I decided today that I would finally update my blog. It has definitely been a while since my last entry. Mainly because I haven't had the time to sit down in the past few months to write something. So today is the day... here I go...

The month of March: My birthday, I re-climb Valcano Tajulmulco, Peace Corps Celebrates its 50th Anniversary.

My Birthday:

My sitemates (Stephen and I) and I after my birthday cake was smashed into my face....

I had an excellent birthday! Val and I partnered up to have a joint party. Val's going away party and my birthday party. Val's friend from the states actually donated a good chunk of money for the party which made it that much more fantastic. We started the day with everyone arriving around midday where we played cornhole (which my sitemates and I constructed from scratch.... mainly Stephen), and darts. Then at around 4 pm we played soccer in our town's synthetic soccer field. After soccer we rented out a comedor for dinner then headed back to my house for the rest of the day's activities. We projected music videos on the wall of my back porch where we had some pretty epic dance parties, a pinata filled with candy from the states, jello shots, jungle juice, beer pong and a full bar - mojitos, bloody marys and all! To this day our party is still talked about :) We also lit off fireworks.... which is something I will not be able to do in the states without getting the cops called. This party definitely was one of the best birthdays I have had.

Volcano Tajumulco:

At the bottom of Tajumulco. You can see the top of the volcano in the distance.

Esther and I at the bottom of the volcano. Done!

Group photo at the top.

Making out way down the volcano with the awesome view in site.

Me on top of Tajumulco, watching the sun rise.

Climbing Tajumulco again was so much better than the first time I climed it in 2009 in November. It wasn't nearly as cold and I had an awesome sleeping bag that kept me very warm that night. There was also a big group of us that went which made the trip that much more entertaining and fun!

50th Anniversary for Peace Corps:

Me with Kate, Ryan and Anne at the 50th.

A view of the tent from the podium.

Photo with the US Ambassador.

Group photo of all the Health Homes volunteers that were present at the 50th.

The 50th was very eventful! All of PC/Guatemala was invited - PC volunteers, staff and host families from training. There were key note speakers that helped to reflect on the past 50 years of Peace Corps. They also swore in the new group of Health Schools and Eco-Tourism groups and acknowledged the group that left at the end of March. It was a great day where all of Peace Corps Guatemala could come together to celebrate the wonderful service and time we all put forth on a daily basis.

Well, it is now May and I have exactly 8 weeks left in my service. I can't believe I am almost done. I still haven't come to grips with that concept. Guatemala has become my home and I know it will be hard for me to leave. The next 8 weeks will be packed with goodbye parties, meetings, and paperwork.... it will go by quickly. Before I know it, I will be back in the States.... and my mind will still be in Guatemala. As I reflect on the past 2 years I am very proud of the work I have accomplished, the friendships I have made and how much I have learned about myself. I will always be forever thankful for this experience and I will cherish it for the rest of my life.

To be continued....

I know some of you have been curious as to what my house looks like. So here it is. I would like to disclaimer that not all PC homes look like this. I just so happened to luck out with a newly built home. I have the entire upstairs of this house. There are 2 sides that mimic each other in size and style, but I only live on one side. I also have a patio which I did not picture here. So here it is, welcome to my little home :)

Here is my kitchen. I have a little stove top that is powed by a gas tank. A refrigerator that my parents bought me for Christmas when they came to visit and a toaster oven my grandma gave me for Christmas. Not everyone has refrigerators or ovens because on our budget it is way too expensive, so I lucked out! I built the "bookcase" - I built it one night at like 8 pm and finished at midnight one night when I had a lot on my mind and needed something to hit! It is a little lopsided, so it is tilted against the wall so it doesn't fall - because one time it did, lol. And my kitchen table that took me a year to buy because I couldn't afford it, haha.

Here is my wall of gossip magazines. Magazines I have collected through out my service. And, all my bags. The sad part is that I took a ton of bags home with me when I went home for Christmas and it still looks like I have way too many.

The entrance to the other room. On the floor are the 2 out of the 4 midwife kit boxes.

My room.

My "dresser", built out of cement blocks and wood shelves I found on my patio. Yes, I still am a hoarder of clothes.

Here is my desk. It is a little small but it is still functional. Now that I have completely organized it to my liking, this is where I spend most of my time when I am doing work, or in this instance updating my blog. Most of you are here - either in pictures, cards, gifts, etc. Can you find yourself? :)

And... last but not least, my bed :) My sanctuary. I. love. my. bed. I don't take nearly as many naps as I did when I was in the states, mainly because I have a normal sleep cycle here but my bed is where I read, watch movies and just relax.

until next time....

This past January my town had their "big" town fair. The first time I experienced the town fair was definitely an experience. Now that I have experienced 4 town fairs, I can safely say that I am "town-faired out". A week of not sleeping because my house was vibrating to music that lasted until 2 am and seeing way too many drunks roaming the street was not exactly ideal, but I'm glad I now know what a town fair is like in Guatemala.

I just wanted to throw in here the Midwife Kits that were donated by MedWish Foundation. My dad helped me pack all the supplies. Unfortunately the airline would only let me take 2 boxes with me, so I had to leave 2 behind. I am still trying to figure out how I'm going to ship the 2 remaining boxes to Guatemala. If anyone has any ideas please let me know!

The boxes all ready to go.

Walking into the soccer field filled with people.

During the town fair all the area schools in our municipality decorate floats. Here are a few of my favorites. This year was by far the most creative year with float decorations.

This float actually won. The theme this year was "medio ambiente" or The Environment. Here children were dressed in the traditional clothing of my town and were building a miniture mud home! When the parade started they started building the mud hme and then when they arrived to the soccer field they completed the mud home. Very creative! Mud homes here in my site and many rural, indigenous sites are all made out of mud. It is the cheapest and an environmentally friendly structure.

Ferris Wheel.

Here are all the elected "Little Queens" from all the schools in my town.

It can get pretty packed here. Here is my town's Queen from last year (the girl at the top of the stairs), the reining queen with the wooden crown and the reining "sports queen" on the right for the year 2011.

This right here is what kept me up at night! Live bands that play throughout the night! This band was the "feature" band for the town fair and man, they blew. The lead singer had the worst mullet and looked like he was stuck in the 70's. Not only did he look rediculous, he sounded rediculous.

Here I am with my sitemates Stephen and Val.

I was able to spend 18 days home this past December and they were wonderful! Oh the pleasures of home - driving, carpeting, using tap water, not having to wear sandals in the shower, not having to walk outside to use the bathroom, having central heating... even tv! I definitely endulged myself in eating everything and whatever was in my face and as a result my plants did not fit towards the end of my trip, haha. I have been back 15 days, although it has felt more like a month, and I miss my family and my friends. I only have 6 months left in my service - which is something I haven't actually grasped juet yet. I feel like I've been playing this tug-of-war of being half-way here in Guatemala and half-way home. So when I actually go home for real, I'm not too sure if I will actually believe that I am staying and not leaving in a week!

While I was home I was able to spend time with some my best friends from high school which was so great. I was also able to make a trip to Annapolis, Maryland to visit Charles. While I was in Annapolis we were able to make a trip to Washington DC which we checked out some museums, and ate at a really great restaurant, Oyamel. If you live or plan on going to DC, definitely make reservations at this restaurant. It is a Spanish tapas restaurant where the food is just sooo good!

Saturday night my parents, Ben and Kristen and I went out to eat at this cute little restaurant in Willoughby- I forget the name - but it had a nice little atmosphere and a live band. Aren't my parents good-looking! :)

Here I am with my brother Ben and my sister-in-law, Kristen who just recently dyed her hair brown! Welcome to our side now ;)

With Leah, my best friend since the 7th grade! How I have missed that girl. I am so proud of her and all of her accomplishments! Can't wait to see more of her when I am back!

Here is Brandon, who I haven't seen in almost 2 years showing off the present I brought back for him. The oh-so-ever popular MTV backpack which every Guatemalan owns! This is funny because Brandon actually works for MTV yet no one in Guatemala has ever heard of MTV - well at least where I live.

Charles and I taking a 30 minute road trip to DC!

In front of the huge Christmas tree outside of the Capital Building. There was no snow :(

I was able to see my cousin Jason in DC whom I haven't seen since my brother's wedding in June of 2009! The day after New Years he got down on one knee and proposed to her girlfriend in front of the Lincoln memorial. So romantic! Miss you cuz!

Charles and I celebrating the New Year at his restaurant, Paladar, in Annapolis, Maryland

Happy New Year!!

So this is a little selection of some of the photos I took for my stove project as well as the inaguration. The inaguration was held the 13th of December, right before I went home. It was definitely an adventure to get here and man, was it an adventure! Enjoy!

I had to make sure that all the stoves were either built or in the process of being built, otherwise I told the women I would have to take their materials away and give the stove to another family. This is an example of how some women didn't want to lose their stoves, so they built the stoves in the middle of the corn field because they were planning on eventually building a new room around the stove. I thought this was pretty funny/cool.

This lady lived in one of the poorest homes. I was so thrilled to see her new stove! She built this by herself!

The cutest boy ever!! Little Miguel :)

Here is an example of a lady who hasn't finished her stove yet, but as you can see they are building a new room to serve as their kitchen :) She also had a very poor home. They cooked and slept in the same, small room. So the fact that they are building a new room is so great! She also just had her baby, and I gave her a baby blanket my grandmother sent me for special occasions such a these.

Some of the women insisted on taking photos with me which I thought was so sweet. This lady couldn't thank me enough for her stove. I think she thanked me for a good 20 minutes staight!

This is one of my favorite ladies of all time. She always had the biggest smile on her face when I would come to give health talks or come to visit her home. She was one of those ladies that where her soul was just out for the whole world to see and feel. Sometimes I found myself just gravitating towards her because she just was so incredibly dear, warm and good-hearted. As a "thank-you" for her stove she sent me away with 17 oranges, haha :)

Here I am with the "Big Wigs" of my town - or the Mayor's Coorporation. I'm wearing my town's traje/tradition clothing.

This picture was taken on top of a hill. The little houses on the left are where we had the inaguration. See how everything is just tucked away in the mountain. It is so peaceful here.

Here the Coorporation is sitting at their assigned seats, like the little kings they think are.

This I thought was so pretty. Here the family decorated their stove for the inaguration with branches from different plant light around where they live. On the floor they spread out fresh pine leaves.

Here Don Pedro is beginning the inaguration - Live on the radio! I about died....

Here I am praying with everyone over the whole project. That line of tissue paper serves as a "ribbon" to inagurate the stove project.

Don Miguel cutting the "ribbon"

Everyone checking out my sweet stove! lol

Everyone gathered inside the kitchen to see the decorations and the stove.

The first fire in the stove :)

The women preparing our lunch.

The women making tortillas in an open fire. To the right, there is a little structure that looks like a pyramid. This is where the families bathe. There is no hot water. So they use this structure like a sauna. They heat up water on rocks inside this structure and sweat it out.

The women getting ready to sign a book that documents the events that happened today.

Ana the president, making the first signature.

Felisa and I waiting for lunch to be served.

This was an enormous bowl of soup. The funny thing about this picture is that I helped pick out the chicken you see here in my bowl the week before.

Trying to blend in with the women :) They normally see me in jeans, so this was a big surprise for them.

So I thought I would share with those of you that might not already know, but my dog, Tuk, was hit by a car and died while I was home in the states. The news was very heartbreaking for me. As I type this I find myself trying to hold back tears. I had never owned a dog before. Tuk was my first pet. When I first bought him I had no clue what I was doing and I automatically regretted buying him as soon as we got home. He grew on me over time and he became more than just a pet. He helped me get through this rollercoaster ride I like to call Peace Corps. Being thousands of miles away from your family, your pets here become your family. He would listen to me while I talked to him about my day, give me kisses when I was having a bad day and he was the best company I could have asked for while I've been living alone. To come home to an empty house was really hard adjusting to, I don't think I'm quite yet there. All I know is that I will never own a dog like him ever again but for the time I did have him he has everything I could have asked for in a pet. So this is my dedication to my beloved dog, Tuk. May you rest in peace little guy. This is something my mom sent me in an e-mail and it touched me so much I wanted to share it with everyone: "Bye, Tuk Tuk, to me you will be "Tukito" for I feel that as many times you licked my daughter's face, you licked mine as well. Andrea loved you so much and I loved you through her, for she shared wonderful moments that only you and her will never forget and neither will I. I love you Tuk Tuk"

Me overlooking the waterfall

One of the first photos I took once we reached the pools.

Now that I am back from my Christmas/New Years vacation I can finally update my blog! I was planning on doing that while I was home, but I was way too busy enjoying my time home! I first want to share will you all the Thanksgiving vacation I took with some of my PC friends. We all decided to take a trip to Semuc Champey in the deparment of Alta Verapaz; a southern department in Guatemala. This place was absolutely beautiful. It is this tiny town tucked away in the mountains and after about a 45 minute dirt/rock ride you enter into a park where you encounter limestone pools that were created by a category 6 rapids. On top of this once solid piece of limestone rock are there beautiful aqua pools that you can swim in and walk along but underneath there is a category 6 rapid! It is insanely beautiful. I can't get over the amazing beauty of this country, it always surprises me.

We all took a hike towards "El Mirador" which is the look-out point on top of a mountain that looks down on the limestone pools

Me looking down from "El Mirador"

A closer look...

The category 6 rapid underneath this limestone pools.

A long view.

Touring bat caves!!

I'm not going to lie... this cave was scary. It is damp, gloomy and there are bats flying around your head. I felt like was in Lord of the Rings. In this picture you can kind of see how incredibly huge this cave was. The lights gave everyone a path to stay on, otherwise you could fall to your death in many of the cave's endlessly dark cliffs...

Walking through the cave... "dodging" flying bats.

Following the lighted path. The cave I felt like went forever. But towards the end there was this enormous "tower" that took millions of years to develop - and it was caused by water droplets of sedement falling from the ceiling of the cave. Here you can see somewhat how that works from what looks like "cones" hanging from the ceiling.

At exactly 6:30 pm they turned the lights off. We all sat in silence as we head a huge swarm of bats leaving the cave to eat. Here you can see some bats flying out. It was unreal.

The girls and I waiting for the bats to leave the cave.

The hostal we stayed at in Lanquin. A small little town right outside of Semuc Champey.

Here I am standing on the second story of our hostal.

This was cool. A bunch of us went through another cave, but this time we were guiding ourselves by the light of a single candle. The water was really cold, and it was definitely scary walking through a pitch-black dark cave. There were points in the cave where you were treading water because you weren't able to touch the ground and we all had to keep our candles above our heads.

The girls and I in the cave.

Everyone putting their candles together.

This is where the rapid comes out. On top are the limestone pools.

The Giant truck we used to transport all of the materials

Loading 1,440 bricks onto the truck

Doors, chimneas and hats for the stoves

The community, Tasabalquiej, waiting for their materials

The 30 women of Tasabalquiej all standing behind their soon-to-be stoves. I definitely was teary-eyed when I took this picture. The women were all so happy!

The community of Chiaj helping to unload some of the materials

A few women carrying a stove top

The 16 women of Chiaj stranding behind their materials.

Santiago (I like to secretly call him Frankenstein because he has gold teeth, no neck and slicks his hair back), the "1st Sindico" (which is like 'vice-mayor), who has ben helping me out tremendously with this project (although he can be very difficult to work with), is talking to the families about how great everyone has come together to make this project work and how it is important to have an organized community and they are setting a great standard and example for Santa Maria Chiquimula.

The community, Chuwiq'ichinal, helping unload materials

The community treated us to lunch. I thought this photo was great because we literally had lunch in the middle of nowhere, in the forest, on the dirt floor - but it was delicious.

The view from one of the homes we were building a stove in - this picture does not give credit to how beautiful this community is.

This is what the kitchen looked like before we built this family a stove.

Starting the first layer of brick.

The women helping to cement the bricks together

The first day completed - the base of the stove.

The stove was then filled with white sand and here we are building the "fire box" with brick and placing a "brown sugar/clay" mixture to hold the brick together.

The fire box almost completed.

The stove once we placed the stove top on

Building the bridge over the door to fill in the gap between the stove top and the door with pieces of iron.

The finished product :) This is Ana with her husband Baltazar and their daughter Marilena.

This is me and my buddy Miguel. I taught him how to "high-five" and "thumbs - up" , to which every 5 minutes he would ask me to high-give or thumbs up - so we made a hand shake out of it. A high-five straight into a thumbs-up but touching our thumbs together making it into a thumb print - Miguel thought of that one :) Such a cute boy!!

My improved wood-burning stove project officially started this past Monday! However, the week before I was completely stressing out. The bank account to deposite the USAID check had not been opened nor had any of the materials arrived to any of the communities. I knew I had to start the stove demonstrations Monday, if not, I knew this project would not be completed before I went home. Well, since I've been here I have come to expect the unexpected and take into account that there will definitely be setbacks. I found out Weds. we were able to deposite the check and the Muni told me they were starting to deliver the materials Friday! On Saturday afternoon when we had delivered (mostly) all the of the materials I went back home, sat on my porch and told Tuk "did that really just happen?". It was almost too good to be true. So within a matter of 4 days we were able to accomplish everything I was freaking out about. So gracias a Dios, we were able to start construction, as planned, on Monday! So far we have built 6 stoves and are building 3 more this coming Tuesday and Wednesday. The 9 stoves that are being built are "stove demonstrations" for each of the 3 communities. Each community will have 3 stoves built and the women living in that community are divided into 3 groups where they will have to watch how the stove is built. Once they have watched the 2 day process, within each group, the women have to build their own stove as well as help the other women in their group build their own stove as well. I have given them 2 weeks to build their stoves and after the 2 weeks I will be coming around to each community making sure all the stoves have been built. If not - I will be forced to take out my wooden spatula :) (aka threatening to take away their stoves) If I don't give the women a time period, they will not finish the stoves and they may even sell some of the materials, so this is my way to holding everyone accountable.

Well, it has been a loooonng week, but I am so happy with how everything is going. We had a few setbacks with the first demonstration we had due to over measuring, but we were able to fix the problem and the stoves look fantastic. I would like to thank everyone who has donated to this project - without your donations, none of this would be possible. I hope with these pictures you are able to see directly how you impacted the lives of these families with your donations. You are directly improving the health conditions in these families lives - you are saving them! If you are interested in donating please check out my website: http://www.healthyhomesguatemala.webs.com/ and click on the link "how to donate". I will be starting another stove project next year and will need all the help I can get! Thank you all so much!

My sitemate, Val and I in Antigua on Halloween. Val was a superhero.

There I am to the right - See how crazy big these kites are?!

The back of the kite.

A view of the kites from the highest point at the festival

I had a piece of this guy for lunch that day and after reading about how dirty they are, I'm not not too sure I'll be eating this type of meat again.... except for bacon.

So for Halloween this year I was a "Mall Walker". For those that may be foreign to this concept, they are people that basically speed walk in little groups around the mall - a rather tacky form of excercise. Although I have never had the privledge of actually witnessing a mall walker, thanks to "Modern Family" Episode 1 - I was given my Halloween costume. I pretty much picked the tackiest jump suit I could find that was probably dated back to the late 80's early 90's, strapped on a fanny pack, found an even tackier visor, threw on some tennis shoes and some really awful red lipstick and that was my Halloween costume. This year I was warm and comfortable and looked pretty ridiculous.

The day after Halloween a bunch of my PC friends went to a little town called Sumpongo where they fly kites to celebrate "Dia de Los Santos" or "All Saints Day". On the first of November the Mayan community comes together in the cemetary of this little town where teams form to compete to see who can fly their kites the farthest. The kites are thought to call to the souls of the departed and to scare away evil spirits. This was by far one of the coolest events I have been to since I've been in Guatemala. There are these kites, some incredibly enourmous, completely made out of tissue paper and bamboo. The craftsmanship and the attention to detail - it was breathtaking. They were all pieces of art.

Me with the 2010-2011 Health Promoters! 9 in total (one couldn't make it)

Me with the doctor, Brenda and the health promoters

Giving Abraham, our youngest health promoter (18), his diploma and ID badge.

This is what the clausura looked like.

So the day finally came! The health promoters finally graduated! And guess what, the doctor actually showed up!! But of course - as always there are always setbacks. Since I've been here in Guatemala I have learned you always need to be prepared for the unexpected - always anticipating the next step. Kinda like serving. When the cocktail is almost empty, you ask if they would like another, making sure the cocktail is right there once they are actually done with their drink - when the appetizers arrive place the order for their entrees, etc. So keeping that in mind I had to prepare for the worst case scenario and best case for the health promoter graduation. The doctor had not come to the health center at all this week and he had all the final diplomas and ID badges that he needed to sign. So I had to reprint all the diplomas and ID badges so I at least had something to give the graduates. I also had an agenda printed off and of course nothing on the agenda was followed. Key people didn't show up and I had to think fast with finding an alternative to kill the time. The health representative from the municipality failed to show up. When I called him he was in the capital, ha. So I had to run around the town hall to find someone to speak on behalf of the mayor. I ended finding the municipal secretary! haha - but it worked. Felisa had to go to Xela for a meeting so thankfully Claudia, the coordinator of the women's office was there, so I made her say a few words. Antonio, the technician from an aldea of my town didn't show up and neither did the president of the health promoters from this aldea - so once everyone who I dragged to speak said a few words, then the doctor, then Brenda (who is my counterpart here at my site) then myself, I had all the health promoters say a few words. I knew this would waste time because Guatemalans LOVE speaking forever. The doctor also agreed to give the health promoters oral rehydration fluid packets and acetemenophen to help those in their town that may have fevers, pain or diarrhea. So that was a big positive. I would say it wasn't the greatest graduation ever, but it was still successful.

What did fail was the new health promoter meeting. Ironically enough, all the women that came last month failed to show up this month but all the women that didn't show up last month came to this month's meeting... So with the women that showed up we planned for the first offical meeting to be the 17th of November. However, the only positive part of that day was kicking a drunk man out of the meeting. It was a little short man that decided to walk into the middle of our presentation and starting ranting. After a while I had enough. So once he got up from the chair he was sitting in I pushed him towards the door. He then placed his hands on the table and said he wasn't leaving. I asked nicely if he could leave and he wouldn't, he kept rambling and sluring his words. So I took the liberty of just picking him up and I carried him out of the room. Not lying. But it wasn't that easy - he threw me into the wall and then tripped on my foot and fell on the floor. Then Felisa and I proceeded to drag him out the door. I turn around the a room full of 40 silent and shocked indigenous women. One lady couldn't believe I had done that, telling me 'he was drunk, seno!" and then another lady asked me if this is what we do in the states, hahaha. So yes, I literally picked up a grown man and carried him out of a room - well more or less.

This past week I invited Brenda, my counterpart, to my house to talk about some of the issues we have been having. For the past 6 months or so I have not been working with her for various reasons. One major reason being that the doctor doesn't want her working with me. To this day, even after talking with her, I still don't understand why. The meeting was prompted after the presentation I had to give in front of the health center doctors, their bosses, my bosses, other volunteers and their respective counterparts. I did not present with Brenda but with Felisa and Antonio who has the same job as Brenda, but lives in one of the small towns (aldeas) of Santa Maria Chiquimula. The presentation sparked a huge debate between all the health staff present due to the series of HIV/AIDS workshops I conducted in Chuicaca this past year where I found out instead of 600 people, we taught over 1,000 people! Apparently the doctor never reported all the incidents of HIV/AIDS cases in that town and his bosses had no clue we had conducted these workshops. For about 20 minutes there was a huge argument in the middle of my presentation. So after that awkward interruption I finished and asked if there were any questions. The doctor then commented on how he has no clue I would be bringing midwife birthing kits in January even though I had sat down with him and we discussed planning a series of workshops with the professional nurse and the midwives.... but I commented back saying he DID know and how we had a meeting about it. That was his way of trying to make me look disorganized or whatever because he was mad I got him in trouble - but it didn't work.

So a few days later I found out from Felisa that Brenda was mad that I didn't include her in the presentation. So I invited her over to clear the air. When I confronted her about some of the issues I have been having with her and some of the comments she had made she, of course, denied every single remark. I don't know why I waited until now to express my frustrations with my work colleagues, but now that I have I feel like I can start off in a new direction. I also found out the professional nurse started her own health promoter group, pretty much completely behind my back which was basically a slap in my face. I was very upset and felt even more like I have no support whatsoever from my health center. It is so very different working with Guatemalans as opposed to Americans. They are incredibly indirect, huge exaggerators, lack constructive criticism and have no problem lying competely to your face. Or maybe they are like Americans, haha - maybe I just lack the 'real world' experience and this is just a strong taste of it.

So I'm not really sure if things will improve with my health center staff, but I can't sit around here and wait for them - I have work to do! With or without their help or support. This coming week I will be meeting with the construction workers who will be building my stoves! So we are almost ready to start construction!

Tenga un feliz fin de semana! Nos vemos

Rio Dulce

Kiki and I enjoying the local drink, ¨coco locos¨

Judy and I - Mexicana y Peruana

Everyone on the boat - little did we know we would be on this thing for 3 hours....

So Livingston was a success :) However, taking into account the fact that I had to sit on my butt for 26 of the 48 hour trip on a school bus and a boat I´m pretty sure I will never go back there again. My butt is still sore and my knees have bruises from trying to make myself comfortable against the metal seat in front of me. We had to pass through Rio Dulce (Sweet River) in order to get to Livingston. The river was beautiful but I had seen something even more beautiful when I was in Costa Rica. We were able to taste the local food called Tapada - a soup with many different kinds of seafood. It was very delicious! The women in town were also selling coco bread which was also very good. We tried to find local music but the town was dead at night! The next morning after getting up at 4:30 am my friends and I (9 volunteers went on this trip) made sure we had seats at the front of the boat to have the better view. That was a huge fail. The water was choppy so for the next 3 hours we were trying to find ways to block the spray of water we were all getting hit with. Ahh, just writing about this trip is making me exhausted! We get back late Friday night and the girls and I decide to make a trip to a local waterpark - and that was awesome! We had so much fun! Probably the cleanest, coolest water park I have been to yet. When I get home Sunday - guess what - my landlord made an unexpected visit! How could I tell? She has her own separate bathroom next to my bathroom downstairs. Sometimes when Tuk is playing with something he accidentally loses it under this bathroom door. There happened to be a stuffed plastic bottle filled with inorganic trash - well Tuk tore it to pieces. I walk into my house to find the lower patio covered in plastic - it looked like a war zone. Then I realized there was a ton of Tuk´'s poop on the upper patio and also a leftover firepit I hadn't cleaned up yet. This lady must think I am completely weird.

So I am now back to work, I have 2 big meetings this week with the new health promoters and I also have the graduation for the health promoters finishing a year on Friday. Here is hoping the doctor actually shows up....

Here are a few photos of how the landslides affected Guatemala (photos from Phil Wood's site and BBC)

This is only 1 of many images of how the rain affected Guatemala leaving roads completely covered in land.

Tragically due to all the rain Guatemala's mountainsides were not able to stand against all of the saturation leaving Guatemala's highway system covered in massive landslides. In this picture an entire bus was buried by a landside leaving many people dead.

Here you can see the massive amount of people gathered at the accident site. In the distance you can see all of the ambulances that were called to help save the victims.

Yesterday my site mates and I celebrated Val's 28th birthday and also threw a going away party for Zane. We went all out with decorations, piñata, cake, games, firecrackers, bondfire etc. It was definitely a very entertaining night! Zane leaves the 12th of October - how time flew! Before I know it I will be saying goodbye to Valerie.

A Guatemalan tradition - smasing the birthday cake in your face right after blowing out the candles. We got Val GOOD!! People were eating cake off of her face for a while...

Val and the piñata.

Afternoon soccer game at the synthetic soccer field just built in Chuiquimula with some other volunteers for Val's birthday.

I'm taking care of Esther's dog Tay'in while she is in the states so Tuk has been a little less annoying now that he has regular company. However, Tay'in does not listen. They both bolted from the front door when I opened it and had to track them down on the other side of town - of course Tay'in was the ring leader. Tuk's chunky butt was just following behind like it was the coolest thing he has ever done. Of course it was a huge spectacle in my town. People all over town were leaving their stores to watch Tuk and Tay'in roam around town - it was like they were watching a parade. Today, they escaped again and while I was walking them back after chasing them down the street again we were passing by this one house who has 2 watch dogs that sit on the roof of the house barking - ALL the time - well one of the dogs (who is this boxer mix who just gave birth to puppies so she's a little chunky) got a little too excited barking at Tuk and Tay'in and SMACK, I turn around and the dog fell off the roof!!! I thought the dog was dead or at least with broken bones. Well the owner comes out of the house and the dog miraculously gets up and walks inside! I guess you had to have been there, but it was so ridiculous and I mean, really?!?! A dog falling off of a roof. I think I will be laughing over this story for a while.

So I just finished my last health talks with my women's groups. Soon we will start construction! Although it is raining season, my hope is to start in mid to late October. Ojala!

Me, Felisa and my women's group in Tasabalquiej after giving a cooking class. We made spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce with soy protein.

SO these are the spiders Tuk likes to kill and leave in the middle of my floor, dead. However, he failed to find this one! I was looking for something on my desk and this scary, ugly thing pops up! I think I spraid it with Raid for like 5 minutes. I was too afraid to kill it with my shoe.

So yesterday all of PC was standfasted again until further notice. A tropical storm came through last night and today which caused a non-stop, slow rainfall. Then tomorrow hurricane Matthew shows its ugly face. So I am stuck here at my site, completely bored out of my mind. I watched 2 movies already and plan on a third after my internet expires in a few hours. I finally watched Revolutionary Road - man that is a sad movie and then watched Baby Mama to help balance out the genres.

Yesterday and Thursday I helped my site mate Zane set up the town's first library!! The books that were donated were absolutely amazing! Most of which were all brand new textbooks and children's books. I am so excited for its opening. Zane did an amazing job getting everything all set up. He is still waiting for the municipality to hire a librarian so he can train him/her on how to run the library. So for those that have any books they would like to donate send them my way or I'll take them back with me when I leave in January. So Zane leaves for good the 12th of October! How time flew! This coming weekend we will be celebrating Val's 28th birthday and Zane's goodbye party. So this weekend should be a lot of fun!

So this is to give you all an idea of how the library is turning out. Everything you see is all donated! I helped Zane decorate, put together bookshelves and set books up. I'm so excited for the town to enjoy this library!

My promoters graduation was posponed because, guess what? The doctor decided to plan a health center excursion to the coast instead. I walked into his office to remind him about Friday and he nodded his head, paused and agreed then I asked him about the excursion to which he fumbled a bit and started apologizing and then invited me to come along. So basically, he would have been fine if he didn't go to the graduation. Ugh! Why do these people have jobs, I don't understand! Hey all, let's plan a trip to the coast even though the past month has been independence day, the queen election, sports day, and in a few weeks there will be another excursion to Livington. You would think all these people were in retirement for the amount of time they spend working. Oh and don't forget the past 3 strikes held around Guatemala where the whole health staff skipped work to go and strike. Sooo, now the graduation is on the 15th of Octobre. Let's see how this one turns out.

So now some good news. My SPA grant from USAID was approved!! I am just waiting to open up a bank account under one of my women's groups and we can start construction!! I am so excited! So hopefully by the time I come home all 60 stoves will have been built.

Also, I talked to the school director of one of the elementary schools here in town and we are in the process of building a whole classroom made out of recycled plastic bottles filled with trash! When I proposed the idea he was all for it and very excited. We set up 2 presentations for the students and for the padres de la familia (or parent representatives of the students, kinda like the PTO) in order to get everyone on board. School ends in the middle of October so the project wouldn't really start until February of next year. But they will have an assignment to collect and stuff bottles on their summer vacation. I made it so that the classroom with the most bottles will win something as well as the student with the most bottles. So I am very excited for this new project. This will not only involve the whole school, but the teachers, parents and the community. Not only will they be cleaning up their town but they will also learn about the importance of recycling and saving the environment.

This is to give you all an idea of what a bottle project looks like. Instead of using the traditional block for the walls, they are using plastic bottles, cool, right?! This just so happens to be a whole school, I am only hoping for a classroom. And look at all the students helping to build! Ownership, teamwork, bonding - all things to look forward to!

So I am very excited for the next few months to see how everything unfolds. I definitely can foresee opstacles and frustrations and probably delays, but all with patience and positivity!!

Thanks to all who have donated - without you all this stove project would not have been possible!! I am in the process of starting another project in February, so donations will still continue, so keep spreading the word!!

I just looked at my wall calendar and September is almost over! My dad just bought my ticket home for Christmas, so before I know it I'll be on a plane back home for the holidays! I am beyond excited to go home for Christmas. My parents and grand mother came to Guatemala last year for Christmas, but it just wasn't the same. I wonder how I will do with the snow... when I came home in April I over-dressed and forgot how humid it can get in Ohio. Here it is always spring weather and there is no humidity so you can wear anything and always feel comfortable. I am excited for the Holiday spirit, family and friends. I am excited for traditions and Christmas morning with delicious breakfast (I so miss bacon and sausage...). I am excited to curl up in blankets and watch tv. I am excited to just spend time with loved ones :) In less than 3 months I will be home!

So I made a to-do list today and of course I did nothing on that list. I subconsciously made the decision to not do anything today :) Or in other words I was just too lazy. However, while I was sitting around the house - doing nothing - which usually means staring at the walls (I'm serious), dealing with Tuk being really annoying by not leaving me alone - probably because I don't walk him enough - I decided to make a wish list. It is more like a wish list to keep myself in my site instead of traveling to Xela every weekend. I decided I would like to start a garden on my patio. I would buy cheap tins you can find in the market, fill them up with dirt and plant flowers and herbs. The market sells little herb plants for cheap. And since my patio is basically walls of cement block, I am going to make shelves out of the recycled wood on my patio. I think this will make my landlady happy - it will show that I'm taking care of her house. Unlike last time when she took my pila away. I came home from vacation to find the pila she installed upstairs on the patio gone. I think that was her way of grounding me for leaving it completely dirty, moldy and unfortunately filled with cigarette butts ---- let me explain. So this pila, which is basically a sink that Guatemalans have to wash clothes and get water, was outside, uncovered, and there was also no lighting on the patio. So I could never use it because I didn't have a cover to prevent dust, bugs, flies, etc. from getting into pila, after 6:30 I couldn't see anything to do my dishes - so I just stopped using it all together and used the downstairs one. Well, my friends Phil and Rey had their birthday party at my house because I had space to hold the 20 people that came. And within our friends there are smokers (not me) so they used a rusty old tin can to throw their used cigarettes in. Well, before I left for vacation I put the can in the pila and covered the whole thing with wood in case my landlady came to use her part of the house while I was gone. And while I was putting wood on the pila the tin can tipped over making one side of the pila totally black with all the old cigarettes. So I freaked out a little because I should have just thrown the can out in the garbarge weeks before. So I told myself when I got back from vacation I would clean the disgusting pila. Well.... she beat me to it. Opps. The pila is now locked away in one of the downstairs rooms that she only has keys to. I saw her son not too long after the pila situation and pretty much in a nice way told me it looked like I wasn't using the pila so his mom put it away. Soooo - I'm hoping a garden will mend things over. I haven't seen her since she took the pila away, and not gonna lie, I'm a little scared when I do :)

So to the list. Id like to start the garden next month. I would also like to start cooking more. So if any of you have some favorite recipes you would like to share, send them my way!! Every Thursday night my site mates and I get together to cook. Since I'm really the only person with creativity when it comes to dinner options, no offense to my site mates, it would be nice to share new meals with them. AND, I FINALLY bought a kitchen table, haha. It only took like 9 months. And it only cost 8 dollars.... goes to show how poor I've been. I also plan on disciplining Tuk more. Yesterday he sprinted clear across the steet chasing a poor, scared to death little boy because he thought he wanted to play with him - nope. I'm pretty sure the boy thought he was going to die. Then Tuk caught site of a little girl and started chasing her. I literally had to body dive to get him to stop running after her. Then in the process the girl and I slammed our heads together, she fell on her knee, I thought I had a concussion and there is stupid little doedoe-bird Tuk hopping up and down ready to "play" some more. The poor girl, before I had the chance to see if she was alright, ran away half limping and holding her head. I felt SO bad. The whole night I was waiting for someone to knock on my door and yell at me for having a crazy dog. So Tuk will need some more conditioning work, bad! As for other list items, I plan on reading more and studying Spanish more. It is a small list, but I look forward to the possibilies it can bring.

Sundays are my favorite part of the week. They are so relaxing. Besides today - I usually get all my work done early morning Sunday and have the rest of the day to relax. Since being in Guatemala I have really enjoyed waking up early, you can get so much stuff done and still feel like you have so much time left in the day. This is one of the reasons why I want to have this wish list so I can include Saturdays as another day to relax. I think when I get back to the States my mind will be too occupied with all the technology that surrounds everyone on a daily basis that I'll forget to really enjoy a simple, stress-free, humble day. So I want to take advantage of that here as much as possible.

Happy Sundays everyone!

The town fair has come and gone… for now at least. Tonight I will actually be able to go to sleep without the sounds of firecrackers, loud bands, honking horns, screaming children and the many drunks that filled the whole town with endless noise. Despite the noise, the town fair is always entertaining. There are many street vendors selling food, jewelry, toys, ice cream, clothing, you name it. The beauty of living above all the noise and chaos is that I have a bird’s eye view of all the action going down in the street below my house. I wake up in the morning to the fruit vendor shouting “naranjas, naranjas dulces”, to the lady selling soap “cinco por diez, mamaita, cinco bolsas por diez”, to the little boys trying to sell ice cream cones for one quetzal (which is equivalent to about 8 cents). Thankfully the morning noise starts when I usually wake up in the morning. Tuk usually gets up earlier than I do and perches himself over the balcony watching all the action below. The best and sometimes annoying part of the town fairs are the live bands that play. This year they had 2 live bands playing in the courtyard of the Catholic Church. As soon as you would walk into the entranceway your whole body would be pounding against the vibrations of the music playing. Sometimes it would get so loud that my head would start hurting. In front of the live bands are dancers dressed in masked costumes that dance for the whole week, all day, until they are de-masked on the final day of the fair. I’m still not sure what the significance of the masked dancers are yet, but I still have hopes that maybe next town fair I can be a masked dancer :)

The prosession of "Santa Maria" - aka the name given to my site: Santa Maria Chiquimula.

Santa Maria in all her glory... garland, christmas lights and beach towels :) The prosession at night from my balcony. The masked dancers dancing in front of the band.

The only disappointing part of the town fair, besides all the garbage and stray dogs wandering around, is all the drinkers that make an appearance. Every night, since the fair started, there are always a slew of drunks. At times it can be funny, watching someone who is drunk trying to pee on the wall that tries to place his other hand on the wall, misses and falls down, and other times it can be really sad. The other night I had to witness a drunken mother and her son who was no more than 14 years old were being supported by her daughters who were no more than 7 or 10 years old. Last night my site mates and I had to witness a drunken father passed out on top of his drunken wife who was passed out on her crying infant daughter. Surrounded by these poor examples of parents were their other 2 young daughters who were just sitting there obediently, waiting. When I saw this I went over there to see if I would be able to at least get the little girl out from under the weight of her mother. Soon a crowd formed and the baby was freed and a neighbor of mine took control of the situation. Later on throughout the night I noticed the whole family was still sitting there and it was getting late. My friend Anna was with me and we tried to find out where they were staying for the night to see if we would be able to escort them. Earlier that night Anna and I had already helped a father escort his drunken daughter after we found her passed out on the street, again, with 2 young daughters in tow. We tried talking with the father of the family and of course he was incoherent and we were both worried for the safety of the children. We happened to be by a restaurant where the town police were eating. Anna went to talk with them to see if they would be able to drive the family home. Long story short, the police were no help, they didn’t want to get involved and they were being jerks about the whole thing. Just then family members came to retrieve this family and I think it was because Anna and I were talking with the police. Anna told me she had seen some of the family members earlier. So basically, this family was left on the side of the road because the other family members didn’t want to deal with them. Sad, sad, sad! Last night made me really upset. There are no laws here on public intoxication and in this case who suffers, the children suffer. The police don’t intervene because there would be no outcome. Those intoxicated would be in jail, given a fine (maybe) and set free to keep drinking again. There are no resolutions here, and believe me it can be extremely frustrating at times. If justice were done here the parents would be put in jail and charged with public intoxication, child endangerment (amongst other things) and the children would be placed in child protective services. But – that will probably never happen here. So I guess, let’s hope next year’s town fair will not bring so many unfortunate circumstances… I don’t really know what else to say.

Just this past week all of Peace Corps was put on a nationwide “standfast”. That meant that wherever we were at the start of the standfast we were not allowed to leave until further notice. I was in my site so I wasn’t able to leave for almost a week. I was still permitted to go to work but I wasn’t allowed to travel outside of my site. We had the town fair so that helped with being kept occupied and thankfully the standfast didn’t last longer than a week. Unfortunately, a lot of the country suffered due to all the heavy rains and there was a number of landslides, collapsed bridges and impassable roads.

This picture doesn't do justice but it had been raining all day and for a few minutes there was a break in the clowds and the sun peaked through - as if to catch its breath. The sun reflected off off the rain clowds, and it was even raining still. The whol town was this glow of orange. It was a pretty awesome sight.

Another "Reina de Salubrista" aka Health Queen pageant has come and gone! This year Nancy, one of the professional nurses at my health center represented Santa Maria Chiquimula. When I arrived I found her waiting outside waiting for her clothes! Everyone was dressed for the "traditional" round where you wear traditional Mayan clothing and she was still waiting for her clothes to arrive from another nurses' house. She then told me she didn't have "cinta" which is a handwoven ribbon woven into your hair. So I told her I would try to find her cinta in the market. I ran and tried to find someone from my health center to help me find cinta - cause I had no clue where to look or even know how much it would cost. So within 20 minutes we found a store, bought the cinta - just in time for the peagent to start. That was my gift to her :)

Nancy, showing off her personality in her "fantasy" costume

Nancy and I right before she went out in her "formal" wear.

The venue for the "Health Queen" pageant - downtown Totonicapan in the town's teatre. pretty, right?! Night and day from last year's competition! No firecrackers were set off here!

I wish I could say we are almost done with the raining season here, but we still have at least 2 1/2 more months of this dreary, cold, wet season that lasts for half a year. It has been raining non-stop for the past 12 hours and has been raining everyday for almost 2 weeks straight. The weather reports state that it will rain straight for another 32 hours! All of PC is at a standfast which means we are not allowed to leave our sites due to the potential dangers that may be presented while on the road. For example, the many mudslides that are occuring as I type, flooded roads, blocked roads, and even streets and bridges giving out. So I am ok with staying home - although it can get a bit borning at times.

I just realized Tuk hasn't been around for a while and then I found out he was snacking on the bathroom garbage! Let's just say he is grounded - which means in about 10 minutes he will forget why I was mad at him. He is so gross sometimes!

This coming week every health center in my department of Totonicapan will take an excursion for a few days for a holiday break around Guatemalan's Independence Day. This year the plan is to travel to Livingston, Izabal which is on the clear oposite side of Guatemala (Eastern side). However, with all the rain happening I'm not even sure if PC will allow a bunch of PC volunteers to make the trip which will be unfortunate. Just recently a few PC volunteers were in a terrible car accident which left a doctor, 2 nurse assistants and the driver of the car dead while traveling on a health center excursion, the volunteers were hurt but are now recovering. So with this recent news I'm not too sure we will be taking this trip. I am just so grateful the volunteers survived and my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the deceased.

Yesterday my health promoters had their final exam. Overall, I was very pleased with how it turned out. After reading all of their exams they really understood all the material I gave them through out the year and I am very proud of them :) I am still in the process of watching a few health promoters give individual health talks to their own groups in their communities and watching them give their presentations has been very fun and rewarding. On the 16th of this month I will be having a meeting for new health promoters! A year has past! So I am hoping I get a nice turn out. On the 24th of this month I will be graduating my 10 health promoters. I will be presenting my health promoters with a certification of completion of the course and a Health Promoter ID badge with their picture and name. My health promoters, Francisco, the president of the health promoters (on the left), and Manuel, the vice president (on the right), giving a health talk to almost 100 people fit into 2 tiny rooms. You can't see but there is a room next to Manuel that was packed with women who were listening to their presentations. Here I am sitting in the middle of the mob listening to Francisco and Manuel give their presentations.

Another angle of the room.

So I bought internet for a day, and low and behold the darn thing doesn't sign me off every minute now... interesting. Maybe I'll try buying a full month soon and see if my internet is now back to normal.

Felisa, my wonderful friend and coworker, with her little boy, Martin, and her loquacious husband on one of our trips out into the communities. On our last trip he told me I would have to get married soon because of my patience with his kids. (haha, I have no clue what that means) You can't see, but there is a little girl standing behind Felisa who didn't make the picture. During the whole car ride she played with my hair and the little boy liked to kicked me. He told me I had a "doll face" and I would have very pretty babies :) haha. Don't worry mom, I have no plans on procreating anytime soon :) I can already tell it is going to be a cold night! The breeze coming from my balcony door is really cold! On Thursday I found a man selling wool blankets. They make them specially from Momostenango, another municipality of Totonicapan. So I used it for the first time that night and MAN what a difference! I have never slept better! Wool blankets are the way to go! So instead of relying on Tuk's body heat - to which he usually bails on me and moves to the floor because he gets too hot - I now have an appropriate form on warmth at night. I also found a man that makes tables on market days and I finally ordered a kitchen table! Al fin!! So now my house will somewhat look complete. Next task is organizing my desk space and then plans to start a garden on my porch. But that will be next month's project - if weather permits. Chuck talked about how he ate sushi last night.... I haven't had sushi in about a year and a half... it sounds soooo good. Hopefully my next blog entry will be about my trip to Livingston! Kawilawib, se cuida, take care!

So I spent all day today cleaning my house! IT WAS SOO DIRTY. It didn´t look dirty but I had been putting off sweeping and mopping for some time. Mom and Dad you guys are probably not surprised... but my house only looked like maybe there were some heavy winds instead of a huge tornado. After sweeping up dustpans full of dust andTuk´s hair (gross I know) I decided to take on an even bigger challenge- try to clean my patio. So, Tuk is not a typical dog by any means, when I say he´s house broken, it is true, but only partially. He doesn´t do his business in the house, which is good, he just does it on the patio outside of my house. I wish I could be able to train him to hold it and wait to go outside, but with my schedule and being in a site where having dogs as pets is really stange, he just goes out on the patio. Well... we are in raining season. So for the past 4 months or so my patio has been flooding and along with all the water went all of Tuk´s waste. So there has been a Tuk-feces swamp festering on my patio. Well today I thought I would try to do something about it. Well who knew there is a drain on the patio... duh! So I was finally able to clean the patio, ugh. I also gave Tuk a bath - his least favorite thing I make him do. Now he smells less like wet dog and more like passion fruit.

I went out into the market today to buy a bunch of produce for my health talk tomorrow for one of my women´s groups. I took Tuk with me. I have been trying to take him out without putting him on a lease. I´m trying to blend the house dog and street dog together. He has nearly torn my arm off recently because he is getting so big, so we´ll see how this goes. While buying food I could hear people shouting ¨chucho, shht, shht¨ which means ´get out of here you street dog, or I will throw something at you¨so I just pretended he wasn´t mine, haha. Well, that didn´t work because he would come up and lick my hands, and when I would walk away he would always follow... He got so annoying I had to send him home. I think maybe market days are not the way to go in the future, maybe in a less chaotic environment next time.

So overall, I was very productive today. Now I am going to go home, get a nice workout in, maybe watch a movie and call it a night. Maybe next blog entry I will not talk about my dog, haha. Almost 100 days until I am home again...!

He looks like a lion here

He´s so handsome :)

I woke up from a nap and this is how he was passed out... I think it was hot that day, haha!

So, overall, I would say a lot has happened since the HIV/AIDS workshops. Instead of slow, mundane work days now my work days are exciting, different and I actually feel happy to go to work! Wow – it only took a year….!! I would have to say it is because I have been working with the women´s office at my site´s town hall. I have been working very closely with the 2 women that run the office, Claudia and Felisa. Claudia was wrongfully fired as the women´s office coordinator and then rehired about a month ago. And Felisa has always been the “encargada” or what we would call the person in charge of the office. Felisa has been a Godsend! She has supported me from the day she was asked by the mayor to accompany me to one of my communities to help with translation and since then she holds a very special place in my heart. She is 40 years old and is a mother of 7 children! Her youngest just recently turned 1 year old. Thanks to my grandmother I was able to give her a pair of shoes and a few pieces of clothes to give to her son on his birthday, she was so happy :) And yes, we have talked about family planning so that she doesn´t become pregnant again :) Yesterday her husband drove Felisa and I to a community and probably one of the nicest men who totally talked my ear off. He found it so fascinating that I was 26, not married and without kids. When he found out that I was taking Ki´che classes the 45 minute trip home was pointing to random objects on the road, saying them in Ki´che and then having me repeat them back to him. After about 5 minutes of this he started to form sentences and then asked me to repeat the sentence. I think he thought I was some genius because he would get disappointed when I couldn´t repeat it back, like it was the easiest thing to say. I laughed on the inside at his presumption, but bless his heart for thinking of me so highly. By this time I had Felisa´s husband giving me a vocabulary lesson, Felisa trying to fight off her 1 year old who was hitting her in the face with a comb because she took away a pen he was trying to chew on, and there is me squished between the passenger side door and Felisa trying to anticipate all the potholes in the dirt road so my side doesn´t pound into the door handle - also trying not to wake Felisa´s 3 year old daughter who passed out on my lap. During my trip home I couldn´t help but he happy that I have 10 more months with these wonderful people and their family and how I knew tears would be shed when it would be my time to leave. It only took a year to finally connect with a family here but it was worth the wait.

I also contribute my new found happy work environment to limiting the amount of time I have been at the health center. All my friends here and my bosses know the frustrations I have been having with my health center and now since most of my work has been in the communities I find that I do not need to be present at the health center as often. I think I have been a total of 3 times at the health center this month, all being half days… and it feels great! I still have yet to meet with my doctor to really have a talk with him about everything because I know he thinks I am not doing any work – well work for the health center. Basically all of my work has been centered about the women´s office at the town hall and I am making sure they receive all the credit – they are the ones that actually want to work with me. The doctor asked me to make sure my health promoters take a test to become “certified”, so on Monday I plan on meeting with him to go over the test questions and then confront him on some of the concerns he may be having. My “counterpart” – I say this in quotes because she is an immature 21 year old girl who doesn´t do anything at the health center but finds joy in trying to tell me what to do. If you know me like my mother does – I do not like being told what to do. And so, as you can imagine, there are differences J So my counterpart has told me the doctor doesn´t want me working with her, so I would like to ask him about this and actually see if it is true. I also want to let him know that my bosses know of the situation I am having at the health center and this is one of the reasons why my work has been focused more with the muni (town hall). Oh – and also to thank him for letting the staff destroy the poster board of photos I made – with my own money. Great way to make an outsider feel welcomed by the way….

Well, enough with the negative, on the positive front, my health promoters are really close to graduating! They take their exam the 3rd of September. In the meantime they are coming to review sessions and making up any classes they have missed. I have also asked of them to put together a health talk to one of their community groups so that I can see them in action. I have been taking pictures so that I can present all the work they have done to the mayors of their towns as well as the doctor (not sure if he really is going to care or not). This past week I gave a presentation to the women´s commission. The women´s commission works under the women´s office at the muni and they are women representatives from each Aldea – or towns that surround the downtown of Santa Maria Chiquimula. The presentation was about making a new promoter group. Since these women are already leaders amongst their community I thought this was a great place to start with soliciting for new health promoters. I have already had 2 women approached me, before this I gave this presentation, so I am encouraged to know that there are people out there that would like to participate. Within my current health promoter group, we established a governing council – president, vice president, etc. and this group really want my help in making them a legalized group within the muni –which is awesome! I´m not sure if anyone in my program before or currently were able to make their health promoters a legalized group. So I am excited for the challenge.

This past Tuesday I went into Antigua and I was able to turn in the grant application for USAID so I can start construction on the stoves for my women´s groups. The process to be able to turn in the paperwork was exhaustive, but I completed it! So I am very proud of myself. The muni and the community matched the amount of grant money USAID is going to give which is amazing. Also, since I was able to turn in the application before this fiscal year ends, I have the opportunity to build more stoves! So the plan is to start building in mid October and hopefully finish before I come home in December.

Today I just came from an aldea called Xesana and gave a first aid class for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. My Ki´che teacher asked me a while back if I would be able to give a first aid class to his students and also the 5th and 6th graders. Well… the first group of kids, the 4th graders were really receptive, loved immobilizing broken bones, dressing pretend wounds… it was just the 5th and 6th grade classes that were a pain. What I found while being here in Guatemala is that children here are not disciplined in the classroom, they can basically do anything. Well, for me that is incredibly annoying and disrespectful. So there were a group of little boys in the back laughing and talking, so I gave them a warning and told them if they were disruptive again they would have to leave. Then I legit had a flashback. I remembered the time my mom and I volunteered to teach Sunday school to 4 and 5 year olds. If you know my mother, she is a high school teacher. She deals with 14 and 18 year olds and you need to delegate with hand and fist. Well, I remember my mom, not intentionally, using her “hand and fist” teaching method with the 4 and 5 year olds. At some point during the morning, within like 15 minutes of each other, every kid needed to use the bathroom and on top of that every kid was doing something they weren´t supposed to be doing. It was just so funny because my mom was talking to them like they were high school students and of course they weren´t listening which made it more frustrating for my mom. Anyways, through the flashback I reminded myself this could potentially backfire if I tell these kids to not to do something when they´ve been able to do it in the past… well it did. After the warning they were even more disruptive and loud. Also – the teacher wasn´t around, very typical here. So I kicked the kid out and guess what, he refused to leave. But, it got the rest of the class to pay attention, but it also prevented them from wanting to volunteer… haha oops. I´m not sure what the outcome was with the Sunday school class, if my mom made them hold their pee or send them in the corner, but I learned today that sometimes to be in control might not always be the best in certain circumstances or situations. Eh, I´m so glad I have no desire to teach kids…. No offense mom, love you :)

Well… I think that completes this blog entry. Thanks for all who have donated! Keep the donations coming! www.healthyhomesguatemala.webs.com

The group heading out to Chuicaca.

Giving my "bienvenida" to the whole group in the salon.

Julia and Adrian with their group outside.

Natividad and Antonio translating the workshop.

Esther and Zane starting "Globulos Blancos" with their group in the salon.

"Globulos Blancos" activity - the lady is trying to force her way into the body!

"Soy Parasito" - "I am a parasite". He was by far the cutest parasite I have ever seen:)

Val and Travis.

Another breath-taking view of Chuicaca's landscape.

Me and the professional nurse, Natividad - I love her :)

Kate and Stephen giving a workshop in front of the town hall.

When there is no chalkboard... use a french fry stand instead!

The group with the mayors of Chuicaca.

Don Miguel - President of the Health Promoters of Chuicaca.

Our way back to Santa Maria Chiquimula.

Our "classroom" as we were giving the workshops - so beautiful.

The HIV/AIDS workshops are now completed! Friday I had 8 of my friends from all over Totonicapan come and help give the final HIV/AIDS workshop Friday to almost 300 people! The whole week couldn't have gone better and I can't thank the people who helped me give the workshops enough (Val, Zane, Stephen, Adrian, Kiki, Kate, Esther, Julia, Travis, Jerami, and Jesse) - without them this wouldn't have been possible, so thank you guys!!

Friday, we all pack in the back of a pick-up truck and made the hour long drive to the town of Chuicaca. When we arrived to the salon - the whole place was packed! It was so awesome to see how many people came out to listen to the workshop. What was amazing was how the whole community came together to make this workshop possible. The town hall of this town, the health post, the community leaders as well as the mayors from the central part of town came together to make this all possible. I was telling the volunteers that helped me that this would be such an awesome site for a volunteer and the community really would love to have a volunteer. This would be a dream site for any volunteer - people willing to work with you, organized, having the support of the community - I could go on! So I plan on talking to my boss in the near future to see if they would be able to set up a new site in this town for the next group of Healthy Homes volunteers that will arrive a year from now.

We were able to divide the people into 4 groups where 2 PC volunteers gave the workshop. Once the workshops were over they were gracious enough to provide lunch for us as well as diplomas! They were all so thoughtful and so incredible generous. When I stood up to thank the community and my friends I almost cried. It was a great day :)

For the whole week - we were able to HIV/AIDS educate about 600 people!

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Courtneay showing that "shaking hands" will not give you HIV.

Antonio, the health technician of Chuicaca, translating the poster in Ki'che

Condom demonstration.

Condom demonstration.

Making sure everyone can see.

Volunteers were asked to place their picture under "Yes, it gives you HIV" or "NO, it doesn't give you HIV"

Court and I giving a condom demonstration

An activity where participants were used to show how the body is protected by white blood cells and how the body is affected when it contracts HIV. This lady is representing "diarreah" and is trying to break through the body's immune system of white blood cells.

Another oppotunistic infection, this time "the common cold" is trying to break through the wall.

The beautiful people of Chuicaca

Giving an icebreaker to the participants.

This week I have had the opportunity to HIV/AIDS educate one of the towns in my municipality, Santa Maria Chiquimula. The town has roughly 8,000 people and is the farthest town in Santa Maria. By truck, it takes a little over an hour's drive - but through muddy roads and rough terrain.

I was approached a few weeks ago by the community to give a series of HIV/AIDS workshops due to an outbreak of new HIV cases. The mayor, the town representatives, teachers and health workers came together to see what they could do to help combat the fear of this virus. There were many rumos, myths and doubths that needed to be cleared and they asked if I would be able to help. My reply: Of course! That is why I am here! So within a matter of a few weeks I asked my fellow PCVs for their help in tackling the challenge of educating the town on HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness.

This Friday is the last day for the workshops - we have already finished 2 out of 3 workshops educating 3 out of the 5 villages that surround this town. Friday will be the last workshop that will cover the the central population of the town as well as 2 more villages. I have asked the help of 7 volunteers to help split the people into 4 groups - so I am crossing my fingers everyone goes well and that many people show up!!

So, I wanted to show you a glimpse of what we have been doing this week and look for a new post with Friday's pictures as well as how many people we were able to go to the workshop!

This past month I feel has gone by in a blur!!... A few weeks ago I celebrated the second 4th of July party in Peace Corps Guatemala. As always - it was a lof of fun! Besides the buckets of rain water that came that day - we were able to watch a World Cup game, eat delicious 4th of July BBQ, dance and enjoy the annual talent show where PC volunteers come on stage and show off their skills. There was also the socializing with old and new volunteers as well as welcoming the new group of trainees that will swear in this Friday! That means I have 1 more year left - I can't believe it. The 4th weekend is also a great way to unwind.... and man did we all need to do that. Being able to wear clothes you wouldn't normally wear in your site, speak English, enjoy a beer without fearing that someone may be watching you... but it also doesn't beat the 4th in the States - friends, family, fireworks - you were all missed very much this 4th of July. Until July, 4th 2011!!

This month has been full of excitement! I was able to spend a nice long weekend at Sanibel Island in Florida to celebrate my friends Ali and Steve Wilson's wedding. It was a very beautiful wedding on the beach. I have always been a little reluctant towards destination weddings, but this was definitely an exception. Everyone invited were able to not only enjoy their time on the island but they were able to share in such a beautiful wedding; the highlight of the weekend. Charles was the best man and he did such a wonderful job. His speech was very heartfelt and there were many tears shed for the kind words he gave Steve and Ali.

While I was in Florida I found out that a typhoon, Agatha, hit the coast of Guatemala filling the highways with mudslides and Volcano Pacaya decided to erupt! So my flight back to Guatemala was cancelled and I wasn't able to get back almost a week later! No complaints here because I was able to really take that time to relax and I was able to spend time with my family and Charles.

I have a year left in my service! My friends and I can't stop bringing it up - I think we are proud we've made it this far and we are all looking forward to what this year brings us. I am starting to study for my GREs.... I really should have taken them at home while I was waiting to join... ugh procrastination, lol. I hit the math section of this study manual and I have no clue what is going on, haha - high school math has definitely left my brain.

I am getting 2 trainees that are coming to stay with me this week, wednesday to saturday. They will be seeing first hand what it is like to work in the field as they will be following me around this week. I look forward to their company and having them see what Chiquimula is all about.

Fourth of July is around the corner! I can't believe it - I remember when I celebrated the 4th last year and I wasn't even a sworn-in volunteer yet. It reminds me of how much I miss the 4th in the states. I always loved the 4th of July - all the bbq's, the many families making a little sitting area to watch the fireworks, seeing old friends. I'm going to miss that :( The next time I will be home will be for Christmas and I am so glad I will be home for that! I missed the holiday spirit, the snow, my family - so only 5 months away!

Work is picking up - I am on my second month of health talks with my women's groups. And now I am starting to fundraise! Check out my website to help donate for my project! http://www.healthyhomesguatemala.webs.com/

I miss everyone :( I'm over the hump... almost home :)

This past weekend my training group and I celebrated our 1 year in Guatemala at San Marcos La Laguna, Solola. It is a little town off of Lake Atitlan. My friend Esther coordinated the whole trip and it was fantastic. Esther found this little hostel on top of a mountain totally wrapped in vegetation. The whole hostel just bathed tranquility, serenity and comfort. The hostel was much like a tree house where we all slept on 2 floors basically outside. You would wake up underneath a mosquito net and walk out onto an overhanged dock that looked out onto the beautiful lake. I would get up, walk outside, stand on the dock and just breathe in the fresh air and watch all the other early risers as they paddled away on their kayaks. I stayed 2 nights and each night I was able to share stories and enjoy the compay of my friends during an organically prepared vegetarian dinner that the owner of the hostel prepared and the other night, out-of- this world curry made from a Brit who built a restaurant at the lake in honor of his deceased daughter. At night we would all get together again, listen to music, enjoy the luxury of a cold beer and catch up. The last night we were at the lake I introduced a game called "garbage". On a trip I took to Florida with my girlfriends, my friend Katie taught me this game and since then I think its one of the greatest games to play when you have a lot of company. The rules: the group is divided into 2 groups. There are 3 rounds. Prior to starting the game each person fills out 3 pieces of paper (there is no rule on how many pieces you can fill out, the amount will dictate how long you would want the game to last). One the pieces of paper you can write anything you want. It can be a person, place, thing, description, something that doesn't make sense... anything. However, it is best to limit your thoughts/words to less than 5 words to each piece of paper. All the pieces of paper are then collected and placed into a bowl. A group is picked to go first and also a representative. This person has 1 minute to pick a piece of paper out of the bowl and get their team to guess what it says without using the words on the paper. When the minute is up, the next group goes. The round goes until all the pieces of paper are gone. Round 2: The same pieces of paper are folded and placed back into the bowl and this time a representative from the group can only use 1 word to describe what is on the paper and their group has to remember what the phrases/words, etc. were on the pieces of paper from round one. Round 2 goes on until all the pieces of paper are guessed. Round 3: This round you cannot speak, you have to ACT out what is on the piece of paper and your group has to remember what was said on each one of those pieces of paper. Round 3 is the most hilarious because some of the things that were written from each of my friends were completely ridiculous/hilarious. Examples: "Mr. Rodgers in a leotard", "Saggy Man Boobs", "Welcome to the Mustache Party", "Explosive Diarrhea", "Live concert", "Green Grass", "Twister on a Volcano", "Your Mom", "Airdale Terrier", etc. So you can imagine all the crazy/hilarious acting that went on that night. We were all laughing in tears!!

So now that I've competed a year... what are my thoughts? Well, I have a little more than 1 year left (15 months). I would have to say that my first year was really trying to get adjusted and situated. I was trying to find my niche. Have I found it, yes and no. I do predict though that this year will go by even faster and that my work load will expand. My goal for the next year is to be really busy. I think that was what was making the days go by and the thoughts of feeling like I wasn't accomplishing anything was due to the fact that I wasn't busy. I can sense the work growing and I am starting to feel like how I felt when I was in college working the the Student Foundation. I was constantly on the go, constantly working and I was so much more productive. I loved filling my days with work, having an adgenda and challenging myself. So I really do look forward to that. I think my experience will be that much more fullfilling.

This Thursday I give a big presentating to the mayor of my town about the work I am doing and the projects I plan on doing in the 3 communities that I've gone out to give a census on. I am not only presenting my data but I am also planning on asking him to give me money.... so we will see how that goes, eekk. I start giving health presentations to my familes this month and I was also able to get the support from a local NGO. They would like to help me translate my presentations from Spanish to Kiche to the women and have offered to provide learning materials based on the theme I want to present. So I am excited about that! I am also plannin on coordinating the with schools of these small communities. I would like to give little health talks to the children so that the health education is not only educating the women in their homes, but their children. This way my health education is more enforced and there is a better chance that the families with practice better health habits. I will also be doing house visits throughout the month to make sure the women are actually practicing the health habits I will be teaching them. I am excited about these because it will give me a chance to get to know the families on a more personal basis.

At the end of this month I have the pleasure of accompanying Charles to his best friend's wedding :) His best friend is getting married at Sanibel Island in Florida and Charles is the best man! So I get to look forward to seeing Charles again, celebrating a beautiful union and enjoying a nice weekend getaway :) Hopefully coming back to Guatemala this time from the States won't be nearly as hard as it was when I went home at the beginning of April.

I have a puppie. His name is Tuk (pronounced "Took") and his middle name is Chom which means gordo/fat in Ki'Che'. There are little taxis here called Tuk-Tuk's, but spelled Tuc-Tuc, anyways, when Chuck came to visit me he always made me laugh when he pronounced Tuc-Tuc, so that is where I came up with the name. So everytime I call Tuk, I can also think of Chuck :) Tuk is a Siberian Husky/Chow-Chow mix, so he took after his dad, who is a Chow, and is full of hair! So he is a very cute little guy. He keeps me company and he has already learned how to sit and lay down. Next is to get him to stop peeing in the house and chew on my shoes!! I am still shocked, me, Drea, who loved to live in tornado-styled rooms growing up... is maintaining a puppie. I will admit he was a complusive buy. I'm pretty sure I was thinking I could return him when he stopped being a cute puppie like a pair of shoes...oops. No, but he is a great puppie and he is a hit in my town! Everyone wants to buy him because he is such an interesting looking puppie. As I type this Tuk is currently licking my toes, thanks little man.

I just finished a week of Spanish class at the Peace Corps office, and I left poor Tuk by himself at the house and Zane my sitemate came and fed him. Let's just say I hope the room next door will air itself out from all the little surprises Tuk left in there thanks to all the rain that flooded my back patio. But, Spanish class went really well and I learned a lot! I moved up to an advance, basic level, so I moved up 4 levels since I arrived. So 2 more levels to go and I will be fluent (or somewhere around there), so I am really excited! I am leaving for the states April 1st!!! I am beyond exicted, I am so stir crazy I just want this week to be over. The week after this one starts La Semana Santa (Holy Week leading to Easter Sunday), so there will be tons of processions and many blocked roads, so I am hoping I will not have any difficulties getting to the airport. While I am home I am also going to be giving a presentation at my high school about the Peace Corps along with former PC volunteers who work as teachers at my high school. It will be held April 6th and will go through out the day with one big afterschool presentation for those students who are interested and weren't invited to the presentations during the day. Should be a long day... I am bringing back handmade make-up/pencil bags and friendship bracelets. A minimum donation of $3 gets you a bracelet and a $20 donation gets you the little bag. All proceeds go towards the families I am working with to help build stoves in their homes. The stoves will prevent the many repiratory diseases that unfortunately kill many children in my town. For more information about the housing situations of my families check out my previous blog. I am brining back 120 bracelets and 20 bags, if you think you would be interested in buying any for friends, coworkers, etc. let me know and I can always bring back more. Sadly, this past week the world lost a great man. I wanted to dedicate this blog entry to Jonathan Banks. I received a phone call Tuesday morning telling me of his passing and with his passing a part of my heart went too. Jon and I worked together at Brio and Jon was the Executive Chef. Jon came to work for Brio about a year or so from when I started working there and man, it didn't take long for the trash talking to start! Jon had a way of making sure you knew where you stood and if that meant making everyone feel completely awkward he knew he accomplished his goal... and he won that round. Every morning when I had to open the bar Jon never failed to say something totally sarcastic or totally inappropriate, or 9 times out of 10, both. He was the personality of the kitchen, and a personality that everyone knew so well at Brio. He might have been a strong force to reckon with, but Jon had a soft side. He started to date Jaime and you could totally see a different change. I remember he started to drink protein shakes, take vitamin supplements and compete with Bret and Tim on how many pull-ups they could do (and the eyes are rolling) and then I found out his little romance.... not saying the two were connected, but I'm just saying ;) Now knowing that he is gone it has been a rough week and at times a bit hard to swallow. Although I am not home and I haven't seen Jon in almost a year goes to show how much of his friendship made an impact on me. My heart goes out to Jon's family and friends and Jaime and know that my heart is hurting for your loss. No one so young should ever have to leave so early. My thoughts and prayers are for those affected that may God give you the strength to get through the pain and the wisdom to understand why God takes us away. Jon, I will always remember you, may you rest in peace.

The picture was literally taken from on top of a cliff. We had to climb down, cross that little plank you see there and then climb up another steep mountain to reach some of these homes.

Chiaj home.

One of the families interview, she has 7 children.

One of the poorest houses I whitnessed here in Chiaj. Here your can see the lack of walls, the open flame used to cook, the dirt floors, and sadly a little girl breathing in this air.

The outside of the house that was shown above.

Another example of what the kitchens look like here in Chiaj.

Starting this month I will be going around to 5 different communities around Santa Maria Chiquimula to conduct a census. The point of this census is to collect data on the living conditions in these poverty stricken communities and also to place on record where exactly these families live. The first community is called Chiaj (Chee-aah). There are about 40 families that live in this very remote part of Chiquimula. All of which are very poor. Thankfully, the municipalidad (town hall) has been gracious enough to provide transportation for myself, my counterpart and a representative from the muni that can help translate. Otherwise, we would be walking upwards of 8 hours to get to the community and back. And the sun is treacherous! It's not humid, it is just so hot. I am covered from head to toe so I don't literally bake in the sun (making sure I mention this so my mom doesn't worry). Also, to get to these houses you have to climb through the most interesting pathways... pathways carved out of the stone mountains, climbing up steep hills, walking through thick woods. It makes you wonder how these homes were built in the first place!

We still have about 8 more houses to cover and then we can start the selection process. I will be choosing 30 families in this community to give health talks once a month for close to a year to help educate them on health prevention. Ojala (God willing), I will be able to raise money for these families to build estufas mejoradas (better shoves) and the reason behind choosing only 30, not all the families want to participate and, more than 30 is too much for one person to train. Right now, with the exception of a few homes, all the families cook in an open flame inside their home. Due to this health hazard, there are a lot of respiratory illnesses especially in the young children that live within these homes and unfortunately some of these children die due to these preventable infectiones. Many of the homes we went to interview have upwards of 12 children living in a small, cramped, home made out of dirt and sheltered by laminated roofs. A lot of the children were very filthy, without shoes and were dressed in very tattered and worn-out clothes. Some of the families didn't even have bathrooms or running water.

I was very grateful to have my counterpart and the help from the muni because the people in these communities are very protected of their privacy and are very hesitant to give out information in fear that they are putting their family at risk. This past week has been a wonderful and sad experience. Knowing that in some way, small or big, I can help these families to the best of my ability and bring awareness to the poverty of Guatemala, but also the great sadness that there are people in this world that do live like this. So, I look foward to each day I can bring some sort of happiness to the poverished families of Santa Maria Chiquimula.

One community down, 4 more to go, 120 families that can be educated in health education and prevention. It puts a smile to my face :)

Valerie, my sitemate and I enjoying the parade from the stands.

The town gathering in the soccer field.

Reflextion from Val's sweet camera.

The beginning of the prosession, somewhere in that first group is the mayor... haven't met the man yet, lol.

Have to have clowns, a Guatemalan staple in parades.

The long line of floats waiting for the parade to start.

Another view from the other side.

I love this photo... little adolecent boys as cheerleaders! They were loving it! You would never see that in the states!

One of my favorites, a little drill team. Sp precious :)

The 10th of January until the 16th was Chiquimula's big town fair. It was basically the same as the town fair that happened in September, but everyone more or less made an appearance. There was a huge parade where all the schools participated and the parade ended in the soccer field. For 4 days/nights there was live music. If I could skip anything in the fair it would have been the live music. They start playing at 6 am and don't stop until about 2 am! My house is located on one of the main roads, and I am not kidding, my house was vibrating because the music was SO loud. Not one live band, but 3 in one plaza in front of the Catholic church. Is it necessary for 3?! I was very mad at myself for losing my ear plugs...

Looking forward 'til September, for more sleepless nights....

Zane giving "Argentina" their winning medals

Winning team, "Argentina"

Right before the penalty kick that made Argentina winners.

Zane, left; Stephen, right

My sitemate, Zane, who works in the town hall of our site, had an idea to start a soccer league with the children around Santa Maria Chiquimula. The league ran from November until December 21st. Zane, Myself and my other sitemates, Valerie and Stephen all helped to pull this league together. There were 4 teams and 4 games every week. Let's just say once the championship was over, I think we could all take in a deep breath of fresh air! Adolescent boys are a handful!! There were many a time when I wanted to wash their mouth's out with soap, but I won't get into that :) I love other people's children :)

The final game was actually pretty sweet. There was a tie and both teams had to take penalty kicks. The team favored to win actually lost and it was a very exciting finish!

Our next group project is a World Map. We plan on painting a mural of the world on a wall outside of the health center. Zane also wants to start the town's first library, so that will definifely help keep us all busy!!

My parents came, and then they left :( They were only here for a week but it was such a breath of fresh air to see my family. It really didn't feel like Christmas. There was no snow, no Christmas music on the radio stations that started well before Thanksgiving, no Santa Clauses or Christmas decorations on every street or in every store, no Christmas light decorating wars between houses... there really was no Christmas spirit. So even though Christmas is a little over 11 months away, I am really looking forward to it! (oh the things I look forward to these days...)

I don't have any pictures from my parent's visit because my dad took all the pictures, but when I do I'll post a few. Along with my parents came my 82 year old grandmother. She really impressed my health center staff. They couldn't believe she was still alive, haha! It has been weeks since they left and they still bring up my grandmother, lol. My grandmother and her Bible group also donated blankets and baby clothes to my health center and as a family we brought them over to the health center. Everyone was very grateful.

My family and I did a lot of shopping. My mom, grandma and I walked around through all the artisian markets and tried to bargain down prices and my dad usually walked elsewhere to take pictures or wonder around. At least, so I thought. My dad is probably one of the funniest people I know. With that being said, my dad would walk around and see who would try to sell him something, and the majority of the time he really didn't want to buy anything, he just wanted to see how low he could get the vendor's price down. About a few hours into our browsing, my dad shows up telling us that he has this vendor down to $35 on a blanket and thinks he can get it lower and wanted to show us. We walk over there and the vendor is selling this blanket like you wouldn't believe and all the while my dad is telling him in his Spanglish he wants "No, No, No. trienta!" (30). Also telling him in English we are going to walk away, cracking jokes with the guy.... it was pretty hilarious. I guess you had to be there and also know my dad. We ended up getting the blanket for $30. When he finally agreed on the price he was talking so low because he didn't want the other vendors to know how low he was selling this blanket. I was very impressed with my dad! I think my dad was too, so much so I think my parents went home with about 5 or 6 blankets. It was a running joke through out the whole trip. "Hey dad, that guy over there is selling a blanket, I think you need one for the imaginary guest bedroom we have in the house"

My parents went home the 31st and I spent New Years in Antigua with friends.

Baby blankets, stickers and toys for the babies and children at my health center.

This past week I had the chance to help my friend Kate, a PCV in my training group, with her camp. The camp was a week long with different themes everyday. About 450 kids signed up, so you can imagine the amount of work that needed to go into this camp. The camp was a great success and a lot of children benefited from participating. The last day the kids received t-shirts and there was a little party, unfortunately my bus broke down on the way to Kate's camp (go figure) and I wasn't able to go :( Overall, it was great to see other camps so I can get an idea of what I might want to do for next year.

I had my Project Specialist, Ana Isabel, come and visit me this past week. She had the chance to view the apartment I want to live in. The only problem is the cost. Even though I live in a pretty rural site, the amount of living here is almost ridiculous. Unfortunately, there are no places to live here in Chiquimula, so the cost of living here is doubled. So the plan is to move out the 1st of January. I know my host family doesn't want to see me leave, but I also need my space. I live in a really tiny room and I have no work space. There is also no place to wash my clothes because the sink is always filled with dirty dishes, so instead of taking my laundry to get it cleaned I can finally have a space to do it myself... mom would be proud :) Since this apartment is newly renovated I have to buy everything... bed, dresser, tables, chairs.... so I'll be broke for a while. For Chrismas, I asked my parents to buy me a bed... lol.

I received a package from my grandmother this past week. Granadmas really know what to pack, its like they have this sixth sense. Games, puzzles, magazine, chocolate, stapler (that was essential, I needed one!), clothes, socks, stickers, toys, key chain, hair clips.... everything I can use or donate. Also, my awesome grandma has been collecting baby clothes for my health center. Tomorrow I am going to present all the baby blankets I have so far to my professional nurse. They are building a new maternity wing to our health center. The baby blankets would be a great incentive for mothers to have their births here instead of having them at home.

This week I am really going to go full speed ahead with my work here. I think I have a pretty basic level of Spanish to start running my own groups, besides my Health Promoter groups. This week I am going to talk with my educators and have them pick out 4 groups they think would really benefit from my program, I am going to put up a flyer in the women's municipality office at the muni to see if women are interested in cooking classes, gardens, health projects, etc. I am goung to talk to the director of the health commission to see if he would like me to train men in small towns how to build stoves. I also really want to work with the midwives here. The past couple of months have been a bit stagnant, and my goal is to make 2010 a busy year! But we will see.... this is all in retrospect.

It is a beautiful, quiet, Sunday morning here in Santa Maria Chiquimula and it is going to be a blessed week!

Trying not to struggle through my Spanish...

My counterpart, Brenda and I

My Health Promoters and all the spectators right before the icebreaker!

The ribbons I gave to my health promoters during the workshop.

In honor of the 1st of December, I gave an HIV/AIDS workshop for my health promoters. I involved my counterpart, Brenda who is the rural health technician in my health center and my sitemate, Valerie.

Like many of my health presentations, you never know what to expect. Due to the lack of available space at my health center the meetings are normally held outside. This happened to be the case for this workshop. Well, for about the first 20 minutes of my workshop there were at least 70 people watching (people off the street, people waiting for consults)- we were pretty popular - which made the first icebreaker with my health promoters pretty hilarious:

The icebreaker is to get the participants confortable with the topic of the workshop, since we will be talking about sex, condoms, penis, vagina, homosexulaity, etc. The icebreaker is called "I wash my fruit" and starts with one person repeating a dialogue that we give them about how they wake up in the morning and 'clean themselves' so-to-speak. The dialogue goes like this in Enlgish: When I wake up, I wash my face, I wash my hands, and I wash my _____ (insert a type of fruit and the fruit represents a part of your body). So I said "peaches" and I pretended to wash my boobs :) Well.... when you have 70 people watching you, you can imagine the amount of laughter. People used banana as their penis, grapes as their scrotum, strawberries as their breasts, watermelon for their butt... it was so funny, they had a great time.

Overall, the workshop was a success. They were really motivated to try and get groups together in their community to participate in the same workshop. So I challenged them when we come back to meet again after the new year to give me at least one group that would be interested in hearing this workshop. So I am crossing my fingers that they pull through, I would love to stay busy and it would be amazing to spread the importance of HIV/AIDS education! Go Health Promoters!

My sitemates and I. Steven and Val (minus Zane)

Everyone anxiously awaiting for their gifts.

The whole group with our beautifully tacky sweaters.

You can't have Christmas without having an ugly sweater Christmas party! As part of welcoming the new volunteers, my department, Totonicapan, along with Solola, threw together a Christmas party in honor of Steven, the only new volunteer in Toto. Ironically enough, Steven's site is Santa Maria Chiquimula, which leaves 4 PC volunteers in my town! Gotta say, our site it pretty cool :)

We celebrated the party in Xela, the nearest city to Toto. We exchanged x-mas gifts through a "White Elephant" exchange. We weren't allowed to spend more than Q20 which is equivalent to $2.24. The most interesting gifts that night were probably a g-string thong, a hand held mirror with a picture of a chippendale-type half naked man on the back, plastic yellow contruction hat, and a nasty looking fruit cake.

There were baked cookies, egg nogg and pleanty of Guatemala's finest ugly sweaters!

Noah's Ark - Guate Style

All the children waiting for the parade to start

Cute little girl dressed as a clown, standing up in the back of a pick-up (safe, I know...)

All the Angels and Noah... can't have angels without Noah!

I experienced my first Evangelical Church experience. My host mother invited me to attend church with her and her girls. I went, a little reluctantly, only because once you form some sort of bond with a particular church here you are pretty much telling everyone in town what church you belong to and after my experience I think I'm stuck.

I have to say, I have never been in a church with so much sadness. After praise and worship everyone was on the floor crying, wailing, it was so sad I started tearing. I wasn't sure if the tears were for forgiveness, hardships or if that was how they worship here. To my surprise I understood almost all the sermon, I kept thinking to myself this would help with my Spanish. The best part was when they would say Amen, they pronounced it A-maine (like the state). I smiled from time to time at the odd sounding word because the enfasis was on the 'maine' part.

An embarassing part of my attendance was when the pastor introduced me to the congregation. Then he asked me to participat in a "caminatta", a parade. Well, I couldn't just say no. The more I think about it, I should have. This parade was for all the children in the church, to celebrate "all the lovely children of the world" so to speak. They asked me to be an angel. I think, no, I know I was the oldest "child" in that parade, and also the tallest. I walked all around town, dressed in all white with angel wings. On top of that the pastor had a sound system on his van and was using a microphone to announce to the town that I was an American working at the health center... if I already didn't stand out enough. There were a few times when I contemplated running down a side street or using the excuse I "need to use the bathroom" and never come back. Well, I didn't. But as soon as it was over I went home and retired my angel wings :)

Overall, the parade was really cute. The kids were dressed from anywhere from princesses, ducks, clowns, rabbits, lions, and the majority were put inside a pick-up truck decorated as Noah's Ark. I'm not sure yet if I'll call this my church, I guess you could say I'm still looking... but it was definitely an experience!! A-maine!!

The group minus 3, and minus the Guatemalan at the end :)

Our T-Day "family" that evening

We were bored and decided to make up "Guatemalan Interpreted Dances" I won, haha. It was really stupid, but I acted out giving birth, breast feeding and having "my baby" on my back. I was representing all the women who have babies here and their "phases" of child bearing.

Well.... Thanksgiving has come and gone. As much as I was missing all the traditional T-day food, my fellow PC friends and I were able to make do of our version of a Guatemalan Thanksgiving. We were able to hash out stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn bread, mashed potatoes, apple pie, rice, veggies.... and turkey!! Yes, we ate turkey :) My friends Ferney and Phil bought a turkey and to the best of their ability, plumped that sucker up. I remembered a story my mom told me when she lived in Peru. She told me they would feed their turkey beer to help marinade the meat before being slaughtered. Well before I could actualy find out the logistics to this new phenomenon my friends called, they started months before Thanksgiving.... come to find out that my mother's family only started 3 days prior... lol. Well, the turkey had the ride of his short lived life, one that he probably never remembered :) The turkey was a nice 13 pounds. The turkey was sent to the bucher and then my friend gutted and sewed up the turkey herself... gross. Another reminder we are in Peace Corps.

There were 10 people that came for this dinner.... by the time we were about to serve dinner, there were 25. While we were preparing dinner everyone was enjoying wine, relaxing, excited to eat "American Food" and earlier that day Ferney invited his host family for dinner. Well when you invited someone's family, you invite your WHOLE family. Let's just say the wine kicked into a lot sooner and we were all quietly freaking out that we didn't have enough food. We put out heads together and told ourselves we would probably not be eating dinner tonight... much our dismay. If I wasn't laughing so hard at this sudden change of scenery I might have shed a tear. I whipped up a famous American Tradition called Onion Rings.... the thought behind this was that they wouldn't know and it could serve as a plate filler :) Everyone manned their stations: turkey, rice, salad, potatoes, veggies, gravy, rice, onions rings and we formed our very own "Thanksgiving Soup Kitchen". Instead of "this is so good, what great turkey, pass me some more potatoes" you heard "salad me!, turkey me!, rice me!, that is way too much gravy!, we are missing a potato person!, where is my wine?!" Needless to say given our circumstances, we all ate that night, and we were all stuffed! It was totally the story with the boy with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread! God was good :)

We were a little miserable...

Admiring the view...

Looking into oblivion...

Tallest people in Central America!!

Me against the sun.

The crater of the volcano!

Another volcano behind us and the sun casting a shadow.

Here comes the sun....

The sun is slowly coming out...

All the volcanos in the distance and one erupting!

Waiting for the sun to rise freeezzing!

Above the clouds!!

Chuck and his huge bag!

The group walking towards the volcano.... through the clouds....

So after leaving my site, we made our way to the nearest city called Quetzaltengango or Xela (sheyla) for short. We treated ourselves to Mcdonalds and I don't think we ever had better service ever at a McDonalds! They pumped your ketchup for you, pre-bussed tables, running in and out of the bathrooms making sure they were clean... all American McDonalds were put to shame. I think Chuck was even looking for future Brio staff :)

The next morning we headed to San Marcos to hike Valcano Tajumulco! The tallest peak in Central America! It was definitely a difficult hike. Carrying what felt like 100 pound bags for 4 hours to base camp. Then settting up camp in freezing cold weather. To say we had a good night sleep would be like saying eating a whole pint of Haagen Dazs was healthy for you. First it was freezing, and during the night condensation formed inside the tent, so if you moved you would get splashed in the face with water... ugh, it sucked. So we all woke up at 4am to finish the rest of the hike in pitch black darkness. When we got out of our tents and looked up at the sky, wow.... I have never seen so many brilliant stars in my life! It was so amazingly beautiful!! When we got to the top it was freezing and we all waited for the sun to rise. No words can describe how amazing the view was. You really felt like you were on top of the world. Unfortunately I didn't charge my camera battery, I actually left the battery charger at my host family's house, so I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted. But when the sun started to rise, it was amazing....

After the hike we headed back to Antigua and then Chuck left that Wednesday.... :( Overall, the trip was amazing and I'm so glad Chuck was able to come and visit me!!

Volcano San Pedro from the hotel.

One of the balconies at the hotel.

Trying to take a picture with the volcano in the background.

Chuck taking off!

Coming down the zip-line!

In our zip-line gear ready for business!!

So after our dreadful overnight bus ride, a 2 hour or so wait at the stinky bus station, an hour bus ride to Antigua and then another 3 hour bus ride to the Lake.... we might have been a little crabby. I had a problem at first with explaining everything that we were doing to Charles, as well as translating... so adding lack of sleep, and frustration, I'm pretty sure Charles has images of drop kicking me to the floor.... thankfully he didn't. I got better though! It was weird to have a visitor, or anyone for that matter that I had to explain everything to because I've been so used to people being in the same boat as me. So this was a learning experience for me as well... so next time he visits my Spanish will have improved and I'll be a better tour guide.

We stayed at a beautiful little place called Casa del Mundo that was only accessable by boat. Each night they served family styled meals where you were able to meet everyone that was staying at the same hotel. We met some really great people from all over... France, Canada, Holland, various US States... and the food was always really good! We were also able to meet up with my sitemate Valerie, who was supposed to stay with us at the same hotel, but the reservations were mixed up. Both Chuck and I, Val and her friend went to a nature reserve and zip-lined through an old coffee farm/beautiful jungle-like scenery (not really sure what to call it being so close to the lake).

Chuck and I did some exploring at some of the little towns around the lake and then we headed to my site, Santa Maria Chiquimula where we had lunch with my host family. Unfortunately, we arrived too late and we were only there for a few hours. He also wasn't feeling too well... after a long 3 hour trip from the lake and then taking a pick-up for an hour to my site while winding in and out of the mountains...

And I also found out that Chuck is a seriously better bargainer than I am... I am totally a wuss. Chuck had no shame. But he got some great Christmas presents out of it!!

Standing on top of one of the ruins. One of the many great views of Tikal.

Charles holding the taranchula! Guiding it up his arm!

The poor litte Chiwawa all by itself in the middle of the Flores airport.

Charles and I getting on the plane to Flores!

TIKAL!!! What more can I say?! This place was definitely a great wonder of the world. We decided to take a plane to Flores... a last minute decision which I think saved us a good amount of sleep deprivation, but then that changed when we took an overnight bus from Flores to the capital... more about that later.

Flores was about 1 and 15min from Tikal. It is a small little town in the center of a lake. It was a very quiet, cute little town, almost too quiet. We stayed in a pretty cool hostel. We met people from all around the world staying there. You had the option of renting hammocks, communal rooms or little tree houses. There was no hot water, but it was so humid there it wasn't needed. They had a restaurant and travel agency within our hostel which was definitely a bonus.

We arrived at the Flores airport and while we were getting our luggage we both couldn't help but notice a little chiwawa on top of all the luggage. We watched how everyone grabbed their belongings and eventually the poor guy was left in the middle of the airport, in his little carrying case. Probably one of the funniest/cutest things. So we took a picture :)

We found out that if you went to the park after 3 pm your ticket was still valid for the next day. So we took a little bus at 3 pm to the park and walked around the main square of Tikal until 5:30. It was definitely amazing! There were no people around so we were able to explore without all the tourists and take pictures without people in the background. However, on our way back to the parking lot we got lost! We both were freaking out, Charles thought we would be sleeping in the jungle and I thought we would never get back to our hostel and the whole trip was going to be ruined! Well... we made it out... in pitch black darkness. We "enjoyed" a nice bus ride back with an angry French couple and we found out later we almost ran over boa contrictors :) But our driver was pretty awesome. We were pretty sure he knew everyone in town. He reminded me of a taller, grey-haired Danny Divito who spoke Spanish and needed to pull up his pants every 5 minutes... and probably shower.

The next day we got up really early for our guided tour of Tikal. We had a young, dynamic, tour guide named Borris. He like to call us "Mis Chavos" or "My friends" and every time he talked it was full of animation and full of information, so much sometimes I just stopped listening and enjoyed watching him get so into his explanation. He was great. We were able to climb almost every ruin and we definitely took tons of pictures. One of the first things we saw on our tour was a taranchula! It was pretty nasty... and Charles and I held it! This of course after it took a dump on one of the Australian tourists. It was definitely a beautiful experience (not the spider, Tikal), one I know we both will never forget.

Later that night we took an overnight bus ride to Guate. This bus was so small, it was small for me, imagine how uncomfortable it was for Charles!! There was no way to get comfortable. Needless to say we were both slap happy during our 7 hour ride. At different points during the trip I would wake up to Charles pointing out the window because the bus stopped and it appeared as though they were loading illegal cargo onto the bus due to random people running to and from the bus to a nearby alley. Then I woke up half asleep to turn my head and find myself face to face with a man sitting on a stool in the middle of the aisle. Charles later told me he ended up laying newspapers on the floor and fell asleep. We got off at a sketchy bus stop in Guatemala City... where people were sprawled out on the floor or couch dead asleep, nasty bathrooms and dirty old men. The shuttle was late, but it came... and took us to Antigua where we took another shuttle (after I made everyone late by getting coffee... the bus driver was none too thrilled with me and on top of that no one opended the windows! it was so hot on that bus!) to the lake. Our 12 hour trip definitely made us really cranky and poor Charles ended up getting sick. Good thing we were at the lake for 3 days...so we took a much needed day off the first day we were at the lake.

All the coffee trees which are being shaded by trees... one of 2 ways to grow coffee.

The coffee bean inside the red berry.

A Picture of a coffee tree... the red berries mean they are ripe and ready to be picked!

A picture of what the coffee tour looked like.

Charles reading the info about how coffee originated before our tour.

Well... Charles came, and he went... I will definitely be on the sad train for a while. I was definifely a spoiled little puppy :) Going from 3 full meals a day to my standard oatmeal and cornfalkes for breakfast and one fried egg for dinner will definitely take some adjusting. Then by the time I'm adjusted my parents will have arrived and I'll have to start all over again :)

The trip was nothing short of amazing! Poor Charles, I ran him to the ground. We went all over Guatemala and the traveling definitely took its toll on his health a few times. We started the trip with a coffee farm tour. I think Charles liked that, being the coffee lover he is. We were able to see how they grow, harvest and mass produce coffee. Guatemala I believe is #6 in coffee exports.

After the coffee farm we took a music tour. Basically a tour of all the different intruments that have been used and originataed in Guatemala. At the end of the tour we saw a video of the different departments of Guatemala and it showed how they use the intruments for ceremonies, fairs and holidays.

After the 2 tours we went to visit my host family from training. Charles gave them banana bread as a gift and we ate a yummy chicken dish. Charles and I should have switched plates because I got the bigger piece of chicken... I also learned that this wasn't his first time eating corn tortillas...

Well.... kinda. My host mother, bless her heart, is a woman of many talents. Besides making 500 tamales she bakes and decorates cakes. After taking about 10 classes or so of cake making she is ready to take on the world of baking! Her cake making methods are baking the cake in an oven, tracing charactertures on rice paper and using pre made frosting to color them in, then literally throwing coconut shavings and spinkles anywhere and everywhere until the cake looks like a little kid's art project. So, she took on a huge baking project: making 4 cakes for a 1 year old. So I gladly helped, and I have to say... I've never seen her cakes look this good.... mind you, there is a little bit of her cheesiness lingering, but it was a blast making these cakes! It took up about 6 hours to finish!

So part of my work here in Guatemala is to train health promoters. Basically they are volunteers who are an extension of my job. When I'm not in the health center, or the health center is closed and too far away for medical care, these health promoters are trained to act as a liason between the people in their town and the health center. Right now I am training about 20 health promoters ranging from the ages of 16 to 45, both men and women. I train these health promoters once a month over various health themes. Yesterday, Friday, I had my nutrition themed workshop. Usually the health promoters are split between 2 days, but everyone decided to meet Friday. Anna, another PC volunteer who lives about 30-45 mins from me came to help me out. There is no room in the health center to hold my health promoters so we set up the presentation outside. Well.... it was hot that day. Anna did an icebreaker and then I followed by making a "Live Olla" which is Guatemalan's version of the US' food pyramid. I went ahead and bought everything I could think of as far as fruits and vegetables, rice, beans, eggs, cheese, corn, butter... everything that my town could buy in the local market. Then I had every HP pick 3-4 items and told them to put them in their designated group (energy, growing, protection). Afterwards, when I felt they could place any type of food in either one of those categories I taught them how to read nutrition lables. Yea... a little complicated, but I told them only a few places to look and made it easy for them (ex: look at how many portions, fat, sugar, vit/mins). I also gave them examples of popular canned drinks and bagged chips that the children and adults like to drink and told them how many spoonfuls of sugar as well as how much fat was in each item by using a stick of butter. Well... they were shocked! There is one little bag of chips here, only 14 g in weight that almost contains one stick on butter!! How gross. Then I made them little ribbons with little dash marks so they can measure the children in their towns for malnutrition. The children need to be more than 1 years of age and by measuring the middle part of the upper arm they will be able to determine if these children need help. After all this I cooked for them! I made pasta salad with veggies, cheese, oil, vingar, salt and pepper (very simple... they love using mayo here). I also made apple sauce and french toast. They loved the french toast! Needless to say after all that, and being in the sun for 4 hours... I had a huge headache and was exhausted. But, I was thrilled because I was done with work and I have a great vacation to look forward to!

10 Days from today my wonderful boyfriend, Charles, will be visiting me in Guatemala! He will be here for 13 days! The first 3 days we will be in Antigua. Saturday we are going to take a tour of a coffee farm (for the coffee fanatic in Chuck :) Then we will have lunch with my host family at their home. Sunday we made reservations at a 5 star restaurant called Panza Verde (Green Bellied) to celebrate our 1 year anniversary! Monday we wake up at 4:00 am to make a 8-9 hour bus ride to Tikal, Peten. Here we will see all the Mayan ruins! (this is where they filmed Apacolypto). Early morning Weds. we will make another long trip to Panajachel, Solola and stay at the beautiful Lago Atitlan for 3 days (we'll need a lot of relaxation after that looong bus ride and waking up really early or the past 3 days). Saturday we will leave the lake and make our way to my site, Santa Maria Chiquimula, where he will see my town and we will have lunch with my new host family. They are all excited... they are going to make caldo for him (it is this awesome soup they make here!) We will then head back to Xela and meet up with a bunch of my friends to prepare for our volcano hike. Sunday and Monday we will be hiking the tallest peak in Cental American, Volcan Tajumulco! It is something like 2 miles long! We head back to Antigua Monday night , relax Tuesday, then Charles is off Weds. morning :(

This is a MUCH needed vacation! I am definitely looking forward to resting my brain from thinking in Spanish and just enjoying the beauty of Guatemala :) Then a month after Charles leaves, my parents will be here for Christmas!!! So excited! So I am counting down the days and hours until Charles gets here, so sooon!

So hopefully I'll be able to upload those videos this weekend, and I PROMISE!... I will be updating my blog more frequently.... I have no excuse!

This past weekend I hiked a mountain in the town of one of my fellow PC Volunteers - Phillipa. She lives about 2 hours away from me. The mountain was called Tena (Tenah), I forget what it stands for. The hike took about 4 hours. It was a pretty steep incline to the top. It was a nice workout :) Nov. 15 & 16 I'll be hiking Volcano Tajumulo, the tallest peak in Central America with friends and Charles! I can't wait!

Well for those of you who follow Facebook. I've uploaded pictures from our health center deparment-wide beauty pageant and from the Quetzaltenango soccer game. The health center beauty pageant was pretty nuts. It was basically like Miss America but with live fireworks (in the building) and women that don't smile. My health center came in 3rd. The soccer game was pretty awesome. They are called the Xelaju (Shay-la-who). Over the weekend I'm going to try to upload videos from those 2 events with a better internet connection so you can all see how crazy this stuff can be!

In September my own had one of their 2 town fairs. This one was the smaller of the two. Vendors come all over to sell anything from plastic toys to weird deserts. One of the highlights of the fair was the live music. There is a huge white Catholic church in my town that has a fairly large courtyard. There were 2 stages set up with 2 bands (both playing at the same time, of course). BUT! What threw me off and kinda freaked me out were the people dressed in weird masked-costumes dancing in a roped-off stage in from of each band. People were gathered around all the dancers watching them dance. SO.... my next goal is to be one of those masked dancers for our next town fair. I would be dancing for 5 days, from 8am until 6pm in some freaked-out costume! Then the last day there is this big unvieling! My sitemate, Zane, who works in the town hall said he would ask around... I'll let you guys know :)

So I've been meaning to update my blog and realized I've waited over 2 months to do that... clearly a lot has happened, so for however long it takes, I'm going to try to fill everyone in! I swear I'm going to get better at this!

August 26, 09

I came back for lunch at my host family's to find Patty, live-in cook, maid/cousin, hauling a huge sack of potatos into the kitchen. Why? My host mom, Estella, said she would make 500 potato tamales for the local school for a snack. Let me tell you, this tamale-making is definitely an endeavor.

What was needed:

*500+ potatoes, boiled, peeled then made into mashed potatoes

*Few pounds of tomatoes, onions, butter, oil (probably something else, I forgot to ask), blended together to make the sauce

*1,000 banana leaves made into pairs of one large and one small leaf

*dried corn leaves to make the string the tie the tamales together

*500 hot peppers

*20+ lbs of meat

*mix the potatoes and sauce together in a huge tub

*scoop out a big spoonful of potato mix, place in the 2 banana leafs, add a pepper, add a piece of meat, fold banana leafs and tie.... then place into a huge pot

I had a few for lunch today and they were awesome. Probably the best tamales I've had since I've been here. They started at 1:30 pm and didn't end until 4:00 am.... crazy!

Experienced my first foreign soccer game, the Xelaju (che-la-who) soccer team of Quetzaltenango! It was pretty awesome. Our seats were kinda crappy but we were in the "cheering section". The game opened up with "Tigo" girls (dressed provocatively, of course) throwing our free prizes, all sorts of fireworks and then tons of chants. Thanks to our NY Times photographer and jounrnalists Kiki and Kati, we were able to score some pictures on the infield.... and became friends with the Western Highlands Tigo representative known formally as Juan Fransico "Pancho" Ramirez, now oficially by popular demand known as Don Juan. The "Don" drove us classy ladies around in his white volvo and for the 20 min. car ride, for a split second, we felt pretty cool. Thanks to Papa Don we will never have to pay for another Xelaju home soccer game and if we play our cards right.... maybe unlimited Tigo minutes.... but I'd settle for t-shirt. Ahh yeah.

So I gave a health presentation in front of 15 teachers, administrators, health professionals, etc. at my town muni. The meeting went well, teachers asked for my information so I could possibly start nutrition classes in their classrooms and I got word that they wanted me to give the same presentation the next day. Well.... not exactly. I show up with a health educator from my health center and one of my doctors and there are like 500 people here. They are having a food promotion with soy protein, pasta, atol, tomato sauce... and each food was represented by a company. Basically a local NGO put this promotion together and due to free food and a raffle the whole town showed up... well it felt like it to me. On top of that everyone in that room spoke Quiche, so there goes my health presentation. So between the cheesy in-between act fillers (teenage boys lipsynching and dancing terribly to mariachi-type singers decked out in tacky suits and large sombreros) I had to use the bathroom, of course. I had to use the public bathroom in the town market. Pretty much you are guaranteed to leave the bathroom with your pants soaked in pee and crap. Forget the smell. Needless to say that was awesome. I get back to find out the presentation started and my health educator was looking for me.... I felt bad, but it was either cross my legs in pain on stage or sacrafice the health of my feet (I was wearing sandals, go figure) and smelling like pee. Well, the presentation went well but when someone tells you to give the same presentation the next day it could either be 15 people or 500, you never know here.....

My health center had a parade to celebrate the month of breastfeeding. About 300 women from all over Chiquimula came to participate in this parade. It was actually pretty cool. At one point during the presentation part one of the health educators asked all the women to start breastfeeding their babies and then asked me to take pictures.... since I've been here I've probably seen nearly 50% of all the women's boobs here. Boobs are like smiles here, you show them for the whole world to see... at church, on the bus, while talking, walking, eating, holding your other child's hand, maybe have someone else's kid see, maybe even test out.... there are no rules here for boob modesty. So if you really like your boobs and like showing people but can't in the states in public, hop on a plane and we can air those puppies out.

Anything that flies and sucks on blood has had a piece of me. When I go to sleep at night I put on layers: socks, wool socks over the socks with my pants tucked in, t-shirt tucked into my pants and a long sleeve shirt... and I still manage to wake up with bites. AND they itch like you wouldn't believe. There are days when I scratch my legs for a good 20 mins. Then after the bites they turn into bruises, it is awesome. I am hoping whatever scent I am giving off will stop soon, it is getting a bit ridiculous :(

Well, I have been in site for almost a month. So far so good. It is a very small town, quiet, tranquil and the people are nice. I'm still have some difficulty with the language, but it is getting better as the weeks go by. Eventually I will start learning the Mayan language, Qui'che.... it is the second and dominating language in my site but first I need to understand Spanish. Here are some pictures from my cite, Santa Maria Chiquimula, Totonicapan!

I have been In Guatemala for over 2 weeks now. I still can’t believe I am in a different country. I’m not sure if I feel like I’m on vacation or in a different town in Ohio. Today was the first day all Peace Corps Trainees met at a local bar/restaurant called Mono Loco. We are told this place is a popular hangout spot for Peace Corps Volunteers. I ended up leaving early because I wasn’t feeling well. That morning I remember feeling really tired and then my muscles started hurting. Later in the day I felt dizzy and even more tired. By the time I met everyone at Mono Loco I felt like total crap. I felt drunk (which I wasn’t) and I wanted to puke. I left knowing I wasn’t going to get better and then taking a 20 minutes bus ride home was an adventure all on its own. First, I had to flag down the bus which was leaving, and they don’t stop, so I ran like an idiot American to the bus. Once I got on all the seats were full and everyone stared at me trying to see if I would make them squeeze into their seat. It is totally common for 4 people to squeeze into a single school bus seat and then have someone sandwiched in the aisle with the other 4 people squeezed in the seat next to them. Anyway, I found a seat with a mother and her 2 kids. The whole time, while I was trying not to get whip lash from the driver’s need for speed, I was trying not to ram my head into the baby sitting on its mother’s lap. I finally got off, and for a split second I forgot I was sick due to the thrill of being off that bus. I went home and crashed. It is hard being sick in a foreign country due to the language barrier. In the states I can say I’m not feeling well and I’ll go to bed, here they ask a million questions and when you’re sick the last thing you want to be thinking about is trying to explain to them if I have had diarrhea, thrown up or how long I have been sleeping. I’m pretty sure during that conversation I started talking to myself in English. I’m feeling better today, but I’m still tired and my stomach still hurts. I think I’m going to have to brace myself for a big bout of diarrhea. My favorite.