presentations. And we are a form of entertainment for them as we provide lots of laughter since we are always making asses out of ourselves and are continually talking about poop. There are so many days when Mat and I feel so much hate for our program so it felt damn good to have someone tell us we are doing good work. We are hoping the doctor will help us get to working in 2 more communities with adults. But he is of the “there’s no rush” mentality so even though we are constantly bugging him it could be a while before we get going. In the meantime, when school starts in the next two weeks, we are going to start giving our health charlas in 4-6 schools (2-3 per week). We also give English classes to about 30 people (from ages 12 to mid-40s) on Tuesdays and Fridays. We tried to avoid doing English classes for as long as possible but so many have asked us to give them that we finally gave in. We had our first one last week and it went really well. Actually it was very fun! Plus we have been able to meet some new, good people. Mat is planning the computer café for the Centro. Thank you to all who sent or plan on sending money!!! The community and we are very grateful to everyone for their support. You are all Buena Onda (good people) and amaze me with your generosity! While I am throwing shout outs, thank you to those who sent Christmas cards. We received Aunt Mary’s first of course. But also Joe Allan, both sets of parents, Grandpa Allan and Grandma Allan, and the Joliat grandparents! Thanks for the cards. It was fun to get so much mail! Mat has also been busy helping out his friend who owns the local internet café. He has been doing free tech work for him and has found himself helping out about 3 days a week. He loves it. And when he is feeling less than thrilled about health charlas, he can go listen to the sweet, sweet hum of computers. I have begun working on my secondary project: a series of presentations on the prevention of violence against women. With the wonderful help of SARNCO of Columbus, I have some great resources ready to be put to use. I also got together Guatemala specific information (stats, the law, etc.) and hope to make a pamphlet to give to various schools, churches and community groups in the next couple of weeks. For those of you interested in my series: 1. Intro to the concept of Gender and how gender roles play a part in violence. 2. Violence against Women 3. Rape and Sexual Assault 4. Sexual Harassment 5. Healthy Relationships. Besides work stuff, we have been trying to get the internet. It is a little modem that the cell phone companies sell which then uses the cell towers/satellites for signal. It won’t be super fast here but will be great for research and emails. The problem is that the companies have the worst business model: make it as hard as possible for the consumer to buy your product. We had to get together so much crap. Three months of banks statements from both US and Guatemalan accounts, copy of passport, three months of some type of bill (which is in a Guatemalan’s name and it doesn’t matter whether you even know them-they just want to see some bills!), and even a copy of a Guatemala’s license. They may want more. We are waiting to be authorized at the moment. We have also been thinking about moving but we have very limited choices: adobe house and possibility of Chagas or living with one of Guatemala’s finest, a cop. I guess we could stay put too but if we get internet, we need to find a cheaper place to live. That is about it for now. We would also like to add that it feels good to no longer be working for “W”. Work it Obama! Here are a few pictures from the New Year. Love and miss you all!!!

¡Bienvenidos a 2009!

Antigua, Guatemala

Mat and Sarah hanging out at our favorite place to crash, Dia Verde.

The fabulous (L-R) Thea, Ellen, and Emily!

(L-R front row) Zach, Amanda, Lynn, Ashley, Ellen, Thea

(L-R back row) Dan, Mat, Sarah, Emily

(photo compliments of Lynn)

The famous Arch street where we rang in the New Year with some colorful friends!

(photo by Lynn)

Very vibrant!!! (again Lynn)

Mat and Ashley (below) with (L-R) Thea, Ellen, Lynn, Zach, and Sarah up top.

(Many thanks to Lynn the superhero for being the only one who brought out the camera!)

Cafe 2000, January 1: Mat, Ellen, Zach, Ashley, Dan

Mat at our favorite movie, eghm, "store".

Mom! Check out The Thing we found!

We just got back from Monterrico after a week of some serious vacation (click on the link to see more information). It's on the south coast and the town is very relaxed and truly feels like a chill Central American coastal town. Thatch roofs, sand roads, and lots of skin! It was a lot of fun. I have a lot of photos today.

Happy holidays and Happy New Year!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------Here are a couple of pictures from our site, first:

HOT!

Sarah showing off our orange-lacquered friend tofu, swiss chard, and sweet potato masterpiece.

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Now on to vacation pictures!

Our room in Monterrico. Notice the quality mosquito net. Still itching as I write this.

View of the cabaña (vacation home) we rented for a week.

Sarah, Thea, and Ellen relaxing.

Zach and I drowning

Thea, Kaying, and Ellen relaxing on the beach.

Christmas dinner! We had grilled fish and fried shrimp.L to R: Thea, Kaying, Jane (standing), Anne, Ashley, Sarah, Zach, and Dan.

L to R: Sarah, me, Ellen, Thea, and Kaying

Ellen opening presents (Hi Ellen's Mom)

Dan showing off his white elephant gift with style.

Sarah and I, very tired

Sarah and Ashley singing and dancing

We took a canoe ride through the mangrove swamp one morning. Good view of the volcanoes. L to R: Fuego, Agua, and the small two peaked one is Pacaya.

Sunrise in the mangroves

Dan and Ashlee

Mat on vacation

Sunset on the beach.

Baby sea turtle! They release them every Wednesday. People can pay 10 Quetzales (local currency here) to release them. There is some objection to the practice but at least they're working to conserve this vulnerable and cute species from extinction. Monterrico is famous for it's sea turtle sanctuary. (photo taken by Zach)

Dan, Sarah, and Ellen posing before they released the turtles. Zach is wearing the backpack and yellow hat.

For the rents

Homemade umbrella for when the sinus infection made me say "no more sun"

Me, Sarah, Thea, Ellen, and Kaying (photo taken by Zach)

Big ass toad! That is a 1.5L bottle, not the regular 600ml. Thing was HUGE------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, that's all for now! Have a safe and happy new year. Soon to come - pictures of us working!

After one month of constant noise and buzz, the feria has finished! Less drunks and fireworks!

Here's a little something I wrote up at home:

NOVEMBER 30 END OF FERIA --- I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was as tranquil and relaxing as ours! We spent a nice night hanging out with a few close friends at La Iguana Perdida on beautiful Lake Atitlan (see pictures below!). It was nice to get away from the town for one day because right now the yearly feria is winding down. And when I say winding down, I mean fireworks and firecrackers until 3 or 4 in the morning. Thankfully today is the last day. It’s a great cultural experience and all but after about a month it starts to grate a little bit. It’s like the band at 5-7 in the morning (for a month, I guess that’s how things roll in Quiche). Ten years from now we’ll be waxing romantic about how fun it was to put up with those little annoyances, but for now I’m happier when they end. Work moved pretty slowly this week but I was able to get into contact with a guy about possibilty donating computers. He’s already offered me a few computers but I have to set up a meeting with the alcade (mayor) of our municipality to try and reach an agreement about the state of security in the health center. I’d like to have him secure it so that they can have a truly functioning lab environment… with a projector and all so some teaching can happen – maybe even by me! I’m trying not to get too excited about it, but it’s becoming more of a possibility as the months roll on. (Thanks to Sarah and Ana Isabel for all of the support and encouragement in this process! Couldn’t have done it without them) Well, I’m more of a visual person so I’m just going let the pictures do the talking! I hope December goes well for everyone. Don’t freeze! It’s the start of our dry season here so I can’t really feel everyone on the snow and ice and cold. I think it hit 85-90 in the sun today! Sorry… ;) *UPDATE: It is now tuesday and the temp dropped back down to 50 and cloudy. Grr!*

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MOTOCROSS!

Here's a great view of our town from where the race started.

Check out the magazine on that gun. A good reason not to start fights here - they might have thirty bullets to use!

Dilan crossing the finish line. He is the husband of the lady (her name is Leidy) we live with.

Action shot of Dilan.

Leidy, Lindsey (the baby), and Dilan.

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Feria 2008

Our Site, Guatemala

Saturday November 28, 2008

Crazy costumes

More crazy costumes with some great indigenous dress in the background.

Heh.

An example of the typical headress and dress in our area. Great for color fiends

More typical (and awesome) headdresses. They only bust these bad boys out for the special events it was great to get a few shots while we could

Another cool costume.

An example of what we like to call "Mermaid Trajes".

Welcome to the feria!

Mass of people running to the next Convite house.---------------------------------------------------------------------Sunday, November 29th.

An old guy from a community outside of town taking a breather.

Once in a lifetime random shot - don't ask me how this one happened.

Leidy and her sister, Kimberly, dancing in the Convite.

Guy on the left spent five years in the states. Guy on the right lives here. Both were very talkative.

Sarah with the crowd!

The Doña of the house (Mirna) with some nephews and her daughter's (Leidy) baby, Lindsey.

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Thanksgiving 2008

Santa Cruz La Laguna, Sololá, Guatemala

Sarah and Ellen before jumping in to swim.

Jenn and Thea (who is hiding from the evil light)

Great long exposure looking towards San Pedro La Laguna.

¡Us!

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Random market shot. It would have been better if it weren't so blurry :(

-- That's it for now! Take it easy everyone!

I wish we could share the day with family! Have a great thanksgiving everyone.

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Here is a delicious black bean hummus dish Sarah and I made. Thanks for the tahini Joanne.(those are real tortilla chips)

Firework over our street. These went off until about 5 in the morning. We were going to stay to see the toritos (see below picture post, metal death cages with fireworks attached) but drunk guys kept trying to grab me and we left early because it was annoying. So no pictures of the toritos.

A moving dance squad called a Convite - bunch of ladies dressed up in amazon costumes dancing around. The shot is from our roof - our family provided them with drinks (yes drinks the feria is 24-nonstop drinking for some) and snacks and they came over afterwards from 8-11 and danced the night away.

that's all for now! look for more pictures after thanksgiving - love you all, take care and safe travels

Even though Mat just sent out an update, I thought I would expand on it. Yes, we have found a community that is interested in working with us. We had just about given up on having work until January, when our cowboy of a docter came through for us! Yeah baby! The community is about 5 miles away and yes we will be walking it. We had an initial meeting with the commuunity last Sunday to explain the project. Instead of waiting to find out if they wanted to work with us, we took a vote on the spot and bam! we had work. We returned the very next day to start on the encuestas (surveys) of the homes. It is a good way to meet people in a more personal way, plus we needed to know the condition of the homes, what kinds of structures they do or do not have, etc. The community has been promised a lot in the past and therefore are still weary of us: Not everyone is convinced that we will deliver or even return again. Due to all of that, we were only allowed to take surveys of a third of the homes. After a while I am sure they will let us finish with the surveys because in order to get money for projects we need to use the data collected from them and only the people that participated in the surveys will be able to receive the works.

So what did we find out about the community: they need everything. Nobody in the whole community has a latrine or efficient wood burning stove and most could use cement floors. What would benefit the community most/what will they want most? Hard to say at this point. Everyone goes to the bathroom in "aire libre"or as I like to say, pop a squat any old place (which PCVs are not above doing at all-it is an integral part of our lives here, especially while working in the country). But could latrines improve their health? Probably. I am kind of thinking the community will want the more efficient stoves. Respiratory infections are the biggest problem here. Plus, this community does not have any trees left on the hills and must travel to another community to get the firewood (which is hell-a expensive) to use on either their open fires or comals (which are used for tortilla making). Another fun fact that makes me think they will want the stoves is that it is a community of women. Of the 30 families, 20 of them have the fathers in the states (New Jersey to be exact).

Obviously, we will be dialouging more with the people and listed above are nothing but my tentative guesses. Plus we really will not be building for a while and will focus on education. When we do build, it will be all about collaboration. We will be working with and training the leaders of the COCODE (or the people that will be able to solitic money for grants) on how to write grants and where to look for them. And while we work with them on the grant that we hope to initiate, it will be the COCODE that actually writes it. As I am pretty weary of "development" from outsiders, our program really seems to try to empower the actual communities. The whole community will help get the materials and be a part of the labor-including the women. Everyone will need to know how to use and maintain the works! This will all be coupled with education too! And this way we can avoid having latrines turned into bodegas or tiendas.

Mat and I are also starting to collaborate on an education project with one of our counterparts. We want to train all of the COCODES from every aldea in our muni on how to have water that is safe for drinking. We may also be doing the training outselves in every community! That is almost 70-talk about having work! Everyone has running water in this municipality but people drink it right from the chorro (faucet) and it is sooo dirty! Sometimes it is slightly chocolate colored and one day we even had little worms crawling up out of our bathroom sink! Just imagine...

Right now is festival time so we should have some great pictures soon. And we will be avoid thinking about missing you all by spending Thanksgiving at the beautiful Lago Atitlán. We hope to see pictures of the fabulous day from you all! Miss and love you all!

Virtual Tour of our House!

Here is the front door/entryway area

Here is the carpark and steps to the roof where we hang our clothes. The pila is under that staircase.

This is the over-sized sink/laundry "machine" (the pila)

As you can see, the left is for scrubbing clothes (into tatters), the middle functions as the water storage part, and the right for washing dishes. As it is under the staircase, it doesn't really function well for tall people.

View from the front door looking into the living room. Beyond that is the kitchen.

Showing our side of the kitchen. The fridge, stove, and all of those sauces and stuff are ours. Yay for stuff!

Their side of the kitchen. They just installed that sink (lavamanos - translates literally to "washeshands"). The container of gas is how it is used here. Can't imagine the kind of disasters there would be if the gas ran through the ground with all of the earthquakes and the infastructure here hahah.

View from the back door looking towards the front. To the right is our room.

Yes, we still live out of suitcases

Guide to Bucketbathing 101

Looking out the backdoor into our super-sweet backyard. The garden includes: Papaya, Mango, some crazy cool lime-orange hybrid, Lemongrass, guayabas, bananas, and probably other things which don't know yet. One reason not to move, heh.

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Feria de San Andrés Sajcabajá 2008

Every year there is a super long feria to celebrate something ... not really sure yet. We were talking with a nurse at the health center and he was saying he doesn't really like them because of the ridiculous amounts of drinking and fighting. What started as a religious tradition has now become a reason to get together and party hard. And by party hard I mean cockfighting and rodeos. Most likely while drunk, heh.

The pretty good band.

Some crazy Terry Gilliam-type costume they were dancing around in. It was mid-80s today, don't know how they did it.

Some cool costumes called "Toritos", which means "little bulls". You can see the little bull heads on the costumes. Tonight they are going to launch fireworks while dancing around IN the costumes. Gotta love it! (Don't worry, I'll bring my camera)

That's all for now folks! Hope you enjoyed the pictures of our life. More updates to come!

Hola todos y todas,

We are back in home and relieved to be. Reconnect was filled with drama. I suppose I will start at the beginning. Firstly, Mat and I went to visit our friend, Ellen, who lives in the dept. of Chimaltenango. She wasn’t feeling well though as she had Giardia for the second time. Hooray for yellow, frothy diarrhea and rotten -egg smelling farts! We had planned on helping her out with some charlas and home visits (not all counterparts are worthless) but her stomach kept her at home most of the time. She did end up feeling better although too late for her birthday which was celebrated with a vegan/gluten-free/ peanut-free dinner and desert (Ellen lives around a bunch of gringas who all have some sort of dietary restriction). It was delicious though!

On to Antigua! Mat and I arrived the day before Halloween to spend some time hanging out and relaxing by ourselves. We had dinner, got hair cuts, and drank dark beer (well by Guatemalan standards). Halloween was pretty fun as you all can see from the pictures posted earlier. Let us fast forward to Monday where the joy of sharing our feelings could begin. Mat and I were not really looking forward to hearing how much work everyone was doing and having to feel crappy about not being able to do as much. And while there was a decent amount of touchy-feely sharing time, we learned that indeed, we are not alone in our frustrations. It was validating to know that we are all struggling and feeling somewhat insecure about being here/our jobs/what have you.

And now let me contar (recount) the drama from the beginning. One of the sessions from reconnect was face time with the PC Admin. Several PCVs had meetings with the country director, Martha, for being out of their sites for the night without contacting the Security Advisor (who is in charge of where we are at any given moment in case of emergencies here or at home). You can now be sent home for being out-of-site without letting him know, which has always been the policy but was not enforced...until now. The PC is really trying to discourage travel. While it isn't too dangerous, most volunteers get robbed or what have you do so usually when they leave their sites. However, it is very frustrating to be watched over, if you all feel me. So we had a session with the Admin to clarify the rules, dispell myths of past enforcement, and improve communication between PCVs and Staff. The PC Staff was very adamant about the out-of-site policy: call or be sent home.

Reconnect is over and Mat and I have Spanish for four days (and good news, we are both in the level of Advanced-low, only 3 more to go to Superior). During this time, a kid from our program got caught being out-of-site without calling! The worst part is, he got caught not calling out-of-site in Antigua! There is PC Staff all over the city as the PC office is 20 minutes away by camioneta. Of all the places to not call! They gave him the option to leave on his own or be separated administratively (yo’ ass is fired!). Shit. He had 3 days to get his stuff together and get on the plane. It really was a crazy shame because, since he was fluent, he was working and already accomplishing a lot. But he will be back in December; his girlfriend is here and they are already serious, plus he thinks that he has found a job in Xela (damn those fluents!). I can not imagine having to tell your parents though. Ouch! Hey, at least he will be able to drive here now.

Now everyone should have a crystal clear picture of the out-of-site policy and the PC Staff's attitude toward us PCVs: you will be sent home if caught. Tread lightly compañeros.

Tanto drama. Mat and I are happy to be back. There will be more frequent updates about our work since there is promise of some appearing in the near future. Plus, November is the month of our town’s feria (festival), which runs through the end of the month and should provide us with good stories and photos. We have heard that there is a rodeo AND cock fighting. While we may not be watching too much of either, there should be other great stuff to see and do. Miss you and love you all!

Hey everyone. We're currently enjoying our week-long stay in Antigua, Guatemala. Reconnect has been good. Less of that touchy-feely crap and more of technical how to solve problems stuff. We've had Spanish lessons for two days now... phew! It's hard to get in to learn mode again. It's been good, we've just been sobreviviendo (surviving) and trying not to get on each other's nerves - not me and sarah but all of the other volunteers. We are crammed into a hostel right now and running about 14 deep. The place comfortably fits 12 so needless to say it's a bit cramped. We'll be here until next Monday and then it's back off to our site in beautiful Quiche!

I'm going to link to a map of where we are to give you all a good idea of what travel is like here. Now that the blog is private I can open up and provide a lot more juicy details than before!

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Halloween 2008 Antigua Guatemala

We were tourists

Another married couple dude - Jim - who went as the crow (shaved off his face rat today so don't worry about that horrible thing in the picture)

Some of our friends. L-R Thea, Sarah (who is not touching herself but stroking her fanny pack), Amanda, Ashley, and Emily (another married)

Ashley and Casey

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Random Stuff!

Sarah talking to her Mom. I was bored.

A weird procession put on by a school that does something like this every year. 40 or so people held the float on their shoulders and did this weird synchronized swaying things to beating drums. It was pretty cool.

Cool foto from our hotel roof in Antigua of the volcanoes. The one on the left is Fuego and the one on the right (two humps) is Acatenango. Fuego is still active! From time to time you can see it glowing at night and it shoots off big mushroom clouds every couple of days.

Hey! The blog is now private due to some security concerns (in general, not about our blog) about having an open blog here. Another volunteer was dismissed for having something on his blog he shouldn't have. I don't know what, that's just the word on the street.

Anyways, we're just relaxing right now and we will be helping our friend at her site starting on Sunday up until reconnect. Yay for that, right? Hopefully by the end of all of our travels we will be ready to head back.

More updates to come as I get more pictures...

Hey everyone. It seems my flash drive/mp3 player has a virus according to this computer so no big long update.

Things have been improving slowly and we're gaining the confidence of a few people at a time. Poco a poco, as always. Our boss and his assistant (our liason) are coming tomorrow to meet with the doctor and the health center staff. We have been meeting many times with the doctor to discuss what is going on, how to improve our working situation, etc. He just told us today it's not our fault, which was nice to hear. He told us he's been here for 5 years and still hasn't gained as much confidence as he'd like so three months is nothing.

That's all for now! Have lots to do on the computer so a big post will have to wait until next time.

Hey everyone. Forgot to put the long blog post on my flash drive so a detailed wall of text will have to wait. But here are some pictures in the meantime!

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Here is a relatively recent picture of me (for Joanne/mom dad and anyone else curious) on a little mountain on the outskirts of our town. Thanks for the sunglasses!

Cool macro shot sarah took of some (probably poisonous) plants

Cows! Seriously, they are everywhere here.

A cockroach about the size of Sarah's thumb. See his antennae? They are turned towards her thumb... he actually turned his little head to look at her hand. Pretty neat. We ended up letting the little guy live. (Hey, at least they don't bite)

One of our friends showing off a cool way to cut pineapple.

Landslide! Knocked out a good portion of someone's crop and went to go give him suggestions on what to plant to prevent another one. Not surprisingly my suggestion of "trees" was taken almost as a joke... *sigh*

Helicopter landing in a field next to the centro - the Health Minister came to announce the opening of 24-hour service here. Which means that our doctor, the only doctor here, is on call 24-7.

Doctor is third from the left. The health minister is second from left.

------------------------------------------More to come soon... on a day when I'm not as absent-minded as always! Love to all.

LAGO ATITLAN

------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our First Batch of Homemade Brownies In-Country

----------------------------------------------------Quince de septiembre (15th of September)El Día de Independencia

My favorite...

Hey Everyone!

Yes we’re still here… it’s been a slow-busy month. It’s funny – it doesn’t feel like we’re doing a whole lot but there’s barely enough time for everything in the day. I think it feels like that because we’re still accustomed to the ‘go to work/do lots of work/accomplish goals/go home’ mode of working. We make ourselves little to-do lists like “go to the tienda to buy laundry detergent” or “call this person”. There’s no way to forgot to do the things but it feels good to cross stuff off.

We went to a COMUDE meeting today. COMUDE is Consejo Municipal Desarrollo or something like that. Basically means a committee to organize all of the development in the municipality. It was the first COMUDE meeting in our muni’s history! I think we are officially members now, but I’m not really sure. We hung up our invitation on our bedroom wall because we’re nerds like that but it’s cool to have this big formal invitation in Spanish with our names on it. Not sure if we’re supposed to go to the next meeting – my plan is to show up and act like we’re supposed to be there. It’s really exciting because if the projects pan out we’ll have been able to be there from the beginning. Although it’s really boring too… today they argued in a governmental way (we don’t have a majority, who hear wants to suggest a different time and why) about what time to have the next meeting for at least thirty minutes. C-SPAN in PERSON! Sign me up.

School is rumored to end early this year, at the beginning of October. If so, that means 50% of our work is cut out. It will be a great time to learn Spanish and visit some communities close to our site to get to know the people. On that subject, Sarah has a new best friend in one of the outlying communities. The family has a few men up in the states working and usually the people are somewhat interested in talking to us when they have family up north. We went over to visit and the family was all women! I’ve been finding that a lot here. It was a little weird at first but I’m used to it at this point. I talked to another guy volunteer and he’s been working with women’s groups for a while as well. We have special ‘work with women’s groups’ privileges as gringos here, I think. Anyways, here are the pictures, the real reason for this blog. I’ve been recording some sounds of our town… can’t wait to upload them for everyone to hear. I think that one big part of Guatemala is the noise and it’s hard to capture it any other way. My favorite recording is of the band playing in the basketball court next to our house. It’s like 20 kids with ADHD got together and found instruments… I kind of miss it now that it’s gone :) How could one not like four hours of that every day?

Until next time…

Hey Everyone! I apologize that neither Sarah nor I have updated the blog in such a long time. We have been adjusting to our new lives here and trying to get all of the accoutrements to our new place (literally to our place) from Santa Cruz, the cabecera, of our department. We finally received them after the typical Guatemalan delay and problems and – I hate to say this – our lives are so much better now that we have a bed that fits us!

All of you in the email group have a good idea of what happened in the first month of our service so I won’t rehash it in detail. Needless to say our situation is 100% better and two years seems more doable than one month ago. Well, twenty-three months from yesterday! It’s amazing how slow the days are and how fast the months go by.

We are slowly sticking our heads out into the community and finding a mixed response. Many of the people in the communities outlying our site are a bit skeptical of the new gringos. I set up a meeting for one week ago with the community development committee (COCODE) and when Sarah and I arrived a woman we know told us the COCODE didn’t want us and, also, that the people “have fears”. Well, then.

The instructor at the school then came up to us and, seeing that we were a bit downtrodden, offered us the opportunity to work in the schools for an hour a week giving health talks and teaching a little bit of English. We are also going to start reaching out to other schools in other communities next week to see if they’d like us to come and give our health charlas.

Right now we’re focusing on the interchange of cultures and learning Spanish. On that note, we are experiencing an interchange right now! The marching band is practicing literally outside of our window for the feria (fair/celebration/holiday) called “The Fifteenth of September” (El Quince de Septiembre) and it is their Fourth of July. They practice every day at around 5 or 6 for a couple of hours. And now they’ve started to practice at 5-6 in the morning. Ahh, Guatemala…

And now, I bring you the pictures! Remember that you can click on them to make them larger!Sarah's Host Family (L-R Mariela, Mario José, Doña Roxana, Yadira, Joseline)

SWEAR-IN:Mat's Host Family (Don Andres, Doña Salome): Mama Lichi and Doña Roxana:

A really nice restaurant in Antigua called Red's:

Riding in the back of a pickup on the way to Antigua from swear-in:

L-R Thea, Ellen, Ashley:

Rural Home Preventative Health. The guy in the cowboy hat is David, our technical trainer, and he is famous for sayings such as "stinky like moist wood".

The certified breeders of the group! (Married couples):

A really cool random wall in Antigua:

View from the hotel of Volcan Agua in Antigua:

--------------------------------------------------------------------OUR SITE

One of the schools that we will be working in for the next year or two:The view from where the school is overlooking the community (it's beautiful):

One of the typical after-storm skies in our site:View of the hills around our site during a storm from our roof:

Us after walking four miles in 85-degree weather (uphill!)

Lovely Sarah modelling our kitchen (Check out the skylights!):

Our bedroom (with a bed!)

Remember to check out Sarah's post underneath this one!

So I thought I would throw up some stories that we have not yet shared with you all. I think that I will start with how much children are doted on. First of all I should begin by saying that when we first meet people, we are asked our names, places of origin, and ages almost always. For a married couple though we are always asked if we have kids. I guess that is not surprising. Anyway, one day I was hanging out in the Centro making faces at this woman’s baby. She saw me doing this and when she passed by me she stopped so that I could love on the baby. Basically if someone puts a baby in your face, which happens rather frequently, you had better praise it and at least touch it if you are not going to hold, perhaps, a complete strangers child. Unless you want people to think you are a jerk! There is a woman in the Centro who has a 4 month old baby girl. She is a very chill baby and everyone holds her. This past Monday, the janitor was playing with her and then, BAM, she was in my arms. I am not really accustomed to holding babies, especially babies whose parents I do not know well. Finally he took her back, but took that opportunity to thrust her into Mat’s arms. Mat was maxed out after about a minute. And when he tried to give her back, the janitor called him “mala gente” or bad people. A little strong but I think it was supposed to be a joke. Then later that day, they asked us how much milk babies in the US drink in a day. We had no idea and they certainly seemed surprised by our lack of baby knowledge. Silly gringo!

Mat and I are finally settled into this new house, right? Well, it is pretty great. The other couple that is supposedly living here has a few, ah, children that look in on the house. One is a boy who could not be older than 12. We always chat a bit when he comes in to feed the birds. So the other day, he pulls out an egg from his pocket. “Oh,” I say. Then he asks if I would like to buy the egg. “No thanks. We have plenty right now.” Two days later, he tried to sell Mat a wallet. While it is always a little funny in the moment, it is actually a sad story. He doesn’t have parents and so he is obviously working already to help provide from himself and his siblings. Although, he does not come during school hours, which makes me think that he does go.

Oh yes, so I refer above to the fun questions we get asked when we first meet people. Those are the most common. However, I would like to share some of my other favorites. How tall are you? How much do you weigh? What size shoe do you wear? Do you smoke? Do you drink? Are you a Catholic or an Evangelical?

Are you a Mennonite (yes they do exist here, ah, home sweet home)? What size shoe do you wear? We have one friend whose family during training wanted to know her weight and would not leave her alone about it. She is a tall woman, just shorter than Mat, and women just do not come in this size. So when she finally told them her weight, her host mother’s mouth dropped wide open. They just could not comprehend it. I find these questions hilarious. We talk so much about how indirect this culture is and then they ask these sorts of questions. They are very direct about that stuff, which is totally opposite from the States. For example, wait, let me back up and first say that when I arrived here I weighed around 133. Within two to three weeks I had lost about 10-12 pounds. It certainly was not intentional. Let me just say, my body did not handle the change in food so well and I dropped all of my weight Wiegand (for those of you not privy, that is my maternal side of my family) style, if you all feel me. Back to my example: when people see photos of Mat and I, EVERYONE tells me how much more gorda (fat) I was in past. They point and say, “Tú eras más gorda aquí.” My family in Dueñas used to grab my arms, belly, and cheeks and tell me I needed more meat in those places. Plus everyone refers to themselves here as gordo/a. Being from the US where practically everyone hates their bodies, I am programmed to say, “No, no, that is crazy.” Being gordo/a here is fine, in fact, it is preferred. It is very refreshing to see that most people here have good body images, although I am sure insecurities exist. They are probably coming on strong with so much influence from the US. Hopefully it doesn’t change, but practically every female newscaster here has breasts of the plastic variety. It is beautiful while it lasts (yikes, there is some pessimism for you).

Okay, lastly. There is a very heated debate on what we call pop in the US. Is it soda, soda pop, pop, or coke? People strongly defend their regional word of choice. Well try this one on for size. Here pop (Midwest! What, what!) is called agua, or for those of you that need the translation, that would be water. So when you tell someone you would like “a water” you may end up with a coke. I must admit that the pop here is better than the US. They use real sugar, instead of corn syrup, so it is not overwhelmingly sweet. And it still comes in glass bottles. Just remember to always ask for Agua Pura!

---Sarah (even though it says Mateo underneath this) @ 8-22-2008

Happy Birthday Anna!

I wish that I could have seen you on your big 24th. Hopefully it was a very happy day. I thought about you all day and wanted to post this then, but there was not an internet signal for about 5 days. But hey, how can I complain when I have such a great cell signal now! Anyway, I wish you all the happiness in the world. I hope that this next year of your fabulous life is filled with peace, laughter, friendship, and a trip to Guatemala! I miss you so much and get very nostalgic when I dip into the memory bank and remember our goofy times together. Halla Nasty Nati! I can not wait until you visit! Mostly I can not wait to talk to you. Now that I am finally settled, well somewhat, I have time to talk to all of my loved ones. The momentito we did have to talk was great. It literally made my day. What a spectacular surprise. I'm glad to hear that all is going well for you and that you are doing things that you want to do and that make you happy. Because damn it, you deserve it! I miss you my friend and I look forward to hearing your voice! Paz y amor mi compañera. Happy Birthday.

Phew. It is stinking hot. I thought it was supposed to be "winter" and by that I mean the rainy season. San Andrés has not seen rain in almost a week and, today, we have got to be around 90. That is nothing though. Summer frequently reaches over 100, everything turns brown, and this place drys out. Desert condtions. We even have the cowboys! No for real, there are many ganaderos here. Pretty cool. The cows are quite beautiful. The other day Mat and I saw a gentleman lasso a calf in our front yard. Not my every day experience in Ohio.

So far the site is pretty great. Beautiful. Both the people and area. We are a little slow on work but that is alright. Besides we are just becoming accustomed to the "hora de la Chapina." We still need to find a place to live. Right now we are living with Mat's counterpart and his family. They are great but we got a double index-finger, no-no wag on living with the counterpart. Soon we will have a place to call home. Or so we hope.....

Initically we will be working in two communities who are both enthusiastic. Hooray! We have also been speaking to each other in Spanish only! Thems the rules. Avoid English at all costs. It works too. I think that we have improved in only a week. Don't tell our Spanish teachers but this is the most Spanish I have spoken since I arrived. No more Antigua weekends to get us off the track. Sorry for the lack of pics. Commentary is best accompanied by visuals and everybody who is anybody knows that Mat and I are visual learners! For now, ¡Nos vemos!

Eleven weeks are over! We made it! We are now officially volunteers! How freakin' awesome, right? The ceremony was short. We're both very happy to finally be together but it is with a little trepidation that we step into our service for two years... we don't really know our role yet and we're starting over again in a new community and with a new family, albeit together.

More updates will come as we get acclimated to our new site!

As I'm sure you've guessed, we're all a little under the weather today...

With that said, here are some pictures! >Edit--- Dropped my camera today and now it seems like it doesn't want to install correctly on some computers in Antigua. Looks like a card reader is in my future! Camera still works though.

Yes, Mat was right. I will be providing the details. So I will start with the Mayan ceremony of Iximche of several weeks ago. Pretty interesting although difficult to understand because the majority was in a Mayan language. It was a ceremony of thanksgiving. All of us were able to participate by adding to the fire and giving thanks (in Spanish). Afterward, we had a tasty lunch and most of the people tried their famous chorizo. I of course, took the veggie route.

So there are some pictures from the Macadamia nut farm. Mat is right, that guy is a little off his rocker. Basically he told us he was the Osama bin Laden of the environment and that when we entered the farm, we entered a boot camp for the environment. So we are ¨soldiers for peace¨ (according to the ¨W¨ factor) and now we know where to go for combat training for the environment. Yes, this guy is an American. Who else would use such militaristic language? We later found out he is not so big on humans though and treats his workers poorly. So we will not be going there again.

Now to the site visit. Yes it was amazing. It was quite the road! I am not looking forward to traveling it every time we need or want to leave but it is amazing what we have adjusted to so far. It was so beautiful and HOT! We received one of maybe two warm sites. Hooray! Here is a little quote-o-Mat from an email to my mom,

¨The site was amazing! It's a two hour bus ride away from the dirtiest city in this country, Santa Cruz. And when I say two hour bus ride I mean it would be a 30 minute bus ride but it's a dirt road during the rainy season... so it's pretty crazy. It's what I'd refer to as "Peace Corps". My Counterpart is well read and loves to read Encarta 2008 *in spanish* in his free time. He has a brother in the states and so does his wife (who is a bilingual teacher in Spanish and K'iche) so they have a pretty open conception of the world and how it relates to Guatemala. So that is a plus in our favor.¨

This is who we were going to stay with for the first three months but our APCD (or boss) told us we can not stay with our counterpart so we have to house hunt when we get to our site. However, we did stay with them for our site visit and while they were awesome, we could maybe find a place with a separate kitchen and extra bedroom for visitors. My counterpart is a bit quiet but hopefully the more we work together the more I will gain his confidence. The doctor of the Centro de Salud is a straight-up, legit cowboy! He rocks. And he is incredibily warm. He even told us how nervous and excited they are to work with us (our site is new to the PC and our city is so secluded that there have not been any NGOs or gringos passing though. Except of course some Mennonite missionaries...right at home).

We were anxious to get back and hang out with our friends for the next two weeks while we can. Because when we swear in and head to our site, we probably will not be traveling for visits every weekend. We are paid about the same as a teacher here, which is minimum wage. Not much extra for travels. But when we want to see friends, it is a mere 5 hour camioneta ride to either Antigua or Quetzaltenango a.k.a Xela (the city closest to the majority of our friends). And five hours is nothing on the hora of the chapina.

This past week we had Spanish class and lots of socializing. Our program did not have much to do except write a little report for our Puesto de Salud, in Spanish of course. No problem. We are pros! Actually no. Gracias a Dios for our teachers. Sandra and Chepe, you rock our worlds!!!

So then on Thrusday, we began to learn the Mayan language spoken in our site. Mat and I will be in Quiche and therefore got a taste of K'iche. Very good, right? Except that learning language #3 in language #2, of which you are still not proficient, is a little hilarious! It was fun though trying and failing at making the crazy different sounds from deep down in la garganta (throat). At least we have an introduction. While the majority of the men and children speak Spanish, the women usually do not speak Spanish as well or at all. There are 64 aldeas in our site and 30 some women's groups, so knowing a bit of K'iche will hopefully go a long way. By the way, ¨Utz¨ means ¨good¨ in K'iche.

Right now it is time to relax. Mat and I have three ¨hijas¨ or daughters that we have sort of adopted. They are actually our close friends but we call ourselves a little family. Ellen (from my town), Ashley (of Parramos), and Thea (of San Mateo in the other program). They are all on the blog. Two of mis hijas are waiting with Mat for me to finish up. Love you all. Moza time!!!

Hey everyone! One week left as of today! We all just had our language proficiency exams in the morning so now we are officially starting the ball rolling on becoming honest-to-god volunteers. I'm going to provide some pictures for everyone's enjoyment and Sarah will do some actual writing.

To see a big version of any picture just click on it with your cursor. It will open in a new window. They're kind of jumbled, so I've included explanations.

The view of some mountains from our front yard in our site:

Cows:

Another view:

More cows:

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MORE PICTURES (descriptions follow the pictures):

The Arch in Antigua, Guatemala. The (inactive) volcano in the back is Agua. Look at all of the tourists! Also, the weather is usually never like that in the rainy season.

Our backyard at our new site. Won't be our backyard for long because we have to move, but it's going to be pretty while it lasts.

Our town. Relatively clean, surrounded by mountains, and the people are very friendly.

Our Centro de Salud. All of the Centros have that funky 70's lettering and are painted ridiculous colors. In a word: awesome

Our front yard for the time being. The first hill in the background is where they perform Mayan ceremonies.

BEFORE SITE VISIT:

Mayan ceremony a few weeks back. It was very interesting. They burnt a lot of sugar.

Mayan site called "Iximche" (Pronounced Ee-chim-che). Literally means "site of corn" or something in the Mayan language - corn is "ixim".

More weird looking stuff

Here are Dan and Ashlee at the Macademia nut farm. Look at the expression on their faces to get an idea of how ridiculous the conversation the guy was having at them. He's a crazy. Not going back again.

Cat resting on Thea's lap at the Macademia nut farm near Sarah's town. The person at the top-left is Kaying. They are both in the Youth Development program.

That's it for now! Have a great weekend.

This morning I traveled to Dueñas to meet up with Sarah's group to receive our site assignments. Basilio, our Program Director, and Anna Isobel, the assitant for the program, arrived around 8:30 and handed us all envelopes wrapped in newsprint (they were all adorned with little bows as well). When we first learned that we were going to Quiché we were both a bit disappointed because our first experience with the Departmento was a little negative -- our field-based training took place in the aldeas (rural communities outside of a pueblo) around Santa Cruz el Quiché, the capital of Quiché . Santa Cruz takes the cake in terms of poor planning, nasty smells, and overall dirtiness for a city. Luckily we're around two hours away from the place in a little town. We have two rural health técnicos to work with and there are many aldeas around our pueblo so we should have a lot to do over the next two years. We are also the first volunteers to be in this site so I'm interested to see the community's reaction to our arrival. We will know later next week when we visit our site! I'll make sure to post an update after that happens to let everyone know how it goes.

This past week has been a trial in patience for both Sarah and I and the rest of the training group. Everyone seems to be at the end of their rope in terms of their families, class, and training - i.e. there is no control over what we are eating, when we have privacy and when we don't, what we can/can't do during the day and night, constant Spanish classes, etc. I'm not complaining at all but I do think training is just a couple of weeks too long. We're all itching for freedom and the independence to cook what we want, rest when we want, sleep when we want, etc. Two months is a long time, and it's even longer when you look ahead and realize you have three weeks to go. Don't get me wrong: I love it here, especially my family (I will post pictures in a week or two) but I wouldn't complain if I never saw white bread again. Anyways, enough of my catharsis.

I hope everyone that reads this has a great week!(¡Yo espero que todo estén leendo esta tengan una buena semana!)

We are done with charlas! Alleluia! These past two weeks were ridiculously hard, probably the hardest weeks since we've been here. We had to plan and give two charlas about HIV/AIDS to some people in the health center and the school and plan and give a taller (workshop) about how to give a charla to some women who wanted to become health promoters. During this past week I had to travel down to Dueñas after my 4-5 hour spanish class to work on my charla. The trip is two hours both ways so by the end of the day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I was exhausted. Ashlee and Jane both had to travel to Pastores and San Luis (respectively), small communities on the way to Antigua, for their Taller for promoters. Needless to say we are all exhausted and ready to receive our site assignments this coming Wednesday. For that, I'll be going down to Dueñas at around 7 in the morning to meet with their group and receive a packet that details our site. Then, the week after, we are going to travel to our site and try to find a place to live, meet our health promoters, and start recording information and materials needed for the next two years.

To be honest, I feel that this stressful and incredibly hard process has prepared me for the coming two years. I can't believe I've given four charlas in a different language! This past week didn't even feel real we were all so busy. I can't wait until we can get to our site and do absolutely nothing for a week. And have freedom. And be together. Heh.

Thanks for all of the support in the past two weeks! I think today is the first day when I thought, "Okay, I can do this...".

Welcome to San Miguel Dueñas. Hope you all enjoy the lovely volcanos. The active one is called Fuego and the olther one is Acatenango. I don't have a good pic of Agua yet, but it will show itself well one day.

The courtyard is of my house and to the left is my room. Straight ahead is a pila or the giant sink that is traditionally used to wash clothes and other stuff. Finally, that is the church is in my town plaza and one of the camionetas, Esmeralda, is passing it. If there had not been a ton of clouds, you could have seen the volcano Agua behind the church.

Hope you all enjoyed the quick tour. Sorry this is so short but Mat and I have a lot of work this week preparing our HIV/AIDS charlas.

(está terminado - is finished) Hey everyone! We've returned from FBT in the department of Quiche without injury or illness and had a great time! Quiche is north of where I live (Parramos, Chimaltenango) and is ridiculously indigineous. The primary language is Quiche, one of twenty-six varities of Mayan languages spoken here. Sarah and I worked on two separate projects with two different groups of people (we pulled names from a hat at the beginning of the week to determine the teams). We were all able to finish our projects successfully and it feels really great to be able to help out local indigineous communities and schools the way we did. The really neat part was that we did it with the help of the local communities, not for the local communities. The kids (los niños) came out and dug with us, formed bucket lines of cement with us, and the teachers came out and mixed cement and helped out when they could. Also, every day we had refraccion, which is a snack - usually of atol, a delicious maiz (corn) and leche (milk) drink. Don't ask me how it's made because I have no idea, haha.

Our group made two rain catchement systems for a relatively large school. One deposit is for the kitchen and the other is for the pila (a type of sink) next to the latrines so they can wash their hands or dishes without having to use this chorro (tap) that came straight out of the ground as a pipe. We made a bunch of other little improvements, like a concrete slab and ramp next to the latrines, planted saplings around areas where the dirt might erode in front of the school, poured gravel underneath the exposed lamina (corrugated metal) roof so it doesn't become lodo (mud).

I'll let sarah fill you in on her project when she gets a chance to post. What I do know is that she has buns of steel from carrying concrete blocks up a hill. They made a two-toilet latrine and created an efficient wood-burning stove for another school in the area. See the pictures for more details!

Now, for the pictures... (click each image to open a larger version. In Firefox, hold Ctrl and Click to open them in a new tab)

Team FancyPants: (left to right) Taylor, a current PCV that is about to finish up his two years, Christin, Ashlee, Sarah, Dan, and their albiñil (mason) whose name escapes me right now. The team name comes from Ashlee's fancy pants.Los niños carrying cement blocks for Sarah's team.

The albiñil showing off Team FancyPants colors on his sombrero. He is sitting on their under-construction latrine.

Another shot of the latrine.

Here's a view of the landscape from Sarah's site.

Zach, Jim, and some teachers helping with the big water catchement setup.

A view from our site. The guy with the hat is Lynn, the FBT training director.

Team FancyPants completes their latrine (the blue thing is a pila)

Sarah and her team with their finished stove!This is what it looked like the majority of the time. There was an insane amount of rain in Guatemala this past week.

Sorry there aren't more pictures but the internet is being stupid and I'm already up to 10Q. Have a great week! I'll try to write more after this coming week.

(Left to right) Dan from Duenas, Ellen from Duenas, and Thea from San Mateo, (and the hand of Ashlee). Thea is in Youth Development but she's super awesome and likes to hang out with the other super awesome Health folks.

Zach, another trainee that lives in Duenas with Sarita, showing off his awesome shirt he bought today.

Here is a view of the park in Parramos.

Here are some los militares in Antigua during el dia de mercado (market day). No idea why they were all around today. And yes, they are carrying assault rifles. (AK-74s for those concerned).

Jim and Emily, another married couple. We were hanging out in Antigua today, celebrating the end of our first charlas.

(from left to right) Jane, Ellen, and Ashlee. Jane and Ashlee are the other two people in my training group in Parramos and Ellen lives in Duenas with Sarita.

Here is my courtyard in my house

Here is my bathroom

Here is a view of the campo next to where Ashlee (another trainee in my group) lives

Another view of the campo

Here is the catholic church in my town.

That is all for now! You won't hear from me until after Field-Based Training, when we can show you all of the sweet pictures of the latrines and hand-washing stations.

Hasta La Primero Domingo (Until Next Sunday)!

So guess who's getting over a nasty case of food poisoning? And who got food poisoning two hours after writing this post. Guess I had it coming! Hahaha. I'm much better now and I'm in Antigua but it was a miserable 8 hours of shooting liquid out of every available orifice! Guess I won't be eating street food again.

-Mat

Since I never get a chance to write during the week I have to make up for it on the weekend and I always give a double dose of bloggy goodness. Guatemala is such a beautiful and tranquil place (despite the bombas). The paciencia of the people is amazing. People are much more understanding when you make mistakes and are always, always kind. Even though I am a stranger everyone I have met has been so welcoming and open. They are eager to extend hospitality sometimes going so far out of their way to accommodate me that I feel badly. When I feel my lowest, when I can not speak or understand any Spanish, I am always reminded by the wonderful people to take a minute and realize that this is not the land of immediate gratification. Love your mistakes. Take more time to learn from them. Poco a poco. How refreshing.

The relationship to time is so different too. And I love it. Tiempo es vida (time is life). What a fabulous phrase. Even though I know that I have a long way to go in learning Spanish and more about this country and its people, I don’t feel nervous or scared about it coming in time any more. It is a relief to let go of that anxiety. Something clicked for me and I realized that I actually can not flip a switch and be fluent or comfortable here. I am going to struggle daily and that is ok, maybe even good. I can take this time to get to know the people and form relationships. I am not necessarily ready to call this place home, but it is starting to feel more natural. People are getting used to seeing me walking around Duenas, I know a couple of the tienda owners, and I can even take part in a little local “chisme” or gossip with the women in the Puesto. And now that I am better able to understand what people are saying, I am starting to get used to the sense of humor. Thank goodness too. I thought I was going to go crazy not being able to joke around with people.

Sunday is Antigua day. Some friends of ours are meeting there tomorrow for lunch, hanging out in the park, and drinking espresso from Café Condessa. It is hard to swallow that instant stuff. Speaking of instant….. My family grows coffee in their backyard which they then sell to coffee fincas. But they drink instant. I can not figure it out. They export all the good stuff. Well obviously they make money off of it but still. For my family, it is literally in their backyard. I bought some Guatemalan coffee and have been brewing my own. The instant just does not do it for me in the mornings. Go figure. And if I need to wake up and speak in a language that I am not fluent in, I need a serious kick start. Hell, I can barely speak English before my morning cup of joe.

Oh I forgot to mention that I went to this awesome organic macadamia nut finca. Deliciousness all around. You get a complimentary taste of the nuts and chocolates and you get to test the oil and cream. We want to go back for the macadamia nut pancakes! Anything else happen this week? I guess Mat will have to update you all soon. I know that I am certainly not getting enough fat or something because I have already tightened my belt one whole notch. Mat looks like he has lost some weight too. I really miss Indian food. Kumar, I am thinking of you right now as I crave your taste-tacular Palak Paneer!!!

-Sarah