A couple of months ago, I decided to throw my hat into the ring and attempt the dreaded Foreign Service Written Exam, the first step in a long process to become a Foreign Service Officer, or diplomat, for the United States. I’ve tossed the idea around of pursuing this path for a number of years. But now, especially after having an absolutely horrendous experience with the Peace Corps in Guatemala, I can’t help but wonder if I should stay away from government bureaucracy. Although working for the State Department would not directly put my health at risk like working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a country poorly managed by the Peace Corps administration, I am nervous nonetheless. Still, I decided to keep my options open and take a shot at the first step in the process, the written exam. Before sitting for the exam, one is required to submit an online application, which consists of job and education history, among other things. It’s not overly time-consuming, but there are better, more enjoyable ways to spend an hour. If only the State Department required prospective diplomats to learn how to bake bread or ride a unicycle for the initial application. Those activities may not directly relate to tackling international issues, but hey, what a life skill you would have! Before you take the exam, which consists of English expression, job knowledge, biographical information-which, in my opinion, is a tricky little devil- and an essay, you must pick your cone. A cone is not a delectable treat, but a State Department way to say career track. Here are the five cones, pulled from the State Department website. · Consular: Consular Officers protect Americans abroad and strengthen U.S. border security. · Economic: Economic Officers work on economic partnerships and development, support U.S. businesses abroad, and cover environmental, science, technology, and health issues. · Management: Management Officers run our embassies and make American diplomacy work. · Political: Political Officers analyze political events. · Public Diplomacy: Public Diplomacy Officers explain American values and policies. For a detailed look at the Foreign Service Exam, check out this guy’s blog; he gives an excellent overview of the taxing affair. I studied for a couple weeks, but decided to not get too worked up over it. In the end, I passed, and the next task was to submit my responses to five personal narrative questions, or PNQs. The prompts ask the applicant to submit responses that address particular areas of interest for whoever reads my application. For example, one prompt deals with intellectual abilities and another one deals with management capabilities. I enjoy writing, so this didn’t bother me too much, but, again, I’d prefer to learn how to bake bread. I think there’s a saying, teach a man how to bake bread, he feeds his family forever. Make a man write lots of essays, man hits head with brick. I submitted my essays a couple weeks ago, and now I wait. A panel is going to review my total application and decide if I have what it takes to get invited to the oral exam in March. In the meantime, it is off to Montana in mid-January to help improve economic security for individuals and families all over the state with Americorps VISTA. · August 2010 – registered for Foreign Service Exam · October 2010 - took Foreign Service Exam · End of October 2010 – received results(passed) · November 2010 – Submitted PNQs · Late January 2010 – Await results of panel Do I have what it takes to become America’s Next Top Diplomat? Man, that show would actually be pretty boring. It would probably show a bunch of people reading.

I don't plan on writing many more Peace Corps stories, so I guess it is time to take my blog off of peacecorpsjournal.org. I have some new ideas to keep the blog going, but the real question is this: will anyone care? Maintaining an internet persona is strange; it's like a little me that lives in a digital world. Maybe the real question is who is more popular? The internet me or the real me? Better get back to the real world. In the meantime, check out this video. I have been listening to this song nonstop. Despite my initial vehement criticism of this band, Adam, you are right. They have some pretty good songs.

I think I'll post songs that I enjoy once a week, because I can do anything that I want. This is my blog.

They are going to hate me. I had just quit the Peace Corps, and my thoughts turned to my site and the community I was living in. I now had to go back to my site, collect my possessions, and say goodbye. What would I tell my community? What would they think of me? What do I think of myself? What on earth am I going to say? I arrived back in my town during the early afternoon. Descending from the microbus, some children recognized me and immediately started yelling the customary greeting: “Qawa Jordan!” Don Jordan. I could never say much to the kids in my town, because I never knew much Q’eqchi. I said what I could, and I got them to like me. The nice thing about kids is that it doesn’t take much for them to like a person. I’ve always thought children are better judges of people than adults. Children always know when you are being true to yourself. I was nervous, so I smiled, nodded, and tossed back some phrases in Q’eqchi. What am I going to say? Why is this happening? I thought I would be a good Volunteer. I thought I would stay the full 2 years. I approached my host family’s house. Martin, who was my host brother and also one of my counterparts, was standing outside with Don Santiago, my host father. They were really excited to see me, since I had been away from site for several weeks attending mandatory trainings. Their happiness was going to make it harder for me to tell them the truth. I hate letting people down. They greeted me, but I immediately started talking. “I have bad news. Bad news.” “What happened?” “I have to leave.” “What? Why?” “I have to leave. I need to explain it.” “Come sit inside and tell us what is going on.” They pulled me inside the first hut, the house consisting of two huts in total. The second hut was where the kitchen was located. It always bothered me that so many of them had to sleep in the kitchen. The first hut had one room. This is where I lived for my first three months in site until I couldn’t take the incessant crying of infants any longer. To make a little nook for me, my host father tacked up three boards to separate me from the 6-7 family members living on the opposite side, which is where my host father and host brother told me to sit now. “Now,” Don Santiago, my host father, said, “Why are you leaving?” Do I lie? Do I tell the truth? What do I do? I decided to go with the truth. “I’m really sorry. The house is still not built. The junta directiva has said for months that it will be built, but there is never any progress. I feel like I have been living on top of you. I can’t move any of my stuff out of this house until I have a place to live. There are issues with Peace Corps too. I can’t get support from Peace Corps.” I kept talking and talking. Eventually I started to ramble. At this point, the rest of the family had crowded into the room. People were translating to Dona Paulina that I was leaving. She looked surprised and very upset. Not the angry upset, but the kind of upset when someone wrenches on the strings of your heart. The kind of upset that hurts more than the angry upset. Stopping me, Don Santiago says, “What kind of problems with Peace Corps?” Alternatingly looking at the floor and up into the faces of the members of my host family, I reply, “Oh, nothing that you did. There are problems with Don ---------. They should have been helping me more.” “We lost our opportunity to have a Volunteer,” Don Santiago said. “The junta directiva should have built the house. We lost our chance. It is bad, because the junta directive has not done anything. The members will change next year, and the current junta directiva has nothing to show for their time. This is a shame.” This is not how I expected this to go. I didn’t know what else to say, so that’s what I told them. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what to say,” I stammered. “I’m…I’m….” I looked up at them. And I began to cry. I didn’t know if I would cry saying goodbye to the people at my site. I didn’t think I had built up enough emotional capital. I didn’t think that I stayed long enough to truly care about people at my site. I thought that I had failed as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and, therefore, did not have the right to cry about leaving these people. But I couldn’t hold it back. “I’m so sorry this is happening. I never thought I would leave early. I am so sorry.” “The junta directiva lost this opportunity. This is a shame,” Don Santiago repeated. Peace Corps had made me an emotional wreck. I had gotten teary-eyed after my boss told me he wouldn’t give me a site change, thus ending my Peace Corps service, and here I was now, bawling. Looking back on it now, I hadn’t cried since the funerals of my grandparents. Dona Paulina suddenly spoke up. Her words were translated for me. She wanted to know if she did something wrong to make me leave. I said no. She told me that she felt like I was a part of the family. She started to speak again, but then started to cry. She started to speak. She started to cry. It was all so sad. I told them I needed to pack my things, because tomorrow I would be leaving. Before I did that, I decided to take a walk down the trail that leads to the caves one last time. On the way to the path, I said some more goodbyes. Eventually I came upon the start of the trail. I looked down it with tunnel vision. It was like someone had blurred my peripheral vision like a painter angrily smearing the sides of his canvas. I walked, and I thought. It was surreal. Why was I sent here? Why did I spend months applying and waiting for an invitation only to have this happen? I was a kaleidoscope of emotions. I worked hard during training and impressed my boss. He told me that only I could succeed at this site, but now I am leaving, I thought. It all was so sad. I meandered down winding paths, under hanging tree branches and over hills. I walked all the way to the mouth of one of the caves, looked into the dark abyss, and turned around. Usually, when I had walked this path in the past, I would pass at least one or two individuals. This time, no one. Not a soul. Alone. Kind of how I felt the entire time at site. Alone because I couldn’t speak Q’eqchi, and alone because the Peace Corps didn’t give a damn. Suddenly, I remembered a question that I had asked my Peace Corps recruiter. During my interview I asked, “I have heard of horror stories where Volunteers are placed in a site and get absolutely no help from Peace Corps.” His response was straightforward. “That does not happen. Only Volunteers who are not proactive, who do not ask for help from the administration, fail. Those are the ones who go home.” Great, I thought. That is not me. I have nothing to worry about. And it wasn’t me. I asked for help. I tried to make the best of a situation that was hopeless. I tried for four months to improve the situation, but I got little to no support from Peace Corps. Back from my walk on the trail near the caves, it was time to pack up all of my belongings. Like always, the younger children and older girls were in my room watching me. Mainly, they were playing with my possessions strewn across the room, asking what they could with the little Spanish that they knew. I answered in a deadpan kind of way. At one point, one of my host brothers approached me. It was a 12 year old named Efrain. He stood there and stared at me, sizing me up. “Chawil aawib sa laa tenamit.” This means take care of yourself in your town. He said it in such a strange way that I thought he was joking. He repeated the phrase, but this time he started crying and hugged me. The Q’eqchi people don’t express themselves well, and, I guess, when there is not much practice at being emotional, it is hard to convey one’s true feeling. But Efrain’s true feeling was clear. He was very, very sad. His means didn’t match his end, but his end result was sadness, and sadness is the same everywhere. Two of his younger brothers and sisters were standing behind him. They were crying as well. I gathered them all up in a group hug and simply stood there with them. Sometimes all you can do is be present. Emotionally fatigued, I sat down in the only chair in the room to rest. There was extremely hot weather that day, and I was drenched in sweat. While I was sitting in the wooden chair contemplating the future, Martin, my host brother and counterpart, appeared in the doorway. He was glaring at me. He hadn’t said much since I got back to site, and I couldn’t read him. He was never one to express his emotions anyway. Slowly, he asked, “Jordan, are you sad?” “Yeah. I’m sad.” “You shouldn’t be sad.” “Why not?” Silence. I continued, “Why shouldn’t I be sad? I’m leaving. I’m leaving early. I never wanted this to happen.” Then I saw it in his eyes. It looked like Martin was about to cry. He couldn’t talk, because words would give way to tears. “I don’t want you to go,” he choked. “Martin, I don’t know… I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel. Four months ago, I didn’t know any of you, and now I am sad, because I don’t know---The tears in his eyes made me lose it yet again. Tears streamed down my face---- don’t know when we will see each other again.” Two men crying in the strangest of circumstances. Two men from two completely different worlds, uncontrollably weeping. Life has a strange way of bringing you to your poignant moments. I stood up, and I walked over to him. We hesitated, and then we embraced. For a guy who never showed his emotions, he gave me one hell of a bear hug. That night, at dinner, Don Santiago said goodbye to me. He told me that he had to be somewhere the next morning and that he would not be able to say goodbye to me then. He had to say goodbye now. A large man by Guatemalan standards, he now seemed lost in worry, a shrunken version of himself. We exchanged heartfelt goodbyes, and I went off to prepare for bed. That night, I struggled to sleep. Upon waking, I rubbed my eyes to focus them. Yesterday, unfortunately, was not just a bad dream. I really did have to leave my site and fly home. I put on my glasses and trudged to eat one final breakfast with the family. I was surprised to see that Don Santiago was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for me. Like he had done so many times before, he beckoned for me to take a seat at a tiny wooden stump next to him. One of the women gave me my breakfast. One egg, scrambled. “Bantiox,” I muttered in Q’eqchi. It was never enough food, no matter how many times I tried to politely tell them that I needed more food, no matter how many times I told Peace Corps that I was not getting enough food. I could eat it in two bites, but I made it last by sprinkling it into four or five fresh tortillas. Don Santiago looked me in the eyes, and he said, “Jordan, I wanted to say goodbye to you again.” His eyes were red, as if he had been crying and rubbing them for hours. The whole family, like usual, was in the kitchen. I looked around. Accustomed to being stared at by the members of the family during entire meals, this time they averted my gaze. It’s funny, you spend so much time with a person, and intently watch him or her. Then you realize a person is about to leave your life forever, and you can’t make eye contact; you look away. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism designed to ease the pain, the sense of loss. Maybe if you don’t look at the person who is about to leave forever, then he is already gone. Maybe convincing yourself that he is already gone makes him gone. Maybe. I ate my breakfast with my head bowed. I felt physically weak. Intense emotional experiences can make a person physically weak. “Jordan,” Don Santiago said, breaking through the silence. “I want to give you this.” He lifted from his neck a beaded necklace that he always wore. “You are like a son to me, and I don’t want you to go.” He started to sob. Again, I found myself doing the same, along with the rest of the family. Too weak to say anything else, I uttered, “Thank you. Thank you.” They had accepted me as one of their own, but I felt desolate and ashamed. Why do I have to leave? My breakfast was finished, and I had already said all that I could possibly say yesterday. All I could think to do was stare down at the ground. Eventually, I looked, to the door of the kitchen, and the sight absolutely astonished me. If my life has ever approached a movie-like state, it was at this very moment. There, standing in the doorway of the family’s kitchen were people. Lots of people. There were heads of little girls and boys poking through the doorway through the legs of older boys and men. We stared at each other for what felt like minutes. One by one, many of the men came over and shook my hand and gave me a hug. Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe it. Perhaps, nothing can ever describe it. My bags were packed. Finals words had been spoken. It was time to go. I waited by the side of the road in front of my host family’s house with the family and others from the town. Approximately 20 minutes later the Peace Corps van pulled up, driven by a nice older man named Pascual. He loaded my bags in the trunk, and I waved a final goodbye from the passenger seat to a place where I might never return. This was not the way that it was supposed to happen, and that’s what I told Pascual on the drive back to the Peace Corps headquarters. I told him about how unfortunate it all was that I had to leave early. He turned toward me and gave me a quizzical look. “It’s funny. The way that you left, with all of the people there and everything, I thought you had just completed your service.”

I just realized that I have not updated this blog in over a month, and I vow that I will not let this blog fall by the wayside. I think that I have done a pretty good job keeping it updated over the years, and even though I left the Peace Corps, I know there will be more stories to tell in the future. I ran into a lot of friends at UD Homecoming that I had not spoken to in a while, and many of them told me how much they love my writing. Writing for me is therapeutic. Some of you told me that my stories move you, and that us one of my intentions. I think there is as much to be said for the way a sentence sounds when you read it and for the emotion that it brings out as for the content it holds. Thus, I will continue to put out stories that people can stumble upon and smile. Or yell. Or cry. Stories that will become trapped in the internet world and embarrass me when I am old.

Bringing you up to the present, I recently accepted a new job with Americorps VISTA in Montana. As bad as my experience with Peace Corps was, service will always be important to me, and maybe this is a way for me to complete a second year of service that I never had. Or maybe I just have masochistic tendencies. I just know that the idea of going to a place where no one goes is exciting. I'll get to work all over the state with low-income individuals improving their economic security. I'll even get to speak Spanish with migrant workers. It sounds like a great opportunity, and I feel lucky to have stumbled upon it. I'm just going to keep doing things that make me happy until something sticks. Plus I have a pretty cool beard and some flannel shirts, so going to Montana seemed to be a natural progression.

On the way back to my site, I mulled over what had happened. I thought that Peace Corps would have been more willing to give me a site change. I could not believe that I was about to quit the Peace Corps. Distraught and emotionally drained, I thought about what I would say to the people at my site when I got back. I had been gone for a couple of weeks, since I had been at mandatory training events several hours away. I couldn't believe that I was placed in this position, and I felt like the bad guy, a whiny Peace Corps Volunteer giving up on his community. Then my phone rang.

It was the Peace Corps country director's secretary. She told me that the Peace Corps administration wanted to have a meeting with me and that I needed to turn around and come back to the headquarters before reaching my site. About halfway to my site, and not able to make the journey back to headquarters before nightfall, I stayed the night at a hostel with a fellow Volunteer and prepared to make the journey back the next day.

My mind was racing. Did this mean that they changed their mind and wanted to give me a site change. Were they angry? At this point, my friends in Peace Corps had started flooding the inboxes of Peace Corps staff, irate over the fact that I was not being offered a site change. They spoke about my work ethic and leadership qualities. I was amazed at how much support I received from other Volunteers.

I was called again the next day on the way to the meeting, again by the country director's secretary. She told me not to worry, that the country director, the security officer, my training director, my boss, and a Peace Corps medical officer would be there and that they all wanted to help me. My heart seemed to leap up through my throat; maybe I would be staying in Guatemala after all! Still, a meeting of this nature was unprecedented; I had never heard of it happening before, and I still had my doubts. However, I reasoned with myself, why would so many staff members show up to a meeting to kick me out or yell at me? I finally decided that this meeting was a good thing and that it would have a good outcome.

I entered Peace Corps headquarters and was told by my training director to wait until they were ready for me. My heart beating rapidly, I decided to wait in the computer room. Eventually they were ready for me. As I approached the door to the meeting room, my palms started to sweat. My heart raced. Entering, the room setting was ominous. All of the staff members were seated around a long wooden table. The country director beckoned for me to sit next to her near the head of the table. I felt like I was on trial.

She spoke first. "Jordan, we have been getting a lot of e-mails from other Volunteers telling us about your story. But we don't want to hear from them; we want to hear from you. Could you tell us what's going on, in your own words?'

I felt like I was losing my mind. I had been telling them my story for the last several months. Still, I maintained my composure and told them my entire story, feeling very uncomfortable as my boss' intense stare burned red-hot on my skin. I felt bad criticizing him at all, him being my boss, but I knew that I was right. I was not going to be intimidated, since this was likely my last chance to stay in Guatemala.

Finishing my long story, I said, "And for those reasons, I believe that I deserve a site change. I really want to be here, and I believe that my site is not ready for a Volunteer."

The country director thought about what I said for a second, and asked me, "What can we do to make you stay in your site?"

"I just don't think I can do it anymore in my site. I mentally and physically can't do it," I explained.

"How can we get you to stay in your site?" she retorted. They kept at it. They kept telling me to stay in my site and how great of a Volunteer I was. They wore me down. I told them that I could not go back to my site until a house was built for me, which meant everything that was originally promised: a house with electricity and access to water for cleaning dishes. The country director told me that she would send my boss to my site to verify that everything had been built. In the meantime, I would stay at headquarters taking classes with the Peace Corps' only Q'eqchi teacher and work on development project ideas.

"Ok, you've convinced me to stay," I uttered. The words felt like a mistake as soon as I said them. I left the meeting unsettled. I did not feel at peace with my decision. I did not think the house would ever get built, and I did not think things would improve at my site. I decided to sleep on my decision to stay and stick to this new plan.

Trying to make the decision whether or not I really wanted to stay in my current site kept me up all night. I talked to a good friend of mine on the phone, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer. I was really losing it. I told him that I was losing my mind and really being affected by all of this. I said that I hated this, and I couldn't handle it anymore.

Right away he replied, "Dude, this isn't you. This is just a job. Don't let Peace Corps do this to you. If that's really how you feel, you need to leave." Always one to give me good advice, I took his words to heart.

Later that night, I was still trying to decide what to do. I called my father and wandered though town. I wandered not seeing or feeling anything, completely in a daze. Ultimately, he told me that I had to make the decision that was best for me. Another good friend of mine in the Peace Corps had said the same thing over the past few weeks. He told me to completely forget about letting down my boss, my community, my parents or my friends and to take a deep breath and be present in the moment. Then, the decision should come to me, he said.

Later still, I felt so bad about possibly leaving my community that I became physically ill. I went to the bathroom and vomited several times. This type of thing had never happened to me before. I sat on my bed and wrote a pro and con list that I had started earlier that day. Pro was for the reasons I should stay. Con was for the reasons I should leave. I had the same number of pros and cons. I paused for a second. In the back of my mind, I said to myself, Darn I don't have enough cons to leave. There it was. That was how I truly felt. At that moment I decided that I was going to leave the Peace Corps, and it felt like I had lifted a huge weight off my shoulder. I laid down on my bed, and I fell asleep.

The next day, I went to see my training director, who had been a great friend to me during my time in Guatemala. He smiled when I entered his office. He thought that I had come to discuss my plan for the weeks to come. Instead, I confidently approached his desk, shook his hand and said, "I'm going to leave Guatemala."

Shocked and upset, he said, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I replied.

"Well, go talk to the country director, and see what she says about it," he told me. I walked over to her office.

The country director, someone who always seemed to be fond of me, smiled when I knocked on her door and told me to come in. "I've decided to leave Guatemala," I said.

Surprised, she exclaimed, "Have you thought about this? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I've thought about it a lot. I'm sure," I stated. She sat me down in one of the chairs in her office and pulled another one across from me. We talked for a while, and she appeared to be upset. I noticed tears welling up in her eyes as she listened to me speak. The country directorhad made a lot of enemies with the Peace Corps Volunteers, but I felt that she meant well. She told me to go back to my site, say my goodbyes, and "end well."

Then, as I was just about to leave, she said something that astonished me. She calmly asked me, "Jordan, what if I could give you a site change? I just don't want you to leave without me having offered it. I can't promise anything or give you a timetable on when it would happen."

I will forever wonder why she never said this at the meeting the day before. This last-minute effort to give me a site change probably had political motives, a way for her to write in a final report that she had given me an "out" before I left.

Peace Corps had turned into a game, and I was not going to play it anymore. Astounded that she had just asked me that, I thought about it for a second and said, "You know what? It's going to sound really bad that I am turning down a possible site change, but I have made up my mind, and I need to leave." We said a few more words, and I walked out.

Today, the country director's words, "I cant promise anything" still ring in my ears. I have since moved on and will soon be moving to start a job doing community development work across the country, but I will always remember what happened.

Peace Corps does not need to promise much to its Volunteers. My fellow Peace Corps Volunteers are some of the most intelligent, ambitious and resourceful people I know, and they are fully capable of working with limited resources. But when a Volunteer is placed in a site with no housing, limited access to clean food and no knowledge of the local language, what does Peace Corps expect will happen?

So no, I did not complete my Peace Corps service, and I did not have the complete Peace Corps experience, but I had a Peace Corps experience. And in the future, 10, 20, or 30 years from now, when the topic of Peace Corps comes up in conversation, I can say, "Yeah I did that, and I gave it one hell of a shot."

While at Peace Corps headquarters, I made an effort to get my bosses to verify with my association that a house was, in fact, being built for me. Before I left to go to the headquarters, I talked with a friend of mine, who was on the junta directiva of the association, and my main ally in communicating with the others members of the junta. He told me that they had cut the materials during the full moon and that the house would be done by the time I got back at the end of July. Since my boss, the assistant peace corps director, had gone out of town for a while, I spoke with the project specialist for my program. I asked her is she could please contact my friend on the junta directiva and inquire about the progress of the house. My hope was that she could extract a promise or definitive information about the status of the house. It took over a day for her to get a hold of him, as he was not answering his phone or returning calls.

Finally she was able to reach him. After talking to her for a while, he admitted that they did not yet have the materials and that they would have to wait for yet another full moon. Anxious to hear news about my house, I entered my project specialist's office the next day, hoping for the best. She told me that the association did not have the materials yet. This meant that I would have to wait another month for the house to be built.

I had had enough. I had hit my limit. I told her that I could not wait any longer, that not being able to control what I ate was a health risk. I needed this house not because I liked to complain, but because I was constantly ill from not being able to cook my own food. At that time I was still giving numerous stool samples because of constant diarrhea.

What bothered me the most was that my friend on the junta directiva was the one of the few people in the town I felt I could trust. Maybe he was doing everything that he could to get the house ready and his actions were stifled by the rest of the association. I will never know. I felt like he was the last person I could rely on, and when I found he had been lying to me for a long time, I couldn't deal with it anymore. Maybe he didn't mean any harm in lying to me. Maybe I shouldn't have decided enough was enough. All I know is that every person has a breaking point, and the realization that I would have to wait yet another month for the house to MAYBE be built was the final straw for me. I stormed out of the office.

I came back later that day and told my project specialist that I needed to be honest with her. I told her I could absolutely not wait any longer; I was miserable at my site, and I could not go back. I could not stand being sick any longer. I desperately tried to learn the language, make friends, stay healthy, and get enough sleep, but enough was enough. I couldn't handle anymore. I told her that I was thinking about leaving. It pained me to hear those words come out of my mouth, because I promised myself and others that I would never leave my community behind. But this is what I felt I had to do, for my own mental and physical health.

Immediately she said, "What if we moved you out West to another site?"

"I would do it," I replied. "I don't want to quit; I want to have a fair chance at being a Volunteer." She told me that she was confident a site change could be arranged. She said that she needed to talk it over with my boss, the assistant peace corps director of my program and that they would both be able to meet with me tomorrow when he came back to the office.

The next day my boss was back in his office. I entered nervously, but with renewed hope that things would get better after my assistant boss told me that there was a good chance I could get my site changed. He had me sit down in a chair close to the door, and he pulled another chair across from me and sat down. He asked me to talk about my concerns with my site. I hesitated and asked him where my project specialist was. Stutterting, he replied, "Um uhh oh.... do you want her to be here?"

"Yes, she told me she would be at this meeting today. Isn't she supposed to be here?" I asked him.

"Ummm, well we could wait I guess," he said awkwardly. I had no idea what was going on or why he suddenly seemed so uncomfortable.

"Yeah. Let's wait then, I guess," I slowly responded.

Then, he abruptly retorted, "Actually, she's packing to go out of town." I had just seen her walking in the hall outside of her office. "Let's start without her."

Surprised, I asked, "She can't come to the meeting?"

"No. Let's start." I thought that this was extremely odd that he was not letting my assistant boss into the meeting, and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I began by saying that I could not wait any longer for the house to be built. I felt that it would never be built, and I could be waiting many more months for it to be constructed. He told me that I only needed to have patience, that I needed to wait a little longer. I told him that a line needs to be drawn somewhere and that I was asking for a site change. If not given a change, I would be forced to leave. He continued to skirt the issue, not answering my plea directly. I asked him one more time for a site change.

Then, with intense anger, he yelled, "I will NOT give you a site change! That's final!"

With the realization that I would be leaving Peace Corps, my heart cracked a little. This was the end. I guess it was the finality of it all that made tears start to well up in my eye. I didn't get angry. I didn't respond. I just stared at him while a tear from each eye rolled down my cheeks. Damn you, I thought. You really have no idea how much I care about this. He continued on an angry tirade until he realized that I was actually upset. That this wasn't some big farce to get an easier site.

"Oh.. oh." He stammered. "Maybe you should see a counselor. I can see this is emotionally affecting you." He continued to tell me how great of a Volunteer I was and how it was impressive that I was learning Q'eqchi so quickly. He added, "If you don't believe in me, you don't believe in anything."

At that point, I wanted to scream, "You need to give me a reason to believe in you!" but I kept my eyes fixated on his and said, "Thank you for the opportunity."

"How can you be so inflexible?" he asked incredulously.

I could not believe that he had asked me such a delusional question. I simply stated, "Thank you for the opportunity. I'm going to go back to my site and make the final decision when I get there."

He continued to tell me what good business skills I had and that he knew I could do great things, that I was already doing great things. In a haze, I heard him, but I didn't hear him. I felt like I was floating outside of my body. He tried to convince me to say for another 20 minutes, and in my dream-like state, all I heard myself say time and again was, "Thank you for the opportunity."

Eventually I got up to leave. My boss finally looked upset. I was upset. I walked out, and I left. I was going to travel back to my site. On the trip back, however, my plans changed.

Literally sick and tired of being sick and tired, my body was falling apart on me. Still at the point where I was trying to convince myself that this was normal for a Peace Corps Volunteer to be dealing with, I let one particular problem go on for too long, and it eventually manifested itself in a painful, no longer bearable issue.

During the second month in my site, I started to notice acid reflux problems. Never having a history of acid reflux, I ignored it and assumed it would go away. I attribute it mainly to the caldo, or soup, that was occasionally served to me, but it could have been caused by a number of foods. The caldo was incredibly greasy, and orange bubbles of grease could be seen floating on the surface. Most of the food I ate with the host family bothered my stomach, but this was especially bothersome.

I first noticed it when trying to sleep. Upon lying down, I would feel a sharp pain in my chest. It would occasionally make it very difficult to breathe, and I would have to sit up and try to pound my back in order to force some air through my lungs. The pain was especially noticeable when I did anything active, such as playing soccer with the boys in my town, something that I did almost every day. Acute pains in my chest would cause me to stop running and massage the afflicted area.

This continued for months, becoming progressively worse. Eventually, a particularly horrible episode made me do something about it. I was spending the night at a fellow PCVs house because I did not have enough time to make it back from the Q'eqchi classes that I took every Saturday in a city a couple hours away. Trying to sleep, the now familiar pain in my chest returned. It became so bad that I got out of bed and started to walk around and attempt to regain a normal breathing pattern. I walked out of the bedroom into the main room of the house and stumbled around in the dark. Doubled over, I kept coughing and pushing my chest and back in order to generate an air flow. The pain got to be so bad, that I momentarily considered calling the Peace Corps off-duty medical officer. This was at 2 in the morning. Eventually the pain subsided, and I was able to return to bed and fall asleep. The profundity of the pain, however, made me decide that enough was enough.

The next day I called a Peace Corps Medical Officer and described the symptoms that I had been having. She first berated me for not controlling my diet. I sort of lost it, and I admit that I was a little too harsh with this very nice medical officer. Unexpectedly, I decided to go into a long rant about everything that had been going on at my site and how I could no longer take it. I told her that I had no control over my diet. She yelled at me for eating beans, but was later perplexed after I told her that it was one of the only things served to me. She was astonished that I did not have the resources to control what I ate and offered to tell others about my situation. I told her that she could, but I didn't think any significant changes would come of it. The medical officer told me to go to a doctor to get his opinion.

I scheduled an appointment, and a couple days later I was in the office of a doctor approved by Peace Corps. He examined me and told me that I had an acid reflux problem and that I was doing damage to my already burned esophagus. He seemed very knowledgeable and prescribed three different kinds of medicine for me. I thanked him and left his office. After that I proceeded to call the Peace Corps medical office to confirm that I should purchase the prescribed medicine. They agreed that it would be a good idea and told me that I would be reimbursed for the purchase. The total for the medicine was over 100 dollars. After taking the medicine for a couple days, I started to feel better.

That was the end of June. I knew that most of the month of July would be occupied by trainings and meetings at Peace Corps headquarters 7-8 hours away, and I was looking forward to the time out of my site, if only to eat plentifully again.

The first time I was to go to the Peace Corps headquarters was for a training, where my counterparts would also participate. I was excited to show my counterparts what kind of work we could be doing in the town. The only problem was that my counterparts were so poor that they could not afford to accompany me to events, even to nearby towns where the fare was only 5 quetzales, or about 60 cents. Luckily, Peace Corps was going to reimburse all of the Volunteers' counterparts for this event, which would last several days. I told my counterparts multiple times that they would need to inform the junta directiva of the association that they would be gone for a couple days and that they needed money for transportation to Antigua. I continued to remind them as the day of the event drew nearer, and they told me that they would take care of everything.

The night before we were supposed to leave, I asked one of my counterparts if everything was arranged for us to leave the next morning for Antigua. He told me that the junta directiva did not want to front the money, even though they would later be reimbursed. This was something that had been planned for several weeks, an event that the junta directiva knew would occur. Again, I wondered how this site got a Peace Corps Volunteer, since they seemed to have no intention in wanting to participate in free professional development training. No longer wishing to mask my discontent, I marched over to the center of town with my counterpart and asked why they did not want to pay the bus fare to allow my counterparts to go to this valuable training provided by Peace Corps. Begrudgingly, they finally agreed to front the money. Over time, I learned from my counterparts and host father that many in the community strongly disliked the junta directiva and felt that they were ineffectual.

The next day we left for the training, and the training went really well. It gave me time to bond some more with my counterparts, who were very close in age to me. They did a great job in participating during the 2 days, and I was hopeful that we could implement what we learned back at the site.

Every time that I left my site I was told by someone on the junta directiva that the house would be done when I got back. Every time, the house was not finished. It all seemed very deceitful.

My counterparts left to return to the site, and I stayed for my training group's Reconnect, an event that takes place after a group has been in site for 3 months. It is a time to compare notes, successes and failures alike. I took advantage of my time in headquarters to approach my two bosses about my recurring frustrations. I was growing very impatient with not being able to have a room where I could unpack my things and start to feel a little more settled, not to mention the fact that I was still not able to control what I ate, thus perpetuating a cycle of illnesses.

Their answer was concise: things will get better when you have your house. Just wait a little longer. I didn't think I could hang in there much longer.

Reconnect came next. It was great to see everyone, but my friends' comments scared me. They told me how terrible I looked. Remember, almost everyone had not seen me in 3 months. They said I looked incredibly thin and sickly. One of my friends even told me that I looked yellow and instantly frowned whenever she saw me. I tried to maintain a brave face and tell them that I was hanging in there. Outwardly, I was positive. Inwardly, I was in a really bad place. I was losing hope of anything ever getting better. I was not enjoying my Peace Corps experience at all.

During one session of Reconnect, my ecotourism group all sat in a circle. We went around the circle and talked about the the good times and the bad times at our sites thus far. I talked about how incredibly depressing it had been in my site, but still tried to hold back a little. I did say, however, that I believed the site was never reviewed and that a Volunteer should never have been sent there. I was starting to crack.

One intention of Reconnect was from us to hear from our peers and get a morale boost from hearing the stories of triumphs and struggles. I came away feeling even more depressed. Why? Because, for the most part, the stories told of setbacks and difficulties didn't even come close to what was going on at my site. I found that I was digging myself into a mental rut; I didn't think I would ever be able to overcome the problems in my site. Reconnect was supposed to make me feel connected to my group. Instead, it had the opposite effect. I felt alone.

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For the sake of readability, I am separating my reasons for leaving Peace Corps into many parts. I am pretty sure the next installment will be the last. Once I finish up these posts, I plan to to write with more of a positive spin again. I'll talk about memorable events from the past couple of months and my plans for the future. If you are still interested in reading, then I am still interested in writing. Again, thanks for reading and for the comments, internet friends.

This post continues the story of why I decided to leave the Peace Corps. Thank you for all of the comments on the last post, both good and bad. I do not hate Peace Corps or Guatemala; I simply had a particularly negative experience with how the Peace Corps administration dealt with my situation. I want my story to be one of many added to the Peace Corps discourse, so that applicants can see all sides of Peace Corps before deciding to apply. In fact, I hope you do still apply after reading this and that you finish your Peace Corps service, something that I was unfortunately not able to do.

I told my training director about my recurring illnesses and my living situation. The reason I called him was because I knew that I could speak English and clearly state my concerns. Even though I spoke Spanish very well, I feared that I was not able to effectively voice my concerns and that something kept getting lost in the translation with my superiors. My training director was happy to help and said that he would pass my concerns onto my bosses.

After taking the medicine for the giardia, I started to feel better, and I returned to the host family's house so that I could resume my week of Q'eqchi classes. Even though the Q'eqchi classes were not very good, I was convinced, even after minimal interaction with him, that the host father who had been helping me earlier would be an excellent instructor. The family told me that he would not be home during the rest of the week but that he would be happy to teach me during his free time each weekend. I was ecstatic, and I made plans to end classes with my current teacher back at my site and switch over to this new teacher.

While I was still staying at this family's house for Q'eqchi classes, I was called by my Assistant Peace Corps Director(APCD). He told me that Peace Corps could give my association money to build a house for me. This was in early May. They would give me a 2000 quetzal advance on my living allowance so that the the junta directiva of my association could buy cement for the proposed house. He said that he would send his friend, an extremely competent man from an NGO in the area to negotiate with the junta directiva in Qeqchi the details of my house. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this man; he tirelessly worked to advocate for me, in addition to the large amount of admirable work he did for the communities in the area. Apparently he even pushed the association to provide better housing before I arrived.

The house would be a simple hut with wooden boards for the walls, a cement floor, and a thatch roof. That was all that I needed. All I wanted was a place to sleep and a place to cook my food, in order to prevent myself from constantly becoming ill.

The whole process of getting this house built became a nightmare. I would attempt to meet with the junta directiva to discuss the progress, but they did not want to meet. I couldn't really explain what I thought should happen, because I couldn't speak Qeqchi. Therefore, I had to trust that my host dad would explain everything to them. I knew that the men in the town were very busy; they went almost every day to tend to their plots of land. I didn't want to come across as too imposing, but the lack of sleep and the lack of food was really taking its toll on me. I kept reminding myself that this how the people live here and that I had no right to complain, so I continued to let the housing issue fall to the wayside.

I would say as much as I could in Q'eqchi and go farm with the men, because I wanted to earn their respect, and I wanted them to like me. I was feeling really isolated and lonely not being able to communicate with the vast majority of my town. Finally, I was able to arrange a meeting with the junta directiva. They told me that the man from the non profit never stopped by to speak with them. This was a man that they knew very well. I told them that my boss had just told me that he came to the town a couple of days ago. They told me that, if he had come, they didn't know with whom he had spoken. I didn't know who to believe. During another meeting where I tried to arrange an Engineers Without Borders project and gather more information about the progress of the house, I was told by the junta directiva that I really needed to learn Q'eqchi, because they could not understand Spanish. I was beginning to feel more and more depressed.

I repeatedly called my boss to tell him that the junta directiva did not seem to know anything about the house and to tell him that they did not even seem to know that they had allegedly agreed to build it. I told him how difficult it had been to even get them to meet with me. He told me that I had to use my host father to set up meetings for me. I told him that I had tried that and that I was not having much success. I began to wonder why my association wanted a volunteer at all if they never wanted to tell me when meetings were. During my entire time in site, not once was I informed of a junta directiva meeting. Organizations agree to a checklist of items before they get a volunteer, one of which is including the volunteer at meetings and in the organization's plans. My boss told me to tell my host father about my frustrations, and I did. My boss also told me that he did not want to hear complaints, only solutions. I struggled to maintain my composure. I was not sleeping at all at this point and hardly getting any food. I felt like I didn't have anyone to turn to, and I explained that I was calling for help.

Weeks later my APCD came to my site for his first site visit. I acted confident and pretended like everything was alright in my site even though it really was not. I still did not want to appear weak or be viewed as a complainer. I listed communication issues as the first item on the agenda. I wanted him to tell my association the importance of telling me about meetings. I spoke some Q'eqchi in the beginning of the meeting to show my boss how hard I had been trying to learn the language. The meeting consisted mainly of my boss talking to the junta directiva. He went through the points on the agenda that I created. After realizing that he could not communicate with almost everyone at the meeting, he directed everything toward my host father and one of my counterparts. It was clear that those who could not speak Spanish were not paying attention; some even got up to walk around and look out the window. The APCD site visit is supposed to be a big deal, but certain members of the junta directiva could not have been less interested. I hoped that my boss would realize what kind of issues I was facing with the lack of communication in my site.

After he left, I really thought the communication issues would disappear. They did not. I still stumbled upon meetings that no one told me about. Those involved in the meetings did not want to translate. Thus, I had no idea what was going on. I wondered what I was doing in Guatemala.

Eventually, the living situation was so unbearable that I called my APCD to tell him that I could not stand one more week in the house with the sometimes 16 other individuals. I kept beating myself up, telling myself that I was a bad person for not being able to deal with the situation. I kept telling myself that this is what Peace Corps is supposed to be like, and the fact that I can't handle this living situation means that I am culturally insensitive.

My boss said that he could move me into a room in the ecohotel that the association ran. There were 6 rooms to house tourists that chose to spend the night in the community. It was a tiny room; there was barely enough space for my bed and a small table, but I least I could get some sleep. I was thankful that my APCD got me switched into the ecohotel, but I also felt that he should have done more to secure adequate housing in the first place. I still really wanted to have enough space to cook my own food, but I decided that I would continue to wait it out. In the meantime, the house was not being built. I didn't know who I could talk to get it built. I was conscious of the busy schedules of the men in my town, but I also could not be effective at all living out of my suitcase. I continued to talk to my host father and my 2 counterparts, in addition to one of the members on the junta directiva who could speak Spanish, with whom I became good friends.

Now with a friend in the junta directiva, I finally had someone who could advocate for me. Progress started to be made on the house, and I saw that some sticks were collected; they were to be the support beams of the house. I continued to inquire about the rest of the materials. I was told by my friend on the junta directiva that the town would have to wait for the full moon until the wood could be caught, because the wood is stronger during a full moon. This is due to the fact that there are no bugs in the wood when the moon is full. I believed this and said that I understood. I also said that I would be happy to go with them to cut the wood, that I really wanted to learn how to build a house. I knew that they could build a house quickly, because I had a seen a wooden hut go up in 2 days in a nearby community. The only step in the process that would take time would be the buying and laying of the cement.

This whole time, I traveled 3 hours away to have Q'eqchi classes with this new teacher. After the 1st class, I realized that he did not have a lesson plan at all. I had to tell him what I wanted to learn, because if I didn't do that he would teach me in a scattered manner, teaching a little bit of everything. He may have been able to speak many languages, but I had had a lot of language classes over the years, and I knew that I would never be able to learn this way. I switched yet again to a third teacher. It turned out that she had an excellent system, and I finally noticed myself significantly improving each week. It was a hassle to get to classes, the classes being 2 hours away, but I desperately wanted to have a work life and social life. Plus, it was interesting learning a Mayan language. Still, I wondered why Peace Corps did not help me more in finding a Q'eqchi teacher.

Meanwhile, I kept getting sick and kept traveling to a city to give stool samples. The house was still not being built. I decided to make a deal with the women in the one comedor in the community to start making me food. It was not a typical comedor; the people in the town did not eat there. It was only used by the tourists. It was staffed by only one woman, the women in town would take turns working there every month. I was now able to get a little more food, and the food was clean, but I did not like eating all my meals there, because I would have to eat alone. I did like spending time with my host family, but I decided I could no longer eat all my meals there. It was difficult to explain to them that I did not want to eat all 3 meals with them each day, because they did their best to welcome me into their home and provide for me what they had. Later on, right before I left the country, my boss criticized me for deciding to eat so many meals with them. I felt that a big part of being in Peace Corps was sharing experiences with the families in the community, and I did not want to completely cut myself off from them and make my chances at integrating that much more difficult. I found myself in a predicament. My host family did not seem to like that I was going somewhere else to eat some of my meals. I asked myself, Do I stay with them to appease them, or do I worry more about my own health? To this point, I always tried to put my needs after everyone else's, because I thought that is what you had to do to be a good Volunteer. Mentally, I did not think I could wait much longer for the house to be built, and I was hating myself for having these thoughts.

I'll put up the conclusion in the next couple of days.

I know that many of you are interested in why I decided to leave Peace Corps Guatemala. This is my decision, the decision that was ultimately best for me. Life is too short to be unhappy, and I was not only unhappy, but miserable. In addition, I had lost my sense of humor during my time at my site, and for those of you who know me, you know how important free-spirited humor is to my life. This is not an attempt to berate Peace Corps, nor is it an attempt to convince people to stay away from the organization; Peace Corps is a wonderful organization witch much to offer. This is just one story among many Peace Corps stories. I hope you will appreciate it for what it is worth and reach your own conclusions based on the evidence. This report is obviously subjective, because it happened to me. I will do my best to describe the events leading to my decision as they unfolded. When writing something like this, it is difficult to not come across as overly negative and bitter. I write about the negative things because they are what caused me to make my decision. What I hope is that my story gives just one more perspective of the Peace Corps experience. Thanks for reading.

The main two factors that led to my decision were the lack of adequate housing in my site and communication issues, both with my community and the Peace Corps. My boss placed me in a site that, I believe, did not have housing prepared for me. I was placed in a tiny house typical of the houses that could be found in my town. It was made out of wooden boards. There were two huts, the first one was essentially one large room. This first hut had a tin roof, which was rare in my community. My room was separated by the main room by 4 wooden boards that were tacked up to form a makeshift wall. My APCD, or Assistant Peace Corps Director required the family to build this wall prior to receiving a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was easy to look through the large spaces in between the boards into my room, and if there was a great desire, it was not difficult to look over the top of the boards into the room, as well.

I remember the first night. I was terrified. My host dad showed me to my room, and I saw that there was a wooden table to my right, a wooden window above the table, and another wooden structure in the back of the room. I started to feel overwhelmed when I realized that the wooden structure would be my bed. Since I arrived at my site in the late afternoon, there was not time to buy a mattress. I also had not figured out a way to rig my mosquito net from the wooden boards, so that first night I slept on top of the wooden board wrapped in my mosquito, shuddering from fear of the tarantulas that were all over the walls.

The children would constantly look through the cracks in the walls. I constantly felt like I was being watched, and, in fact, I was. I could not go anywhere in the tiny community without everyone knowing exactly what I had been, what I was doing at that moment, and what I would be doing later. That, however, is to be expected in a town of 300 people where a Volunteer from the US sticks out like a sore thumb. On the contrary, I did not feel that I should be faced with constant scrutiny and watchful eyes in my own room. It may have been better if I had my own room separate from the family, but I technically shared one room with 7 other people. If there was a light on in the other room, it was on in my room. If there was a baby screaming or crying in the other room, which happened constantly, it was like they were screaming in my room. I barely slept at all due to the large number of infants screaming throughout the night. I would not be able to fall asleep easily, and I would wake up multiple times during the night due to incessant racket. Throughout the first couple weeks and months, I kept telling myself that Peace Corps is supposed to be difficult, and that I was a bad person for even thinking about complaining, since this is how people live in this community. At times, there were 16 people in this house. 7 would sleep in the first main room, and the rest would sleep in the kitchen. My host mother and father had a room that was still part of the second structure, but it was off to the side of the kitchen. partially blocking it from the constant fumes.

Food was another story altogether. I ate my meals with the host family, giving them money to buy food. The portions they gave me were meager. I wanted to be polite, so I did my best not to complain about the food. Early on, when talking about the need for more food with my host dad and host brother, the only two in the family who could speak Spanish, I was told that food was hard to come by, and that they could not offer much. I accepted it, acknowledging that I realized food was scarce, but that I needed a little more, because my body was used to more food. I tried to always place the blame elsewhere, on my body, on Peace Corps, on anything else but myself. I wanted everyone to like me. I wanted to blend in.

There would always be plenty of tortillas, but a diet based solely on tortillas does not provide much nutrients. In addition to the tortillas, there would be one other food item, and on very rare occasions, a third item. Sometimes it would be one scrambled egg. Other times it would be a tiny bowl of beans. On occasion, all I would get was a bowl of hierbas, a leafy plant that would be boiled. It tasted what I think leaves and grass would taste like. Most of the time, there were parts of the leaf that could not be chewed, and I ended up spitting most of the food back into the bowl. Again, I did not want to complain because this is what everyone in the family ate on a daily basis. For a couple days, the family only ate mushrooms that they had found outside. They told me that they may upset my stomach and suggested that I not eat them. I was happy to heed their advice.

Almost all of the food was extremely greasy. It was cooked over an open fire in a large black cauldron. Over time, after about a month, I developed intense acid reflux. After swallowing something, an intense pain would rise in my chest, as if someone had just punched me. After laying down to sleep, I would have pain so severe that I had difficulty breathing. The same thing happened when I did anything active, such as playing soccer with the guys in the community. I kept hoping it would just go away. As my problems and concerns compounded, I remained scared to call Peace Corps for help. Past Volunteers told me that my APCD hated complainers, and being one of his favorites, I did not want to get on his bad side.

Yet, I constantly became ill from the food that I was eating. I had diarrhea every week and perpetual stomach pain. This was not happening to just me. It seemed like every week that there was someone who was very sick in my host family. It probably stemmed from unsanitary food. Women would carry ducks across the kitchen to take them outside. There would always be wild animals, such as ducks, chickens and stray dogs that would wander through the kitchen. After touching the animals, the women would not wash their hands. Children would urinate on the kitchen floor. I was terrified to eat with this family; everything that was happening was running contrary to what we were taught by the medical office staff during training. I wanted to integrate, though, and I kept my mouth shut for the time being.

Everyone in the family continued to get sick, one 2 year old girl even became deathly ill. She had a fever that had not broken for 4 days, and the family was not giving her water. I tried to convince my host dad and host brother that they needed to keep her hydrated and that it was very dangerous for an infant to have a fever for such a long period of time. They looked at me almost mockingly, wondering why this foreigner was giving advice on how to care for their family member. The girl began throwing up worms and looked like she was about to die. Her eyes rolled back, and she could not get the strength to move any part of her body. She used to be a jovial and vibrant, but everything had changed. I argued with my host brother, who was her father, that he needed to take her to the hospital very soon, even if it would cost a lot of money. I left the house after having conversations with him extremely frustrated. Tears would well up in my eyes as I thought about how this child may not live to see another day. I knew that the death of a child was commonplace for the families in my community, but I knew that it could be prevented. The next day, my host brother took his daughter to the hospital, paid 200 quetzales, or $25, and got the medicine. In a few days, she was back to normal. 200 quetzales was a LOT of money for the family, but they saved the girl's life, and they were happy that they made the decision to do it. The Peace Corps experience was really starting to have an effect on my mental and physical health.

All of this time I struggled to communicate in a site where the primary language was not Spanish. 90% of my town of 300 did not speak Spanish. Being in the top Spanish group during training, I guess my APCD figured that I would be able to quickly learn another language. However, I was sent to this site without any training in the Qeqchi, the Mayan spoken in the area where I was living. Not one class. I spent the first 2 months scrambling to find a good Qeqchi teacher. The problem is that most Qeqchi teachers do not know how to explain grammar. They are unable to answer seemingly simple questions, and soon both the teacher and the student become incredibly frustrated.

I will forever wonder why I was not trained at all in the Mayan language. I am sure that Volunteers in Kyrgyztan are not sent out into their communities with zero knowledge of the community's primary language. Volunteers in China do not go to their sites lacking any knowledge of Chinese. It just didn't make any sense to me.

I first found a teacher in my community. He was a pre-primary teacher, and was a nice guy, but I realized that he was unable to provide quality instruction. He would give me lists of words to memorize, words such as "crab" and "hanging." He did not have a clear lesson plan, and I decided to find another teacher. I called the Peace Corps language office and asked for help. The head of the language department said that she could schedule a week of intensive study in a town 3 hours away. I jumped on the opportunity.

The week turned out to be a disaster. The classes were given in an area that did not speak Qeqchi, but instead spoke another Mayan language, Pokomchi. The instructor was absolutely awful, and attempted to teach from a computer program that he had. Anytime that I asked him a question, he could not answer. He would refer to books, but he was never able to find anything. If I let him go, he would look through the books for 30 minutes or longer. He seemed to agree with whatever I said in order to get me to stop asking questions. I was later told by other teachers that he was not teaching me correct Qeqchi.

During the week I was staying with a host family. The host father was an intelligent man, a linguist who spoke several Mayan languages. He was available to help me during the first night. He really seemed to know what he was doing. I liked his dynamic, interactive method, and I would later decide that I wanted him to teach me. This lasted for 2 weeks, until I realized that he also did not have any lesson plan, requiring me to tell him exactly what I wanted to learn, lest I let him go off on incomprehensible tangents. Though I was extremely eager to learn Qeqchi so that I could communicate with the people in my town and have some sort of social life, I did not think that I should be the one responsible to develop lesson plans. I ultimately left my 2nd teacher and switched to yet another teacher in a city 2 hours away from my site. She proved to be the best, and I finally felt like I was making some progress. In the back of my mind, I questioned why Peace Corps did not do more to arrange classes with an effective teacher. Having no experience in the matter, I was forced to look for myself. This was only made more difficult by the array of problems that I was dealing with at my site.

During the first day of the week of intensive classes, I got really sick and had to rush to give a stool sample. For several hours I was unable to leave the bathroom for more than 2 minutes at a time,much to the annoyance of the other patients trying to give stool samples in the one bathroom that this lab had. I called the Medical Officer and was diagnosed and treated for giardia. I was violently ill the entire day, and I was getting fed up. I decided to call my training director, someone who I felt that I had developed a good relationship with during training. I also knew that I could speak in English with him in order to clearly describe all of my frustrations. Little did I know, this would be the beginning of a downward spiral and my eventual decision to leave the country.

To all my friends and family, to all those who stumbled upon my blog and decided to support me, to everyone who took the time to learn about my life and the lives of others of which I tried so hard to meld my own with, I want to say thank you for following me on my journey. I find myself back in the United States after making the agonizingly difficult, gut-wrenching decision to leave the Peace Corps after 7 months in Guatemala. It had been a dream of mine for several years, since my freshman year in college at the University of Delaware, to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. To realize that the dream that you have held onto for years is crumbling, the pieces of a once idyllic image sifting through your hands like grains of sand, is very, very difficult to swallow.

Ultimately, what it came down to was a health hazard and a shocking unwillingness to provide any support on the part of the Peace Corps administration. I stand by my belief that I was placed in a site that was not ready for a Peace Corps Volunteer. Through many efforts to make the situation better and exhaust all my options prior to leaving, I came to the realization that it would be harmful to my mental and physical health to remain in such a situation.

I am disappointed by the outcome and saddened that I was forced to leave my community, but, given the circumstances, it was the best decision for me. Maybe it is a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because I believe that the Peace Corps experience was for me; I believe that I had much to offer, and I will continue forward searching for the next opportunity where I can do my part to make the world a little better, a little brighter.

The Peace Corps is a wonderful organization with the capability to enact change all over the globe, but it is also severely flawed. This post will be followed by another explaining the tumultuous series of events that led to my unfortunate decision. Let it be a warning to Peace Corps applicants with grandiose ideas of their future employer. There is a dark side to the development organization with the cuddly name. I will do my best to tell the story as it happened to me, and then I will give you a story about my last days at my site and talk about the people I left behind. In the end, it's about people; Peace Corps administration interactions with Peace Corps Volunteers and Peace Corps Volunteer interactions with host communities are just two examples of important relationships that must form for a successful Peace Corps experience to ensue. When individuals are treated like numbers, problems arise. I am not just a number, which is kind of what I felt like during my time in the Peace Corps.

As promised, here is the story I wrote for the Peace Corps Volunteer newsletter. It won the best submission award, because it is the funniest thing you will ever read. I am a really modest person. Enjoy.

Let’s Go to Church!

I live in a small town. 300 people small. So, when I am asked to attend the local Baptist church one to three times every week, I don’t have much of an option to evade the request. Envisioning myself sitting on a crooked wooden bench listening to puro Q’eqchi’ for the next three hours, I ponder the consequences of telling my inquisitor that I would rather have diarrhea while fending off a swarm of angry bats on the dilapidated latrine out back. Because I have done that. Because I know it is more fun than going to the Baptist church.

But I don’t do this. Instead, I dress up by tucking in my favorite short-sleeved, checkered, confianza-building shirt into my blue jeans and lace up my once respectable-looking brown Clarks. I’ve had these shoes for years; they have given support to the soles of my feet on multiple continents, and they desperately crave the attention of an overzealous Antigua shoeshine boy. Alas, shoeshine boys are not to be found in the serene aldea of Candelaria Camposanto in northern Alta Verapaz.

I start to focus on the events that are about to unfold, and I mentally prepare myself. Then, my host mother walks by topless, completely shattering my concentration. I still haven’t gotten used to that. She proceeds to bathe herself and three of her smaller children at the pila in the front yard, mere feet from my room. The children whine and moan, but Doña Paulina is in control and is not afraid to manhandle a youngster to prepare him or her for three hours of holy humdrum.

The children are clean, and off we go. We saunter down the short dirt path to the main road and turn left toward the church. On the gray pavement, the heat from the sun pricks our bodies, its rays already overwhelming at 9 AM. In no hurry to travel the 50 meters to the church, we sizzle on down the road, like lonely pancakes forgotten by an aloof teenager on a diner grill. The heat is tremendous most days in sleepy Candelaria Camposanto, and we move slowly and gracefully, as if we were to go slow enough the sun might not realize we were there and forget to shine on us.

The church is a bright green building, its hues starkly contrasting the muted browns of the wooden huts that line the road. You would never know that this is a church. In this shack of God, this unimposing box of wooden slabs, time stands still.

I enter and take my normal seat in the back right corner of the church. Heads turn and the churchgoers begin their routine staring, forming a sea of fixated eyes and gaping mouths. I am an oddity, a great novelty, and most likely will continue to be one for the remainder of my service. I wave and smile, which is the best way to combat one who is prone to chronic staring and get him to stop. I had previously tried simply staring back to see who would be the first to avert his glance, but Guatemalans take staring seriously, and after 20 seconds of being uncomfortable, I usually look away like a wounded, defenseless deer.

Inside the church there are ten wooden benches, 5 on the left side and 5 on the right side. Women sit on the left and men sit on the right. It reminds me of a middle school dance. My mind begins to wander, and I think about which of these Q’eqchi’ women would make the make the best dance partner. I decide on a woman in the third row with a cherry-red huipil. I then decide it is too early in the service to be losing my mind, and I fix my attention toward the front of the room.

It seems almost anachronistic. Two five-foot speakers loom over other electronic equipment and musical instruments. They don’t belong at all. They seem to be wondering amongst themselves how they ever got so lost on their way to Nashville.

The service starts off with a preacher. I call him the warm-up preacher, because he lacks a certain prowess for the act. He teaches lessons using a Q’eqchi’-Spanish version of the Bible. He is not particularly adept at reading. Through his mumbling and fumbling I can tell that today he is talking about Moses and his miraculous journey out of Egypt. Most of the churchgoers are completely uninterested in what is going on around them. Most prefer to stare at me instead. I consider that I am capturing more attention than Moses, and I smile. Moses parts the Red Sea. I grin and play with my beard.

Looking up, I see that hanging from the ceiling are cheap plastic tablecloths that contain designs of flowers and leaves. It’s as if the church is preparing for a summer picnic on the ceiling. The decorations appear to have been strewn from one end of the church to the other hurriedly and haphazardly, as if the person doing the hanging either really wanted to start a picnic, or really wished he was somewhere else, doing anything else.

There is no time to ponder that, however, because the musicians are setting up, and it’s time for the songs. Far more women than men attend this church, and I have a strong inclination to think that most of the men only come because they get to play with their instruments.

Each church service has singing. Today, it appears that Catalina, one of my host sisters, will be singing. The music begins, and it is deafening. The volume level would be more appropriate for a death metal concert. Then, Catalina begins to sing, and she is shockingly terrible. One man wails on his drums, another thrashes on the bass, a third hammers away on his guitar, and a fourth seems to be viciously attacking his keyboard. The intense noise pummels me; it is too much for me to take. My heart rate quickens, and I begin to sweat. My ears begin to moisten, and I reach to wipe away the fluid pooling near my earlobes. Are my ears bleeding from this music, or is that just excess saldo seeping out, left over from a triple saldo day spending spree gone wrong?

Catalina continues to “sing.” I think the prerequisite for being a church singer in Guatemala is that one must be able to sing horrendously. Catalina succeeds wildly at this. Her screams escape from her mouth and scatter around the room, searching to pierce any available eardrum, like a drunken knight desperately trying to joust his opponent. I have noticed something about church singers in Guatemala. They don’t appear to enjoy singing. They howl because they have to. They yelp out of a necessity to fulfill their religious duties. Catalina screams stoically and stone-faced. I wouldn’t call it musical. I would say that she either screams or screams louder. As she reaches the loudest parts of the song, she continues to stare straight ahead, unabated, unflinching. Instead of looking like she is in the process of singing, she looks like she is in the process of letting out a big sneeze. Suddenly, the song ends, Catalina, still stoic as can be, drops her Q’eqchi songbook and marches back to her seat.

A man, who appears to be in his mid-forties and is wearing a white short-sleeved button-down shirt and brown khaki pants, walks up to the front of the room, and he begins to preach. He is much more eloquent than his predecessor. As he barks the word of God, my mind begins to wander, and my thoughts get lost in the peaks and valleys of the inflection of his passionate sermon. Lulled into a daze, I begin to focus on other things when I realize that he has switched back to Spanish. I then hear my name and manage to catch the end of his sentence, “and now Jordan will tell us about his country.” People turn around and commence their staring.

Not cool, I think to myself. In an attempt to stall and collect my thoughts, I ask, “Ummm what do you want to me to talk about?”

“Just tell us about the United States,” he calmly responds.

“Ummm alright,” I stammer. What could I possibly say to get these people to relate to my life in the United States? Angry that the preacher has put me on the spot, my mind races as I decide where to begin. I look up, as if the summer picnic tablecloths possess the answers, and I begin to talk about religion in the United States and about the numerous religions and churches that we have. I see some grins and nods of affirmation, and I realize that I am on a roll. Then, for some reason, I think about elementary school history, and the words “melting pot” jump into my head. I talk about how the United States is a nation of many different peoples from all over the world. I find myself blurting out, “In the United States, Africans, Asians, and Europeans live together in peace.” Knowing very well that most of my audience can’t understand a word of what I am saying, the absurdity of my current situation hits me. I do my best to stifle fits of laughter. Soon I am finished describing the incredibly dazzling utopia that is the United States, and everyone seems satisfied. I exhale deeply.

The service soon comes to end. I breathe a sigh of relief as the preacher brings things to a close. Suddenly he calls a woman up to the front to say a few words. I can only see her back as she rises from the second row and walks to the front, but I can see that she is carrying a baby. She turns around, and I realize that she is breastfeeding a small child. She continues to breastfeed her child during the entirety of her 3-minute remarks, because, of course, that is what you do in church.

The often topless host mom with some of her children.

The church.

I currently find myself in Antigua, Guatemala, or the Guatemala version of Disneyworld. It is developed, beautiful, has loads of tourists, and it is absolutely not what I think of when I think of Guatemala. Sure, it is nice to escape to a European-like city for a couple of days, but I believe I am experiencing somehwhat of a culture shock. Going from living a very basic life with the 300 people in my tiny village to a place that has incredible things such as lights, buildings that are not made out of sticks, stairs, and an ample supply of food has me dealing with sensory overload.

So what brings this small-town boy to the big city? I am here for an all-volunteer conference, Peace Corps-sponsored 4th of July festivities and a week of Q'eqchi classes in the Peace Corps center. I will be spending the better part of the month of July in Antigua due to these events and ecotourism meetings with my bosses. The 4th of July party was a great time with hundreds of Peace Corps Guatemala Volunteers in attendance. I had one of those life-is-pretty-cool moments when my friend Kristin beautifully sang the national anthem at the beginning of the party. I thought about how lucky I am to be an American, how proud I am of the work that Peace Corps Volunteers do, and how honored I am to have been chosen to accept this tremendous responsibility. As far as I can tell, we only get one shot at this thing called life, and we are all interconnected, so why not use the opportunities that I have been given to create opportunities for others? Everybody wins when friendships and work relationships are forged across national boundaries.I don't have the patience to write out all of the things that have happened to me recently, and if I am going to sit down to write out a blog post, I am going to spend my time writing interesting stories that highlight enlightening events, oddities, or the curious cast of characters that I meet during my service. Therefore, look at this list.

Spoke with the US Ambassador at the Peace Corps 4th of July party for 15 minutes about learning mayan languages and life in the Foreign Service

designed a brochure and t-shirt for my site got my phone stolen from my pocket(put a major damper on what was going to be a much-needed break for me)

designed an inventory system using Excel for the store that my assocation runs

developed incapicitating acid reflux from the nasty food at my site and had to spend Q1000 on three different types of medicine

Construction started on my house, and it should be done by the time I get back from Antigua in a week diarrhea

I have been getting much better at speaking Q'eqchi in my site(Some kid asked if I took a pill to become smart, because he wanted to know why I could learn Spanish and English, but he only could speak Qeqchi.I laughed and used that as an opportunity to tell im about the importance of studying, practice and hard work. He didn't understand a single word I said. This is a common occurrence in my site. So it goes.) My submission for the Volunteer-run publication, The Ego, won the best submission award, which is proof that goofy anecdotes about topless host mothers and howling church singers can be written about tastefully(I will upload my story within the next couple weeks)

Two bites later I can start to feel the first wave of heat from the chile in the tamal. Push through this, Jordan. You are not a wimp, I think to myself, knowing full well, that when it comes to spicy foods, I am the crown prince of wimps.

In between bites of my fire-laden tamal, I take time to observe my surroundings. To my left are women working tirelessly over an open fire making tortillas and preparing food for the day. Women here in the campo never cease to impress me; they are indefatigable, spending almost the entirety of their days either cooking over an open fire or cleaning the house and surrounding area. To my right is a frail, old man. His creased, wrinkled face tells the story of a long, difficult life. His back is severely hunched, like a crude implement used in metallurgy that has had its shape formed by years and years of exposure to intense heat. He is Santiago and Domingo’s father, thus making him the true owner of this house. I do my best to mask my astonishment when I realize that he is going to join us in the fields. He methodically takes each of the men’s bags and fills them with seed. My bag is the last to be filled.

My bag full of corn and bean seeds, the time has finally come to set out on my first day farming in the fields of northern Guatemala. We form a line and begin to trudge down a path that leads away from the back of the house. We continue to plod through a beautiful, green wooded area. Like a snake, single-file we slither over rolling hills that become more and more beautiful the farther we go. After some time, the men stop and, with their machetes, hack away at the low-hanging branches of nearby trees. They then use their machetes to carve one end of their 4-foot poles into sharp points capable of the task that they are intended to perform, that being to plunge into the earth. The men content with their farming implements, we continue along down the path.

Finally, after 5 more minutes of slithering up and over more hills we arrive at an area with a much different landscape. The land is jagged and rocky, and gray boulders jut out from a hill with a very steep incline. This cannot possibly be where we are farming, I ponder, but it is. This is the land that they own. The men slowly begin to form a horizontal line facing the hill, and the elder Santiago commences a prayer. The men drop their poles to the ground, close their eyes and mutter in unison. It is a moment for reflection, a moment to ask for a productive harvest. I look down the line and think about how these men rely on these harvests to feed their families. I think about how one year ago I was most likely in a bar in Newark, Delaware celebrating the end of my college career. I think about how much can change in a year; how paradigms can shift and lives can alter their course.

The prayer ends, and the last muttered words seem to float away with a slight breeze that passes between us. Then, the work begins. With one hand in their bag of seed preparing a handful of beans and corn and the other hand on their farming staffs, the men move forward stabbing the ground with their natural farming tools and throw the seed into the 4-inch wide indentation in the earth. Then they move forward a meter and repeat the process. The men inch forward in a slow-moving line. They move forward together; they sembrar together, because, in a practice routed in hundreds of years of tradition, to do it any other way would be unthinkable. The branches of the trees that they use to carve small holes in the ground are part of nature. The seeds that they toss into the holes have been gathered from past harvests, also part of nature. It is nature shaping nature, and the Mayans, knowing all that there is to know about their surroundings, by nature, are adept at tilling their land.

I catch on quickly, but I struggle with evenly spacing the holes in perfect 1 meter by 1 meter squares. What I believe is 1 meter away from my last hole and 1 meter away from the man working next to me is never so. I constantly look to the line of holes next to mine for guidance on where to make my next hole. The men never need to look. They can sense where their next holes should be, and they are never wrong.

The work is long and tiring, but I wouldn’t call it boring. There is a simple satisfaction in doing this work, knowing that each seed planted will bear fruit for the families of the men doing the planting. Yet, after 8 hours of work, I find myself sunburned and tired with blisters on my hands. I did not work as quickly as the other men, but I worked by their sides. My seed planted will not earn the biggest portion of the harvest in a few months time, but I earned respect. Soon after we started to sembrar, the men began to joke with me and call me Qawachin, a term of respect, usually accorded to older men. It may have been because my beard makes me look older – a man in my community thought I was 35 years old the other day- but I think it was because they felt like I was one of them.

At the end of the day we made our way back to the house of Don Santiago, who is a warrior in his household. He is an ancient warrior that finds the withering body that is his armor betraying him, but he is a proud warrior nonetheless. We are back in the house where we started the morning, and we take our places on the benches. Don Santiago gets up and hobbles over to a tiny altar in the corner of the room. He lights candles, says a Mayan prayer and paces back and forth in front of us waving a metal container filled with incense. I breathe in the potent fumes and get a light, heady feeling. The feeling is peculiar, almost mystical.

Eventually, the food is distributed. After a day out in the fields, it is customary to eat caldo, or soup, with chicken. A large basket of tortillas is placed in the center of the floor. There is a red and white checkered cloth covering the tortillas, trapping the heat inside. Next, Don Santiago, because he is the owner of the house, begins to beckon to each man. In Q’eqchi he tells the man to eat. At the end, he tells us all to eat. The men respectfully wait for the cue. The men savor the food. I savor the experience. I believe that I have been welcomed into an important ritual of the Mayan family. This is the type of experience that I hoped to have as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

The day is coming to a close; the sun is setting, and I find myself standing on the side of the road with my host family waiting for a ride back to our town. Most microbuses are full and will not slow for us. The process of watching and waiting continues for almost 30 minutes. Hopes rise as a microbus appears on the horizon and then fall as the driver flashes his headlights to signal that the bus is full. There being 7 of us, it does not appear we will have luck with a microbus anyway. Our best option will be to hail a passing pick-up truck. Don Santiago is tired from a 9-hour day in the fields, and I can sense his exasperation at our inability to get a ride back to town. I turn towards him, and say, “I guess we should have prayed for a microbus when we prayed for a good harvest.” He lets out a big, bellowing laugh and slaps me lovingly on the back.

Suddenly, a half-full pick-up truck appears. Chugging along, it appears to be straining to transport its passengers. We all pile into the back and slap the top of the truck to signal that we are all securely in our positions and that the driver can start driving. I am standing in the middle of the truck bed, closest to the front of the truck. The rest of the family, expect for 5-year old Julio, is sitting behind me. Julio is at my side peering over the top of the truck. The driver accelerates and the wind begins to rush through my hair. Rough, roaring blasts of wind hit my face. I almost can’t keep my eyes open, because the wind seals my eyelids shut. However, I work to pry them open because I don’t want to miss the view. In my opinion, this is the best, albeit not the safest, way to travel in Guatemala. Flying down the road like a soaring bird, free of worries, I find that I can’t stop smiling. I turn to my right and Julio, with his cheeks and hair flapping in the wind, is also smiling. Looking behind me, the rest of the family is staring off into the distance, all smiling. The sun is setting, which means that the day is ending. We are all smiling, which means that right here, right now, everything is alright.

One of the caves at my site. It's called "Ventana de Seguridad"

The comedor that my association runs.

I have been staying at this ecohotel. There are 20 beds in 6 rooms. It is very cramped, and I am excited to have my own house soon. I think that once I move into my place and feel a little more settled, I will be able to be more effective.

Hey World,

This is something that I have been working on for a while. I haven´t been writing much recently, because most of my energy is being spent on dealing with Peace Corps and my miserable living situation. The most recent update is that I have moved into an ecohotel that we have on our site. It is comprised of 8 small rooms, each containing a light and 2 beds. It is still not ideal, but at least now it is quiet enough to fall asleep at night. Getting more food is still a work in progress. Enjoy the first part of this story.

Ma tooxik chi awk?

You are probably wondering about the meaning of my blog post title. Ma tooxik chi awk means “Are we going to sembrar?(plant seed or sow) in Q’eqchi’, the mysterious language of the Mayans who lived, and still live, in northern Guatemala and southern Belize. I did not expect this to be one of my first phrases in Q’eqchi’, but, then again, my service so far has been a lesson in expecting the unexpected. My limits have been tested and my breaking point has been reached and then extended as my reserves for tolerance and discomfort deepen with each passing day. I’ve always been a proponent of the belief that one does not mature and grow significantly until one steps outside of one’s comfort zone, but sometimes I feel like my comfort zone took a one-way flight to Fiji. Nevertheless, no one joins the Peace Corps to continue the life that they have in the States- or at least I certainly hope that is not the intention of aspiring Peace Corps Volunteers- and I came to Guatemala seeking a challenge, a whole new world. I found that here in my tiny rural village, and it is having a profound impact on me. Still not being able to communicate effectively, I attempt to communicate through my actions. Thus, I went to farm; to plant seed; to awk, and I think ended up sowing the seeds of something else.

It started with an off-hand remark by my host father, Don Santiago. He mentioned that he would be going into the fields to sembrar at the end of May and jokingly remarked that I should join him. I pounced on the opportunity and replied that I would be happy to join him and learn how people farm in this area. He laughed off my comment as if to say that there would be no way that I could handle the experience and that my brittle gringo bones would crumble in the process. Ever persistent, I told him that I seriously wanted to come with him to sembrar during the end of May. Don Santiago then proceeded to change the subject, and I got the impression that he assumed I was being facetious in my desire to help him.

Sooner or later it was the end of May, and I still wanted to sembrar. I approached Don Santiago once again and asked if I could go with him into the fields. He replied that he would be leaving to sembrar in two days and that the work would be too difficult for a foreigner. I insisted that I am becoming more Guatemalan every day, but the debate continued. Don Santiago insisted, “It is too hot.”

“I like hot weather,” I retorted.

“The food will be too spicy. You don’t like spicy food.”

“I’ll eat it.”

“You will have to wake up very early.”

“If I wake up before you leave, are you going to not let me go?” That one got him.

“We will go tomorrow,” he finally said, caving into my pressure.

I woke up before 5 the next morning. My head hurt. Momentarily dazed, I wondered why my alarm was set for so early in the morning. Then I remembered that today was the big day. I was going to sembrar. I wearily rose from my bed and went outside to go to the bathroom. Not feeling like walking the 50 meters to the decrepit latrine, I urinated into a nearby area of overgrown plants. This is one advantage of living in the jungle in a rural village. Next, I stumbled into the kitchen to commence my morning routine. Typically I meander in to find anywhere from 5 to 8 people sitting in the kitchen. The women are huddled around the fire preparing the food, and my host mother is usually sitting in a hammock breastfeeding her youngest child. Conversations stop, I smile, say good morning, mumble some pleasantries in Q’eqchi and sit down on a small wooden bench more suitable for a 5-year old child. There are only two benches that surround the one table in the kitchen.

Don Santiago enters from a room adjacent to the kitchen. He is beaming. His smile is so big that it seems to precede him, as it if it is guiding him into the room, tugging him along like a dog on a leash. He clearly did not think I would wake up early enough to join him in the fields. “We are going somewhere else to eat,” he declares with a smile. “We need to get a ride to the fields.” He then hands me a brightly colored, intricately woven messenger bag, which, he tells me, I will use to carry seeds of corn and beans.

Carrying my bag, I return to my room to lather myself with sunscreen and lace up my hiking boots. I wish that I had knee-high mud boots like the rest of the men in my community, but I have not been able to find a store that sells shoes in sizes greater than size 43. I wear size 47. Men typically laugh at me and inquire about my lack of mud boots, and then they laugh at my explanation of not being able to find boots in my size. Then, I typically tell them that I have clown feet, and gesture towards my ski-like feet. Surprisingly, most men in my town know the word for clown in “Spanish.” Therefore, this has been one of my most successful jokes. If I am feeling especially giddy, I will tell the men that my father has even bigger feet and then watch them as their heads explode while they ponder the worldly causes for such a deformity.

Don Santiago comes to my room and signals that it is time to go. We trudge out to the main road. The sun has begun to rise over the community, and the lights meshes with the canvas that is the Earth, painting a pretty picture of light reds and oranges, like a crackling fire that is about to die out or burst into flames, depending on your point of view. We walk for approximately 10 minutes down the road talking about the different crops that he harvests, and the time of year which he does so. I tell him about seasonal trends and weather patterns in the United States, and he smiles with pride when he learns that there is only enough rain and warm weather for one harvest of corn per year in New York. Santiago is a man who is extremely proud of Guatemala and all that its land has to offer. I wouldn’t call him a nationalist – his experiences hardly extend beyond his tiny town- he is more a man of the earth, a true descendant of the Mayans.

Eventually, we are able to flag down a passing pick-up truck, and we get a ride to a town a couple kilometers away. After giving the driver a few quetzals for the fare, we cross the road and climb up a hill that leads to a smattering of small wooden huts. We stop in front of one of the huts. There are a large amount of children milling in front of the house, as there always are in front of the tiny wooden huts of the poorest communities in Alta Verapaz. Poverty is crowded.

A rotund, middle-aged man, who appears to be the owner of the house, beckons to us and ushers us inside. The man’s name is Domingo, and he is Santiago’s brother. Domingo is a large, jovial man, and his stomach protrudes from the bottom of his shirt. Santiago immediately comments that Domingo is his older, fatter brother. Domingo seems to take pride in his big stature. I simply nod, agreeing that he is, indeed, quite large.

Inside the house there are 3 benches set up in the shape of a horseshoe. In between the benches is a basket full of bean-filled tamales wrapped in leaves. The men nod at me as I sit down on one of the benches. They smile, but their eyes express their astonishment that a gringo, a norteamericano, has come to sembrar with them. They greet me in Q’eqchi and are impressed when I am able to respond to their salutations. Their body language is a silent affirmation of my acceptance; the men gesture to the basket and encourage me to eat. The Q’eqchi are typically a quiet people, and this is especially true during meal times. We eat our tamales slowly and solemnly with our heads slightly bowed.

Hey Everyone,

I want to a better job of updating, but these last couple of weeks have been extremely difficult. I am still trying to deal with a downright awful living situation. My community should be starting to build my house this week. On a more positive note, I have found a better Qeqchi teacher, and I am starting to notice some progress with my speaking ability and listening comprehension.

In the future I will attempt to avoid writing depressing, gloomy posts. I have an interesting post in the works about an experience I had farming with the men in my community, and you can expect that to be posted on my blog within a week.

For my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps Trainees and applicants, if Peace Corps places you in a living situation that does not meet minimum requirements, stand up for yourselves! Peace Corps needs to know that we are individuals, not numbers that are sent to Washington. Yes, I understand that we have committed ourselves, as first stated John F. Kennedy so many years ago, to serve for 2 years in foreign countries, without salaries and frequently in conditions of hardship. But one`s health, both mental and physical, MUST be a priority. Having a better living situation will enable me to begin to focus on my work and become more effective. With time, I will learn to speak Qeqchi. The most challenging experiences are the most valuable, and nothing worth doing is easy. I hope that holds true for my Peace Corps experience.

The room that I basically share with 4 other people. Note the gravel pile in the middle of the house.

A typical bed in the house

My room is on the other side of those boards. If there is a light on in this room, it is on in my room, and if there is screaming and crying in this room, there is screaming and crying in my room.

I know. I missed my weekly update, but I have been busy this past week. For those of you just tuning in to my Peace Corps saga, I have been struggling during these first two months at my site. I was given a very challenging site, and I have spent the majority of my time making my living situation bearable. My frustration stems from two big issues: housing options and my inability to speak Q’eqchi. I described my living situation shortly after arriving to my site, and not much has changed since then. Although I run the risk of sounding like a whiner, I want to give an honest assessment of my location. The extremely cramped, impoverished conditions forced me to call Peace Corps and ask for help. One of my main arguments was based on the fact that living with this host family is preventing me from getting two necessities: adequate sleep and adequate nourishment. I will typically wake up very early or have trouble falling asleep because of crying and screaming children in the room next to mine. Technically it is all part of the same room since the only thing that separates me from 4 other people sleeping a couple of feet away from me are five wooden boards nailed into place; boards that do not even reach the ceiling. I am quite literally living on top of this family of 10 in a very small house. In addition, I believe that I am repeatedly getting sick from the unsanitary conditions in the kitchen. The kitchen is a dirt floor, and I have seen children urinate on the group, in addition to having noticed wild dogs and chickens walking around the fire where the women cook the food. I signed up to be a Peace Corps Volunteer with the understanding that I might be asked to live in conditions of hardship, and I have in the past lived in conditions of hardship in Africa, but I had no idea I would have to constantly be so worried about maintaining my health. Thus, in a cry for help, and a desperate attempt to make things more bearable, I called my Peace Corps bosses to inquire about my options in changing my living situation, the underlying dilemma being that there is no other viable option in my small community of 300. After firmly explaining my overwhelming situation, my boss was receptive to my concerns and supportive of my arguments. He told me that Peace Corps would be willing to pay for a house to be built. I have never heard of this happening before, thus leading me to believe that my situation is extreme. I do not need much; I simply need a 5 square meter shack that gives me enough for a sleeping area and a kitchen, because right now there is not enough space to make even those partitions. Moving on to my frustrations with Q’eqchi, Peace Corps arranged for me to spend the week in a city to take an intensive Qeqchi course with an ostensibly highly qualified instructor. The teacher turned out to be horrendous. He was unable to answer what I consider very simple questions, and he had to refer to a book after every single one of my questions. He was seemingly incapable of thinking for himself, and he tended to agree with whatever I said, perhaps to rid me of my urge to ask more questions. Luckily, during that week, I stayed with a host family who was very welcoming. The father of the host family is also a Q’eqchi teacher, and he was able to teach me during my first night in their home. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was a capable teacher who was very dynamic and engaging. I immediately felt like I was learning. Throughout my scholastic career, I have taken my fair share of language classes, and I have an idea of how they should be run. While grammatical exercises and translation are an unavoidable part of any language class, a language class should be focused on conversation. After all, children do not learn languages from flashcards and memorization. They see an object, learn the word for the object through repetition and then slowly began to learn the verbs that relate to that object. This is the method that Rosetta Stone utilizes, which simplifies the process of learning a second language later on in life. Later on in the week of classes, my inquisitive host family sensed that classes were not going well, and they suggested that I take classes with Don Gerardo, the host father. They told me that he works away from home Tuesday through Saturday, but that he would love to give classes on his two rest days. I ecstatically jumped on the opportunity and called Don Gerardo to finalize the terms of the classes. The next step was to get Peace Corps to approve my taking classes in a city 3 hours away from my site. They would need to pay for transportation, housing for one night, and provide money for the instructor. After a bit of haggling with Peace Corps staff, I convinced them that it is critical to my success as a Peace Corps Volunteer that I receive quality Q’eqchi classes. As I have mentioned in other posts, there is hardly anyone who speaks Spanish in my site. This includes the members of the organization that I was assigned to work with. Frankly, I find it astonishing that Peace Corps did not provide me with any Qeqchi classes before sending me off to my site. I understand that I am only one of a handful of Volunteers – probably less than 5 – in all of PC Guatemala that need to completely rely on a Mayan language to be successful, but neglecting to provide us with even a base in our respective languages is a bit absurd. Sometimes I feel that PC Guatemala spends too much time thinking of us numbers and statistics that get sent to Washington and not enough time considering us as individuals that have the potential of becoming very, very lonely when deprived of the ability to communicate. This lack of empathy dehumanizes the Peace Corps staff/volunteer relationship. So, starting this week I will be spending one night away from site each week in order to take Q’eqchi classes. I really hope this helps me learn the language quickly. I can only take social isolation for so long. I’m not asking to become fluent; I only need to be able to express myself a little better. There you have it, friends. Things are difficult right now, but I am doing my best to stay proactive and discover the best way to put myself in a position to serve this community. Stay tuned for next week’s post; I had one of those experiences that everyone who waits to become a Peace Corps Volunteer hopes for. I may very well learn more about these people than I can ever possibly teach them. Is it that a bad thing? I am still deciding. I am certain of one thing. This experience is already changing me, and I have only been in my site for 2 months and in Guatemala for almost 5 months. In the months and years to come, what you will read here will be the unadulterated tales of my Peace Corps experience, a combination of my story and the stories of the people in my community. My reader base has grown larger than I ever expected it would, and it makes me happy to know that my fears, frustrations, breakthroughs and successes are being appreciated by others. From my friends and family to the students and workers in my father’s school, thanks for taking the time to read what I have to say.

During training, the Peace Corps technical trainer often told us, “You are professionals. As soon as you stepped foot off of the plane, you became professionals. When you arrive in your sites, everyone will assume that you are a professional, and that is what you should tell them.”

One problem – I don’t feel like a professional. Do a business degree, internships and a long list of extracurricular activities make me an ecotourism professional? Do they make me qualified to give advice to others about sustainable community tourism? Do they make me an expert on trash management systems and environmental education? For the most part, I think not. The beginning of Peace Corps service is a time of doubt and self-analysis. The great part is that so far no one has seemed to notice that I don’t really know what I am doing.

I came across a quote by Mark Jenkins as I was reading his book The Hard Way. It is an astonishingly accurate depiction of my current situation.

¨Perhaps, at the time, in our hearts, we do have an inkling that we are only just beginning, but we don’t want to admit it. We can’t. To admit that would be to admit that you don’t know what you’re doing, which would be to admit that you have a long way to go, which would make the journey appear so daunting as to stymie even starting out. Better to believe you know what you’re doing and keep doing it until you do.¨

If that isn’t truth, then I don’t know what is. The first step is always the most difficult, but we all have to start somewhere. All great leaders had their starting points, their first missteps. Barack Obama, the great orator, once gave his very first speech.

I may walk around blubbering in Q’eqchi, saying things like “I got tired, I’m hungry, and do you want to play?” but recently I managed to teach a local community tourism organization how to use a work plan, and that is a start. What I found incredible is that this organization, which has identified, organized and promoted a group of 6 tourism sites in the area that I live, has NEVER used a work plan. Things that we may take for granted as a normal course of action in the United States are not always self-evident in Guatemala.

I know I probably won’t get much done during the first 6 months, or maybe even during the first year, at my site while I struggle to learn Q’eqchi, but I help out where I can. I am teaching English to the guides in my community and simply am being present in the moment, showing others that I am here to live and work with them. If this is a world of “fake it until you make it,” I may just be a professional after all.

The path that leads to the caves. Since I can walk across my entire town in 3 minutes, I sometimes walk to the caves to escape.

Insects carrying leaves.

I expected life in the Peace Corps to be difficult, but prior to coming to Guatemala, I frequently thought to myself It can’t be that hard. I’ve done some challenging things in my life. I will easily be able to handle it. I want to report that life in the Peace Corps CAN be that hard. Perhaps, when it comes down to it, I guess I didn’t know what to expect, but one thing is for certain. I never expected to be this lonely. I was placed in a tiny town of 300 people where 90% of the inhabitants do not speak Spanish, and each day is a struggle. I am trying to learn Q’eqchi as quickly as I can, but it is incredibly difficult. I believe that part of the Peace Corps training process should consist of Mayan language classes for those who are being sent to areas where it is absolutely essential that they learn a Mayan language. In that sense, pre-service training is flawed. I did, however, call my project specialist desperately asking for assistance, and she thinks that Peace Corps will be able to pay for me to take a week-long intensive course in a nearby city. I really hope that happens.

I realize that I will not be successful if I don’t at least become conversational in this language. Every single member of the junta directiva, or governing body, of the association that I am assigned to does not speak or read Spanish. This poses quite a challenge. If I intend to have any sort of professional or social life, I need to learn this language. I consider myself an outgoing person, but I am really struggling here. There are many times when I think about quitting, but I know I will never do that. See my Commitment to Service and Aspiration Statement for my reasons. The teacher I have in my town is not capable of answering any of my grammatical questions. He usually just laughs and tells me, “That’s just the way it is” every time I search for an answer to a question. It is incredibly frustrating, and I think I will need to find another teacher outside of my town. I really, really want to learn this language, and each day is spent using the new phrases I have learned and asking other people for additional words and phrases. They are eager to help me, but the process is painstakingly slow. I want to start speaking Q’eqchi so I can start to express myself, make true friends and have meaningful conversations. Wow, it is so lonely sometimes, but I need to keep pushing forward, one day at a time.

Here are some random thoughts:

• My host father’s last name, Chub, means saliva in Q’eqchi.

• Ironically, I taught the numbers 1-10 in Q’eqchi to a little girl the other day.

• They can’t afford diapers here, so the little kids in my family regularly shit their pants. It smells pretty bad. Maybe I can design a better system as one of my secondary projects.

• Everyone calls me Don Jordan, thus proving that I have at least earned some respect here.

• I found a scorpion next to my pillow the other day.

• I bathe with a bucket in the middle of the front yard, and talk to my family when they are 2 feet away from me.

• I can make the babies in my family stop crying.

• I am completely soaked with sweat all day long.

• I killed a flying beetle the size of a baseball the other day. At first, I thought it was a bat. The next night, a bat actually did get trapped in my room, preventing me from sleeping for several hours.

At any given time of the day, there are one, two, three or four children crying in my house. Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala are required to live with a host family during the first 3 months of service, which is in addition to the mandatory 3 months with a host family during pre-service training. The rationale makes sense; some of us, myself included, live in tiny communities, and living with a host family is a great way to ease the assimilation process by facilitating the introduction to neighbors and the attendance of community events. The noise in the house is constant, and I am beginning to become accustomed to it, but I sometimes feel like I joined Peace Corps nursery( There are two babies crying at the time of writing). Most PC Volunteers, naturally, choose to move out of the host family house after three months in order to give themselves more privacy and a certain degree of autonomy. This, unfortunately, is not the case for me. I live in such a small town that there are no other safe places for me to live, at least no places that I know of thus far. I was initially disappointed and frustrated with this predicament, but I am forcing myself to treat my dearth of options as a series of two-year games. Some of the games I play include, How Many Days Can I Eat Beans and Tortillas in a Row and How Many Goals Can I Score in One Soccer Outing. Free time activities are seriously lacking here, and my welcome packet even stated that the two typical ways to enjoy oneself in the town is by playing soccer and “enjoying nature.” Since, I live on the side of a main road, and I can only walk the one path to the caves so many times, soccer is how I pass my afternoons, so it is a good thing that I love to play the sport. My record number of goals scored is 5 in one afternoon, and I have become a local celebrity of sorts on the soccer pitch. Playing soccer is my primary confianza building activity, and it gives me a great opportunity to interact with the guys in my town. Another favorite game of mine is the How Big Can My Beard Get Game. I bathe in the middle of my front yard with a bucket, and it is a challenge to shave regularly. I have solved this problem by choosing never to shave. Instead, I am going to return to olden times, and use scissors to trim my manly, jungle beard. I view my living situation as a test of willpower. Each additional day here eases my tension, and I believe that if I can maintain my composure here, most situations in the future will hardly seem challenging. The cast of characters in my abode includes the following: Don Santiago(host father), Dona Paulina(host mother who is frequently topless when I talk to her, because she is constantly breastfeeding), Tuco(3), newborn baby(3 months), Joseline Lucrecia(1.5), Julio(5), Efrain(10 or 11), Marta(7 or 8), Martin(21, father of Joseline), Marta(mother of Joseline and wife of Martin), Mystery woman who I believe is Martin’s sister(appears to be in her 20s and it is surprising that she is not married yet, as most girls have children at 14 or 15 years old) So, there you have it. There are 11 other people in this small house, which consists of a room in the front of the house(my room used to be part of this common room until Peace Corps required that Don Santiago nail up some boards to separate the two), a kitchen, and Don Santiago’s room. There are 5 people who sleep in the front room, 4 who sleep in the kitchen, and Don Santiago and Dona Paulina sleep in their room, although I have seen children simply crash down onto beds like they have fallen victim to narcolepsy, thus forcing others to sleep wherever there is an open bed, which can be more accurately described as a wooden table. I find myself repeatedly suffering moral dilemmas, as I watch my family members sleeping on incredibly uncomfortable wooden slates, jammed into small rooms. It was difficult for me to decide to buy a regular mattress and a fan for my room, because everyone else has nothing. I wrestled with the idea for weeks, but I eventually decided that I needed those two comfort items. Peace Corps allots us a settling-in allowance to buy everything we need for our rooms, and I am prepared to sacrifice and live to the standards of those around me in my community, but I could not adjust to sleeping on a wooden slab and the oppressive waves of heat in my boxed-in room. Indeed, I have barely used any of my settling-in allowance. Although the house is overcrowded with people, it is comforting to have that family presence here. Everyone has taken a liking to me, and I enjoy their company, even if most of the time is spent listening to them speak Qeqchi’, struggling to discern what they are saying and straining to recognize just one single word. The children, albeit loud, have their endearing qualities, and I love seeing how happy they are as they gallop around the house. Plus, they make for some funny moments. Nowhere else can I look outside my door and see Tuco, the 3 year-old streaking past naked chasing 2 chickens and a duck, only to trip on a rock, crash down face-first into the mud, and then laugh and keep running. Then, I look past Tuco, and I see my substantially overweight topless mother walk past. I still haven’t gotten used to that. Man, life is a hoot sometimes. Some of you have asked, Jordan, what do you eat in your town? Well, not much. Families do not have much money here, and everyone farms for their food. Typically I eat beans, soup, eggs, rice, more beans, and, very rarely, a piece of meat. You might be saying, “Meat! Wow, what a delicacy for you!” Au contraire, my friends. Everything is boiled, so every piece of meat takes 20+ minutes to chew. The Chew the Meat game is not in my Top 5 list of games. The lack of food would be a serious issue if it were not for the abundance of tortillas during every meal. Tortillas are served during all three meals in Guatemala, and when I can’t fill myself up on the other food, I devour tortillas. I’ve been known to throw back 8 or 9 massive tortillas at one time. To give you an idea of the importance of tortillas to the Mayans, the world for tortilla, “wa” can be found in the verb “to eat,” which is “wa’ak.” Cool stuff. The women spend most of the day in the kitchen, where they cook over an open fire, unfortunately inhaling massive quantities of smoke on a daily basis. One of my secondary project ideas is to construct stoves that direct the smoke away from the women in the town and through the ceilings of their houses. That’s my living situation in a nutshell. Can you picture it? Joseline, the 1 and a half year old, is telling me something. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Maybe she’s yelling for a tortilla.

The kitchen

This is what surrounds the main road that I live on

The scorpion that I accidentally stepped on while walking near my bed

And here´s seven of the eleven who live in the house

I have been living in my tiny 30-house town for 2 weeks now. It is difficult to explain just how different my life has become, but I will try to do it the best way I know how; through examples. The pace here is a stark contrast to life in the United States. It brings back memories of my time in Ghana. There, one of my friends called it GMT, or Ghanaian Maybe Time. Here, it’s called la hora chapina, or the Guatemalan hour. Everything seems to take longer. I’ve wanted to set up a meeting to meet the 18 tour guides that work in the caves for about a week and a half now, but, despite warm receptions of the idea, the meeting is always postponed.

Through various conversations with some of the guides, I have noticed a prevailing desire to come together as a group and toss around ideas and, above all else, a particularly strong interest to learn English. It’s really encouraging to see how eager the guides are to learn English, and this will undoubtedly keep me motivated to learn Q’eqchi, the language that will unlock the world of the ancient Mayans and actually allow me to have any sort of social life in my town. Like giddy little children, some of the tour guides relish in the opportunity to practice their basic English, which usually only consists of key tour guide phrases. Here’s a sample of a normal conversation.

Giddy Guide: Good morning (in the middle of the afternoon)

Me: Haha. Good Morning. It’s actually---

GG: Welcome in the caves.

Me: Haha very nice, but it would be better to say, “Welcome to the caves.”

GG: No smoking.

Me: Nice.

However, these enriching conversations don’t just happen of their own volition. I want to emphasize the importance of doing stuff, for lack of better words. My town is very small and very boring. There are 30 to 40 houses that pepper the sides of a paved road. Sprinkled in there is also a parking lot with a visitor hut, bathrooms, a comedor, and a hospedaje, which can fit up to 15 tourists. During Semana Santa, the parking lot was teeming with tourists. Now, it’s teeming with absolutely nothing. There are only so many times that a man can walk back and forth from his house to the parking lot. Often times, I would like nothing more than to escape the punishing sun beams and stay inside my room reading a book. However, I know that I am not in Read a Book Corps, and I force myself to do something; to simply wander. So, I wander. Usually at the beginning of my wanderings, a thought dances through my head. What the hell am I doing here? foxtrots its way through my brain. Yet, at the end of that particular wandering, I contemplate on what I just did, and repeatedly find myself thinking, Well, I am glad that I did that. Let me tell you why.

One day, as I was sitting in my wooden chair in a puddle of sweat from the 90 plus degree heat, I decided to meander over to ye old parking lot and see if there was anyone sitting on the benches there, knowing very well that I most likely would not be able to communicate with whomever I may find. Misery loves company, right? Or was it, let’s all be bored together? Either way, I wanted to find a partner to share in some quality boredom time. What I found was a Guatemalan family standing on the path that leads to the caves. A new friend, one of the park guards, asked if I wanted to join them in a Mayan ceremony. Hell yes. My mind danced away and did a jubilant little pirouette. I started off on the walk to one of the caves; a cave I had not yet visited. Apparently we were heading to the cave used for ceremonies such as the one this family wished to perform. My host dad, who is also a park guard, joined us later on in our journey to the ceremonial cave. What happened next is one of the most bizarre and intriguing experiences that I have ever had.

We crept through the pitch black cave with flashlights to guide us. We then approached a fire pit and circled it 3 times. I later learned that this is done at the beginning and end of the ceremony to call on the support of the Mayan ancestors. As we solemnly circled the pit, I realized that I would be a participant in this ceremony and not just an observer. Soon a woman drew a design in the fire pit with chalk. Next, another woman arranged a pyramid of candles on top of twigs. Then, a man lit the candles, and the fire ignited and flames burst forth. The ceremony continued with 4 individuals, 3 women and 1 man, chanting in Q’eqchi. As the candles melted and the flames reached the twigs, the fire began to grow. The chanting grew louder, and from time to time, one of the women would circle the fire and stir the flames. I stood mesmerized as the flames swirled and danced, the cave slowly becoming brighter and hotter. At one point I turned around and looked behind me. Painted on the walls were our shadows illuminated by the fire. They loomed ominously, watching over us as if they were standing guard; as if the fire could leap up at any instant, and they needed to be ready to smother it.

Throughout the ceremony, we were required to drink alcohol, purportedly to give strength to the participants, and smoke cigars. Towards the end of the peculiar experience, one of the women moved towards a small child who seemed to be her daughter. I grew puzzled, as I saw the girl’s eyes widen with fear. The woman picked up the child and carried her to the fire. For a few agonizing seconds, she held the girl mere inches from the fire. The flames licked her clothing and extended limbs. Gripping her tightly, the woman placed her daughter down next to the raging fire and took a gulp of the alcohol. She then proceeded to spit the alcohol all over the girl in a great cloud of mist. This shocking behavior was later explained to me as a way to ask for wisdom and protection for this young girl during her formative years.

As the ceremony came to a close, the chanting reached a climax, and everyone began to sob. One by one we embraced each other and offered consoling words. The ritual was an attempt to speak to the Mayan ancestors, who possess sage advice and the secret to the land and life’s hardships. It was a deeply personal experience for these people, and I was astonished that they allowed me to participate in it with them. The last person to hug me was a middle-aged woman. She leaned in close and whispered, “Tiene dueños.” This translates to, “You have owners.” I interpreted this to mean that I have ancestors looking out for me. I am not a religious person, but, at the time, this statement seemed to possess an eerie truth.

I emerged from that cave as if emerging from a dream. One of the women turned to me and remarked, “The ancestors heard us. It rained while we were in the cave and helped the plants.” I looked around. It had, in fact, rained while we were performing the ceremony. I found that quite odd, as it had not rained once since I had arrived to my site. A mere coincidence? Who knows? And to think, I contemplated, I was going to stay in my room and read a book.

To briefly mention another time where I decided to take the initiative to explore my surroundings, I ended up running into two men from nearby tourism organizations, who happened to be here visiting my site. They said that they had heard there was a new Volunteer here and had wanted to talk to me. We talked for a while, and I took advantage of the time to exchange contact information and promise that I would stop by their offices in the future to continue our conversation about collaboration and mutual understanding for the years that I would be in Guatemala. Simply put, this initial contact would not have been made if I stayed in my room and pondered the challenging circumstances of my site.

So my plea to you is this. If there is something you are dwelling upon and don’t see the point in wasting your time by taking action, take action. Life isn’t about acting when the outcome is already known. Leave that for the inputs and outputs of machines. Life is about wandering down an unknown path and smiling when you realize where you have wandered. Thanks for wandering with me.

There are a lot of of kids in my family

My host family´s house

Entrance to the cave for the water tour

David on the left and Santiago, who is my host dad, on the right. They are park guards.

My life changed significantly a couple days ago, but before I get to that, let me give you a review of the events of the past week. On March 25th 45 trainees were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. The ceremony at a hotel in Antigua was the culmination of months of hard work. What made the event even better was that every single person who stepped off the plane in Guatemala City on January 6th said the oath in front of the Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. embassy. Making it through the training period without a single early termination is a rare feat, and I am proud of this group. The ceremony consisted of speeches by my training director, the country director, a representative from the Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas, the Deputy Chief of Mission, or 2nd in command at the embassy, and a trainee nominated by our group. Two members of each trainee’s host family were allowed to attend. My host mother, Dona Estela, was the only one in attendance from my family. The oath consisted of all of the trainees raising their right hands and stating an oath identical to the one that public officials need to make when they enter office. We promised to uphold the US Constitution and protect it from enemies, both foreign and domestic. It was a very emotional moment for me as I thought about my responsibility to be a representative of the United States and general bringer of benevolence towards those I encounter on my journey. After the ceremony ended, I took advantage of the opportunity to speak with the Deputy Chief of Mission. Speaking with him and listening to another speaker from the Foreign Service provided to us by Peace Corps the prior week renewed my interest in one day possibly becoming a diplomat. The following two days were spent in Antigua enjoying my first opportunity to stay out after dark. After feeling like I was in the United States again for 2 days, reality rose its right hand and smacked me in the face, for it makes my head spin to tell you how great the discrepancies are between my new home and Antigua. I think I have to be in one of the poorest areas of Peace Corps Guatemala. Everyone thinks of the ultimate Peace Corps experience, roughing it an unknown land with only the bare necessities. Well, that’s what I got, and to be quite honest, I am very overwhelmed. I want to be careful to not come across as a complainer, but this is the farthest out of my comfort zone I have ever been. My room is made out of wooden boards and a tin roof. My bed is a wooden table with what is essentially a large comforter laid on top of it. I felt bad buying this pseudo-comforter because everyone in my new host family –there are 11 who live here(I think)- sleeps directly on the wood. It still feels like I am sleeping on wood. The children range from a 1 month old, who is constantly crying, to my 21-year old counterpart. The older children are very sweet and curious, constantly smiling and skipping around. It is encouraging to see how happy they are with the little that they have. I have yet to see some of them change their clothes in the couple of days that I have been here. The first night was very difficult for me. There are literally tarantulas in my room. No, I am not exaggerating. Huge, furry tarantulas the size of my hand. I spent the first night on the wooden board quivering in fear under my mosquito net. Since I didn’t have rope to tie my net up that first night, I wrapped it around my body like my life depended on becoming a deceased King Tut. After the first 3 months at site, Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala are allowed to look for their own place. I, unfortunately, don’t have that option. There are no houses available, and any other room I could find would be in extremely impoverished conditions, complete with a dirt floor and probably more bugs. If the living situation were not enough, try integrating into a new community when you and other people are trying to communicate with a language that is both your second language. Add to that the fact that 90% of the town, including every single community leader of the association I have been assigned to, don’t speak that language, but speak a Mayan language, and you have yourself in a bit of a pickle. Constantly trying to be culturally sensitive while struggling to express myself to people who don’t understand what I am saying is incredibly exhausting. Thankfully my counterparts and my host father speak Spanish and have been very helpful and understanding. I need to learn Q’eqchi as quickly as possible, or I am going to be very, very lonely and very, very isolated for a long time. Of the mas o menos 11 people who live in this house, my conversation with an older daughter of the family went something like this: Me: “Hi. “ Daughter: “Hi.” Me: I’m Jordan, it’s nice to meet you.” Daughter: blank stare Me: Do you speak any Spanish? Her: blank stare Me: “Well, in 3 months, when I know some Q’echí, let’s have a chat. The awkward moments have been numerous. Good thing I like awkward moments. For instance, an older man from the village came to my room late one of the first nights. I took this as a very good sign, since it is a bit difficult to get the older folks of the village to open up to me. He knocked on my door and remarked, “Oh, so this is your room.” Oh good, I thought, he speaks Spanish. I went through the typical introduction and received the typical blank stare. I didn’t know what else to say, so I kept it simple and said, “Where do you live?” “I live there,” he said as he pointed down the road. “Oh, down there? On the left hand side?” “Yes.” “Oh, good. Ummmmmmmm.” “I am going to sleep,” he exclaimed, making a pillow out of his hands and smiling. I returned the smile and replied, “I like to sleep. Good night.” “Good night.” As for the work aspect of my life, it appears I will have plenty to do to keep myself busy. There are a myriad of work areas to delve into, such as training the tour guides, who give tours of the 2 dry caves and 1 aquatic cave in the area, developing a trash management system and raising awareness about the importance of recycling garbage, and improving business processes and cash management, to name a few. The caves themselves are absolutely breathtaking, and it is makes me happy to think that exploring their cavernous depths is just part of my job. I assume I will come to explore the cavernous depths of my mind and being over these next 2 years, as well. I am sure that I will be challenged in countless ways as I struggle to integrate into the community. The path won’t be easy, but it is important to remember that it is the rocky, rugged paths that make the best climbers.

A medium-sized spider in my room

Where I shower in my front yard

Where no magic happens

Rustic

Home sweet home, most likely for the next 2 years

Yum

Come visit me?

To all of my followers,

I moved to my site on Sunday morning. This is going to be a challenge. The living conditions are very difficult here. This is a very poor area, and there is very little to go around. I am going to need your support more than ever. Quitting will never be an option, because I do not want to let down this community that has welcomed me with open arms. Expect a more detailed post later. I hope you all are happy and healthy wherever you are. Always, always be thankful for what you have.

-JBrown

Yesterday we had a common session at the Peace Corps headquarters, which ended with a moving activity called Commitment to Service. Anyone who felt inclined to do so could offer their feelings on why they are committed to serving for 2 years in Guatemala. It was an hour laden with heavy motions, and I feel lucky to be part of such a great group of people. 45 of us started this training process, and 45 of us will be swearing in tomorrow during a ceremoy where we will be declared official Peace Corps Volunteers. It is rare for a training group to stay intact, and I believe our success in making it through these 3 months without losing anyone speaks to our dedication, perseverance and cohesiveness as a group. I am proud of my friends, this new family that I have come to love. Here is a written version similar to what I shared with my training group.

During my 2 trips to the hospital, I had a lot of time to think about my experience here in Guatemala thus far and my hopes for the future. Both times, I received a tremendous amount of support from concerned friends and visits and phone calls from my host family. It got me to thinking about the fact that people who didn’t know that I existed 3 months ago took the time to ask me how I was feeling, ask if I had any news, and, in general, try to lift my spirits.

I remember as I was leaving for the hospital the first time, sitting in the passenger seat waiting for Gregorio, our training director, to get into the van, I saw my host brothers. They were standing outside waving goodbye, and I will never forget the looks on their faces. The looks were of sheer terror and fear. I could barely stand to keep my eyes on them because of how unbelievably scared they looked.

Later on, after I returned to the house, my brothers came into my room. They told me that the last few days had been terrible because there had been no laughter like usual during mealtimes. Moreover, my host mother Doña Estela told me the next day that she and the boys had cried during dinner because of what had happened to me.

It was at that point that it really hit me. There are people here who truly care about me and who I really care about as well.

I may have come here of my own volition. I may have come here because I wanted to do something. Because I wanted to have an adventure. Because I wanted to have more experiences. Because I wanted to teach and learn from others, but I realize that I am staying here for others. I realize that the relationships I have built are based on real, human emotions, and that if I were to leave, to quit, I would not only let myself down, but I would let down my host brothers, my host parents, and my friends and staff in the Peace Corps. Quite frankly, I would let down everyone. And I know that I cannot quit on my new community.

I equate it to dealing with a child. Children know when they are being tricked and being treated unfairly. If you turn your back on a child, you seldom get a second chance. I know the same goes for my community. If I turn my back on them, there is no second chance. There is no do-over. No mulligan(that one’s for you, Tiger Woods). There is no coming back in a year when you feel that you are ready to adapt to a new culture. I know that I will not quit unless I have a DAMN good reason. To leave early would be a proverbial slap in the face to my community and to everyone whom I have grown close to. So, I am committed to the people I have met and the people I will continue to meet. I am committed to people. Replace the word, “people” with “service,” and, really, it means the same thing.

Friends at the pools in my training town(I´m the really good looking one in the back)

Some of my friends came to Guatemala City to deliver my site assignment.

Throughout my life, during times of great change, times where I have found myself uprooted and planted elsewhere, grasping for new soil, homes and identities, I have often wondered prior to the change: will I find friends when I get there? Will they be good people? After moving 6 hours away for college; after studying abroad in Mexico; after living for 2 months in Ghana and, finally, after joining the Peace Corps, time and time again, I have found not only friends, but families.

Peace Corps pre-service training is an unforgettable experience. Individuals from all over the United States, who most likely never would have crossed paths, are flown to a foreign country and thrown into a massive cultural blender and told to blend, or else. The process, though at times harrowing, is undeniably enriching. You are going through an experience that no one else in the world, at that time, is going through. You call home and tell your parents. You e-mail your friends in the states and tell them all about your latest adventures. Your family and friends, though, can’t really understand. The only ones who can truly understand you are your friends in the Peace Corps, and especially those in your training class. Only they are by your side, simultaneously experiencing the beauty of a new language and country and the frustrations and failures that come with the assimilation process.

Recently, there was a bit of a bump in the new road upon which I am traveling. On Wednesday I started to feel ill. On Thursday the pain got worse, and I was in agony during a training group visit to Guatemala City. Thursday night, the pain intensified even more and intense nausea coupled with excruciating pain in my stomach and the lower right side of my back caused my host mother to call the Peace Corps Medical Officer. My medical officer suspected that I had appendicitis and quickly arranged to transport me to a hospital. I am impressed with the speed and efficiency that Peace Corps transported me to trusted facilities in Guatemala City, the capital of the country.

I have now spent 2 nights in the hospital, and while I am no stranger to being very sick in an unknown place, it is always nice to receive support from others. That support has come from many; from fellow trainees; from the host sisters of other host families, from my own family back home and from Peace Corps staff. Just now I received this text message from a friend. “How was your day? Any news? When will you be released? How is the pain level? We miss you.” Truth be told, that made my day.

But soon, my friends will not be so near. Training is coming to an end. Friday was site assignment day, which I unfortunately missed due to being in the hospital. Of course I was disappointed at the cruel timing of my illness and how it prevented me from being blindfolded and placed on a map of Guatemala like the rest of my friends, but I had to keep telling myself that my health was much more important than the manner in which I found out my site.

The guys from my training town came to visit me in the hospital and give me my folder with all of my site info. This whole Peace Corps thing? Well, it just got a little more real. For security reasons, I am not allowed to disclose the exact location of my site, but I will share some of the details. I will be heading into northern Alta Verapaz, a department north of the capital and 2 hours north of Coban, the department capital. My town has a whopping 300 people, 90% of whom DO NOT SPEAK SPANISH. Therefore, it looks like I will be one of the only ones in my training group who will not only be required to learn a Mayan language, but will be required to know it extremely well.

This is going to be an unbelievably exciting challenge. Yet, I would be lying if I denied how daunting this all seems. I already have an advanced Spanish level – and this may be a big reason why I am being urged to learn yet another language – but I sense I will need to give up my dream of becoming fluent in Spanish by the time I leave Guate.

Throughout training I had the chance to learn from current Volunteers. Two pieces of advice stuck with me in respect to learning languages. Those who were placed in areas where a Mayan language was the predominant language offered salient advice. Some said, “Learning a Mayan language was the most important decision that I made during my 2 years of service.”

Others said, “Not learning a Mayan language has been one of my biggest regrets.” Thus, it appears that if I want to truly integrate into my tiny community, I need to learn their language, and I am willing to commit to that.

In addition, the work opportunities at my site sound incredible. I am working with an association to promote the caves located in the town. Here’s a question for my potential visitors. Have you ever wanted to float through caves on a tube while holding a candle to guide you? Because you can do that at my site. Unbelievable.

I leave for a 6-day site visit on Tuesday morning. After that I return to my training site for a week in order to make some final arrangements, and then I am off to my site for good. Wow. My stomach hurts. Is that the aftermath of food poisoning, or did life just give me a great roundhouse kick? It’s about to begin. Let’s do this.

I’ve had a recurring thought lately; separated from the countless luxuries and distractions in the United States, I am happier than I have been in a long time. As busy as we supposedly are as Peace Corps Trainees, on a whole, I am extremely content with my position in life. I have an unexplainable feeling that I made the right choice to join Peace Corps. I enjoyed so much greeting everyone I saw when I was living in Ghana, and it so nice to have that again. Sure, there are annoyances, as there are in all places. For instance, sometimes the lack of privacy afforded to me by my host brothers annoys me to no end, but, after all, they are kids. Sometimes it is frustrating forcing oneself into an unknown culture, but who ever wanted to live without challenges? For much of my life, I have constantly worried and overanalyzed situations. Distraught with anxiety, I could never seem to turn my brain off. It bothered me terribly, and often kept me from falling asleep at night. After living in West Africa for 2 months, I started to relax a bit. Later on, I had conversations with a good friend about techniques to help me sleep and narrow my thoughts. I learned more from talking to a new friend here in the Peace Corps, who later loaned me a book about staying present in the moment. Heeding their advice, I feel much more at ease. More than anything, when I travel to other countries, I feel centered, and that is how I feel here in Guatemala. Too often in the U.S., I get caught up in the way of thinking that the more I can achieve, the better off I will be. It’s more about where I am going, and not the means I am taking to get there. Much attention is given to making small talk in Guatemala. At first, it seems pointless. Seemingly, nothing gets done when talking about the weather for an interminable amount of time. But then there comes the realization that there is more to it than that. Sitting in the dim light of a crackling fire, talking to the women of a nearby tortilla shop about trivial anecdotes, I know I am learning something. I know, because I can feel it. Of course the technical training that I am receiving is very useful, but while on the job, if I ever have doubts, I can always look up an answer in a manual or other resource available to me. The manual on integration, acceptance and understanding is much harder to find. You may not be your job or the clothing that you wear, but I truly believe you are your experiences, through and through.

What an exhausting week. Yesterday my group of 18, all sustainable community tourism, or ecotourism, volunteers returned from field-based training. We left last Sunday and spent the week during what was prefaced as an intense training and evaluative process. Upon its completion, I think the general consensus of the week was that, although it was interesting to travel around the country and learn from current PCVs, the training was seriously lacking in the field-based aspect and was favored a bit too heavily on the sitting through boring charlas(talks) aspect. I mean, realmente, instead of traveling 6 hours, we could have done that in any room nearby.

The first day and night was spent visiting a PCV, Tony, who oversees the business processes of a nature tourism site. Next, we moved on to a small town in the middle of nowhere, outside of Coban, the capital of Alta Verapaz. It has been repeated over and over to us, and it is a common topic amongst ourselves; we have one of the best programs not only in PC Guatemala, but in PC as a whole. As ecotourism volunteers, we are guaranteed to live in amazing locations, since it has to be something that tourists would want to visit. In addition to that, our project allows a substantial amount of freedom, since anything related to nature, business, trash management, environmental education, etc. falls under the purview of our program. That is so incredibly liberating and invigorating.

Returning to the primary site of field-based training, the beauty of the place where we stayed is hard to describe. It seemed to have magical qualities, it being eternally tranquil. I was surprised to learn that only 800 people live there, and doubly surprised to learn that one of us would be calling this town home in March. We spent the week in two cabins, one for the men and one for the women. Behind the cabins were two lagoons, where one could see fog rolling and swirling over the murky water during the mornings. Resting peacefully in a valley, the town is surrounded by a luscious green wonderland. Vibrant forests stand tall around the tiny village, as if standing guard over this tiny jewel tucked away in the Verapaces of Guatemala.

Even more refreshing than the natural beauty of this town was the incredibly warm reception that we received from its endearing town members and leaders. The president of the town cooperative immediately came up to me after a welcoming ceremony, looked at my cowboy hat, and told me that in order to be a puro vaquero (pure cowboy), they would need to get me a horse. I know what you are thinking. Jordan, a goofy guy from upstate New York rocks a cowboy hat now? Let me explain.

In my undying effort to become a true Guatemalan and build as much confianza as possible, I have purchased at the nearby market what I like to call “confianza shirts.” A confianza shirt is difficult to describe, but it can be explained as a short-sleeve button down shirt that has checkered patterns on it and looks particularly awesome when working in the fields or strolling through the streets. I recently have added a white cowboy hat that I received as a gift from my host mother to my confianza-building outfit. My goal is to, upon arriving at site, buy a machete – apparently you can get one for about 40Q - and go out into the fields during the first couple of months with farmers and simply help with their work. A recurring piece of advice that I have received from Volunteers is to help people with whatever they are doing. If people ask you to help them, you do it. The respect and trust that you earn doing so will be vital when promoting future projects.

I seem to be blending in nicely so far. Here is an example. A bunch of us were standing around, and a Guatemalan man approached. He comes up to me, gives me a handshake, and then walks past everyone else. A current Volunteer remarked, “What? Why only you? Oh……….your hat.” We both started laughing. Thank you confianza hat.

In addition to learning about such things as doing work on trails and using routers to make signs, we also had time allotted to individually meet with our Assistant Peace Corps Director. The purpose of the interview was to discuss what kind of sites we want. I entered the room with Flavio, my jovial APCD sitting in a chair directly across from another one. I’ll admit that I was slightly uneasy entering the room and more uneasy still as I exited. Prior to the interview, we had to fill out questionnaire that asked us if we preferred warm or cold weather, small or large towns, if we want to be a first generation Volunteer or not, special skills we wanted to use at our sites, etc. It was a struggle for me to fill out because my primary concern is being useful and effective in my site. I don’t want to ask for a warm site if it has the possibility of taking me out of the running for a site that could be a perfect match for my skills. I know that I am here to work, and I feel selfish putting my interests over the needs of my future community.

Thus, the interview didn’t go too smoothly. I wasn’t able to decide on anything, and I could tell my APCD was growing impatient. He asked me to decide on what would be the most important thing for me if I could have anything in a site. I truthfully replied that I only want to be in a place where my skills can best be put to use, but he insisted that I decide on something. Together, we finally concluded that, above everything, I would like to put my business skills to use in a historical/cultural tourism site, as opposed to a nature tourism site. I feel like my skills would lend better towards working with guides and conversing with others rather than trail maintenance. I got the feeling during the interview that he already knew where he wanted to place me, and he only tried to twist my words in such a way to convince me that I would be happy wherever he put me. My friends echoed this sentiment after they came out of their interviews. I was able to extract more information than others seemed to, however. The APCD told me that he was impressed by my business skills and I would be guaranteed to be at a developed site, working on the business side of things. He also seemed interested in my desire to learn a Mayan language, so hopefully I get that opportunity.

March 12th is site placement today, and I’m counting down the days until we find out where we will spend the next 2 years. This has been a great ride so far, and I don’t want it to end. I’m having a great time learning and teaching, sharing and discovering. I’m finding my way, but I’m also taking the time to get lost, because it’s only by getting lost that we ultimately know where we are going.

***I had hoped to upload pictures along with this post, but the connection is terrible here at headquarters. Check back for pictures later.***

If you have ever traveled with me, you know my bowel movements quickly become a main topic of conversation. Thus, I feel it is important to share with you my bathroom set-up. My house is a little different from the other people in my group. They all have houses with a big open space in the middle, usually filled by plants or a courtyard. Furthermore, their houses typically only have one level. My house, on the other hand, is more like a typical house in the U.S. and has two floors. The first floor is pretty much a gigantic garage with a huge oven in the back, since my family owns a bread shop attached to the house. I have tried to help despachar, or sell bread, but people buy bread by number of quetzals instead of by quantity, and I get confused and go run for my host mommy to help me.

Upstairs is basically one big bathroom/washroom area with my and the family´s rooms surrounding it on the perimeter. In the middle of the big room is a pila, which is a strange Guatemalan phenomenon. It is a gigantic sink with three compartments. One compartment always is overflowing with water, as faucets in Guate don´t seem to turn off. But hey, when water costs half a quetzal per month here, who the hell cares, right? The other compartments are used for washing plates and dishes, respectively. It actually is quite a novel idea; maybe I will build one of my own in a future home.

Adjacent to the pila is my shower area. It is a little stall blocked by a curtain. Therefore, it doesn´t afford the user much privacy. I constantly have my dog, Oso, and my little brothers trying to enter. They yell, when water is running for the shower, ¨JORDAN ARE YOU IN THERE!!!!????¨ Well, if I´m not in my room, and you hear the water running, you can be pretty confident that I´m in the shower, little host brothers. I´ve had full conversations with my one host brother while in the shower. I guess I´m just too adorable to be left alone for a couple of minutes. Now for the good stuff. There is also a toilet in the shower stall, so to shower I need to spread my legs around the toilet and squat down, because the shower head was designed for a Guatemalan-sized person. This awkward shower dance is even more difficult when I am trying to shave.

But wait, it gets better. When I need to use the bathroom, the shower leaks all over me. I could technically take a crap and shower at the same time. Can life get any better than that? I think not.

Oh yeah, here´s an update on the church singers. They have returned, after a brief hiatus, in full force. Someone told me that some saint´s birthday is coming up. These people will use anything as an excuse to sing horribly, blast music and shoot off INCREDIBLY LOUD rockets. I swear their line of reasoning goes something like this, ¨Hmmmm there are 364 days until the birthday of santa catalina, we should probably start making lots of noise.¨ I wake up each morning with the last night´s songs running through my head. Such choice numbers as ¨dondequiera que yo voy¨and ¨Dios Mio¨attack my brain. But enough of that. Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

cool view from my house

Guatemalans love their Pollo Campero. It´s like KFC.

Learning about building trails at a nearby park in my town.

View from the park, just about the town´s pools.

There is a gigantic indoor and outdoor market in Antigua.

beautiful

Hello world, I am finding that I rarely have time to sit down and collect my thoughts here during Pre Service Training, or PST. However, rare free time has now come, and I will attempt to bombard you with as many stories and non sequiturs as I possibly can. A word of advice to people thinking about joining the Peace Corps: if you are expecting a vacation, go find something else to do. You will be expected to work, and you will work very hard. The 3 months of Pre-Service Training are the longest interview for the toughest job, or so we are told. Trying to impress a new boss in the US is hard enough. Add an unfamiliar language, an unfamiliar environment and your new best friend, diarrhea, and it becomes much more difficult. But for those who want to tackle a challenging, yet incredibly enriching experience, please apply.

And now, the stories. My intent is to write about certain traits that I feel Peace Corps Volunteers should embody. One thing you need to know: learn to laugh at yourself. If you can’t, you will never survive. Read more, and you will understand.

On Work

Plain and simple, join the Peace Corps, and you will have to work hard. Your enthusiasm and work effort is always being monitored, and this fact is emphasized. At times, I feel like Peace Corps Guatemala tries to scare people in order to weed out those who are not serious about completing 2 years of service. On a typical day, I will get up at 6:45 AM to get ready for Spanish class at 8 AM. There are about 6 hours of Spanish class every day. During the afternoon, there will typically be technical training or meetings with people with whom you are working on your training project. Every Tuesday, all 45 trainees go to the training site for common sessions. It’s great to see my other friends, since I mainly only get to see the 4 other people who live in my training town, but hours and hours of medical, security and training sessions can be very tiring.

Luckily I arrived in Guate with an advanced Spanish level, but for those who are worrying about learning a new language in a short amount of time, I can assure you that the language classes are very, very good. PC stresses participatory learning all of the time, and this approach makes the time fly by. Classes are limited to 4 or 5 trainees. The people in my class also happen to be the individuals who are living in my town, since PC Guatemala is taking advantage of a community based training approach, which means most of the time is spent living and learning in communities instead of at PC headquarters. In my opinion, this approach works very well, as it is an effective way to assimilate various types of people into the host country’s culture.

The first week or so in country was not all that stressful, but things are starting to pick up as of late. My group is required to give a number of different charlas, or training sessions, in the next couple of weeks to fellow trainees, municipalidad workers and others. In addition, we have presentations during Spanish classes and homework that is assigned during our common sessions every Tuesday.

On Flexibility

Things can change here with a drop of the proverbial hat. Originally my group was supposed to promote the pools in my town. Then, we were whisked away to a new “park” above the pools and told that we needed to build a trail. This day happened to be when I was wearing business clothes, and I had to tear my way through overgrown weeds and plants up a mountain. I kept slipping on my way up the mountain and falling on top of shards of broken tree stumps and roots. One guy in my group knows a lot about trail-building and maintenance and he was doing much of the talking to our contact about plans for the new trail. As for me, I felt like a ballerina at a heavy metal show. But hey, that is Peace Corps.

Now, apparently we are expected to do something completely different. The mayor of the town wants us to create a waste management system, which leads me to my next story.

On $%^#^%$#%$

The other day, we were introduced to the alcalde, or mayor, of our town. Alcaldes are important, influential figures in Guatemala. All 5 of us walked into the mayor’s office and witnessed the Senor Alcalde himself sitting at his finely polished wooden desk, surrounded by his staff, sitting around him in chairs. It was a slightly intimidating setting to say the least. Everything started off fine. I was the first to introduce myself and say where I was from and what kind of experience I could offer. Then, the alcalde started to ask us questions about sustainable development and water purification systems in the US. These are topics I have a tough time explaining in English, let alone Spanish. I did my best to sound knowledgeable about sustainable development. Then, later on, there was time for questions for the mayor. I decided I wanted to ask one. Remembering my training from PC staff, I remembered it is important to constantly say Senor Alcalde when addressing the mayor of a town or city. I was confident, albeit a little nervous. Intending to speak slowly and clearly, I began to say Senor but stuttered as I reached the “a” of alcalde. What came out was Senora uhhhhhhhhhhhh. Unbelievable. I had just called the most important man in my town a woman. I immediately blurted out a “disculpame disculpame,” or “excuse me,” but there was no denying that I was a huge idiot. Extremely embarrassed, I stumbled through my question as my group members did their absolute best to stifle laughter. Now, I have never made that mistake in my life while speaking Spanish. Why did it happen at that critical time? I have no idea. I apologized again afterwards, and the mayor was not offended, but I still feel like a moron. That night, as I was replaying the day’s events while trying to fall asleep, I uncontrollably started to laugh, because life is funny. I wonder if half a mile away, Senor Alcalde was also laughing himself to sleep, thinking of that strange gringo boy.

Hello world, I am finding that I rarely have time to sit down and collect my thoughts here during Pre Service Training, or PST. However, rare free time has now come, and I will attempt to bombard you with as many stories and non sequiturs as I possibly can. A word of advice to people thinking about joining the Peace Corps: if you are expecting a vacation, go find something else to do. You will be expected to work, and you will work very hard. The 3 months of Pre-Service Training are the longest interview for the toughest job, or so we are told. Trying to impress a new boss in the US is hard enough. Add an unfamiliar language, an unfamiliar environment and your new best friend, diarrhea, and it becomes much more difficult. But for those who want to tackle a challenging, yet incredibly enriching experience, please apply.

And now, the stories. My intent is to write about certain traits that I feel Peace Corps Volunteers should embody. One thing you need to know: learn to laugh at yourself. If you can’t, you will never survive. Read more, and you will understand.

On Work

Plain and simple, join the Peace Corps, and you will have to work hard. Your enthusiasm and work effort is always being monitored, and this fact is emphasized. At times, I feel like Peace Corps Guatemala tries to scare people in order to weed out those who are not serious about completing 2 years of service. On a typical day, I will get up at 6:45 AM to get ready for Spanish class at 8 AM. There are about 6 hours of Spanish class every day. During the afternoon, there will typically be technical training or meetings with people with whom you are working on your training project. Every Tuesday, all 45 trainees go to the training site for common sessions. It’s great to see my other friends, since I mainly only get to see the 4 other people who live in my training town, but hours and hours of medical, security and training sessions can be very tiring.

Luckily I arrived in Guate with an advanced Spanish level, but for those who are worrying about learning a new language in a short amount of time, I can assure you that the language classes are very, very good. PC stresses participatory learning all of the time, and this approach makes the time fly by. Classes are limited to 4 or 5 trainees. The people in my class also happen to be the individuals who are living in my town, since PC Guatemala is taking advantage of a community based training approach, which means most of the time is spent living and learning in communities instead of at PC headquarters. In my opinion, this approach works very well, as it is an effective way to assimilate various types of people into the host country’s culture.

The first week or so in country was not all that stressful, but things are starting to pick up as of late. My group is required to give a number of different charlas, or training sessions, in the next couple of weeks to fellow trainees, municipalidad workers and others. In addition, we have presentations during Spanish classes and homework that is assigned during our common sessions every Tuesday.

On Flexibility

Things can change here with a drop of the proverbial hat. Originally my group was supposed to promote the pools in my town. Then, we were whisked away to a new “park” above the pools and told that we needed to build a trail. This day happened to be when I was wearing business clothes, and I had to tear my way through overgrown weeds and plants up a mountain. I kept slipping on my way up the mountain and falling on top of shards of broken tree stumps and roots. One guy in my group knows a lot about trail-building and maintenance and he was doing much of the talking to our contact about plans for the new trail. As for me, I felt like a ballerina at a heavy metal show. But hey, that is Peace Corps.

Now, apparently we are expected to do something completely different. The mayor of the town wants us to create a waste management system, which leads me to my next story.

On $%^#^%$#%$

The other day, we were introduced to the alcalde, or mayor, of our town. Alcaldes are important, influential figures in Guatemala. All 5 of us walked into the mayor’s office and witnessed the Senor Alcalde himself sitting at his finely polished wooden desk, surrounded by his staff, sitting around him in chairs. It was a slightly intimidating setting to say the least. Everything started off fine. I was the first to introduce myself and say where I was from and what kind of experience I could offer. Then, the alcalde started to ask us questions about sustainable development and water purification systems in the US. These are topics I have a tough time explaining in English, let alone Spanish. I did my best to sound knowledgeable about sustainable development. Then, later on, there was time for questions for the mayor. I decided I wanted to ask one. Remembering my training from PC staff, I remembered it is important to constantly say Senor Alcalde when addressing the mayor of a town or city. I was confident, albeit a little nervous. Intending to speak slowly and clearly, I began to say Senor but stuttered as I reached the “a” of alcalde. What came out was Senora uhhhhhhhhhhhh. Unbelievable. I had just called the most important man in my town a woman. I immediately blurted out a “disculpame disculpame,” or “excuse me,” but there was no denying that I was a huge idiot. Extremely embarrassed, I stumbled through my question as my group members did their absolute best to stifle laughter. Now, I have never made that mistake in my life while speaking Spanish. Why did it happen at that critical time? I have no idea. I apologized again afterwards, and the mayor was not offended, but I still feel like a moron. That night, as I was replaying the day’s events while trying to fall asleep, I uncontrollably started to laugh, because life is funny. I wonder if half a mile away, Senor Alcalde was also laughing himself to sleep, thinking of that strange gringo boy.

There are two things that make me very happy here. Every single day, I walk into my host family´s house, and my 2 brothers jump on me and hug me. Every single day, as I walk to another trainee´s house for Spanish classes, our dog, Oso, (yes a dog named bear) follows me and protects me from the obscene amount of wild dogs that roam around my town. He really did knock a snarling dog away from me one time. He has even followed me a mile away to the neighboring town, only leaving when he knows that I am safely at my destination. This might be because I am one of the only people in the house who treats him with any decency. It is common for people here to hit their pets, just like they hit wild dogs and cats. My host family continues to be great. My two brothers, Daniel and Samuel, absolutely adore me. Their constant attachment to any limb they can find on me is annoying at times, but I generally enjoy their company. Except one time, we were quemar cohetes(playing with firecrackers...parents are all for it here) and Samuel shot one in my ear. That´s when I decided that I didn´t want to quemar cohetes anymore. Here are some pictures and a video; I know they can tell more than I will ever be able to. Expect a pretty extensive update on Tuesday when I get to PC headquarters. Tonight is big festival in the neighboring town, so it´s time for me to show off my dancing skills. Last time, I was the only gringo/trainee dancing in my town´s festival, and people got a hoot out of that. And apparently I have steady dancing partner, because word on the street is that one of my friend´s host sisters is expecting to dance again. Groovy. For the most part, Guatemalans don´t dance. They don´t even head bob. I do my best to change that. Alright, enjoy the pics andt the video(hope it works). There is one from a camioneta ride, the mode of transportation here. I feel like I am in grade school again riding those things. I have had obese women fall on me numerous times. The others ones show the view from my house and my two host brothers. One is of the pila in my house. A pila is the sink found in all Guatemalan homes. It´s actually a prety clever idea, as their are areas built in for washing clothes and dishes. Oh yeah, I got married the other day, Mom. Good times. I hope all is going well wherever you are. Peace.

Hey eveyrone, I am still doing well here in sunny Guatemala. It´s going to be nice being tan for the next 2 years. As you may have heard, there was an earthquake on Monday, but I am fine. It was about a 6.0 quake. I was visiting a current volunteer at the time, and it was a bit unnerving when the walls of his house began to shake. I assumed it was caused by the nearby volcano Pacaya, but the movement intensified, and I was a little freaked out when my boss told everyone to get out of the house immediately. Besides that, the first site visit was great. Now that I have had a chance to see how a real volunteer lives in his natural habit, I am 10 times more excited than I already was to find out where I will be living for the next 2 years. During the site visit, I also got the opportunity to perfect my use of Spanish humor. Most of my humor, luckily, translates into Spanish. I was having a conversation over lunch with my boss, or assistant peace corps director, and the topic of beans came up. I told him that I love them so much that I could bathe in them. Luckily, he thought that was hilarious.

Anyways, what do you want to hear about? Some of you have asked for pictures, and I will attempt to upload some in my next post. It is a bit of a hassle to upload pictures, so please bear with me. I hope everyone is healthy and happy. Until next time.

I am so incredibly lucky to have this opportunity, and I am loving life here in Guatemala. This marks a week in country now, and I already have so many stories to tell, but not enough time to tell them. For security purposes, I am not allowed to say where I am, but I am beginning training in a small town in the mountains with 4 other Peace Corps Trainees. Today we sat down to have a preliminary discussion of setting up a town tourism office and plan for the community pool - park that we are working on. One of our tasks is to create a new route for hiking.

One thing that I want to point out about life in training - at least in Guatemala - is that I don´t see other trainees as much as you would think. We had an initial training event where we got to hang out for 3 days at PC Headquarters, but now we are split up into neighboring communities based on our Spanish levels. The only day that I get to see the other 44 Trainees(17 are in my ecotourism program) is on Tuesdays when we meet at headquarters for common sessions, like medical sessions and security sessions. You really get to appreciate the little time you spend with the other Trainees, and you quickly form close bonds. It is important to note something that is repeated at training. The Peace Corps experience is singular. You don´t spend most of your time with other Peace Corps Trainees during training, and once you are at your site, you are basically on your own for extended periods of time. That makes sense though, because the idea is to intgrate into your Guatemalan community and learn about the vibrant culture.

Ok, I don´t have too much time, and I want to say so much, but I will quickly tell you about something that has impacted me so far. Religion.

Guatemala is a conservative country. Naturally, faith is very important to the people here. People are either Catholic or Evangelical. I stayed with a host family during the initial training event. My parents were Evangelicals, and very much so. It was common to say grace before every meal, and I did something I never though I would do in English, let alone Spanish. I said grace. Talk about stepping outside of your comfort zone. It became so uncomfortable trying to dodge this request that I just went for it. I thanked God for some things and tried to sound poetic by asking him to provide the food that sustains us...I have no idea.

The next night, I accompanied my host father to church with another trainee. Let me tell you, that experience was INTENSE. Machismo, or men having a very strong, macho attiude is a prevalent attitude here is a prevalent concept. So, to see my host father standing next to me screaming, holding his hands up, and bawling was definitely a where the hell am I kind of moment. I just kept hoping that the pastor wouldn´t call us out to participate in some kind of ceremony. He referred to us a couple times, but we left unscathed, and I feel that I am richer for the experience. I believe that, even if you do not necessarily share someone else´s views, it is important to share in certain experiences in order to understand what he or she values. It is in that way that you can earn the trust, or la confianza, of others. Everything is about confianza here. My host father gave me a bilingual bible, and I plan to read it all during my 27 months here. Who would have thought.

Moving on to my current host family, there are new religious issues. My family is Evangelical, but they live right next to a Catholic church. This church blasts music from its speakers right into my bedroom window. This music plays at all hours of the day, every single day. It´s the kind of noise level you would expect from a death metal concert, not a church. Every morning and night, a girl with an awful voice sings PERDONAAAAA ESTEEE PUEBLO PERDONAAAA ME DIOS MIO. Pardon this town. Pardon me my god. Oh man is it horrendous. Also, the same 3 or 4 songs are played over and over. At 9 PM. At 2 AM. At 4 AM. At 5 AM. It really is something else. In the morning, she sings, DESPIERTAAAA (wake up) DESPIERTA JESUCRISTOOOOOOO. I keep thinking to myself, if someone does not pardon this town soon, I will step up to the plate, and I am fairly sure that Jesus is up. Please go to bed. I have since been using ear plugs. However, I am having a problem hearing the the alarm and 2 backup alarms that I set. Luckily, I have a wonderful host mother who understands this dilemma and says she will knock on my door if I am not up.

Speaking of my host mother and family, they are outstanding. Surprisingly enough, my host mother has my exact sense of humor, and I feel like she and I would be good friends in the states as well. One night for dinner, I said that I enjoy cheese on my beans, so she dumped an obscene amount of cheese on the beans. Now she calls me Senor Queso all of the time. Also, I told her once at dinner that I was very full. She made a motion to extend her stomach and said, Ohhh like Santa Claus!! Now she constantly calls me Santa Claus. Today I was running a little late, and I rushed down to the kitchen, the main common area for the family. She immediately said, How can Santa Claus deliver his gifts and sweets if he does not wake up.(there is no question mark on this comp. sorry) What a world. Calidad! (cool) Until next time.

Hey everyone, I made it safely to Guate, and I am having a great time. Tomorrow I go to live near Volcan Fuego to move in with my host family for the next three months. I will be working on an ecotourism project with 4 other individuals in my Spanish class. I tested into the highest level, so I am pumped about that.

On a side note, I was the first victim of diarrhea in the training group. I sprinted to the bathroom in headquartes. People laughed. All is good now though. My Spanish teacher laughed when I announced that I had my primer ataque. Jajaja. I don´t know how often I will be able to post when I get to my training site, but I will do my best. Peace and love.

It's really happening, and I'm ecstatic. The moment I have been waiting for for so long is finally here. I've made it to the hotel in Washington DC and made my first Peace Corps friends. Registration starts at 12:30. My group of 45 Peace Corps Trainees has orientation activities - most likely filled with awkward icebreakers - until 7 PM. I'm hoping that we are allowed to go to bed after that, because I am exhausted. I got up at 3:15 this morning in order to catch a 6 AM flight. Everyone I have met only got about 3 hours of sleep and can attest to the extreme exhaustion. Lucky us, we get to wake up at 3 AM tomorrow to check out of the hotel at 3:30 AM.

To my friends and family, I am going to miss you. You got me through a sometimes aggravating, seemingly interminable application process, and for that I am very thankful. I won't know how often often I will be able to communicate or which methods of communication will be the best until I get there, but I truly hope that you all stay in touch. I'm off to change the world, or at least do my part to make it a little better, a little happier, a little more awkward. I know change won't come overnight, so I guess I'll just have to change the world during the daytime.

Peace and Love,

Jordan

I'm all packed, and let me tell you, it was a challenge. I've managed to cram the next 27 months of my life into a backpacking pack, a smaller backpack, and a suitcase. Packing 6 pairs shoes proved to be very tricky. And yes, I realize I am not serving in the Peace Corps as a runway model, but I actually need all of these shoes. Also, since I have read that no shoes over size 9 can be found in the country - I wear size 13 - I would not be able to purchase any shoes there. I decided not to bring the black dress shoes or black dress pants in order to decrease the size and weight of the luggage. The others are as follows: soccer shoes, dress shoes, sport/dress sandals, shower sandals, sneakers(not in picture) and hiking shoes. I will be wearing the hiking shoes to staging in DC, as they are gargantuan and would probably devour the rest of my clothes/supplies if left unattended in my luggage. And while America runs on Dunkin', it also runs on pictures, so here are a few to keep you satisfied. Expect one more post before I leave, and then I am off to go be goofy in another part of the world.

PEACE

Sure, I posted my aspiration statement that I sent to Peace Corps, and you all got a glimpse of why I want to do what I am doing, but months and months of people asking me why I am joining the Peace Corps has got me thinking. Why am I really doing what I am doing?

I've learned over the past year that my going into the Peace Corps interests people, but only to a certain extent. When asked about the Peace Corps, I could ramble on for an hour, but people want a brief synopsis of my plans and ambitions, which is understandable. I got the same feeling when I came back from Ghana. Others wanted to hear about my experiences in Africa, but not really. They wanted sounds bites, mere bits and pieces. And that's difficult. It's hard to sum up an experience that has had such a profound impact in 4 or 5 sentences. That is exactly what I do when asked about the Peace Corps. I give variations on the same general response: I like helping others, I love traveling and living in other countries, I want to use my finance degree to help those who need it, etc.

Is that how I really feel? I guess, for the most part, it is, but deep down there is something else gnawing at me. I feel that I HAVE to do this, and I can't explain it. I feel that I have been given too much, and others have been given too little. I feel that I have to do my part to show up and be present in the moment, to go to as many places as possible in order to give what I can, but in reality learn much more that I could ever possibly give. Because I think a lot of life is just saying hello, I know that you exist, and that matters to me. Much of life is realizing that we are not alone and that we are all in this together. This, I believe is a truism, and we must all learn to accept it. I'm joining the Peace Corps, because I think that I can make the world better. I don't know how, but I know that consistently doing good things has led to increasingly better opportunities to make change happen. This may be a small start with the prospect of only a minute impact on a select number of people in small communities in Guatemala, but it is a start.

You see, I've never been able to stay in one place or do one thing for too long. As time passes, I feel tugged from one point to another, as if tethered to an invisible cord. So, this is my attempt to fling myself to another part of the world and see what I can see. Will I miss my family and friends? Of course. This is is something I think about all the time. It bothers me that life in the US will go on without me, and much will be very, very different when I return. There are things I wish I could do here and people I wish I could spend more time with. There are plans that I could make, but life is a lot more fun when it is not all scripted. If I knew what would I be doing during Act 3, scene 2 of my life, I wouldn't bother coming back from the intermission. Things that are meant to happen will happen. Or they won't. Will they?

Usually when I decide to write a blog post, I have a theme in mind or a general idea of what I am going to write. I'm going to try something different. I'm going to pull a Chuck Palahniuk and stream of consciousness this post. I haven't updated my blog in a while, and I want to make sure that my followers remain followers.

Preparing for Guatemala has been going well. I bought almost everything I need for my 2+ years of Peace Corps service. Here are a couple things that I need to bring in no particular order:

-sleeping bag

-sleeping pad

-headlamp

-clothes(I guess)

-long underwear(I have bad circulation, yo)

-netbook

-ipod

-supplies for taking notes during training / writing letters to people

I plan on packing all of these things in a backpacking packpack and a suitcase. I will also be bringing a smaller backpack and possibly a duffel bag. Peace Corps only allows my checked bags to weigh up to 80 pounds, so it is going to get tricky packing everything.

I am sure that all of you folks are wondering what I have been up to when I'm not scrambling to gather everything I need. You must be thinking, "What does a cool kid do when he's taking a break from being cool?" Well, I have been working as a proud bookseller, as they call us, at Barnes and Noble. Now, I don't actually sell books; I just scan them, which leads me to my next story. Barnes and Noble is a great store, but it is full of characters, to put it mildly. There are some rather peculiar people who work at grand ol' B and N. One woman found out that I had lived in Africa last summer, and she started to talk at length about her African penpal. Intrigued, I asked her when the last time was that she heard from him. She cooly replied, "Oh, 1968 I think."

1968! What!? I can understand if you haven't heard from someone for a couple of years, but 40 years!? The way she talked about him, I thought that they regularly chatted on the phone and shared a good tea and crumpets from time to time.

Equally odd are some of the customers that shop at Barnes and Noble. One stout woman wrapped up in a scarf and winter coat came up the counter to check out. She immediately started to scream at me, not in an angry way, but in a way that tells me that she never learned the lesson of "indoor voices" in grade school. It was so bizarre and hilarious, I tried very hard to stifle a laugh. It is holiday season, so the line behind her was very long. I see people staring at me trying not to laugh, and 4 or 5 people start to crack up. This does not help me. She yelps, "HI, CAN I USE MY CITIBANK CARD?"

"Yes."

"OK GOOD. CAN I USE THIS BARNES AND NOBLE GIFT CARD??"

"Yes." I am struggling not to burst out laughing. I begin to scan the items.

"OK, WHAT IS THE PRICE?" I tell her the price and scan another item. "OK WHAT IS THE PRICE NOW?" I tell her and keep scanning. "OK WHAT IS THE PRICE NOW?" At this point I lose it and have to turn away and pretend like I am coughing because I can't suppress the laughter anymore. At this point, the people in line behind her are doubled over laughing.

I say, "Excuse me, maam" trying not to show that I had been laughing.

"CAN I HAVE MANY BAGS?"

"Sure, how many bags would you like?"

"LOTS OF BAGS."

"Like three?"

"LOTS OF BAGS. I WANT THE THINGS TO FIT IN THE BAGS."

"Ok, three bags should be fine then."

"OK. THREE BAGS." I hurriedly finished the order and, with a laugh and a cough, I sent her on her way, three bags and all.

I am not a big fan of malls. They give me the physical condition known as "mall eyes," which is only exacerbated if the mall victim wears contacts. My eyes burn and I want to leave as soon as possible. I am sure some of you know what I mean. In my quest to get everything I need for Guatemala, I have spent more time than I usually do(no time) in malls. I don't have much to report other than my shopping is coming along nicely. Rather than give you a long list of everything I plan to bring to Guatemala - as I am sure you can find that on other blogs - I am going to tell you a story.

The Peace Corps Guatemala welcome book recommends that I bring one pair of long underwear. I don't know about you, but I have never owned a pair of long underwear. When I think of long underwear, I think of lumberjacks and 19th century children huddling by fires. I am neither, but I do own a shirt that makes me look like a lumberjack, so of course I knew where to go to find this stuff. Gander Mountain. Gander Mountain is an interesting place. It sells firearms, furry hunting caps, fishing rods and most importantly, long underwear. While in Gander Mountain I passed by a section of less than tasteful t-shirts with cartoon animal prints and sexual statements. I paused as I heard one mother talking to her son. The little boy said, "Mommy, what does that shirt mean??" The shirt had a fish caught on a hook and read: I'd hit that

The mountaineer mother paused for a second and said, "It means I'd eat that.

The boy smiled and repeated, "I'd hit that" over and over." Awesome.

Only momentarily distracted I continued to hunt for long underwear. I asked a nearby worker for help. I inquired, "Where can I find long underwear?"

He replied, "Hmmm it's either in the main aisle or over there," motioning across the whole left half of the store as he said it. Nice.

Eventually I found the elusive underwear, tried some on - over my short underwear of course - and began to sweat profusely. That stuff works. It also makes me look like a gray string bean. 2 pounds of sweat and 20 bucks later, which was down from 60 bucks, I descended Gander Moutain quite satisfied. Watch out Guatemala. I'm going to be really warm.

When Peace Corps sends you an invitation to a country, you must call within 10 business days to accept the invitation. After accepting the invitation, you are required to write an aspiration statement and a specially formatted resume that is easier for the country staff to read. I think I remember reading a warning that I would get punched in the face if I didn't redo my resume this way. Lucky for me, I got to do all of this twice, once for Guinea and again for Guatemala. The following is my aspiration statement, spewed from deep within my brain. Enjoy. Or don't. This is long, and I know Americans are busy folks.

A: Becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer has been a dream of mine for quite some time. Yet, for all my thoughts of traversing foreign lands, learning new languages, and interacting with new people, I know that I am being sent to another country to do a job. Like in any other job, I will need to act maturely and professionally.

It is crucial that I work well with others and delegate responsibilities in order to maximize efficiency when working on projects. My experience has proven, almost always, more can be accomplished as a cohesive unit than as an individual. Furthermore, I plan to rely on the knowledge that I acquired while at school and traveling abroad to think pragmatically and make good decisions. In college, I learned to carefully balance a mix of extracurricular activities and schoolwork. The lessons I learned while at school and in my jobs will greatly benefit me during my time in the Peace Corps.

As for job aspirations, they are numerous, yet, hopefully, obtainable. First and foremost, I aspire to complete a major tourism project during my two years of service. It is essential that, upon arriving at my site, I analyze project prospects. After doing so, I will select the one that meets two standards: the project must greatly benefit as many people in the community as possible and have the ability to be sustained by the townspeople after I depart from the country. With that in mind, I will make the training of tour guides and employees a major focus of mine. The project must be continued, for a project that is only able to generate income while I am in the country is worthless.

Of course, running a business requires good business acumen. Working with my host agency and counterpart, I hope to hold a training session at least once a month that focuses on basic accounting, market creation, pricing and best-practice business models.

Additionally, since all Peace Corps Volunteers in this program are trained in both sustainable tourism and environmental education, I plan on putting my newfound environmental knowledge to good use. In addition to periodically teaching students, local organizations and businesses about environmentally friendly practices, I intend to organize at least one major Earth Day-type event in my community, either by myself or with the collaboration of other Peace Corps Volunteers. I strongly believe that a community that comes together to learn about being environmentally conscious will form a common bond and continue to use what they learn in the future.

Furthermore, I plan to work on secondary projects as well. I love to play soccer, and I would want to find a way to coach, or assist in coaching, a boys’ soccer team. This could be a great way to be a positive role model for the children in my community, and it is possible that I could use the relationships I gain with some of the older youth to help them develop important business skills, among other professional skills. The youth are the future, and if I can instill in them confidence to act as leaders in their village, the community as a whole can benefit tremendously. In addition, I am interested in creating clubs for the area’s youth to discuss whatever is on their minds, be it sports, the opposite sex or growing up.

B: Using my host country partners and counterpart as both guides and mentors, I hope to utilize their advice and knowledge to enhance my chances of success. I understand that my host agency will have a working understanding of my prospective location’s needs. Therefore, I intend to first listen carefully to what the agency expects of me as a Peace Corps Volunteer. After doing so, I will do my absolute best to work in conjunction with the organization to solve the area’s problems.

My work style will be inclusive; whenever possible, I will include groups located on my site to assist me in tackling issues that Guatemalans face in order to implement business practices that lead to the creation of successful, sustainable tourism businesses. I understand that, especially being a younger volunteer, I may not be initially trusted and respected. Thus, my focus will be to establish relationships with community members, business groups and political officials.

I am especially aware of the importance of social dynamics in Guatemala. The same kind of mentality was prevalent in Ghana. At first it seemed counterintuitive to spend so much time simply chatting with friends, but soon enough I realized how important it was to first establish a social connection with others before ever attempting to work on projects in the community. I confess that I thought I could bring American work methods to Ghana, but I learned very quickly that what works in America will not always work in other parts of the world. I learned that, in Africa, things have a way of working out in their own mysterious ways. Therefore, building relationships in Guatemala will be a main focus for me. Mutual respect and understanding are sure ways for my projects to reap mutual benefits.

My plan for targeting individuals to assist me is twofold. I will target those who are respected, diligent workers and also those who hold much influence and are venerated by others. By doing so, I believe I will be able to acquire reliable assistance for my projects. While I may have the skills to get projects in my site in Guatemala started, I know that it is the Guatemalans that I meet who will ultimately continue the projects in the future.

C: The chance to learn about a different culture appeared prominently in my mind when I began the process of applying to serve as Peace Corps Volunteer. When residing in a new country, depending on the level of variation from one’s home country, the cultural adaptation process can be very difficult. I have had the opportunity to live in two other countries, Mexico and Ghana, and I hope to use the skills I gained in the respective places to aid me in adapting to life in Guatemala. The traits I found to be most important were patience, attentive observation and an ability to heed the advice of others. I plan to demonstrate these traits while also introducing Guatemalans to my own culture.

Patience is important because one comes across many unfamiliar customs and practices while living in a foreign country. Therefore, it is essential to keep an open mind and learn to appreciate the diverse customs of the world. By carefully observing others, I hope to learn what is considered acceptable behavior and what is deemed inappropriate. While in Ghana, this behavior served me well.

Additionally, I listened carefully to what my Ghanaian friends and counterparts told me. From the correct way to greet others, to the method for hailing a taxi or washing clothing, their assistance was vital to my successful integration into Ghanaian society. Soon enough, I was given the Ghanaian name of Kwame. I greatly appreciated this gesture, because then I became known as Kwame or Sir Jordan to the people of my community, instead of “obruni!” or white person. That didn’t stop people from calling my name over 200 times a day, but at least I was recognized as an individual.

In my experience, it is after one becomes accepted that it is important to then share information about one’s own culture. To do this I would share stories about my life in the United States and show pictures of my family and home. I live in a bi-racial household, and Ghanaians were very interested and accepting of this. They especially took a liking to my father, who is half-black, and told me he looked like a strong African warrior.

Thus, my aim is straightforward. I hope to learn as much about Guatemalan culture as possible. Of course, I will take the time before departing to learn about customs, just as I did before leaving for Mexico and Ghana. I believe that with integration comes acceptance, and with acceptance comes the opportunity to teach others about myself.

D: During pre-service training, I hope to first and foremost obtain a level of proficiency in Spanish and whichever local language I learn that will allow me to successfully engage the support of my counterparts and coherently express my ideas to others. I understand that I will most likely not be fluent in the languages upon completion of pre-service training, but I will diligently work at improving my speaking abilities over the course of the next two years using the time-tested practices that the Peace Corps staff teaches me.

Secondly, I hope to greatly improve my knowledge of Guatemalan culture. Doing so will help me respect Guatemalan customs and thrive in an unfamiliar environment. Moreover, I wish to learn as much as possible about health and safety precautions during the training process. I am aware that a failure to do so will invariably put me at risk during my service, thus rendering me useless to the Guatemalan communities that will depend on me.

Finally, I intend to absorb as much information as possible about the technical skills that will aid me in teaching Guatemalans about business skills and environmental conservation. I particularly hope to gain knowledge about creating business models that are sustainable, so that the Guatemalan people can continue on with their businesses after I return to the United States. I am very excited to learn about the different types of projects that I can work on during my service, and I am particularly interested in training tour guides and planning tour routes. I was a tour guide at the University of Delaware for three years, and I believe that I can utilize prior knowledge to greatly benefit the lives of the Guatemalans I meet. Ultimately, I hope to leave training, confident in my ability to identify viable project opportunities, and confident that I have the skills necessary to see the projects come to fruition. Being trained in a combination of sustainable tourism and environmental education is particularly exciting. As I see it, a business that generates income for Guatemalans while also protecting the environment is good business, any way you look at it.

E: Peace Corps will have a profound impact on me, of that I am sure. Before departing to live in other countries, I always expected the experiences to change me. In the end, the experiences ultimately did change me. Yet, I expect the change to be more noticeable when I return from my Peace Corps service. Peace Corps will reaffirm my desire to spend my life serving others. It will provide me with additional motivation that anything is possible. I will tackle challenges with new vigor, knowing that I successfully completed my service in Guatemala, an environment which will undoubtedly provide me with many obstacles to overcome.

Professionally, I have given much thought about going to graduate school to pursue a career in international affairs and development, possibly in conjunction with a business program. After graduate school, I desire to pursue a career that allows me to travel around the world and have an impact on the decision-making processes for important development and political issues around the globe. I have given a great deal of thought towards becoming a Foreign Service Officer. This appealing career is at once fascinating and challenging. I am convinced that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of an administration’s foreign policy and that military force should be used as a last resort. Much like Peace Corps Volunteers, Foreign Service Officers are the unsung heroes of this nation’s foreign policy, working tirelessly to establish relationships abroad so that Americans are safe at home.

I envision myself engaging in international development or political work that focuses on helping people who do not have the resources to help themselves. This is necessary, meaningful work, and it is work to which I will commit myself after my Peace Corps service.

If you made it this far, you deserve an award. Thanks for reading.

I got my wish the second time around. When I applied to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, I hoped that I would be nominated for a Spanish-speaking area since I was a Spanish minor at Delaware and have a pretty good grasp on the Spanish language. Yesterday I received my second invitation, and I found out that I am going to be spending the next 2+ years in Guatemala! I knew there was a reason that my program to Guinea was canceled. I am beyond excited that I get to have a meaningful impact on the lives of people in a Guatemalan community. My official title is Community Tourism Facilitator, and I will be working in the Sustainable Community Tourism Program. The assignment booklet that comes with the invitation packet breaks down the position, and it is a really intriguing job.

The introduction states, "SCT volunteers work with local organizations and municipalities in rural areas to implement sustainable projects."

Primary Duties

The overall purpose of the Sustainable Community Tourism Project is the contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of participating families, through the establishment of sustainable community tourism projects (nature tourism, cultural tourism, and agro-tourism) which also help to conserve the environment and expand understanding and support of Guatemala's cultures and agriculture.

I am going to have an incredible opportunity in Guatemala. I will be living in a rural area that likely has limited access to mail/e-mail/electricity/running water. I know that this job will be difficult, but I am confident that the rewards will far outweigh the challenges. It's exciting that I will probably be able to use my UD tour guide experience to help me as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

As for my diet, the all-knowing assignment booklet told me that I will be mainly eating corn tortilla and beans... for anyone familiar with my bowel movements, I bet you are all glad that I am going to be countries away from you.

Here are some delectable pictures for you to enjoy:

Friendly Guatemala country desk staff!

Guatemala, aqui vamos!

Hey all, here's a quick update on where I stand in the Peace Corps abyss. As most of you know, I got invited to go to Guinea. I had been told that the program was being postponed for 3 months and that I would not be able to switch programs. Rather than sulk, I accepted that and made plans to move to Ithaca for a couple of months for a much needed change of pace. However, someone in my Guinea training group, to whom I am very grateful, was nice enough to tell me that she had recently called the Africa business placement officer, who told her that we ARE allowed to switch into another program. I am not sure why the Guinea country desk says one thing and the placement officer, who is a step removed in the opposite direction in this interminable application process, says another thing.

I called my placement officer today and left a message. Hopefully she gets back to me with some good news. In the meantime, I am still planning to move to Ithaca. I have an interview with Urban Outfitters on Thursday, and I'm moving in with friend on Saturday! Now I can perfect the art of being a hipster. Rock on, Garth. Rock on, Wayne.

Hello World, I've resurfaced, and I'm back for the latest installment of stuff-you don't-care-about-but-might-read-when-you-are-bored.

It's official. Peace Corps Guinea has suspended operations for 3 months. The current volunteers, who had previously been evacuated to Mali, will have the option to transfer to other countries or go home. However, in this interminable Peace Corps process, I am not allowed to transfer to a new program. Peace Corps Guinea has decided to postpone the program for 3 months and reassess the situation on January 30th, the day of the Guinea elections. Basically, Peace Corps stuck my training group with the worst case scenario. We are not allowed to switch programs. We have to wait until January 30th, when MAYBE we will be allowed to go there if the elections go well. I doubt that elections will go well, especially considering Camara, the military leader in charge of the country, has still not stated that he will step down. If they do go well, I am assuming we will get about a month to pack and get ready, so it seems I won't leave until March at the earliest. This is incredibly, incredibly disappointing. Whenever I think there is hope in this process, it is brutally crushed.

It is disappointing that I won't get to leave until likely the middle of next year. It is disappointing that Guineans can't live in peace. And it is disappointing that the current volunteers in Guinea were ripped from a situation where they were helping improve the lives of others. Now, if the program is canceled after January 30th, it will probably take months for my training class to get reassigned. So. Unbelievably. Aggravating.

In an attempt once again to stay positive, I am changing my life around a bit. I have decided to move from Rochester to Ithaca to live with my old roommate from Delaware and pretend to be in college again. My parents understood the need to be on my own again and encouraged me to do it. I will be able to live with him for free until I can afford to pay some rent. I am excited about the prospect of meeting new people. Hopefully this can keep my mind off Peace Corps for a couple of months. I'm planning to take the GRE in the beginning of February, and I went to Ithaca today to apply for jobs. It looks like there is a good chance I will be working at Urban Outfitters, which would rock.

This change will bring some much needed excitement to my life. I am so underwhelmed right now. I need to be whelmed. Someone please whelm me. So it's on to new things. Call me a fire and consider me stoked.

Even though I am not sure about whether or not I will be going to Guinea in late November due to the massacre that occurred on September 28th, I am still practicing my French. I am assuming that Peace Corps will first try to place me in another french-speaking country if and when I am reassigned. In addition to doing the whole Rosetta Stone thing, which is a great way to learn to speak a new language, I am listening to French education podcasts. My current favorite is Coffee Break French, a podcast that is taught by 2 Scottish individuals.

A guy in Upstate New York learning French from people in Scotland via the world wide web? I love you globalization. The main instructor does have a really good french accent, but I'll admit that a major reason I keep listening to it is because I love the one girl's Scottish accent when she speaks English. I would listen to her teach me how to watch paint dry while sitting on a bed of nails. Coffee Break French can be downloaded for free from itunes or the website. There are about 80 lessons so far, and a new one comes out every week. Each lesson gets progressively more difficult. I'm on lesson 13 now, and it's still pretty basic, but at least it is good for improving one's listening skills. The lessons are enjoyable, except during one of them the two Scottish instructors spent the majority of the lesson awkwardly singing a French version of jingle bells to me. They wanted me to join them in their French revelry, but I refused.

The lessons are about 20 minutes long, or according to my Scottish instructors Mark and Ana, a coffee break long. I have to take the bus into Rochester for work, so I've been listening to the podcast during the ride. If you haven't checked out the free podcasts offered on itunes, I recommend Free Talk Live if you are at all interested in libertarianism.

Cheers,

JBrown

September 30th was a great day. It was the day that I finally received my invitation from the Peace Corps. The the U.S. government decided to send me the packet via FedEx instead of the United States Postal Service. I find that funny, but understandable. The packet contains materials with over a hundred pages of information on job description, adjusting to a different culture and taking the next steps towards becoming a volunteer. My official title is small enterprise development adviser. I am required to read the materials, as I will be quizzed on my job description when I call to confirm my position.

I have been nominated to go to Guinea! I had mixed feelings when I opened the packet. For all of you who have seen the news, Guinea has been having some political problems. On September 28th, the military killed approximately 157 people during a protest in a stadium in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. People were protesting the current President's decision to not step down, as was previously assumed he would do. There were reports of members of the military firing into crowds, stabbing protesters, and raping women. This was a shocking display of brutality, and now the future of Guinean politics is in question. All Peace Corps Volunteers currently in the country are safe and accounted for. Peace Corps in-country staff and embassy personnel are closely monitoring the situation. Volunteer security is a top priority for Peace Corps. As of right now, volunteers have been told to remain in their villages and await instructions. I am hopeful that the situation in Conakry will improve, but there is a chance that the program could get suspended. I guess I am lucky that I got my invitation when I did, because I assume I will be reassigned if this program is canceled. Until I hear otherwise, I will continue to stumble through learning French and complete the necessary Peace Corps paperwork. Here are some pictures for you to chew on. Receiving your peace corps invitation is a glorious thing. To everyone still in the application process: hang in there. It's worth it.

Just when I was beginning to get nervous that programs leaving for Africa in November were filling up, I was overjoyed to get an e-mail telling me that Mytoolkit had been updated. It's great news, my friends.

13 months after applying, all of my hard work and patience has paid off. I have officially been invited to serve in the Peace Corps. What a great feeling. I am ecstatic! I was so excited that I sprinted through my house, and in a fit of joy, I ran into my room and bodyslammed my bed. I'm very strange.

This has been a dream of mine for years. Information about where I will be going will come in the mail in a couple of days. I'm still expecting to be sent to a country in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa. Life is good, and it's about to get a lot more interesting.

You MUST be patient. It has been 13 months since I applied, and I still don't know where I'm going. Come on now, Peace Corps.

Not expecting to hear from Peace Corps for, perhaps, another couple decades, I nearly fell out of my chair when I checked my e-mail on Friday and saw that I had an application status update. I logged into Mytoolkit, and I saw this:

Based on what I have read on other volunteers' blogs, this is great news. Volunteers who got this update received an invitation a couple days later. I was not expecting to get an update from my placement officer until later in the month. Now I may not have to do a final interview after all! Getting this update from the Peace Corps nearly brought tears to my eyes. It has been exceedingly difficult to stay focused and positive during this long, tedious process. I hope my placement officer knows how much I truly want this.

All the cool kids are doing this, so I figured I would post my Peace Corps application time line.

- 2007-2008: Thought about Peace Corps as a viable post-graduation option

- August 2008: Returned from Ghana and completed my Peace Corps application online

- September 2008: Received background check info, scheduled an interview with my recruiter(told me he would not be able to come to campus until November)

- November 7, 2008: Interview went really well, got nominated on the spot for business advising in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa with an anticipated departure date of November 2009

- November 10, 2008: received official nomination letter

- November 2008: Received medical packet

- January 2009: Finished medical packet during my winter break

- March 2009: Medical clearance

- July 2009: Didn't like something they read in a reference letter... medical clearance taken away (bizarre)

- August 2009: Faxed personal statement, medical clearance immediately given back

- August 2009: E-mail from placement officer says she will contact me during mid to late September

It is now approaching the 10-month mark since my nomination. I am starting to lose my patience. Back to reading Chuck Palahniuk and listening to The Decemberists. Peace.

Well folks, it's been a little over nine months since I received my Peace Corps nomination for business advising in francophone Africa. Nine months is a long time. In addition to creating a baby, nine months gives a man ample time to do plenty of things. So far I have managed to maintain my sanity as I await placement. However, two days ago I broke down and called my placement officer to, among other things, see what was going on. She fired back an e-mail the next day saying that she is currently working on placing business volunteers who are departing in September and October. She also stated that I should expect to hear from her in mid to late September requesting to schedule a final interview. Great, I thought. That gives me one whole month to stare at the paint on walls and meditate!

Seriously though, I have been making an effort to stay busy. I have been working on my French with Rosetta Stone, and, through a fortuitous series of events, I have fallen into a wonderful opportunity. A couple of weeks ago, I contacted an old boss of mine asking if he wanted to catch up over lunch. Before the lunch he told me that he may have an opportunity for me. It was during our lunch that he spoke to me about an organization called Project Homeless Connect. Soon I was on board as a volunteer, primarily doing database work for the organization. PHC is best-practice model that is being employed in cities nationwide. It started in San Francisco as part of an effort to give assistance to a city greatly overburdened by a burgeoning homeless population. The idea is to provide homeless individuals with a one-stop shop for everything that they need. Therefore, big convention centers are rented out, food and showers are offered, and men and women - who are to be made to feel like special guests - are escorted to different booths. These booths offer an array of services, from housing procurement to issuance of state IDs. Project Homeless Connect is a great organization working for an excellent cause, and I was happy to help, even in my role as a volunteer.

Now, through luck and happenstance, I am being offered more responsibility and an opportunity to do something that hasn't happened in the City of Rochester before. I even received a call from China today from a key supporter of the project that there may be a way to pay me, if I will stay with the project. I would have still worked with the organization in some capacity as a volunteer, but I do also need to make money this summer, so that is a bonus. It looks like I will be part of a small team that has a chance to organize a high-profile event, with support from the mayor of Rochester and the county exec of Monroe County. The event, which will take place on October 15th in the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, has the potential to provide a great deal of assistance to the city's homeless community, and I feel lucky to be a part of it.

Hope everyone is staying cool in the summer heat. Until next time.

Apparently that medical hold that I got was, in fact, a medical hold. When I returned home from vacation, I found that I had received a letter from the medical office. My placement officer was reviewing my reference letters - which hopefully means I'm getting placed soon - and found mention of an illness of which they had no record. They told me that I needed to fax a personal statement describing my stomach problems in Ghana and what I did to resolve them. I quickly did that over the weekend, and my application status was again updated today to tell me that I am, once again, medically cleared. What a relief...

People with November nominations are beginning to get invited, so I hope to hear something any week now. If and when I hear something, you will be the first to know. Because without you, I would have just written this whole post for nothing. Thanks for giving me purpose, blogosphere. Cheers.