During our Close-of-Service Conference in August, Peace Corps asked us to submit a "6-Word Memoir" which was a fun and unique way to express our sentiments about our service in the most succinct way possible. With some help from a friend, I was able to narrow down a rather long thought into six words: Becoming the person who "did that". What I meant by this is that there are many people out there who may have thought about doing Peace Corps, but for one reason or another never applied, or never followed through with the application process. Then there are many Volunteers who never make it the whole two years, whether for personal issues, medical problems, or for Admin making the decision for them that they should go home. So actually reaching this moment feels like a success for so many reasons.

Tomorrow I board the plane for the US, and I have so many mixed feelings. I've been here in Antigua for the last few days, working on my final reports, receiving all the signatures necessary to officially terminate my sevice, and eating insane amounts of food and ice cream. But leaving Chiantla was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced. Saying goodbyes to people who have treated me so well, who have been such great colleagues, who have included me in their families, who have inspired me, who have frustrated me...let's just say that in those moments of expressing gratitude, all bad feelings slipped away and I just felt blessed for this experience I've had and the people who made it what it was. They are people of all ages. My closest friends here have been 8 years old, 10 years old, 22 years old, 60 years old. And they have been the best, most fun company, and have taught me more than I could have ever imagined.

I recall the first time that I visited my beautiful town, how I fell in love with the mountains and gorgeous scenery and envisioned myself doing great work just like the volunteer before me. I waited that night for my boss to return to the hotel where we were staying in Huehue, and once he came through the door, I sat him down and begged him to send me to Chiantla. It was the best decision that I've ever made! Even in my most angry, frustrating moments, I always found tranquility and comfort in the beauty that surrounded me. That town has become like my second home and I am going to miss it terribly!

Out of this experience, I hope to be a better and more responsible person and global citizen, to dedicate my life and career to improving the lives of others, to be more environmentally, politically, socially, and economically consciencous. And to keep in mind what I saw, experienced, and felt here. It's strange (and a little guilty) to think that I'm excited to do things like buy a new computer and new clothes and new everything on return to the states, things I feel I "need" when most of the people I've served in this country couldn't fathom purchasing these things even over a lifetime. Now returning to the US, I hope that you, my family and friends, hold me accountable to that, and to remind me of what I went through in this country when I get stressed or frustrated with things back in the US.

Was this experience what I imagined it would be? Perhaps. Before I left the US, I envisoned "roughing it", having my own dog, having my own avocado tree (which was never the case, although I was tempted to adopt dogs/puppies more times than I'd like to admit). I never thought I'd sometimes be as cold as I was. That I'd collect so many fleabites. That I'd spend so many hours on buses. That I would have such a nice apartment. I did hope that I'd form relationships and friendships that would make my experience special and last a lifetime, and that goal/expectation was fulfilled to a level that I could have never imagined.

People always say how quickly the 2 years went by, but I don't necessarily share that feeling. I came to this country, knowing so little, and two years later it feels like home. I had to learn how to take the buses, how to buy food in the market, how to store water in dry season, how to communicate with people in a way that would make them want to work with me, the list goes on and on. And when I think about "back home" and how much things have changed, it definitely makes me feel that the 2 years went by, not-so-quickly. Andrew and Stephanie's photo albums went from puppy pictures to baby pictures. I no longer receive email updates about my grandmother, since she is no longer with us. My clothes that I packed in August 2009 have now been completely destroyed. I literally have one pair of jeans left that don't have holes everywhere, and they have become paper thin that I hope they can survive the plane ride tomorrow.

Some of my favorite memories here in Guatemala were shared with people back home. Eating helados locos with Becca in Chiantla's central park, visiting the coffee farm with Mom and Dad, climbing the ruins at Tikal with Alex and Fiorella, celebrating my birthday at the Lake with Aunt Patti, Uncle Kenny, Michelle, and Jeff, hiking a volcano way into the clouds with Stefanie and Jason, giving a baking class with Aaron and Alaina, and eating french fries with Elizabeth, Kimberly, and all my little friends under the age of 10...sharing my life here with those back home has been one of the most fun and rewarding parts of my service. Also, being able to travel to the US twice, visiting David in Panama and Mexico, and relaxing on the beach in Honduras have helped me to escape from Guate, unwind, and return with a greater appreciation for what I'm doing here.

Between these wonderful visitors and vacations, I worked hard and feel very content with what I've done here. I think that sometimes, we PCVs like to toot our own horns and brag about the projects and activities that we do. But the last week in my town and the words that people expressed to me have really taught me that the intangibles are the most important outcomes that we could achieve here. Hearing the women in my literacy class say that I taught them how to value themselves as women and have more self-esteem, that my counterpart now understands what "development" really is...those are words that I will never in my life forget. Working in the campo made me feel alive and connected to human beings that couldn't be more different from me in some ways. And being surrounded by Peace Corps Volunteers who are quite a unique breed is something that I will also really miss. The fact that we can can get together, talk for hours about our work and funny stories and stomach amoebias, not judge each other when we show up somewhere in completely mismatched and dirty clothes, and eat dinner off tupperware lids, well that's just something you don't share with friends back in the US too often!

Thanks again to everyone who supported me in this journey. And please be patient with me when I can't stop saying "Well in Guatemala..." "When I was in Guatemala.." and speaking in random Spanglish :) See you all soon!

The folder that our boss presented us on the day that we received our site assignments. I wanted Chiantla so badly and was so nervous that I barely slept for days before!

A video that some friends surprised me with at a despedida (going-away party)

In three weeks, I will be back in the US. It is an incredible feeling; every time that I've sat down to update this blog, and reflect on life's most recent sentiments and events...and what that has been like for the last 25 months. My thoughts right now are all over the place, but that's not surprising considering that Peace Corps is really just one giant 2 year emotional rollercoaster. If I could describe my PC experience in one word, it would be "intense" - intense happiness, intense sadness, intense excitement, intense boredom. There have been times that I felt like my work was incredibly meaningful, and other times that I was ashamed at how incredibly unproductive I felt. We recently had our Close-of-Service Conference, where Peace Corps put us up in a nice hotel, fed us really well, and made us sit through many sessions, some of which hurt my abs from laughing so hard, others which brought tears to my eyes, and others that had me wondering how much longer until our next coffee break. Long story short, in our Municipal Development program session, our amazing director gave a really nice speech and told us that he was proud of us and knows that we all did our best. And it made me wonder. Did I really do my best here? Did I really try as hard as I could? I'd like to say that I did...but what about all those days that I went to work 1+ hours late? Or the weekends that I barely left my house and watched Greys Anatomy for hours on end? But I realize that while I may not have used my time to be the one hundred percent culturally integrated, 24/7 on the job-type of volunteer that Peace Corps likes to portray, I did a damn good job in Guatemala. I spoke to hundreds of women about human rights, domestic violence, family and womens health, self esteem, the list goes on. I taught women who didn't even know how to hold a pencil how to write their names. My voice entered family homes every week through my radio show. The list could go on. But over time, I have learned to value the importance of intangible as well as tangible successes. Although not without frustration...

Recently, I had one of those frustrating work moments that made me just want to throw up my hands in despair. I was planning an upcoming radio show with my counterparts; the theme for that week was menstruation (which as I've stated before, is something that barely any women here are educated about). I thought it would be really interesting to do a "myths" segment, since I've heard some crazy myths here - such as: you can't bathe while you have your period, can't drink cold water, etc. So, as we're writing down myths that come to mind, I exclaim, "oh! What about that one that says you can't prepare atol de elote (*delicious* hot corn drink) when you have your period?" and my counterparts were like, "oh but Carita, that is true!" I looked at them with that very obvious "are you f-ing kidding me?" look, and they go on to say, "atol de elote es muy delicado." Ok, so what about it being an easy drink to screw up during the preparation has ANYTHING to do with menstruation?? In the end, I stood my ground, and said "I won't want to offend your culture's beliefs, but I also don't want to give false information on our radio show."

On our most recent radio program, we commemorated El Día del Imigrante by inviting a local man and woman to participate and share about their experience going "mojado" (illegally) to the US - and what they feel that immigration's effect on women and families is, since our program focuses on those groups. Their stories, like many stories I hear from people who endure the hardship and sacrifice to go to "El Norte", were heartbreaking, but touched me in a different way, because they were professing their adversities and stories to a live audience. Doña Estela was crying as she said that her family begged her every day for 6 years to come home, and that things haven't been the same since she left. Don Fredy said that it took him 45 days to cross the border, and he regretted it every moment, especially since he wasn't able to bathe himself even once during that time. They said that the hardships that they endured are something they would never wish on anyone. We finished the hour and I had a heavy feeling in my heart. Not a single day in Guatemala has gone by that I don't remember how fortunate I am.

One of the most fun things I did within the last month was going to surprise David for his birthday. His sister and I had been scheming for over a month, and I used my last four days of annual leave to hop a plane to Juarez. The surprise was amazingly successful, although I vow that I am NOT doing any more surprises. It was so stressful to keep the secret, and during the entire connecting flight between Mexico City and Juarez, I was literally clenching the armrest so hard that I think the guy across the aisle thought it was my first time on an airplane. But it was well worth it to see the look of surprise on David's face, and get to spend some time with him and Valerie!

So you readers may remember that August last year, I did the hardest race I've ever done, El Ascenso a los Cuchumatanes (Ascent into the Cuchumatanes - the road from Huehue up to the summit, on the tallest mountain chain in Central America, and also where I live!) Well, this year, I was psyched to participate again, and my friend Erin and I spent months training. We planned our respective vacations around the date and couldn't wait to accomplish the impossible again. Well, typical Guatemala, they postponed the date for the following week - when I'd be in Mexico. Not wanting to feel like all my excitement and training was for nothing, Erin and I decided we'd run the Ascenso anyway - at least the course. Luckily, a few other people were down with the idea, thus forming our own *exclusive* race :) Right before leaving the house to start our journey upwards, I had the genius idea of pinning race numbers to our shirts. Who cared if they were race numbers from past half marathons? So off we went, with one wearing the Xela Half number, another wearing the Antigua Half number, Panama City, so on and so on. It was absolutely hilarious watching people's facial expressions as we chugged up the mountain, cheering us on in a very confused manner and commenting to each other, "I thought the race was next week??"

Elections are only a few days away, for all levels of government. It seems pretty obvious who the presidential frontrunner is, but I am very anxious to see who will be the next leader of Chiantla. Our current mayor pretty much sucks (to put it lightly) and has stolen hundreds of thousands of quetzales from public funds (he's been under investigation from the Attorney General for over 6 months. I'm sure it's been reallllly effective). I know that it's a common stereotype for public functionaries to be corrupt, especially in developing countries, but it's much more infuriating when it happens in a place that I love and call home. My hope is that things can only get better from here. But no matter what, I'll be so happy once the stupid pickups that blast political propaganda out of megaphones give me some peace and quiet! :)

My next three weeks basically consist of saying many goodbyes, packing up my house and giving everything away, and stuffing my face with as much of my favorite Guatemalan food as I can (while simultaneously salivating at all the amazing food I'll have ASAP once I'm back in the US!). While I'll save the mushy, overly emotional blog for the end, I really want to thank wholeheartedly everyone who has supported me throughout these years. I promise I will get around to thanking you individually soon :)

The 25 PCVs from my training group at our Close of Service Conference (we originally started with 35)

With three of my closest friends in Chiantla. Yes, some of my best friends here are between the ages of 8 and 10 :)

At the finish of our "fake" Ascenso a los Cuchumatanes race

A volcanic crater lake that a friend and I hiked to the day after running the Totonicapán Half Marathon this past weekend. Three days later and I am still sore

The collection of cards that I clothes-pinned to chicken wire in my house. If you ever sent me any mail, it was displayed right here, where I'd stare at the wall when I needed a little encouragement! :)

A set-up at our Feria right now, where people pay for their kids to sit on the plastic pony and take their photo in front of this "traditional" (?) US scene. I got quite a kick out of it.

And finally, if you're still reading, here's an article I wrote for a development blog that focuses on hunger and nutrition:

http://www.hunger-undernutrition.org/blog/2011/08/nutrition-education-in-guatemala.html

I feel like throughout my almost two years of blogging about my Peace Corps Guatemala experience, I have constantly started entries by stating, "I can't believe ___ (time) has already gone by" or "I can't believe that I only have ____(time) left"...

Well, here I go again. I only have two and a half months left of service in Guatemala, and it is a truly crazy thing to think about. I wouldn't necessarily say the time has flown, though not in a negative way. I just really do feel like I've been here for two years already (well, one year and 11 months. close enough) I went to the US for 16-day vacation in June, a truly incredible trip, during which people constantly said, "I can't believe it's already been two years!!" Well, I can. I can honestly say that it has been a constant challenge to become accustomed to another way of life, another culture, another form of communication. And somewhere along the way, these "other ways" have become normal to me, and everything that I knew before seems strange. For example, we went to a BBQ at my cousins' house, and when we went to put out the fire, my cousin grabbed a pitcher of water to pour on the grill. My initial reaction was, "NOOO don't use THAT water!! That's agua pura! (purified water)." But, oh yeah, in the US it's okay to drink tap water, I don't have to treat it like such a precious resource. And during my trip, it felt so weird to finish a meal, and not yell to everyone sitting in my vicinity at a restaurant "BUEN PROVECHO!" And to not have people constantly noticing me or watching my every move. In contrast, I felt completely invisible in the US. There were so many stark differences, that as I reach the end of my time here, I wonder if those differences will ever start to feel normal again.

But don't get me wrong - I had an absolutely amazing vacation. Holding my baby niece and seeing how much she's growing was so precious; I wanted to cry when leaving her (I'm pretty sure she was crying too, but I think it was more that she was hungry). I was also able to attend two very fancy and fun events - my cousin Scott's bar mitzvah, which was absolutely unforgettable...my cousins and I danced so hard that my calves were on fire the next day, and it was amazing to reconnect with family after so long. And the following week at Marielle and Tim's wedding, I was overcome with joy to celebrate alongside with them, in addition to my other best friends from college. It really hit me that we are turning into "grown-ups" yet I so much value the strong friendship that we have maintained. Other highlights include: a fun visit at Alaina and Aaron's condo, eating tons of ice cream with them, Stefanie, Tanya, and all our respective significant others, to celebrate Tanya and Anuj's engagement, happy hour-ing with former colleagues, eating deliciously greasy NYC pizza with Reena, seeing so many cousins, aunts, and uncles for various food-related activities, and doing some awesome long runs with David between the chaos of travel. It's hard to find the words to describe how special the trip was, especially knowing that the next time I see everyone will be under much different circumstances, and some of those people I may not see for quite a while (especially my dear, and very courageous, friend Tanya who is moving to Australia in a few weeks!) And of course, a good mani/pedi and some quality playtime with Toro is really what made the trip 100% perfect :)

Coming back to Guate was really, really hard. I was choking back tears as the plane landed in Guatemala City. But, the optimist inside me knew that within no time I'd be adjusted back to "normal" life, and that the sadness I felt to say bye to friends and family back home will be nothing like the sadness I know I'll feel when I have to say goodbye to my friends and "family" here in a short amount of time. Luckily, I was right, and the homesickness disappeared within a few days. Since I've been back, it has been such a whirlwind of events, mostly Peace Corps related, such as the annual All-Volunteer Conference, where I presented to PCVs on how they can implement small projects with USAID funds, and the annual 4th of July party, where I indulged in plenty of beer and then participated in a whipped cream pie eating contest (note to self: beer and whipped cream are an AWFUL combo!!) We finished out the fun with a few days at the beach, where I felt so tranquil and happy to relax with good friends and listen to the waves crashing at night. That is, until the second night, when I discovered small animal droppings on my bed, thanks to a lizard in the thatched roof ceiling who had obviously eaten something that didn't agree with him (or her). Ugh...sometimes I really question whether I am cut out for Peace Corps!

Soon after this trip, my friends and former colleagues Elizabeth and Kimberly came for a visit, which was spectacular. We did an incredible amount of travel within the 4 short days they were here - seriously, I did the same itinerary with them that I've done with other visitors over 10 days! - but it was amazing to share my Peace Corps experience with them, and they are just two amazing women and friends...the kind of people that make you want to be a better person. But, they owe me a blog entry so I won't give away all the funny stories too soon :)

I have definitely found it difficult to keep myself motivated during this home stretch. I find myself getting overwhelmingly frustrated with certain things that frustrated me all along, but for some reason bug me more now than ever. Like the corruption and laziness and lack of communication that just permeates the municipal government where I work. And I keep trying to give myself pep talks, and then things just explode...like right now the muni workers are just finishing a strike, and next week will be finding out if there is enough money to pay their salaries for the rest of the year. At this point, all I can do is keep trying my best, as hard as it may be, and have grace with myself in those moments that I just feel like shutting myself in my house and not thinking about the problems outside.

One thing that has always kept me motivated (and sane) is running. Although motivation, and just running in general, have been much harder here than in the states, it is one thing that I feel that I have control over and can accomplish real goals, when so many of my goals in Peace Corps are unmeasurable. This past weekend, my PCV runner girlfriend Devon and I just completed the Antigua Half Marathon, which is the 6th half marathon I've done since arriving to Guatemala. The race was an awesome day, not just because we kicked butt, but because you see so many Guatemalans out and doing something positive for themselves, and yelling words of encouragement instead of the normal offensive comments that I hear along my runs. Next up is the Ascenso a los Cuchumatanes, the race through the mountains where I live, that starts at 2000 meters and finishes at 3000. Luckily my friend Erin has been a huge inspiration for me and helps make the training runs a lot more fun.

So I guess I'll finish this blog stream-of-consciousness with a cute story. A few weeks ago, I gave a talk to the women of my literacy class on menstruation. In a country where sexual education doesn't exist, most women don't have a clue how their cycles work, even if they've already had 10+ children. So, I prepare a presentation, complete with a drawing of the internal reproductive organs, and slowly go over the steps of ovulation. Once I'd gone through the process, I asked the women to repeat back to me the steps, to see if they understood. So I asked, what was the first step? and some of the women mumble about the ovaries preparing to release the egg. Then I asked the second step, and got a room full of blank stares. But one of the woman's 7 year old little son who always accompanies her to class says, in his pipsqueak voice, "That's when the ovary releases the egg into the fallopian tube!!" I started at him in awe, and then laughed so hard that my stomach hurt. His mom totally brushed him off, and said, "oh, he's learning that in school" and I was so taken aback, and was like, "he is most definitely NOT learning this in school, but the fact that he paid attention to me just now means that he's learning...smart little guy you have!" and she just looked so surprised and happy. We Peace Corps Volunteers have to learn to treasure the small victories, so even if that 7 year old little boy was the only one who understood in the end, I guess I'll take it!!

Hello Cara Piedras Guatemala readers!

This is a post from my dear friend Alaina, who visited me last month with Aaron, and we had an amazing time. But I think she'll do a better job telling you about it :) Read below:

It took an hour via micro (overcrowded van of 20+ people) and then another hour struggling to climb over a 10,000-foot peak, but we finally made it to the small village of Caserio Nueva Union from Cara’s town of Chiantla.

A couple days before, my boyfriend Aaron and I traveled from DC to visit our favorite panda-lover, Cara. We toured Mayan ruins, jogged at sunrise, drank coffee in Huehue, called our moms on Mother’s Day and went to a 17-year-old’s baby shower… all while catching up on life. While the focus of the trip was spending time with Cara and touring around, I wanted to contribute, somehow, to the projects that Cara has spent the last two years working so hard to build. Through my company, National Geographic, I was able to assemble a number of fun and educational items: inflatable globes, Spanish-language kids magazines, Spanish-language literacy books, and animal stickers! I packed this extra 30 pounds of materials in my backpack (taking up more than half of the space) and let Cara organize a day we could join her on her projects and help out in any way we could. (One note of interest, I had access to really cool animal tattoos, but Cara said “no” to those because tattoos are often associated with gangs in Guatemala). Our day of volunteering started out in Caserio Nueva Union, where Cara has built up a relationship with the women’s group and overcame many obstacles to bring them a rain-water collection and purification tank. Climbing over the mountain peak to access this town was astounding. The view from the top was breathtaking, but the hike was very difficult (even though I’m an active runner), especially at a high altitude and a loaded backpack! I couldn’t believe that Cara does that hike almost weekly, and women do it with babies on their back and baskets of corn on their head. The women’s group gathered around the village president’s house dressed in their traditional colorful clothing and bright scarves folded on their head. When we introduced ourselves by throwing around one of the inflatable globes, I was amazed to learn that many of the women had 12 children! Then, I was further astounded when I realized that none of the women could locate Guatemala on the globe – they weren’t even looking in the right hemisphere. Aaron and I have done our fair share of traveling through the developing world, but this was a first for us (I’m sure we’ve met many others who might share this lack of education, but we never knew it). Cara shared that most of the women are illiterate and have never seen a map before. So we had a little geography lesson! They knew that Mexico bordered Guatemala, but they had never seen exactly how it looks. They knew America was further north, but never realized how big it is. After a healthy eating class (Cara taught them how to make her mom’s banana and oatmeal bread recipe – no lard needed!), we passed out the animal stickers to the women for their kids and taught them the names of the exotic African animals. It was so sweet – when I demonstrated how the stickers worked by putting some on the kids’ shirts, the kids slowly took them off and carefully placed the stickers back on their sheets for safe-keeping. After we made tortillas over a wood-burning stove (I made one in the shape of my new favorite word estrella, i.e. star –they thought I was crazy) and ate a lunch of black beans, a hard-boiled egg and sweet milk, we hiked back up and over the mountain, got back on a micro, and got off on the side of the road at a school Cara teaches Spanish-literacy to women and teenage girls. In this class, Cara used the Nat Geo Spanish literacy books to teach women how to read and write in Spanish, and used the kids magazines to enhance the literacy skills of the teenage girls. Growing up in almost constant civil war, the older women were not educated, but today their children go to school, however often only until they are 12 years old. While Cara worked with the older women, I worked with the young girls - they taught me how to read Spanish by reading the magazines to me, and I taught them English by describing the pictures to them in English. There were even a couple younger girls, about 11, who came to take notes for their mothers who couldn’t attend class that day. I also laughed inside when I quickly realized that teenage girls are the same all over the world – these girls gossiped with each other during class, experimented with makeup, wore tight clothing, and didn’t want to do their homework. Sounds familiar. Aaron was crashing at this point of the afternoon, but our day was not over (he had no excuse, as he didn’t go on a morning run with us)! It was mother’s day in Guatemala, so Cara hosted an almond cake party for her friends that she teaches English to at a local NGO. It was pouring rain as we sat under a tin roof drinking orange pop and laughing the entire night… that is, until we went back to Cara’s apartment for some pizza. We left Cara the next day to head off on the rest of our trip touring around Lake Atitlan and Antigua, but our day of volunteering was the most memorable in my Guatemala travelogue. It opened our eyes to experiences we couldn’t have encountered on our own and allowed us to contribute in our own small way to the larger impact Cara is making in her work. We feel lucky for the opportunity to visit our friend, and now actually understand first-hand what she is referencing when we hear about her crazy life in Guatemala… but we’ll be happy to have her back in DC soon :) Pics from our day of volunteering: http://ow.ly/4Y9R4 Pics from the rest of our trip: http://ht.ly/4Xge9

I just returned from a vacation in Roatan (part of the Bay Islands) Honduras. It is in the Caribbean sea off the coast of Honduras and is the picture of island perfection - white sand beaches, warm crystalline blue water, with the second largest barrier reef in the world, and beachside bars and restaurants offering any type of frozen cocktail your heart desires (umbrella optional). Becca and I planned to meet in Roatan, since we'd both be traveling from rather far away and it didn't make sense for her to first come to Guate to then bus the 20 hour trip.

After leaving my house, spending a night in Guatemala City, I was off to La Ceiba, on the coast, where the next day I'd take a ferry to Roatan. Fourteen hours after leaving Guatemala's capital, I arrived in La Ceiba with my fellow PCV Amy and her sister, who coincidentally planned their vacation to the same place. We ate our first "baleadas" for dinner (large, chewy tortillas with eggs, beans, cheese, and avocados wrapped inside. yum) and had a rather unpleasant experience with a cab driver who lied to us about the ferry schedule the next morning, causing us to scramble to get to the dock...and find complete mayhem. Apparently, half the population of Honduras ALSO goes to Roatan during Semana Santa (Holy Week)! We struggled in a large room full of yelling, pushing people, trying to get to the ticket counter. As the 8:00 and 2:00 ferries were already sold out, our only chance was to get on the 5:00 pm, or stay another night in that awful hostel. I frantically pushed my way to the front, feeling guilty about not following the rules of line etiquette, but since nobody else was either, I knew it was a matter of survival of the fittest in there! I miraculously got to the ticket counter to get ferry tickets for the three of us. And then - we had to figure out what we'd do between 8 am and 5 pm, when our ferry was scheduled to leave. After chatting with some people about different options (AKA going to the mall) we took a taxi to a fancy hotel on the beach, ordered breakfast, and lounged by their pool/beach until it was time to head back to the madness on the dock. I killed time by going for a run from all the stress and anxiety that I had from standing in the line that morning, buying cheap sunglasses from practically every vendor that walked by on the beach, and chatting with Amy and her sister.

Finally, we board the boat, quickly made friends with Honduran vacationers, and were off! The water was really choppy which made the boat ride so much fun, except for those poor people who were barfing into plastic bags the whole time. When we arrived to Roatan, I was so excited to see Becca! Being the awesome friend that she is, she had a cold beer waiting for me and I couldn't wait to get in the shower. The next five days on the island were so relaxing and stress-free. We took naps every day, read on the beach, worked on our tans, ran and went to yoga class, and snorkeled. I feel kinda guilty for not diving in the place that is considered a diver's paradise, but honestly the idea still scares me and snorkeling was about as far as I felt like pushing myself. It was amazing to see all the coral and fish and made me really appreciate the complexity and beauty of our Mother Earth! We met some incredibly nice people, who overwhelmed us with their generosity and definitely contributed to the good-feeling vacation vibes.

Traveling home was another adventure. We left Roatan, much easier than the arrival since most of the Semana Santa/Easter ferry traffic had died down, and arrived back in La Ceiba, dragging along a new friend we'd made the night before; the bartender at the restaurant where we ate dinner. Since our ferry arrived to the mainland early in the morning, we had some time to kill before our bus to San Pedro Sula later that day, so we'd looked into going hiking in the jungle to see a huge 60 ft. waterfall. Becca and our new friend and I get in a cab from the ferry dock, and proceed to get lost for about an hour while the taxi driver tried to figure out how to get to this national park. By the time he'd figured out where it was...it wouldn't give us enough time for the appox. 3 hour hike. So, what did we do? Well, we said, screw the jungle, and headed back to that fancy hotel where Amy, her sister, and I had killed time on our first day in La Ceiba! And in addition to our new bartender friend coming along, I invited the cab driver too, since he seemed like a cool guy. It was only 10:30 am, but we immediately headed to the bar and had some drinks, chatted, ate, and before we knew it, it was time to head to the bus station. It was sad saying bye to our new friends, but off we went on the next adventure.

We arrived in San Pedro Sula, and the owner of the B&B where we were staying met us at the bus station, took us by Subway to get some dinner, and we enjoyed some awesome air conditioning and cable TV for the rest of the evening. Becca flew back to LA early the next morning, and I was SUPPOSED to return to Guate. Well, I get to the bus station, and at the time we're supposed to leave, they tell us that the roads are blocked near Copan, a city close to the border with Guatemala, because of protests. And that we should stay seated in the waiting room, blah blah blah, until further news because we could depart any moment. Well, EIGHT HOURS LATER, they tell us that the police have ordered them to postpone any trips until the next day. Mind you, I did not move out of this waiting room for the entire time, and was going completely crazy. At this point, everyone freaks out, because the bus company was not offering to pay for accommodations. I called the B&B where Becca and I had stayed before, in a panic and hoping they'd have space for me, which they did, although I was not happy about the idea of paying $46 by myself for a room for one night. But then, I decided to go with some Honduran girls and a Mexican guy that I'd made friends with while waiting all day in the bus terminal. One of the girls' uncles recommended a hotel in the city where we could stay. So I called the B&B back to cancel, the owner was very understanding, and then took off with 7 people that I'd known for only a few hours to spend the night.

We arrive at our destination, and it was the shadiest hotel I've ever seen. Completely falling apart, crap everywhere. Never mind Wifi, they didn't even have water, which I noticed after using the restroom. While the Honduran girls were discussing room arrangements, I went to the lobby to talk to the Mexican guy, in a state of panic, and told him I just didn't feel like I could stay here in this shithole. Luckily he agreed and said we should go to the other hotel, and I got the courage to tell everyone else that I didn't want to stay. Surprisingly, they all said "Let's go!!" and off we were to find cabs to go to the B&B. After squishing the Honduran girls' massive suitcases in the car, the cab driver asks "What are you doing in this part of town?!" because it was apparently one of the most dangerous parts of the city. Great. We arrived to the hotel where Becca and I had stayed the night before, and it felt like coming home. Since we were 7 women and 1 guy, it made the room arrangements a bit complicated, and the Honduran girls all of a sudden no longer agreed with the original price and were heckling the owner to give us a cheaper rate, which made me really uncomfortable since he was so nice and accommodating. The room arrangements were finally decided (not very democratically may I add) and that I'd share a queen sized bed with two of the girls in the same room with the guy, who would sleep on a single bed. It was definitely a first for me...I didn't mind sharing a room with people I didn't know, since I'm used to that from hostel travel, but sharing a bed, with TWO other girls!? It was not the most restful night since I felt like I was hanging off the edge all night, but anything was better than that place we'd almost spent the night.

The next day, we go to the bus terminal, it felt too familiar from all the time I'd spent there the day before, and had even become friends with the bus company guy. We drank a beer before boarding the bus to celebrate the fact that yes, we'd be leaving finally, took some photos with our new friends, and ten hours later, I was back in Guatemala City. It's easy to say that with the 6 additional hours from Guate to Chiantla the next day, I was SOO happy to be home and never want to get on a bus again...at least for a long time.

The trip may have been a little more adventurous than I'd expected, spent more money than I'd hoped, and collected dozens too many mosquito bites, but I am so thankful for having the experience of an island vacation in a gorgeous place, thankful to Becca for all the effort she made to meet there, thankful to the wonderful people that one meets along the way and helps make the experience something so beautiful, memorable, unique.

To end the blog on a humorous note, in one of the yoga classes I attended, the teacher tells us to make an intention for our yoga practice, and to focus on a different part of the body every time. As we're sitting there, breathing and warming up, she says, "for this class, I want you to focus on the spot between your genitals and anus." Let's just say I almost completely lost it right there and my stomach hurt from trying so hard not to laugh.

A Honduran baleada

Enjoying delicious cocktails on our last night

The perfect beach - West Bay

Drinking Monkey Lalas at Sunset

The pool where we had some fun times in West Bay

With our new bartender friend and Cab driver, hanging out at the hotel pool and beach after our jungle mishap

The clan that I spent the night with in San Pedro Sula. And the bus company rep. that also became our friend during the 8 hour wait. Of course the day this photo was taken, we were all smiles. I didn't capture any of the pissed off, yelling travelers who were stuck without anywhere to go!

The excitement on the bus once we finally took off!

Water is commonly referred to as "el vital liquido" in the rural parts of Guatemala that are working to receive water projects. Living here has definitely made me appreciate, among many other things, the fact that one can turn a faucet and water comes out. My water has been getting cut off every day for the last few weeks, although luckily it always comes back at night and into the early morning. But the fact that I live in a house that even has a connection to water is a luxury here in Guatemala.

One of my biggest efforts during my service has been a water tank project for a rural community in my municipality. Basically, Peace Corps doesn't provide us with funds to do anything once we are set free in our sites, because the focus of our work is "human capacity building", or training people. However, there are funds that USAID sets aside for Peace Corps Volunteers to implement small projects, or SPA (Small Project Assistance) where we can apply for up to $3,500 for a project.

I knew that I'd want to do a SPA project to have the experience of seeing a project from start to finish - something that is unusual for a lot of PCVs. Together with my counterpart, we discussed what types of projects we'd want to do and where. Of the over 200+ smaller villages within my town, we chose el Caserío Nueva Unión because the womens group and community development council are extremely active and participatory, plus there were only 36 families and the school that would benefit (about 215 inhabitants), because the funds aren't enough to do a big project. The community told us that their biggest need is water - they have community faucets where they can connect a long hose from their house if they live close enough, or put the water into buckets to bring back home. BUT, in dry season, the wells that these faucets draw from become empty and the women have to walk one hour to the river to collect water, and then one hour back home. So the community leaders decided that they wanted a rainwater collection system project - even though the $3,500 would only cover about 50% of the project costs, between materials, construction, and transportation. These conversations took place back in August. FOUR MONTHS later, my counterpart and I finished working on the project proposal to turn in for approval. I drew from my proposal prep days back at Partners', but the application for this was complicated in a lot of different ways....having to open a bank account for the womens group, get price quotes from a dozen different hardware stores, put together a budget, and re-write the narrative of the proposal a million times. It took another month for the project to get approved, one month of corrections for the review committee, and finally, we began in January! The project incorporated a great deal of trainings on themes like how to treat water to prevent diarrhea and illness, maintaining good hygiene practices, and increasing citizen participation and gender equality. I felt really good overall about the sustainability of the project knowing that we were training the community members in areas that would help them to improve their quality of life, such as preventing diarrhea through proper treatment of their water. Also that the community was providing such a huge percentage of the project, making it more sustainable. It has unfortunately become very common for Guatemalan communities to have things "regalado" or "gifted" and that people aren't accustomed to fighting for their own development. Part of our job here as Muni Volunteers is to train communities on how to go about participating in development processes, but it has happened to me on many occasions that I visit communities and people think I've brought something for them, which can be very awkward. This expectation of help coming from the outside is mostly the reason why I've refused donations from friends and family from the States (although the desire to contribute to my projects here is very appreciated)! I don't want to continue the trend of creating expectations, especially for any future PCVs that serve in Chiantla...since Guatemalans are constantly comparing us, I wouldn't want another volunteer to feel like they had to raise funds from donations at home. And also, I knew that the community would find a way to make it work if they wanted this project badly enough. But thanks again to everyone who offered...I appreciate your support and enthusiasm!

The inauguration of my project was a really special day, with a very simple ceremony and the presence of Guatemalan and gringo friends, and representatives from Peace Corps. The community members offered very sincere thanks, and I was proud to highlight how much we have all learned and grown from the process, and how essential it is to have such a well-organized and participatory community. The schoolkids were asked to do a few presentations, and we were shocked by what they did: basically dancing and lip-syncing to reggaeton songs. It just goes to show the influence of television!! They had a lunch for us (sheep meat, which is a big specialty in this region, but they had chicken soup for me since they know that I don't eat meat) and then when we returned to Chiantla, we finished celebrating with ice pops. All in all, it was a really amazing process and we learned a lot from the experience, and the best part for me was forming such a close relationship with the people of this community. Thanks to people like them, Guatemala will become more a proponent for its own development!

With my coworkers and friends at the project inauguration

With Rosario and the womens group leaders after the traditional ribbon cutting

Giving out pieces of ribbon to everyone as "recuerdos" (souvenirs)

The kids performing their rap/reggaeton presentation

Diplomas for the womens group

Giving palabras with my counterparts

A quinceñera that I recently attended. The birthday girl is given a huge doll replica of herself by her godparents

Dancing with all her damas. There are 15 of them for all of her 15 years!

In a recent conversation with another PCV, we agreed that blogging becomes more difficult with time, because after a while, things no longer feel "new" and start to feel like "life". I feel that this couldn't be more true. Although I am always used to expecting the unexpected here, there are certain things that I will almost consistently encounter: lateness, wordy speeches, and super sugary coffee...no matter what the actual context of the event is.

The most recent example that I can provide is the wedding that I attended over the weekend. It was my first Guatemalan wedding and I was so excited to cross it off my two-year to-do list. The wedding was for a friend's brother, the youngest in a family of 7 older sisters. So, as you can imagine, it was a really big deal, especially in a society where the groom's family is in charge of the wedding (including ALL costs. What a difference from the wedding tradition of the bride's family paying in the states!) My friend, a sister of the groom, told me they'd be arriving at 6:30, so I figured at 7:15 would be a good time to arrive...not too early, not too late. But of course, I arrived before them, walking into a huge gymnasium filled with the other early arrivals who stared at me in confusion. The wedding venue was a huge indoor basketball gym that was covered in white balloons and streamers, which seemed tiny in comparison to the size of the room. There were plastic tables covered in white plastic tablecloths, each one adorning a plastic figurine of a bride and groom. More guests trailed in, wearing everything from sparkly puffy dresses and high heels to dirty jeans and cowboy hats. And of course, there was the DJ set up, blasting marimba music so loud that I was convinced we'd all lose our hearing by the end of the night. We all just sat and waited...nobody really conversing with each other, just staring around the room, and at the kids who had already ripped the balloons off the wall and were engaged in a full-on balloon war in the middle of the room.

All of us sudden, the DJ stopped the music and announced that the flower girls were entering the room! Then the godparents! Then...the bride! It startled me that there was no introduction or welcome...basically just all the guests sitting around for 1+ hours while waiting for the event to start, and all of us sudden it started when the DJ told us to stand up.

The bride walked in looking terrified, joined the groom, and with both their families sat at a long table where the wedding officiant waited, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. He gave a speech over the mic about the institution of marriage, and not a single person listened except the bride, groom, and their respective families. Everyone seated at the tables was carrying on their own conversation, as if completely unaware that the two people who had invited them were getting married. Then, he announced them as husband and wife, and they went and stood under the balloon arch, where their godparents blessed them and then cracked open a bell-shaped piñata, leaving them covered in white confetti. We raised our plastic dixie cups for the champagne toast. I almost choked on the orange liquid, and my friend asked with a big smile "Do you like it?!" and I of course said "It's great!!" and she told me the secret recipe: beer, orange juice, 7-up, and some sparking wine all mixed together. Yum.

They had their first dance, to a marimba song nonetheless, and then their parents joined them. During this time, my friend gave me the "inside scoop" on the couple...the groom is 26 years old, and the bride 16, and three months pregnant. The mother of the bride looked to be on the verge of tears the whole time, and my friend told me that the bride didn't want to leave home to live with the groom's family. "I hope this marriage will last" she said. It felt so strange to be talking about the future of their marriage and the couple had barely been married for five minutes at this point. Also, in Guatemala, there exists the "church marriage" and the "civil marriage". For different reasons, couples will opt for one over the other, or do both. But I was told that the priest did not agree to officiate their wedding because he didn't want to marry a minor. I felt saddened to put myself in the position of this young bride, who was being married not so much by choice as by obligation, and would be living with a large family in one house, a family of a man she's only even been dating for 8 months.

After the first few dances, we received our dinner: tamales and hot, sugary coffee. The grooms family had prepared over SIX HUNDRED tamales, because in an event like this, you never know who is going to show up! I couldn't believe my ears when they told me. The family was running around to serve all the guests, because unlike the states, there was no caterer or wait staff. One of my favorite parts of the wedding was seeing the guests taking all the decorations off the walls and tables as souvenirs. I have never before been to a wedding where people fought over who would get to keep the centerpiece, or ripped off the decorations from the walls before the event was even over. But it was fun to see all the kids running around playing with the decorations, as their parents enjoyed dancing to the music.

All in all, it was a really interesting experience that I am thankful for having taken part of. And the wedding followed another big celebration, which was Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary, just the day before. All of us PCVs were invited to a reception at the Ambassador's residence, where we had many people give speeches on the Peace Corps and its contribution to Guatemala. It made me feel so proud to become part of a legacy of hundreds of thousands of volunteers who have served worldwide and imagining what the Peace Corps will look like in 50 more years. I think it really helped me to reflect on what this experience is supposed to mean for me personally, because sometimes being out in my site, I feel like I forget sometimes what Peace Corps really signifies, as I get caught up in the daily life here (and frustrations that go along with it). Plus, the last time I was dressed up and in that same location was in October 2009 when my group was sworn-in as volunteers...it is amazing to think how far we've come along since then!

A recent story that made me really happy was something that Rosario told me about her university class. She studies full-time, which means one Saturday a week, from 7:30 am to 6:00 pm (I recently accompanied her to a full day of classes, which was really cool. Will share more in another blog!) Her major is Social Work, and one of her recent classes was talking about different social groups, one of them being homosexuals. Her professor told the class that people become homosexuals because they suffer something in their past that makes them choose to be that way. Rosario raised her hand and said "I have a friend who knows a lot of information and she told me that people are born that way" and that the professor was like, well that is another theory, this is just something I read somewhere... It made me outraged that the professor would proclaim as "truth" a theory that she read somewhere, but SO proud of Rosario for speaking out about what she knows is right. To be so honest, plus contrary to what a college professor says (a step below royalty as far as Guatemalan society is concerned) definitely took some "cajones" on her part.

In other news, we are in the final stages of my USAID Small Project Assistance project, which should be completed before Semana Santa (holy week) in mid-April. It feels so good to finally see the project come to life, after so much time and work. More news to come soon!

PS. I can't post photos right now because my internet is too slow, but hopefully within the next few days!

and now's Stef's turn. Thanks Stef for your awesome blog entry!

Caminetas (fancified school buses in electric colors) weave between other cars that overspill on the roadway in major hubs and sail solo up mountains in a seemingly deserted countryside. Simultaneously to our boarding, a sturdy man, shorter than I, scales the back of the bus to the roof top without hesitation (like second nature). Entangled in his arms - my gringo sized backpack and the ten pounds of fruit the 60-year old abuelita had previously been balancing on her head (while carrying two children, a baby strapped to her back, a skirt tied tightly from her waist to her ankles, and a sandal missing one strap). Adentro, its six to a row (four in the seats and two in the invisible chairs that are created when persons squeeze close enough together - either for warmth or out of necessity). As the camioneta climbs in altitude circling the mountain, the man next to me leans his leather-like hand on my shoulder to maintain balance, we exchange smiles, which acts as a universal language. The girl next to me, non-descript in age, opens her hand to offer me a candy without saying a word. A boy - blind, enters, he praises the lord in word and song, and feels his way down the aisle in the old worn-out school bus. Astonishingly (although this shouldn’t be the case), casi every Guatemalteco offers to him at least a few quetzals, which could likely be a noticeable portion of their daily income. Every few minutes persons jump on and off the bus, many in seemingly deserted areas. We change buses in hub cities where streets are lined with vendors of the most exotic vegetables/fruits, homemade snacks, American soft drinks, and artisan crafts. I gawk in amazement of the diversity of offerings, the intensity of the professions, the simplicity of life. For everyone around me this is life – camioneta rides are perhaps a once daily, twice daily, thrice daily afterthought at most - the most relaxing time of the day for those that spend the majority of it laboring in fields, over stoves, in the heat shaded by a small umbrella selling anything that will be purchased. For me this parallels the essence of Guatemala – a taste of the perseverance, humility, vitality, simplicity, and passion of the Guatemaltecos that surrounded us. It was an immediate appreciation for the diversity of landscapes - the breath taking views of the active volcanoes, vegetation, and crops; the historical architecture of doors on small tiendas that I attempted to capture on camera from the window of the fast moving camioneta. I am utmost grateful to two amazing guides for exposing us to Guatemala – the ability to shop in local markets, speak with the Chiantla neighborhood pharmacist, engage with Guatemaltecos eager to learn English and equally those eager to read and write their own language, dine in local tiendas, to travel from one corner of the country to another – something most natives will never have the opportunity to do, and all of the other adventures Jason reminisces in his blog post. With little perception of Guatemala before I arrived in Guate, I left two weeks later with a few broken finger nails, a stomach ache, and a desire for a long hot shower, but most importantly with an appreciation for a life very different than my own (both that of Guatemaltecos and PCVs). I see this country as a gem that is often overlooked by the American tourist, but offered to me, an American tourist, a diversity of adventure, relaxation, and exposure - and make a million life long memories (and of course the chance to travel wtih a childhood friend, visit with an awesome friend of 8 years, and to make new friends in David and a few Guatemalans)! It goes without saying, for those of you yet to visit Cara, get planning - you have 8 months!

I had asked my recent visitors from the states to submit a blog post for me to share since I thought it would be neat for the readers of this blog to have a different perspective on Guatemala. Stefanie and Jason´s trip was an experience that will definitely stand out as a big highlight from my service. Below is Jason´s entry...Stefanie is a little "hora chapin" on getting hers to me :)

I had the opportunity of spending about two weeks in Guatemala and visiting various parts of the country. It was the trip of a lifetime and I was able to experience the tourist side of the county and gain familiarity with every day life of a Guatemalan. I don’t believe many Americans are fortunate enough to really see the everyday life of the Guatemalan people and I cannot thank Cara and David enough for this experience. Without my “tour guides” I could not have had such a unique and eye opening experience. The first stop of my trip was Lake Atitlan, which is a major tourist destination in Guatemala. The lake is beautiful, clean, and is surrounded by mountains and volcanos. This place is truly a paradise and you don’t have to look far to find Americans on vacation. The little towns on the lake are only accessible by boat due to the huge surrounding mountains, which gives this place a unique and relaxing atmosphere. This vacation destination rivals those of Costa Rica and Mexico and I have already recommended the lake to many friends for future vacations. Thereafter we made the trip to Chiantla in the department of Huehuetenango. This is Cara’s Peace Corps site and I was privileged to observe her daily life and the daily lives of many of her friends within the town of Chiantla. The town is filled with small locally owned stores offering fresh food and supplies for daily living. Despite myself being an obvious outsider I was greeted with a smile everywhere I went. While staying with Cara I was able to attend an English class and communicate with her students. The class was a blast and those attending including myself had a great time attempting to communicate with each other. I could tell they were excited to meet me as much as I was excited to find out more about them. I am a beginner Spanish speaker as they were beginner English speakers so lack of language made conversation fun and interesting. I could tell Cara had a strong relationship with the people of her class, they respected her and appreciated her presence. Climbing the Santa Maria Volcano was remarkable experience. The hike was 8.5 hours total and we spent about an hour at the top eating and taking in the view. From the top, the second largest city in Guatemala, Xala was clearly visible as well as a group of active Volcano’s. It was a very difficult but rewarding adventure. In the latter part of my trip I visited the ancient Mayan city of Tikal. This was truly an amazing experience to be in the middle of the rain forest and see the tremendous Mayan temples. Climbing to the top of the temples was an adventure in itself. Temple 5 has a ladder that you must climb to go up 150 feet. Once at the top of the temples there is a view of the rain forest above the canopy, which is breathtaking. The most amazing part is that hundreds of temples still must be excavated and are covered with earth and huge trees. The park is unique in that it is huge; at one point I walked for 1.5 hour without seeing another person only animals and rain forest. The tours are truly worth it and give you a good history of the Mayan people. I took a sunrise tour in which you work up at 4:30 am and walked through the rain forest in complete darkness. I have never been somewhere it is so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face. The sounds of rain forest in the night are something I will not forget. These are just the highlights of my trip and a true recount would be much longer. The county in beautiful and a very affordable trip for Americans. I believe the country’s tourism is not well known or advertised and this results in the lack of knowledge that Americans have for the country and what it has to offer. This for sure will not be last trip to Central America and look forward to improving my Spanish and getting to know the region.

I just returned from a 10 day vacation to the US, which was my first vacation back to the states since I left in August 2009 - yup, a year and a half. To be honest, I am really glad that I saved all my vacation for Year 2, although I definitely felt the distance after returning home. My parents' house looks different and even has TWO flat screen TVs now, everyone has high-tech phones that I can't quite figure out how to use, people look older, college friends gotten engaged, moved in with significant others, received promotions at work, and siblings have babies :) But all in all, it was an amazing vacation and I got to see so many family and friends.

Of course I enjoyed the obvious things like taking long, hot showers and eating Thai food, but what I really enjoyed was re-connecting with people, face to face. It is so hard to stay in touch and I feel that it was super important for me to not let too much time go by between the time I left the US and when I am finally done my service. I feel fortunate that I have had lots of visitors here in Guate, and more to come, because that definitely helps people to understand what it is really like here. But no worries for those of you who won't be visiting...that's why I try to keep this blog!

My first bit of "culture shock" occurred in the Houston airport, where I heard more Spanish than English spoken, but for the first time in a long time saw people of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. It really feels strange to walk in a public area without feeling like you're in a "fishbowl" as we Peace Corps volunteers often do. I felt the blast of cold wind as soon as I stepped out of the Philly airport, but was so excited that I didn't even care. It felt so amazing to be back in my house. I could have sat on the couch with my dog the entire trip and been perfectly content, but it was even more awesome to see so much family and friends and get to introduce David to everyone. Soon after I arrived to Philly, we drove down to DC to visit Andrew, Steph, and my little niece Gianna, who was only 3.5 weeks when we first saw her. I fell in love just holding her and looking at her peaceful little face. David and I even got to babysit while Andrew and Steph went to the gym, which was fun. In the short time I spent with her, I quickly learned her favorite way of being rocked, and also that she loves the sound of the blender. It will be awesome to see how much she's grown and changed when I return to visit in June.

During the DC portion of the trip, I got to see my closest friends from college and do a surprise bachelorette party for Marielle. I couldn't help but tear up when I saw those girls for the first time. It was crazy to think that the next time we would all be together wouldn't be until her wedding. I think that we definitely made the most of the very short time we were all together and had a memorable bachelorette night for her :)

One of my other favorite parts of the trip was giving a presentation on Guatemala with David to a group of 5th graders at Elkins Park Middle School (where I attended 5-6 grades). In the limited amount of time that we were able to speak to the class, we discussed things like the different foods, forms of transportation, volcanoes and touristy places to see in the country, what the homes and schools are like, and of course ending the presentation with a photo of fried ants, which the kids found really gross (and therefore cool). Even though it was the last period of the day and the kids are, well kids, they were really attentive and asked some awesome questions. Like when we discussed the volcanoes, they asked "why do people want to live at the base of an active volcano?" And when they asked about the money, I just so happened to have 10 quetzales in my wallet, so they asked what could 10Q buy. We wanted to bring up issues about development and poverty without making the discussion too "heavy" so, for example, I told them that in Guatemala, many schools only provide education up until 6th grade (which these students enter next year). They all cheered and said, "I want to move to Guatemala!!" but when I asked them if they'd feel ready to get a job after 6th grade graduation, they all kinda shook their heads in defeat. Interestingly enough, two of the kids were adopted from Guatemala, so you could see them paying extra attention during the presentation. In the end, I hope to get similar experiences to share about Guatemala, and definitely felt some pride while discussing Guatemala, as if I'd lived there my whole life.

Thanks to everyone who made the effort to visit with me...I look forward to seeing you again in June! And to everyone else who I wasn't able to see, I know the time will pass quickly before my next visit!

PS My internet is too slow to upload pictures to my blog, so check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2247593&id=7400486&l=f26663f3c2

The past few weeks have been an incredible adventure, and I haven't even left Chiantla. Where to begin...first off, on January 18th, a beautiful baby girl named Gianna Materese George was born. It was a VERY anticipated and long-awaited moment. When I received the phone call from my mom that the baby was born, I was walking through the mountains on the way back from a community with Rosario, on a very windy and dusty road. It will be a moment that I will definitely never forget! Interestingly enough, Gianna's due date was January 15th. And days before her actual birthday, on January 14th, I went to visit a neighbor around the corner who I have become close with. She just turned 60 years old and has 6 children and 15 grandchildren (one more on the way). I was chatting with her, she asked about my sister-in-law, and I said "the due date is tomorrow so I'm expecting news any second now!" She said to me, very matter-of -factly, "the baby won't be born for another few days" and I was just like, ummm, okayyy. Noting my confusion, she added that it wasn't yet a full moon. I must have still looked confused because she said has proof because the births of her children occurred during full moons. Low and behold, when I walked out my door at 8 PM on the day of Gianna's birth, I saw the moon shining full and bright in the sky!

In just a few days, I'll be making a trip back to the states for my first USA vacation in 18 months. WOW. I have been living in Guatemala for 18 months. Anyway. I have been keeping extremely busy between work, hanging out with friends, and preparing for Feria. Remember how back in September I danced in a "convite" for Feria to honor the Virgin, Chiantla's patron? Well there are two Ferias a year, February and September, so the entire month of January I spent going to dance practice for two hours a night, five nights a week, to prepare for another performance of 10 songs on repeat for 5 hours. It was quite an experience, even the second time around. During the month of practicing, I felt myself getting really frustrated about the lateness with which we started and ended practice, the lack of communication, the disorganization. Not that these things are at all uncommon here - but when it comes to my professional life, I am more quick to take a stance on these things and speak more openly and "fuerte" about it. But in a religious and cultural activity, I felt that it was not at all my place to speak up. In the end, I was thrilled to have participated and people in my town were really happy about it too. A few days before the actual performance, some of the girls decided that I should be one of the 4 women who carried the Virgen de Candelaria in the final part of the event. Not being catholic, it did not hold the same meaning for me, but was regardless an honor to so actively participate in such a symbolic part of the whole performance.

Another Feria tradition, besides the ridiculous vendors completely covering the streets, super loud music and noise, and rickety rides, is the 10K race that this guy named Don Marco organizes twice a year. You may recall from a blog post a year ago that I ran in the 10K race and came in last place...but still won 3rd out of the womens category, since there were only three women! One of my favorite stories :) Anway, Don Marco is a super nice guy but always yells at David and me for running so slowly. For example, when I organized the 10K in August to benefit the youth NGO, David came in last place, and Don Marco yelled at him for not moving his legs faster and further apart. And then I ran the September Feria 10K soon after, once again coming in last place, and he was legit yelling at me when I crossed the finish line. These were his words: "You and that boyfriend of yours! You have gotten used to running so slowly! You are tall and have those long legs, and you don't use them! We Guatemalans, we are short people. I would rather have legs like yours. But you don't take advantage!" My reaction, other than surprised, was basically just, "thanks Don Marco for organizing a great race, see you soon!"

Well, this time around was really no different. I was happy to see that I was now one of six women running. And again, I ran my comfortable, "slow" pace, and coming around the last turn, about a half-mile away from the central park and finish line, Don Marco was waiting for me. He said, "hurry up, the last runner finished 10 minutes ago!" With that, he began running with me, in his jeans and black dress shoes, and urging me to move my legs faster. I guess he got tired of running slowly with me, and took off towards the park. A block away from the park, I hear the announcer say, "now approaching, Cara George" and I was of course totally embarrassed. My friend Nick who was staying with me told me that the announcer had been saying my name for about 20 minutes at that point and repeating, "the only runner we're waiting on is Cara George"

Despite the humiliation, they gave me a prize! I ripped off the wrapping paper when I got home, and saw...a heavy clay pot. Okay. I set it on the counter, and didn't really think much of it. Later that day, Nick exclaims, "that's a lot of mangoes!". and I was like, "what on earth are you talking about?" Well, the clay pot was stuffed with five ripe, delicious mangoes! Good thing he bothered to check inside, because I probably would have put it on a shelf somewhere, forgotten about it, and gone crazy trying to figure out what in my house smelled like rotting fruit. Definitely the most "unique" prize that I'll ever receive for participating in a race :)

The construction of my water tank project started last week, after a brief few days when the community told us that they wanted to cancel the project that we worked five months to solicit. I spent two days crying and trying to convince myself that it would not be a personal failure if this project didn't happen. Then, long story short, the community miraculously told us that everyone was back on board. The construction started two days later. Our goal is to have it finished by April. Fingers crossed!!!

Along with the water project, things at work have been going great. I am so happy to have a new and welcoming environment in my office and no longer feel uncomfortable and unwanted by the office personnel. In the remaining part of my service, I will be working more closely with an NGO that works in early childhood development to train the mothers of the children who attend their community centers, so that will be something that gets me out into the field more often, which I'm really looking forward to. My radio program is still going solid and it's always so fun when people tell me they enjoy listening.

I am completely overwhelmed with excitement for my upcoming trip to the states, for so many reasons. I find myself wondering if I'll even remember how to navigate DC like I used to. I feel nervous that going back will be like having to re-learn certain parts of my previous life. What do people talk about when they're not discussing the weather or the latest gossip? What do people eat if they don't eat tortillas every day? Don't even mention what one would talk about at a bar, since all we PCVs do when we meet up is complain about work or diarrhea. In any case, it should be a great trip. Stay tuned for my post-USA trip blog! Or to those of you reading back home...see you soon!!

The men of Nueva Union, San Nicolas (Chiantla) after constructing the first base of the water project

with my partner for the Womens Convite

Dancing

My costume and scary mask that I could barely see/breathe through

Dancing to Marimba music

One of the stops along the 5 hour event

Carrying the Virgen de Candelaria

After the big un-masking!

Being interviewed on TV

With a bunch of my young spectator friends

The past few weeks have been so crazy but I am finally taking the time to update on the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011, which have been some of the most awesome weeks I've spent in Guatemala. First: Christmas. I was invited to spend Christmas eve with a family that lives around the corner that I've become close to in the past months. They are a really big family and I always feel at home with them because it is always a fun and loud time when I'm with them - just like my real family back home! :) In Guatemala (and most Latin American countries in general), Christmas Eve is a really big deal. I went over to the family's house in the morning of Christmas Eve, and Doña Adalicia had been up since 5 am making tamales, which is the traditional food to eat on Christmas. I learned how to prepare and wrap the tamales in big leaves, and then we all hung out while the tamales cooked for three hours (she made 100 of them...no joke). Luckily, I had come prepared with red, white, and green nail polishes to give Christmas manicures, of which I did thirteen of that day with all the family members, young and old. It was a good time-filler because we pretty much sat around, hanging out and waiting for 12 midnight. At which point, it was just like New Years Eve - fireworks going off, everyone hugging and kissing. The family set off a ton of fireworks from the roof and street, and it seemed that every other family in Chiantla was doing the exact same thing from all the noise. Once the craziness of twelve midnight has passed, everyone runs back inside to open gifts, and then around 1 am we all sat down to eat a dinner of warm tamales and coffee. I lasted until 2 am, at which point I struggled to stay awake. Finally, I went home to bed, feeling so content from the holiday festivities and knowing it would be one of my favorite memories from Guatemala.

The next day, Christmas day, was almost like nothing in Guatemala. A few stores were closed, but otherwise it was a really normal day. Whereas in the states, Christmas is a very important day, in Guatemala, everyone just slowly recovers from the night before. I hung out with some friends in town, and then went home to rest and pack because the NEXT DAY I got to see my Aunt Patti, Uncle Kenny, Michelle, and Jeff! They came to Guatemala for a short trip after vacationing in Belize and I got to take them to Antigua for a night and then the Lake for two more. The day after they arrived to Guatemala, David returned after spending some time in Panama, and we all had a great time - I think the best part was hanging out at the hotel and playing board games, card games, and drinking games. Some of the other guests complained that we were too loud but I think really they were just jealous of all the fun we were having :) Jeffrey also jumped off a huge cliff into the lake, and the rest of us watched in awe/fear :)

The morning of my birthday, the Steinbergs prepared to depart Guate and David and I took off for Huehue. After a short 4.5 hours, we were back home and getting ready for my birthday party. Instead of doing a dinner, I had a birthday "snack" and invited people over for bean tamales and delicious carrot cake. Unlike in the states, where you invite only a bunch of friends your age, I had 30 friends between the ages of 2 and 60 at my party. And it was a great time! We played musical chairs and freeze dance, I gave a little speech, we ate cake and tamales, and it was all over by 7 pm. A perfect, simple, low-key birthday which is just what I wanted.

On New Years Eve Day, David and I headed back to the Lake, where we met Stefanie and Jason who came to visit from the states! They spent almost two weeks in Guatemala and it was incredibly fun and busy. It was probably the lamest (or most "relaxing") New Years Eve I'd ever spent, as I struggled to stay awake after 10:00 pm. When it finally struck midnight, I felt relieved about finally being able to go to sleep! The past week had been so nuts that by New Years Eve, I was exhausted. But I was happy just to spend it in the company of good friends and get up the next morning to start on our Guatemala adventure together. Some of the highlights of Stef and Jason's trip were waking up to see the sunrise over the lake, which was way less romantic than you'd think since we almost got eaten alive by chuchos (dogs). Then getting to take them to Chiantla, meet my friends, go for an epic run through the mountains, attend my English class and literacy class. It was really funny explaining their relationship to my Guatemalan friends, who are normally not used to having friends of the opposite sex and didn't quite understand how Stef and Jason could be "just friends".

Also, visiting Xocomil with them, Guatemala's AMAZING waterpark and hiking Volcano Santa Maria, one of Guatemala's highest and hardest hikes. I had a really difficult time, especially with the sudden changes in altitude, but once we reached the top it was breathtaking. There is a smaller volcano, Santiaguito, right below Santa Maria, and it is in constant eruption. To see one volcano smoking FROM another volcano above was an experience I'll never forget. We were so high in the air that I felt like I was in an airplane. The soreness in my legs for 5 days after the hike was a good reminder that it wasn't all just a dream.

Once David, Jason, and Stef all departed, I returned home and tried to remember what my normal life in Chiantla is like. There are some big changes coming up that I recently learned about; some good and some not-so-good. The good news: my proposal that I submitted to apply for USAID small project assistance funds was approved, meaning that I received $3,500 to build water tanks in one of my rural communities where the women have to walk two hours daily in dry season to haul water from a river. The project will benefit 36 families and the local primary school, so that the community can live with better health and hygiene, as well as invest their time in other productive things besides collecting water. The tanks are basically HUGE buckets that collect rainwater through a catchment system attached to the families' rooves. I am really excited to make this project one of my goals for my last 10 months and something that I know will significantly improve the lives of the people in this community.

Other news: my muni went on a firing rampage, which is really unfortunate, however one of the women in my office who had been making my life h--l was given the boot as well. And the OTHER woman who made my life h--l is being moved to a different office. Another woman I'm friendly with in the muni is being moved to OUR office to take their places!! So I am thrilled about that. Due to budget cuts, the muni is also consolidating the Children and Youth Office with our Womens Office. It is adding a lot to our already-overflowing plate, but it is a new challenge that will allow us to work in different areas.

Sad news is that Peace Corps told us that because of budget cuts through Congress, in addition to the fact that it's hard to find volunteers with special skills like the Municipal Development program requires, they are cutting our program. It is really heartbreaking for me, because as much as I've had challenges with difficult office personnel, unsupportive mayor and city council, etc. I really believe in our program and what it offers rural communities in terms of educating on human rights, citizen participation, and organizing groups at a community level. But, what's done is done, and since there will no longer be a Muni program in two years as we PCVs working in this area finish our service, the best we can do is keep up the work we're doing and go out with a bang...

To end on a happy note, my niece/nephew is due to be born ANY MINUTE! Stay tuned for news, and also for the next blog written by my guest contributors, Stefanie and Jason!

Volcan Santiaguito eruption, seen from above on Volcan Santa Maria

Stef, Jason, David, and I at the Zaculeu ruins in Huehue

On top of Volcan Santa Maria

My 26th birthday party

The night before my birthday, celebrating with the Steinbergs

With the Steinbergs in Antigua

Celebrating Christmas Eve

Learning to make tamales

I just returned from an amazing vacation in Panama, where I spent ten days visiting David and his family. It was my first time visiting the country, AND my first vacation out of Guatemala, so I was really itching to get away! Panama felt like a bunch of different places all combined into one. It felt like Chicago in the sense that it has a beautiful city scape and is located right on the coast, plus the nice people. It felt like DC for the international food - and the traffic. It felt like NY because everyone lives and speaks at a quicker pace, especially compared to the snail's pace of Guatemala. It felt like Florida for the vegetation and hot, humid weather. It felt like New Jersey because of the malls. But, all in all, it had a unique vibe that I really loved.

Some of the highlights:

- Eating sushi three times during my 10 day visit, plus amazing Italian food, dim sum, delicious seafood and fried fish on the beach, and ice cream EVERY SINGLE DAY

- The Panama City Half Marathon, which David and I ran on December 5th. It was definitely the hottest race I've ever done, but it was a great course and an awesome way to see the city by foot. They had PLENTY of water, which was necessary to keep us cool, and one of the coolest things was that around mile 11, they gave us sponges soaked in cold water! So I was able to take a mini sponge "bath" while running which felt amazing. His family also came to cheer us on, so it was nice to have their support which gave us an extra boost when we were getting tired.

- Drinking the tap water. Unlike Guatemala where 99% of the water is contaminated, the tap water in Panama is completely safe - and delicious. It felt so liberating to be able to brush my teeth, rinse my fruits and vegetables, etc. without ever worrying about getting sick.

- The warm weather! Although unfortunately it rained during almost my whole trip, it was warmmm. In Guatemala, when I get stuck in the rain, all I can think about is immediately getting to my cold house to change into dry clothes, and then still being cold, yet dry. Although Panama tends to crank up the air conditioning WAYY too high in stores, restaurants, etc. it was nice to not always be chilly.

- Visiting Chitré, which is a small city in the interior of the country (even though it is close to the coast, Panamanians refer to anywhere that isn't the metropolis of Panama City as the "interior") This town is really important because it is where David's family is from and where his grandmother and her nine siblings grew up. It was a four hour drive, on a nice, flat paved highway, where unlike Guatemala, I didn't have to hold on to the bar to avoid sliding off the seat during the bus's sharp turns around the mountains. We had a really nice, short trip there, where I met TONS of David's family, plus ate typical Panamanian food. It was one of the highlights of the highlights, because I got to see something different and meet so many people. I loved the "tranquilo" pace of life there.

- Having dinner with my former coworkers from Partners of the Americas and a bunch of the Latin American youth with whom I worked before joining the Peace Corps, who were coincidentally in Panama City at the same time for a big youth summit. It was so cool to see the kids that I worked with two years ago, plus my coworkers with whom I became very close. The youth were all psyched to see me and hear a bit about Guatemala, which was fun to share with them.

- Cooking "Pepian de Pollo", one of Guatemala's most traditional typical dishes, for David's family. Since there are no "typical" American dishes from the US, besides maybe grilled cheese sandwiches, I wanted to make something Guatemalan to share. It was my first time making it and actually turned out pretty delicious!

- Going to the 24 hour supermarket, where they had good ice cream, cheeses, snack foods like Goldfish and Smartfood White Cheddar Popcorn (never before seen in Guatemala!), and other things like quinoa and brown sugar that I can't find here. I felt like I was in Disneyland going into that place...

- Blending in. Here in Guatemala, I stand out like a sore thumb, no matter how I dress, speak, etc. And in Panama, the people look like the "colors of the rainbow", as David described. There are white Panamanians, black Panamanians, Asian Panamanians, and everything in between. It was so nice to walk around and not feel like people were staying at me, or even hardly noticing me at all! Along with this highlight was feeling safe. David and I took nice walks at nighttime, which felt incredibly liberating. Here in Guate and even in my town, I don't like walking around after dark. And when we were in Chitré, we took a nice stroll the first night there, and saw a young girl sitting alone in the park at 9:30 pm, using her LAPTOP. I could not believe my eyes.

- Meeting David's family. It was so special to meet people whose names I've heard so much that I felt like I already knew them. I got to stay at his grandmother's house, where she has lived for 50 years, and see adorable family pictures.

As much as I enjoyed my trip, I missed small things about Guate. Like greeting everyone on the street, which is something that in the beginning, I struggled to remember to do, but have become very accustomed to now. And the local market, where I go almost daily to buy my produce. I love being able to inspect every piece of fresh fruit or vegetable that I buy, tasting samples to ensure their quality, and making small talk with the vendors. But in Panama, I bought everything in the supermarket, and missed my small town mercado. Also, while my Spanish has significantly improved since arriving to Guatemala, certain words that I learned here don't make sense anywhere else besides Guatemala/Mexico. I described something as "chulo" (cute) and David was quickly like, that doesn't mean anything here. So it is hard to know, when speaking normally, what makes sense in general Spanish and what makes sense only in Guatemala.

Only a few days before I departed for Panama, I celebrate my second Thanksgiving in Guatemala. It is my favorite holiday and a big tradition in my family, so of course I was feeling a bit homesick, but it was one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had, thanks to some Peace Corps volunteers in the department of San Marcos who organized a HUUUGE Thanksgiving dinner. I traveled six hours to reach their site, and the night before Thanksgiving, we had pizza, Chinese food, and ice cream cake to celebrate the birthday of another PCV, plus killed two turkeys (I did not do that part, but did watch squeamishly.) Normally I'd shy away from something like that, but I figured it'd be the only Thanksgiving I'll probably ever spend where I see the turkey get killed before consumed by 30 hungry people, and that it would make me appreciate more where my food was coming from. On Thanksgiving day, we prepared LOTS of food and dessert. My friends and I made 10 pounds of mashed potatoes before traveling, which was good because there was lots of work to be done the day of. Spending the day with my friend's Guatemalan host family and 15 other PCVs, some of whom have become such close friends, was really special, especially since we're all so far away from home. I couldn't help but tear up when we all went around the table discussing what we were thankful for, since I have so much to be thankful for this year. I will always remember fondly the two Thanksgivings I spent here in Guatemala!! Now, on to Christmas season :)

PCVs celebrating Thanksgiving in San Marcos

Preparing the food

Thank you Turkey, for providing food to lots of hungry people!

Getting into the Christmas spirit with David and his family, as they decorated the tree

Amazing seafood in Panama

Roughing it on my last day in Panama - Playa Bonita

Delicious fried fish

David and I, "reindeer" style

Running the Panama City half marathon

I’ve had a hard time getting up the “ánimo” lately to update my blog, mostly because I’ve been in a big funk lately and I know you folks back home don’t necessarily want to hear my complaining or state of mild depression. And, many PCVs will tell you that finishing your first year of service and entering year two will put you in the “second year slump”. This could not have been more the case for me over the past few weeks, but I am happy to report that I am coming out of it! In the past months, I’ve been busy with travel to Antigua for my group’s Mid-Service Conference, a trip to Todos Santos for their famous feria and horse-races, participating in a half-marathon in Xela, and basically just trying to figure out what to make of my second year. I’ve been dealing with some challenges lately, like my boyfriend finishing his service and leaving Guatemala (although there are some visits planned in the very near future), but even bigger than that, losing someone who I thought was a good friend over some dishonesty about money, and more than anything, making the decision to leave the office where I was assigned to work (the Municipal Women’s Office). Those of you who read the blog and especially communicate with me on a regular basis know that I’ve had some big problems with the two office technicians (técnicas)– although the coordinator of the office (my official counterpart) is AMAZING (wish I could multiply these capital letters by 100). They have treated me with such lack of respect and professionalism for the past year, and following a small incident four weeks ago that led me to cry out of feeling so incredibly p---ed off, I decided it was no longer a suitable arrangement for me to continue working there. So, from now on, I will go to the office only when there is a specific reason to do so – prepare for trainings and meetings, work related to the water project I’m still soliciting, and our weekly radio show. But aside from that, it will force me to make a more conscious effort to get out into communities more often and do work that I find more substantial and meaningful in the first place. I tend to take things really personally, so it was difficult for me to just suck it up to the fact that these two individuals are jealous and overall unhappy people, and that I was just an easy target for that. But for the time being, I’d rather be a bit bored at home than in an environment which is toxic to my mental health. I’ve found activities to keep me busy for the time being, and actually find I’ve done quite a bit this month; like training a bunch of women community leaders on gender equality, giving a human rights talk to one of our really removed communities, leading a workshop to male and female community leaders on how to prioritize community needs, and the activity that we did for Día Internacional de la No Violencia Contra la Mujer (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) for our network of women’s group leaders. And now, before I know it, it will be December and I’ll be off to a much-deserved vacation in Panama!

I feel like I’ve really reached out to my Guatemalan friends during this time, which has helped me immensely, and especially to remember that for every “bad seed” you encounter, there are a handful of good ones. I’ve enjoyed visiting local friends’ homes more often these days, and planning things like lunches and parties where we get together. A woman around the corner recently taught me to make “pepian”, which is a very typical Guatemalan dish that combines chiles, tomatoes, peppers, sesame and pumpkin seeds with cinnamon and cloves, ground into a yummy red sauce and slow-cooked with chicken. It is delicious and I think I enjoy it now even more after learning how to cook it and all the different steps involved. And, you all back in the states can count on me to make it for you during my next visit in February!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit a really far away community, due to a clothing donation that was put together by a group of wealthier Huehue women. It was my first time getting out into communities for a long time, since all the muni funds have magically disappeared and there hasn’t been money for diesel for the muni vehicles. So these women were nice enough to pay to put gas in the cars, and to invite my counterpart and I along. After we gave a nice talk to the women’s group, the Huehue ladies starting giving out clothing and supplies to the women and children who were present, probably about 150 people. Then, they gave out empty bottles, like gallon bottles of bleach, milk jugs, soda liters, even just smaller sized soda and Gatorade bottles. And the people were all over them!! This is because the women have to walk to the river to collect their water, and these empty receptacles are so useful to them. After having been here in Guatemala for a bit, I have definitely learned to make use of things that one might consider “trash” but this took it to the whole next level. It was really cool to see the garbage being used for something so necessary; collecting water.

And a funny story that recently happened: Many times, on the public buses, people will stand up in the front and talk to the bus in a very loud, annoying voice about something that they’re trying to sell. These people sell “medicines” or special herbal treatments or teas. They always go off on a big loud rant, saying how these remedies will cure all sorts of ailments. Often times, they’ll go into explicit details or show some really gross pictures. I usually roll my eyes at them and try to zone out their yelling as best as I can, but somehow most of the Guatemalans on the bus are actually interested in what they have to say, and people even buy the stuff sometimes! Well, on a recent bus ride between Chiantla and Huehue, a guy was in front selling a “tea” that would help with digestion and overall health. I zoned him out for the most part, until he started talking about constipation, and how we become constipated when we have a bad diet, etc. THEN, he started making constipated noises, and clenching his teeth, closing his eyes, as if he was trying to take a dump right there on a bus. He said something about how “the poop gets stuck when blah blah blah” and I just sat there in disbelief, wondering if I was just imagining the whole thing. It’s moments like that when I am like, “seriously is this my life right now?!”. It may not be those type of moments that make my Peace Corps service “meaningful”, but at least it keeps it from being boring!!

My PCV friend and I recently participated in the Xela half-marathon. Xela (pronounced "shay-la") is Guatemala's second largest city. This was the best organized Guatemalan half-marathon I've done so far, of the four that I've participated in.

My English class students at a birthday dinner we had last week for one of them, where we ate lots of food and played a hilarious prank on the birthday boy :)

A march we did in town for Día de No Violencia

The horse races at the Todos Santos feria

Todos Santos spectators

The PCV Halloween party that we had in Todos Santos. I was a piñata and threw candy at people all night!

Unfortunately, things here in Chiantla have been rather difficult and depressing lately. One day about a week and a half, as I was taking my sweet time getting ready in the morning, I get a call from my counterpart telling me to come to the muni immediately, and to bring my rubber boots because we had to “rescue some little girls from a river”. Having absolutely no idea what she was talking about, I grabbed my polka-dot rain boots and ran out the door. Turns out, with the tremendous rains that we had a few weeks ago, one of our communities called Paquix, located 45 minutes away in the summit of the mountains, was becoming completely flooded. Upon learning more about the situation, many families had to evacuate their homes and were currently waiting out the storm in “safe spaces”.

We were still down in Chianta, warm and dry, while my coworkers were making huge efforts to get us up to the community and provide these people with some help. Unfortunately, the authorities that run my municipality said we that they were unable to provide us with the muni vehicle for lack of funds. Long story short, it took two hours of fighting and phone calls before we finally made it up the mountain to this community. When we got there, the water that was collecting up there was unimaginable, and people were crammed into dry buildings to avoid the flooding. Some of these refuges were rather unsafe, as the 35+ families crowding in them were without food, water, and dry clothing since the night before. of these spaces was an unfinished schoolhouse, which had walls that reached only to shoulder height and no windows or doors. I should also mention that on the summit of the mountains, where the majority of Chiantla’s population lives, it is COLD. Even on a normal, sunny day that I visit communities up there, I wear a down jacket and long johns. So these families were literally sheltering themselves in a room where the wind was completely blowing through. Even when we finally reached the community, the chaos continued, with frantic phone calls going back and forth between Chiantla’s health center, the mayor, the national disaster agency. I felt so helpless watching this chaos occur, and so frustrated that I felt there was nothing I could do about it. Eventually, some food and help made it up to the community, after more than 12 hours since the families first evacuated. By 6 pm that same day, we were back in Chiantla and I was able to go home and rest. It was truly the most difficult day I’ve had here, not only to see the people suffering and some having lost their homes, but seeing the inept and dysfunctional system that prevents things from happening when people are in moments of true need.

However, there is a positive note to all this. During the day while we were up in the community, the local radio was blasting news about everything that was happening, and members of the community sprung to action. When I returned to the muni building later that same day, there was a mountain of trashbags filled with food and clothing donations for the victims of the flooding. When people down in Chiantla’s town center heard the radio news, they literally ran to the muni to drop off supplies. I found this act of community support to be so uplifting, that people will help their neighbors in times of need, even if those “neighbors” live 45 minutes away on top of a mountain. Plus, my two sitemates who live in that same community were evacuated to my house, even though luckily their homes were fine. So, it was nice to have two gringos that I could vent to, while having a beer and eating a wholesome dinner of chocolate bars.

And you know the expression, “when it rains, it pours”? Well, that day really epitomizes it. Because on the same day of the flood emergency, the muni employees went on strike. Basically, there is a lot of discontent with the municipal authorities and misuse of muni funds (without getting into the sticky details, my muni is in debt by 3 million quetzals….that’s $415 thousand dollars. You can imagine what I’m alluding to here). The muni employees went on strike for an entire week, until one of the city councilmen agreed to open a dialogue. So since then, they have been in dialogue and the muni employees are back to work for the time being. I think I actually remained surprising calm during all this mess, probably because I realize I have no other choice. But besides the interpersonal issues that I’ve had with the women in my office, it makes me realize that I need to find other ways to work besides only in the muni. While I do have my literacy class on the side, I know that I need to be able to focus on other areas to make a sustainable impact because things in the municipality are too volatile sometimes and I can’t depend on that type of environment to accomplish my goals. Luckily, there are institutions and NGOs that work in Chiantla, and one of them happens to be run by a friend of mine. So, this past week, I gave my first cooking classes to two different groups of women through the NGO’s community centers. And it was so much fun! With both groups, I taught them how to make Banana and Incaparina pancakes; they had never eaten pancakes before and loved it. Incaparina is this government-produced corn powder that is super enriched with vitamins and minerals for malnourished children and is commonly used to make hot corn drinks, called Atol, which are very popular here, but it can also be used in substitution for flour. I think that by teaching cooking classes to these women will be a great way to earn their trust and then support and train them in other areas.

It is funny how life in the Peace Corps can take you in so many different directions sometimes. If you had asked me prior to August 2009 whether I’d want to teach English and cooking classes when I arrived to Guatemala, I probably would have answered with a big NO. But now, these are two of my favorite things. I have learned that I need to be open-minded to different situations, because they can result in really positive outcomes. And hey, the activities that actually fit my “job description” as a Municipal Development program volunteer aren’t always easily accomplished, especially when the institution for which I work is suddenly hundreds of thousands of quetzales in debt, so finding alternatives is kinda necessary sometimes.

Back to the subject of cooking, it is something that I have grown to appreciate and love while here in Guatemala. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have a LOT of time on my hands to experiment making new foods. I have learned to make some yummy dishes, like Guate-style Pad Thai, chocolate cake from scratch, yogurt from scratch, and gnocchi from scratch! The gnocchi was inspired by a trip to Antigua, where one can find mostly any desired food item for a highly elevated, beyond Peace Corps-budget price. So I found freeze-packed gnocchi one time, and then cooked a yummy dinner for friends. I suddenly felt inspired to look up a gnocchi recipe online, and seeing that it only involved water, potatoes, flour, and salt, I thought, how hard can it be? So I attempted making it from scratch and it turned out delicious. Plus, I churned out enough gnocchi for at least 6 meals, for the total price of 6 quetzales, as compared to the small package that I’d bought in Antigua for 40 quetzales.

Another new initiative that has been exciting lately is applying for a small grant through USAID to do a project in one of our communities. This particular community is rather small (200 habitants) and has an awesome women’s group. They also happen to live on the summit of the mountains, where water is extremely scarce in dry season. During half the year, they have community faucets where they go to fill up large jugs of water to bring back to their homes. But in dry season, these faucets no longer have water and the women have to walk two hours every day to collect water and bring it home. So we are soliciting a water tank project and I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that it comes through!! We are in the final stages of submitting the mountain of paperwork but I am hopeful that it will be successful…I’ll update the blog with (hopefully) good news in the next few weeks!

The Municipal Development Program cycle is now at the point where there are new trainees who are soon to become volunteers, my group is now at the mid-year mark in our service (or will be at least on October 29th), and the year before me is finishing their service and leaving. It is weird to see the faces of the new trainees and think that that was us, just one year ago. And to see that the group the year before me is now heading back to the US. It makes me realize that time really will fly by, despite the occasional/not-so-occasional long or bad days, and that I need to take advantage of my second year to really accomplish my goals (and take some MUCH needed vacation).

On another positive note, I am looking forward to the upcoming visit by my Aunt Patti, Uncle Kenny, and two cousins Michelle and Jeff; and then by my friend Stefanie just a few days later!! I cannot wait to share Guatemala with them and enjoy some fun travel and vacation as well. And finally, I am happy to say that while rainy season certainly went out with a bang this year, it has not rained since the flooding a week and a half ago. So dry season (or “summer”, as Guatemalans call it) is officially here and I am so happy to retire the raincoat and umbrella until next year.

Often when one travels to another country, people have many ideas of what the US is like (or what they think it should be like) according to movies and pop culture. And often, Americans abroad encounter anti-Americanism. One thing that one can’t avoid as an American living in Guatemala is the incredible influence that the US has on Guatemala, especially because out of a country of 13 million people, there are an estimated 1 million living in the States. I can’t even describe how huge this is…remittances from abroad (the states) account for a large percentage of the country’s GDP, which in real life terms, means that people have money to build their houses, send their kids to school (or even private school), and live a much more comfortable life than the majority of Guatemalan citizens. There is a stark contrast between normal homes and which houses are built from money from the states. This is especially the case in the rural villages, where you’ll see some nicer, well-constructed homes, in literally the middle of nowhere. I recently attended a photo exhibition in the Spanish embassy in Antigua, which showcased "remittance architecture". On the very front of the all brochures is a photograph of a hotel here in my town in Chiantla called "Chicano’s Hotel". It is the only hotel in my small town and is very obviously remittance money - big, shiny tinted glass windows, four stories high...it definitely stands out next to all the surrounding small homes.

And as for anti-Americanism, that pretty much doesn’t exist here, which is surprising given how the US has an ugly history of meddling in Guatemalan political affairs. I have never once heard a nasty comment about my country here. When I say that I’m from the states, the reaction is usually, "I love the states!", or "I lived in the states!", or "My brother/son/cousin lives in the states!", or "hmm…Philadelphia…is that near Los Angeles?" It also means that I have to be careful when speaking on the phone or to other volunteers in English, because a lot more people here understand and speak English than one would think. And it’s interesting because people’s experiences in the states can lead them to have a lot more opportunity once they’re back in Guatemala. For example, a man who worked in an Italian pizzeria in Portland, Oregon for three years owns a small comedor near my house. His pizza is by far the best pizza I’ve ever had in Guatemala - even better than the fancy pizza places geared towards tourist consumption in Antigua. And then there’s one of the Municipal Policeman who lived in the states for a few years and did mostly construction and repair type work. He worked in the states until he made enough money to build his house, and then he returned to Guatemala. While his job working as a muni traffic cop certainly doesn’t pay too well, he now knows all these handy skills that allow him to do extra small jobs on the side (like fixing my sink when it leaks). One of the current city councilmen worked as a cook in a chain hotel restaurant in Michigan. He told me that there were "a lot of black people" where he worked and that he knows every single word in English related to making waffles and omelettes. It’s so interesting to think about having what seems like a very low class job in one country can lead to having one of the most important jobs on a municipal level in another country.

Being surrounded by so many people who either personally know the states or have family there has been a really interesting experience for me. Most Guatemalans live around the California and LA area, so a lot of people don’t know where Philadelphia is, but I imagine that Guatemalans know a very different picture of the states than if I were a Peace Corps volunteer in most other countries around the world where PCVs serve. I always took a more liberal perspective towards immigration policy, but even more so after living here. It’s so sad that illegal immigrants are treated like criminals when all they are trying to do is improve the lives of their families. I know that sounds really cliché, but for anyone who thinks that argument doesn’t have good reason, come live in the campo and see for yourself…people literally have no other option. But in any case, it can be fun to have people to chat with in basic English now and then, and to learn about their different experiences.

But despite the rapid globalization and influence of the US on Guatemalan life and culture (like the guys walking around in Hollister and Abercrombie shirts, signs on car repair places that say “car wash”, and the growing number of Guatemalan friends on facebook), there are still things that shock my Guatemalan friends in common conversation. For example, my counterpart Rosario was astounded that in the states, nobody goes home for lunch. I told her that the only people who would go home for lunch are those who actually work from home…otherwise, people’s workplaces are usually too far away for them to return home to eat. She asked what my dad does for lunch, and I told her that he doesn’t even work in the same state and that his commute is an hour long drive, so he usually brings his lunch because it gets expensive to go out to eat (at least $8, I told her, and she was shocked. I’m not actually sure she believed me...)

And then emerged the subject of hired help. Here, even people who are not financially well off have hired help, who either lives in the house or comes and does chores and takes care of the children. It is so inexpensive that it’s not even necessarily a status symbol to have babysitters or cleaning ladies, because so many people do. My counterpart, for example, does not have a high paying salary but it only costs 400 quetzales ($50) a month to pay a young woman to live in her house and look after her baby. And for the past few months, I’ve been paying a woman to come wash my laundry every other week…she charges me between 25-40 quetzales ($3-$5), depending on how many clothes and sets of sheets there are. It is insanely cheap, but I am happy to pay the money to someone who needs it, and it saves me about 4 hours of hand washing…plus, I will still probably never figure out how to properly hand wash bed sheets. When Rosario asked me who is in charge of cleaning in my house, I told her that my parents share everything, and that when my brother and I were younger, we’d have assigned chores that rotated according to the day of the week. She really liked this idea and thought it was “muy correcto” and said that she admired my parents for sharing all the work in the house, because here, that probably happens in about 1% of households. And then she said, “So how do they manage all the housework if the both have jobs?…oh wait, you have washing machines over there.” To think that I used to dread laundry day, which came about every two weeks, and consisted of me dragging my clothes hamper into my apartment building basement, throwing some money on my laundry card, waiting for empty machines, running four loads at once, and then spending 45 folding everything when it was all over…seriously, I used to complain about that?! And now, even though I’m no longer washing my own laundry, I still have to worry about everything getting enough drying time in the sun before the downpours come in the afternoons. One of the things I’m most looking forward to about going home (besides eating sushi and Thai, playing with Toro, and drinking water from the tap) is putting my clothes into a washer/dryer and the wonderful smell of downy that I will enjoy afterwards.

On September 15th, Guatemala celebrated its 189th day of Independence, which was fun and special. Like the states, it is a very important holiday, filled with parties, fireworks, and parades. Unlike the states, it always falls during the school year, so the kids are busy decorating the schools with their national symbols and practicing for their parades. The muni employees had a parade, which consisted of us walking behind a banner. Pretty simple compared to some of the other parades, but it was really fun because I got to carry the flag. It made my arms really tired by the end, but it was also a really cool experience.

It is cool to be at the point in my service where I can look back and remember exactly what I was doing and how I was feeling a year ago. A year ago at this time, I still had no idea where my site would be and what my life in site would be like. And although the year in country mark makes one reflect on the service thus far, and goals met or goals that have yet to be met, I feel proud of where I am at this point and excited for things that I hope to accomplish in Year Two.

Independence Day pardes

Carrying the Guatemalan flag for the muni parade

My counterpart´s baby´s first birthday party

Baby´s first piñata. I was in charge of buying the piñata, so of course, I opted for the panda

The baby, who now loves walking, taking me for a stroll around his party

Chiantla´s hotel

I am happy to report that two things I recently did lately turned out to be a huge success: “Corriendo por la Juventud”, the Fundraiser 10K that I organized for ADESJU (the local youth development NGO) and the Convite Femenino for Chiantla’s September Feria.

Since the Convite was the more recent of the two activities, I’ll start with that. So every Guatemalan town has it’s own saint or virgin, and every year, there is Feria on that saint/virgin’s birthday. Guatemala has two celebrations for the same Virgin Mary: La Virgen de Candelaria (February 2nd) and la Natividad de la Virgen (September 8). So the February Feria was my first time experiencing a Feria in my town. They stretch the virgin’s birthday into a weeklong celebration, with street vendors taking up every walking inch of the town. There is block after block of people selling food, sweets, DVDs, clothes, kitchen items, etc. They even take the school gymnasium and convert it into a mini shopping mall for a week. It is really crazy. There are some rickety rides as well, and even inside my house I can hear the kids screaming in sequence every 20 seconds or so. There are also concerts every night and fireworks at all hours of the day, even more so than usual. Anyway, there is both a men’s and a women’s “convite”, which I am roughly translating to “procession”. The men’s is two weeks before, and consists of a group of men putting on huge, cartoon character-style costumes, and dancing all over town, from 7 am until 10 pm. The women’s is a bit different, in that it has different costumes, more elaborate dance steps, and goes from 3 pm to 8 pm (dances in less areas of the town – only in the urban center, as compared to the men’s which goes to more rural areas too). Anyway, I watched the Women’s Convite in February with David and my two sitemates, and it looked so fun, I immediately told my counterpart Rosario that I wanted to participate and she told me that I am crazy but that it’s a good idea. And so I asked one of the women involved if I would be able to join their group, and they happily accepted. This is back in January or so. Then, about six weeks before the actual Convite day, we started rehearsal. We practiced every weeknight, from 8:30-10 pm. All the dance steps were relatively easy to learn, plus we did each one a million times so by the end I felt really prepared. It was a mix of marimba, reaggaeton, cumbia, duranguense, and hip hop music.

So basically, we put on these crazy costumes, and dance a combo of three songs on different street blocks throughout Chiantla’s urban center. Then, after dancing in seven different little sections of the town, we go to the central park in front of the muni to do the “homenaje”, or tribute, to the Virgen. The homenaje is different every time, to keep the whole thing new and fresh. This time, we each had to bring a little girl, dressed in white, with a basket of flower petals. We formed an aisle, the girls threw the petals on the ground, and then they walked the Virgen through the flower carpet aisle. After that, we dance in a big line, and the MC called each of our names, at which point we pulled off our masks and reveal our faces to the crowd. People gave huge cheers when I pulled off my mask – I think a lot of people didn’t know I was participating and were really surprised, which was fun.

But there were basically two crazy things about this whole ordeal. First is that, even though we practiced all the dance moves for six weeks, we practice un-masked, in sneakers, on one of the women’s even-leveled garage floor. So add this huge mask with small slits for the eyes and nose, makes seeing and breathing much more difficult, plus big high-heeled boots, plus the unevenness of the street…I literally felt like I was drunk the whole time from my inability to see or walk correctly. And then, the really really crazy part: so during our rehearsals with the little girls (mine is a friend’s adorable niece), they told us what to expect for the homenaje….that that they were going to set off a series of 36 fireworks for 36 different petitions to the Virgen Mary (love, peace, health, etc etc) and then a man wearing a “Torito” would run around the center of the big aisle that we had all formed. A “torito” is basically a cage that one places over their head, with a painting of a bull on it, and all these wire racks that shoot off sparklers and fireworks. Then the person wearing the Torito runs all around, while the fireworks and such shoot off. And the woman in charge of everything told the little girls not to be scared, that the Torito wouldn’t get close enough to burn anyone. WELL. In reality, the guy who did the Torito was completely drunk, could barely walk straight, and the fireworks are shooting off in every which direction. Two of the little girls actually got burned and of course my little girl was scared as s***, which I don’t blame her at all for…the only reason that I wasn’t totally freaked out is because I was wearing this huge mask and costume and felt that it would protect me from getting burned. I think that my sitemates facebook status from that day best describes it: What I just witnessed at the Chiantla feria just made my "Top 5 craziest things I've ever seen" list... Picture this: Drunk Man, wearing a cow covered in fireworks, stumbling through a crowd of 500 innocent civilians and children, exploding for five minutes, to screams and applause...

Luckily, the women who are in charge of everything also agreed that it was a bad idea. Which worried me, because sometimes things I see here that greatly concern me have no concern to Guatemalans (like all the Feria electrical wires lying in puddles). But all in all, the Convite was a great way to participate in all the Feria things, plus experience part of Chiantla’s religious culture, which is really important here. There will be two more Feria’s during my service, and I will gladly participate again. It is really fun, plus something to do to occupy my time. Something that I was hoping to achieve by participating was making some new friends. I definitely feel like there are now 31 more women whose names I know, but in some senses during all the practices I totally felt like the new girl at school, since they are all already friends and know each other. But I think that after this experience, I feel more comfortable to be myself around everyone and hopefully be a little more outgoing.

The whole group of the Convite Femenino before departing for the dance procession

The first stop along the procession

With Marcela, my little girl for the tribute

La Natividad de la Virgen

At the end, after the revelation, with my counterpart and her baby

The other big thing that took place recently was the youth race that I organized. After a lot of stress, it turned out really well. We solicited different businesses and people for prizes and water, so that we didn’t have to spend too much money out of pocket. The inscription fee for every runner was 10 quetzales, and all that money went directly to the organization. In the end, we had 63 runners from all different age groups, plus 4 PCVs who ran which was fun. We had been expecting more runners, but I was happy with the turnout and the focus of the whole event. The attempt was to make the event more focused on achieving goals instead of winning, so we gave diplomas to every runner, and during the awards ceremony, asked each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place runners what message they have for youth and improving the lives of youth. We also had a marimba playing, the help of the police to direct traffic, and volunteers to hand out water, direct the runners, and keep time, which all made the whole event run more smoothly. I was very happy and relieved once it was all over, and am already looking forward to planning next years! Plus, my friends at the NGO have promised to keep this an annual thing, meaning I guess I’ll have to come back to Chiantla every year on International Youth Day to keep up the tradition!

On a more sad note, Guatemala is been receiving a much stronger rainy season than normal, resulting in many landslides and deaths (apparently reported as the worst in 60 years). Currently, the Pan-American highway between Huehue/the Western part of the country and Guatemala City is completely blocked by a landslide. Lucky for me, I don’t have any travel plans this month, but it does really complicate things and is tragic that so many people have lost their lives. The president declared a state of mourning and national emergency and Peace Corps has put us all on “standfast” which means that we aren’t allowed to leave our communities until further notice. This is something that will not last much longer and I am confident that in my part of the country, things will be fine, but I am hoping that it will not cause further damage everywhere else.

Did you all know that Peace Corps has three goals? They are:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

So by writing this blog, I am actually trying to accomplish more of Goal Three: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. So if there are things that you are curious to know about Guatemala that I haven’t touched on, please ask!

It has been over a month since my last blog entry, but not due to lack of things to write by any means. Last Thursday, August 12, was my anniversary of arriving in Guatemala. I feel like I want to say that the time has flown by and it feels like I just left, but to be honest that really isn’t true at all. The past year has been filled with so much discovery, confusion, happiness, sadness, loneliness, and enjoyment of the company and sharing with new friends, all at the same time. Which is probably why Peace Corps is also known not only as “the toughest job you’ll ever love” but also a 27-month emotional roller coaster. A year ago, I arrived in a country that I knew only by newspaper, film, guidebooks, and stories. And now, it feels like home (kind of). There are certain times where I feel like I have enveloped so much of what is Guatemala, and other times when I feel that there are certain things I will just never be able to accept or understand. But I have undoubtedly learned a lot. I now know how to board a bus even while it is still in motion, and then argue with the bus ayudante who collects the fare when I know he is trying to rip me off, and then bang on the wall of the bus when I am ready to get off. I understand that unless you have a personal relationship with someone, no matter what your title is or how educated you are, they won’t want to work with you unless you have “confianza”. I no longer cringe (as much) when I see the de-headed chickens and tubs of chicken feet in the markets. The list goes on and on..

But even though there are some times that I find myself very homesick or wondering what I am really doing here, I know that the journey is far from over (15 months to be exact) and that I still have a lot to learn and accomplish. Another Muni PCV a year ahead of me told me that the first year is “figuring it out” which now I can totally understand to be true. I arrived here, thinking I spoke excellent Spanish, thinking that I already knew about development work, thinking many things that in the end turned out to completely not be true. Just because I could speak Spanish well didn’t necessarily mean that I could effectively communicate certain things to Guatemalans in a way that they were able or willing to understand. And just because I had a couple years of work in development didn’t mean that I was prepared for confronting a strong machista culture and completely corrupt and inefficient local government.

But in any case, my Guatemalan friends congratulated me on my first year and expressed their happiness that I would still be here for a little over a year more. Which made me feel really good. One thing that is really easy to do here is focus on the negative: the machismo, the unprofessional work environment, the noise, the pollution, the leaky walls during rainy season, the snail’s pace manner in getting work done, the people who don’t show up to meetings, the repetitive beans/eggs/tortillas, the extreme poverty.

But there are also many positives of which sometimes I have to remind myself on the days when I am sad or annoyed. Like the beautiful mountains where I live, the people who warmly embrace my presence, the relaxed pace of life, the 10:00 snack break, the ability to buy fresh fruit and vegetables every single day, the support and company of other PCVs who deal with the exact same frustrations that I do.

One really interesting cultural difference between the US and Guatemala is the collectivism. In the US, I feel that people take the attitude of wanting to have “their own” of everything: their own personal space, their own food, their own house, their own belongings. Here in Guate, it is the total opposite. You can see someone board the bus and sit right down next to another passenger, even though the bus could be practically empty. Snacks and food are meant to be shared, no matter how small or messy the portion. One recent example is when I had some friends over and one of the women brought her baby. The baby was crying and fussy as we were eating. I was holding him for a moment during this crying, when my friend stuck her fingers right into my plate of coconut sticky rice to try and offer some to the baby. Turns out he wasn’t hungry, since he didn’t accept the rice, but in that moment, I kind of lost my appetite as well. If this had happened back in the states, I probably would have proclaimed, “What are you doing?! Get your hands out of my food!” but here, she would have likely thought I was either crazy or extremely rude for even suggesting that what she did was gross.

Running is something that has definitely kept me busy lately. While it can be stressful at times, it has also been a good way to help my integration (plus the tortilla and arroz con leche spare tire which I have acquired since arriving here). A few weeks ago I ran a half marathon in Antigua, in preparation for a race that I did on August 8th called the “Ascenso a los Cuchumatanes”. It was the physically and mentally hardest race I’ve ever done. A fellow runner friend here in town had told me about it, and when he first described it to me, I thought he was kidding. The race started in Huehuetenango city, passed through my town of Chiantla, and climbed the mountain until reaching a point at the top called El Mirador. Huehue city lies at 6,500 feet and the Mirador at 11,000 feet. It was a complete half marathon of 21 KM/13.1 miles (although prior to the race, when asking people about the distance, I heard answers between 17 and 23 kms. Go figure). When I finally reached the top, after having what felt like a civil war between my brain and my body, I was greeted by some of the women in my literacy class and fellow PCVs who ran. The altitude hit me right away and I felt a strong tingling in my head, even in my nose and eyes, which I had never felt before. But after some watery hot chocolate and some deep breathing with my head between my knees, I felt incredible satisfaction along with the lightheadedness. And although it was very challenging, it made me feel so good that so many people came out to support and cheer me on during the race. And ever since, I’ve had people stop me on the street and in the market and say, “you’re the gringa who ran the Ascenso!” So it was a pretty cool accomplishment. Especially since there were only 32 women who ran out of 800 people, so you can bet I’ll be participating in this annual race again next year!

My passion for running also inspired me to organize a local race in my town. The youth development NGO where I volunteer and teach English to the employees is falling on some hard economic times. So, in a meeting where we discussed moneymaking strategies, I presented the idea of coordinating a race to benefit the association. They all liked the idea, so I promptly put everyone to work and began planning logistics and promotion. The race will take place in two weeks and is called “Corriendo por la Juventud”, or Running for Youth. I wanted the race to have less focus on winning and more focus on achieving, so we are going to give a diploma to every participant. We are soliciting different businesses to give us water, prizes, etc. and I am trying to remain calm that things will come together; that people will actually show up to run, that we will have enough water, that it won’t end up a disaster.

While I do feel that I am accomplishing more things at work, certain obstacles have become more outstanding in recent weeks. Our mayor, who barely supports our work, has proclaimed that the municipality is completely broke and now there is no gas money for us to go into communities and train women’s groups. Going out into the villages and meeting the women’s groups is one of my favorite parts of my job, so it is a real bummer that we have to cancel all trainings until further notice. And two of the three women who work in my office have not been so nice to me ever since I arrived here, and it is really starting to take a toll on me. The situation is that they are basically very trivial, jealous people who are only in these jobs as political favors. So it definitely makes for a difficult work environment but I have recently resolved to try as hard as possible to not let their pettiness bother me, and if necessary, I will find a new place to work. I definitely don’t want to have to resort to that last option, but I am also unwilling to let myself be unhappy on account of two difficult people.

Friends and family back home often ask what I’d like to receive in care packages. The answer used to be “I am fine don’t send me anything” but I changed my mind :) Chocolate of any sort and Annie’s Naturals Mac and Cheese are more than welcome anytime! And, I have recently created this wall of cards and letters that people have sent me, and I love mail!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me during the last year. It is one of the things that helps me along this journey and I appreciate knowing I can count on so much family and friends for the next year and three months to come!

My mail-from-home wall. Keep those cards and letters coming! :)

With some other Huehue PCVs after finishing the Ascenso a los Cuchumatanes race

We started the race in that city wayyy down there

With more PCVs in the Antigua half marathon

Celebrating "Día del Empleado Municipal" (Municipal Employee Day). The muni sponsored a day of soccer and drinking at these pools and gave us three days off. Gotta love the made-up holidays..

Some training runs in my town. Is it not beautiful!? Visit me and I'll take you running here :)

PCV ladies from my training group after having a "girls night" at my house. I am lucky to have a great support network of other volunteers!

And more PCVs at David's surprise party at La Mansion del Taco in Huehue

Well, as I left off in my previous blog post, I had some news that I was excited to share, and now I am finally able to…I am going to be a TIA! My brother and sister-in-law told me about two weeks ago that they are expecting a baby in January. I am soo excited and happy! While it will be difficult for me to be far away from family during all this, I am trying to keep perspective that joining Peace Corps, I knew I'd "miss out" on certain things, but that it will be worthwhile in the end. Plus, as a fellow PCV told me, I need to stick around Guatemala so that I will have lots of ridiculous stories to tell my little niece/nephew :)

And actually, I think that returning home to what will then be a 10 month-old will help with my reverse culture shock. I am constantly surrounded by babies and kids here. Everyone has young kids and they bring them everywhere. Whereas in the states, it would almost be considered rude to bring your children somewhere like a dinner party, at least without asking first, here it is expected that the children will attend. This past week, I had a dinner party with my English class students for the US Independence Day. And everyone got all disappointed with my friend for not bringing her two-month old baby girl! And not only is it socially acceptable to bring your babies/kids to a professional meeting, friend's party, or whatever the gathering may be, but people make a huge deal over kids. It is a very youth-focused culture and people will even treat stranger's kids like a member of their family, telling them how cute or beautiful they are, giving them a snack, playing games with them on the bus, etc. And it's not at all seen as weird.

Something that is really interesting in Guatemala is not just the kid-friendly culture but also how people here treat kids. They are babied in the sense that people are always making a big deal over them, but at the same time, kids are expected to act like adults much more than in the states. They aren't fed kiddie food, on kiddie plates, on kiddie chairs when they eat meals. They don't have a "bedtime". Women bring their kids to meetings without the army of snacks, toys, books, and games, as they would in the US, and the kids (for the most part) sit quietly while the moms receive trainings and such. I've only even seen strollers being used on very rare occasions, as most women carry their babies on their backs tied in a shawl.

Another really interesting thing in Guatemala which struck all of us when we first arrived is how openly women will breastfeed here. I've seen women standing on the bus, holding their baby and breastfeeding. I've been in meetings where a woman will get up on stage to speak to the audience, holding her baby and breastfeeding. I feel like if I told my Guatemalan friends that those actions would be looked upon as strange in the states, they would think that we gringos are absolutely insane. After all, babies need food and formula is extremely expensive, as it is in the states, and people here couldn't afford to spend $30/week on baby formula when breastmilk is free.

Anyway, my Guatemalan friends were as thrilled as I was to hear that there is going to be a new baby in my family. Allow me to describe a typical conversation with a Guatemalan upon meeting for the first time: After introducing myself, explaining that yes, my name means "face" in Spanish, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, the conversation usually goes like this:

Guatemalan: Do you have any siblings?

Me: Yes, an older brother.

Guatemalan: Just ONE?!?

Me: Yes. Just one. He is married.

Guatemalan: Do they have any kids?

Me: Not yet.

Guatemalan: They DON'T!?!

So as you can see, I am a disappointing person to Guatemalans who tend to have many siblings and many nieces/nephews to go along with them. And not to over-generalize, but a huge percentage of marriages occur here because of accidental pregnancy. So I think a lot of people are surprised to learn that Andrew and Steph are married for almost two years without any kids on the horizon. But, now that is all going to be different, and hey, maybe my little sobrinito/sobrinita will help increase my cultural integration.

On a quick note to end, I recently spent a week in Antigua for some Peace Corps trainings, then the annual All-Volunteer Conference and 4th of July party. Peace Corps had a big party for us, with lots of food, bbq, music, and beer, and it almost made me forget that I wasn't in the states. There was a departamental basketball tournament, where I made the smart move to assist my Huehue team by NOT playing and instead cheering on the side. We made really cute t-shirts that say "Huehue - the happiest place on Earth". Curious as to why? Well, I'll invite you to come visit then!! :)

With my English class students and fellow Huehue PCV at my casa for my 4th of July dinner party

Getting into the Independence Day spirit!

And what would the 4th of July be without refried black beans? Or more appropriately stated, a meal in Guatemala isn't a meal without black beans...

PCV Huehue basketball team

Representing the happiest place on earth and strategizing for the basketball tournament

My friend's very cute and chubby newborn baby

My counterpart's 10-month old baby, who she calls my Guatemalan nephew. Adorable!

I have discovered that the best way to make friends in Guatemala is through food. Which I can totally empathize with, because eating is my favorite pastime. But the Guatemalan diet, oversaturated with things sugary, salty, and greasy, is also rather monotonous. So they really love being introduced to new foods, even if they sprinkle bbq-flavored Tortrix (corn chips) in the fettuccini alfredo that I made, I try not to get insulted…

I’d say the things that most helped me to “win over” friends in my site are banana chocolate chip bread, my mom’s recipe which I could now make in my sleep, and choco-crispie treats. I have made these on many occasions, and people always ask for the recipe and how to make it, so it is a nice excuse to create conversation and invite oneself to people’s houses. Anyway, I had some baking dates with some of the muni ladies and their young daughters, where we made Valentine’s cookies back in February, and then more recently made pizza. They were so excited because they’d never made pizza before. And the experience is one that I will definitely never forget. I told the ladies that I’d be in charge of the dough if they took care of the sauce, cheese, and toppings. I show up to the house, and see they have bought, among mozzarella and cheddar cheese, Kraft American singles and “queso fresco” which we PCVs call Campo Cheese. It is very pungent and delicious cheese made from fresh cow’s milk. But it isn’t quite what you would want to put on a pizza, especially since it’s quite strong-tasting, crumbly, and greasy. There was also sliced ham, ground beef, and turkey hotdogs (they were kind enough to get the turkey kind, knowing I don’t eat red meat, and not knowing that I’d find the idea of turkey hotdogs on pizza somewhat repulsive). But with the help of seven little girls, we kneaded the dough, and threw on the sauce and very over-processed cheese and toppings. At one point, I pulled the pizza out of the oven to see if it was done. I gave the crust a poke, and it was, in fact, crusty. So as I am taking it out, the ladies say, “wait, no! It’s not done! The cheese isn’t melted yet!” I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the Kraft American singles would probably never melt, because there is barely a trace of real cheese even in there. But they were all ecstatic when we served the pizza, and proceeded to cover it with ketchup, which is how Guatemalans love the classic Italian dish. It was a very funny and memorable experience, to say the least.

World Cup fever is definitely keeping everyone busy and excited around here. I am actually surprised that my muni didn’t completely close for the month so that everyone could watch the games, but most of the muni employees have moved TVs into their offices instead. The World Cup is also a great way to start conversations with any type of person, because fútbol is a passion that permeates throughout Guatemalan society as a whole. When I went to give a training at a women’s group today, we usually sit around for a while in the beginning in a rather awkward silence while we wait for people to show up, and chit-chat about whether or not it will rain that day. But I asked them if they had been watching the games, and they exploded into conversation! Guatemalans are all rooting for Brazil, and were all cursing the Mexico team. Even though I live really close to Mexico, people here have contempt for the country…I think that it has a lot to do with how Guatemalans are treated when they immigrate through Mexico in attempt to cross the border into the US.

I received emails from a lot of people back home asking about the condition of things after tropical storm Agatha passed through a few weeks ago, days after the eruption of one of Guatemala’s most active volcanoes. It was not a very good week for Guatemala. A lot of people were killed in the floods and landslides from the storm, and roads, homes, and bridges were destroyed. I’m sure many of you have seen the massive sinkhole in Guatemala City that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. But my part of the country was very fortunate to have minimal damage during the storm. Thanks to everyone for your concern.

One of my most recent projects at work has been starting a radio show with my counterpart. We are doing a weekly, one-hour program on issues related to women, families, and youth. When I first arrived to site, I was not at all interested in radio, but it is a really important means of communication here, especially when most of the population is illiterate, and many times women listen to the radio all day while at home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids. So as time went on and I realized how hard it is to have an impact, especially since I have a really large town, I got more excited about the idea. So far, we’ve done themes like jealousy in relationships, tips for being environmentally friendly, integral health, etc. I am looking forward to having something new to devote my time, energy, and ideas!

Tomorrow I depart for the Peace Corps headquarters, where we have a training for my program, and annual All-Volunteer Conference, and legendary 4th of July party, which should be really fun.

I also have some exciting news to share, but I feel that it is worthy of its own blog post, so stay on the lookout!

My internet is really slow to upload lots of pictures, so here are a few…

My counterpart and another muni colleague and I, planting trees for Tree Day, on one of Chiantla's lower mountains overlooking the town

Our overloaded pizza

Lots of little hands helping to flatten the dough

Recently, life has just been really fun. I just returned home from a bunch of traveling, which was adventurous, exhilarating, and enough to make me not want to travel until the end of June when we have In-Service Training and the Peace Corps Guatemala legendary 4th of July party (which will be conveniently held on July 3rd, since our lovely PC/G Administration doesn’t want to work on a Sunday). I somehow spent my entire monthly living allowance by May 12th, but everything I’ve done this month has been absolutely worth it. I traveled to Coban, one of Guatemala’s larger cities, located in the northern, drizzly department of Alta Verapaz, to run my first international half marathon, as well as see the well-known tourist destination of Semuc Champey and also to visit a fellow Muni PCV in his site. The adventure started out here in my apartment in Chiantla, where I managed to pack a week’s worth of clothes and such into a backpack. I would not consider myself a high-maintenance person necessarily, but for those of you who know me, it was an impressive feat nonetheless. And makes me wonder what I even used to bring in that overstuffed duffel bag on those weekend trips I often used to make from DC to NYC. Although after a full week of wearing the same jeans to party, travel in the back of pickups, and hike through jungles, I think my lesson learned is to bring two pairs of pants next time.

Anyway, the race: the Coban Half Marathon is a renowned race, both nationally and internationally, and draws a lot of runners and tourism to Coban. While Coban is a great city, I would not say the same for the half marathon. There were literally eight port-o-potties for 4,500 runners. The water stations ran out of water. There were no mile markers along the way. Towards the end, people and cars were all over the course, to the point that we had to ask spectators which way we were supposed to go so that we could find the finish line. It was a mess, and although quite “typical Guatemala” once could say, it was rather shocking to see such disorganization in such a well-known event. But, it was also really fun. It was great to see so many Guatemalan runners and spectators on the street who yelled out lots of positive messages of encouragement, which was a nice contrast to the rather rude men that one normally encounters when attempting a pleasant jog through town. We also received super nice, dri-fit t-shirts, which are always helpful in a majority hand-washing country. I am hoping to run another few races before the year is over, since I will actually have the ability to keep training, as opposed to the past, when finishing a race then welcomes the beginning of winter and I use the cold and snow as an excuse to stay inside and drink hot chocolate for months on end.

The day after the Coban race, I took a vacation day to visit Semuc Champey with some friends. It is best described as Mother Nature’s version of Six Flags Great Adventure. We did a swimming cave tour, which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. A guide led us through a series of caves in the complete dark, using hand-held candles as our only light source. In some parts, the water was deep enough that we’d have to swim instead of walking/wading through the water, and swimming with a candle in one hand was a challenge that I’d never before encountered. The tour definitely catered to the gringo’s desire for adrenaline rush, by giving us the opportunity to jump through small spaces, climb up a waterfall, and leap off cave ledges into completely dark water below. I actually feel a little scared all over again just writing about it, but it was a truly unique experience that I will never forget!

After experiencing the excitement and rush of the cave tour, our guide lead us out to the river (were we glad to see daylight again!) and as if the pain of bashing our limbs into underwater rocks during the cave tour wasn’t enough, we then jumped off a huge rope swing into the river. This was again a fun and terrifying experience, although less terrifying because at least this time, we could see the water that we were jumping into down below. After falling mostly on my left side and feeling the smack of my abdomen and thighs against the water, I submerged to the surface, assuring that my bathing suit was covering all the right places, and feeling thankful that I had planned the Semuc Champey visit AFTER running 13.1 miles, as doing the opposite would have been disastrous.

We inner-tubed down the river for a few minutes before venturing to visit the limestone pools of Semuc Champey, which is what makes the spot really famous. This part was absolutely gorgeous… and pain free. We swam and relaxed in the pools, and enjoyed the built-in pedicure. See, once you sit still, all these little fish come over and nibble on the dead skin on your feet. I am extremely ticklish which sometimes makes for embarrassing moments at the nail salon, but it felt really cool, and after hearing that people in Japan “pay hundreds” for this weird fish treatment, we really tried to take advantage. After sitting there for an hour, I definitely felt a difference on the bottom of my feet, and especially in this part where I have a mild fungus that the fish really seemed to enjoy (sorry if that grosses some of you out. If it does, you probably shouldn’t consider joining the Peace Corps).

I then traveled to visit another PCV’s site, who lives really far away, knowing that I may not make it back to this part of the country. His site is far, extremely hot (so much so that the gum in my purse literally melted), and as my boss called it, “rústico”, but it was also a really cool place to visit. He lives near a place called the Laguna Lachuá National Park, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Guatemala (a that list is continually growing). From the entrance of the park, we hiked for about an hour to reach the lake and campground area, where you stumble out of the jungle into this little nature campsite with cabañas to sleep in and a little kitchen. The lake is perfectly round, turquoise blue, completely untouched by people and boats and garbage. The water was warm and smelled a bit like human sweat, which after noting to my friends, I learned that “Lachuá” is the K’ekchi (Mayan indigenous language spoken in this part of the country) word for warm, smelly water. This appropriately named lake is so clear that you can see all the fish swimming around you. We were also able to see a bit of crocodile swimming around the center of the lake, where luckily nobody ventured to.

We also visited the eco-park of my friend’s sitemate who is an ecotourism volunteer. He told me that the park is unique for its three “lagunitas” which change color according to the season. I couldn’t really picture what that meant until after hiking about 25 minutes through the jungle, we came upon a pink lake. And really, it was pink, almost Pepto-Bismol color, which I found really cool and surprising. During our nature walk, I collected an insane amount of mosquito bites, including bites through my hair and through my long jeans. But besides the pink lake, we saw howler monkeys, a crocodile, and turtles which made the park visit very cool. When we finally left the park and reached a clearing in the jungle, I sighed with relief that the mosquitoes would leave us alone now. And as I am offering some local kids the Trader Joes dried fruit that Mom had sent in a care package, my friend yells “oh s--t” and dives to brush the biting aunts that were swarming my legs. I was standing right on top of an anthill. My first thought was to tear off my pants and shoes, but knowing that would not be culturally appropriate, I just screamed and tried to convince myself that this is not the time to have a breakdown.

The next day, I traveled 11 hours from his site to Antigua, where I reached our Peace Corps favorite hostel and was told that I would be the only one occupying the two-person room that night. I could have hugged the hostel lady; I was so happy to not have to talk to or look at a single person after traveling so long. The next day I woke up, traveled another six hours to get home, and was extremely content to be back in Huehue. However, with every new experience I feel more and more thankful for where I am right now and the opportunity to travel and do cool things like this. And also to see the dramatic contrasts and realities that we PCVs have, living in different parts of the country. For example, in the beginning, Peace Corps warns you about the potential consequences of things like having members of the opposite sex stay with you and buying alcohol in your site. Once I reached my site, I realized that these concerns really don’t apply to me at all, since my town is pretty large for Peace Corps standards, plus there have been PCVs here for years so people are more used to gringos doing things “differently”. However in my friend’s site, I felt more in the spotlight, especially knowing that his neighbors were all asking who were the girls that were staying with him.

I will end this blog with a funny story dedicated to my sister-in-law Stephanie, who recently graduated with her doctorate from Yale and will now continue to rock the world of cancer research. Recently, I was wrapping up my English class, which I teach weekly to the employees of an awesome youth development NGO in town, when the skies opened up and it poured rain. We all sat around and waited it out, which ended up taking a lot longer than normal. So we were bored, poking around on facebook and looking at photos, and I ended up showing them all photos of Andrew and Steph’s wedding, which they were all psyched to see. However, they were totally confused about the concept of the “rehearsal dinner” and could not believe that there is an entire evening dedicated to “wedding ceremony practice and learning how to walk”. It was one of those things where the more I tried to explain, the dumber they just thought gringos are for following this weird tradition. But I suppose that’s what the beauty of cultural exchange is all about…

The Coban 1/2 Marathon

Getting ready the evening before with other PC-G runners. The race company may have screwed up lots of other things, but I loved having my name in huge letters on my number!

Inside the caves

Relaxing in the natural pools of Semuc Champey

Semuc Champey from above

Beautiful Laguna Lachuá

The pink lagoon in Parque Salinas, with a cute turtle resting on the rock in the middle

A week from today will mark my nine month anniversary of my arrival in Guatemala. While there are no official plans for a nine month celebration, to me it really does feel like a special accomplishment. As much as one can try to research a country, read random PCVs online blogs, talk to people who have visited a place, etc. there is really no way to completely prepare for what Peace Corps is and to live in another country. But all the unexpected and learning process is also what makes moving to another country fun. And challenging. There are certain things I don't think I'd ever be able to completely get used to, like the idea of eating spaghetti with tortillas, and how people give coffee to little kids at nighttime. And there are other things that I can't imagine myself living without...like the current price of mangoes at 15 cents each, having the convenience of little tiendas (stores) every which way you turn your head, knowing nobody would think twice to know I haven't showered in three days, and saying "good morning/good afternoon/good evening" on the street to every single person you see. I think that the experience thus far has without a doubt made me appreciate my life back home, but also has made me appreciate my life here. Whenever I go away for the weekend, I feel like when I return here to Chiantla, I am home. I feel that I am also starting to form more friendships, which has been probably one of my bigger challenges along the way.

The end of March was a really special time for me, because my best friend Becca came to visit, and it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) before Easter! Semana Santa is a really big deal in Guatemala. All over the streets there are processions and alfombras (carpets) made of colored sawdust and flower petals. It is all very dramatic and beautiful. I enjoyed traveling with Becca to Antigua and to Lake Atitlan, but the best part was having her in my site. We went hiking and running, she visited my English and my literacy classes, walked around town and ate "helados locos", which translates to "crazy ice cream"...it is really pineapple juice pops with lots of lime, salt, sugar, and chile. yum!

Only five days after Becca left, my friends Fiorella and Alex arrived. Their itinerary was quite similar, helados locos and everything, except with a "detour" to Tikal, which is a huge national park with really expansive Mayan ruins. It is in the northern part of the country, where it is a flat jungle HOT area...I think I might have even had culture shock, compared to my cool climate in the highlands. Tikal is expensive to get to, but it was either an hour flight or a 15 hour bus ride...so it was well worth spending over half of my living allowance on the flight! But Tikal is really quite incredible. As I said, it is in the middle of a jungle, with absolutely huge temples. There was also some very impressive wildlife, like exotic birds, monkeys, and "coati" which are like raccoon/dog/squirrel kinda creatures. Even though it is a super touristy place, it was well worth the visit. When you're sitting atop Temple V looking out onto the jungle below, you can't help but marvel at how the Mayan people built these structures so long ago.

The best part of my visitors were not the wonderful treats they brought me or having the excuse to visit awesome places with them, but the fact that I was able to share my life here and that they now have an understanding of what Guatemala is like. Alex and Fio, for example, said that visiting my English and literacy classes were their favorite part of the trip, because it's something that one could never do just visiting a country as a tourist. And how Becca helped me pick the theme for my literacy class to go along with the letter "t" (which ended up being "tiempo" with a discussion on how to manage ones' time well). Certain things that I think made the experience really worthwhile for all of us.

Something exciting we did recently in my English class was holding a baby shower for one of my students. I should mention two things: the Guatemalan word for "baby shower" is "baby shower", which is pretty hilarious, and just like in the US, mostly just women attend baby showers in Guatemala. My class consists of two females and seven males, so I think it was a "first" for all of us to have a majority male attendees baby shower. And it was a hysterical experience...I can say now why most baby showers do not invite men :) They got a little physical with all the silly baby-themed games, ran around popping the balloons, forgot to buy gifts, and being in charge of the food, brought nachos and orange soda. But they were also really sweet to Nohemy, the mother-to-be, giving her lots of encouragement and advice, and were so excited to sharing in their first baby shower with her.

Things in my office have been going well, although every week seems to have its different ups and downs. One thing I really miss from my old job was the ability to print whenever I wanted. Given that our Municipal Women's Office doesn't have a budget, nor does the mayor really care about what we do, when we run out of toner and paper, we're kind of s--t out of luck. My coworkers couldn't hardly believe it when I told them that in the states, when you run out of paper or ink, your boss gives you more. Sometimes I can't help but laugh about the differences in the professional environment between the US and Guatemala. In my old job, if you wanted to schedule a meeting, you had to consult everyone's calendars on Microsoft Outlook, and properly send an email with the meeting request, schedule the conference room, etc. Here, you send a little note (like, physically on paper) to everyone, and you are lucky if people show up within an hour of the meeting being scheduled. Most of the time, the note will say "8 o'clock sharp", people always show up around 9:30, then at 10:00 it is time for a 15-30 minute snack break since everyone hasn't eaten since breakfast, and then the meeting might go on for an hour or two before people get hungry again and want to leave to go home for lunch. Whenever I ask myself, "why does it take so long for anything to get accomplished here?!", I almost laugh at myself for wondering.

But on a positive note, my literacy class is excelling pretty well - we have now done all 5 vowels and 7 of the consonants. It is the most incredibe test of my patience to teach this subject. I am constantly repeating what the letters are called, what sound they made, and how to write it. And the women still have a hard time. For example, one woman can't remember what the letter "T" is called, but she does remember that the letter that makes the "t" sound looks like a cross. Although I've started learning little tricks to make it easier. I'm sure that if I were to learn Arabic or Hebrew or another language with a different writing system I would confuse letters that look the same also, like "O" and "D", or forget what they're called and what their sound is.

Another fun thing recently was Earth Day, which a bunch of us in the muni and different environmnental organizations planned an activity for kids. In front of a total of 700 kids (400 in the morning, 300 in the afternoon) I made an ass of myself by singing an environment song and doing a skit with my counterpart to show how water sources, like rivers, become contaminated. So that was really fun, and it was exciting to spend the whole day with kids, which sometimes I enjoy a lot more than working with adults (shh). We are going to plan another environment day activity in early June, so hopefully we can learn from this day and improve on the activities we did.

I hope that everyone back at home is doing well and enjoying springtime, which makes me homesick to think about, despite how much I hated the DC metro swarming with tourists for cherry blossom season. It's been raining like crazy here, and hopefully one of these days when my house floods, I'll actually take advantage of the opportunity to mop my floors, which my mom hasn't stopped bugging me to do since my parents' visit :) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading and continue to write to me and keep in touch!

P.S. Happy birthday Aaron!

P.P.S. When Becca sends me her pics, I'll post them on the next blog! (hint hint, hehe)

Temple I in Tikal National Park

Climbing down the steps of Temple IV, which was almost as terrifying as my first skydiving trip

Amazing view out over the jungle from the top of Temple V

A typical tourist shot, but I couldn't resist. Temple I is probably the most photographed site in all of Guatemala.

With my friends Alex and Fiorella on the day they arrived in Guate...celebrating with cold cervezas at the lake

My English students competing at one of the games - to feed your "baby" blindfolded. It got kind of violent at the end!

Nohemy at her baby shower!

Creating alfombras in the street

The cemetery in Huehue, so colorful!

The ladies in my literacy class, with "N" which was the letter of the day

The sound of Howler Monkeys at Tikal National Park

Yesterday, I had my blog entry all mentally planned, and even knew how I wanted to start it. But then today, I was in a pickup riding behind a bus, and a crate of chickens fell off the top of the bus and crashed onto the ground. Obviously, the ayudante (bus driver assistant) did not do too good of a job (or at all of a job) tying the crate down to the top of the bus. The chickens were squawking like crazy and feathers were flying all over. It was a rather comical and disturbing scene. Yet, typical Guatemala. Nothing ever really goes as planned, but it does all work out okay!

It has been an extremely fun-filled and adventurous past few weeks. First, with the 10-day visit of my parents, which was very fun. They arrived in Guatemala City and we spent the weekend enjoying Antigua, including a tour of a coffee farm coincidentally called “Filadelfia”, visiting a butterfly conservatory, trying traditional food, seeing pre-Easter/Holy Week processions in the street, enjoying restaurants I’d never normally have money to eat at, and marveling at the McDonalds’ beautiful gardens and tableside service (fast food in Guatemala is expensive to eat, unlike in the states, and it is a status thing to be able to eat food here, hence why the nasty greasy establishments are super high class here). Then, they spent five days in my town, which was a great experience. The Chiantlecos and Chiantlecas that I’ve come to know in my 4.5 months here embraced them warmly, and my parents were able to get a taste of my daily life: buying produce in the market, working at the muni, dodging crazy drivers, washing clothes in the pila, napping on my rooftop hammock, taking the bus up the cumbre, bucket bathing when the water gets cut off, etc. Finally, we spent the last leg of the trip at beautiful Lake Atitlan, where we stayed at the most gorgeous hotel I’ve ever been to in my whole life. It is cut right into the mountain on the lake, and up a steep hill – every room has a spectacular view of the lake and volcanoes, and the food was awesome. I really appreciated my parents’ visit and effort to come to Guatemala, and how open-minded they were about everything they saw here. It was definitely a test of my patience at times, and I felt a complete parent-child role reversal…I’d constantly be like, “where are you going? Who are you talking to? What are you saying? Why are you getting off the bus? Sit down right here!” Plus, having to read the menus, translate everything for them, I feel like it was definitely an interesting dynamic.

Right after my parents left, we celebrated International Women’s’ Day. This day is something I barely knew about in the US, but throughout all Guatemala there were celebrations for women – and with good reason. The women here have it TOUGH – not only because their lives are difficult in their daily labors, but also how they are so devalued in society. Here in Chiantla, we did a parade through the streets, a motivational talk to our women’s groups leaders, and had a nice little concert. The following day, there was an event in Huehue city that was also really nice. In the US, I take my liberties as a woman for granted and most of the time, barely even notice a gender difference or inequalities in gender. But it is really important to recognize that most women in Guatemala, and the world for that matter, do live with tremendous discrimination and deserve a day (or every day, for that matter) to celebrate their gender, and contribution and importance in society.

Two weekends ago, I visited one of the most incredible places I’ve ever seen in my life: Volcan Tajamulco, which is the biggest volcano in Guatemala and the highest point in all of Central America. Seven other friends were also crazy enough to want to hike the thing and spend the evening on the top (and three of the seven were crazy enough to be doing it for the second time!). As much as I love the outdoors, I have very limited camping experience, but this will be hard to beat. We hiked from the base of the volcano up to the top, reaching an altitude of 13,850 feet. I felt like I was literally gasping for air the entire way, and could barely take more than baby steps the whole time…probably the reason that it took us 5 hours to hike what is the equivalent of two miles. However, the views at every single point during the hike were absolutely breathtaking. Seeing the surrounding mountains and villages, and finally reaching a point where we were looking down on a layer of puffy white clouds, and FINALLY, at four in the morning, when we woke up to hike the rest of the summit in the pure dark, we saw the sunrise and the entire landscape of Guatemala and the neighboring part of Mexico, and a dozen of Guatemala’s spectacular volcanoes off in the distance. Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen to my brain, but I could feel tears forming when I thought about where I was standing at that moment and how opportunities to do things like climb the highest place in Central America make the whole Peace Corps experience totally worth it when I am frustrated with work, missing home, and craving some good pad thai.

In fact, there are many times that I am still surprised about how different my life is here and how I’ve changed with respect to that. An example: recently, a neighboring PCV’s brother was visiting, and she wanted to make a trip to a spot in my municipality called Laguna Magdalena. This lake is situated in the mountains, three hours from my house in the centro urbano of my town, on a very steep and rocky unpaved road. We drove three hours there and three hours back in the back of a pickup truck, and spent a total of 1.5 hours at the actual lake. Now, three hours is the distance driving between Philadelphia and Washington DC, a trip I did very often, and I would get so antsy and impatient to just “get there already”. I cannot imagine ever having driven home to PA from DC just for a 1.5-hour visit! But here, it feels like not a big deal at all.

I have a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks, including the arrival of my best friend Becca next week, then Fiorella and Alex soon after, the beginning of rainy season which means my water probably won’t get cut off so often, work being rather busy lately, and a half marathon which I just signed up for in the city of Coban. It is a nice 700 meters below my town in altitude, so hopefully it will feel rather easy despite the fact that I’ve been a huge exercise slacker lately.

Finally, I’d like to make a shoutout to Tricia, another Huehue PCV who just returned to the states to have knee surgery. Tricia – we miss you and can’t wait for you to recover and get back soon!

Mayan ruins in my town that I recently saw for the first time

The bus ayudante putting the fallen crate of chickens back atop the bus

International Womens Day celebration

School girls in the Chiantla International Womens Day parade

My mom with my counterpart Rosario's adorable baby boy

Mom and Dad at the luxurious gardens in...the McDonalds in AntiguaaView from halfway up Volcan Tajamulco

On the top of the volcano, watching the sunset. The view shows all of Guatemala's volcanoes in the distance, surrounded by a sheet of clouds

As the sun rose, the shadow of the volcano on which we were standing was cast onto the sky below

So glad to finally be at the top (and freezing!)

After a bit (or few hours) of hiking, we were above the cloud line looking down below on it

At the base of the mountain, about to begin the adventureAnd at the end, exhausted and excited for a shower, but thrilled to have finished it and spent the weekend on top of the highest point of Central America!

I just returned from six entire days away from my site, which felt like a short eternity (I know that’s an oxymoron, but whatever). On Tuesday, my entire training group reunited in good old Santa Lucia Milpas Altas (the town where the Peace Corps Guatemala Headquarters is, between Antigua and Guatemala City) for “Reconnect”, which is when Peace Corps brings us together after three-ish months in site for, yes you guessed it, reconnecting. We shared our successes and frustrations in site, which at first I was afraid would just turn into a day-long session of complaining, but in actuality it was a really nice day that left me feeling energized and hopeful about things that have frustrated or stressed me out at work and about Peace Corps life in general. I found myself appreciating my training group friends more than I ever had before, as we were able to offer each other good advice and support, and commiserated about things that drove us crazy about Guatemalan society and working in the municipalities (Disrespectful men yelling catcalls on street? Check. Corrupt and unsupportive mayors? Check. Lazy and unwilling coworkers? Check. Firecrackers going off at all hours of the evening? Check.) In the same room where we’d sit every Tuesday during training for the first two and a half months of Peace Corps Guatemala, the place where we were bombarded with information about parasites and diarrhea and bus robberies and the Guatemalan civil war and “being culturally sensitive”, my fellow Muni PCV gave a wonderful speech that made me reflect a lot on my service thus far and how I’ve changed since arriving to Guatemala. During training, all I could often think about during our various sessions was what my future in this country would be like. Now that I’m in my site and working, that question still remains but with a lot more things certain. I’ve definitely become more independent, patient, and appreciative of relationships, whether with my family or friends back home or here in Guatemala. I feel like I can at times be harsh on myself about how much I’ve accomplished so far (or not accomplished), in terms of work, cultural integration, etc, but as my friend noted in his speech, we have only completed 14% of our service, so we have to cut ourselves some slack too.

Without a doubt, the best part of Reconnect was the PACA t-shirt contest. You may recall from previous blog posts my explanation of how Guatemalans buy used clothing from the US at very cheap stores called PACAs (I don’t know what it stands for) and how you often see Guatemalans wearing t-shirts with ridiculous English phrases on them, and they don’t have a clue what the shirts say. So a few months before Reconnect, I emailed my whole training group (30 people) that we should have a PACA t-shirt contest and whoever had the most ridiculous shirt would win a prize (my delicious chocolate chip banana bread). Well, I was thrilled that people got really into it; I’d say about half my group was sporting the shirts on the day of Reconnect. The best part is that during training, Peace Corps is always lecturing us about dressing professionally - not wearing flip flops to the Center or to work, dressing conservatively, maintaining ourselves looking clean and well-groomed (easier said that done, especially for my friends without running water), etc. So the fact that we all show up with these shirts saying things like “Stop Picturing Me Naked” and “Looking At A Memorable One-Night Stand” was pretty hilarious. Everyone submitted two votes, and the winner was one of my fellow Muni volunteers, who found a black shirt with a hot pink unicorn that said “I’m Horny”. See photos for more fun t-shirt entries :) (I'm posting the link to my facebook album with the pics because my internet is too slow right now to upload them to the blog - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2187359&id=7400486&l=1d4cd8b2dc)

After Reconnect, I had some meetings at the Peace Corps center and doctors appointment in Antigua, which made it convenient for me to stay around Antigua all weekend and spend way too much money and enjoy the company of some friends. Then, I headed to the beach for the weekend in the southeastern part of the country. We rented a really nice house close to the beach and enjoyed some pool/sun/extreme laziness for the weekend. This particular beach is not at all touristy, so we were pretty much the only ones there, which was great. But you know how leaving your home always makes you appreciate it? Well, despite how awesome the beach weekend was, I really appreciated Chiantla after being there. I used to think I wanted to live in a hot site, but this part of the country was over 100 degrees and humid, so it made me thankful for the weather that I have here in the mountains. And although I’ve been suffering from fleas pretty much since I arrived, I really appreciated my fleas after being devoured by mosquitoes all weekend. Plus, after traveling 11 hours by bus/micro/boat/taxi made me really happy to be home in general.

So that’s the latest for now. I’m happy to report that things are still pretty busy at work, and that my parents arrive in Guate this weekend, which is very exciting. I hope that you all are doing well back in the states! Please continue to keep me updated….it really makes the distance feel a lot shorter :)

I can't believe that I have been in Guatemala for six months now (well, on Friday, I will have arrived in country six months ago). It's amazing to think of how much I've learned and how much my life has changed since I arrived here, but also how much I still have to do/learn/accomplish during my time here, which is really flying by (although some days sitting in the office here, I wonder if I will even make it until lunchtime!) 21 months left to go now... :)

I recently started my literacy classes, which are going well. After Wednesday, my students will have learned all the vowels :) Some of the women have had some schooling, and others absolutely none. There is an older woman in my class who can barely hold a pencil. But she and all the others are trying so hard, which really encourages me as well. The literacy program teaches by means of a socio-political method, so that the students learn about important themes along with the letters. For example, I taught the letter "A" by discussing "A for Amor (love)" and what constitues a healthy relationship. And the letter "I" for "Igualdad (equality)" and discussing equality in gender roles. It is really nice to feel like I am "doing something", as compared to many other days during which I literally sit in the office and the women gossip and read the newspaper.

Another fun distraction in Chiantla has been the Feria, which is formally a week long, but there are still vendors and rides even though it ended over a week ago! The Feria is to celebrate the Virgen de Candelaria, who lives here in the Chiantla church :) and all week there are food vendors, games, rides, music, and fireworks going off every night (every night, ALL NIGHT, I should say. It was reallllly annoying) I enjoyed lots of street food, like milkshakes, french fries, pizza, churros, tacos... and went on the giant ferris wheel once which was a terrifying and exhilirating experience.

The best part of Feria was: on Saturday, my boyfriend and I went out for a jog, and this guy starts running alongside next to us, and telling us that on that Tuesday, there would be a 12 KM race, which they do every year on the most important day of Feria, and that they needed more women to enter in the race. Even though I have not been running hardly at all since New Years due to cold weather and laziness, I decided to give it a shot, for lack of better things to do on my day off :) So on Tuesday morning I show up to run, there were only two other females in the race of about 25 participants. The flag went down indicating the start, and everyone took off sprinting. Well, being the "seasoned runner" that I am, I figured they would all run out of energy after a few minutes. That was completely not the case - I was behind the entire time, lost sight of everyone, and the only one that followed me was the muni ambulence guy, who had to follow the last person in the race. So after a little over an hour, I came across the finish line, where the race directors and all the participants were waiting for me to finish so that they could conclude the race. But the best part was that despite finishing the absolute last place, I won THIRD PRIZE for the womens' category!! This included a 50 quetzal cash prize and a huge boost to my self-esteem - plus a good story to boot. And 50 quetzales (about six dollars) may not seem like a lot, but it's enough money for me to eat a nice dinner here, or travel on the bus to Antigua, or spend a night at Lake Atitlan, so it was kind of a big deal!

So what else...I recently found a sweet pool in my town, only 15 min away, which will be nice now that the weather is warming up a lot. I also had a party for the Superbowl with other Huehue area PCVs, which was fun. We pigged out on lots of junk food and watched the game with Spanish commentary. Since I never cared too much for football, it was disappointing that the Guate channel aired mostly Mexican commercials, so I couldn't even enjoy those like I usually do. But it was fun to hang out with everyone regardless. This month will be much busier with work, travel to Antigua for meetings at Peace Corps, a weekend beach trip coming up, and my parents' arrival at the end of the month!

This blog post is dedicated to 1) Fiorella and Alex, who booked their tickets to come visit in April, 2) Aaron Weiss, who is always demanding more frequent blog entries, and 3) Alaina, Stefanie, and Aaron, which whom I video-chatted with this past weekend. A great way to keep in touch and it's FREE - so anyone who has a computer and camera and/or microphone, let's make a date!

On the Feria Ferris WheelKeeping on the family tradition of Superbowl wagers

View of the Cuchumatanes mountain chain from the top of the Ferris Wheel

The kids of the women of my Literacy class. They decorated posters of the "letters of the day" while their moms looked in the newspapers for the letters to identify and circle

Feria treats for sale

The inside of the church with a million candles lit for the Virgen de Candelaria

Selling candles outside

My race number and prize money!

Despite pressure/encouragement from friends and family back home to update my blog regularly, I am disappointed to just now have my first post of the New Year. It’s not for lack of things to write, but more because of pure laziness. I think that the chill and tranquilo Guatemalan lifestyle has definitely infiltrated my way of life, making me lazy about mostly everything; bathing, cleaning my apartment, washing clothes, exercise, cooking. I’ve even been too lazy to watch TV lately. But besides being completely “huevona” (chapin for “lazy”) these days, life is pretty great. I had a wonderful New Years, which I spent at beautiful Lake Atitlan, a crater lake surrounded my mountains and volcanoes - one of the must-see places in Guatemala. The main town on the lake is called Panajachel, but the lake is surrounded by lots of little towns that you can travel back and forth by public boat (kind of reminded me of Venice in that sense, except replace the well-dressed Italians with gringo hippies and Kakchiquel-speaking Guatemalans). A bunch of my training-group friends and I stayed at an awesome hostel in Santa Cruz La Laguna, which was a great place to relax, catch up, and eat good food. Unfortunately I was feeling rather ill the whole time, but the trip consisted mostly in laying around in hammocks anyway, so I couldn’t have chosen a better place to have a fever and respiratory infection for four days, plus it prevented me from drinking = big money saver! :) It was definitely strange to be in a place where there were so many tourists, after living in Huehuetenango for 2.5 months now where the only gringos I ever see are other PCVS, college alternative break-ers, or missionaries. It made me angry when we would get overcharged for things like food and boat rides at the lake, but also makes me realize how much I’ve gotten used to standing out, when back in a situation where I blend in with other people who look more similar to me (or according to Guatemalans at least!).

Right before we rang in 2010, I had my quarter-century birthday in Guatemala! It was a very nice and low-key day, and in the evening, I celebrated my 25 years of existence on earth with some other PCVs and ladies from the muni and local NGOs, with a “fiesta de traje” (potluck). Many thanks to everyone for the phone calls, emails, and well wishes – it all meant a lot to me!

Last week, I coordinated an activity that will for sure be one of the highlights of my service. It was a camp for 30 adolescent girls called GLOW (Girls Leading Our World, or “Estrellas de Hoy”, en español). GLOW is a Peace Corps global program, and the volunteer that I replaced in Chiantla had been working hard to organize a camp that wasn’t able to take place during the timeframe that she was still here, so it was one of the first projects that I jumped into when arriving in site. Given my previous work with youth, it couldn’t have been more of a perfect project to get involved in, so I feel really fortunate for having fallen into it. Nine other PCVs came into Chiantla to assist with implementing the camp, and we conducted workshops dealing with self-esteem, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, citizen participation, small business development, nutrition and exercise, among others, and with fun activities like a scavenger hunt, t-shirt tie-dying, talent show and of course, campfire s’mores, which none of the girls had ever done before. We invited señoritas from all over my municipality, including girls from really rural communities in extreme poverty – it was shocking to me that two of the 16 year-olds who attended had never even been to the Chiantla town center before. The camp was a huge success, minus the fact that it was three of the coldest days I’ve felt in Guatemala, and we were able to reach the girls on some very important issues. Something that has shocked me in Guatemala, especially in rural areas, is how females are so de-valued in society. Machismo, in displays of cat-calls and such on the street is one thing, but families pulling their daughters out of school and getting married at very young ages is a completely different story. Through workshops and games, we were able to communicate to the girls that women are not born to “tortillear” (make tortillas) and have as many children as their husband thinks they should have, that a man controlling the family finances and demanding to receive all income is a form of domestic violence, and talked about subjects that are not taught in any public spaces, like how the female body works and forms of contraception. It made me feel really good that the girls were comfortable to ask questions openly, because they never receive any type of health or sexual education in school – things like “Is it OK to bathe with cold water when on your period?” and “Can having sex when you're pregnant make you have twins/become double pregnant?” En fin, it was a really great experience and I am looking forward to continuing to developing a relationship with the girls who participated and helping them to conduct their own workshops and projects in their towns – part of their responsibility for now being “Estrellas de Hoy” after the camp ended. And hopefully, I’ll be able to help other PCVs do GLOW camps in their sites too!

Now that the camp is over, work in my office is starting to pick up. We will soon begin our “trabajo comunitario”, or community visits, to our women’s groups and training them on various things (citizen participation, domestic violence, how to apply for development projects like water tanks, etc). We will also be doing campaigns to get the women to register to vote, which I am really excited about. Another big project coming up is planning a “jornada medica” (medical mission) for a rural community that lacks access to medical services.

Chiantla is also in the midst of preparing for Feria, which takes place in two weeks. It will be a weeklong party and celebration of la Virgen de Candelaria. This past Sunday, the first event took place leading up to the commencement of Feria, which consisted in a flatbed truck parading the Virgin through the streets of the municipality, followed by a bunch of men dancing in costume. It was a truly remarkable and entertaining experience. There are few words to describe, so just enjoy the photos and video clip!

Please keep the emails and blog comments coming, it is really nice to know people back home are actually reading!

La Virgen de Candelaria, on the back of the truck

People literally hanging off the muni to watch the dancers

Chapin Michael Jackson!

More costumed dancers

GLOW Campers and PCVs

GLOW Camp Talent Show

Learning how to properly put on a condom (on a banana)

The girls in my bunk! They pushed the beds together at night because it was sooo cold!

Roasting marshmallows.

Giving the Domestic Violence workshop with my counterpart

Ice Breaker activity

With other PCVs at Lake Atitlan, watching the sunrise...definitely worth waking up at 5 am!

Beautiful volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlan

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of climbing Chachaj, the highest mountain in the Cuchumatanes, the mountain chain surrounding Chiantla. It started out as a fun Saturday afternoon idea with some other Huehue area PCVs and ended in (somewhat) disaster – but an unforgettable time nonetheless! We had just left my house in the Chiantla town center to catch the bus going up the Cumbre (note photo of my fellow PCV friend below, who ended up standing next to a turkey the whole way). When we reached the destination, it was rather cloudy, but we figured that the worst that would happen is that our view just wouldn’t be as good. Well, we were quite wrong. We were minutes from the summit of the mountain when boom, the cool clouds that had just been whizzing by our heads started pouring on us. And since it neeever rains in December, we were far from prepared. Three of us found ourselves falling behind the others, since we were trying not to fall on the slippery rock and mud, and when we reached near the bottom, we realized we were lost. In the Cumbre. Where houses and people are few and far between. So, we continue down some muddy roads, as it continues to rain and then begins to hail, trying to figure out how to get back to the main road. We finally approach a house where someone was home, and this nice old lady points us in the direction that we wanted to take. I waited thirty minutes for a micro, and an hour later was back home, still soaking wet. It was about an hour and 5 cups of hot chocolate before I felt completely defrosted, but it was definitely a Saturday afternoon that I won’t ever forget. And I really do look forward to hiking Chachaj again on a clear day – I hear the view from above is spectacular!

This past week was Christmas, and I must admit that I did not have the best holiday. First, I was feeling homesick and missing my family. And my plan to celebrate with my host family did not quite work out. See, I live in an apartment within the property of an elderly couple. My host mom/landlady is totally sweet, but half deaf and somewhat “losing her marbles”, so to say. Before the holiday, I had joked that I should remind them that they invited me to spend Christmas, but in reality I should have acted on that, because they changed their plans last minute and forgot to tell me. So, I spent some time with them on Christmas Eve and then was pretty much flying solo on Christmas Day. I did enjoy some 12:00 midnight fireworks on Christmas Eve and spent most of Christmas Day reading and watching DVDs, so it wasn’t the end of the world. And the next day, when the family returned to Chiantla, I had a nice three-hour lunch with them that made me feel a lot better. But thanks regardless to all my family and friends back home who wished me happy holidays and sent me fun surprises in the mail :)

Two days prior to Christmas, the municipality had its annual party, which was an interesting experience. The lunch for the 200 muni workers started very “hora chapin”, about two hours late, and they brought out bottles of rum before they served the food. I was staving at this point, and that rum hit me pretty hard. But it came in handy when I won the raffle and had to go up to the mic and give a mini speech in front of everyone! It was pretty terrifying but worth it for the awesome plastic sippy cup and Tupperware container that I won.

A few days after Christmas, this really nice couple in my town who are great community leaders invited my counterpart and me to participate in the annual donation delivery that they do through their church. This year, the church had selected a community of Chiantla that is high up in the mountains and really difficult to access. Going up the road to the Cumbre, sitting on bags of corn and stuffed animals, was a treacherous adventure. We were in the back of a very old pickup, which was completely stuffed and quite low to the ground because of the heavy load. Halfway up, on a particularly steep uphill, the truck got kind of tired and we started rolling backwards. While my life began to flash before my eyes, luckily one of the guys in the truck was a little faster to think on his feet and jumped out to quickly put some large stones under the back tires. This literally happened six more times before finally reaching our destination, but by then I was getting accustomed to the feeling (not really, but I didn’t freak out quite as badly). The drive took about three hours, one and a half of which was on a very rocky unpaved road, but it was really beautiful. This community up over the mountains looked somewhat like how I’d picture Scotland to look – lots of herds of sheep, really green land, few trees, weird giant rocks sticking out everywhere. The sky was gray and misty the whole time because we were literally at cloud level. There were about 150 people waiting for us when we arrived in the community and we immediately began sorting the trashbags of donated items – beans, corn, clothing, shoes, toys, etc. I was put in charge of the little boys’ clothing, which was really fun. Some of the kids would cry when separated from their mothers and forced to come over to my area where I gave them pants, a sweater, and a t shirt, but they always left with a huge smile and very confused look as to who is this stranger with white skin and light brown hair who just shoved a “Grandma Went to San Antonio, Texas and Brought Me Back This T-Shirt” shirt into my hands? Flat out donations do not quite fit into my definition and goal of sustainable development, but it is without a doubt incredibly gratifying to hand out clothes, food, and toys to people who literally have one pair of shoes.

I am excited that in addition to Becca coming in late March, my parents also just booked their tickets for either that same month. I can’t wait to show all my visitors my beautiful town and experience some other parts of the country with them!

Wishing all my friends and family a very happy and healthy Año Nuevo!

Pushing the loaded truck up the hill

The kids in the back of the truck happy with their new toys. Although they thought "Barnes & Noble" was a strange name for the teddy bear

Apparently the whole West Virginia Mountaineers team decided to donate their shirts, lucky for the men in Tunimá Grande

With my mountain of clothing for niños

Line of families waiting to receive their donations

With my colleague Gloria and our Christmas baskets from the muni

Red and green rice crispie treats, my christmas gifts to people in my town

Before the hike/pouring rain began

Barrett with the turkey on the bus

Video clip - the cloud whizzing past us on our hike

I’ve been in my site for a month and a half now, and there's definitely not one specific emotion to describe how I feel here. Every day, I see or experience something new, beautiful, gross, challenging, mind-opening. I’ll describe one of my early morning runs from last week as an example:

I met Don Manuel outside my house at 6:15 and we begin running up my street on a new route that he is showing me. We then started up a very large hill that leads to the Cumbre (summit) of the surrounding mountains.

Beautiful- The view from even a short distance uphill was spectacular, looking down on my town and even further down on the city of Huehue covered in a layer of clouds and surrounded by more mountains.

Gross- The exhaust coming out of the trucks and buses that whizzed by. This is something unavoidable on all streets in all parts of Guatemala and one becomes accustomed to holding their breath when the camionetas drive by, but gasping for oxygen while 2000 meters above sea level and running up a mountain, I couldn’t help but breathe in the disgusting exhaust fumes!

Challenging- Seeing a large goat with its limbs tied together, on top of a microbus as it headed up the Cumbre. The microdrivers show no mercy even when there’s 30 people packed into a space designed for 15, and the situation was no different with this live goat on top of the vehicle as the driver ignored the speedbumps and sharp turns. The awful sounds that the goat made and just seeing it on top of the bus made me feel so sad and sorry for it, despite knowing it was to become a good meal for someone, it is still something that is hard to look at and accept in a certain sense.

Mind-opening- A woman breastfeeding her baby in the back of a crowded pick-up truck. The candidness with which women breastfeed in Guatemala is something that surprised all of us upon arrival to the country and usually never surprises me anymore, except that this particular woman was so squished into this truck and managing to hold on and feed her baby at the same time. Quite impressive.

The month of December has actually been rather busy, which is surprising because all PCVs warned us that not a single thing gets accomplished during this month, as everyone is either mentally or physically on vacation and preparing for the holidays. I’ve kept occupied by working with my office on the 2010 Annual Plan, which will include some exciting projects and initiatives, like voter registration campaigns and medical missions, as well as starting up my English classes, and helping another PCV with a kids’ environment camp in her site.

I’ve only done a few English classes so far, but the turnout of interested students has been really good and it’s actually been really fun. As I wrote earlier on, teaching English was something I was not thrilled about doing, but this particular group that I’m working with (the staff of a youth development NGO) is showing so much interest and motivation that it’s very easy for me to want to be doing this. Plus, I think of how learning another language changed the course of my life…I distinctly remember my first day of Spanish class in seventh grade, repeating over and over, “Me llamo Cara. Como TE llamas? Como SE llama?” Luckily I eventually moved on from the “my name is” stage, but if I had never learned Spanish, the last ten years of my life would have been completely different – what I studied in college and grad school, where I studied abroad, the jobs I’ve had since, and of course, the Peace Corps.

The environment camp that I helped with was in another PCV’s site in Huehuetenango. It was really fun to see another volunteer’s site and to help with the camp, which can only be described with one word: pandemonium. Please see the video link if you need more proof. There were 50 kids expected, ages 6-12, but 71 kids showed up, ages 3 and up. The objective of the camp was to give the kids who are now on vacation from school something to do that would occupy their time and teach them about different important themes related to the environment…one day was the forest and animals, another day was trash, another was water, etc. There were crafts, lessons, games, and even snacks related to the environment theme of the day. The kids were adorable but trying to get them organized, paying attention, not hitting each other, etc. was an arduous task. They were literally climbing the walls, stealing each other’s crafts, throwing water at each other…it makes me exhausted all over again just writing about it. Although overall it was really fun to participate and a good test of my patience :)

People have been asking me to describe my daily routine here, so here it is: I wake up at 6 and either go for a run, or convince myself it’s too dark/cold/early to run and go back to sleep. From 8-1:00, I am in the office or at a meeting or training, although stop at 10:00 for refacción (snackbreak) without fail, and then from 1-2:00 is lunchtime and I head home to eat or go to a comedor for a quick and cheap meal. From 2-4:00 I am back in the office waiting for the time to pass, as it seems that nobody really likes to work in the afternoons. After work, if I'm not doing English class, I usually run to the market to buy food, or I take advantage of the sunlight left in the day to wash clothes on my roof. In fact, I’d say that doing laundry takes up a really good chunk of my time here. To think that back in DC I would wash clothes every two or three weeks, and even then complain that it took me two hours to wash four loads of laundry! Then I make dinner, watch whatever crappy dubbed movie is on TV, go online, read, clean, etc. The pace of life here is so much more relaxed and tranquilo than in the states and more than DC especially, where everyone is constantly stressed out and running around. Although sometimes the slowness of things here can drive me crazy, I feel more relaxed and stress-free than ever before. I feel like my life prior to arriving here consisted of squeezing as many things into one day as humanly possible – work, exercise, happy hour, errands…no wonder even laundry day felt stressful!

I recently had the opportunity to attend a quinceñera (a “sweet fifteen” I suppose you could say) for the daughter of my friend’s counterpart in Todos Santos, another Huehue town which is famous for its Feria on All Saint’s Day and traje tipico (traditional dress). While women in indigenous communities in Guatemala almost always wear their traje, it is not common that men maintain the traditional dress, and Todos Santos is one of the few towns where men do still wear traje. The party was fun, with more people squeezed into this house than one would think humanly possible, and tons of tamales and meat and potatoes cooking in the largest pots I’ve ever seen. There were easily 100 people there. It was an interesting experience to be in an environment where everyone around me spoke Mam, the native Mayan language of the town. It made me feel thankful in a certain way to be living and working in a town where everyone speaks Spanish as the primary language, although Todos Santos has such a rich and beautiful culture that is unique to indigenous communities.

With the Christmas holiday around the corner, Chiantla is dressed to the nines for the festivities, with ridiculously tacky lights and decorations hung everywhere. It’s funny to see decorations of snowflakes and snowmen in a place where people have never seen snow in their lives, but I suppose without them, it wouldn’t really feel like Christmas! One thing that is so prevalent in the US during this time of year that has been absent in Guatemala – which I don’t miss at all - is the over-the-top consumerism. While street vendors are selling annoying musical lights on almost every corner, the annoying advertisements, sales, and pressure to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list don’t exist here. I feel that the reason is because Guatemalans are generally very religious and observe the holidays with more of a sense of family (and food – everyone obsesses over their tamales, typical Christmas food), plus they don’t have the extra money to spend on lots of gifts.

I'll be spending this Christmas with my "host" family (I live in an apartment on their property. We haven't had a close relationship but they are super nice) and then New Years with a bunch of other PCVs at Lake Atitlan which I am super excited for. Wishing everyone back home very happy holidays!!!

My wonderful counterpart Rosario and me with our little Christmas tree in the Oficina Municipal de la Mujer

The most adorable girl at the San Sebastian Environment Camp

The last day of environment camp, being smothered with hugs

The view coming down from the Cumbre early in the morning, above the level of clouds and seeing volcanoes in the distance. Amazing!

The boys at the quinceñera anxiously awaiting their cake

Cooking lunch in the world's largest pots

Most of Todos Santos headed towards the party

Chaos at Environment Camp...

This Thursday, I celebrated Thanksgiving in Peace Corps Guatemala style! A while back, my friends and I decided that I would host Thanksgiving in my site, due to my larger living quarters and proximity to the city of Huehuetenango (Huehue – “way-way”). Slowly, the numbers grew, and my Thanksgiving ended up with 11 other PCVs from the department of Huehuetenango and 1 from the neighboring department of Totonicapan. I was able to buy a frozen turkey in Huehue (the Maxi Bodega store had three. Obviously not too many people celebrating Thanksgiving around here!) and asked Doña Reina, the women who prepares all the snacks and lunches for our women’s meetings to cook it, since I lack an oven and any knowledge about how to make a turkey.

Thanksgiving Day started out in typical Peace Corps Guatemala way…first, I had just returned from a nice sweaty run with my new running buddy, and my water was cut off because a pipe had broken. Normally wouldn’t be a huge deal, except I didn’t have a drop of water stored in my pila and twelve people were on their way to spend the night at my house. So I ventured into the market, praying that the water would return when I got home. Thankfully, it did, around 10 am. Of course you can imagine how much I was freaking out, not just about not being able to shower that day, but not having running water and cook, flush the toilet, etc. on a day that 12 people are staying over would have been a disaster. Then, my credit card was denied at the store. I went to the bank, still in a panic, thinking that someone had gotten hold of my credit card number, but in actuality, I had just spent all my money for the month! (Crisis averted…kind of)

Back home, finally bathed and able to start cooking, I made the filling for the sweet potato pie, put it in a glass pie dish, and set it inside my Peace Corps oven (a box constructed of metal sheets that you place over the burners on your stove). The first time I tried to use the oven to make brownies, I filled my entire apartment with thick smoke and burned the brownies to a crisp. This time, I managed to avoid almost burning down my house, but instead I heard a big “POP!” noise, looked inside the oven, and saw that the glass dish had cracked and that pie filling fell all over the stove. But alas, I scooped up the surviving pie filling, put it in a smaller aluminum pan, and kept it cooking in my toaster oven. It turned out really delicious, and luckily nobody swallowed any shards of glass. And oops, while the pie was cooking, I forgot to take the plastic plates off the top of the toaster oven, and they turned into warped Frisbees that looked like one of those disaster art pieces in a modern art museum.

Then, it was time to pick up the turkey from Dona Reina’s house! We arrived, and she told us about the variety of special condiments that she used to baste the turkey, including the apple juice and garlic that I gave her, and then with her own special touch: wine, pepsi, pineapple juice, soy sauce, I can’t even remember what else. I must say the turkey looked and smelled delicious, but then we start to carve it with my vegetable chopping knife and discover that it is – still uncooked inside. But as we PCVs are such creative and flexible people, we whipped out the frying pans and pan-fried the rest of our turkey!

Nothing else went wrong the rest of the day and we really had a beautiful Thanksgiving. The food that everyone made was awesome, and until almost 2 am we ate, laughed, played guitar, and drank beers on my rooftop. I called my parents and brother earlier in the day, and although I was sad to not be with my family, I couldn’t have asked for a better Chapin Thanksgiving or better people to spend it with.

The next morning, I woke up at my normal 5:45, unable to go back to sleep despite having slept for only three hours, made blackberry-strawberry-banana-chocolate chip pancakes for everyone, and watched Home Alone (dubbed in español – however still a great movie!)

Despite being far from home, I definitely have plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving – having not yet gotten any amoebas or stomach viruses, great family and friends who are so supportive of me, and the opportunity to work here in this amazing country where I know I will have a challenging and inspiring two years and an awareness of the privileged life that I have.

I hope that everyone had a nice holiday and ate lots of pumpkin pie for me!

Thanksgiving dinner spread

A "thankful for" toast before we all ate

Peace Corps volunteers get creative when the can opener breaks

Playing cards and eating Guacamole

My Peace Corps oven

Feasting on our delicious dinner

Getting ready to carve the semi-uncooked turkey

My kitchen!

My living room. Note the fake couch/bed and concrete block shelves :)

My bathroom

My room

My rooftop; with the pila (or washing machine, I guess you could say)

The mountains surrounding my town. Note the faint "Chiantla" written with white stone in the mountain, wanna be Hollywood style

With the other Chiantlecas at the literacy training

With new friends at literacy training. Maria, the one on the left, rocked a puma jacket with her traje (traditional costume) every day

Teaching syllables

The women at our Dia de la No Violencia event

The Muni marimba playing at our Dia de la No Violencia event

March through the streets

The stilt walkers that accompanied us on our march. The quetzal costumes don't have much to do with preventing violence, but it at least got everyone's attention

Inside our community room

The registration table. For women that can't sign next to their names, they use the inkpad to stamp their thumbprint.

Although many days in the office and many evenings at home have consisted of doing nothing – literally – I feel happier with every day that passes here in my site. I feel like I am, for once, learning to relax and take things a day at a time, which is easier said than done, especially coming from Washington DC where sometimes, things feel anything but relaxed! But poco a poco, as they say, I am meeting people in my town and finding things to stay busy. I just finished my second week of literacy training (and am now officially able to teach!), which has been very interesting in some ways (like learning how to tie together the teaching of letters with important themes for women in rural areas, like domestic violence) and NOT interesting when discussing things like inverse syllables. Regardless, I’ve met some great people through the training program and it’s been a nice way to jump-start my service. Everyone is super curious about the gringa who is going to teach how to read and write in Spanish…they ask me some really great and funny questions, like why I always carry my water bottle with me. One of my new friends told me that it looks weird; I was laughing hysterically when she said that. They’re also super surprised at how I’m able to write well in Spanish, which I try to explain to them is easier than writing in English because the words are spelled exactly as they sound; there’s no “there-they’re-their” or “two-too-to” kind of rules that make it hard.

I’m also going to start volunteering with a youth association here in my town, which will be great because I miss working with teenagers. The staff at the youth association has asked me to give them English classes, not something that grabs me necessarily, but if they are asking and willing to commit to learning than I am definitely happy to teach – plus it’s a good way to make friends! And I began running again in the mornings, with one of the men on the municipal city council, which has been great. He has showed me some beautiful areas to run, although running through the mountains I definitely feel the altitude and lack of oxygen hit me pretty hard, but vale la pena! (It’s worth it!) Definitely beats running in circles around the soccer field.

In my office in the muni, we planned an event for the Día Internacional de la Lucha de la No Violencia Contra la Mujer (International Day of the Fight for Violence Against Women Day…or something like that, it’s a mouthful). A bunch of women from the communities of Chiantla came to attend a presentation on violence against women, and then we did a march through the streets with signs. It was a really fun activity, especially because violence against women is a huge problem here, and many of the women traveled from really far away communities to take part in the event. See, the department of Huehuetenango is broken up into various municipalities, including the one in which I live, and the municipalities are broken up into smaller communities. However, most of the 100+ communities of my town are in the mountains and as far as 3-4 hours away. So it’s great to see community leaders participating in these outlying areas, which lack good transportation and many basic resources.

In other news…

- I told my office coworkers that I wanted to have them over for dinner one night. They asked what I was going to cook, and I said, pasta probably. They asked me in a giggly whisper if it was really true that there is a kind of pasta called “penne” (pene means penis en español)

- The volunteer who I replaced gave me a bed, stove, and many other household things that she was using in a temporary apartment before heading back to the US. Once she left, I had to move the stuff over to my apartment. I asked my coworker to help me get some guys in the muni to move everything. She ended up getting the men, including one of the police officers, along with the municipal ambulance, to move my stuff. On a Monday workday morning. Talk about a good use of public resources!

- I opened an egg carton while making breakfast one morning and there were feathers stuck to the egg. Food just doesn’t get fresher than that!

- As you may remember in a previous blog post, my host aunt was wearing a shirt with a funny English saying on it (“my boyfriend is out of town”) Since then, my training group and I have been keeping a “Best Of” T-shirt with stupid English sayings list (Guatemalans buy these shirts for really cheap at used clothing stores, and pretty much never have a clue what they say). Some of my favorites since the aunt/boyfriend t-shirt: “Proud to be Irish” (worn by the young woman who used to babysit for the kids in my hose family’s house); “World’s Best Dad” (worn by my favorite store owner…a female one); and most recently “You’re Better Off Without Me” (worn by a very stocky guy at one of our community meetings). My friends texted me the other day with a good t-shirt sighting: “Do I look like a f---ing people person?!”…I think that one takes the cake!!

- And finally, my best friend Becca was the first to book her trip to come visit, which will happen during Semana Santa (Holy Week) in late March. I can’t wait!!

I am about to enter Week Three in my new home and community. Still adjusting, but I feel very calm and content here. I just returned from a quick overnight trip to Xela (pronounced "Shay-la") which is Guatemala's second biggest city. Ten other PCVs from my training group went to celebrate my friend's birthday. It was a great 30 hour trip, consisting of catching up over many beers, wandering around the central plaza, eating a big Mediterranean dinner, and dancing at a fun disco until they shut the place down - plus a visit to Hiperpaiz, a huge Walmart-ish store where I started buying Thanksgiving necessities and some more things for my apartment. Although I saw my training friends only 2.5 weeks ago, it felt like much longer, as we discussed our sites, jobs, and flea bites.

Many of us in the Muni program are having similar experiences in the sense that we aren't doing much of anything at the moment. This was something that other PCVs had warned us about, especially starting a job right before the month when all the Guatemalans begin Christmas vacation. My work experience thus far has pretty much consisted of sitting around the Municipal Womens Office and killing time with my two colleagues who work there. I have learned some really interesting things about how Guatemalans in the muni approach their work, and their reasons for being there in the first place - often having to do with political favors. I should also state that the purpose of the Municipal Womens Office is to promote and protect womens' rights in my municipality. And my two colleagues ("tecnicas") in the office do not necessarily exhibit this mission in their own backgrounds and personal lives...one of them was married and pregnant at 14 years old, and now is only 21 with two adorable little girls. She got her position in the muni because she is the mayor's goddaughter. The other tecnica is in her late 20s, and found the job in the muni after her husband made her quit her pharmacy job in the city so that she could work closer to home. I have really enjoyed getting to know these women, who will be my colleagues for the next two years, but have to admit that they are seemingly ironic choices for a Municipal Womens Office. Without over-generalizing, I feel that people in the US often accept low paying jobs in NGOs or public service because they value the mission of their work. Whereas here, these low paying jobs are not necessarily occupied with people who strongly believe in a cause, but rather just need something to pay the bills - even if their paycheck barely allows them to do that. On the other hand, the office coordinator, who is also my official counterpart, is extremely motivated and dedicated to her work and community. Overall, everyone in the muni has been super nice and welcoming to me, which is encouraging despite the lack of work.

BUT on Tuesday, an exciting opportunity came up very randomly. I was sitting in the office reading the newspaper horoscopes with one of the tecnicas, and she tells me that in a few minutes, a meeting by CONALFA (Comision Nacional de Alfabetizacion - National Literacy Committee) was to be held in the muni community room. So, we go to this meeting and I learn more about how this literacy program works: the organization trains individuals in communities to give literacy classes within their communities. At the lunch held afterwards, I asked some of the CONALFA reps if I would be able to one of those people who teaches how to read and write, even though I just moved here and don't know a community group with which I could work yet. They seemed really surprised and even more confused as to why this gringa is here in Huehuetenango, but said "Sure! Training starts today and goes all week". Given that not a whole lot was going on, I jumped on the opportunity, and spent the entire past week in intensive training. I am thrilled to be taking on this project, because it goes along perfectly with the goal of my Municipal Development program: citizen participation. How can citizens actively participate if they cannot read or write? The other reason I'm really excited is because this actually makes me feel like I will be DOING something, and something concrete that will no doubt benefit people. Being here in Guatemala has allowed me to begin to understand some of the problems in this country, and also makes me wonder how much I could realistically accomplish in two years. Despite having a master's degree in international affairs and development, I definitely doubt my knowledge and abilities sometimes, questioning how much I can really do to help people here. But teaching an illiterate person how to read and write is something that will no doubt change someone's life and open many doors and opportunities for them. As one of the trainers said this past week, people who can't read or write are, in a sense, blind to the world around them; dependent on other people and with very limited opportunities. It makes me think of the times I've walked around Chinatown without a clue of what the signs or menus say - and that inability is something that 85% of the women in my municipality struggle with.

Plus, being the third muni volunteer in my site, the last of the three-volunteer cycle, I want to put extra focus on sustainability in everything that I do and think about what my community will be like at the end of my two years when it no longer has the presence of a Peace Corps volunteer. Training people how to read and write is something that will impact them for their lives, and won't change, no matter who the next mayor is or what natural disaster comes along next - other aspects of my job are more vulnerable to these variables.

I've also really enjoyed the training because it's allowed me to get to know Guatemalans from all over the department of Huehuetenango, from many different communities and indigenous Mayan cultures. It's strange to think that soon I'll know how to teach people to read and write in a language that isn't even my first language, but also something that will make my service really unique, plus having had the opportunity to make new friends out of this experience, who have invited me to visit their communities and asked when they can come see me in mine.

So overall, things are going great in site! I'll be sure to include some photos of my new house/town and funny stories in my next blog post :)

I arrived to my site on Saturday. It feels very strange to be in the place that I'll be living for the next two years without knowing anything or anyone more than a handful of people in my town, where to buy food, and where to pick up the mail. It is a funny feeling in a way that Peace Corps has spent the last two and a half months training us, yet we all just showed up to our sites and feel like we don't have a clue - what we should be doing at our first few days at the municipality, who will our friends be, what we do for lunch during the working day, what our evenings and weekends will be like. BUT at the same time, we are now entering the "real" part of the Peace Corps experience - as a friend said, the "babysitting phase" (training) is over. And now is the part for which we came to this country in the first place. So with the same leap of faith that I came to this country without knowing anyone or much of anything about the way of life here, how to speak "Guatemalan", or how anything about the municipal government works, I am now here in my site feeling clueless in a different way but with the same motivation and excitement that brought me here to Guatemala.

On Thursday of last week, we had our swearing-in ceremony in which we became official Peace Corps volunteers! We all got dressed up for the first and probably only time and went with our host families to the Ambassador's residence where we had the ceremony. The swearing-in was really short but actually very nice. We each received a diploma for finishing training...which let me tell you was NOT easy. Not that training was hard in the sense that the things we learned were really hard, but just a rigorous schedule, and complete lack of independence, which was probably the most challenging part for me. We had to stick to a curfew, live with a host family, and be under Peace Corps' watchful eye for 10 weeks. But it was definitely a lot of fun at the same time. Saying goodbye to my host family and my town was sad but I felt very ready to leave. It's funny how one forms relationships with people, like my favorite chocolate fruit seller lady and the internet cafe guy, and how those small relationships make one feel so at home somewhere. But I know I'll be back to visit P-town whenever I have to go to the Peace Corps Center for meetings, medical appointments, etc.

The evening of swearing in, my whole training group stayed in Antigua and went out to celebrate. We had a blast, especially since it was our last night all together before we went off to our various sites. I ended up getting really sick - not from drinking, not from food poisoning, but from dehydration! We went to a few bars where I only had a few drinks, but then went salsa dancing for three hours in a very hot and packed bar. Needless to say, I found myself throwing up a few hours later, completely convinced that I had food poisoning, I felt so sick! How embarrassing to tell everyone, No, I am not hungover, just did a little too much salsa dancing the night before. After two full days, I finally feel better. Salsa dancers, beware...

Now that I have been here in my site for three days, I've been moving, unpacking, and cleaning like crazy. I absolutely love my apartment. It is comfortable, super conveniently located, and private. It is so nice to feel like I have a place to call home, especially after living with a host family for ten weeks. Cooking my first meal for myself again was so liberating! I am lucky enough to live in a town with a pretty large daily market, so I can buy fresh produce daily. One of my favorite things about the apartment is that I have my own rooftop area, where I hope to eventually have some fun parties, but it's also a nice space to lay on the hammock outside, AND conveniently air dry my laundry! Yesterday I hand-washed clothes for two hours - if you're ever looking to spice up your workout routine, I'd strongly recommend it!

Shaking hands with the Ambassador - I'm officially a PCV!

With my host mom Esperanza at Swearing-In

Our goodbye party at Chepe's house (my Spanish teacher)

At the pool in my friend's town...enjoying the last few days of training with my fellow trainees. Note the huge waterslide in the back!

In Mam class (a Mayan indigenous language spoken in Western Guatemala). My municipality isn't indigenous but we all went to a class for a day anyway!

This past week started out great, with a visit to my future site and meeting my counterpart (my Peace Corps' officially assigned coworker) and all the other colleagues in my office, as well as seeing the apartment I'm moving into. I am lucky to be replacing a really dedicated volunteer, as well as inheriting her amazing fully-furnished apartment. It has electricity, hot water, TV, two bedrooms - I got really lucky! I also got to meet the mayor and city council of the municipality. It is a really large municipality and I think that I will definitely have my work cut out for me, but I am looking forward to the challenge. My site is kind of far away from the capital city but in a really beautiful area of the country and also an area where there are a lot of Peace Corps volunteers. Eight trainees of my group of 32 alone are headed to Huehuetenango! So I definitely will be able to visit people in their sites and enjoy some visitors as well.

Unfortunately, I received news from home that my grandmother passed away while I was visiting my site. So I cut the trip to Huehuetenango a day short, took eight hours and six buses to get back to my host family's house, and flew to Boston the next day. I was in the US for three days, two in Boston and one in Philly, and returned yesterday to Guate. It was really weird to be back in the US after two months which feel a lot longer for some reason. But I'm so happy to have been able to go home and be with my family. My grandmother was a really special person and I am going to miss her a lot. Everyone at Peace Corps, both the staff and volunteers, were really nice and helpful which made me feel a lot better. An added bonus of the unexpected trip was stocking up on cold-weather clothing, since my site is in the mountains, it is really chilly at night, as well as seeing my parents, brother and sister in law, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and my friend Stefanie in DC came up to Philly for the night to hang out with me. So overall, a good trip even if it was for a sad reason. And now I'm back in Guatemala with one week left to go of training. I will be sad to be leaving all my training friends but excited for the next step - moving out to my site and officially becoming a Peace Corps volunteer!

Some of you have asked me about receiving mail in my new site - here is my new address! Feel free to send me photos to decorate my new house :)

Cara George

Voluntaria de Cuerpo de Paz

5 Calle 4-12, Zone 1

El Correo

Chiantla, Huehuetenango

Guatemala, Centro America

This was a pretty awesome week. I climbed an active volcano, danced onstage at a concert, ran a 10 K with my fellow trainees, and received my site assignment. Pretty sure that Week Seven has been the best thus far. Read on for more details… The title of this blog was supposed to be “The most dangerous marshmallow roast of a lifetime” but too many good things have happened since then to write only about hiking a volcano. Last weekend, my entire training group planned a day trip to the Pacaya Volcano, one of the country’s many active volcanoes but the only one that actually has lava flows. This is something that I’d been looking forward to since before even leaving the US, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. The volcano is just under an hour away from Antigua so it was a really convenient trip. We began the hike up the mountain, along with a bunch of men trying to sell us rides on their horses. It was very green and lush, with a nice view of a volcanic crater lake along the way. We finally reached the top, super sweaty and tired, and saw what my friend Stefanie said “looked like the end of time”. Down below was a valley of volcanic rocks and ash. It was such a weird contrast to see next to this beautiful green hill that we were sitting on. You could see the line of where the lava flows ended and where the green part began. And as we’re enjoying a picnic lunch in this weird beautiful place, cool clouds would occasionally whiz by, making everything opaque and chilly, and then a moment later it would be clear and sunny again. From this point, we began our descent into the active volcanic part; climbing over big rocks formed by the lava and lots of volcanic sand. It literally looked like we were on the moon – all black and no sign of green plant or animal life anywhere. After about 45 minutes of hiking through the moon, we reached a point where the lava flows were. Seeing the lava with my own eyes was such an amazing thing – one of those times when you just feel like you need to pinch yourself and ask, “Am I really here!?!” And it was HOT. The wind carried the hot air off the rocks and at some points we could just barely tolerate the heat. We could even feel the heat below our feet at certain places. Then we whipped out the graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows and began making some pretty awesome s’mores. Our guides showed us how to find small vents in the earth where we could stand close by without feeling the heat as much, and then we used long sticks to put the marshmallows up to the vents. It was definitely an experience I will never forget, and something that I look forward to doing again with visitors! : ) Andrew and Steph, I was especially thinking of you guys during the hike and how much you would love it. AND one of the best parts was this stray dog that accompanied us during the entire four hours. She was sickly skinny but stayed with the group the whole way, even sliding down the sandy mountain and climbing on the lava rocks with us. I fed her about eight marshmallows, probably not the best food for dogs, but she seemed to really like them! This week in my town has been very exciting also because it is Feria! Every town in Guatemala has a patron saint, and the town has a special fiesta called Feria to celebrate the Saint’s birthday. There’s been a lot of live music and fireworks and amazing street food (the best part). Some of my training friends came into P-town to enjoy some awesome French fries, pupusas, churros, and other artery-clogging goodies. There was also a really rickety ferris wheel and merry-go-round which were controlled by an operator manually pushing them to make them move. I feel lucky that we happen to be training during the time of year to enjoy Feria in my town! On Saturday evening, a famous Guatemalan band, La Banda Vega, came to play. I felt rather awkward and uncomfortable in the beginning of the night, going to this party with my host family where everyone dances in pairs, sitting to the side with my host mom. Then some of my P-town sitemates showed up and it became a lot more fun. At one point, one of the singers gave a shoutout to P-town, and then to los extranjeros (foreigners) because a lot of non-P-town residents were enjoying the dance too. I screamed “Wahoo, extranjeros!!” and the singer heard me and signaled for me to come up on stage. So I went and danced on the stage in front of about 200 people while he sang a song. It was a hysterical and frightening experience but definitely made the night that much more memorable. It was also my first time drinking beer in public here in my community, which felt weird but liberating. I didn’t feel so self-conscious about it, considering my aunt woke up on Sunday morning hungover and throwing up. I, on the other hand, woke up and ran a 10 K race! There is a race every year for Feria and I had been looking forward to it for a while. A bunch of my fellow trainees from other towns came to P-town to run as well. Considering at this time last year I was just about to run the Marine Corps Marathon, I should have been more mentally prepared for this 10 K. And even though I regularly go running here, I was not prepared for the complete uphill for the first half. It was really hard but a really fun race too, being cheered on by all these people was a great sense of community and also made me realize how many people I’ve come to know here in this town over the last two months. And the MOST exciting part of the week was Site Assignment Day!! Never in my life had I felt so much anticipation, anxiety, and excitement. Every day for the last two weeks, I have been counting down (and even began the hourly countdown three days before). I had really loved one of the sites that we visited in Huehuetenango but I didn’t want to create false hopes or expectations for myself. Regardless, in my head, I was already living there. So, it was a huge relief and happy moment when Roberto, my boss, told me that I was being assigned to this site!! Roberto had gone to each of the four communities where we Muni volunteers are training, and we were the last. So of course the text message frenzy began each time he visited one of the towns and with each message I received began the process of elimination, so I was pretty sure by the time he showed up to P-town that this site would be assigned to me. On Tuesday, I will be traveling there for five days to meet my counterparts, get to know the office, etc. There have already been two Muni volunteers in this site, so I will be the third of the three volunteer cycle of which the Peace Corps operates. I am pretty excited about this because I am replacing a really great volunteer and will be able to jump start into projects much more quickly. As for my future housing, I will be taking over the apartment where this volunteer currently lives, which saves me a lot of money and hassle, and I should mention that her apartment is absolutely amazing – nicer than my apartment back in DC. It has two bedrooms, so plenty of room for when all you people back in the states want to come visit! A bit more info about my site – it is in the department bordering Mexico, one of the larger municipalities where they place Peace Corps volunteers (population of 80,000), in the mountains, very close to some Mayan ruins, has a famous church for the pure silver Virgin Mary. It is relatively colder than other areas of the country, but I am happy to sacrifice a few degrees for the place that I really wanted; plus, more cold = less bugs! Check out the municipality’s website for some awesome pictures of my new home: (http://www.inforpressca.com/chiantla/galeria.php) Can’t wait for you all see it in person : ) The gringos after the P-town race

The finish line

Guy with some goats crashing the race

On stage at the Feria concert

The end product of marshmellow roasting

Shielding my face from the heat off the rocks

Lava!

The descent onto the moon

I ended up with a mini volcano in my shoes

Some of the group on Pacaya

The awesome dog on the mountain

Where the green ends and lava ash begins

The dog that followed us along the way

We have been tearing our hair out in anticipation of site assignment day. I feel almost as excited and anxious to receive my site assignment as I did to receive my country assignment. While you may not think this would be such a big deal, given that this country is only about the size of Tennessee, the course of my next two years here will be shaped by the area of Guatemala in which I live – and you honestly would not believe the incredible diversity of this country! I could be living in the Western highlands in a Mayan village, out in the East where it is like the Wild West, or in a department bordering the Pacific Ocean. I still am keeping my fingers crossed for a particular site that we visited in Huehuetenango, but I will really be happy with anything, as long as it’s not too cold of a place…only five more days until we find out! The one thing I am wishing for in my site, besides good counterparts to work with in the Municipality, a non-corrupt mayor, and a place to learn to play the marimba, is to NOT be in a house with roosters as my neighbors! The idea that roosters crow at the crack of dawn to greet the day is a total myth – they really start making a racket at 3 am, wayy before the sun even begins to rise. The roosters at my house are perpetually engaged in a screaming fight with the roosters next door. And Valentin, my host family’s dog, went into my room the other day (very against the rules!), knocked everything off my nightstand, and ate three earplugs. Luckily I have a small stash of this anti-rooster armor packed away and some more on the way from the US, thanks to my mom. Thursday, November 1st was “Día del Niño” here, which I was happy to celebrate with my fellow sitemates at my Spanish teacher’s house, where he gives a party every year to his little niece and nephew. There was a big Nemo fish piñata, amazing cake, and “elote asado” (the BBQ grilled corn which I am now addicted to). I brought a box of Jersey Salt Water Taffy and animal squirt guns, thanks again to my mom who sent me more gifts for people, which the kids loved. My teacher said that Guatemalans especially like gifts that come from “El Norte” (the North) because they’re supposedly made better, and are sometimes unavailable here in Guate. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the dollar-store toys were actually made in China, but was happy nonetheless that the kids enjoyed it! I’ve been bonding more recently with Rodrigo, my six-year-old host brother. I was having a difficult time in the first few weeks because he is extremely hyperactive and his parents let him do absolutely whatever he wants. And it is sad because he is very intelligent but has nobody motivating him or encouraging him to do anything other than watch TV after school. Here, schools operate on a half-day schedule: kids attend from 7:30-12:30, and then go home for lunch and have the rest of the day free. So you can imagine the amount of hours that this kid spends in front of the television daily. Lately we’ve been having “homework competitions” to see who finishes their homework first, and he has “helped” with my homework by coloring in crayon on the posters I make for technical training presentations, and reading National Geographic for Kids en Español which my friend Alaina sent me. For el Día del Niño, I bought him bootleg DVDs at the market in Antigua. Watching “Snow White” in Spanish last night with Rodrigo and my host mom was a very entertaining experience, well worth the 10 quetzales ($1.25)! While we are all starting to get kind of tired of training, we have also been doing some cool work lately. We are working with a women’s group in the community who are part of a Grameen community microcredit/microlending group. They are all small business owners who receive special loans from Grameen to begin and advance their own businesses. Only women are eligible to receive loans from this institution, as women are typically unable to have access to funds in the same way that men are. Some of them own little stores, others sell atoll (hot corn drink) or tamales on the street. So we did a presentation for them on how to maintain a budget and calendar, and how to beat the competition through location and diversification. We also participated in a fun activity with the OMM (Oficina Municipal de la Mujer – Municipal Women’s Office) which was an event celebrating the culmination of a series of courses that the OMM gave to 30 kids on health, identity, and domestic violence. It was at a really pretty park, really similar to Rock Creek Park or Alverthorpe back home. We played a million different games with these kids, Traffic Light, Hide and Seek, Duck Duck Goose, Cat and Mouse, Sharks and Minnows, Freeze Tag, you name it. It was an incredibly fun afternoon but secretly made me really happy to be a Muni volunteer instead of a Youth Development volunteer! And in case you missed the last blog post – I’d love it if you want to mail me some photos so that I can display some reminders of home in my future new house! : )

Rodrigo helping me with my poster

Día del Niño - the kids asked for candles to put on the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" even though it wasn´t anyone´s birthday

With some of the kids at their end-of-classes party in an ecological park

My sitemate Bryan and his new six year old friend on the see-saw

During my six day trip in Huehuetenango, I have realized many things:

- Always bring your own toilet paper.

- The ability to read and write is something that one should not take for granted.

- Cold showers are way worse than bucket bathing.

- When you stay in hotels that cost 35 quetzales/night ($4.35 in US dollars), you really do get what you pay for.

- Colds spread really quickly among exhausted Peace Corps trainees who spent a lot of time together crammed into vans and crowded hotel rooms that cost 35 quetzales/night.

- Guatemala is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places in the world.

- I absolutely cannot wait to officially become a Volunteer (we lowly trainees will swear in on October 30th!) I just returned from a six-day trip to Huehuetenango, a department (equivalent of “state”) of Guatemala located in the Western highlands on the border with Mexico. It was a really amazing and exhausting experience. All sixteen of us Muni trainees packed up a large backpack, said temporary goodbyes to our host families, and drove in two vans out to Huehuetanango. We were accompanied by the Assistant Peace Corps Director (our boss, Roberto), our technical trainer, two Spanish teachers, and a driver. The objective of field-based training is to give us the opportunity to visit current volunteers in their sites to learn about the work they are doing; including their work with their counterparts in the municipalities, working with community and women’s groups, secondary projects (like teaching cooking classes, starting a library, hosting a radio show…these volunteers were so awesome!), etc. All these volunteers had just finished their first year in site, or are nearing the end of their two-year service. In the six sites that we visited, we met really amazing volunteers who offered us an enormous amount of advice related to work, housing, culture, travel…from what to do when your married office coworker repeatedly asks you out on dates, to how to get furniture for your house when you get to your site, to how to give nutrition presentations to indigenous women who can’t read and write. On the 5th day, we visited a volunteer in her site, and were pleased to find out that we’d be accompanying her to a visit to a women’s group in a rural community within her municipality to give a nutrition talk. After four days of having Muni information pounded into our brains, this presentation was a welcome change. And it was really quite the experience. There were about 30 Mayan women present who spoke Spanish as a second language and we were later told that there were only THREE in the group had ever been to school before – and those three had attended school only until the third grade. The amazing part was observing how this volunteer presented information on nutrition using pictures, games, jokes, anything necessary to get the point across without using written materials. It’s crazy that despite the level of education and number of degrees that one collects, it is so difficult to think of ways to explain elementary things to people in a basic way. Out of the sixteen of us, there are two that have law degrees, nine with master’s degrees, and tons of collective work experience despite the fact that nobody is over 30. Yet, ask us how to give a fun and engaging nutrition presentation without using written words? It seems like such a hard task, which is why I enjoyed visiting this particular volunteer who showed us lots of tools and techniques to present to illiterate populations, no matter what the theme. Aside from the work aspect of Field-based training, it was also super fun because the group was able to bond a lot more. Although we all see each other a few times a week, it’s hard to find the time to really spend and get to know people (and our 7:00 curfew doesn’t help with that too much). Another awesome aspect of the trip was the ability to eat in restaurants!!! We certainly didn’t eat anywhere too fancy or with too crazy of a selection, but just the ability to go to a restaurant and SELECT what I wanted to order was such a welcome change, after living with a host family for the last six weeks and eating whatever is served to me. While it is also awesome to not have to worry about buying groceries or taking the time to prepare food, this is something that I am getting more and more impatient with and one of the reasons I am so excited to be on my own and to be able to prepare my own food. Plus, this country has so many amazing fruits and vegetables that are locally grown, fresh, and super cheap, I can’t wait to learn more fun things to cook…although Guatemala is entering a rather severe food security crisis because of the economic situation, combined with a rainy season that has been devoid of rain. Being here has been a constant reminder of how privileged we are, just to be Americans. The fact that we can live and work in the US without worries of getting caught and deported, which is the case of one of my trainees’ families – the daughter of the host mom was living in the US for four years and last week was deported, now back in Guate and wondering how to possibly earn money to support her family. And even as “poor” Peace Corps volunteers, we are so much more privileged than the average Guatemalan. The fact that in one day, we can visit a community group that can’t read or write, and that same night go out to a bar for drinks. Yes we complain that we don’t make much money, but our situation cannot possibly compare. I’m not trying to sound all negative while writing this – but by putting these thoughts to paper (or blog), it helps to reinforce the idea and provide something to look back upon when feeling certain frustrations or discontent. Driving through the countryside was breathtaking. We were driving up and down mountains with beautiful valleys, lush vegetation everywhere, natural waterfalls, volcanoes…it was definitely a drive that I will never forget! And hopefully one that I will have the chance to repeat many more times, because during the trip, I accidentally fell in love with one of the sites that we visited. I had told myself before leaving P-town that I would keep an open mind to anywhere and everywhere, as to not create false hopes and expectations for myself, but within the first five minutes in this particular site I knew it was where I wanted to be. And hearing the current volunteer describe her work and the things that would need to be done by the next volunteer, my interest was even more reinforced. I expressed this to Roberto, with all my reasoning for wanting to be in this particular place, and he said, “Yes, I can definitely see you being successful here. Or some places in the Eastern part of the country. I think you’ll be happy on October 8th.” If you all thought I was a nervous wreck before receiving my country assignment, you should see me now! But I definitely do feel faith that I will be placed in the best site for me…after all, Roberto is puro chapin who has been doing this for 27 years, and I have only been here for six weeks. Overall, the best part of field-based training was the reinforcement in my mind of what I am doing here and why I want to be here. While the whole point of the three-month training is to prepare us to be good volunteers, I have lately felt kind of annoyed with the technical/cultural/language/health and safety grind and feeling like I just want to get out there and work already! But within 4.5 short weeks, I will be in my new home. If only I could control my impatience – I am dying to know where it is! Some of you have been asking if there’s anything I’d like to have sent from the US, and now I actually do have something – please send me photos!! They are expensive to print here, and all the volunteers that we visited had their houses covered in photos from back home. So if you would like to send me pictures that I can use to decorate my future new home, that would be really awesome : ) My address is at the bottom of the blog page. Much love from Guate!

(click on photos to enlarge them)

Pointing to Guatemala on the world map project created by a muni volunteer in Huehuetenango

There are some pretty awesome/crazy clouds and skylines here

This photo was NOT taken from an airplane, although that´s what the sky looked like when we drove wayyy up into the highlands at one point.

Beautiful volcanoes in the background

My sitemate Nico and I giving a presentation on Citizen Participation at a junior high school here in P-town

Never in my life have I lived away from a city; growing up outside Philly, spending a semester abroad in Seville, Spain, and then the last six years in Washington DC, there are some things that you just take for granted with the convenience and access of a city. P-town is one of the smaller training communities (Peace Corps has the 32 of us separated into 8 towns) – there are no restaurants here, no markets, no hair salons, no banks. But there are two internet cafes – the “blue” one and the “up the hill” one. Although the blue one has much slower internet and often sticky keyboards, I patronize it because it is closer to my house and there’s a nice guy that works there who always gives me candy before I pay and leave. This past week, I was in a rush and forgot to take my flash drive with me. I returned the next day to see if it was still there, and explained to Carlos, the internet guy, what I was looking for. He said he would try to remember who had used this computer after me to see if he could get it back. Given that the loss was obviously my fault, I thanked him and made a mental note to add “flash drive” to the list of things that I need Mom to send me. But believe it or not, I show up two days and Carlos had it in hand. He had called each person who sat at that same computer until he found the guilty party and convinced them to return it. To think that the internet guy would bother to pay attention to or know who was sitting where, let alone their names and phone numbers, and then call each one individually to lecture about the wrongness of taking a personal belonging of someone else…I was pretty awed – this type of thing would never happen in a city! The past few days have been pretty exciting here, mostly because of el Dia de la Independencia, which was on Tuesday. During the days leading up to Guatemala’s 188th anniversary of independence, many schools have their “entorchas” which are pretty fun and crazy traditions. The kids run through the streets with a lit torch, the national flag, and blow whistles the whole time. We had the opportunity to participate in the entorcha of the elementary school where one of my cousins teaches. My cousin had told me that the kids that attend this school come from really low-income families; the school doesn’t have running water and the local government has to give money to the school to make sure the kids get a snack every day. This fact was pretty evident when we met the kids, many of who wore the only pair of shoes that they own to run the 6 kilometers up a REALLY steep hill to complete the entorcha route from Antigua to their school in El Jato. My three sitemates and I were hardcore struggling to get up this hill, but these 50 kids were so enthused and proud to represent their school; some of them were even running in plastic sandals but with their energy and excitement, they busted through those 6 kilometers in no time! It was a really fun event to experience…and despite the fact that I go running pretty regularly here, I was feeling rather sore the next day! On the eve of Independence Day, there was a mini parade with a marching band and many more entorchas throughout the early evening. I enjoyed sitting out on the street with my host family clapping for each group running by. On the holiday itself, there is a parade in the morning with each area school presenting its marching band. We have been hearing these marching bands practice since the day we arrived in the country, so it was really cool to see them in action; all these kids marching and dancing and playing instruments. I especially liked watching the younger kids whose instruments were sometimes half their size...they were so cute! The parade went on for a few hours, and there was a shorter parade in the early evening. And of course, one of the best parts of “feriados” is the street food! We concluded the day at my aunt’s house, roasting corn on the BBQ. A recommendation for you all in the US still enjoying your outdoor grills before the season changes – roasted corn with lime and salt is absolutely delicious! Speaking of food…the dinner that I cooked for my family turned out a big success. My sitemate Alex came over to help me prepare the food, which was super helpful in calming my nerves. (Living alone for two years didn’t necessarily prepare me well to cook for groups of 12 people). I prepared linguini with my sister-in-law’s sauce recipe, a really yummy salad, and garlic bread. They all loved the food! A huge relief, except now they’re asking when I am going to make the next dinner. On Sunday, we leave for our weeklong Field-Based Training trip to Huehuetenango – so I am at least off the hook until we return! Another cool thing that my trainee group got to experience over the weekend was a traditional Mayan ceremony at a ruins site called Iximchil. Peace Corps arranged for a Kakchiquel (one of the local Mayan groups) priestess to show us what a ceremony is like and to pray for our well-being and protection in the country. It was really cool to see how the ceremony involved a lot of natural materials, like flowers, sugar, leaves, etc. to satisfy the fire, which embodied spirits communicating to us. Something really important to the Maya and Guatemala in general is corn, which has an important spiritual significance, as well as prevalence in the diet. We ended the morning ceremony with a really yummy corn-filled meal – Atol, which is a hot corn drink, blue corn tortillas, and tamalitos (smaller tamales, also made from corn meal); accompanied by some grilled chicken that made a lot of us sick the next day. But, hey, it was a free lunch! More random comments: - The larger grocery store in Antigua sells both peanut butter and Nutella, so I am pretty set with the basic necessities for the next two years! - Many times when clothing is donated in the US, it is sent down to Central America and sold for really inexpensive prices in second-hand stores here. So you see people wearing really random stuff, like a Baltimore Orioles T-shirt (baseball is not at all popular in this country) or a Alabama Ironman T-Shirt (I am doubtful that many Guatemalans have a clue where Alabama is - US states are pretty much known by their location in relation to California, Florida, or New York. My host family knows Philadelphia as the city that is “dos horas de Nueva York”) Last night, my 50-something year old aunt came over wearing a hot pink shirt that said “My boyfriend is out of town”. I told her that I liked the shirt, she asked me what it meant in Spanish, and upon telling her, she was so mortified that her face turned the same color as her shirt!

In front of the Municipal Building, waiting for the afternoon parade to begin

Lots of people in the main plaza

Singing the National Anthem, which is rather long - 5 minutes total!

The parade

An evening entorcha

The internet cafe where I´m currently posting this blog!

My family about to eat the meal that I prepared for them

At the Mayan ceremony in Iximchil

The kids with who we ran the entorcha

Taking off the entorcha through the streets of Antigua

Now almost a full month into training, things are still such a whirlwind. Over the weekend, I was happy to have the chance to spend more time with our trainee group in a casual and social setting, because most of the time when it’s all 33 of us together, it is at the PC HQ in Santa Lucia during our all-day sessions on health, safety, technical, and receiving every shot that you could possibly imagine and I feel like I haven’t really gotten to know people too well yet. (Except that 33 number is now a 32 – sadly one of my fellow P-town sitemates is leaving – we’ll miss you, Michael!) On Saturday, we all met at a very gringo bar in Antigua to enjoy some beers, college football, and gigantic plates of nachos, and on Sunday, 14 of us went to the beach, Puerta San Jose, on the southern coast, about 1.5 hrs away. The beach was awesome and relaxing. It is a black sand beach, thanks to Guatemala’s lovely volcanoes, and the sand gets REALLY hot. Luckily it’s been a little while since my last pedicure so the bottoms of my feet didn’t feel too scorched. This particular beach is really chapin (meaning really Guatemalan) so it wasn’t at all touristy, and interesting to see how most of the chapines (Guatemalans) wear clothes in the ocean instead of bathing suits! This is mostly the women I’m referring to, who wear shorts and t-shirts instead of bikinis like us gringas. But I half expected this, because the public beach in Nicaragua was the same way. We scoped out the cleanest looking beach café to enjoy some fresh fried fish. To think that back during my junior year of college studying abroad in Spain, I’d ask waiters at the restaurants to serve my fish with the head cut off, and now I’m picking the whole thing apart like a pro! (sorry Julie and any other vegetarians I may be grossing out – at least I didn’t eat the eyeball…although supposedly, it’s good luck). On Monday, we had our first trip into Guatemala City, the capital, since our arrival in country at the airport. The objective of the day was to learn where is the safe part of the city to get off the bus, how to use the PC-approved taxi company, and to see where the US Embassy and PC approved hospital are located. We ended the afternoon at a shopping mall, which was exactly like a US shopping mall, except the security guards have huge rifles…weird. Everyone was excited about the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in the food court, but I was wishing I were home eating lunch with Dona Esperanza after eating a Quiznos sandwich which cost almost double my daily stipend. Guate City is not too impressive of a place, and most of us are pretty scared to go there because it is really dangerous. The PC Safety and Security Officer had told us a scary statistic; that 25% of the country’s population resides in Guate City, but it’s where 80% of the crime is. And with the murder rate eight times higher than that of the US, I don’t think that most of us mind that PC doesn’t really allow us to spend time there! But having the chance to buy some shirts at Zara and eat some frozen yogurt definitely made it a worthwhile day. Site placement continues to be a topic of conversation among all of us and is something often on my mind lately. The best advice that current volunteers have given us is to not have too many hopes or expectations on where we are assigned, because then we won’t be disappointed. When Roberto, our program director, asked me about my site preferences, like Indigenous vs. Ladino, Municipal Planning Office vs. Municipal Women’s Office, etc., I told him that all I care about is being somewhere WARM. You may not associate Guatemala as a cold place, but in the highlands where many volunteers work, it can get really cold! So hopefully this is a request that can be accommodated – I’ll find out in exactly a month! Before I left the US, I originally felt that I wouldn’t want to necessarily work in an indigenous area, due to the possibility of having to learn another language, but I have really been rethinking this. The indigenous Mayan populations are what make Guatemala really unique and special, as compared to other Central American countries whose indigenous populations were mostly eradicated during the Spanish conquest and colonization period. This may be redundant info to you, but before leaving the US a lot of people seemed confused about this, so just to clarify: indigenous populations refer to groups of people who have roots in the country wayyy before Christopher Columbus accidentally stumbled upon the Americas. The Mayan population speaks languages entirely different from Spanish – in fact, 23 different languages are spoken in Guatemala. I think that something that makes me nervous about the possibility of working in a Mayan community is being able to communicate with people who don’t speak Spanish as a first language, if at all. From what we’ve learned, things take a much longer time to happen here in Guate than at the speed which we’re accustomed to in the US. And I fear that things would be even slower if I have to start learning a new language upon arrival in my site. But at the same time, I think, when else would I ever have the chance to live and work with a rural Mayan community in Guatemala!? So, we will see what happens : ) In two weeks, the 16 of us in the Municipal Development program embark on a week-long trip to the department of Huehuetenango (pronounced “way-way-ten-ango”) which will offer us a lot of insight into the work and lives of volunteers. Otherwise, I feel like I am still adjusting well and feeling more comfortable here; knowing a bit more of what to expect from daily life and how to interpret different behaviors here. Peace Corps has us do a lot of reading on intercultural and multiculturalism, which is actually really interesting to both understand what Guatemalan culture is a certain way and why the culture of the US is a certain way. An example: Guatemala is more “high power distance”, meaning that people accept that inequalities in power or status are natural; some people have more than others, and those who do have it tend to emphasize it and distinguish themselves. Whereas, the US is more “low power distance”, meaning that people see inequalities in power and status as artificial and those who do have power tend to minimize the differences between themselves and others. So, when I feel uncomfortable about how my host family treats or talks about the woman who comes every once in a while to help take care of the nieces and do the wash, I have to try to be really aware of this as a cultural difference, and know that they are not just mean people, but that these “class” relationships are more or less accepted in Guatemalan society, although they have certainly caused enough problems in the country. But that’s a story for another day…Next week is Guatemalan’s Independence Day (Tuesday, Sept 15) so feel free to have a celebration on that day commemorating the national independence of my new home! : ) It should be a pretty awesome and fiesta-riffic day, and we are also giving two presentations next week, one to a women’s small business/microlending group and another at a junior high school. So hopefully my next blog will have some good updates. And by the way, feel free to leave comments! I’m really not sure who all exactly is reading this, so I’d love to know more of your thoughts and remarks! Other random thoughts:-I can tell that I’m getting accustomed to life here because I no longer have to force myself to remember to throw the toilet paper in the wastebasket, not in the toilet. (The pipes and sewage system here can’t handle paper, so every bathroom conveniently has a trashcan right next to the toilet) I know, pleasant thoughts, right!? We’ve learned that to survive Peace Corps Guatemala, we have to get realllly comfortable talking about bodily functions. -This weeks’ Health training was on sexual health. Each of us received a different poster stating the necessary steps to putting on a condom, and then we had to put ourselves in the appropriate order. The first poster said, “a quiet evening at home” – you can imagine how the rest goes and how hard we were all laughing. -My six year old host brother and I have been watching my Simpsons DVDs together almost daily. I’m hopeful that doing so will at least make him learn English!-This week I saw my colleague from Partners of the Americas, Matt Bond, who now lives and works here in Guatemala. He is leaving soon to go back to the US but it was nice to see a familiar face! -I offered to make dinner for Dona Esperanza on Sunday, and she asked if the rest of the family could come too. So now I am making a dinner for 12 people and I am so scared. Please wish me a LOT of luck!

The remains of our delicious oceanside lunch

Testing the water at Puerta San Juan

This past week has been so jam packed with training activities, technical workshops, and family things that I’m not quite sure where to start…so, I’ll begin with Adventures in Municipal Development Training. This past Friday, half of us Muni volunteers went with our training director to visit a current Muni PC volunteer in her site, El Chol, in the Guatemalan department of Baja Verapaz. It was only a day trip, but what an adventure it was! We were picked up super early to begin the journey to El Chol. An hour into the trip, at about 7 am, while sitting in the van and wishing there were a Starbucks that we could stop at along the way, we were driving through a valley in between some gorgeous mountains and saw a volcano erupting in the distance. I used to pass the White House every single day when I walked to my office – but nothing can beat seeing an erupting volcano while heading to work! And this three-hour road trip is very unlike long car rides in the US where you often get on the highway and have to invent little games to keep yourself mentally occupied while watching the exit signs whiz by. We were driving up and down mountains on narrow windy dirt roads, dodging stray dogs, squeezing by cars coming from the other direction, and enjoying the most beautiful views. Things got even more interesting when we got stuck in some mud while driving up a small but steep hill. We all had to get out and push the van, and find stones to place under the wheels to keep them from skidding. And yes, I happened to be wearing a dress that day. We finally made it to El Chol covered in mud, but at least with a good story!

Visiting this volunteer in her site was an amazing experience; to learn about all that she has accomplished over the past two years of her service, the challenges she faced along the way, how she was able to overcome them and maintain a positive attitude. Among the many things I enjoyed learning from her, one of the things that I appreciated the most was her “we” approach to everything. Some background- last week, we happened to meet a volunteer visiting the country after serving four years ago. All he talked about were the amaaazing things he did for his host community, and we felt pretty turned off by his arrogant and self-important attitude. Because remember, we volunteers are here to assist and support Guatemalans for the improvement of their communities and country in a cooperative effort. Whereas this volunteer that we visited actually realized some really amazing things but never once placed full credit only on herself for what she did. And really, Peace Corps does not at all want us to show up in a community and just start implementing a bunch of projects. Their approach is “capacity building” – helping people to help themselves. On another note, since this volunteer is reaching the end of her service, one of the 17 of us will be replacing her! This day trip was really helpful for us to be able to visualize what life in site is like for a volunteer; besides hearing about the work she had done, we got to visit her office, see her house, and walk around town a bit. In general, one of the most important things that I think we’re learning from technical training is how to have realistic expectations about what we can accomplish in two years of service. While two years may seem like a long time to us right now, in the larger sense, and especially in terms of the time that things can be done in international development, two years really isn’t much at all.

Here in P-town, my four fellow community trainees and I have started working more with the municipal government for the technical aspect of training, and are going to be working with them a few times a week from now until the end of training. Specifically, we are working with the Municipal Women’s Office (or Oficina Municipal de la Mujer, OMM, which is also the Office of Social Services). This is going to be a great experience for us, because in our sites, we will either be assigned to work in the Municipal Women’s Office or the Municipal Planning Office (or both). So, now is the time for us to practice and learn as much as we can so that we will be ready to hit the ground running once we arrive in our sites. From the short time we’ve gotten to know the OMM, they are doing some great work with very little resources. For example, youth programming, adult literacy courses, HIV/AIDS education days, providing assistance and legal help to victims of domestic violence. I’m really excited to have the chance to work with them and hopefully that the five of us can offer them some good support for the next few months that we’re here training in P-town (remember that for security reasons, I can’t disclose exact locations, but if you’re dying to know, just email me). The OMM also supports community groups, one of which we got to visit on Monday. It is a sewing group that women in one of the neighboring communities started about a year ago to create income-generating possibilities. Basically, the OMM pays for some sewing machines and a teacher to go to the group twice a week to teach these women different techniques that they can learn to create things like curtains, bedding, etc. and then sell for extra money. However, these women still have plenty of challenges that keep them from being able to take full advantage of this group. Like women who have many children and can’t take time away to attend the group sessions (it’s not uncommon for families here to have a lot of kids). Also, they have to have the financial resources up front to put money into buying the fabric and materials, which many may not have available. While I’m not sure how much we will really be able to help groups like this, I am certain that we will learn a lot from them.

Many people have told me that the Peace Corps will make me feel more patriotic. With only three weeks here, that is something that I can already sense. While I fully feel the importance of respecting cultural differences, there are some things that are harder to accept. For example, the blatant “machismo”. In the US, we are taught as children that we can do and be whoever we want, and to never let anyone get in the way of that or tell you that you can’t realize your dreams. But here, things are really different for men and women. The gender roles are really defined and women here not only don’t have as much opportunity, they are expected to fulfill very specific roles and duties. It is something that is difficult to just sit back and see without feeling upset or uncomfortable. But there are also some really amazing things about Guatemalan culture that I really appreciate, especially how much people here value family and familial relations. As I wrote earlier, my entire “family” lives on the same block. They are constantly together; running in and out of each other’s homes, bringing meals back and forth, etc. To people here, the idea of living in a state separate from your parents or siblings, or moving out of your parents’ home before marriage, just doesn’t make sense. While those things are not necessarily things I would believe or want, the underlying value of family is really special and unique here.

An interesting cultural thing that we experienced over the weekend was a town beauty pageant! It was pretty much one of the funniest things we’ve seen yet. It was half beauty pageant and half talent show, which consisted of different groups of youngsters dancing around on stage to reggaeton or marimba music, and some of the teenage girls performing their “talents”, mostly singing. We were too tired to stay for the whole event (yeah, believe it or not, I go to bed by 9:30 here) but it was a really entertaining night, and especially fun to see the community room filled with tons of people, grandparents and small kids alike.

Other comments/thoughts:

- At a meeting last week with the Mayor and community development councils, we learned that there are 19 policemen for the 14,000 inhabitants of P-town. Pretty crazy…

- I am officially in Week Three and have yet to experience any type of stomach illness. With every day that passes and I still haven’t gotten sick, I feel a weird sense of victory.

- I thoroughly enjoy the black beans and corn tortillas so much, despite the fact that they’re present in almost every meal, I always look forward to it! Let’s see how I feel about them a year from now…

- We went to an organic coffee farm over the weekend and I learned how coffee was made, and we drank REAL coffee! See, Guate is rated #3 in the world for its coffee. But ironically, they drink imported Nescafe instant coffee (which tastes like crap). I was told that it’s because coffee producers are able to sell it abroad for higher prices than what people here would be willing or able to spend on it.

- Learning Guatemala-isms is very fun and very necessary. For example, we learned that the phrase “tengo asientos” does not really mean “I have chairs”, as it literally translates, but rather “I have diarrhea”. Who would have known!?

On Sunday morning, I had the pleasure of attending a really special mass with my host family at a church in Antigua. I returned home from my daily early-morning run in a rush to get ready for Mass in my town when my host mother told me that we instead got a “special invitation” to a service in Antigua. Having no clue what was really going on that day, I went along with the family on the bus and we arrived at the Temple de la Merced in Antigua. It was complete mayhem! There were national TV channel vans parked outside, hundreds of people, and news reporters giving commentary outside the church. Pardon my lack of knowledge of the exact significance of this day, but they were taking out the Virgin to parade around the streets, and apparently they only take her out once a year so it was a really big deal. Inside the church was so packed that I couldn’t really see or hear what was going on to understand well what the service was about, but it was worth standing against a marble column for three hours to experience what happened afterwards. There was a parade of hundreds of people all from different area churches and dressed in robes and everything. They also lit a ton of firecrackers (a Guatemalan favorite pastime) and released small hot air balloons made of tissue paper (the second of the three balloons didn’t catch the wind correctly, and came flying down with such speed, luckily the people below were paying attention and were able to escape the fire quickly coming down on them!). The most impressive part of the whole thing was that a bunch of streets of Antigua were closed for the occasion, and “alfombras” (carpets) made out of ornate flower arrangements and decorated sand covered the streets. Basically, people spent over an entire day laying out a lot of sand, and then using stencils to create an intricate design that looked exactly like a long carpet covering the street. The people carrying the huge Virgin idol would then walk down the street and through the alfombras. I may not be explaining this so well, so see below for pictures! (click to enlarge) I was completely awed by how beautiful and impressive it all was. It was really cool to experience. And my family told me that for Semana Santa in March, the streets of the city are even more covered by the beautiful decorations! Besides spending some weekend time with my family, my schedule has been pretty much completely devoured by Peace Corps’ trainings. Some interesting things we’ve discussed lately have to do with PC’s vision of sustainable development. Basically, our role as volunteers is to go into certain communities that have requested our help and guide them in different areas of work. So whichever municipality I am placed in to work with the municipal government will be because they have requested for a Peace Corps volunteer to be there and help them. This is a type of sustainable development that I really believe in, because we will be helping communities who both need AND want us to be there. And Peace Corps’ goal is not to send volunteers to different areas to do big grandiose projects, but to help people to help themselves. They call this “capacity building”. We should not be doing any work ourselves that we can’t just train others to do once we depart. Otherwise, once we leave in two years, whatever work we do will stop completely and if it’s not sustainable, it’s pretty much a huge waste. So in a way, Peace Corps kind of breaks the idealism that some trainees have to do big projects and shows us how to redirect those good intentions to be good capacity builders. So, much of what we volunteers do, whether we’re working in municipal development, agriculture, public health, etc. is giving community presentations and helping people find their own solutions to the problems which their communities face. And with the solutions that they chose to implement, we are here to support and guide them. Another important thing that PC has been discussing with us is how we can maximize the benefits of the experience that WE receive as volunteers. Will the people in the communities in which we serve always remember us and the work we do? Maybe. But will we always remember them? Without a doubt, yes. On Monday, instead of afternoon Spanish class, we had a current Muni volunteer come speak with us about the work that he’s been doing in Guatemala over the last year. He provided us with some really valuable and practical advice related to our technical program, such as certain challenges of working within the culture here, the structure of the municipal government, specific projects which he’s worked on and plans to work on over the next year, and how to make the most out of training. While so much of what we do as volunteers depends on our actually site, these three months of training are intended to prepare us for volunteer service as much as possible (or as the Country Director here recently told us, “training is the engagement period before a marriage in which it’s time to decide if PC Guatemala is REALLY the right fit for you”). While the discussion with this current volunteer brought out many new anxieties and new excitements about working in my future site, one thing is for sure – that no matter the work we do, one of the best parts about being a Peace Corps volunteer is finding solutions to new challenges, and experiencing and being part of a different culture. Now having been in Guatemala for two weeks, I feel that the training period is definitely an interesting adjustment and rather exhausting. But, it is not without fun! Today, we went to my Spanish teacher’s house for the first time and his mother taught us how to make tamales, which was really awesome. If you come to visit, I promise I’ll make them for you! A fun Guate fact is that if a house has a red light hanging outside, it means that they sell tamales there – a rather different meaning than red lights hanging in places like Amsterdam or other parts of the world! Other thoughts… - There is a dog that lives in my house, his name is Valentín, because they got him on Valentine’s Day. I never pet him because he’s really dirty, but I feel badly for him because he’s chained up during the day and for breakfast and dinner they feed him bread and coffee. It is one hyperactive animal! Toro seems like a comatose pet in comparison. - One of my many “aunts” asked me to do some of her son’s homework because he was assigned with too much. And this particular aunt happens to be a teacher. Go figure. Fortunately I had plenty of Peace Corps homework of my own, so that gave me an easy out! - I’ve been going running every morning and will be participating in a 10K race in my community in October! - My fellow community trainee’s little five-year-old neighbor asked his mother “Why didn’t we buy a gringo?” Haha I guess we Peace Corps trainees are in hot demand!

Learning to make tamales

An awesome hike after Spanish class

The field where I run everyday

Why sit two per seat when you can sit four?

Creating one of the sand alfombras

Passing through the streets of Antigua

Some of my very large host family

what the alfombra looks like after the Virgin passed through it

The Virgin passing through Antigua. Note the awesome volcanoes in the background!

Leaving the church

Up, up, and away!

Lighting the hot air balloons

One of the flower alfombras

I decided to name this post according to things I’m learning about Guatemalan society. There is always room for one more – always. I will explain the “chicken bus” as the main example. These buses are the primary mode of transportation in Guate, and they are very different than the city bus that come to mind when you think of public transportation. Guatemala, as well as other countries in Central America, use old US school buses that have been retired or deemed as no longer fit for taking American children back and forth from school. So, they send them down here, where the engines are replaced and the buses are painted with many colors and adorations and given a title based on the driver/owner’s personal affections (such as “Jesus Es Amor” or “Mi Princesa Nancy”). And they are nicknamed “chicken buses” because of the livestock that can sometimes accompany the human passengers – but in Spanish, they are just “camionetas”. Riding these buses can be quite the exhilarating experience. First, because they tend to squeeze three people into a seat intended for two school-aged passengers. When the seats are all full, they fill up the aisle in double lines of people. Through this packed mess of people, the “ayudante” (bus driver’s assistant who yells out the stops and takes care of the bus fare) somehow manages to finagle his way down the aisle to collect money from every single person, often jumping out the back door of the moving bus and running around to the front door to swing himself back inside. Seriously, these guys make the Cirque du Soliel performers look like wimps.

The other night, my 4 fellow community trainees and I took our Spanish teacher out for dinner in Antigua, which was a fun bonding experience for the six of us, plus nice to get out of our community for a night and be able to speak English and relax a bit. We had a delicious yet over-priced Mexican dinner, probably to be expected considering how touristy Antigua is. Although it was definitely worth it, plus we found some real ice cream after dinner which made the night even better! After waiting an hour for the bus that returns to our community, we decided to cab it. Finally, machismo worked in my favor for once, when I was given the front seat of a taxi and the five guys has to squeeze into the back!

I have really enjoyed my family here and spending time with them. Every day I am introduced to more and more family members but they are so nice and welcoming to me. Today was the baby shower of one of the nieces, which was held at my host family’s house because of its larger courtyard. Experiencing a baby shower in Guatemala was so great. Even here, they call it a “baby shower” which I found comical, but it really was just like baby showers in the US. We played some fun games, which was nice to be included in and showed me also that perhaps Guatemalan society is not as conservative in some ways as the Peace Corps makes it out to be. One of the hysterical games involved a race between two sets of partners, in which one sits on another’s lap in baby position and has to chug horchata (a delicious milky rice cinnamon drink) out of a baby bottle. I also met a really nice woman and her super cute five year old, who I chatted with for most of the party and they invited me to their house for dinner in Chimaltenango, a nearby city which I haven’t visited yet. This is indicative of some nice cultural differences between the US and Guatemala. Allow me to explain: one cultural difference between the US and Guate is frankness. People here are less likely to say what exactly is on their mind or to give flat out “no” answers for fear of offending others (which we now have to learn to do the same – surprisingly difficult to do, as we are taught in the US to just speak our minds, within reason, and be direct about what we feel and what we want). But I also feel that Americans sometimes offer or suggest things without truly intending to follow through. So when early in the party, this woman says, I’d like to invite you over for dinner, I was thinking that it sounds great but maybe skeptical that anything would come of it, but then at the end of the party, she found some notebook paper to write me the address and phone number to her house, along with more specific directions to get there.

The four guys in my town and I have been bonding with our community pretty well, considering we’ve only been here for nine days. We sometimes go up to the basketball courts by the main church plaza after our Spanish classes and technical trainings to play soccer, and have made many small friends in the process. On Friday, for example, was the first time that I ever saw younger girls hanging out there, so we played a fun game of futbol, girls versus boys, and then two hours more of freeze tag and hide and seek. It definitely goes down as one of the best afternoons I’ve had in a while. While us five huge gringos may have looked somewhat silly to the rest of the town, I feel that playing with these kids and connecting with them is really important for more than just mental and physical diversion. If we want to be successful volunteers, we need to show the community that we care about them and are willing to engage in non-municipal development related things as well as things that match more of our “job descriptions”. Plus, my soccer skills are actually somewhat improving. I still have no hope when it comes to shooting and scoring, but I’ve developed a technique in which I just full-speed charge at the person with the ball, which occasionally works out in my favor!

One of the most challenging parts of this experience thus far is allowing myself to just be humble and realize that I am pretty incapable in many areas. After six years of moving out of my parents’ house and two years of living alone, it is difficult to allow myself to really give into this fact. Here, I have to learn how to bathe differently, wash clothing differently, eat and cook differently, take public transportation differently, etc. And coming from the US, a country puts so much value on independence, it is kind of counterintuitive to allow myself to mentally give into letting others assist us so much and teach us life skills anew. But I am really thankful to be with a family who supports me in this way and with a lot of patience. Being in a new environment forces me to evaluate what it is that I do know, both in terms of my technical work and day-to-day living, solely because of a new cultural context in which work and live in. I am consistently reminding myself to stay positive and that moving to another country is not supposed to be easy, but in all honesty I am really happy to be here and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now!

With my fellow trainees and Spanish teacher in Antigua - we got real ice cream!

A famous street of beautiful Antigua Waiting for the bus with our favorite old man in the community At the bus terminal in Antigua In Spanish class, learning Guate slang (like ¨bish¨, written on the whiteboard, which means pee-pee. oh the necessary things we have to learn!)

my REALLY cute "nieces"

My host "mother" Esperanza with her youngest niece

Now having been in my new town for a few days, I am bit by bit adjusting to what life will be like over the next three months of training and living in this area of Guatemala. My new host family consists of a single older woman, who lives with one of her sisters and her sister’s husband and son (so there are four people in my home altogether, plus me) although the entire families of the nine siblings in total live just next door and across the street. So I now also have many adopted aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and babies! It is difficult keeping everyone straight, but they have been extremely welcoming and kind to me. One thing that has been on my mind a lot is personal appearance, something that I cared about probably less while in the US although then I had more ability to do something about it! As we were warned by our Peace Corps training director, our clothing and personal appearance is REALLY important. This was immediately evident when I arrived at my new host family’s home. They immediately commented on my shirt, my toenail polish, my rainboots, my water bottle; how nice it all was. Lucky for them, I was wearing one of only a few nice-ish shirts that I brought, so I hope they haven’t been gravely disappointed in the way I’ve been dressed since! I wish I had thought things through a bit better before departing the US, but of course hindsight is always 20/20. Guatemalans take personal appearance really seriously. And for some, it’s surprising that Americans always want to dress casually. To them, why wear flip flops, faded jeans, and t-shirts when you have the money and ability to always wear something better? Even more so, a dressed-up look is important to work effectively as a volunteer if we want the people that we serve to take us at all seriously, because people won’t want to work with us if we don’t meet their professional and conservative standards, no matter the type of education and number of degrees that we may have.

Being with my new host family for this short time has also proved Peace Corps’ point about keeping a very clean and modest reputation and conforming strictly to the standards of Guatemalan society. Some members of my family went to a baptism during the day and later spent the entire afternoon back at home discussing who did what, who was wearing what, who ate and drank what, etc. This makes me a little nervous, because as I previously wrote, the only other PC people here in my town are four guys, and I’m afraid that to be known as the American girl who is a friend with all the American guys could hurt my reputation here. Women here just don’t have “guy friends” like in the US so hopefully there won’t be too much “chisme” (gossip) that would change anyone’s perception of us.

Otherwise, my experience in my new town thus far has been pretty calm and overall very positive. I went with my host mother to mass on Sunday morning, which lasted a few hours and was interesting to experience. Then, we met the rest of her family and spent the entire rest of the day hanging out at the home of her sister and the sister’s family. From 11:30 am to 7:30 pm, we stayed inside the house and just chatted and sat around. It was fun to hang out with the cute babies, dance to marimba music, and eat a big lunch, but I kind of felt like I was going to lose it, while at the same time happy beyond words to be spending time with nice people who so graciously accepted me into their family. I felt simultaneously lost and included, not knowing most of who and what they were talking about, but so thankful to have been taken under their wing. The families that host Peace Corps trainees do so really out of pure interest in knowing an American and for their belief in the Peace Corps cause, as they are paid about $6/day, in exchange for three meals a day, a room, and to do our laundry.

Another really interesting thing is the diversity of the six communities in which the 33 of us PC trainees were split into is just one example of the tremendous diversity of this small country. Within a one hour radius, some of us are in hotter climates, others in cold, some are in indigenous (Mayan) communities, others are ladino (mixed Indian and Spanish races). It’s so incredible how different towns are so close yet with such variation (a Cheltenham vs. Abington or Arlington vs. Bethesda comparison just can’t measure up!)

My current host family’s home is significantly more comfortable, by American standards, than that of my first temporary host family, but in reality, I hope to not write about all that so much because it’s irrelevant to my overall Peace Corps experience. I know that I will encounter many wonders and challenges here despite the fact if my home has running water or not. Although I will happily say that the chickens in the backyard that crow throughout the evening in such a horrible screeching that you’d think they were being tortured provided me with some delicious eggs this morning.

A few other comments:

- People here are completely confused by my name, which as a noun means “face” or as an adjective means “expensive” in Spanish. When I explain that it’s an Italian name that means “loved one”, or “querido” en espanol, they are even more confused as to why I have an Italian name but no Italian heritage. The family wanted to call me by my middle name (Alyse, which translates better to Alicia) but luckily that idea quickly faded!

- The women in the family asked me if it’s safe to use tampons and if they “get stuck or lost”.

- People here are extremely hardworking and maintain a sense of family and community that Americans could learn a lot from.

- I went to Antigua today for the first time and stocked up on some essentials - chocolate, hand soap, and a cell phone! Feel free to call or text me anytime! From the US, dial 011-502-5803-6240.

I will share more stories and updates soon!

Wow – I am now in Guatemala and so much has happened and it has been such a week of many emotions that it is hard to decide how to even start writing. But here goes…

On my second day in Guatemala, I went to brush my teeth before bedtime and saw a cockroach hanging out on the bristles. I wanted to kick myself for forgetting to wrap my toothbrush in paper, and quickly ran outside to the pila (cement outdoor sink) to douse it with water and try and forget it ever happened. Then, I returned inside and finally had the chance to open the surprise package that my amazing sister-in-law snuck into my luggage. WOW…words simply cannot describe my amazement of all the letters she had collected from my family and friends. The words of advice, wisdom, encouragement, and humor put the hugest smile on my face – I know this will certainly help me through some tough times, like when I’m missing the people that I love, when I feel lonely, and when a giant crawling bug has decided to make a new home on my toothbrush. At some point soon I’ll get around to thanking you all individually, but for now, thank you Steph for orchestrating this amazing surprise! So, onto describing my life in Guatemala for the past five days…

All the Guatemala Peace Corps Trainees met in Washington DC for an intense day-long session orienting us to Peace Corps and what to expect in Guatemala – as well as talk about our own personal expectations, aspirations, and anxieties. It was interesting to learn of the same thoughts that we shared (such as worries about being an effective volunteer) and those that we didn’t necessarily share (like someone’s fear of falling off a cliff, or being burnt by lava from the active volcanoes in the country). Anyway, one sleepless night and a few hours later, we landed in Guatemala City, were greeted by Peace Corps staff, and made our way to Santa Lucia Milpas Altas, where the PC HQ is located. After some more meetings, we were off to our temporary host families. I lived three days with two other trainees in the home of a local woman and her family, which consisted of six kids, one son in law, and one granddaughter. It was really a packed house and I felt rather guilty about being there, although PC does pay the families to host and feed us, knowing that we were taking up precious room and resources (like water and bathroom time) in this home. However, the family was very kind and generous to us. Our last night there was spent playing soccer and basketball with my 9 year old host brother. Dad, you would have been proud of my soccer skills, which haven’t been utilized since about the 6th grade. While living in this home, I took my first bucket baths – you all who know me and how slow I am to get ready in the morning would be floored by how quick I was! It’s amazing how much of a time (and water!) saver bucket bathing us! I’d recommend you all try it at least once just to experience what it’s like :)

During these three days, PC has us stay close to HQ with local families so that we can spend the entire day in the offices in different trainings and sessions. During this time, we had Spanish language interviews and were separated into language classes based on program area (mine is Municipal Development – half our group of 33 is Sustainable Agriculture) and on language ability. My class consists of me and four other male trainees (probably the first time EVER that I have been outnumbered by guys – cough cough, AU and Partners of the Americas!) So, today, each class was relocated to live in different communities for the next three months. While it is sad to not be all 33 of us in a group together in the same community, especially after we were finally getting to know each other, it is better this way so that we have more of a chance to know a different community and begin fine-tuning the skills we’ll need to be successful volunteers once out on our own in our sites. Since I just arrived here today, I’ll write more about my training community in a later blog post to focus more on other things since my arrival…

I have been thoroughly impressed by the amount of work that PC Guatemala has done to orient and train us. There are training officers, language teachers, medical officers, security officers, you name it, meeting with us constantly to make sure we have a safe, healthy, and effective Peace Corps experience. For example, the medical officers spent about two hours discussing dehydration and diarrhea with us yesterday (don’t be too jealous). But seriously, I feel so comfortable here knowing that they are going to take such good care of us and in all honesty, I’ll probably never again have such good medical care.

They have also discussed many things that I have found helpful to remain grounded and motivated. Like to be able to reach the level of mutual understanding and respect required to be a successful volunteer requires giving up personal liberties (like not wearing flip flops in public, refraining from alcohol, or going jogging alone). But instead of looking at what we are missing, we should look at what we are gaining. Such as, when else will we be living among the poor communities of another country? No matter what we do after this, we will likely never be living this way again. And no matter how poor we think we are for these next 27 months, we still live better than the average Guatemalan – so embrace the differences, the simplified life, and just deal with it.

Some other things I have learned so far:

- 95.5% of Peace Corps volunteers report gastrointestinal problems within their first year of service (which likely means that 4.5% are just plain liars!)

- The ways in which people are robbed on the public buses and how to semi avoid it (but at least the bus only cost 12 cents!)

- Guatemalan babies are treated like adults (not under the eagle eye of their parents every two seconds, are spoken to like grown-ups, and seemingly behave a whole lot better than American kids)

- People light firecrackers at all hours of the day no matter the occasion. (any cause for celebration? Let’s wake up the neighborhood at 4 am and alert them!)

- Guatemalans take these beans and tortillas really seriously! Luckily, I find it all very delicious.

- Ways to be engaging and participatory in everything we do. This is a dramatic change from the US. For example, what would be the use in giving a power-point training to a room full of adults if they have never had a formal education and can’t read? We need to adapt our ways of thinking and communicating so that we can reach people on a basic level (and thus make them actually care what we do).

- Guatemalan society is very formal and conservative, which somewhat surprised me (like how they don’t greet with a beso (kiss) here. Working with so many Latin Americans, it’s something that I’m really used to so it is a bit different for me to not do that)

- I believe in God (while this may or may not really be true, our training director began our host family orientation session by saying “You believe in God.” When we were all like, “huh? No, not necessarily…”, he was like, “NO. You believe in God. If you want to be accepted here, you believe in God, regardless of what your actual religion is. Saying that you don’t is one of the most offensive things you could ever say to a Guatemalan”)

Anyway, I’m sorry to write such a long and scattered post, so much has happened in the past few days that it’s impossible to express it all here, and I am with many emotions but really happy to be here. As was written in my Uncle Lloyd’s letter, “success is not a destination but a journey” – probably the most important thing to keep in mind as I begin this journey here!

Muchos saludos,

Cara

Arrival in DC with life for the next 2 years packed into two bags

the main drag in Santa Lucia Milpas Altas

The iglesia in Santa Lucia Milpas Altas (Peace Corps HQ Town)

Taking a break with some other trainees at PC HQ

after playing soccer with my host brothers

With my Spanish Teacher, Chepe

I love beginnings

I quit my job, packed up my studio apartment, and said goodbyes to a lot of people who I am going to miss like crazy. Most of you know the reason that I am leaving Washington DC, my home for the past six years, and moving to Guatemala to work as a Peace Corps volunteer. However, I've encountered many questions and perhaps some confusion about where I'll be going and what I'll be doing there. ("So you're going to teach English?", "I hear you're moving to El Salvador?", "How much does the Peace Corps pay you?") So allow me to clarify..I'll be living in Guatemala for a total of 27 months (Two full years of service, plus three months of training from August-October) working as a Peace Corps volunteer (meaning I don't earn a salary, though I receive a living stipend) and my area of work is Municipal Development, which Peace Corps describes as: "working with rural governments to strengthen their ability to provide basic services and infrastructure to isolated areas. Volunteers train rural communities to identify, prioritize, program, execute, and evaluate community development projects." I will receive my site placement during my first three months of training, and my actual job responsibilities will depend on the needs of that specific community, as well as the work that has been done (or lack thereof) previously.

So now that that's clarified, you ask, "Why am I doing this?" I am fulfilling a dream but also what I feel is a responsibility. After previous experiences volunteering and working abroad, especially combined with my experience working at Partners of the Americas for two years, I feel that I understand the enormous value and importance of citizen diplomacy and promoting understanding between people of different cultures - especially when there is a tumultuous history between certain countries (like the US' CIA involvement in Guatemala, for example, and the 36 year civil war that ensued). I hope to continue working in international development after the Peace Corps gig is over, and as cool as my previous job was, I want to experience international development work through living internationally myself. I am pretty psyched that this is finally happening. Many of you reading this probably know that I've been wanting to do the Peace Corps for a really long time now (when recently cleaning out some drawers, I found some old papers from freshman year of college, including a bunch of Peace Corps pamphlets from an info session I'd attended back in the day). While I never thought I'd quit a job that I love to join the Peace Corps, I am happy that this dream is turning into a reality, and that the experiences I've had over the past few years will provide greater clarity of my role and responsibility as a Peace Corps volunteer.

I'm so appreciative of everyone who has shared in my excitement and offered lots of encouragement and words of wisdom. I look forward to sharing this experience with you all, whether through blog posts, emails, phone calls, or visits (especially visits! hehe). I will work hard to maintain perspective and to take full advantage of every opportunity that this experience will offer. I want to offer a special thanks to all the Youth Ambassadors and Youth Leaders with whom I've had the privilege of working with over the last two years. They have taught me so much about approaching new experiences with an open mind and heart.

Hasta pronto!

Cara