Seriously, folks, those 3 months FLEW BY! Busy with community meetings, needs assessments, project planning, a trip stateside for PA school interviews (going to OHSU!), grant writing. Yesterday I gave a talk on HIV/AIDS to a women's group, focusing on fidelity, the correct use of the condom, and getting a test during pregnancy, and I thought about how different I am and how much has changed since December 2009. A year ago I tried to lead some HIV/AIDS activities with my coworkers at the Health Center and passed out red ribbons on World AIDS Day (December 1st, folks, December 1st)...but how much has changed since then!

In case you haven't seen it yet, there is a website about my infrastructure project. Still a ways off from our goal, but there are a couple of quotes that are really keeping me going these days.

"Failure is impossible." Susan B. Anthony

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genuis is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is filled with educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are along omnipotent. 'Press on!' has been and always will be the answer to every human problem." Calvin Coolidge

PRESS ON, indeed!

While my sitemate Charlie and the Japanese volunteer and I waited in the school director's office to judge a contest for Miss Monja Blanca, Miss Independence, and Miss Guatemala (back on September 15th in celebration of Guatemala's independence day), we enjoyed the attention of many students. There was an invisible barrier (called fear?) keeping them from actually entering the room and talking to us.

The year countdown to my Completion of Service (COS) date has begun. Let’s see, if my official COS date is July 16, 2011, and today is August 25, 2010, that means less than 11 months to go. And that, my friends, IS SCARY! I’ve heard plenty of PCVs say that the second year just flies by. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRST YEAR?! I thought it was supposed to be dreadfully slow. The truth is I can’t even remember having a slow month!

I think maybe it would be beneficial to review the key events of my service so far.

July 20, 2009: First day of work.

During July and August I worked with a local NGO, Alianza, giving health talks to women’s groups and to junior high students. I spent time at the health center getting to know the staff and work dynamics. I helped some volunteers from the University of Dayton with an improved wood-burning stove project, learning how the stoves are made and translating for them. My counterpart also told me that he had picked out two communities for me to work with. The two communities are 30-45 minute walks from the pueblo, and once a month members of the health center staff go out to the communities to monitor the growth of children under five and give vitamins, vaccines, and desparasitantes to the kids who need it. Since July, I have been to almost every single visit made by the health center staff not just to help out, but primarily to get to know the mothers and kids.

September 22, 2009: Site visit from Project Specialist. An excerpt from my journal entry on that day: “Ana Isabel’s visit went really well. We talked in Spanish the whole time! Yay me! And I told her what Isman (my counterpart) said about my Spanish and waiting until it’s better, and she said that’s silly, that I speak nice and slow and clearly…It was so good to hear positive feedback from Ana Isabel about my Spanish…After our lunch we met with Dr. Samayoa and Isman. How exciting that I could follow all of it! The interaction between Ana Isabel and Isman was interesting. I guess because I gave Ana Isabel a mediocre impression of Isman, that he’s not a super counterpart (at least not so far as being supportive and encouraging goes). And Isman on the other hand seemed to be on the defensive, and even brought up a comparison between my site and Abby’s site, how they’re completely different places; he said he imagines Abby is already getting busy with different activities, more experiences. Ana Isabel was like, “No, really it’s about the same.” Ana Isabel is great. Really. And she indirectly suggested ways I should/could get busy. She’s sneaky, in a good way…So, I feel good from Peace Corps side of things—I know Ana Isabel and Basilio both have confidence that I’m going to do good things here. But Isman! I don’t freakin’ know what it is!...I just don’t feel like we’re equals, that he’s guiding me as an equal. Rather, I feel like he’s a supervisor who sort of feels burdened by my presence, who doesn’t know what to do with me. But this is only month 2. Tranquilo, LT. This is the first time he’s worked with Peace Corps, the first time he’s worked with a gringa. You’ll have plenty of time to show him how incredible, independent, and hard-working you are. Not that it matters what Isman or Peace Corps thinks. What matters is that you are true to yourself, that you are honest, that you do everything you can to be what God has called you to be…Patience attains all things.”

I’m just thinking this is going to be a ridiculously long blog entry (which, um, wouldn’t be unusual) if I continue sharing old journal entries. But that entry was very telling for me about everything I was going through my first months in site. My insecurities about my Spanish level, my confusing relationship with a counterpart who didn’t seem interested in working together (still doesn’t?), but my satisfaction with the support I felt from my Peace Corps bosses and my eagerness to get to work.

October, November, December 2009: Getting to know more people in my site, making friends, giving health talks to women’s groups, trying to start a group of health promoters in the two communities with the educator who covers those communities but not having very much success due to lack of communication and planning.

February 7, 2010: SAINTS WIN THE SUPERBOWL!

February 10, 2010: Journal excerpt, “ (after writing about how 4 different people asked me to teach them English and helping a 7 year old learn how to read) Silly silly Lauren. But my project!! Health charlas, home visits…what am I doing?! Of course, I have decided it’s not rocket science. I think tomorrow and Friday I’m going to try to find Isman and sit him down and write out a plan and timeline for the year…I don’t really think he cares. But I want him to be informed of—and heck, maybe even take part in?—my plans.”

February 18, 2010: Journal excerpt, “Today was a pretty glorious day. And I feel kind of rotten for being so negative about Isman, because he was awesome today at the meeting with the COCODE in El Jícaro. I don’t know why I didn’t have that meeting months ago. Maybe my Spanish wasn’t good enough? I didn’t have the self-confidence I needed yet? Who knows? Because I was still trying to figure out who to work with at the Centro and how? I will say that I still disagree with Isman that your Spanish needs to be better in my site than in Abby’s site…that makes no sense to me. Basically, it sounds like he’s saying people in Abby’s site (i.e. ladinos) are smarter than people in my site (i.e. Mayans) because they can understand bad Spanish. Not only do I think he’s wrong about ladinos being smarter than Mayans (he doesn’t say that explicitly, and maybe he doesn’t think that, but at times he does seem a little racist), but to me it makes more sense NOT to need great Spanish in a place where the majority of the people learned Spanish as a second language. But anyway. I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere!...I’m just glad it didn’t take me a year to get stuff going. I wish it had only taken 3 months, but what can you do?...On the way to El Jícaro with Isman I told him everything I was planning on saying. He advised me to emphasize that I’m a volunteer and not making any money…waited almost an hour for enough COCODE members to show up…gave my shpiel. Then Isman followed. Mentioned this being the first time the Centro has had a Peace Corps Volunteer. When we left, I think I said something about how I thought things went well, and Isman said something along the lines of he’s felt bad because he hasn’t been helping me. He also said something about my learning to speak in public, then asked about Abby again and made the comment about being able to have poorer Spanish in her site. Sometimes I think he thinks Abby and I should switch sites.”

So, since that meeting with the COCODE in El Jícaro, and the meeting with the COCODE in the other community, I have been busy meeting with health promoters and giving them workshops on things like diarrhea, respiratory infections, nutrition, hygiene, and environmental health/waste management.

April 12-16, 2010: Midservice Training. Learned about the steps to developing a successful project (with our counterparts) and went out to some volunteers’ sites to build stoves and cement floors.

April, May, June, July, August 2010: Working! Preparing workshops for promoters. Helping them plan their own health activities in their communities. Tagging along with site mate Charlie on his water deposit project to see how they’re built. Helping more University of Dayton volunteers with a water filter project. Hosting Healthy Homes trainees so they could practice their skills and get a better idea of what it’s like to be a volunteer (that was in June). Visiting homes in the communities to get an idea of what sort of conditions they are living in. Still not working directly with my counterpart, though he has come to a few of the promoter trainings. Midservice Conference. Submitted physician assistant program applications.

All of this is just to say, I have been in site for over a year, and I feel pretty good about what I’ve done. Sure, I don’t have a great working relationship with my counterpart, but that’s Peace Corps, right? You identify the people you can work with and you work with them. Build THEIR capacity, teach a man to fish, sustainable development…I think you get what I’m trying to say.

And my Spanish? Leaps and bounds, I tell you. I have definitely gotten over my insecurities as far as that goes.

Next steps? I am currently in the process of working with the promoters in both communities to write a project proposal for cement floors, latrines, improved stoves, and water deposits. We are working with 60 families in each community, or 120 families total. The promoters will receive workshops on the construction, use, and maintenance of the appropriate technology and then train the participating families. Together we are planning a system for monitoring the progress and results. We will be using local resources and labor, the community will be contributing at least 30% of the budget, but there are still lots of costs to be covered. It’s really quite exciting, though awfully intimidating at the same time. I guess I just want to give you a heads up that I will soon be sending out emails and letters soliciting financial contributions. Every little bit helps.

Um, I should also say that I am considering extending for another year (!). But I did apply to physician assistant programs and right now my applications are under review. I hope to hear something about interviews by the middle of September. And interviews would mean a trip home! But I’m just trying to think of plan B in case PA school doesn’t work out.

ANYWAY. A blog post has been long overdue, and maybe my sporadic (adj stopping and starting; scattered; occurring in bursts every once in a while) entries don’t do justice to my experience. But thank you for reading, and I am infinitely grateful for all the emails, letters, packages, and support I have received.

I think too much. That’s why I don’t write more blog posts.

I am sorry for being incredibly lousy about blogging. Apparently it's just not my thing. I have been in Guatemala for over a year (go me!), and to celebrate I stayed in site and enjoyed the feria. Here's a picture of me in typical traje with my friend's two adorable kids during the parade (oh, yeah...remember that post about the marching band? Definitely for the feria parade).

I have been busy integrating (ie playing basketball, learning Mam, going to church, etc) and working (a group of trainees will be coming here in June for Field Based Training!, and I've been collaborating more with the educators in the health center, in addition to the usual health talks I give). But I am really really really gonna try to get another post up soon.

Since it has been a year since I've been in the US and seen many of you, I would just like to say thanks for all of the postcards, letters, packages, emails, facebook posts, etc...I don't know what it would be like to not have as amazing of a support network back home as I do.

Lots of love. I PROMISE I'm going to try to learn how to be a better blogger.

Well gang, here's a video of some girls playing basketball in one of the aldeas in my municipio. Just want to let you know what the competition is like.

Last night I actually played a pretty good game, 5 on 5, with some men in the community and 3 other women. I would say age range was 24-45 years old, with me being the youngest person playing.

Sunset on the Pacific Coast in San Marcos, eating the fish Sydney helped bring in, and yours truly. These pictures are from a weekend trip to the beach with some PCVs from my training group in January.

Wayeb’ is the Mayan New Year. On February 21st around 7pm, I was walking back from the bball court with my friend Mariela when we passed the Cultural Center, OVERFLOWING with people. Mostly young people. I asked Mariela why there were so many kids hanging around, being that it’s sort of unusual for the Cultural Center to be open on a Sunday evening, and she told me that they must be taking folks out to one of the sacred hilltops where they practice Mayan ceremonies for the celebration of the Mayan New Year.

We continue walking, away from the Cultural Center, as I think to myself, “Man, that sounds pretty cool.” Mariela asks me if I’ve ever been to a Mayan ceremony, and I explain that I went to one at the Peace Corps office during training, and I went to another one in the central park in our pueblo back in August or September. She suggests we go ask the Cultural Center director what time the bus is leaving, what time it’ll be getting back, and if there was room. Jonathan tells us the bus will be leaving at 7:30, should be getting back around midnight or 1am, and of course there’s room, so hurry up.

I hurry home and change clothes. I meet Mariela and her little brother Luis in front of the Cultural Center. The bus shows up around 8:30. I think we left the pueblo around 9. The bus ride was at least 30 minutes, closer to 50 I would say. On the bus Mariela, Luis, and I talk about some of the social and educational differences between our little pueblo in Guatemala and ‘Los Estados.’ We also share the few jokes we all know. Once we get to the aldea (village) where the sacred hilltop is, we have to hike about 10 or 15 minutes to get to the actual hilltop. There’s an altar (of sorts) set up. Once everyone is there, the ceremony begins.

It was a really cool experience. The sky was cloudless, the stars were beautiful, and you could see the lights from the pueblo and a couple of the other communities down below. And it was cold. We didn’t load the bus ‘til after 1:30 (I’m not sure exactly when...all I know is that we didn’t get back into the pueblo until 3am). There was a marimba and dancing at the end of the praying, to celebrate the New Year. There were women providing coffee and tamalitos (corn dough steamed in leaves) to whoever wanted it…and charged nothing (there was also a guy selling chips and snacks and soft drinks). Oh, and the entire ceremony was celebrated in Mam.

I guess what I liked best about it was going with Mariela and Luis. Because they are friends. And I got to share that experience with them. So yeah. Happy New Year.

Marching bands in my pueblo? It sounds like they are having practice down on the campo at the end of my street. I haven’t walked down there to confirm my suspicions, but the little neighbors kids across the street just climbed up onto their roof to look in that direction. I hear drums and a xylophone. And it seems that trumpets are increasing in popularity, as well, though it doesn’t sound like they have one in the marching band. In one of the communities I went out to yesterday there were a couple middle school-aged boys taking turns with one, and then when I came home for lunch there was another boy playing one in my street.

I’ll be sure to keep you updated on marching band developments. I’m sure you are all very interested in that.

I am a little embarrassed by how little I have posted since swearing in as a volunteer. It’s not for lack of internet. Have I already shared that there are at least 5 different computer centers in town where I can check my email? It’s almost easier for me to get on the internet here in Guatemala than it was when I was living on 10th Street.

Well, if it’s not for lack of internet, is it for lack of blog worthy material? I don’t think so. I’m a novice blogger, and I haven’t quite fine-tuned my judgement of events or thoughts worth sharing, but I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer now for more than 7 months! Surely there’s at least one cultural experience or personal growth realization that would make a decent blog entry every month (if not every week).

So why haven’t I been composing tales from my (most recent) adventure? I just haven’t had the time! I mean, I’m a firm believer that people make time for the things that they think are important. Which is why I’ve had time to play basketball almost every afternoon and hang out with the people I am starting to call my friends in my pueblo. Or running…though basketball in the afternoons has started to replace running (I want to start running in the mornings, but there’s usually no water to shower between 6:30 AM and 8 AM). Or writing in my journal. But even that I seem to have less and less time for.

But I think I’m going to make posting on this blog more of a priority. Mainly because being a Peace Corps Volunteer for 7 months means that I’m already more than a quarter of the way through my service! How did that happen?!? If time continues to go by as fast as it is, it will be Christmas 2011 before I know it!

And maybe if I make posting a priority the entries won’t be so dreadfully long. Or ridiculously short, like the last tease. That’s how I write in my journal, though. I either write 8 page entries or 1 paragraph updates. Clearly I need to explore the short-story format a little more. The haikus and novels I got in the bag. It always is the middle distance, the 800 meter run, that’s the hardest, no?

Goodness gracious. So it’s March. We’re already into the third month of 2010. That scares me a little bit.

I hear it’s been snowing like crazy in Atlanta. It hasn’t snowed in my pueblo. It can get chilly overnight, but by the time the sun is up you could wear shorts and a t-shirt. Which I do wear when I play basketball in the afternoons. It’s the dry season now. Rainy season runs from May-ish to October-ish, but it didn’t strike me as being that rainy. The dry season is dry, though. And extremely dusty. But not as dusty as it was a year ago. Why is that? Because they have been paving roads like crazy!

Let me talk for a minute about paved roads. My pueblo is only 33 km from the department capital (a small city where you can buy JIF peanut butter and Golden Grahams and where you can walk around and be an anonymous gringo rather than the gringo who lives next door to your cousin). The road used to be ALL dirt and gravel. But more and more sections have been paved over the past couple years, until finally it was paved in its entirety by December. A 3 hour and very uncomfortable ride on the camioneta is now under an hour and a half. This makes studying and/or working in the department capital more feasible. Theoretically this means the people of my pueblo have more opportunities, even though they still need money to pay the bus fare. At least the infrastructure is there.

I was a little sad at first that all the roads were getting paved. The two main entrance and exit roads for my pueblo have also been paved, just within the last three months. I was sad because I felt my pueblo was losing some of its romantic rural, highland Guatemalan qualities. Not to mention “hard-core” credit: “What? You have paved roads? And hot water? And indoor plumbing? And electricity? You don’t live in a mud hut? I thought you were a Peace Corps Volunteer!”

But I quickly decided it was silly to be sad. I should be happy that the place that I have been sent to to promote sustainable development is developing. The only thing harmed by paving the roads is my pride. I can’t brag about all of the hardships I confronted during my two years in Guatemala. Oh, the environment may have been harmed a little bit, too. But infrastructure, generally speaking, is good. It connects communities for economic and education opportunities.

One of my favorite quotes is from one of the Peace Corps booklets that came with my invitation packet.

“…This is not to say that sacrifices aren’t a part of the Peace Corps package. It’s just that they aren’t always as obvious, dramatic, or romantic as warding off bat-sized insects and enduring weeks of plain rice. The real sacrifice you make in the Peace Corps is the tremendous daily and hourly effort required to speak in another language and be effective in another culture, the constant struggle to be self-aware and sensitive.”

Peace Corps was never really in my plans. Even when one of my good friends was applying during our senior year at Emory, I thought it was cool and would be a neat thing to do, but I never thought it was something I would do myself.

Cue rejection letters. Plans don’t always work out like you expected.

Your sister-in-law suggests you apply to Peace Corps just to go through the process. It can’t hurt to apply. You tell yourself you´ll only go if you get an assignment in a Spanish-speaking country doing something health related. Then you get an invitation from Peace Corps Washington to serve in Guatemala in a project called Rural Home Preventive Health (now called Healthy Homes). Um…I guess it’s time to pack your bags.

I had more of a heads up than most people on where I was going. Even so I didn’t read up on Guatemala too much because I didn’t want to come into country with a lot of expectations and be disappointed. But as the date got closer, looking back now I feel like I was getting more and more excited about all of the unknown adventures, challenges, hardships, and sacrifices that were to come. What would I have to endure? Could I do it?

Well, as the quote above suggests, I haven’t been struggling with the sorts of things that generally come to mind when you think ‘Peace Corps’. Sure, I don’t always have water and I was all my clothes by hand, but I’m definitely not living in a mud hut. Granted, all you have to do is walk 10 minutes away from the center of the pueblo and you’ll find your mud hut (err, one room adobe houses with dirt floors) without electricity and no latrine. But I that’s not where I live. It’s not like I live like the richest person in town, though, either. I think it’s fair to say I live like a middle class Guatemalan, like the nurses and educators I work with in the Health Center.

MY POINT IS (really, I have one, I promise), I kind of wish I was living in a mud hut and taking care of my necessities in a latrine. I’m sort of jealous of volunteers in Asia and Africa who ward off bat-sized insects and endure weeks of plain rice. So when one of the few unpleasantries I deal with (dirt roads and uncomfortable rides on camionetas) is eliminated, I feel a little less hard-core, a little less of a Peace Corps Volunteer. That’s my point. That I am silly for being bummed that my pueblo is developing.

Here I am talking to the community leaders in one of the aldeas where I've been working about the Healthy Homes (formerly known as Rural Home Preventive Health) Project. Do they look interested?

I think I do feel a little different...

Ya estamos en enero! It's January already! 2010! I have a good feeling about this year. The Christmas and New Year holidays gave me a nice break from the usual daily activities (and a wonderful visit from Mark and Sarah! Yay for my first visitors!), but now I'm back in the Centro, working on forming a good work routine for this year.

I found out Monday that one of my favorite educators was fired. Her replacement went out to a community with me to help translate a charla to some health promotors there. On our 50 minute walk to the community I learned quite a bit about the new educator and decided that although I am going to miss Magda, Amalia seems like a good replacement. But then this morning Amalia tells me she's quitting! For various reasons...mainly there isn't any transportation from her community to the town to work (she could make the two hour walk, but she'd have to leave when it's still dark out and that's not really safe), and the money she would have to pay to rent a room in the town and pay a girl to watch her kids would be more than the money she would earn working. However, she volunteers with this other NGO that does health outreach in her community, and she invited me to come meet them. Hopefully even though she's not going to be an educator in the Centro, we'll still get to collaborate on some activities.

So there have been some changes in the Centro for the new year. Three new educators (three were fired) and three new nurses (three were fired). Monthly evaluations. My counterpart is basically #2 in the chain of command, after the director. Supposedly my counterpart and I will be working in the schools some this year, teaching little health lessons. And just an update, do you remember me mentioning stopping by another NGO in town that does health outreach? Well, I never heard back from them, so I guess I won't be working with them. But that's okay.

It frustrates me that there are still people in the Centro who don't know what I'm doing here. To be fair, though, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing here. I give charlas every once in a while. I am working on a plan to train health promotors to give charlas and organize their communities a little bit. I would like to start building stuff in the fall- stoves or latrines or one of the other sanitary technologies we're trained to build. If I were to just go into the communities and say, “I want to build latrines for you,” they would welcome me with open arms and ask when do we start. I don't just want to build stuff, though. I would like to convince at least one person to be an active health promotor in the community, giving charlas and promoting healthy hygiene habits. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can teach a man to fish, but you can't make him maintain his boat and his nets and go out there everyday. But that doesn't excuse you from leading as many horses to water or teaching as many men to fish as you can. So that's what I'm trying to do here. Lead horses to water. Hopefully one of them will drink.

I think I have the two other goals of Peace Corps in the bag, though. Sharing what I learn about Guatemalan culture with people back home and sharing my culture with Guatemalans here. Yesterday I played in a mini basketball tournament in a community where I gave an AIDs charla last August. They are inagurating their basketball court, so they invited teams to come play. There were only three teams, and we had a first round bye. We beat the winners of the first game and were named the Champions. Supposedly there's a trophy, but I don't think anyone was able to go back out to the community to get it. I took a short video of the first game, so you can get a better idea of what basketball is like here. I'll try to put it up on facebook...before 2011.

And I have a new running route! No more running around the soccer field at 6 o'clock in the morning for this girl! Instead I've started running after work in the afternoons, two loops through one of the communities, partially on footpaths on ridges between fields and partially on the main road. There are some little boys who love to yell “GRINGO!” as I run by their houses. Today when they saw me coming, one of them ran ahead of me a ways, and I chased him down in the freshly hoed dirt and tickled him. He seemed to like it. I invite them to run with me but they decline. The best comment I've gotten, though, was from a little kid at the end of my street. As I was heading out on my run the other day he says, “BAJA ESA PESO!”- “LOSE THAT WEIGHT!” Hilarious, really.

The weather has been acting a little strange, I think. For example, there was a light, steady drizzle during my run today (I shouldn't kid you. I'm not really running. It's more like I'm walking-with-a-hop-in-my-step up these inclines. There are some flats that I do run, though). And it's been cloudy almost every morning and evening this week, but the sun comes out for a while around midday, just enough to make you sweat and take off the sweater you put on in the morning to leave your house. And if I forget the sunscreen, my cheeks get burned just walking from my house back to the Centro after lunch, a less-than-five-minute walk. I still think it's beautiful here, though, even if it's cloudy and what some people may describe as gloomy. I thought about making that “what-some-people-may-describe-as,” because I seem to enjoy putting hyphens between words today. But how can you not be impressed by the lives the people carve out for themselves on the slopes of these mountains and the slopes of the mountains themselves?

I just found out this afternoon that two friends are terminating their contract early (ETing), so I'm going to see them off this weekend. It sounds like almost everyone from our training group will be there for one last hoorah for these really amazing people. There's no doubt Peace Corps is different for everyone, country to country, site to site, job assignment to job assignment. You can live in the same pueblo and have a completely different experience.

To close, I thought about making a resolution to blog more frequently, specifically, at least one post a month. Well, I thought about it, but I decided I'll just continue the way I've been going. It works for me, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Today they are setting up a giant Christmas tree in the parque central. And there's a pharmacy that has all sorts of Christmas decorations for sale now, including lights that play music. My point is that we are already gearing up for Christmas here in my pueblo, but don't worry, I'm still celebrating Thanksgiving. A couple of folks from my training group are heading to the beach in Monterrico for the weekend. I am in charge of the green bean casserole.

It's hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that I received my invitation to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala. I think I received my invitation packet the first or second week in December. And so much has happened in 2009! I stopped teaching high school (brief stint though it was), continued coaching high school ultimate, trained for and completed the New Orleans 70.3 Ironman, and then packed my bags and flew to Guatemala. I went through training, improved my Spanish, learned about the Healthy Homes (formerly known as Rural Home Preventive Health) project and how to give a charla, ate sheep tongue and cow intestines (or was it sheep intestines and cow tongue?). I swore in as a volunteer and moved to one of the most beautiful municipalities in the Guatemalan highlands. AND WHERE HAVE THE MONTHS GONE? Even the days go by quickly, if you ask me.(I almost forgot one other very exciting event of 2009- the birth of my nephew, William Patrick! He was born last week. Fortunately with technology the way it is I've already video gchatted with him once!)

The week before last was Reconnect, which is basically a two-day event of touching base with our Project Director and Project Specialist and bouncing ideas off of other volunteers. A new batch of Muni and Ag (Municipal Development and Sustainable Agriculture) volunteers swore in right before that, which means a group of PCVs just COSed (Close of Service), including one of my sitemates. Kelly was replaced, though, so Charlie is now here working in her place. And he's living in MY place. The PCVs in my pueblo basically did a house swap- Barbara moved into Kelly's old house, I moved in to Barbara's apartment, and Charlie moved into the room I was renting. I'm actually a little sad to not be with that family anymore, but it's nice to have more space and privacy. Visitors are welcome!

My two days of Reconnect were followed by a 3 day Spanish workshop. I was not able to visit the family I stayed with during training, but I did eat lunch with my very first host mom and host brothers. I spent my first 2 or 3 nights in Guatemala with them. And it was AMAZING to actually be able to have a conversation with Dona Brenda! I wasn't so much amazed by how much my Spanish improved as I was by how BAD it was when I got here!

My counterpart is on vacation so I have not seen him in a while. Last week I went out to a couple communities to help during the monthly weight and vaccination campaign. Yesterday I gave a general health charla to a group of women. For some reason I couldn't get my words to come out straight, but thankfully Magdalena, the educator who I work with a lot, had already helped me with the same charla earlier this month with a different group of women, so she was able to clarify the mess that I made [Note: Magdalena is probably one of my most favorite people in the Centro]. Today I stopped by to talk to someone in one of the local NGO's that does health outreach. My municipality is one of the biggest in the department, and the Centro de Salud isn't equipped to cover all of the communities. For this reason there are 2 NGO's in the pueblo that do a lot more work in the aldeas than the Centro. Although I have been able to coordinate some activities with the educators in the Centro (they are really the only ones who go out to the communities with any regularity), I still find myself in need of people to come to communities with me. Which brings me to Proyecto Txolja, explaining to them what a PCV is and what I would like to do during my two years here (can I still say 2 years? It's down to 20 months). I'm pretty optimistic. I only talked with one of their workers today, but he's going to present it to the Board of Directors and hopefully I'll hear something next week.

My computer has been plagued with viruses, so I have not been able to upload any of the pictures I've taken, including those from my weekend in Todos Santos for the feria. Todos Santos is known for it's vibrant traje. Men were red striped pants and blue shirts with elaborate woven collars. Todos Santos (All Saints) celebrates its feria on All Saints Day, or November 1st. In addition to the usual feria activities- scary ferris wheels, lots of fried chicken, licuados, and an arcade- Todos Santos also has a horse race. Even after reading the article in the newspaper about the race, I'm not completely sure of the significance. I believe if someone dies it's a good sign for the year's harvest. The way the race works is men (generally...though I heard that last year one woman did it for the first time ever) pay to rent horses and get extremely inebriated and then ride them. I did not stay til the end of the races because I had to return to site, but I don't think anyone wins.

All Saints Day is a big holiday here in Guatemala, and all of the cemeteries get face lifts. When I got back into site I was struck by the majesty of our cemetery, which sits on a large hill and is the first thing one sees as they approach my pueblo (that and the cell phone tower). The graves were painted all shades of blues, greens, and yellows...pretty much every color, actually. Paper decorations and flowers adorned the resting place of the deceased. It was very impressionable, and I would like to stay in site for All Saints Day next year.

I know that many more amazing things happened during October and November (I am currently on journal number eight, since April, and one of those was mostly October). It is just so hard to do justice to this incredible experience with my words. And to be honest, in my pueblo, there are other things I'd rather be doing than writing a blog entry...

Just thought I'd put some pictures up. Let's see...there's a picture of me in typical Comi traje. There's a picture of all the guisquiles, peaches, and apples that the ladies in one of the communities gave me when I was helping with the census one day. Me and my friend Nagdy. And perhaps my favorite...the Trux mudflaps.

I consider myself a very goal-oriented person. I like having things to work towards. One of the many things I learned during my few months teaching at Grady, which was then reinforced to my group of RHPH trainees during Peace Corps training, is that students (or adults) achieve more (“learn” more) when they know what it is they are supposed to be learning. Pretty obvious, right? This takes form in having daily learning objectives on your board before your students walk into the classroom, or in the case of giving a charla to a group of Guatemalan women (and for kicks let's just say they can't read), you state your objectives at the very beginning of your charla (by the way, a charla is a talk or chat, hopefully short, simple, fun, and dynamic) so they know what they should be getting out of having a fun time with the gringa. For example, “After today's charla, each of you will be able to tell me three easy ways to prevent you and your family against diarrhea.” Again, it seems pretty obvious.

Well, I've been thinking about how every time I think about writing a blog entry, I don't really know what they heck to write. Do I just give you an hour by hour report of what I did that day (those of you who have asked me “What did you do today, Lauren?” know that I'm very capable of doing this...starting by telling you what time I woke up, what I ate for breakfast, at exactly what time I stubbed my toe, etc.)? Do I summarize what I did for the past two or three weeks? Or should I share a specific story with the hopes of it being funny and entertaining? What is the purpose of this blog, anyway? Is is just to “stay in touch”? Is it supposed to give people a view of what my big Peace Corps adventure is like (what's the title of this blog?)?

I have decided I need some objectives.

AUTHOR'S OBJECTIVES:

1.Share with family and friends some of my daily experiences in Guatemala in lieu of sending out multiple emails with the same story.

Hmm. Well that's a start I guess. But what are the “learning objectives” of those who read this blog?

READER'S OBJECTIVES

After reading this blog, the learner will...

1.Know that Lauren is alive and kickin' in Guatemala

2.Be able to list some of Lauren's most recent activities

3.Be inspired to write Lauren lots of emails and even send her an occasional letter or package through the good ol' USPS.

Yes, I do hope that after reading this blog some of you (all of you?) will feel like sending me an email to let me know what's going on in your life. Or even just a “Hi Lauren, Just want to let you know I'm thinking of you” email. I don't think that's asking too much, is it? It sounds like a lot of you are doing the same old stuff and you don't really think it's worthy of sharing, but just try me. I bet 9 times out of 10 you'll get an ecstatic “SO GREAT TO HEAR FROM YOU!” email in return.

Well enough about that. And the Author's Objective really doesn't clear up for me what the content of the blog should be (apparently anything related to my experience here in Guatemala is game) or how I should format it (lists, summaries, stories, haikus). I probably shouldn't think so hard and just write.

It's Sunday, Market Day. My sitemate left her Tigo internet modem for me to use this weekend while she's out of site, and I've mostly been using it to google easy stove-top recipes and catch up on email. This morning I made another bread/cake, this time with apples. It took about 45 minutes to bake. I modified my previous method. Instead of using a grill plate and a big pot on top of that, I just use my big stock pot and set up the cans with the water in the bottom of the pot, put my 9” round cake pan on top of the cans, and cover the stock pot with its lid. It definitely makes a better seal, which is what I attribute to the shorter bake time. Unfortunately the loaf pan I have is too big to fit inside my stock pot, but I think the 9” cake pan is fine for now.

A few exciting things to note, my 11 year old friend and his dad seem excited to teach me how to play soccer. The only thing is that the best time for them is at 6 o'clock in the morning on week days. We “trained” for two weeks on Wednesday and Friday mornings, but last Wednesday I just wasn't feeling it. I realized it was making me long for ultimate. I hesitantly asked my little buddy if it would be okay for us to take a break for a while. I do plan on taking advantage of their lessons, but for now there are other things I'd like to do at 6 o'clock in the morning. What kinds of things? RUNNING! That's right, folks, I think I'm going to be able to get into a running routine, hip-hip-HOORAY!

This past Thursday (the day after my homesick-for-ultimate soccer lesson), I woke up, put on my shoes, and just ran up the road to my pueblo's big dirt soccer field. We had our lessons down at the smaller field (there are two soccer fields in town). I ran 14 laps, then ran back home. It made for a little more than 37 minute run. Friday I ran 16 laps, which was about a 40 minute run. I think I'm going to try to do 20 laps. I've never been a big fan of the track, but I would rather run in circles than not run at all. Seriously, you can't go anywhere in this municipio without climbing uphill. It feels really good to have the beginnings of a running routine. Amazing how much I took for granted the endless routes I could run while I lived in Atlanta.

What spurned me to start running again after the sad attempt to run up one of the steep roads from the river my second week in side? Well, the first week in September was celebrated by my Centro de Salud as the “Week of the Healthcare Worker”. I'm pretty sure healthcare workers just get a day, the first Friday in September, but why not celebrate the whole week? Every day that week I went into San Marcos with the nurses from my Centro to play basketball against other Centros from around the department. We were pretty bad. But my co-workers/teammates called me their star player, and the guy who the Ministerio de Salud of San Marcos found to referee for all the games invited me to play on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings there in the city of San Marcos. If it wasn't a 20Q fare or a 3 hour round-trip then I might consider it, but San Marcos isn't my site, _______________ is my site. I didn't come here to play basketball with folks who are well-off and living in the big city. I'd rather spend that time talking with the people in my municipio, becoming a part of the community here. I have a list of about 19 goals on the door of my room. Number 11- Tener una “vida social” en mi sitio. Have a small-town social life. I'm working on that goal this afternoon. One of my co-workers, one of the educators in the Centro, invited me over to her house. She lives in one of the communities I haven't visited yet, so I'm excited about getting to know more of the communities in the municipio. I also might play a little basketball with her and her little sister.

It wasn't the basketball that made me want to start running, though. There was a race on Monday to start of the events of the “Week of the Healthcare Worker” (In addition to the women's basketball games, there were also men's soccer games all week. The Finals were on Thursday, followed up a lunch/dancing). My friend Abby, an RHPH volunteer the next town over, also came into San Marcos for the festivities, and she and I ran in the race. We're hoping it was more than 5k, because it took us about 30 minutes to finish the race. The course was an out and back, from the Centro de Salud in San Marcos to one of the hospitals. The women got a head start on the men. Two men passed me, and Abby and one of the educators from her Centro also beat me. It really just felt good to run, though. That was when I decided I needed to start running again. And as I said, I would rather run in circles than not run at all.

What else have I been up to this month? Studying and practicing Spanish, studying and practicing Mam, building confianza with the nurses and educators in the Centro, helping out with various activities. I have not given any charlas this month, but my counterpart and I are planning on organizing groups in the different communities in October. Part of me wishes I could say that I've given 20 charlas, that I have 3 active women's groups, and all that other good stuff one hopes to be doing as a good Peace Corps Volunteer. But I'm okay with the fact that I've used these first two months to evaluate how my Centro de Salud works, who does what, and to see where I fit in to the scheme of things. For example, there are 6 educators who work in 12 communities. In theory their job is very similar to mine. They give charlas to the beneficiaries of Mi Familia Progresa, a government program that gives 300Q every two months to families who send their children to school and bring their children to the Centro to be weighed and get vaccinated (The families should be shaving 150Q for school expenses and 150Q for health expenses. I'm sure you can find more about Mi Familia Progresa online if you would like to know more). Their charlas cover things like family planning and breast-feeding. Of course, their charlas are nothing like the charlas I was taught to give during training. Their charlas are more like lectures, where they stand in front of a group of about 60 women and talk at them for 45 minutes or more. They don't exactly follow the Ciclo de Aprendizaje, there aren't any ice breakers or games. The educators also help in the Centro and various Puestos, weighing and measuring the children who come in for consultation (very similar to what I did during my brief stint as a medical assistant in a pediatric office). They are called educators, but they only give a couple charlas a month. The rest of their time seems to be dedicated to supporting their nurses in pre-consult and filling out paperwork (including taking the community census).

In summary, I don't regret approaching my work in the Centro slowly. I feel like I can tell you a little bit about all of the people who work at my Centro and what their job entails. I also have a better idea of how I fit in. I mean, the Centro de Salud is my counterpart agency, but I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer, that is to say, I'm an employee of the US government, working in a project called Rural Home Preventive Health. There are some volunteers who feel more like employees of their Guatemalan counterpart agency than of Peace Corps. It's a curious balance.

“The mission of the Peace Corps is to promote world peace and friendship by: - Helping people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women – Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served – Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” The goals of the RHPH project include helping the people in the rural Guatemalan highlands to live healthier lives by learning simple methods of disease prevention, primarily through better hygiene practices. Are the Centros de Salud and local NGOs already doing this? Yes. Sort of. Is there a need, then, for a woman trained in health education? Well, yes. “The Peace Corps uses the term 'development' in human, people-to-people terms: helping people develop the capacity to improve their own lives.” Yes, there is already a framework established for people here to the same things I hope to do as a Peace Corps Volunteer. And there is some health education being executed. But hopefully I can touch a few more people, help a few more people realize the potential they have to help themselves. I don't want to just come here and do work and leave. I want to leave something behind. I hope to leave behind people who are confident they can do the same work I did. And I hope I leave behind people who know that they taught me more than I taught them.

The Project Specialist for RHPH, one of my bosses, is coming for a site visit on Tuesday. The doctor in my Centro needs to sign some forms, and I'm also going to take her out to one of the communities where I will be working. She's going to visit Abby in the morning before coming to visit me in the afternoon. Having heard various gossip about the level of involvement some APCDs and Project Specialists have with volunteers (their 'employees' so to speak), I feel very good about my bosses. I feel they make themselves available, and getting a site visit this early is a good sign, I think. Granted, I think it's primarily to get our doctors to sign some paperwork, but my boss also said she wants to participate in whatever activity we have planned for the day. I've heard stories from other volunteers about APCDs who have only checked on them 4 times in 2 years of service, and even then it was more for logistical things than “How's work going?” or “How are you doing out there?”. I think my APCD and Project Specialist are very concerned with their employees' performance and well-being. I guess we'll see what I have to say in a year, since that seems to be a good time for re-evaluation.

ANYway, time to go. I just spent a lot more time writing than I anticipated. One final request, please pray that Guatemala will get some rain. I think this has been one of the driest rainy seasons ever.

Here we go with an entry a little more specific and reflective.

I've realized that women don't play soccer because most of them wear traje all the time. It's pretty hard to run around and kick a soccer ball in an ankle-length corte. That said, maybe I won't learn how to play soccer while I'm here. It's a good thing I didn't sign up for this gig to play team sports, right? I signed up to be challenged, to make sacrifices, and to work.

So about those challenges, sacrifices, and that work...

I feel confident reporting that things are going well. Over the past couple weeks I have given a few charlas and accompanied the nurses from the Centro out to the communities to vaccinate kids and weigh babies. On Monday and Tuesday of this week I went out to one of the aldeas to help take the census. I actually didn't help with much, considering the educator and the nurse I went with spoke the Mayan language with every person we encountered. It was nice to get to know the community, though, and also good practice listening to Mam and trying to pick out words and decipher sentence structure. We walked from house to house with two women from the aldea who served as our guides. You can't really get around without a guide, you see, because all the footpaths meander up the mountain side through patches of tall corn and it is almost like every family has their own little footpath. When I say mountain side I mean mountain side. I definitely worked my lungs those days.

The majority of the homes I saw had dirt floors, chickens cruising in and out of the one-room homes, and at least one child under the age of 5. That last assessment could be a little off, but most of the families do have young children with snot dried on their face, disheveled hair, and no shoes (or sad excuses for shoes. At least two of the women were wearing well-worn, camouflaged Crocs, though). Many of the families had more than one one-roomed building, typically one for cooking and one for sleeping, it seemed. In spite of the poverty, many of the women we talked with sent us away with armfuls of apples, peaches, or guisquil. What our training director shared with us one day during training is definitely proving true: The people who have the least are the most generous (the other side of that was that the people who have the most give the least, but I haven't met too many people who have a lot out here so I can't confirm or deny the validity of that generalization).

Once again I impressed the locals by my ability to eat everything that was put in front of me. They were also impressed by how much chile I poured on my potatoes and beans. I try to explain that cajun food is nice and spicy, but I think they're too mesmerized by the combination of my white skin and my love of tortillas to listen to me. We ate at the same woman's house for lunch both days; on the second day she asked me if I had to work the rest of the week because she wants me to go out there and stay the week with her. I told her September would probably be better.

A number of the families also had children or a husband working in the States. I can't imagine what it would be like to raise 5 children alone in one of the poorest municipalities in Guatemala while my husband was away working in a foreign country that I had never and would never see.

On Monday night I chuj'ed with my friend Magnolia. The chuj is the traditional Mayan “sauna”. The chuj was in the back of her father's house. The chuj is probably 5 feet wide, 6 or 7 feet long, and 4 feet tall. Most are made of adobe. Magnolia covered the opening with a handful of heavy blankets to keep the steam inside the chuj. She and her dad hung a big sheet across a clothesline right outside of the chuj to create a changing area so you could strip down to your birthday suit and walk in without anyone (other than the person sharing the chuj with you) seeing you. Magnolia had brought small towels for us to wrap our hair with. Inside the chuj there is a wooden “bed” of 4x4's that takes up most of the space where you sit/lay down while you chuj. The coals/fire was in the corner. Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure what the heat source was exactly because this chuj was nice and smoke-free. But I'm positive it wasn't electric or anything. Saber. I didn't get a really good look at the water/heat apparatus because it was pitch black inside the chuj. We did have a small candle that Magnolia had brought in.

So the chuj was pretty awesome. Very relaxing. But it's a little awkward/amusing for me to think about the experience. There I am with Magnolia (we are friends but don't know too much about each other yet), completely naked, laying on our backs, our hair wrapped, and our feet propped on the wall of the chuj, our knees at 90 degree angles. She shows me the proper way to hit yourself (sort of softly) with a handful of leaved branches, how to sweep them back and forth across your stomach, how to wipe the sides of your face and up the sides of your neck. We turn over and get into that “sleeping baby position” as I call it, with your butt up in the air and your head down on the wood. More instructions on how to hit your back and bottom and the backs of your legs. So here I am, butt-naked with someone I hardly know, and we're hitting ourselves with branches? What? It really was great though, all jokes aside. We laid on our backs a little longer, and then bathed with a bar of soap and delightfully hot water. If anyone wants to try it when you visit, I believe it can be arranged.

I've started Mam classes (with Magnolia- she's my age but also my teacher, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this already but she's also one of the promoters for this NGO here called Alianza that primarily works on health education with women and youth. All of my charlas so far I have done in conjunction with Alianza) and they are tricky. I just can't hear the difference between some of these sounds. But it's fun. I'm also getting better at explaining what I'm doing here and what Cuerpo de Paz is to random people I meet while buying beets on market day or looking for candles in one of the tiendas. I'm working on getting English-as-a-Foreign-Language lesson plans together to do some teaching to the Centro staff, as well as preparing future charlas and a work strategy for organizing health promoters. As I said before, things are going well.

Was that more specific and reflective?

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

I realized this morning that my new fancy laptop has a card reader built in. What does that mean? PICTURES! Turns out I've taken about 400 pictures since arriving in DC for staging. SO MANY. But, I'm trying to make this a little slide show of sorts of what my experience has been since April. Of course, just because I now have my pictures on my computer, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be able to upload them all immediately. Internet as I've mentioned before isn't super fast, and I'm not the most patient person when it comes to internet-related things.

Hmm. Well I WANTED to make a slideshow-ish thing, but the internet doesn't seem to want to upload more than one picture, so I guess you'll just have to live with one for now. It's a picture of me with my host mom and host grandmother after Swear-In. Our Swear-In Ceremony was at the Ambassador's residence in Guatemala City. Sorry for not having the patience to get more pictures up. Baby steps, I guess.

List of things to do this weekend- laundry (a 3 hour ordeal, at least, but it looks like it could be trying to rain this afternoon so I might wait until tomorrow morning when there will be more time for the clothes to dry), study spanish, review the alfabeto Mam, maybe play some basketball or soccer with my neighbors, church, clean my room. Last night I baked my first bread using the PC method of putting a plancha on your stove, a can filled halfway with water on it, balancing your bread pan on top of that, and then covering it all with a big pot. It took a LONG time (2 1/2 hours), but the bread turned out super yummy. I used flour, sugar, all spice, cinnamon, eggs, oil, pineapple juice, one beet (chopped), and a little salt and a little baking soda. I bought some beets the other day, and they really might be one of my favorite vegetables. And they are such a beautiful color!

I may be more than silly...listen to me talk about how beautiful beets are (but they are beautiful!).

That's all I'll say for now. I'll work on a more interesting update to post later this weekend. If you have any interesting stories or updates for me about YOUR lives, I love hearing about them!

That's what I'm doing out here in Guatemala. Really, I'm ABOVE the clouds sometimes. It is very beautiful in my site (if you like mountains and corn fields). My apologies for no pictures. All I can say is “soon.”

News: I'm typing up this blog entry on my new little laptop! So hopefully I'll get more blog entries up, even if I can't seem to figure out how to download the right software for my camera. I took a quick trip to Antigua- a 6 hours, 3 different buses- last Friday to hang out with my cousins for a day and pick up some treats from them, including a computer! I had a really great time with them, although it was a little strange to be back in Antigua. I joined them for dinner with Bridget's law firm. The VP of Guatemala showed up because he's buddies with the firm's CEO. Dave, Bridget, and I got a picture with him, and I got to tell him I'm a PCV but that was about it. Then my cousins spent the rest of the evening pretty much just talking about how wonderful the Truxillo family is. So for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting my extended family yet, you're kind of missing out. Bridget and Dave headed to the airport Saturday morning. I ran a few errands in Antigua before hopping on a bus. Going back the trip was about 7, 7 ½ hours because there's no direct bus from Xela to my site like there is in the morning. It was really strange to talk to Dave and Bridget about when they come back next year (this training convention in Antigua seems to be a regular thing Bridget's firm does ) because I WILL STILL BE HERE. Really, my little brain has a hard time grasping the fact that I'm going to be living in Guatemala for two years. It is so hard to imagine what it's going to be like a year from now, hopefully when my Spanish is killer, when I can even say a couple phrases in Mam (the local Mayan language), when I hopefully have a more regular routine, and when I HOPEFULLY can see some changes in the hygiene habits of the people in the communities where I will have been working. And to know I still have a YEAR to go! The days do go by quickly. It's just that 3 weeks in site is nothing compared to two years. Although, it's almost been a year since I walked into Grady High School to teach, and that is hard to believe. Time does go by quickly. My biggest concern is that I want to make the most of it.

In addition to being beautiful and mountainous, it has been pretty much impossible for me to get a running routine going. I think Coach Bates wouldn't know what to DO with himself will all the options for hill workouts- we have short, steep ones for repeats, long, gradual ones for endurance; take your pick (side note- Coach Bates was my cross country coach in high school. We used to hop on a bus to go looking for hills in central Louisiana). I did go running one morning. It consisted of running downhill for about 15 minutes, then trotting/walking up the biggest mountain road I've ever attempted another 15 minutes. The road was steeper than the road out to Hogpen in north Georgia, but we did have to turn around and run the rest of that race downhill because there was too much ice to run all the way up (January 2008, Hogpen Hillclimb with the Ferrins). So no running routine yet, but I have two years, right? While I'm talking about exercising, I will comment briefly that in my site, the women play basketball and the men play soccer. You don't find very many people who break that code. It's a bummer for me, because I do want to learn how to play soccer while I'm here (I think I already said this at some point, but learning to play soccer is one of my two-year goals), but it's going to be more difficult than I expected because women don't really play. Hmm. And basketball isn't quite the same. Dribbling and shooting skills are lacking. Sometimes women play in full traje (traditional clothing) and high healed sandals, which throws me off. And I'm DEFINITELY not accustomed to being one of the tallest people on the court. Or even THE tallest. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be playing any ultimate in Guatemala, but I do miss the team camaraderie, the competitiveness. But basketball is fun. Apparently my health center has a team that plays in a women's league in September. I've been to a few practices. It's a good confianza or trust-building activity for me to get to know my co-workers better and for them to get to know me.

My current living situation is nice. It's a PC policy that we live with a host family our first 3 months in site- more secure, more Spanish practice. I'm renting a pretty big room in the “family compound”. It's big enough for the full size bed I'm borrowing from the family, two sets of cinder block and 2 x 4 shelves, a nice big table that serves as my kitchen with my 3-burner gas stove and 5 gallon water dispenser (tambo), and a little plastic rack that I use as a shelf beside my door. And there's plenty of floor space left over for my private dance parties. I have a key for the front gate that gets into the compound, and a key for my room. Being able to come and go as I please is a HUGE improvement from training. There's a boy's bathroom and a girl's bathroom, with blue tile and pink tile floors, respectively (took me a couple days to notice that). The shower is separate, but it's nice because there's hot water and a place to change, so I don't have to scamper through the yard in my bathrobe back to my room to change. I share the pila (big outdoor sink) to wash my dishes and clothes. I could get a refrigerator if I wanted to, but I feel like it would be more headache than it's worth. It will be good practice to cook only enough for one meal at a time. The family is very kind, although to be honest we haven't spent very much time together, mainly because we don't share meals like I did during training. The family consists of the grandparents (my landlords), their son and daughter-in-law, and the two grandchildren (7 years old and 3 years old). If I leave my door unlocked Marco will just march on in and start playing 20 questions with me (Why do you drink water? Why do you have your pictures hanging on your wall like that? Why is she angry (talking about a picture of my niece Cecelia in which she's making a face with furrowed eyebrows)? Why do you keep your shoes there? What's that (and points to practically every object in the room)?). It's fun sometimes. Marco is pretty cute and he likes Spiderman. The daughter-in-law is a friend of the other volunteers because she used to work for the NGO they work with, but now she works in San Marcos, leaving early and getting back late, so unfortunately I don't see her very often. She's also taking classes in San Marcos, so she is really busy. Her husband is a teacher. I haven't had a conversation with him yet. I think my landlord owns a business of some kind, but I'm not really sure. I have a couple more weeks to figure it out I suppose. There's another 20 year old granddaughter who comes over fairly regularly, and she is really nice and wants me to teach her English. She also has a 9 month old. I anticipate becoming friends with her, at least I hope so.

That's my living situation. Next you probably want to hear about WORK. Well, on my first Monday in site I made the 10 minute walk to the Centro, arriving promptly at 8 am. My counterpart arrived around 8:20 or so. I met most of the staff during my site visit, so I went around telling people good morning. I wasn't really sure what to expect “my first day at work”, but basically I asked my counterpart if it would be possible for me to spend a little time in each clinic to get to know the staff and how the Centro works. I shadowed people around for most of my first two days. The third day, that Wednesday, my project director and project specialist came out for their first site visit. They sort of officially introduced me to the staff and gave a more brief version of the “What is Lauren Doing Here” presentation that they gave to all the counterparts on Counterpart Day (when I first met my doctor and counterpart, before my site visit). That was just really good for ME to hear again, because after shadowing the Centro staff I was beginning to get a little doubtful about being able to find my own place among the staff. Thankfully I was reminded that I am not a Guatemalan working in a health center, but a Peace Corps Volunteer for the US government who is going to work primarily in rural communities, with the guidance of my counterpart and the privilege of using the Centro as a resource. While part of my job is in the Centro, the main goals of my project are to improve the health of families in rural homes through health education. The Centro is fairly large- we have 3 consult rooms, where there are at least 2 doctors giving consultation every day. There's a post-consult room where the patients bring their prescriptions to be filled. If the Centro doesn't have the medicine, the staff directs the patients to purchase it in the pharmacy. There's also an Urgent Care type room for sutures and first aid type things. Then there's a room for vaccinations and a room for family planning. There's also a labor room and a delivery room, but I haven't seen it used yet. I can't remember how many deliveries they have in the Centro each month- I think it might be 10. The Centro is now under CAP- Centro de Atención Permanente – (something like that), which means it's open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I don't know the shift staff very well. They work 15 ½ hour shifts every four days, from 4:30pm- 8 am. Most children, however, are born in the home with a midwife. There are two stories to the Centro. All of the clinics are downstairs, while the laboratory (where they do blood and urine tests, as well as test the water from the communities), the health inspector and my counterpart's office (by the way my counterpart is the Technician in Rural Health. He's been a TSR for more than 10 years, but he hasn't been in my Centro the whole time), and a meeting room are upstairs. There are bathrooms upstairs and downstairs, but none of them have toilet paper and very few have soap. You best be prepared if you gotta go. Oh, and of course there's nothing to dry your hands with either. So that's the layout of the Centro. There are about 12 nurse techs there every day, maybe 2 professional nurses, and 2 doctors. Plus the secretary, my counterpart, the health inspector, and various other staff members. In addition to just watching and observing how things work in the Centro, I've gone to a couple of 4 hour long meetings, either general staff meetings, educational meetings about A(H1N1) and how to prevent it, community meetings about current projects and project proposals by different organizations. My counterpart is really good about introducing me to everyone, which is really nice. I've been out to a couple communities- introducing myself to the community leaders and teachers, helping with a vaccination campaign, making a map of the community, etc. Additionally, there were two university students here building improved stoves in one of the communities that's a little further away, but I got to help them out on 3 different occasions translating and learning how they make the stoves. I could potentially be building improved stoves in my second year (it's one of 5 appropriate technologies to choose from, and I do plan on building some goods in my second year after doing some fundraising) so it was really nice to watch it happen from start to finish.

It's definitely going to take a lot of patience on my part as I wait for “work” to develop. Part of that is because I'm not 100% confident in my Spanish, I'm still getting to know my counterpart, and just figuring out the best way for me to work, generally speaking. There are PCVs in my project who spend 8 hours at the Centro every day, unless they're out in the communities. On the other hand, there are PCVs who work more from home (preparing their charla material, studying Spanish, looking for funds for their projects, etc) and don't spend as much time in the Centro. I haven't figured out which kind of PCV I'm going to be yet. Right now I feel like it's really important for me to be present at the Centro so I can take advantage of any and every opportunity that comes up to meet more people in the pueblo and also become more familiar with the communities. Of course, I neglected to mention that they are actually going to begin remodeling on the Centro next week, so all of the clinics are going to be moving to the old Centro that's more in the center of the pueblo (the new Centro where we've been is more on the outside of town, pretty far away from the main drag, so to speak) while the upstairs offices, ie mine and the laboratory, are going to stay at the new Centro while it's under construction. I'm curious to see how that's going to work. But what it does mean is that I won't get to know the nurse techs much better because we'll be working in different places. Overall, though, I'm very optimistic about my project here. I just need to relax and remember that I'm going to be working here for 2 years- I don't need to expect to have tangible results/successes tomorrow.

Finally a few words about language. My Spanish is definitely a lot better than it was when I arrived in country. However, now that I don't have Spanish class 6 hours every day, I find myself losing confidence in the level I do have. Basically, I'm shy about making a fool of myself in front of people I don't really know yet. But I'm just going to have to get over that. Every day I do a little better, trying to talk to a couple people and carry on little conversations. I also talk pretty slow, and I don't like feeling like I'm taking someone's time away from them if they could be doing something else. Another thing is that I do have two site-mates, or two other PCVs living in the same pueblo. That makes for a lot of conversations in English. Of course I know the thing I need to do is just be more self-disciplined and develop a independent study plan. We did come up with a little plan our last week of swear-in, after our Spanish interviews. But I need to tweak it a little bit and take it seriously. It's all a part of me finding out what my daily routines are going to be here. A running routine, a studying routine, a work routine. One step at a time. Lastly, I have found someone to teach me Mam, the local Mayan language. We haven't started class yet, and technically I think I need to wait for approval from the PC Language Office, and my site mate just turned my form into the office for me yesterday. I'm excited about the class though, particularly about learning a 3rd language in my 2nd language. The more Spanish practice the better.

This post is pretty general, but I'm sure I will have more specific stories and tales as time goes by. It's also difficult to describe what my past couple weeks in site have been like because every day is a little different. But now that I have a COMPUTER, I hope to maybe get shorter posts up more frequently that have more specific stories and reflections. We'll see. It's probably better if I don't build any expectations.

This is from a mass email I sent out before swear-in. A couple of you said I should post it on the blog, too, so here it is:

This last week has been pretty busy, with orientations to what it means to be a PCV instead of a PCT, especially money-wise, what USAID does in Guate, what the embassy does, a final spanish interview, etc. I believe I improved four levels- from beginner level 3 to advanced level 1. There are 9 levels in total. So that's pretty cool to find out. It's hard for me to gauge my spanish sometimes. During my site visit my future landlord told me I had good spanish. But some of the best moments are when I've been able to have a phone conversation with a Guatemalteco. And after hanging up I realize they talked to me in Spanish and I talked to them in Spanish and we understood each other. Oh, simple pleasures.

The thing I'll end with (because I'm getting a little tired of writing) is a little story about our commitment statements. Our training director told us a few weeks ago that towards the end of training we would need to express our commitment to serve as a PCV in front of our training group. It could be a little speech, or we could be more artistic if we felt like going that way. So we shared our commitment statements with one another on Tuesday. It was the last session of the day, and the weather was unbelievable. We brought some chairs outside and made a circle on the grass. It was the 29 of us who are still here (started with 32), plus Craig, our training director, and Wendy. I don't remember her title, but she's second in line to the Country Director. The CD is out on vacation right now. And David, my tech trainer for RHPH, was there for some of them. It was just a very moving two hours. We went around the circle, each person expressing their commitment to serve to the entire group. It was just really incredible to hear what everyone had to say. Everyone was so honest. Some were shorter than others. Some had poems. Katharine did a beautiful painting. But most of us either had a few words prepared or just went off the cuff. I definitely cried, listening as well as giving my own. A lot of us did. I wasn't really expecting to cry, but once Abby started crying I couldn't help it. That afternoon will definitely be one of my favorite PC memories. And to conclude this post, I'll go ahead and share my commitment statement with all of you. I was towards the middle, by the way. Not first, not last. I liked that. So here it goes:

How do you express your commitment to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer? In an interpretive dance--that's what I wanted to do, but I couldn't find the right music [laughter]. In a painting? Yes, you can express your commitment to serve in those ways. Can you write a song or a poem that expresses thoughts and convictions [already starting to cry, getting choked up, just thinking about all the personal stories my peers have already shared] that you normally can't express in causal converstation? Yes, that works, too. Can you stand up and read what you wrote on a scrap sheet of paper as you thought about how awkward you are going to feel with everyone listening to you? [more laughter...still half-crying]. I sure hope so.

I commit myself to serve in Guatemala as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Rural Home Preventive Health Project for 24 months.

I commit myself to patience, flexibility, and enthusiasm. [still talking through tears]

I commit myself to doing good work, not because it's my job or because people are watching but because [this was really hard to get out...just thinking about my dad, how I got here, Christ, my life, my future] it's what we are supposed to do with the little bit of time we have here on this earth.

I commit myself to being grateful for all that life has given me.

I commit myself to accepting the challenges that I will face.

I commit myself to being honest and responsible.

I commit myself to sustainable development in Guatemala.

I commit myself to service.

(that was it.)

So, two weeks in site and I feel pretty good. I've got another post in the works, so hopefully I'll get that up relatively soon.

I read that on a shirt in the gift shop of a coffee/music museum/cultural center I visited with my Spanish class this week. And as I draft this entry on random pieces of scrap paper that I've been saving because I haven't bought a new notebook, I try to remember why I didn't give more serious consideration to family's and friend's suggestions to bring a computer, at least for word processing. Because as it is, even though drafting these blog posts and email replies prevents "internet panic" (is that what I called it before? When I finally get online but freak out because I can't remember everything I wanted to write/look up online? guatever), I still spend about an hour typing them all up....after spending about an hour writing it. It'd be way better to type them up on a computer offline, save them to my flash drive, and just pay Q3 (about 37 cents. keep in mind I make $4/day now) for 15 minutes to upload what I already wrote and saved. So why didn't I bring a computer? Well, one reason was because the monitor on my beloved Powerbook G4 c. 2003 went from chartreuse to black (by the way chartreuse isn't in the Spanish-English dictionary so I'm not sure how to spell that), and I didn't think it would be very easy to find an external monitor here to use. And then the reason why I didn't buy a new computer was because, well, I didn't want to bring a brand new laptop to Guatemala because I figured the chances of it getting stolen were pretty high. I think those were pretty good reasons. But not only would having a laptop be convenient for word processing, but PC (Peace Corps) is also trying to save trees, so there's a lot of information online and on CD. And finally, TIGO, one of the big cell phone companies here, has a little wireless modem (I think that's what it is- I think verizon makes one, too, right?) that you can plug into your laptop, wherever you are, for about Q150/month (about $20/month). It's slow, but it's still internet. If you can't tell, I'm strongly considering buying a new laptop. Actually I've pretty much decided to do so, it's just a matter of what kind. Suggestions are welcome. I love apple, but I've also seen this tiny little sony (I think) that another PCT has and she likes it a lot. Anyway. I'm willing to take the risk of it being stolen. I also think I have a decent amount of common sense and will take the appropriate measures to decrease the risk of damage or theft.

Now that I have thoroughly explained where I stand on computers, let me update you on the life and times of Lauren in Guatemala. So last time I wrote was right before FBT. I'll be honest and say that I have mixed feelings about FBT. I think it was helpful and it was nice to get out of my training community, but I was with other trainees 24/7, and sometimes I just need some space. So FBT- we met up in Antigua on Saturday at Pollo Campero (think Popeye's Guatemala-style). RHPH trainees were split up into 2 groups of 8- the two low-level Spanish groups were each paired with a high-level Spanish group. One group has the tech trainer and a spanish teacher, and my group had the PCV-Leader (a PCV who extended her service to help transition the Appropriate Technology project into RHPH) and another spanish teacher. Off we go through the Guatemalan highlands in a PC microbus. We visited 2 different PCV's and their sites, so one group was at one site for the first half of FBT, and then we switched. It would be really long and boring to explain FBT day by day, so let me try to summarize and hit some highlights. In the first site, the PCV hosted a soccer game on the mini-turf field of her municipio (I don't remember the story behind the turf field. obviously someone raised some money, and now they rent it by the hour to whoever wants to use it. pretty snazzy. It's not full-size. I don't know exact dimensions, but I think we played 5-5, plus the goalies), USA vs. Guatemala, with the exception of Jorge, our spanish teacher, playing on our team, and the PCV playing on her community's team. One of my goals during my Peace Corps service: Learn how to play soccer. Obviously I'm still working to groom a Team Guatemala for Ultimate Worlds, but I never had the opportunity to learn how to play soccer when I was growing up (we just didn't have it in Franklinton), so I'd like to get a "coach" while I'm here. EVERYone plays. Back to FBT. We gave charlas (informal, interactive talks, usually 20-30 minutes) on personal hygiene, general hygiene, respiratory infections, nutrition, diarrhea, and AIDS to food vendors, patients in waiting rooms, women's groups, and children in a school and at a daycare in both sites (see if you can figure out who received what topics). We made "risk maps" of the towns, which basically means we walked around during market day to identify possible public health risks like uncovered meat, no place for food vendors to wash their hands, flies and street dogs (chuchos) everywhere. Other than prepping and giving the charlas, we also visited the local landfills/dumps, butchers, water treatment centers, and the water sources for the municipalities. We got to know some of the people in the health centers where the PCVs worked. In one town we visited a homeopathic clinic, which was founded by some Franciscan sisters from Brazil. I think there are still 3 sisters who work there, in addition to the other naturopaths (I'm not sure if that title is correct) and folks on staff. I think one of the sisters is the massage therapist. They also make a lot of tea, salves, and soaps there. I really liked checking out that clinic. I just think nuns are awesome. In the same town, the volunteer also had a little surprise for us, which was a short lesson in the Mayan language of her town, Mam. That was a great experience, and definitely made me want to be sure to find a teacher of whatever indigenous language is spoken in my site once I get there. I think learning the indigenous language will actually help me with my Spanish. We stayed in Xela while working in one of the sites (about 20-30 minutes away). It was fun to check that city out a little bit. I think one of the other trainees said that Antigua is more like a classic, tourist city and Xela is more trendy with more backpackers/travelers passing through. I'd agree with that assessment. On our last full day, we visited some hot ponds (springs?) for a couple hours. The water was really almost too hot. If it had been colder it would have been more enjoyable. Still a nice outing. On Sunday we drove back to our sites by a different route. It was a beautiful drive, and incredible to see and experience the almost immediate change in climate and terrain as we drove from the mountains towards the coast. That drive made me really excited about living here for two years...Guatemala really is beautiful, and there's so much to be seen.

So, that was FBT in a nutshell.

Other things. Just some funny things in Spanish class. Oh, so the way spanish class works is that our teacher comes out to our town, and we usually just have class in one of our houses. We take turns hosting. Sometimes we walk around town, sometimes we have class in Antigua, sometimes we have class at the Macadamia farm with delicious pancakes and coffee just a 15 minute walk up the road. Today we were in the kitchen of Phil's host family. I can't remember how or why we started talking about animals and hunting and the kinds of animals people eat in the States and in Guatemala. But one of the other girls is from Texas, and I think she was talking about hunting opossum and armadillo. And I asked if there were any nutria in Guatemala, and Rafa said, "Yes. Some people even have them as pets. Son muy bonitas." MUY BONITAS? THOSE GIANT, SWIMMING RODENTS OF NEW ORLEANS? So, who knows what nutria means in Spanish? OTTER. Not nutria. So that was just something fun to laugh about in class. The other was when Rafa told us that if there's a red light outside a house, it means they sell tortillas. So, red lights mean tortillas, not prostitutes. Oh the things we learn in Spanish class.

Today we were also visited by our tech trainer and our project director, one after the other. With our tech trainer we talked about the plan for the next two weeks (about training our local promoters and giving an AIDS/HIV charla) and gave feedback on FBT. With our project director, he checked in to see how we felt about the project (Rural Home Preventive Health), if we were committed to serving, and what our preferences were for site placement. I am fairly confident that I will be in a larger municipality, but working in the neighboring communities as well as the center where I live. I'm just excited to see where it is on a map. Soon enough, LT, soon enough. Less than two weeks now. Our tech trainer also emphasized that if we want to get out, now's the time to do so. Peace Corps isn't a big fan of folks who are just "testing the waters" and then ET (early terminate) after only being in site 1 month, when Peace Corps sometimes has to pull teeth and sell the idea of having a PCV to the town in the first place. So I'm kind of curious to see what happens over the next two months, the last month of training and the first month in site. Are people going to go home? Be SENT home? Saber (who knows).

While I can't really believe that I've been here for over a month and that it's JUNE- Mark and Sarah have been married for a YEAR!- I also haven't really grasped the fact that I am living in Guatemala (even less so the fact that I'll be living here for 2 years). On my run in Ciudad Vieja the other morning- I have a good 50 minute loop I like- one of the street vendors who has been saying "Ha-lo, Good Morning!" to me as I run by stopped me to tell me that he wanted to introduce himself, that he hopes it's okay that he practices his English with me, since I'm a North American. I told him that it was perfectly okay and I'm going to practice my Spanish with him. Small steps...I feel like I made a new friend.

So what's Guatemala like? What have I been doing exactly for the past 5 weeks or so? Eating. "¡Coma, pues!"or "Eat, then!" has been Doña Alicia's constant command every time I come home from class or work. I think I have an advantage over some other people for three reasons: being a good eater, being a Truxillo and therefore being used to eating a lot, and because my host family has excellent cooks. I know I've already written about some of what I've eaten, but I just want to add that I love frijoles in all shapes and sizes, which is good since at the very least I usually eat them for breakfast and dinner. The vegetables here are good, though it's not common to eat them raw (carrots, for example). And yes, you gotta give them a good cleaning before consumption; PC gives educates us well on the fecal-oral contamination cycle. Most of the other PCTs have had to fight the "D," but my bowel movements haven't changed...yet. I anticipate it being one of the things that will get me once I move out to site and I'm all alone. Looking forward to it, let me tell you. I also eat meat or fish every day. Like I said, Doña Roxana is an excellent cook, as are her mother and daughters. I hope to learn some more of their tricks of the trade before I move to site.

Other than eating and thinking about food and bowel movements, I have been practicing Spanish. We actually just changed teachers this week. We typically have language/culture class from 8-12:30, an hour for lunch, and one or two more hours of Spanish in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. We also hang out, chat with, and shadow the nurses and health techs in the Puesto de Salud in town for a couple hours every week, getting to know how things work in Guatemala and building confianza or trust among our new co-workers. On Tuesdays all 31 PCTs in my training group (half of us are RHPH and the other have are Youth Development) go to the PC training center for sessions on PC policy, development work, medical issues (for example the "D"), and some project-specific training. Saturdays we typically have a PC activity, either Spanish class or a cultural excursion. Sundays have been our only "days off". I do feel prepared linguistically, technically, and culturally for my site. Of course I want more Spanish proficiency and confidence in my language abilities, but I already feel like I have learned a lot. That's good to know, right?

This Saturday- tomorrow!- RHPH PCTs leave for field-based training. During FBT we will be working with current PCVs in their sites, giving some charlas of our own, and in general testing out the skills we've acquired up to this point. We'll be in FBT until Sunday, June 14th. The following week is more Spanish (por supuesto), as well as an HIV workshop that we'll be giving to a group of about 20 school teachers. The following week (6/22-26) we will teach the promoters in our Puesto how to lead a workshop on their own. The week after that (6/29-7/3) we get our site assignment! The week after that (7/6-12) we meet our country counterpart and visit our site for a couple days. AND, the week after that we swear in as volunteers (7/17)! Then my job begins as a development worker in Preventive Health somewhere in the highlands of Guatemala. PC keeps us pretty busy during training. One of the biggest adjustments PCVs talk about it having to make your own schedule, find your own work, and figure out what the heck to do with all your free time once you're in site.

Another thing about Guatemala I want to mention are the buses. The main methods of travel in my town are buses (camionetas), bikes (road and mountain alike), motos (mopeds and motorcycles), some personal automobiles (not that many), and walking. The camionetas are basically tricked-out school buses from the US named after women- Esmarelda, Dorita, Juanita, Orellana. Have I mentioned this already? Oh well. I'm thinking about it again because I saw a Gilda and thought of my first school bus driveer, Ms. Gilda (Adrienne, really I thought of you and your kittens/chickens story). Another thing about the buses, some of them were manufactured in North Georgia. There are little placards in the front most camionetas. Things like that just make my head spin a little- am I in Guatemala or the US? Not to mention seeing people wearing Georgia Tech and Boston College t-shirts. My host sister has a BC volleyball t-shirt.

I've tried not to spend too much time in Antigua because it's such a gringo hot-spot and sort of what I think Austin is to Texas- Antigua doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the country. What I mean is that it's very easy to find Wi-Fi, eat a bagel with cream cheese or crepes with nutella and banana, and speak English and people understand you. Small world fact- I bumped into a friend from Emory in Antigua last weekend. Now I expect to see someone I know everytime I'm there.

I'm not sure if this post has been helpful in explaining what I've been doing here. I followed a friend's suggestion and wrote this out before actually getting on the computer, in order to prevent the panic I usually feel when I get on the computer and suddenly forget everything I wanted to do or write.

To wrap up, I'll tell you about my first Spanish charla, which I gave this afternoon. Meredith, Philippa, Katharine, and I (all the PCTs living in my community) arranged to give charlas on basic health habits (ie hand washing) at one of the schools in town. Our technical trainer (PC staff), language teacher, the tecnico en salud from our Puesto, and 3 women who want to be/are health promoters observed our charlas. Each of us gave a 15-30 minute charla to a different class. I was last and had the youngest kids. I think they were around 6 or 7 years old. Unfortunately the room was too tiny for all of us, so I agreed to giving the charla outside in the courtyard (the school was basically a little compound of 2 2-story buildings with a concrete courtyard in the middle. Only about 10 classrooms in total, and a building with bathrooms on the other side of the small courtyard). Have I mentioned that it usually rains afternoon in Guate this time of year? You can see where this is going. To make the story short, just imagine me with a group of about 15 little kids standing in this narrow sidewalk with about two feet of protection from the rain. And 2 men are welding a door on of the buildings. Sparks are flying and I'm trying to have the kids tell me different ways they can spread germs (with my lack luster Spanish). Needless to say it was a fabulous first experience and very comical in retrospect. What a silly gringo.

Has it really only been 5 weeks?

(PS- sorry about the lack of pictures. It just takes a LONG time to load, and I'm not patient/don't have that much time now)

Okay, so this post is supposed to clear up for some people WHAT I will be doing after July 17th when I swear in as a volunteer. The name of my project with PC is Rural Home Preventive Health, or RHPH. This is actually the first project in Guate in which the PC is actually working with the Ministry of Health. The purpose of the project: to improve preventive health of rural families through health education in hygeine practices and change of habits and to implement basic sanitary constructions within their homes. Where I will be: the Guatemalan highlands, because that is where the rural, indigenous population lives. Work strategy: Basically I will probably be assigned to work in a Health Center and have a counterpart who works for the Ministry of Health in the Center or in one of the Center's post. Right now in training, I'm working in a Puesto de Salud. Today, for example, me and the three other gals in my training community more or less just shadowed the nurses and techs who work in the center. There are 2 nurses, 1 tech, and additional volunteers (promoters- so far I've met 3 or 4). These promoters, or volunteers, are the key to my work her in Guate. Basically, when I am assigned to my site (July 1st! followed by a week-long site visit to check things out and get things lined up before I move there for my two years), I will choose 1 or 2 communities in which to work (little villages around the town with the Center, villages that the Center serves). I will identify potential leaders- teachers, midwives, people who are already involved in other organizations in town- with whom to design a workplan to "educate the educator." I'll also be working in the Health Center some, but most of my work will be on PREVENTIVE HEALTH, in particular training people how to be health educators. The hard part: umm, well I can't pay them, so somehow finding ways to motivate them and show them why they should care about preventive health in their communities. So this is all going on the first year of service...then, in the second year, after I've established a group of educators and gotten feedback from the families in the communities about their needs, then maybe I'll start fundraising, continue with teaching and educating, prepare a budget, and BUILD SOME STUFF! WOOHOO! Like cement floors, latrines, water deposit tanks, sewage disposal pits, or improved wood burning stoves. Whatever the community needs most.

I hope that gives you all a better idea of what I will be doing. My teaching experience at Grady is going to be SO INCREDIBLY HELPFUL! I'll hopefully write another post in the future that more or less reflects on education...it's definitely something I've been thinking about these past couple days.

Oh, and if you can't tell, training keeps us pretty busy! But things are great- I'm learning a lot (most importantly spanish and work strategies), and I'm also doing some self-discovery, too. Thanks for all of the prayers, love, and support. Until next time.

okay, so some pictures. Dona Rosana, Yosi, her boyfriend, and Dona Alicia. The red building is where I live- there is a little tienda and an internet cafe next door. The family minus Yadira live upstairs (Yadira is downstairs like me). A picture of me and Stacy with our first host family in front of their house. A picture of the street leading to the mercado in my training community. And a picture of the two volcanoes one morning taken from my door. I will try to get more pictures up soon. love to all!

That's right...I ate pig tongue and cracklins, or chicharones (I think that's how you spell it...i don't have my notebook with me right now so i can't remember) as they're called here. And I ate some part of a female cow's stomach? I have no idea what it is exactly, but my spanish teacher/cultural instructor explained that nothing goes to waste here in Guatemala. I didn't eat it all in the same meal. The pig tongue was first, Thursday for lunch. I saw it on my plate and hoped it was just a portabella mushroom cut in a different way, but the longer I looked at it the more sure I became that it was some new organ or piece of meat I've never eaten before. And of course it was just me and Mama Lichi, who talks extremely fast and is difficult to understand at times, and I didn't want to keep asking what it was. The tongue wasn't bad, to be honest. It's just a new texture, kind of like calamari. Then the cracklins were for dinner Thursday night, I think. DD (my mom) would have loved it. Finally, the cow organ was chopped up with radishes, tomatoes, and onions in a cold radish salad. Again, it's the texture that takes some getting used to. That, and just knowing that it's something "different". Sandra, my spanish teacher, also said they eat cow brain sometimes. I'm going to be on the lookout for that, because I really don't think I want to try cow brain. Mad cow disease, anyone?

I've also eaten spaghetti and hotdogs and ham. And lots of black beans, tortillas, and eggs.

We had spanish class in Antigua today, and I bought a cell phone. 011 plus 502 (area code for Guatemala) plus my number which is 4037-5712. I'm still trying to figure out how it works, but basically it's a pay-as-you-go deal.

Haven't been able to run in a while because I haven't had time in the mornings.

Next week we go into the Puesta de Salud in Dueñas and start building confianza with the healthworkers in our training communities. SCARY! My spanish needs lots of work! Basically I've decided the next 11 weeks are going to fly by. Monday all of the RHPH (Rural Home Preventive Health) PCTs are going to visit a current RHPH PCV. This is the second year of RHPH.

Hopefully for the next post I'll figure out how to upload pictures to a computer/flashdrive without software (I can't seem to get this computer in Dueñas to recognize the camera) and I'll write more about what my work is going to be for the next two years.

Has it really not even been a week? Hard to believe, because I already feel like I've seen and learned so much. I can't even imagine how much more I'll learn.

I just want to thank everyone for the emails and comments! Makes me feel like I'm glowing from the amount of lovin' I'm gettin'.

Yesterday was our first language class. By the evening I was definitely starting to feel Spanished-out, so I didn't say much at dinner, but after dinner I chatted with Yedira and Mario Jose while she helped him with his homework. And I started the malaria prophylaxis yesterday. Went to bed fearing vivid nightmares, but I can't even remember what I dreamed about! Whew!

And I went on my first run! WooHOo! Ran for about 40 minutes or so, and Mariela came out with me, but she stopped and waited for me to pass her on the way back, so she didn't run the entire way. But it looks like that for at least these months of training I have a good, safe route to run in the mornings!

Today my whole training group is back at the PC HQ for a common session. This afternoon we have our first technical training session, which I'm pretty pumped about.

Keep the updates from home coming!

New places and new faces. I moved in with my new host family yesterday. Doña Rosana has 3 daughters- Yedira (26), Mariela (20), Yoselin (17)- and one son, Mario Jose. He´s 8 and I´ll meet him and Mama Leechee (probably spelled Lichi here) tonight. They´ve been in the Peten, north Guatemala, on a trip/vacation.

The town where I am is outside of Antigua, maybe 10 minutes by bus? And it´s bigger than Franklinton. I haven´t seen much so far, this will be my home until July 18th I think, so I bet I´ll get to know it really well. I went to the market with my host mom around 6:30 this morning. We bought fish, shrimp, mint leaves, potatoes, zuchinni, sugar snaps- you know, those peas...maybe they´re not sugar snaps but the other ones that are flatter and not as round. NOT IMPORTANT. Bought some peaches, some sort of lettuce (dark green). I think it could have been catfish, because I think Doña Rosana also bought the head meat, and it looked like it had the whiskers of a catfish. We may have purchased some other produce but I can´t remember right now.

I went to mass by myself. I think my host family is actually sort of liberal and less traditional than what Peace Corps has been hammering into our heads about Guatemalan culture. I think only Mama Lichi (Doña Rosana´s mom) goes to mass every Sunday. OH! I experienced my first ground tremor! It happened during mass, right before the homily. It lasted maybe 15 seconds? Hard to say. My town is right next to one of 3 volcanos around Antigua. I think you can see lava on the other side? I was suprised I could actually get the jist of the readings and homily at mass- Padre talked about the need for us to fight for Christian unity.

I definitely live in the town center, whereas my first host family lived down the main highway a few blocks from town. The host is VERY big, and I must admit I know what they were talking about now when they wrote in the Peace Corps literature that sometimes you´ll feel like you´re not suffering enough to be in Peace Corps. Meaning: I have electricity, my own room, a flushing toilet, a warm shower, clean water that I don´t have to boil (separate from the tap. DON´T DRINK THE TAP). Really quite luxurious I think. Oh, not to mention I´ll be getting a cellphone soon and I think my little host brother gets on the internet at the internet cafe next door at least 3 times a week. (The internet cafe next door is actually closed, so one of Mariela´s friend Claudia, who teaches swim lessons with her, walked me down to another internet cafe near the town pool.)

And let me just say I love love love my host family. My Spanish is minimal, but they say I can speak more than the other PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) they hosted. And they laugh so much at the dinner table! It´s wonderful! All the sisters tease each other. It´s great. Last night I hung out with Doña Rosana and Yoselin and her boyfriend Byron while D. Rosana ironed ALL of the laundry. I just can´t wait until I can contribute more to the conversation. But everyone is SOOO nice and patient.

Before moving to our training sites yesterday, my training group had a "this is what you´re getting yourself into when you sign up for PC" talk yesterday from our Training Coordinator. He was a PCV in Guatemala some years back, married a Guatemalan, and now calls Guatemala home. Anyway, the talk was very exciting to me. Basically we have a lot to do in the next 11 weeks, and we´re going to be extremely busy. I am very excited.

Time in the cafe is running out, so let me get out of here. I´ll hopefully have more to say about technical training later this week or next weekend. Technical training = job training, what I´ll be doing in Guate.

Hey everyone! So I'm here in Guatemala. Still can't really believe it, especially when we're in the general sessions going over LOTS OF INFORMATION. Last night when I was sitting in the kitchen of my host mom Dona Brenda with another PCT Stacy, though, I definitely felt the "oh, right, no one here speaks English. That's interesting. And I'm here for how long?" As a matter of fact the 6 year old daughter can say "Hello" and say "I need to go to the bathroom," but Dona Brenda doesn't know English. I also have one 13 year old and one 11 year old brother, and I met the dad briefly this morning.

But I am extremely excited. Learning Spanish is definitely going to be the biggest challenge, but we had our language interviews this morning and were placed into groups for our first 2 hour language session tomorrow morning.

The next couple days are going to be busy, and on Saturday we'll move to our training sites, which is where we'll be for the next 11 weeks or so.

I guess this post isn't that exciting, but my thoughts are still spinning. I think they'll probably be spinning for a good year or so.

Just kidding. I hope.

Yep, I'm ready. 7 days until staging. This is the official "whew, at least I have a blog set up" post.