One noise I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get out of my head, long after I leave Guatemala, will be the pat-pat of tortilla making. You can hear the noise come from every household at intervals throughout the day. In the morning, it signals the first bowl of beans of the day, the madre making sure the kids are ready for school, and the murmur of plans being made for the rest of the day. Later in the evening, they’re patted out for the nightly bowl of beans, while the madre and daughters gossip about the days events, catch up on telenovelas, and sweat around the fire. Even though we don’t make tortillas in the US, the sound makes me homesick. I think of hectic mornings, with all of us getting ready for school, family dinners, and chatting about the mundane things in life with people that are vitally interested, for no other reason than they’re your family. One of the things I enjoy and admire most about Guatemala is the sense of family here. To us, it may seem odd that children live at home right up until they’re married, or that everybody has the time to sit down to not just dinner, but all 3 meals together, but out here they wouldn’t have it any other way.

This weekend I went to a baby shower for the sister-in-law of my host family’s oldest daughter who lives in a nearby aldea. Since I’d never been to a baby shower, I didn’t really realize until about half-way through how intimate and emotional it could be! After we did the mandatory embarrassing party games (I won at being fed babyfood the fastest while both the feeder and I were blindfolded) we got to the advice for the mother, and wishes for good health. I was the only non-mother there, so I’m sure I don’t fully understand, but it was so sweet to see these women reflect back on their times as a scared new mom. The only advice I could give was to spank the kid hard and often, just like my parents did to me. (Just kiddinggggggg, Mom and Dad!!! I didn’t say that!) After the party, as I sat with some of the ladies and talked about what I was doing in Guatemala and how things were going, I had nearly all the women in tears! One of the women asked me “But how can you do it all alone, without any family? What happens if you need help?” Another wanted to know “How can you do all the men’s and women’s chores, all alone in your house? Don’t you want someone to kill the bugs and dig up the soil for you?” I told them that of course it’s tiring living alone, especially when I can’t run to get fast food if I don’t want to cook, or just toss my clothes in a washer, but I get by every day and have constant support from people nearby. They all of course immediately pledged their help, and the help of their sons, cousins, neighbors, pets, uncles, and whoever else was around. It’s funny what I consider tough, and what they do. Having to do all the chores at my house is hard, sure, but I’m only doing them for one person. I would much rather do the man’s and woman’s chores at my house for 1 person than do just the woman’s chores for the entire family. That’s a lot of clothes to handwash. It was a delightful party overall, with a delicious spice cake with some marshmallow-type frosting and pulled-pork sandwiches.

Anywayyyyyy, the countdown is still in effect. Mark your calendars, ladies and gentlemen, because in T-34 days, I will be touching down in Atlanta.

So I’ve moved! Hurrayyyyyy! I’ll hopefully be able to post pictures sometime, but ever since the unfortunate disappearance of my camera, I haven’t been documenting too much.

My new house is right down the street from my work, and across the street from the soccer stadium. When people here asked me where I moved to I say “the little white house that the Esquivel’s own that the doctors used to live in” and everybody immediately knows where that is. Not that too many people didn’t already hear it from 15 other people. The house is very small, but still too big for my scanty few possessions. The front door opens into a very short entrance, with two larger, rooms on each side. Very symmetrical. The back door opens into a great covered patio, where I’m going to eventually put my kitchen things. There a pretty large back yard, with plenty of space for my garden, and a pila and bathroom/shower about 10 yards away. All-in-all, the most simplest of spaces. So far, I only have a bed and a stove, and the 2 suitcases I brought from home, but I’m slowly building my own space. My Guatefamilia gave me my bed and dishes for free, and I bought the stove at half-price!! Hopefully I’ll be getting a table in the near future, but for now, I eat all my meals sitting on a ledge of my patio, watching the neighbor’s chickens peck around my pila. The thing I like most about my new house is the relatively private, open space in the back. I can have my garden, tan, and shower with little interruption.

The month of February came and went fairly quickly. Our training group all met up for Reconnect on Valentine’s Day, and enjoyed getting to see each other. Other than that, daily life is the same. Sometimes, especially on the weekends, it seems that there are more hours in a day than I really know what to do with. My typical day consists of waking up, going into the office for a few hours or going to the school to garden. Then I head back to the house for a quick lunch of whatever is in the market that day, and a rest with a book or tv show on the patio. After my 2-3 hour lunch, I head back to the office and mess around until 4 or 5, where I head back home to make dinner, hand wash laundry, work out, and laze around. I’m usually in bed by 8 or 9, and getting a full night’s sleep before 7am the next day. The weekends add some variety if I’m traveling, but when I’m here alone, I tend to lay around in bed a while longer, telling myself that I can’t get up before 9 on a weekend. Then I do whatever chores I have, go visit with my host family, tan, and be bored. It’s a very solitary life, but most of the time I don’t mind.

This past weekend, I worked on “home improvement” projects, and was very proud of myself. I’m becoming more like my dad every day. I started my fledgling garden, and have high hopes for constructing a table, if I can find cheap enough wood. I’ve also downloaded the Harry Potter books in Spanish, so that should be interesting.

Ok, so now that I’ve written the most boring blog ever, you guys will finally know how uneventful life here is on a daily basis. I guess that’s what it means to be “one of the people.” We recently had a group of American doctors come through our town, putting on a free clinic, and after talking to them, I realized how different it is to be doing a mission trip and to be living like a Peace Corps Volunteer. There are definite “pros” and “cons” to both.

This coming month, I’ll have a lot more interesting things to tell about. I’ll be going on vacation to Rio Dulce with the girls from the East and some friends of Kristen’s, and will also be going to Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Ambassador’s house. Oh yea, and I’m going home in less than 6 weeks. Hurrayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

All Guatemalans know each other.

Ok, that may not necessarily be exactly true, but after being here 7 months, it sure seems that way.

A month or so ago, a group of us went to vaccinate chickens. When we missed the bus up to one of our aldeas, we just waited near the turn-off to go up the mountain, and hopped in the cab of the first person to pass. The way the women were talking to the driver, and the small size of my town, I figured they had known them for a while. Nope. He was a random deliveryman. Within the 25-minute drive, I found out about his impending wedding, AND what every single one of his relatives thought of the girl.

I was riding back with my family back from Cabañas, a neighboring town in Zacapa, and as we passed by the bus stop, we saw a small family with all their groceries, waiting on a bus to pass by. My host sister and her husband stopped the truck so they could hop in the back with us, and we continued on our way, eventually dropping them off in a small aldea of Cabañas, and later when I asked my family how they knew them, they said “Oh, we didn’t, we just figured they needed a ride.”

The way the mail works here is if someone sends me a package (hint hint), they only need to write my name on the package, and the town I live in, and in the entire population of 6,000 people, they’ll be able to find me. I moved to a different house here in town 2 days ago, and when I went to the post office to tell them the lady told me she already knew and would just walk the package down to my house for me.

I guess another thing that helps, besides the immediate bond Guatemalans form with random strangers, is that Guatemala is so small. Guatemala is roughly the size of Tennessee, and when you meet someone from your “departamento” it’s like meeting someone from your county or town, but it’s crazy that every time I mention Zacapa, someone knows someone from where I live! I live in a small town about two hours away from the capitol of Zacapa, with only roughly 6-8,000 people, but there’s still someone’s cousin or friend or even worst enemy out here.

And that’s why I bet you could play “7 Degrees of ‘________’” with any person in this country.

“Tal vez el camino es feo, pero la vista es hermosa.”

There are two ways to get home from my friend Kristen’s site: the “Zacapa way,” which goes almost directly from her town to mine, on paved roads with only one stop in the capital of my department; and the “Jalapa way,” two separate buses, with the final one winding through mountains and small towns, with some spots nearly impassable. After a beautiful day in Esquipulas this weekend, where I got to see Black Jesus and socialize with the nearly 300 San Diegans that also came, I met up with friends to go visit Kristen at her new house. I returned a day later, and as I got down from the bus from Jalapa to San Diego, where I live, I saw my padre give me a confused look. He had personally dropped me off Chiquimula with a friend, so why was I on a bus that went through Jalapa? I walked inside, tired and glum from my day’s travels, hefting my groceries and sweating profusely. After I had made it in and dropped off my stuff, my padre finally turned and asked “Y porque viene de Jalapa? El camino es mas dificil y bien feo.” (“And why did you come from Jalapa? The road is more difficult and very ugly.”) I could explain about the more convenient bus times, or the better waiting area in Jalapa, but the truth is, I just wanted to take the other way. I needed to see the views of the mismatched and lumpy mountains, green one second and sparse the next. I needed to pass through the small aldeas of my communities, to watch the slow activity of a leisurely Sunday afternoon. So when I responded, I couldn’t help but smile and say “Tal vez el camino es feo, pero la vista es hermosa.” (“Maybe the road is ugly, but the view is beautiful.”)

And so goes my time in Guatemala.

This past weekend was the 3-month anniversary of being in my new site in San Diego, Zacapa. It’s a little bit of a big deal in the Peace Corps world, since it marks the end of our stricter confinement, and for most, a feeling of “home” and trust with the people of our communities. They also say that most Peace Corps Volunteers drop out either during training, or during the first three months in their site. Yikes. So there we have it. I’ve made it. I survived the first three months, and more importantly, I survived January. It’s interesting that although I’m coming up on the 6-month mark of being in Guatemala, this past month has been the one that truly made me aware of my commitment. I’ve questioned myself the most this past month, and some days honestly were a struggle. I’m here, though, on the other side, slightly less “awed” by being in Guatemala, but definitely more content. I’m more prepared to deal with the slow or sad days, and I’m sure they’ll be coming way less often, as I have really begun to settle in as part of the community. I’ve stopped thinking about what I’m missing back home, and stopped comparing Guatemala to America. I always assumed there are some things Guatemala just can’t give me, like my family and friends, but when I look around, I see that a new family and new friends surround me. Some days I’ll still cry, and some days I’ll want to go home, but I know I have people both in America and in Guatemala to support me. And those sad days pass, and better ones follow. No matter how ugly the road, I know there will be a beautiful view soon enough.

And so here it is, my cheesy blog post, full of trite metaphors. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but after a few months in, you find yourself motivated by the most surprising things. I take it where I can.

The month of January has by far been the craziest so far. It’s been by far the best, and sadly, the worst too. I’ve only made it halfway through, and I’m already tired! This year started out with a New Years trip to Panajachel, a town on Lake Atitlan about 7-8 hours away from where I live. We met up with almost everyone from our training group to hang out and celebrate, and fun was had by all.

We arrived at the lake the day before NYE, and immediately got to the point of the whole weekend: boozing. I ended hanging out with the East girls most of the evening, and by the end night, we somehow found ourselves in “Jack’s Nigth Club.” That’s right, “Nigth” Yikes. We thought it was a dance club, but much to our surprise, we had inadvertently ended up in a strip club! Not exactly the place a girl wants to be, especially when the cops came in and patted down everyone there. What a night. The next day, some of the girls and I went on a boat ride around the lake, and it was so beautiful. Quite the relaxing afternoon, eating, shopping, and getting ready with the girls to go out that night. For New Years, we went to a local bar, where we hung out, made new friends, and general caused a ruckus. The bar had FIRE DANCING early in the evening, so that was pretty fun to watch. The next day, I layed around in bed with Lexi all day, eating Chinese food and watching movies. It was great.

After New Years, I got the best late-Christmas present ever. My friend, Nick, came to visit, and we had such a good time. He came out to the East to meet my family, and actually did pretty great talking to my family in Spanish, even though he hadn’t spoken Spanish in about 6 years. They loved that I brought him out to visit, and spent almost the whole time making fun of me in front of him. He also met my boss, which was a little scary, but my boss surprise visited me for an evaluation, so there wasn’t much of an option. Nick and I also visited Antigua and Panajachel again, and we had an amazingly relaxing time. One of the highlights of the visit was doing ziplines across the mountains overlooking Lake Atitlan. The views were amazing, and it was a lot of fun. I was a great visit, and I’m so happy I got to see a friendly face from home.

The down part of the last few weeks has been mostly to do with my job, and some to do with Peace Corps. After my evaluation with Sal, I was excited to start working, since it seemed like both my boss and counterpart were inspired to start helping me out and really get the ball rolling on my projects. Since Sal has left, though, things haven’t moved quite as quickly as I would’ve liked. I think I’m going through what most Volunteers go through at some point, in feeling like I’m useless and unwanted. I know it’s also timing, since I’m at the 5-month point, and really starting to miss home. After a rough few days, though, I got a pep-talk from my sister, and I’m ready to make my own changes and take charge. I know that to be happy here, I have to find my own way, and I’m taking that challenge with gusto in the new year. The other sad news we got is that Peace Corps National has decided to not continue the program I am part of at the same level, and will be slowly phasing it out. Although this won’t affect me, it does make one wonder about how effectual their projects will be if Nationals hasn’t seen effects enough to continue it. Ah, well, I guess that’s just a challenge to make my project MORE sustainable and MORE meaningful. I’ve gone to talk to some teachers here, and they seem helpful enough to want me to come to the schools, so at least I have something to plan for.

At the end of this month, I’ll also be allowed to move out, and I am SO EXCITED. Although I love love love my family here, and I’m sure I’ll be over often to visit, it will be nice to have my own house, where someone doesn’t start blaring music at 6:30am, and kids don’t stack chairs in front of my door for me to run into when I come out. I’ve started looking for houses, but the houses in San Diego are actually a little nicer than I can afford, and bigger than I need. I’m still hoping though, and awkwardly asking every single person I run into.

Oh! I almost forgot to add the story of Angel Omar’s birthday party!!! Angel Omar is my host sister’s son, and he turned 2 this past week, warranting the biggest party I’ve ever been to in my life. We worked the whole week before, hand-making intricate invitations and goodie bags. It felt like every second was cutting, gluing, and glittering. The night before the party, Friday, began the real work though. My madre had dropped a few hints throughout the week about how I would have to help “picar” (chop) some veggies with them for the party. I’ve helped cook here a good bit, so I didn’t think much of it. Boy, was that silly. At around 8pm, just as I had straightened up my bed to crawl in with the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I hear my madre shout my name. When I walked outside of my room, I saw a line of aunts, cousins, and nieces walk in the door, each with their own knife, ready to start peeling and chopping. I don’t know if I can explain in words how much we cut without sounding like I’m exaggerating, but it took about 10 of us 4 hours to chop the vegetables, and we STILL weren’t done! We chopped pounds and pounds of potatoes, carrots, beans, and onions. (I actually was the only one to chop onions and NOT cry…I’m such a badass.) After that, I helped madre with the chicken rub and marinade, and then finally, FINALLY crawled into bed……….only to be woken up at 5am by the traditional birthday fireworks and loud music. After getting up to sing and drink café, I actually got my lazy butt back in bed and slept for 2 more hours, despite the noise. My madre gave me shit about it later, but I told her if I could sleep through all that noise, I probably needed it. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed chopping up the cabbage and beets. What a shame. The rest of the morning was spent in preparations, putting up decorations, cooking mind-boggling amounts of food, and filling piñatas with candy. Although the party started at 3, in typical Guatemalan fashion that’s when everybody started elbowing to get in line for the shower, and about an hour later, guests started showing up. Among those guests, two of my Chiquimula friends, Lexi and Kristen, and my sitemate, Brynna, came over too. For the first 45 minutes, everyone sat around in a huge circle while they blared music over the comically big, rented sound system. After that, Omar started the dancing competitions and such for the kids. My friends gamely joined in too, and all the Guatemalans laughed while they tried to blow up balloons and then pop them with their butts. Kristen won. Guess she must be the most full of air. Next were the piñatas, and I have never seen grown people go so batshit crazy in my entire life. Only the kids get to hit the piñatas, obviously, but everyone, including the adults, thow bows to fight for the candy. I was the official photographer, and I got over 300 pictures, but was almost trampled in the process. Afterwards, the gringas and I helped serve all 200 people enchiladas (not the kind you find in a Mexican restaurant) cake and ice cream, and then picked up all the trash later. The work was totally worth the delicious cake. When all the little kids and their families left, we celebrated Jhonny’s birthday afterwards. Jhonny is my oldest host brother, and turned 25. The girls and I joined the old men in boozing, and later started a dance party with some other girls from my town our age. It was a lot of fun, but we were all tired at the end of the night, and ready for bed. What a day.

Ok, that’s all.

Happy Holidays! My first Christmas away from my family, snacktivity, matching pajamas, and (fortunately) Flood Town. Getting ready for and celebrating Christmas in Guatemala has been quite an experience!

Christmas here is like in the US, where a lot of the focus is on family and food. We had my uncle and cousins visiting, so we had quite the full house, but we also had enough food to match. My family ended up making about 150 tamales, which we ate for every meal until they were gone. That’s a lot of mushy corn. Kristen also came for Christmas, so she and I helped make the punch and watched a lot of American tv. It was a lot of fun and kept us busy. At one point during the day, I actually convinced my family that I still believe in Santa. Funniest. Moment. Ever. As everyone talked to me and questioned me about how Santa would find me, and my other traditions (leaving out cookies is a really foreign idea to them) I could see them exchanges confused glances. I even had my 5-year old sister come whisper to me “Santa is in your head…” I finally got to tease them as hard as they usually tease me, and it was hilarious.

Later that night, Kristen and I waited up with the rest of the family to light fireworks and sparklers, a tradition I don’t quite understand, but was fun all the same. All down the street you could see other people lighting fireworks, and nearby cousins came by to give a Christmas hug and a wish for a happy new year. The next morning was Christmas Day, and as we watched the kids open the presents I finally realized I’m not the kid anymore. When did that happen????? My family got both me and Kristen high heels for Christmas (luckily they fit my huge American feet!) and I was so touched they thought of us. What good good good people.

I have to admit, I did cry twice on Christmas Eve. The first time I cried was definitely the funniest and awkwardest. Kristen and I had gone to visit some friends in Chiquimula the night before, so we were headed back early on Christmas Eve to spend time with the family. Giddy from exhaustion and missing our families, we got onto the chicken bus at 7am and were greeted by the song “Feliz Navidad.” What luck! Of course she and I sang along as loud as we could, happy that it was Christmas and that we were with friends. However, as the 2-hour journey progressed, things got worse. Kristen was hit with a hangover, and I was hit with…..sadness. After not having thought about missing home too much the preceding week, I finally got to thinking about how much I wanted to be home. The bus pulled up to a town about 20 minutes away from mine, and a young family all piled in. They were poor and dirty, and probably wouldn’t have a tree, much less presents, but they were together. All of a sudden, I looked at Kristen and said “Oh np. I’m going to cry!” And I couldn’t stop! As I was crying, I was also laughing at how silly I was being, probably looking like a crazy gringa and completely scaring the other passengers. It was only a minute, but the rest of the ride was definitely awkward, as I kept receiving covert glances from my fellow busmates. The other time I cried was later the day when I opened a present from my dad and it had a really cheesy Hallmark-style card. I know it was just a piece of plastic, but the words actually did remind me of my dad. Ah, well. I’m such a softie.

Despite being so far from my family, they really went the extra mile to make me feel missed and loved. I got SO MANY packages from my family!!!! My mom sent me a “12 Days of Christmas” box with a little present to open up for each day of Christmas. It was so cute, and really put me in the holiday spirit. It was a little hard explaining to my family why she would wrap a can of pears, but it was funny to me. It was amazingly thoughtful and kept my mind off of being alone. She also sent Mannheim Steamroller and the obligatory terrible pajamas, so when my Guatefamily caught site of me in my bright red onesie, I was called Santa Claus for the rest of the night. Great. I also got knitting supplies, and a crossword puzzle. I’m so cool. From my dad I got a TON of candy, which lasted approximately 3 days after the kids realized how much of it was under the tree. I seriously had enough candy to fill about 3 piñatas, and it was the good stuff too!!! He also sent me more puzzles and some amazing art supplies, so that I can pass my time becoming a budding artist. My favorite present from Dad was a flash drive I requested, but he had filled it with pictures, home videos, and music. I’ve showed all my Guatemalan and Volunteer friends, and even though I know they don’t think it’s as cute or special as I do, it’s fun to show off my family to everyone. I also got a card from my Aunt Carole, even though she was busy getting ready to leave the country too. What amazing people love me! I’m so lucky!

So anyway, family, thank you so much for not just the presents, but your thoughts too. I felt missed and remembered. You guys are the best. I love you so much.

Everyone else, I hope you had a happy holiday season!

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was filled with a whole lot of nothing. Not that I’m complaining. Too much. Who would have every thought that lazy Emily would be wanting work?! But the office was closed for most of the month, and we Volunteers passed our times by hanging out with our Guatefamilies and each other. Some of the more interesting happenings during my down time were going to pick beans and corn with my family, random dance parties with my Guatemalan family, and going to parties (like Jesse’s birthday!) with other Volunteers.

Picking beans and corns is exactly as much fun and as much work as it sounds. It’s not the most difficult thing in the world, nor the worst way to spend a morning, especially the way my family does it. We all woke up early at about 5 to pack up the truck and get ready to head out to the family’s land. Once we got there, we all spread out and started picking beans, joking and singing (or as the boys of my house would think of it “howling”) and working on our my tan. After a few hours of fairly diligent work, we stopped for breakfast and all ate around the campfire in the small lean-to they have setup on their property, complete with hammock! We leisurely ate before we got back to the beans. The best part about going out with my family was that there was such a good atmosphere and no “push” to get things done. Obviously they wanted the beans picked, but no one was going to get yelled at if they were tired and didn’t do as much, and enjoying each other’s company was just as much a part of the day as actually picking the beans. The same was true for when we went to pick corn, except this time the whole family (all 21 of us who stayed in the house over the holidays) went, and even more fun was had. My family truly treats me as a part of the family, from helping me through my roughest times and making sure I shower every day (I swear I don’t need to! It’s a constant battle every day) to teasing me about how terribly I make tortillas and making me wash the dishes instead.

My family and friends are also some of the most fun people. When the day is done, the cheese is made, and all the corn separated, my family also likes to get down. Every volunteer who I’ve brought here can tell you that my family likes to get down and are funny, energetic people. For Brynna’s birthday at the end of November, Kristen came to visit, and we made FOUR HUGE CAKES!!! Then all of us (not just the young gringas!) knocked a few back (the basically only do shots here; wtf?) and the dance party commenced. I have never seen anything funnier than about 10 Guatemalans and 3 gringas crammed into a tiny room all singing to Spanish music and “dancing” for literally hours. We definitely all learned that night that even my 12 year old sister can move her hips in ways I’ve never seen.

That wasn’t the only time Brynna and I have been seen dancing in front of a crowd here in San Diego. For all of December our town has “bailes” (dances) in the center of town, which basically consist of about 200 people standing around just watching a group or singer. Kinda awkward. At one of the first bailes, they made us get on stage for a dance-off, where I immediately got super awkward and weird and refused to dance. Not the best image for America, I know, but I just can’t compete with these Guatemalan girls! The next week, after Brynna and I had gotten on stage and looked like complete assholes, we went to another baile. This one turned out a little different. At the beginning of the night, I wasn’t too excited to go to this baile, since we had to leave really early the next day, so I embarrassingly enough went in my pajamas. Yikes. As it turned out, Brynna and I had caught the eye of a local young gentleman (also coincidently a little mentally challenged, as we later found out; awkward) who came up to us and made his intention of dancing with a gringa quite clear, by pointing and basically humping the air. Both of us tried shifting around my family, hiding behind whoever was closest, but apparently we don’t blend in so well. After a good THIRTY MINUTES (you would think he’d get the point) of my family laughing as we awkwardly avoided getting close to him, we finally gave in and fell into the arms of our dance partner (and my future husband, probably.) We both tried to jokingly do a little shuffle in hopes that seeing our terrible dance moves would scare him off, but boy were we wrong. The “little shuffle” quickly caught the attention of the ENTIRE TOWN who was standing there, and we found ourselves in the middle of a huge circle, all chanting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” while she and I moved around, trying to get out of the way and get the other closer to the random guy with a flashlight hooked to his belt. (wtf?!) Oh, Neilson, the lucky man that got to dance with TWO gringas at the same time!

Besides the “Misadventure of Brynna and Emily in San Diego”, I’ve also been lucky enough to hang out with the Volunteers in my region a good amount of time. Although there are only about 20 of us out of 200 Volunteers out in the East (and even still, I’m about 2 hours away from the next person besides Brynna) we have a really really good group. Even though just 2 months ago I wouldn’t have known which people I would want to be nearby, especially since I didn’t know half of them that well, everything has worked out so great. I enjoy my little group out here, and we make sure to get together as often as possible to hang out and relax. We went to Jesse’s site to celebrate his birthday with some grilling out and a baile. We all had a good time, but since we’ve all gotten out of the habit of staying up late and partying, most of us were asleep before 11!

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hurray for Christmas and New Years!

So coming in as the November swear-in group has provided a few slightly unique challenges, mainly that after only being in site for a few weeks, we spend the holiday season away from our families, with people we hardly know. This Thanksgiving was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and although in some circles it pales in comparison to Christmas, it has always been my favorite holiday, and a pretty big one in our family. I come from a home where everybody is a great cook (except for me, for some reason; I think it’s the impatience) so it seems every Thanksgiving I get to try some new spin on a classic, and it’s (almost) always delicious. It was therefore hard being away not only from the comfort and love of my family, but away from the food too.

This Thanksgiving, almost all of us in the East (less than 20!!!) got together to eat, thank, and be merry. We headed up into the chilly mountains of Jalapa to Libby’s house to have our potluck, and we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful setting. Although my site seems to run at about 80 degrees at it’s coldest during the day, Libby’s site was just chilly enough to give us a perfect Thanksgiving setting. After a confusingly long bus ride(s) by my sitemate, Brynna, and I, we finally arrived and immediately got to eating. We were some of the first people there, which was nice because we got to socialize with other Volunteers that we either new very little or didn’t know at all. And we ate all the Puppy Chow Chex Mix. So good. Libby had been cooking the turkey for hours already at that point, and it looked AMAZING. The smell in her little Guatemalan home was delicious, and almost had me licking the walls. When the rest of the group finally arrived, we dug into all the typical Thanksgiving food, including the worst cornbread I’ve ever eaten, made by me. Awesome. Really doing the South proud. Everything else was perfect though, and chowing down on a huge turkey leg with new and old friends was a perfect way to end the first month of my service.

After our meal, we all loaded up in the back of a pickup and headed to Pino Dulce to stay at an amazing ecolodge there, where I stayed for a few nights during Field Based Training. The owners already had a fire going, so we pulled out the marshmallows and relaxed. It was a beautiful night, and a great end to a relaxing day. The next day, a few of our group had to leave, so it was a smaller crowd of us that was lucky enough to make friends with the owner, his son, and his grandson, and we all got to do the ziplines over the park for free! The park is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen here in Guatemala (and that’s quite the compliment!) and it was breathtaking flying through the trees and across huge crevasses. I screamed for probably the first 3 ziplines before I finally got the hang of it and stopped freaking out. Or so I thought. Around the next corner was a “hanging bridge” where we walked across a wobbly group of boards with NOTHING to hold on to! When I finally made it across I was so proud of myself, but everyone else in the group was laughing about how long it took me to cross. I thought I had done a good job, but apparently taking 20 minutes to walk 30 yards isn’t that impressive.

After our ziplining adventure, we went into the nearest town and stocked up on food and booze for that night. It was a fun time that night, with only a short scary period where we thought we had run out of booze, but luckily Carmen and Kristen saved the day by talking the bus driver into taking them into town. Crisis averted. The next day we packed up and headed back to our sites. I missed my family a lot, but my new Volunteer family made sure I didn’t have time to be sad.

So here we are, about 2.5 weeks into my new permanent home, and I really can’t believe how fast time has gone! It has been an easy few weeks, and I haven’t felt any new jolt of fear like I thought I would. My family has been great about making me feel at home, and they do everything to treat me as part of the family, including making me wash dishes and help make the tortillas. It’s a fun, interesting group of people that live here, and coming home to them everyday has been great. The rest of the town has been very accepting of my sitemate and I as well, and we’ve become regulars in the only store that sells Diet Coke.

I’m still slowly adjusting to work life, and haven’t exactly found out where I can be used. My town has an amazingly advanced agricultural team, and I sometimes feel out of place and useless. They’ve very graciously taken me along with them at (almost) every opportunity, but sometimes, as I’m clinging onto one of them on the back of their motorcycles, I wonder if they’re confused about why I’m here. I think most volunteers go through this, and we were told over and over that the first three months are disorienting and sometimes boring, but it’s still a shock to go from busting ass on Peace Corps schedule, to the slower pace of a small town. I’m shocked sometimes by how at ease the people are with doing absolutely nothing, because if you ask any temporarily unproductive American “What did you do today?” you will either get a sheepish “Well, there wasn’t much to do” or the joking “I’ve just been so lazy! What’s gotten into me?” response. Here, the nonchalantly say “Ahorrita, no estoy hacienda nada. Tal vez despues del almuerzo, pero solo si no tengo sueño.” This isn’t to say they’re lazy, or don’t get anything accomplished here, but time is much more fluid, and there isn’t much time wasted on work. And I do mean wasted. Because really, even though you call it work, you can still be wasting your time.

The main guy I work with, and my chauffer and guide most of the time, is Gustavo. He’s pretty much my best friend here, and is absolutely the bomb. He just turned 22, and is studying for a degree in Agricultural Engineering. We’ve gotten to be good friends, and he was the officially the first Guatemalan boy I gave my number to. We head out on the motorcycle most days to “conocer” (get to know) the aldeas, and the people in them. He’s extremely personable, and seems to know basically everybody, so he’s great at introductions and keeps me included in conversation (and keeps me updated on the gossip.) He even took me to a nearby aldea, Las Delicias, that is known for hat-making, and I currently have a half-formed sombrero sadly sitting at the foot of my bed, waiting for another trip up the mountain. If I can master it, it’s probably what all of you will be getting for Christmas (not this year, I’m not a magician!) The women there love laughing at my lack of palm-weaving skills, but assured me that since I was getting better at making tortillas and was finally getting a tan, maybe someday a Guatemalan might want to marry me. One can only hope. All I have left to learn is how to turn any vegetable or fruit into atol (a weirdly sweet drink made from random things like beans, squash, or bananas) and to be able to wash all my clothes by hand without leaving my ever-present soap streaks all over them.

Our town also celebrated its feria (HUGE town celebration in honor of the patron saint, but mainly an excuse to drink and dance) and Brynna and I invited a few of our Oriente friends into town. What followed was probably the most perfect day ever. I woke up at 4am to the sounds of drunk men singing outside the door, a tradition of serenading all the women in the town, and was forced by my madre to go out to the truck, full of boys ranging from teens to old men, to give them all a hug. They then offered me a shot of homemade kusha, but being the shy, innocent girl that I am (and it being 4am) I declined. I then had my usual breakfast of coffee and about half a dozen cookies (if you call it “pan dulce” it’s ok to eat it for breakfast; ask Jim Gaffigan) and started getting ready for the day. I coaxed my younger sister, Janet, into walking in the “procession” with me, which consisted of about 60 people loudly singing off-key, and a giant gringa awkwardly shuffling along. It was great though, because if you’re going to be part of a town, you have to march in a religious parade at least once a week. After that, I sat down to an amazing lunch of tamales with the familia, and waited for my friends to arrive. The first set of people came in from Chiquimula (Kristen, Lexi, and Jesse) and after catching up for a bit, we dove right in to making mojitos for the entire family and enjoying an early afternoon family drinking session. Amazing. Next was the “jaripeo” (rodeo) and after meeting up with some coworkers and finding seats, Gustavo and I went to buy a few dozen beers, and the socializing began again. There’s seriously nothing better than looking around at your two completely separate groups of friends, and seeing new bonds being formed. I love both the volunteers I’ve gotten to know, and the people at my office. Both groups really made an effort, and I’m pretty sure everyone had a great time. Oh, and there was bull-riding too, so I hear. So afterwards, back to the house to relax, change clothes, cook some spaghetti, and get ready for the big “baile” (dance) that night. After a quick goodbye to the family, we headed to the rented hotel room to booze and joke around, and were soon full of Venado and Squiz, a truly lethal combination. The baile was great, and all of my friends were kept busy with plenty of male suitors, while I danced with the gringo volunteer that puked on everybody from the top of the “rueda” (ferris wheel) earlier in the evening. What a match. At least he (mostly) kept me from falling down, even in my huge heels. We finally made it home at 2am, and feasted on the best combination I’ve ever put together: spaghetti with pasta sauce and refried beans on top. Try it. Amazing. All in all, a fantastic day.

So now as I lay here, trying to go to sleep despite the sounds of a cat being murdered outside my door, and the telltale rustle of rats coming into my room to sleep for the night, I feel content. My friend, Kristen, noted that I seemed happier here. More relaxed. More at home. It’s all true. This is exactly where I’m meant to be, and despite any frustrations, I’m looking forward to every day.

(So this blog post is a week old. Bear with me; I’m putting up a new one soon.) Friday (Oct. 29) was the big day. We all put on our finest, and headed into Guate to the Ambassador’s house to officially swear-in as Peace Corps volunteers and employees of the United States of America. The part you actually say aloud is actually pretty cool, and you basically affirm that you will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. No pressure or anything. It was a fairly quick ceremony, and at the end you could feel the happiness spread through the new volunteers. We were ready to begin. It’s easy to forget that when we signed up for the Peace Corps, we were signing up for 27 months, not just two years. And these 3 extra months have been something completely different from what I imagined when I thought of Peace Corps. Training was……exhausting. I didn’t stop to think during training about whether or not I was doing something difficult, or if I enjoyed what my days were like. It quickly just became what my life was. But my god, I’m glad it’s over. I’ve realized now that although I completely love what I’m doing, and I’m overwhelmingly honored to be here, I also unfortunately have had some problems with Peace Corps admin. They don’t seem to think my personality fits here, or that I will become a security risk, or some other vague “you’re just too much of a square peg for this round hole” type of argument. I still don’t understand why I have a huge red flag hanging over my head, but I do know I will work twice as hard to prove to them that there isn’t one type of person that can excel in Peace Corps or in Guatemala. So I finally start my two years. To be honest, in some ways it’s the countdown clock that has started to tick. That makes this seem like a chore, and something I’m counting down until it’s over, but no matter how happy I am to be here, there will always be that sense of a time limit. Some days I’m sure I will be thinking “thank god, only 15 months left” and other days will be “how can I possibly only have 15 months left??” Either way, it feels good to be walking the streets of the town I will call home for the next few years. I’m excited to get to know these people and be part of their lives. Starting my service also has me thinking about my role here in Guatemala. We have been trained to think that we are some integral agents of change, and that what we will do will impact someone every day. I have brought this up to others in my training group before, and I know that it’s offensive to some, but part of me just feels like a farmer. The goals of my program are to start 15 family gardens, 3 school gardens, and talk about the importance of nutrition and proper chicken care. After I leave, the gardens could be abandoned, the kids could stop caring about vegetables, the people could go back to eating what’s easiest, and the chicken coups could fall into disarray. What’s my impact? Because the physical, tangible goals of my project have the possibility of being short-term, I want to focus more on my people interactions, and hopefully finding a finding a passion in myself that I can share and fuel in others.

The way Peace Corps works is that it assigns each person a country and a “role,” mine being Guatemala Food Security. This means I’m basically an immigrant American farmer. Cool. But there are also programs here within Guatemala such as “Municipal Development” “Healthy Homes” “Education” “Agricultural Marketing” and whatnot. Anyway, after that, different organizations or communities WITHIN Guatemala solicit for a volunteer. They have to go through a lot of paperwork showing that they have work for a volunteer, and that they can provide security and support for a volunteer. Part of this is that each volunteer has a “counterpart” that is a host country national, usually an employee of the organization that solicited the volunteer that will work with the volunteer throughout their two years. It’s a pretty great system. As I explained in my last blog post, I finally got my “site assignment” which is where I’ll be living and working for the next two years. I’ll be in the department (aka state, kinda) of Zacapa, working for the municipality (government) and sponsored by a guy within the Office of Municipal Planning. There’s actually another girl, Brynna, in my training group going to my same town, and she’ll also be working with the municipality, but as a “Municipal Development” volunteer, and mainly working with the Women’s Office. So the following Monday (a week ago) after I got my site assignment was “Counterpart Day” at the office, where I finally met Sergio, my new boss. I don’t know exactly how to describe the feeling, but it’s almost like “bring a parent to school” day, since we all had our bosses there, and were awkwardly meeting them and trying to make conversation with them in broken Spanish. I think it really hit us all that we’ll actually be splitting up soon, for all different corners of the country, without our constant American support system. The next day, Tuesday, we all set out for our “site visits” where we’d go see our communities for the next few days, and get accustomed to where we’ll be living for the next few years. So we packed up as much stuff as we could, and crammed into a pickup truck to head on our 5 hour trip to our new home. It was actually a pretty funny situation, and very Guatemalan, because at first we squished 6 people in the truck, with 2 riding in the back with the luggage. Then the two in the back got out and went their separate way. Then we somehow picked up a different volunteer and their counterpart during lunch, while people got in the back with luggage again. Then we finally dropped off one last person, 6 people were in the truck again, until finally we dropped off the two people we had gained halfway through the trip. Make sense? Not really. I actually ended up falling asleep during the ride, and had my head forced on Mary’s (Brynna’s counterpart) shoulder. So nice. By the way, Brynna’s counterpart, Mary, is CRAZY. Boobs everywhere, glittery makeup, tight jeans, and lots and lots of inappropriate jokes, BUT she can’t dance because she’s Evangelical. I love it. After we got to Zacapa, I met my new family, and I’ve got to say, this will be a COMPLETELY different experience than living where I’m at now. The people I live with now are extremely conservative and reserved. The new family is a loud group of jokers, with constant reggaeton music in the background, and a carefree attitude that’s really infectious. I think I’m going to get along great with them. I now have 5 new siblings, ranging from about 25-5, one of which is married with her own kid, and one of which is grown and lives in Guatemala City. The other three are younger and pretty cool. One of my new brothers is about 17 probably and loves walking around with his shirt off. Reminds me of home. He’s adorable, and teases with his sisters, and I’m pretty sure the one I’ll be closest to. My oldest sister is the married one, and she has the cutest little baby. He’s not even 2 and knows how to count in Spanish AND English, can recite the sounds animals make, and sings “Happy Birthday” in English. Actually, the volunteer that was at my site before me is his godfather. Random, right? The oldest brother came into town to meet the new gringa, and he’s extremely nice too. He, and the rest of the family, included me in their jokes and teasing immediately and made me feel right at home. My two younger sisters are 9 and 5. The 9 year old is a little adult, and tried teach me how to make tortillas, and had the best time making fun of my ugly tortillas. The youngest one is a precocious little thing, and is constantly talking to me, even though I pretty obviously only understand about 80% of what she’s saying. Doesn’t deter her one bit. My new madre is the bomb, is laid-back, and says she can’t wait for me to be like one of her daughters. My padre is a little on the quiet side, and is almost always chilling in the hammock, and he also makes his own AMAZING fruit liquor. Seriously, less than 24 hours in Zacapa and I had already taken shots with my family at lunch, ridden a motorcycle (which is against Peace Corps rules, sorry David), and gotten tanner. I’m totally meant to live there. Anyway, we stayed in Zacapa from Tuesday night to early Saturday morning, going on a ride around to see the smaller towns that make up the municipality and the pool (yup, they have a town pool, way too cool) and meeting the people that I’ll be working with. On Friday, I actually met the mayor of the town, who seems like a pretty legit guy, and went to a beauty competition for the “flower of the feria” which is in 2 weeks. Cute little kids doing the competition, then boys dressed up as girls competing for “Ms. Guatemala” and half-dressed high school girls shaking their booties on stage during the breaks. It was part extremely amazing, and part jaw-droppingly inappropriate. Apparently they have “dances” all the time in Zacapa, and this Friday was no exception, so after the competition, the lights went out, and all the families (myself included) hauled ass to the door so the 18-30 year olds could “enjoy the evening.” It was pretty funny, because all the girls in Zacapa wore REALY tight/short/inappropriate clothes and the highest heels ever to the community event before, with their families and whatnot. It was like a Friday night in Miami, except at a children’s beauty pageant. So random. My madre is making me go to the next dance during feria, and I can’t wait for the awkwardness that will surely follow. If I could name any downsides to my new site, it’s that I’m a little worried about what my role will be, working with the municipality. I don’t want to be in the office ever, really, and I hope it doesn’t turn out that way. Also, I’ve already had the mayor tell me he’s “single in Zacapa” because his wife lives in another town, I’ve had another guy ask me if I didn’t just want to be his “personal secretary” instead of “work in the corn” and I got confused looks by a few women on why I dress so “conservatively” even though I was wearing a spaghetti strap dress with no sweater, something I would never do where I live now. It’ll be interesting adjusting to the new life, and the pros definitely outweigh the cons. The town is EXTREMELY small, and everyone knows everyone, and I’m pretty sure that after a few months the novelty of a gringa will wear off and I’ll have gotten more of an image of a worker than of a new blonde girl. Anyway, the next morning I woke up to catch the 5am bus back home, and found myself sitting on the curb in the dark waiting for a run down school bus. So Guatemala. After the first 4 hours, we landed in Guatemala City where we somehow managed to get a cab to take us to the next bus stop, but not until after we found a Burger King and got some fast food breakfast. So delicious. A short hour ride home, and I was happily back with the family I’ll be leaving in one short week. Also, in the interest of full disclosure (you asked for it, readers) I finally faced and will hopefully survive my first case of fever-inducing diarrhea. Almost as soon as I got home on Saturday, I got intense chills and called my mom crying, thinking I was dying. Then the liquid green poo started happening, and to be honest, hasn’t let up. I survived the night, and made it through today well enough, but I’ve been alternating between sweating my ass off and freezing to death. A little dramatic? Maybe. But I’m sick, so cut me some slack. Anyway, there’s nothing more fun than having every member of your family know that you destroyed their toilet for 24 hours straight. My padre actually told me “I know you must be really sick because you refused food and your hair isn’t washed.” Great. Well they say you know you’re getting old when you talk about your bathroom life more than your sex life. …….Or you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer. Side note: the dogs at my house keep barking for no reason. They must not know I’ve kicked puppies for less.

We all sat nervously in the kitchen of my padre’s house, listening to Sal’s (our boss) last minute speech about how we should “stay focused during the rest of training” and that “you still have 2 weeks and a quiz left before your done” but all any of us could think about were the thin yellow folders in his hands. Even the donuts on the table weren’t enough to distract us, and as he used he folder to gesture, our eyes followed its every movement. Finally, he looked up, and said “And the first folder is for the person that wanted the very hot place……Emily” Hurray!!!! I hurriedly opened my folder, ignoring all the other noises around me and for the first time, saw the name of the place I’ll be living for the next two years. I can’t put the exact place I’ll be at, but I can say I’ll be in the department of Zacapa , which is in the East, and is known for having lots of cowboys and drug lords. Hurray! I’m about 5 hours away from the Peace Corps office, and 2 from the capital. Not too bad. I’ll be working for the municipality, which means I’ll be living in a slightly larger town of about 6,000 people, but working mostly out at the smaller towns around it. My main work will focus on reforestation, family gardens, soil conservation, and natural compost (with worms and normal kind.) The place is 100% ladino, and apparently very Western, with all people carrying pistols and sombreros, but I hear the people are very kind and I can’t wait to get out there. The temperature of my town ranges from 82 degrees in the winter to 89 in the summer, and is one of the cooler areas since it is still in the mountains. Perfect! The only part about my assignment that makes me a little nervous is that I will have an office space. I know to most people that sounds normal, but since I’m suppose to be working on a smaller scale, in a more rural setting, I’m not exactly prepared to be tied to a schedule. Also, I don’t have enough cute office clothes.

Anyway, I’m so excited I could bust. This is exactly where I wanted to go. What makes it even better, is that one of my super good friends, Kristen, is going to be right next door in Chiquimula, only an hour away, and some other really awesome volunteers are going close by as well. If any of you try to google Zacapa, make sure you’re reading about the department, not the town. My town is much smaller, and is one of the 10 municipalities of the whole department. So now all I have to do is get prepared for meeting my boss on Monday and going out to my site for a weeklong visit starting Tuesday. No pressure. Oh, and I also have to pack up ALL of my stuff this weekend, and live out of a backpack for the next few weeks. Yikes. Honestly, taking all of my luggage on a camioneta is probably the part I’m the most nervous about!

So we have site visit the 19th – 23rd, then we’re doing a family “thank you” luncheon on the 24th, orientation 25th – 28th, a Friday of rest, SWEARING IN on Saturday the 29th, and then after a night of festivities in Antigua we’re heading out to our sites just in time for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Time here has flown by, and I can’t believe I’ve been in country for almost 11 weeks. I’ve gotten used to a lot of my surroundings here in Sumpango, and I’m ready to be shaken up again by the move to the Big East!

This last week was fairly uneventful, since our minds were taken with site assignments and training is starting to wind down. Last weekend we had another go as vaccinating chickens, and this time I DIDN’T cry!!! Hurray! Then again, I didn’t really have to give an injection. We mainly did eye drops, and the wing lancets (where you actually puncture the wing) so I stuck with the eyedropper, although I did do one lancet, and did it without freaking out. I’m improving every day. We took our final Tech quiz, covering small animals, chemical fertilizers, and other stuff I’ve already forgotten. We also went to visit our Training Director’s house to see his rain harvesting system, which is pretty amazing. He also served us a block of cheddar cheese, which may sound silly to bring up, but you have no idea how good it was. Kristen and I have also been trying to cook for our families together, and we made the most AMAZING pasta with chicken and veggies and homemade alfredo sauce. We ate a disgusting amount, but it was too good to be true. We’ve also tried sweet and sour chicken, which was delicious, but a little too weird for Guatemalans, and we made “tacos gringas” which is basically regular U.S. tacos, and are known as gringas because they use flour tortillas. We didn’t do as good a job on those, but we still hoovered them like it was our last meal. I get teased regularly about how fat I am, but then still get food pushed at me. I think they’re just amazed I eat so much!

I’ll be honest, I feel like my Spanish is in the downhill slide. I’m at the point where my brain is overwhelmed with conjugations and vocabulary, and whatnot, and I can’t even form a sentence anymore. It’s turned into a brick! Hopefully I’ll have a weekend of break to let my brain remush back up so I can squeeze more stuff in. I’ll just watch some American TV. That should do the trick. Maybe I’ll start with the terribly boring Georgia Tech game today. Middle Tennessee? Really?

Anyway, it’s been nice hearing from everyone back home. I love you all tons and I guess I be in touch after site visit! Wish me luck!

P.S. Last weekend, I was accidentally in a religious Catholic parade. It's a little hard not to be some weekends, since it's basically just a group of people in suits wandering around town. Either way, it was awkward.

Baby chickens in a bag (about to be vaccinated!)

View From Libby's Toilet

View from one of the ladies' gardens

Amazing, right?

So it’s been a while. At first, I had nothing new to report, then we went out of town for a week for training (Field Based Training) and then so much stuff happened I got a little overwhelmed. Three weeks ago (gosh, how time flies) the Food Security crew of the Agriculture department all got on a bus and headed out for our FBT in Jalapa, where we spent a week of visiting current volunteers’ sites, and learning a lot about what it’s really like to be a volunteer. The two volunteers we visited are pretty great, and seeing what they’ve been up to is exciting and intimidating at the same time. And we got to stay in the most amazing places. Double bonus.

So the first day, Monday, we headed up to Alene’s site in Los Flores to visit the women’s group she’s working with, see their gardens, and look at their chicken project. Little did I know this would be one of the top most embarrassing days I’ve had in a while. Hurray! As part of our training we have been learning about chicken vaccinations, and how to properly do them. Yikes. So for FBT they planned for us to get some practical application and actually vaccinate some chickens. There are 3 types of vaccinations you can give a chicken depending on what type of medicine you’re transmitting: a injection, which is a normal shot you put in the chicken’s breast; a lancet, which has two needles on it that capture the medicine, and has to be shoved all the way through the wing and pulled back out (imagine poking a pen through cardboard and pulling it back out); and an eyedropper, which is used for the little baby chickies. We arrive at a women’s house, walk past our audience of about 10 women and their children, and file into the chicken pen. A few people grabbed chickens so the others could give shots, and we got ready to begin. Well, this is about the time I start getting extremely nervous, sweating like I never have in my life, and giggling awkwardly. I told my trainer I was really nervous, but he assured me that he would help me out, and that it was nothing to worry about. I got in line, ready for my first try at giving an injection, walked up to the chicken, and….broke down sobbing. That’s right, in front of my boss, I started uncontrollably bawling and shaking, and had to have someone else force my hand to give this chicken a shot. Ultimate failure. I stepped away, dried my eyes, looked up into the faces of my fellow trainees, and felt so embarrassed I could’ve died. Everyone was really nice, but I could tell what everyone was thinking, myself included: “REALLY???” So long story short, I tried again, cried again, tried again, and cried again. It was horrifying. I’ve always been fairly trepidatious about getting shots, but who knew giving them would be worse?? I then had to give a lancet shot to a bird, and failed all over again. Let’s be honest though, if I was bawling about having to put an injection into a chicken, who in their right mind would think I could shove a needle THROUGH a wing? I tried about 4 times, and each time I just stabbed it, and freaked out and ran away. RAN AWAY. Terrible. Those poor chickens were probably more begging for some other gringo to give them their shot. Needless to say, my mom was pretty embarrassed when I told her. Her advice though? “I should’ve let you practice on me before you left!” Oh sure, I would’ve loved to see how that day went. Anyway, after the chicken debacle, we also went to visit some of the women’s personal gardens and see their egg production project. It’s amazing to see how each person tackles their unique gardening challenges.

On Tuesday, we woke up and went to visit a different volunteer’s site in Pino Dulce, where we got to visit a lecheria (dairy processing) in the morning. I’ve never seen cheese made, so it was really interesting seeing that process. Also, the guy that ran the dairy was pretty amazing, since he talked about how he gave the people who looked after the dairy a place to live, and gave away the unusable part of the milk for free to the ladies to feed to their pigs. Just goes to show helping people out can still earn you money. It also reminded me of the time I went on a Mayfield Dairy tour in Tennessee, except I’m pretty sure Mr. Mayfield would die if the saw the lack of sanitation in this place. Not that I’m a huge stickler for rules, but even I was surprised by how little attention was paid to sanitation. But the cheese tasted amazing, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it. After the dairy, we also got to visit the house of the volunteer, which is spacious and cozy, and see her own personal (beautiful!!!) garden. When we returned to the hotel that night, everyone was diligently working on preparing their charlas (small informational talks) for Thursday. Everyone except me. I got bored, and set out in search of a place that would sell a book, magazine, or something to read. What I found instead was the hotel manager and his assistant, who became my new best friends, and even drew a picture for me, and the next night brought me something to read! Random, but hilarious.

Wednesday we went back to the original site to learn about nutrition and cook a delicious lunch with the help of some of the ladies in a different women’s group. We divided up the recipes for lunch, and a few of us headed up the hill to make a radish salad. For the first time since I’ve been here, I found that I had a pretty significant communication problem that had nothing to do with the language barrier. At first, it was very hard for me to find topics to discuss with the lady we were with, since we’ve led such different lives, but eventually we landed on family, and anyone who knows me knows that this is an inexhaustible topic for me. The lunch was delicious, and I now have a new recipe for chicken soup!

Thursday was charla day, and everyone in our group gave a 30 speech, most to a women’s group, but some (including me) to a group of men. All of the talks went well, and it’s amazing to see how much we’ve all improved over the last few months. It’s also funny to see how involved the women get here in games; there is literally nothing funnier than women crawling around blindfolded trying to grab pieces of paper. They had a great time, and were very patient with us. We also traveled to our new hotel for the last night, and Oh. My. God. It was literally one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! We pull up into this amazing green rolling land, where chickens, turkeys, and sheep are roaming around freely, and get out to take stock of where we would be spending the next few nights. The cabins are all thatch-roof design, and spread sparsely enough around so that they easily blended into the scenery. Mountains surrounded the whole places, and the only thing cutting into a perfect view is the zipline cords spread around the place. A short hike takes you past the adorable poolhouse and pool and into the deeper forest where you can zipline across a huge ravine. All in all, definitely a place I would recommend to anyone. That night, after a great dinner, we stayed up sitting around a fire, playing Mafia, and gossiping.

Friday started off rough, since we found out we were to leave that afternoon, a day too early, because of the incoming storms. This meant we missed out on the ziplining, but we still had time for an early morning lesson in soil conservation and terracing. We learned how to construct and use an “a-level” and tried to help out, although the men we were working with did their portion in about 1/10th of the time we did. Way to go, gringos. We traveled back afterwards, and after a brief stop at Wendy’s for a frosty, we were home again, and in my newly cleaned room with my freshly laundered clothes. Oh, the rough life.

Since FBT, we have done a lot of other smaller projects, including a visit to an integrated farm, hearing a returned PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) give a talk on adult education, a visit to AGTECH and ICTA (today, actually), a few more trips to our local school to give talks, and general technical training. The integrated farm was great, and really showed how feasible it is to supply a household with everything they need just from they land they work on. Plus, the family was extremely warm and inviting, and served us fresh ricotta cheese, which was to die for. The speaker we went to hear served in Guate about 20 years ago, and was entertaining, although I definitely have differing ideas on the importance of adult education techniques compared to basically everyone else in Peace Corps. I guess coming directly from a fast-paced, learn-or-you-fail, school environment (thank you, Tech) it’s hard for me to wrap my head around talking to people the way we’re supposed to, with few, general topics, and icebreakers every 5 seconds. I like my information direct and to-the-point. Obviously PC has been doing this way longer than me and so knows way better what works, but it will definitely take some getting used to. Our visits to AGTECH and ICTA were both interesting, not only because we got to reinforce some technical skills, but also because we got to see what long-term aid projects look like here. Both institutes work in research, but also in the betterment of farming in Guatemala, by raising awareness to new techniques and best-practice methods. The school charlas have been a little rough for me, since I don’t like to give a speech to people that don’t really want to listen, and also because I actually really like kids, and want to establish a relationship with them before I bust in and randomly start preaching about veggies. But it’s all good practice, and at least now I’ll be prepared for how hard it is to understand kids.

So that’s all the technical stuff we’ve been doing, but daily life here in Guate is interesting and fun too. Despite the nearly non-stop rain for all of September, I’ve managed to not be a grumpbutt 100% of the time. We’ve celebrated another birthday in the family, when Gerson turned 19 (where I accidently tripped during my birthday hug to him, and ended up holding him a little too long; awesome) and went on an overnight visit to Comalapa for Independence Day (Sept. 15) to meet my madre’s family. Seven girls in one family!!! And they all look alike!!! I was calling everyone madre by the end of our trip. The family owns 2 Saritas (the nice ice cream store here) so I ate about 4 ice cream cones, and later went to the streets to try the “elote loco”, which is an ear of boiled corn covered in mayo, ketchup, salsa verde, and cheese. Holy shit. It’s amazing. When we stayed there, we all shoved into my abuelo’s house, and I shared a mattress with Leslie on the floor, which made me miss my own sister. Sad. I’ve also gotten to hang out with my fellow trainees, and we celebrated another TWO free days, one at some hot springs and one around the town of Antigua. The hot springs were ridiculous, and squeezing 13 gringos into a “private bath” was probably not our best decision. Antigua was fun as well, although we got back a pretty late and had to ride in a camioneta in the dark, which was a little scary. We’ve also made smaller trips to play soccer, visit San Lucas, and even go to a CASA DEL WAFFLE!!! That’s right, guys, we ate at Waffle House. I got ribs. They were amazing. Anyway, I’m sure there’s tons of stuff I’m leaving out, but I’m also sure that’s plenty of blog for one time. The next time I write (exactly one week from today!!!!!) I’ll know where I’m spending the next two years of my life!!! Hurrayyyyyyyyyy.

P.S. Not sure how many people saw this but yea, it's awkward. wtf, America?

The garden before.....

...the garden after digging!

Our group diligently at work.

Me, doing nothing.

I feel like with as much stuff as we’re doing here, it’s hard not to write about my adventures instead of some of the interesting aspects of the culture. I’ve literally started about 3 entries about something more than just what I’ve been doing, but can never seem to find the time to finish them. This is going to be another boring account of what I’ve been up to. So last weekend was our first free weekend. Almost all of the people from my program, and a good amount of people from the other program went to Antigua, so we had a nice little group of gringos walking around the town. Antigua is touted as one of the most touristy places in Guatemala, and although it seems cliché to go there, I was pretty pumped. I imagined a small throwback town, like those that are so popular in the U.S., with little fancy window shops everywhere, and maybe a fountain or two spread about. Antigua is also known for its old ruins and churches (I mean, it isn’t called “Antigua” for nothing.) I definitely wasn’t disappointed, as Antigua is an exact picture of a quaint little town, complete with cobblestone streets, a beautiful park, tons of perfectly aged churches, and of course, lots and lots of white people. I have to say though, that even though everywhere I turned there was a sign in English, I never quite forgot I was in a developing country. Maybe it was because I rode in on a crowded camioneta; maybe because we passed through the run-down houses on the out-skirts of town; or maybe because even though we were in the most touristy area in Guatemala, a guy in our group was still able to buy a goat head in the market, but I never really thought I was escaping to a tourist’s paradise. Obviously I’m not saying this as a bad thing, and I think it’s pretty great Guatemala can retain its culture even where it’s most densely populated with fanny pack and cameras. The place was clean and bright, and we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day there. We were able to socialize for more than an hour or two for the first time since that fateful day in D.C. when we all met up. We also were able to put to use some of our safety training by having a DT, or Designated Thinker. Long story short, much fun was had by all.

This week also was the start of our “charlas” or small talks. We went to a school to give a small presentation on the parts of a plant and to identify what parts of what plants we eat. For example, you eat the seeds of corn, the root of potato, and the flower of broccoli. It went fairly well, although I personally feel like I’m having a difficult time being taken seriously. My trainer says I don’t need to worry, and it will be better with older groups, but it’s hard to look at a group of 13 year olds and know you only look about 5 years older than them. We also gave a talk in groups to others in our tech program, and Meghan and I talked about pest identification and organic pest management. The next day we reiterated the importance of composting and pest management to the entire Agriculture group, and got to hear their presentation on cost-benefit analysis of vermiculture. It has been a pretty intense few days of learning, and I can now say that I feel pretty comfortable talking about pest management, composting (worms and regular!), and how best to start a garden. We have also reviewed some problem-solving techniques, and I’m pretty sure I can McGyver a worm compost area out of anything. We’ve also completely planted our community garden, and some beautiful little sprouts have come up. We’re such proud mommas.

Monday I got my hair cut. It's short again, and I tried bangs for the first time and I pretty much hate them. Ahhhhhhh. It's times like these I'm glad I'm in a foreign country, and no one knows me here well enough to make fun of me.

Wednesday was a pretty awesome day, since I got to go to my first birthday party!!! And a hell of a birthday party it was! It was for my great-grandma, the oldest lady in my town, who turned 100. My god, that’s old. The last time I was around someone that old I was about 8, and it scared me to death. I reacted a lot better this time, and even though she wanted to sit next to me and kept patting my hair, I think I handled it ok. My great-grandma is pretty awesome: she speaks Kachiquel, like the rest of my family, but she switches to Spanish so I can understand, and has been through so much in the past 100 years. She made it through poverty, starvation, a civil war, and has raised an amazing family of people. My family has a long-running joke about her “caja de muerto” or casket that she bought 9 years ago, and they say that every birthday when they sing “Happy Birthday” they’re also singing it to her casket. Too funny. Anyway, birthday parties for my family here start with 3 hours of singing religious music and a sermon, just like a normal Sunday, and end with the women serving a MASSIVE amount of food to everybody. Then we all sit around and talk, and I got home at about 2am. Yikes. The best part of the whole night was at one point during the quiet part of the sermon when my great-grandma leans over me and says loudly in Spanish “I DON’T KNOW ANYBODY HERE!!!” I tried to keep a straight face, but I leaned over and said “ME NEITHER.” We were quite the pair. The only two in the room that almost fell asleep during the sermon. Love you, granny. Also at the party, they served “ensalada rusa” which was basically mayo on potatoes, and reminded me of home so intensely I thought my mom was going to come through the door claiming to have made it.

Also in recent news, I don’t know how much media attention this has been getting in the States, but Guatemala has recently been overwhelmed with rain and mudslides. This has been the heaviest rain in 60 years, and has led to over 200 landslides, and over 50 deaths, and all this right on the tail of Agatha that passed through in May. It’s pretty grim news, prompting the President to call a National State of Emergency, and has affected the whole country pretty seriously. Every time I watch the news here, read a paper, or even listen to my padres talk, I have to remind myself that this country is the size of Tennessee, that each “department” is the size of a county, and that when the Pan-American Highway is knocked out like it was for almost a week, it’s like if I-75 was shut down in Georgia. It’s hard to explain to my parents sometimes that in a country the size of the United States, we are far more removed from the deaths of others in distant states, and that crime or even natural disasters can happen in our own country and not affect us. It’s very humbling to see the compassion the people have here for their entire state and people. The infrastructure of Guatemala is just not able to handle a natural disaster of this proportion, and as our trainer reminded us this week, the whole country, Peace Corps included, will probably be cleaning up the mess of the last week for years to come.

So that’s all for now. Tech won last weekend (obviously) 41-10, and they’re playing Kansas this weekend. I’ll be watching a Mayan religious ceremony instead of the game, but I’ll be thinking of all you tailgaters. I also hope to cook a delicious meal for my family soon, so if anybody has any easy American recipes that I can make without an oven, let me know! Love you all too too much.

Ahhhhhhhh. Another week or so has gone by! I feel like I don’t even measure weeks by weekends anymore, since we never really have spare time. I only know it’s been another week by our weekly visits to the Peace Corps headquarters. Since the last post, several VERY exciting things have happened: · We visited Guatemala City, the capitol! And I got a super amazing new sweater there! It says “Super Shine” and has a rainbow, and when I wear it, nothing can go wrong! I also got to eat an amazing salad (I know that sounds random, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to come across uncooked veggies) and I bought ugly new closed-toe shoes. What a find! · On said trip to Guatemala City, we rode on a school bus from NORTH GEORGIA!! Holy shit! I wanted a picture SO BAD of the North Georgia sign right next to the name of the bus, which was something like “Cabriacenalita” but since we were sitting 3 to a seat on both sides, it just wasn’t possible. Que triste. · We went out to visit a current Agriculture volunteer in Patzun. He showed us around some of the gardens he helped implement, and described some of the ways he facilitated seed distribution among his community. In his time there, he also worked with some of the ladies from his community and neighboring ones to start a mushroom-growing operation. Since many of the women in Guatemala work in and around their homes all day, there is a little bit of down time that could be used for income generation. And thus, a project was born. They bring in a lot of money; they grow quickly; they almost always produce well. Boom. It was amazing to see, and to talk to the ladies who started this program. I have to say, though, after the visit I got extremely intimidated. This guy has really done a lot with his community, and has obviously gotten a lot of trust and respect from these people. I guess I see why they really push for us to understand the importance of integration. · It was the weekend of feria in our town, and we went out and celebrated as a group. We had a lot of fun, especially on Saturday, when we broke a few rules, ate a little street food, and rode some pretty dangerous Guatemalan fair rides. They have this one Ferris wheel that goes about 80mph forwards and backwards. Needless to say, I didn’t get on. · We finally got our official technical trainer for Food Security. His name is Dale. He’s from Texas. I joked a lot about how I wasn’t going to like him before he got here, but he seems like just the person our program needs. He’s a pretty chill guy, and really seems to know a lot about agriculture, and told us on the first day that he’s laid back, but at some point we’re going to hate him. Perfect! I’m actually looking forward to having someone push me and he’s been a great motivator and resource so far. He reminds me a little bit of my dad, because he’s down to joke around and enjoy work, as long as the work is actually getting done. · We get to an actual city alone this weekend!!!! Will the fact that it’s Sunday morning stop me from treating it like a Friday night? No way. I want an icy cold beer and a medium rare steak (or Indian food. Or cake. Or Mexican. Or a hamburger.) Anyway, we’re all pretty excited and are looking forward to planning. · I did NOT have to go to my family’s church’s all-night vigil! Huzzah! They didn’t even really put up a fight when I said I would rather not go to church from 8pm-5am. It was touch and go there for a second, but it basically made my weekend when I dodged that bullet. · Saturday = college football gameday. Boom. Although I don’t really want to think about how much I’ll miss one of my favorite parts of college (the all-day boozing/socializing, not the actual football game) I’m excited Tech is starting a new season. I’ll be dreaming of 100 degree weather, sundresses, Natty Lite, and cornhole while I’m giving a tour of my town in the rain. Alas. Give ‘em hell, Tech! Anyway, I’m still enjoying Guate, despite having bummed my way through a cold and way too much rain. That must be good, right? We’re also hopefully going to be planting soon in our new gardens and we’ll be starting our series of “charlas” or “talks” as well.

So here's the link to where I'm putting up my pictures. So far I have only ones from the feria parade this past weekend. I also have some amazingly hilarious videos (at least to me they're funny) but I'm having a little trouble uploading them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/esanford3

Also, thank you all for your support and comments! It's really great to hear back from everybody and I'm slowly but surely responding. I love hearing from you all, miss yall tons.

Pictures of the Parade!

(more to come when I get my Picassa up and running)

Traditional "Traje" de Guatemala

Traditional Men's Colthing

"Don't forget our Sumpangan Traditions"

Check out these kids beards. Too cute.

All the important men in the town

So I’ve officially been in my training site for a week. I’ve lasted 2 trips to the market, 2 Saturday-night tamale dinners, 2 visits to church, and 4 weekend nights in bed by 9. I think at this point I should write a little more about my daily life here in Guatemala during training, and what I’ve been up to the past week. The newness of everything is finally starting to wear off here, and I’ve made it around town the last 4 days now without getting lost. I’m sure my family is a little disappointed I’m getting more comfortable with the city, since they love hearing stories of the dumb stuff I do, but I’ve found other ways to embarrass myself or be awkward.

My family, by the way, is amazing. It’s been overwhelming how accepting and supportive I’ve been the past week, and how much they try to help me succeed here in Guatemala. Communication hasn’t been a problem for us at all, since my Spanish is improving “poco a poco” and they take the time to explain words to me or even act out what they mean. Whenever I have a grammar, pronunciation, or even cultural question, any one of them will work to make me understand. We’ve gotten to the point in our communication abilities where we can joke with each other, and laughing for hours after dinner around the table is a common occurrence. Like when I told them about how a little boy threw rocks at me in the street when I was lost. Or how I mistakenly told a store owner I needed to buy “ham “to wash my clothes with instead of “soap” (cut me some slack, “jamon” sounds a lot like “jabon”). Or that I tried to eat something raw that is only meant to be eaten raw by animals. I’m so cool.

My padre is hilarious and calls me Rambo, because I seem to be breaking or tripping over something, or am just big in general every day. My hermano, Gerson, is very quite, but since he’s studying to be an engineer, I’ve spent the last four years preparing to interact with someone like him. He currently hasn’t been going to classes during the day because his school is closed down because some students are trying to take over it. The article about it is here in Spanish(I can’t figure out how the get the English version), and it’s pretty amazing to read about. The students are fighting for what they call “human rights”, since the government is trying to make the public school become private. This would make it basically impossible for nearly all the current attendees to attend, since private schools here are ridiculously expensive. I’ve also heard from several people that the public schools turn out better prepared students because they actually have to work to not get kicked out, and can’t just pay to stay in. I told them it was basically the exact same in the U.S. (just kidding, you private school babies!) Anyway, Gerson is planning on getting his Masters and probably Doctorate, and I’m making a big push to turn him into a Yellow Jacket. My hermana, Leslie is a medical student and studies a lot too. She’s adorable and hilarious, and doesn’t mind going out with me in public even though I awkwardly get attention called to me almost every time we go somewhere. She also has this funny affectation she does when she’s making a joke or being sarcastic that I have to learn to adopt. Joking here is entirely different, and if you can’t do the Guatemalan snort after you make a funny, no one knows you’re joking. I learned this the hard way. My madre is probably the person I spend the most time with, and the person that works with me on my transition here the most. She’s tireless and constantly calm and collected, and will listen to me prattle on in broken Spanish for hours. She makes all the meals at the house, does almost all the household chores, and travels 2 hours both ways, three days a week to work in her family store in Comalapa. She’s the first one up in the morning making breakfast and packing lunches, and the last one to bed, after all the dishes and laundry are cleaned by hand. And despite all this work, after a long day, she still wants to hear every detail of my day and make sure I’m caught up with my homework. She truly is the backbone of the family, and an amazing supporter, and is always content. Since I’m an old lady here (I would put the average age to marry at 19) she seems to consider me her peer, and we’ve talked about everything from family problems to how to be attractive and conservative (although since she always wears the traditional “traje” it’s not too hard for her to be conservative).

A lot of people have asked about what I’ve been eating here, and I have to report back that I’ve been eating massive amounts of “delicious”. Seriously. I was made to eat this type of food every day! My new favorite veggie is güisquil, and is amazing. I’m sending some home asap. A local dish here that is probably one of my new top favorite foods is pepian (this isn’t the best recipe, since it doesn’t have güisquil), and is basically like a Mexican “mole” without the chocolate. It’s amazing, and my madre says she’ll teach me how to cook it the next time I have a free day. There’s also a lot of beans and tortillas, of course, but more surprisingly for me is that there’s a lot of veggies or other things dipped in egg and fried. I like the whole green beans done that way the best.

Anwayyyyyyyy, more about what I’ve actually been doing, I guess. I get up every morning about 6-6:30 and get ready for class, which starts at 8, but changes locations almost every day and I have to walk/take a bus to get there. I eat a full breakfast of about 3 tortillas and whatever eggs/beans/veggie thing there is. Then most days I have 4-6 hours of Spanish/culture class, where we go over grammar or go around the city visiting sites and learning new vocabulary. I also have started my 2 hours of technical training every day, and will soon be outside getting into some small-scale farming. Although I get extreeeeeeemely tired of Spanish classes (I swear I’ve gone to more class in the past week than I did all of my senior year at Tech) it’s not too bad, and I’m really enjoying my technical classes. It’s a good group of people, and there’s a lot to learn. So after class I hang out with my family, have some down time, eat dinner, and am in bed by 9 usually. It’s a simple, albeit boring, life but I am enjoying my time here immensely. Every day has some really enjoyable aspects and knowing that I’ll be prepared for my future site is a great motivator.

The goals for the Food Security Volunteers is to have at least 5 family gardens and 1 school garden in each of the communities we work in, and we’ll probably be working in 3 communities. We also will start nutrition classes and proper chicken care of at least 1 backyard chicken coop. I know this sounds small-scale, but in a community of 200, where most the people are related, if we can affect 5 families and a school we’ll have started a big change in a town. I have to admit, I’ve gotten a little overwhelmed at some of the stuff we’ve been learning recently. It’s not my specific agricultural project that has me worried, but how to implement them in the communities where there are so many other problems. Because I’m a a Food Security Volunteer, I’ll most likely be sent out to a very rural area where hygiene or sanitation isn’t a top priority, and where the “trash problem” (basically they throw it down the hill when it rains) is taking over the land. How can one start building a garden if it’s in a community where the pigs are free-roaming and literally pooping the garbage they eat right next to a garden? I don’t want to worry about it too much, since I don’t know my site or conditions yet, but if sanitation is a problem where I go, there will be a lot of work to do before I can implement my gardens. I guess for Peace Corps Volunteers across the world this is a potential problem in every community. I mean, hey, it is a developing country.

So this weekend was a special and exciting one here in Sumpango. Not only was it the beginning of feria, complete with huge parade and carnival food, but it was also the birthday of one of the other Trainees here, Kristen. On Saturday, after our 8am clothes-washing class (holy crap, it’s going to take me forever to ruin/wash my clothes on laundry day) we threw a surprise birthday party for Kristen. We took up a collection, bought a cake, and snuck over to her house. I had asked her madre the day before if we could come over, and they were extremely accommodating, and even let us listen to gringo music. After that, we went to visit another friend and ended up laughing that day for hours. It’s nice to socialize with other people going through the same thing, and joke about knowing we’ll hit a breaking point and how we’ll react. Sunday was amazing as well, since I woke up at 6am to the neighbor playing Backstreet Boys, ate some amazing pancakes, and went to watch the parade. Parades in Guatemala are COMPLETELY different from ones in the U.S., mainly because about half the town and 100% of the kids are in it, and it takes roughly 2 hours to watch it pass. It was great though, because you can see what things are universal, like cute kids, angsty teens, and overbearing parents. I commented to my madre that there was the parade going by with an equally long parade of parents walking along the sidewalk watching their kids, and she said “just wait until it gets down to the center of the city and at least half of these kids lose their parents for a few hours”. We went to the downtown area after and hung around the mercado, and broke a big Peace Corps rule by eating street food. I haven’t gotten diarrhea from it, but if I do it was totally worth it. When I walk through the streets here, I feel like a giant. A giant blonde person, stomping through the streets. I usually get some looks or stares, and can almost always here whispers (and sometimes shouts) of “gringa” when I walk by. When a group of us is walking back from class, we make almost every 13 year old boy giggle. But the day of the feria I was walking along when 3 old ladies, who looked vaguely like the tree in Pocahontas, stopped me to pat me down and call me “canchita”. I have realized since being here how little we touch people in the states and how quickly I need to get used to it. After feria, we ate lunch and relaxed. Then was church. Ohhhhhhh, church. I’ve realized that I’m not just awkward at church, but actually intensely uncomfortable. I’ve explained this to my madre some, and I don’t think I’ll be going next week to the all night vigil. I came, I experienced culture, and out of respect for both them and me, I’m going to back off on going to church.

So today was the first day of classes at Tech. I got a little sad, and a lot happy that I wasn’t there. It’s amazing where you find yourself in a year’s time. Good luck to everybody still in school, and hurray for a new pledge class of AXOs.

So we moved! A group of 8 of us, all in the Agriculture department have moved to a smaller town about 30 minutes away from the Peace Corps headquarters to continue our language and technical training in a different setting. We looked over the calendar and for at least the next 2 months we have Spanish class almost every day (except Tuesdays and most Sundays) with our smaller groups, with some technical training in between. On Tuesdays all the smaller groups, spread over about 7 other towns, head back to the Peace Corps office so we can get further training in health and safety information. My new house is the bomb, and even has a three-pronged outlet so I can plug in my computer! I have new parents (Doña Cece y Don Julio), and a brother (Gerson, 18 years old) and sister (Leslie, 17 years old). The boy is studying to be an engineer! I can’t escape them. I really like talking to my host sister, Leslie, since she can explain things a lot better to me and is really funny. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be best friends. So within my first few hours here, the family had already told me that they were Evangelical and that I would be going to church with them the next day for 3 hours. And they wanted to know if my whole family and me went to church as well. Needless to say, I embellished a little. I mean, I certainly come from a Christian background, and we are the type of family that prays before meals (on the rare occasions we all get to sit down together) but I could tell that I would need to be much more religious to suit my parents. Peace Corps doesn’t necessarily tell us to lie about our backgrounds, but they did stress that we need to claim that we have a God and encouraged us to put our families at ease about our poor souls. So I went to church with them the next day and wow. WOWWWWWWWW. So I had been confused about how almost an entire country supposedly doesn’t drink alcohol, but after one night at church, I completely understand. It was like a normal Saturday night! It started out with some amazingly loud music (though everyone in the audience was singing a different song) and then there was a lot of nonsensical crying and shouting (which was actually hilarious, because the entire church was quiet except for one lady just shouting) and then came the part where everyone fished around in there pockets for the tab (sorry, I meant the offering). I know this sounds a little mocking, but you sit through 3 hours of praise music and then get accosted by the preacher in front of everybody, and we’ll see how you describe it. It was a 3-hour long service, during which the pastor pointed me and the other gringa out and made us intensely uncomfortable. Then, my whole family and I came back to the house, climbed in the parent’s bed (yes, all 5 of us) and watched a movie about how God saves marriages. It’s called “Fireproof”, and is an American movie and I highly highly don’t recommend it. On the ‘up’ side, I mentioned to my madre that my exboyfriend was Catholic, and now she’s on a mission to get find me a good Evangelical boyfriend. All males within a 10-year age radius were introduced to me. Even the ones with children. The first morning, my padre and I got into a fairly lengthy discussion about the Mayan history and a little bit of how it compares with Christianity. I can now tell you all, with complete confidence, that the world will NOT end in 2012!!! Hurray!!!! Apparently the Mayan calendar predicts the end of our “current world” (which is a material world, and many Americans equate to the entire world, according to my padre) but not the physical destruction of the land. What a relief! Obviously I’m paraphrasing (and I hope with at least semi-correct translation) that my padre says that the hype about the Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world is silly. The Mayan calendar predicts changes in increments all the time such as every 20 or 50 years, and that at the end of 2000 is just happens to be really big. This will be when the snake, which is our current representation of the world, grows wings and flies, and we ascend into a more spiritual world. I asked if this would happen overnight, and he says no, but I’m still pretty pumped to be in the land of Mayans when this all goes down. Hopefully I’ll make a Mayan friend or two just to be on the safe side. It’s interesting to see that although he’s pretty devoutly Christian, he still looks to the past for information and completely trusts the Mayan calendar, which he says is way more accurate than any other one. My parents are pretty great to talk to (when it’s not about religion) because they make a pretty huge effort to understand me and help me in any way possible, and let me ask questions about everything. Last night, I sat at the table after dinner with both of them and they helped me with my grammar homework, and then this morning my madre packed me my lunch and sent me off to school with my bookbag. I felt like a little kid, but I can’t complain about homework help and a homecooked lunch! Anyway, it’s the week of “feria” here, which is their big celebration for their patron saint and also somehow includes Mayan princess celebrations too. I don’t quite understand the “mezcla” of cultures here yet, but the parades are beautiful and the markets are huge and a lot of fun. Also, there’s this really creepy laughing that I keep hearing from somewhere. I’m not joking at all. I’m about 80% sure it’s one of the many birds my family has, but I really need to investigate before some killer Guatemalan clown comes in and chops me up. I’ll keep you all posted, and maybe try to get a recording. I’ll also hopefully be posting up pictures soon, but these past 6 days have included so much information that I’m just now slowing down and getting into a routine, and will be able to post more concise stuff. For now, HERE is a link to a lot of different videos that past and current volunteers have made, so that you can see what the country looks like and what people are doing here now.

I’m going to preface this post by saying that my dates won’t necessarily be matching up with the exact events that I’m describing. I’m trying to keep up with writing down stuff fairly regularly though, even if I won’t be able to immediately have internet access. Anywayyyyyyyyyyyy, so today was the day we arrived in Guatemala. I spent my last night in the States visiting with my sorority sister, Anna, so I got exactly one hour of sleep before I had to be up for the 2:30 wakeup call. Awesome. Needless to say, the plane rides to Miami and then Guatemala were a blur. We finally arrived in Guate around 1-2, and when I looked out the window as we were landing I saw something I had never seen before. I come from a fairly mountainous place (shoutout to the north GA) but as we flew over Guatemala I was actually amazed at how rolling the landscape was. I’m used to a range, where there are mountains, and bases of mountains, and that’s it. This was like seeing a continuous wave of land with houses hanging on for the ride. It was beautiful and green and surprisingly not rainy! The Peace Corps compound is about 7,000ft. above sea level! I have to admit, when I finally landed in Guatemala after 7 months of applications, forms, and waiting, I was surprised by some of the feelings I had. I was obviously overwhelmingly excited and actually had a “purposeful” feel, but what scared me a little bit was the other intense emotion that came at me. Selfishness. I felt extremely selfish to be sitting in my plane, off to do noble deeds and pat myself on the back for 2 years about how I was “helping the world”, all the while leaving my loved ones behind. Now I’m not trying to think anybody’s world will collapse at my departure, and I’m sure none of them want me to be worried about them back home, but how could someone make the decision to just check out of life without truly consulting the people they love? I know the Peace Corps won’t be a walk in the park, and most people actually think it sounds like complete hell, but isn’t it nice to be able to escape the daily hardships of life for 2 years and come back with these types of experiences under our belts? All the while, my family and friends are back home dealing with tough situations and sadness, and where am I? Feeling like I won’t be able to support the people closest to me makes me very sad, and feel like a selfish jerk. I guess what I wish I had told a lot of them was not just to read my blog and send me care packages, and wait for my phone calls, but to also always always keep me updated on what they are doing. I think about my family every day, and it breaks my heart to feel like I’ve abandoned them. And this is only the first day!!! I didn’t mean for this post to take such a negative turn so quickly, but I’m sure we all have different anxieties that will fade over time, so that’s just my little bit of negativity. Fortunately, after being in Guatemala for almost 12 hours now, I can safely report that there are no negative feelings about the actual country, job or Peace Corps in general to report. The people here, both staff and natives, are exceptionally kind and accommodating. I even surprised myself by how sure I feel of my role here. After the plane landed, we were taken from the airport to the Peace Corps Guatemala compound, where we met our Training Officer, Country Director, Medical Officers and other staff. The next few days, like the 1 day we had in DC, will be filled with technical and logistical information, and general overviews of the Peace Corps’ role in Guatemala. We also will be tested on our Spanish skills, where I hopefully won’t be embarrassing the foreign language department at Tech, and given shots. Seriously. Shots. On the first full day. I can’t WAIT for them to watch me bawl like a baby at a syringe, and question if I’m actually old enough to be there. After a short info session, our language teachers then took us to meet our host families for the next three days, and boy did we have fun. We arrived at Doña Eva’s house and were shown our bedrooms and started small talk with the family, which consists of 7 kids (and various neighbors’ kids that seem to roll through too, as if they lived there.) And then came the lull in conversation. I blame the lack of sleep and Spanish-speaking deprivation for the past year, but I could not seem to keep a conversation going tonight! It’s also funny to see how differently Doña Eva and I reacted to the “awkward” silences. I feel like we’re so trained in the US, with our constant music, TV, and filler words, to keep a room noisy and get uncomfortable with the idea of simply sitting around a table together. This doesn’t bother Doña Eva at all! She didn’t blink or giggle, or do any of the other awkward things I was doing, because with all the free time they have here, it’s much more common to simply be around people. And there really isn’t a word for “awkward” in Spanish. Life would be so much easier if I never had to worry about being described as awkward. Oh, and speaking of awkward, I’m about to give you all a beautiful mental image: first morning in Guate, me standing in a shower completely naked except for my sandals, lookin down at the bucket of luke warm water and smaller bowl. That’s right, it’s time for my first “guacalazo” or bucket bath. After about 2 full minutes of me scratching my head in confusion (and in the buff), I realize there’s a small window with a flimsy lace covering in the bathroom wall, which is the perfect height for my madre to lean over and ask me how I like my eggs. I would feel awkward about her possibly seeing all my special parts, but since the rest of the family is starting to get up, I just hurriedly dumped water over my head and got the hell out of there. I have to admit, though, it saves an embarrassing amount of water to use a bucket, even with long hair. So that’s all. The group I came here with consists of “Municipal Development” and “Sustainable Agriculture” people (that’s me), and all seem to be fairly awesome people. It’s been great getting to know the other trainees over the past 36 hours, and nothing will bring you closer with a person in such a short time than watching them try to sleep, mouth open and drooling, in a plane seat. Awesome.

Also, just to rep the dirty South, this is the culture I'm leaving behind for Guatemala (watch out for the racy lyricssssssss)

So it's officially one week until I leave. Boom. A week sounds like forever, but when I start thinking about all the stuff I have to do AND all the stuff I want to do, time is definitely running out. I have almost everything figured out except for still getting dental stuff done (RIP wisdom teeth) and packing. Packing is turning into a bigger issue than I had planned. I keep separating my clothes into ones that are practical to take, and ones that I want to take. The "want to" pile is steadily growing, while not much progress is being made practically. The part that really blows my mind is how I'm going to take roughly 8 pairs of shoes with me. I know I won't be wearing heels much in Guatemala probably, but I can't resist being prepared. The other, definitely more exciting, thing I get to do before I leave is celebrate my big sister's birthday. It will be a joyous fete with much merrymaking and revelry.

Anyway, I suppose I should preface this blog with why I'm actually indulging in arguably one of the most pretentious things to come out of the internet. First of all, I have recently started reading the blogs of current and returned volunteers from Guatemala, and I absolutely love it. It gets me pumped, it gives me insight into what challenges I will face, and they're usually full of beautiful pictures. I know it sounds creepy, and it might be weird to meet people whose lives I've already read about, but it doesn't deter me at all. Thanks, all you PC bloggers. Secondly, it just makes sense, in terms of the most efficient way to distribute information. Instead of writing everybody the same email, or remembering what stories I've told to what people, BOOM, it's in the blog. Lastly, I'm not usually much for self-reflection, but since I'm getting older I may as well try to grow up a little bit too, and I hear journaling is good for that. Anyhow, when writing this blog I'm going to try not to think or use the backspace button too much, and just write down my experiences and hopefully my perspective on some of it. Maybe I'll realize I kinda suck. Hopefully not, but at the very least I'll have a saved record of my time in the Peace Corps. Just a heads up to anyone reading that hasn't ever gotten a long email from me, I write like I think, and usually go off on a lot of tangents. Bear with me.

So that's all. Next time I post I'll have way more interesting things to write about.