Friday, December 23, 2011
Where did 2011 go???
It's so crazy to me but it's only a little over a week before the end of 2011. And what a year it has been! I promised myself that one day(maybe sooner rather than later) i will write a novel about this year- everything from crazy sickness to being homeless to scorpions in my sink to finding a home, losing a home, getting chased out of my site by the drug cartel, Los Zetas, having a llllooonnggg vacation with family and friends, finally getting a new site-only to have my police station blown up. That is where my Peace corps experience ended, coming home to rest and find my next adventure, which after about 2 months I did. This time in the United states ALASKA! Ok so it is outside the mainland but they speak English at least. Many have looked at me upon hearing this and rolled their eyes: asking" are you ever going to settle down?" or "do you have any idea how cold it is there?" but this is the only way I know to respond- "I wonder as I wander". Sure it is freezing (actually its way below freezing) yes once again I am venturing into the unknown. I know it's crazy. I know that it is high time to settle down and join the "real world" but that's not me- at least not yet. I have too much wanderlust to stay still right now. So I will leave with my response "I wonder as I wander".
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Once Upon a Time in Mexico.....
Buenas Dias!
Well this past week has been spent on a much need vacation to a little pueblo in Mexico called San Cristobal de Las Casas. San Cristobal is a very charming spanish influenced town that has a lot of amazing food and touristy stores. It reminded me a lot of Antigua, except that the streets aren't cobble stone and easier to walk down, but it was a lot cleaner and the locals were a lot more respectful to the tourist. It took us about 7 hours to get there from my friend's site in HueHuetenango (pronounced WAY-WAYtenango) and immediately we went for Mexican beer and tacos! the tortillas instead of being corn were made of flour and were delicious! We thought we would be lucky and get to drink cheap Coronas the entire time, but they must be made closer to the American Border, so we settled for XX, which in my opinion is actually better!
After exploring the town a little bit, we decided to do a day exercusion to the ruins in Palenque, little did we know this 12 hour outing would turn into an almost 24 hour outing! We left bright and early at 6 am and headed to a river called aguas azules, normally the water is suppose to be the color of Samuc Chempay, a turquoise blue that people can swim in, but because of recent flooding the river along with all the walk ways was covered with brown, extremely fast flowing water! It was wild to see! the water fall looked gigantic! It was amazing to me how much damage water can do, it definitely seemed like it had a mind of its own. There were a lot of little restaurants and taco stands that normally would be on the river bank, but the floors were covered by the water. It was wild! The next stop we had was at another waterfall, this one was a lot more tame and just fell like most waterfalls do, they had made a path behind the waterfall though which was really really neat, but you came out completely soaked! And finally our last stop with the ruins at Palenque. Palenque was also a Mayan city, used more for the burial of kinds and worship of the different Gods. They, like Copan, Honduras, had the court where the Mayan men had to knock a ball off their hips and elbows into these basket-like things, kind of a mix between soccer and basketball. The temples were amazing, we were able to climb up some of them which was really neat and walk around inside of them. The stairs at the temples are really skinny and high so that you have to look down when you are walking up them. The Mayan's purposefully did this because they wanted anyone approaching either the Mayan king or temple with a bowed head. Which I thought was really neat. They were not as artistic as the Mayans in Copan, Honduras, but had some carvings to depict different stories. There was one of the Snake god dancing and smoking cigars, which I thought was funny! It was definitely the best part of the tour for me!
So we all climb back into the micro (but we all had our own seats and it was airconditioned...BIG STEP UP from Guatemala!) and start the 4 hour trip home. About an hour and a half in we come to what looks like a traffic jam. The driver tells us its a protest and we might have to sit tight for a little bit. The other passengers all of which are Mexican start to look really worried and ask if there is no other way to go (which there isn't) but the 5 of us are cool- Guatemalans block roads all the time, but always (it literally never fails) they will pack up around 7 pm and go home for dinner. Being that it was 6:30 pm at this point we figured we would be sitting max. 30- 1 hour. WRONG! our driver informs us that it should end around 8 pm. 8 pm comes and goes, now the end time is 11 pm. At this point we are all getting a little ansy and a little grumpy. 11 pm comes and goes, and the driver informs us the earliest we will get through the blockade is 6 am but more than likely it will not be until 8:30 am. Non of us are happy at this point; we had already bought and paid for another tour of a canyon for the morning and it looked at that point we would miss it, and if we didn't miss it be waaaayyy too tired to enjoy it. so we all try to fall asleep and stay positive that maybe we can get through earlier. Around 1:30 am the driver starts up the engine because the protesters have agreed to open the highway for an hour. They meant business. When we were passing through I saw at least 25 dump trucks that had been moved off the road, that were used for blocking ( in Guatemala, the most people do is put rocks in the way and then stand on the rocks). We ended up getting home around 4 am and did not make our next tour, instead we spent the day doing some shopping and resting. I am so glad we got through when we did because the negotiators were not able to reach an agreement until 9 am the next morning!
A couple of things that I noticed to be different between Guatemala and Mexico. For one it is obvious that the country of Mexico has more money. The highways were clean, paved roads and even the public transportation had a schedule in which you needed to buy a ticket in order to use. The towns all seemed to have actual trash systems and there was no trace of trash being burnt because you could not smell it (like you can on pretty much any day in Guatemala). There was military throughout the state we were in because it was a border state and they all had nicer and newer guns than the Guatemalan Military. However it does seem that the wealth, although apparent by these small even unnoticable things to some, has a horrible trickle down effect and it seems to stop right before the poorest of the people in Mexico. Many of the towns we passed on the way to Palenque were much like what you would find anywhere in Guatemala and there was a lot of street kids that were made to sell items such as gum, cigarettes, and other candy. Most were not more than 5 to 7 years old. They actually reminded me a lot of the begger children in slum dog millionaire- it seemed to have some sort of system for them to beg. This absolutely broke my heart. While waiting for the other girls one night myself and Lauren (another PCV) bought two little boys hot dogs at a gas station like store. They were 9 and 11 years old and even though they have an entire system for this kind of thing, the fact that they have to work at 9 and 11 was more than i could take. Its sometimes really hard for me because I know that I am only experiencing a glimpse of what it is like to live in poverty and I can pack my bags and go home whenever I want, but it seems so embedded in their system that I don't know why a solution can be......
We made the long 12 hour trip home the following day, stopping back in HueHue and finally making it home to Tecpan yesterday. I was glad to be home. This trip was definitely the trip i needed to jump start me back for the next couple of months until school starts back but it definitely wasn't relaxing! haha. This next week I am headed to the office in Santa Lucia for some spanish classes and then we have our first meeting with Hug it Forward (the bottle-school project) to hopefully start the process to build a classroom out of plastic bottles for one of our schools! I am also starting some secondary projects that I am hoping to help integrate me more into the community for my last full year here! I cannot believe that this time next weekend we will be starting Oct! man how the times fly down here!
Anywho until next time....
Kata
Well this past week has been spent on a much need vacation to a little pueblo in Mexico called San Cristobal de Las Casas. San Cristobal is a very charming spanish influenced town that has a lot of amazing food and touristy stores. It reminded me a lot of Antigua, except that the streets aren't cobble stone and easier to walk down, but it was a lot cleaner and the locals were a lot more respectful to the tourist. It took us about 7 hours to get there from my friend's site in HueHuetenango (pronounced WAY-WAYtenango) and immediately we went for Mexican beer and tacos! the tortillas instead of being corn were made of flour and were delicious! We thought we would be lucky and get to drink cheap Coronas the entire time, but they must be made closer to the American Border, so we settled for XX, which in my opinion is actually better!
After exploring the town a little bit, we decided to do a day exercusion to the ruins in Palenque, little did we know this 12 hour outing would turn into an almost 24 hour outing! We left bright and early at 6 am and headed to a river called aguas azules, normally the water is suppose to be the color of Samuc Chempay, a turquoise blue that people can swim in, but because of recent flooding the river along with all the walk ways was covered with brown, extremely fast flowing water! It was wild to see! the water fall looked gigantic! It was amazing to me how much damage water can do, it definitely seemed like it had a mind of its own. There were a lot of little restaurants and taco stands that normally would be on the river bank, but the floors were covered by the water. It was wild! The next stop we had was at another waterfall, this one was a lot more tame and just fell like most waterfalls do, they had made a path behind the waterfall though which was really really neat, but you came out completely soaked! And finally our last stop with the ruins at Palenque. Palenque was also a Mayan city, used more for the burial of kinds and worship of the different Gods. They, like Copan, Honduras, had the court where the Mayan men had to knock a ball off their hips and elbows into these basket-like things, kind of a mix between soccer and basketball. The temples were amazing, we were able to climb up some of them which was really neat and walk around inside of them. The stairs at the temples are really skinny and high so that you have to look down when you are walking up them. The Mayan's purposefully did this because they wanted anyone approaching either the Mayan king or temple with a bowed head. Which I thought was really neat. They were not as artistic as the Mayans in Copan, Honduras, but had some carvings to depict different stories. There was one of the Snake god dancing and smoking cigars, which I thought was funny! It was definitely the best part of the tour for me!
So we all climb back into the micro (but we all had our own seats and it was airconditioned...BIG STEP UP from Guatemala!) and start the 4 hour trip home. About an hour and a half in we come to what looks like a traffic jam. The driver tells us its a protest and we might have to sit tight for a little bit. The other passengers all of which are Mexican start to look really worried and ask if there is no other way to go (which there isn't) but the 5 of us are cool- Guatemalans block roads all the time, but always (it literally never fails) they will pack up around 7 pm and go home for dinner. Being that it was 6:30 pm at this point we figured we would be sitting max. 30- 1 hour. WRONG! our driver informs us that it should end around 8 pm. 8 pm comes and goes, now the end time is 11 pm. At this point we are all getting a little ansy and a little grumpy. 11 pm comes and goes, and the driver informs us the earliest we will get through the blockade is 6 am but more than likely it will not be until 8:30 am. Non of us are happy at this point; we had already bought and paid for another tour of a canyon for the morning and it looked at that point we would miss it, and if we didn't miss it be waaaayyy too tired to enjoy it. so we all try to fall asleep and stay positive that maybe we can get through earlier. Around 1:30 am the driver starts up the engine because the protesters have agreed to open the highway for an hour. They meant business. When we were passing through I saw at least 25 dump trucks that had been moved off the road, that were used for blocking ( in Guatemala, the most people do is put rocks in the way and then stand on the rocks). We ended up getting home around 4 am and did not make our next tour, instead we spent the day doing some shopping and resting. I am so glad we got through when we did because the negotiators were not able to reach an agreement until 9 am the next morning!
A couple of things that I noticed to be different between Guatemala and Mexico. For one it is obvious that the country of Mexico has more money. The highways were clean, paved roads and even the public transportation had a schedule in which you needed to buy a ticket in order to use. The towns all seemed to have actual trash systems and there was no trace of trash being burnt because you could not smell it (like you can on pretty much any day in Guatemala). There was military throughout the state we were in because it was a border state and they all had nicer and newer guns than the Guatemalan Military. However it does seem that the wealth, although apparent by these small even unnoticable things to some, has a horrible trickle down effect and it seems to stop right before the poorest of the people in Mexico. Many of the towns we passed on the way to Palenque were much like what you would find anywhere in Guatemala and there was a lot of street kids that were made to sell items such as gum, cigarettes, and other candy. Most were not more than 5 to 7 years old. They actually reminded me a lot of the begger children in slum dog millionaire- it seemed to have some sort of system for them to beg. This absolutely broke my heart. While waiting for the other girls one night myself and Lauren (another PCV) bought two little boys hot dogs at a gas station like store. They were 9 and 11 years old and even though they have an entire system for this kind of thing, the fact that they have to work at 9 and 11 was more than i could take. Its sometimes really hard for me because I know that I am only experiencing a glimpse of what it is like to live in poverty and I can pack my bags and go home whenever I want, but it seems so embedded in their system that I don't know why a solution can be......
We made the long 12 hour trip home the following day, stopping back in HueHue and finally making it home to Tecpan yesterday. I was glad to be home. This trip was definitely the trip i needed to jump start me back for the next couple of months until school starts back but it definitely wasn't relaxing! haha. This next week I am headed to the office in Santa Lucia for some spanish classes and then we have our first meeting with Hug it Forward (the bottle-school project) to hopefully start the process to build a classroom out of plastic bottles for one of our schools! I am also starting some secondary projects that I am hoping to help integrate me more into the community for my last full year here! I cannot believe that this time next weekend we will be starting Oct! man how the times fly down here!
Anywho until next time....
Kata
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY....(or in Guatemala) WEEK!
Hello Everyone!
Well besides the first of two elections coming and going this past weekend, things have been pretty tranquilo here in Tecpan. Peace Corps put us on a 3 day standfast for the weekend of the elections, this meant that we are not allowed to leave where we are- in most cases (unless you are on vacation) this means you cannot travel outside of your site. I took up residence at my sitemates apartment, where we baked, watched movies, made falafel, sweet potato black bean burritos, sandwiches (which sounds ordinary but are a commodity here in Guate!), and Barret's baked potato salad. Needless to say I gained about 3 pounds in the 3 day standfast! I guess I am just practicing for when I come home in November!
The election, at least in Tecpan, was pretty calm- besides the church that was trying to raise money through a loud speaker and bando music, overall it was pretty quiet! Most people came out to vote in their nicest clothes and brought the whole family along, it was very different from in the USA where you squeeze voting into your 30 min lunch break, people come from the villages outside of Tecpan to vote and want to feel proud to do so. We do have a new mayor in town, which I feel is what the majority wanted because there hasn't been any burning buildings or cars and the general feel of the town is a good one. I was talking with my host mom last night and she told me that their previous mayor had promised a lot but had done very little and was glad to see him go. The country still does not know the president. There will be a run off race between Perez and Baldizon on Nov. 6, the person who receives the highest percentage will be the new president. This is very controversal election because if elected (and it looks like this will happen) Perez wants to fight crime in the country with "mano dura" or firm hand. This was briefly tried in the early 2000s in El Salvador to fight the drug cartels and gangs, but ultimately failed and caused more human rights abuses than anything else. So the international community is a little worried about Perez being elected not only because of that but also because he was a high level military official during the internal conflict that lasted close to 36 years in Guatemala and many have blamed him for some of the biggest massacres against the mayan people during that time. Unfortunately it seems that it Guatemala will be stuck in its present situation a while longer. But this is a democracy and the people will choose who they think can represent their needs the quickest and most efficient and they seem to believe that mano dura is the way to do this.
So the next election will be Nov. 6th. Peace Corps is already predicting another standfast for this so it should be another fun weekend with my sitemates! But this week is also an exciting week because it is Guatemala's independence from Spain! Which means on every street corner in Tecpan there are taco stands, people are selling Guatemalan flags for insanely low prices, fireworks are being lit in every street, and people in general are feeling a sense of community! But unlike the USA the celebrations go on for about a week and a half which means no school and no work for healthy school volunteers, but we are finding other things to fill our time. I have started to dog-sit for a woman that owns an NGO that I am trying to also work with. There are huge celebrations all over the country, the biggest are in Xela, so my sitemates and I are going there for the weekend to see the huge ferris wheel and catch up with some other volunteers and then next week we are headed to MEXICO! for a much needed vacation!
well that is about all that is going on here, watch out for next week- hopefully i will have some humorous story about mexico!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
the weeks begin and the weekends
Here we are again (estamos aqui ultravez), another week down in the glorious Guatemala. Things seemed to have calmed down since last Tuesdays excitement, when a police officer, off-duty and "supposedly" on drugs shot a taxi driver 7 times, and the town's response to the incident was to burn the police station down, resulting in the police leaving Tecpan. NOT TO WORRY> i was safely in my home and didn't find out about the unrest until the following day when everyone was going about their usual daily business. Unfortunately this is a reality in Guatemala because the police and government are so corrupt that many times the people feel that they must take matters into their own hands so that they can see the results that they feel are necessary. There has been no retaliation or return of the police since the incident and Peace Corps is keeping a good eye on the situation, ready to pull us 3 tecpan volunteers out of the site if necessary, but I honestly do not think it will be necessary!
Otherwise I went to PDM (Project Design Management) last Wednesday-Friday with one of my fellow teachers at a school that we are hoping to give a water project to. It was very informative and my counterpart really seemed to enjoy himself and learning about how to approach asking for funds and executing plans for infrastructure projects. I was able to stay with one of the girls i got very close to during training which is always fun and we were able to talk about future projects and maybe trying to do a GLOW camp (GLOW camp is a worldwide peace corps initiative that focuses on empowering girls to go out and approach their dreams). So hopefully with school ending we will be able to do one of those in December.
After that it was back to site. I started an exercise program called "Insanity" and very quickly quit it. It just wasn't for me, so I am back to trying to run around town, I have found some dirt roads that get less motor traffic so it is easier to breath.
We have finally finished our surveys of all the progress within our schools and are taking it easier this month because of the election (no school for the friday and monday before and after the election day on Sept. 11) and the Guatemalan Independence day on the 15th which also means there will be no school the week of the 15th. But we are going to enjoy this time by traveling to San Cristobal de las Casa in Mexico for a couple of days and I have about a week of spanish class to keep me busy the last week of sept. SO no worries, I am sure between the elections and the 15th there will be plenty of stories to tell!
Hasta proxima ves!
Otherwise I went to PDM (Project Design Management) last Wednesday-Friday with one of my fellow teachers at a school that we are hoping to give a water project to. It was very informative and my counterpart really seemed to enjoy himself and learning about how to approach asking for funds and executing plans for infrastructure projects. I was able to stay with one of the girls i got very close to during training which is always fun and we were able to talk about future projects and maybe trying to do a GLOW camp (GLOW camp is a worldwide peace corps initiative that focuses on empowering girls to go out and approach their dreams). So hopefully with school ending we will be able to do one of those in December.
After that it was back to site. I started an exercise program called "Insanity" and very quickly quit it. It just wasn't for me, so I am back to trying to run around town, I have found some dirt roads that get less motor traffic so it is easier to breath.
We have finally finished our surveys of all the progress within our schools and are taking it easier this month because of the election (no school for the friday and monday before and after the election day on Sept. 11) and the Guatemalan Independence day on the 15th which also means there will be no school the week of the 15th. But we are going to enjoy this time by traveling to San Cristobal de las Casa in Mexico for a couple of days and I have about a week of spanish class to keep me busy the last week of sept. SO no worries, I am sure between the elections and the 15th there will be plenty of stories to tell!
Hasta proxima ves!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Somewhere only we go....
Sorry again for the pauses in between post, I need to get back into the swing of blogging each week! Things have been going very well for the past couple of weeks in Tecpan. I am finally settling into life here, which has been quite a change from the toasty San Miguel. So far we have been able to visit the majority of our schools and do the surveys to see the progress each school has been making in the program over the past year. This has been very rewarding because I am FINALLY able to see what this program can do (in some schools) over a longer period of time than what Maggie and I had in San Miguel. I am enjoying my sitemates, Lauren and Betty. immensely we spend many dinners together either creating new and delicious creation or making old classics with what we can find in the market. Last week Betty and I made Black Bean,Sweet Potato burritos with pico de gillo- DELISH! Lauren and I have tried to start a Thursday night tradition where we cook something yummy, do yoga, and drink some wine. We have coined the evening Eat. Pray. Wine. Night, however because of conferences and meeting we all have a different times with Peace Corps, we have had to miss a couple of thursdays. But its nights like Eat. Pray. Wine. Thursdays and over indulgent Tuesdays that help the weeks pass quicker and make working much more fun.
I have switched around my living situation a little bit, I am now renting 2 rooms- so that I can have my kitchen in an actual room and not in the hallway that everyone and their mothers pass through on a daily basis- this makes things feel a little more at home, however I do think I am going to continue to look for another apartment that is a little bit more private- I know it seems silly, but it is the little things like having your own space down here that make life much more enjoyable.
I have discovered a coffee place in my town that serves REAL coffee, not that instant crap! it only opens from 3pm-9 pm so it makes a nice late afternoon treat!
Otherwise it is just the day to day living that I get to do in Guate. The second half of this week I get to go to a conference about project design and management which should be very interesting! it is being held in Xela so I am excited to spend some time with my friends that live around that area! I will definitely update next week- i am sure something hilarious/interesting will happen!
MISS YOU ALL until next time :)
I have switched around my living situation a little bit, I am now renting 2 rooms- so that I can have my kitchen in an actual room and not in the hallway that everyone and their mothers pass through on a daily basis- this makes things feel a little more at home, however I do think I am going to continue to look for another apartment that is a little bit more private- I know it seems silly, but it is the little things like having your own space down here that make life much more enjoyable.
I have discovered a coffee place in my town that serves REAL coffee, not that instant crap! it only opens from 3pm-9 pm so it makes a nice late afternoon treat!
Otherwise it is just the day to day living that I get to do in Guate. The second half of this week I get to go to a conference about project design and management which should be very interesting! it is being held in Xela so I am excited to spend some time with my friends that live around that area! I will definitely update next week- i am sure something hilarious/interesting will happen!
MISS YOU ALL until next time :)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
what a crazy ride it has been....
Please excuse the long pause in between post, i know it has been close to two months since i have updated you all and for that i am sorry! Things of course have been nothing less than interesting here and I have been on the move for most of them.
For a quick recap:
May: finished up visiting my schools and settling into my apartment, there was a lot of fun goodbye parties in coban for the youth development volunteers that were leaving in the summer to return to the states. otherwise not too much to report for the end of may, just kind of adjusting to life as normal, trying to improve my spanish, things like that.
June: this is the very fun and interesting month. There had been a growing presence of military in my site, doing patrols and other things like this, so I had called Peace Corps to let them know and to see if this was normal. This resulted in a site visit from my APCD (or head of my program healthy schools) to check out security issues within and around my site, as well as get an update from my counterpart about the progress of healthy schools in San Miguel. The site visit was suppose to take at least 5 hours, but after a quick meeting with mine and maggie's counter part, Dr. Mack decided to pull us from site because of security reasons. We were given the next day to pack everything up and find another volunteer to stay with until a new site/situation could be made possible. I headed down to the department of Chemaltenango to stay with one of my good friend, Lauren Wert. It was a very nice slow week before my parents came for their trip, and it gave me a chance to see what can be done with healthy schools over a period of time (both she and her site mate swore in a year before me and replaced a volunteer that worked in a different phase of healthy schools for a couple of years). By the end of the week, we three emailed Dr. Mack and asked if i could be a permanent addition to their site and take over when they COS next march. I think Dr. Mack was relieved of this idea because it meant he did not have to look into starting a whole new site for maggie and I. So my new home became Tecpan Guatemala, Chemaltenango (a couple of fun facts: tecpan is the first capital of guatemala so it is over 485 years old, there are ruins right outside of town that George Bush visited during his presidency and the mayan priest are still cleaning because of his "bad energry" and there is a gym, pizza place, laundry place <which my clothes are very thankful for!>, and grocery store, it has over 80,000 people in the municipality, and its very cold.)
I finished up June greeting mom and bob at the airport for their vacation down here. I had a wonderful time with them, eating really yummy food in Antigua and Lake Atitlan, climbing a volcano, and spending a day relaxing at earth lodge right outside of antigua. the week they spent here seemed to fly by and it was time for them to leave, but i was fortunate that the same day they left, my good friend from studying abroad in Estonia came!
July: Morgan was here for 10 days, in which case we went to the pacific coast (black sands and coconuts) made our way to atitlan after a VERY long day of traveling on chicken buses, and finished up back in antigua. I had to return to san miguel to move all of my stuff out of my apartment, pay rent, and say my goodbyes on the last day morgan was here, but she also climbed volcano pacaya and i think she had a good time! It was so great getting to share my home with Morgan, Mom, and Bob and I can't wait to have more visitors come!
I am sure you are thinking Katelyn then returned to her new cold home and started work, which she has been busy with every since? not quite. I actually had my reconnect conference with Peace Corps starting that sunday (Reconnect is the first of four conferences that peace corps host to check back in with the volunteers after going to sites and give more training for certain things. Reconnect lasted 2 days and was followed by either mayan or spanish language training. my next conference will be IST <in service training> in november.) Reconnect was a lot of fun because i got to see a lot of volunteers i swore in with and got me excited about returning to work and starting water project and secondary projects. I only stayed for the two days of the actual conference and then FINALLY returned to site and started working and unpacking.
I am living in a small room now with a very nice family, i do have my own bathroom, although my shower is still on the fritz (i know i shouldn't complain....i have a shower in peace corps, but cold showers in tecpan where the high each day is 65 degrees, well is just painful!) but i am working on getting that sorted out. So far I have been trying to settle into my life here, going to new schools, meeting the directors i will work with for the next couple of years, and starting planning for projects that my site mates want to do before they COS in march. Some of the ideas we have are a bottle school (yes!) world map and accrediting 3 of our 18 schools for completing the first stage of healthy schools! (yay!)
Although starting over in a new site is hard, actually it is a lot harder than i thought it would be...for the first time in 7 months i have been homesick! I am really thankful that i have the sitemates i do and this site. I feel that i will be able to accomplish something here, even if it is small and I am looking forward to the challenge.
No worries, it won't be 2 months before i post again, look out for one next week!
For a quick recap:
May: finished up visiting my schools and settling into my apartment, there was a lot of fun goodbye parties in coban for the youth development volunteers that were leaving in the summer to return to the states. otherwise not too much to report for the end of may, just kind of adjusting to life as normal, trying to improve my spanish, things like that.
June: this is the very fun and interesting month. There had been a growing presence of military in my site, doing patrols and other things like this, so I had called Peace Corps to let them know and to see if this was normal. This resulted in a site visit from my APCD (or head of my program healthy schools) to check out security issues within and around my site, as well as get an update from my counterpart about the progress of healthy schools in San Miguel. The site visit was suppose to take at least 5 hours, but after a quick meeting with mine and maggie's counter part, Dr. Mack decided to pull us from site because of security reasons. We were given the next day to pack everything up and find another volunteer to stay with until a new site/situation could be made possible. I headed down to the department of Chemaltenango to stay with one of my good friend, Lauren Wert. It was a very nice slow week before my parents came for their trip, and it gave me a chance to see what can be done with healthy schools over a period of time (both she and her site mate swore in a year before me and replaced a volunteer that worked in a different phase of healthy schools for a couple of years). By the end of the week, we three emailed Dr. Mack and asked if i could be a permanent addition to their site and take over when they COS next march. I think Dr. Mack was relieved of this idea because it meant he did not have to look into starting a whole new site for maggie and I. So my new home became Tecpan Guatemala, Chemaltenango (a couple of fun facts: tecpan is the first capital of guatemala so it is over 485 years old, there are ruins right outside of town that George Bush visited during his presidency and the mayan priest are still cleaning because of his "bad energry" and there is a gym, pizza place, laundry place <which my clothes are very thankful for!>, and grocery store, it has over 80,000 people in the municipality, and its very cold.)
I finished up June greeting mom and bob at the airport for their vacation down here. I had a wonderful time with them, eating really yummy food in Antigua and Lake Atitlan, climbing a volcano, and spending a day relaxing at earth lodge right outside of antigua. the week they spent here seemed to fly by and it was time for them to leave, but i was fortunate that the same day they left, my good friend from studying abroad in Estonia came!
July: Morgan was here for 10 days, in which case we went to the pacific coast (black sands and coconuts) made our way to atitlan after a VERY long day of traveling on chicken buses, and finished up back in antigua. I had to return to san miguel to move all of my stuff out of my apartment, pay rent, and say my goodbyes on the last day morgan was here, but she also climbed volcano pacaya and i think she had a good time! It was so great getting to share my home with Morgan, Mom, and Bob and I can't wait to have more visitors come!
I am sure you are thinking Katelyn then returned to her new cold home and started work, which she has been busy with every since? not quite. I actually had my reconnect conference with Peace Corps starting that sunday (Reconnect is the first of four conferences that peace corps host to check back in with the volunteers after going to sites and give more training for certain things. Reconnect lasted 2 days and was followed by either mayan or spanish language training. my next conference will be IST <in service training> in november.) Reconnect was a lot of fun because i got to see a lot of volunteers i swore in with and got me excited about returning to work and starting water project and secondary projects. I only stayed for the two days of the actual conference and then FINALLY returned to site and started working and unpacking.
I am living in a small room now with a very nice family, i do have my own bathroom, although my shower is still on the fritz (i know i shouldn't complain....i have a shower in peace corps, but cold showers in tecpan where the high each day is 65 degrees, well is just painful!) but i am working on getting that sorted out. So far I have been trying to settle into my life here, going to new schools, meeting the directors i will work with for the next couple of years, and starting planning for projects that my site mates want to do before they COS in march. Some of the ideas we have are a bottle school (yes!) world map and accrediting 3 of our 18 schools for completing the first stage of healthy schools! (yay!)
Although starting over in a new site is hard, actually it is a lot harder than i thought it would be...for the first time in 7 months i have been homesick! I am really thankful that i have the sitemates i do and this site. I feel that i will be able to accomplish something here, even if it is small and I am looking forward to the challenge.
No worries, it won't be 2 months before i post again, look out for one next week!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Verapaz
I thought it would appropriate to talk about the name of my department in this blog. Verapaz loosely translates into "True Peace". Something that many of us may not ever find on this planet, but is important none the less. I feel like being here, even though it has only been for a month, has begun to teach me a lesson that will probably be my hardest lesson here. Finding true peace. Not only in my day to day life and inside, but true peace with those around me. My life has slowed down since moving here to something that would have driven me absolutely crazy back in the states and sent me into a frenzy on the internet trying to find something more. Something else I could be involved in. I will not lie and say that I haven't gone into that frenzy here, but as each day passes I am finding more and more peace within myself to just be. Just be here in this community at this time with these people and REALLY learn something. Learn something about a new culture, learn something about myself. Its amazing the things that can come up in conversations with people in town. The connections that I can have. for example I bought a dining room table last week (and when I say dinning room table I really mean a small table that is now pushed up against the wall in the room that I have Dubbed as my kitchen) and was struggling to get it back to my apartment, well two guys in my town on their break for lunch threw my table in the back of the truck and took me the last block and a half to my home. While driving i was talking to the young guy and found out that he had just returned from Gastonia, NC. Working in construction. We talked a little about sonic and walmart and then it was time for me to carry my table up my stairs. But it was so nice knowing someone who sorta knew where my home was!
The more time I spend with my host family is also time that i end up feel fulfilled. Just learning about their lives before I became a part of it and learning about their families has opened my eyes to so much more. My host mom struggled to put herself through school against her parents wishes. She slept on the floor of a room, which she shared with two other girls, cleaned in the afternoons, and worked in as many on the side jobs as possible. She and her husband still have this mentality working incredibly hard so that their two oldest children can attend private schools in Coban and Salama. They are saving now so that their son can go to medical school in Cuba in a couple of years, but are always generously buying my mangos, bananas, and cokes during our talks.
This "true peace" is something I know I will carry on after my time in Peace Corps comes to an end. I am beginning to accept that my life will not be the fast pace go.go.go. that it was in college and even last fall as I waited to leave for this adventure. But I am coming to peace that I now have the time to learn how to make paper cranes, help with the local english lessons that a north american evangelical lady does every wednesday, and learn achi (the local mayan language). I am finding that now when I slow down I can actually see the beauty around me. I saw a bright blue and yellow parrot on the way to some of my schools this morning. I know that this is something I will struggle with week to week, but I hope that I can remember what this place is giving me day to day.
Until next time....
The more time I spend with my host family is also time that i end up feel fulfilled. Just learning about their lives before I became a part of it and learning about their families has opened my eyes to so much more. My host mom struggled to put herself through school against her parents wishes. She slept on the floor of a room, which she shared with two other girls, cleaned in the afternoons, and worked in as many on the side jobs as possible. She and her husband still have this mentality working incredibly hard so that their two oldest children can attend private schools in Coban and Salama. They are saving now so that their son can go to medical school in Cuba in a couple of years, but are always generously buying my mangos, bananas, and cokes during our talks.
This "true peace" is something I know I will carry on after my time in Peace Corps comes to an end. I am beginning to accept that my life will not be the fast pace go.go.go. that it was in college and even last fall as I waited to leave for this adventure. But I am coming to peace that I now have the time to learn how to make paper cranes, help with the local english lessons that a north american evangelical lady does every wednesday, and learn achi (the local mayan language). I am finding that now when I slow down I can actually see the beauty around me. I saw a bright blue and yellow parrot on the way to some of my schools this morning. I know that this is something I will struggle with week to week, but I hope that I can remember what this place is giving me day to day.
Until next time....
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Pools and zoos
So this week has definitely not been as exciting as my last couple, what i mean is, there have been no scorpions in my sink or stitches put into my thumb. It has however given me a peak into what my primary job will be here in Baja Verapaz. Maggie and I have officially split up our schools and both of us have started our base line surveys. Base line surveys are pretty much a survey that asks the director questions about water infrastructure, the health habits of the students, and how often health lessons are preformed in each of the classrooms each week. It is suppose to get the director of each school thinking about his or her part in the process to be certified as a healthy school. So far I have been able to complete four of my BLS and meet with the directors to talk about our plan of action. I have also been giving some serious thought into teaching English in my community. It is something that a lot of the families have asked us about and I would love to be able to give my community something that they really wanted and needed rather than something I think would be best for them.
On our free days this past weekend Maggie and I ventured out to Salama to go to one of the pools, when we returned later than afternoon, Maggie's host family asked her why we always go to Salama to go to the pools, don't we know that there is one in our town? We, of course, had no idea. Maggie went to it on Sunday and was delighted to share that there not only was a pool but a zoo in our town!!! Our zoo has a female lion, a deer, Ostrages, pigs, monkeys, and a small alligator! but ever since i found this out i can't help but having dreams of a lion in my shower or an alligator on my porch! haha!
We also started Achi lessons today. Achi is one of the many different Mayan languages of Guatemala and is very very difficult to learn! there are not many words similar between achi and spanish and for this I am very thankful (I know I won't get them mixed up!). There are sounds in achi that can only be made deep in your throat or at the back of your throat, which as english speakers we never ever use. As I am typing this my throat feels scratchy and sore! We are going to start taking lessons every Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours. Why? you may ask...We both feel that it is an important part to working with the parents at the schools within our indigenous communities, we are hoping that this will make them feel more at ease knowing that we are trying to learn their language and share in their unique culture!
Tomorrow I am off to another school, but this time it is to participate in a School Health fair. Each of the classrooms at my school will have some sort of health project set up in them, everything from HIV/AIDS prevention to hand washing stations to brushing teeth. I am excited to see this school in action and get to spend some time with the kids. I am still having a hard time adjusting to the slowness of life here, but find that these sorts of activities remind me of why I joined PC in the first place!
I am sure many of you saw the news of the massacre that occurred in El Peten early this week. I want everyone to know that I am perfectly safe in Baja Verapaz and that Peace Corps is already looking into the situation to see how closely it will effect either of the Verapaz's volunteers. I ask that you all take into your thoughts the family members of those who have died and the people of El Peten, who will suffer more from this state of siege than most of the drug cartels in Mexico.
I will continue to update you as the events unfold!
Have a lovely week everyone! i miss you all a bunch!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
2 stitches
Buenos Dias!
so it has been another leisurely week and a half in baja verapaz! From where i left off last week, Maggie and I hosted a Cinco de Mayo get together on thursday having two of our fellow volunteers come to San Miguel Chicaj and eat nachos, watch movies, and catch up on everything that has been happening. In the process of cooking some homemade pineapple salsa, i cut my thumb, but didn't think anything about it until later that night when Michael (one of the other volunteers) informed me that i should probably get it stitched up- it was a much bigger cut than i thought! So the next morning I called our PC medical office and was told that i needed to get to a hospital asap because cuts cannot be stitched up after 24 hours. This was a little difficult because we were in route to a school in a car borrowed from the muni. I turned to my counterpart and told him about the situation and that we needed to change plans for the day, he felt otherwise because we were already at our first school (Las Minas, a very isolated, but gorgeous school with views of the surrounding mountains), I made our healthy schools presentation and we promptly left so that I could find some sort of health center with a doctor. We ended up at a Puesto de Salud ( these are "health post" in the aldeas of munis) The doctor agreed that i needed two stitches and that he could do it there. This is when the fun began, my counterpart not wanting to leave me alone, decided he should sit in on the whole ordeal and got to witness me getting the numbing shots(the worst pain in my life, i literally screamed) have the stitches sewn in, and then because i hadn't eaten or really drunk anything all morning, faint. Yep. I fainted. only for a second, but it was embarrassing enough. when i finally got my barrings, i start cracking up because this is quite possibly the most ridiculous moment i have had in Guatemala and maybe in my whole life. My laughing only confused my counterpart more! So needless to say, we got a lot closer that morning!
This past weekend was the welcome party for the Verapazes. We got to meet all the volunteers in the area and learn more about the area around Coban (the capital of Alta Verapaz). Our party was at a eco-lodge that had a zipline, indoor and outdoor pool, and a place for a fire. All of the volunteers seemed really nice and I look forward to getting to know them all better. Some of them are COSing by the end of this year which is sad, but its nice to have people to talk to about these first three months and getting started in site! They had a lot of great advise, like looking outside our counterpart for other people in the community that could be resources. I took this advice and made an appointment with our women's group in town. Maggie and I will get to have a proper introduction and do a charla on nutrition by the end of May. The woman in charge seemed super interested and wanted to help us in anyway possible!
We were able to visit 3 more schools this week, which leaves us with only 2 left to visit. The schools we visited were actually in Alta Verapaz and were very remote! All of the teachers go up on mondays and come home on thursdays. Each of the three schools has dormitory like places for the teachers to stay. So it looks like Maggie and I will probably go up every couple of months for a week and either stay in the closest town or find someone in the community to stay with. These schools were in such a beautiful location though! Guatemala is always amazing me! in the west there is ice and snow, in my site it is slowly being transformed from a desert into the tropics as the rainy season is starting, and the location of these schools looked like we were back in north carolina with pine trees and green rolling hills, and if you go one more hour north, you are in the rain forest! absolutely loco! one of the schools in this location will be a perfect school for a bottle project that maggie and i can work on when the kids are on winter vacation (october- jan). which is something that we need to start getting to work on now because we need lots of bottles stuffed with plastic! haha, if you guys are interested in helping us with this project please visit this website: http://www.hugitforward.com/ it is an awesome way to get involved and all you have to do is spread hugs!
Maggie and I were going to start doing our Base Line Surveys this week, but were informed this morning that because of the celebration of mother's day on May 10th, the schools would not be having actual classes, but rather doing games and eating cake all week. So we are going to have to wait until next week, but it seems like we will be able to get these BLS done quickly and can start doing the trainings for the teachers by june (hopefully)! i am really excited to get all this together, i think tomorrow i am going to start making my training posters and visual aids. Friday i get to get my stitches out, which i am very happy about because its hard only having one thumb! haha
More adventures to come!
so it has been another leisurely week and a half in baja verapaz! From where i left off last week, Maggie and I hosted a Cinco de Mayo get together on thursday having two of our fellow volunteers come to San Miguel Chicaj and eat nachos, watch movies, and catch up on everything that has been happening. In the process of cooking some homemade pineapple salsa, i cut my thumb, but didn't think anything about it until later that night when Michael (one of the other volunteers) informed me that i should probably get it stitched up- it was a much bigger cut than i thought! So the next morning I called our PC medical office and was told that i needed to get to a hospital asap because cuts cannot be stitched up after 24 hours. This was a little difficult because we were in route to a school in a car borrowed from the muni. I turned to my counterpart and told him about the situation and that we needed to change plans for the day, he felt otherwise because we were already at our first school (Las Minas, a very isolated, but gorgeous school with views of the surrounding mountains), I made our healthy schools presentation and we promptly left so that I could find some sort of health center with a doctor. We ended up at a Puesto de Salud ( these are "health post" in the aldeas of munis) The doctor agreed that i needed two stitches and that he could do it there. This is when the fun began, my counterpart not wanting to leave me alone, decided he should sit in on the whole ordeal and got to witness me getting the numbing shots(the worst pain in my life, i literally screamed) have the stitches sewn in, and then because i hadn't eaten or really drunk anything all morning, faint. Yep. I fainted. only for a second, but it was embarrassing enough. when i finally got my barrings, i start cracking up because this is quite possibly the most ridiculous moment i have had in Guatemala and maybe in my whole life. My laughing only confused my counterpart more! So needless to say, we got a lot closer that morning!
This past weekend was the welcome party for the Verapazes. We got to meet all the volunteers in the area and learn more about the area around Coban (the capital of Alta Verapaz). Our party was at a eco-lodge that had a zipline, indoor and outdoor pool, and a place for a fire. All of the volunteers seemed really nice and I look forward to getting to know them all better. Some of them are COSing by the end of this year which is sad, but its nice to have people to talk to about these first three months and getting started in site! They had a lot of great advise, like looking outside our counterpart for other people in the community that could be resources. I took this advice and made an appointment with our women's group in town. Maggie and I will get to have a proper introduction and do a charla on nutrition by the end of May. The woman in charge seemed super interested and wanted to help us in anyway possible!
We were able to visit 3 more schools this week, which leaves us with only 2 left to visit. The schools we visited were actually in Alta Verapaz and were very remote! All of the teachers go up on mondays and come home on thursdays. Each of the three schools has dormitory like places for the teachers to stay. So it looks like Maggie and I will probably go up every couple of months for a week and either stay in the closest town or find someone in the community to stay with. These schools were in such a beautiful location though! Guatemala is always amazing me! in the west there is ice and snow, in my site it is slowly being transformed from a desert into the tropics as the rainy season is starting, and the location of these schools looked like we were back in north carolina with pine trees and green rolling hills, and if you go one more hour north, you are in the rain forest! absolutely loco! one of the schools in this location will be a perfect school for a bottle project that maggie and i can work on when the kids are on winter vacation (october- jan). which is something that we need to start getting to work on now because we need lots of bottles stuffed with plastic! haha, if you guys are interested in helping us with this project please visit this website: http://www.hugitforward.com/ it is an awesome way to get involved and all you have to do is spread hugs!
Maggie and I were going to start doing our Base Line Surveys this week, but were informed this morning that because of the celebration of mother's day on May 10th, the schools would not be having actual classes, but rather doing games and eating cake all week. So we are going to have to wait until next week, but it seems like we will be able to get these BLS done quickly and can start doing the trainings for the teachers by june (hopefully)! i am really excited to get all this together, i think tomorrow i am going to start making my training posters and visual aids. Friday i get to get my stitches out, which i am very happy about because its hard only having one thumb! haha
More adventures to come!
Monday, May 2, 2011
The week ends, the week begins....
Hello Everyone!
It has been another very interesting week in the verapazes. definitely an emotional one! After returning from Semuc Champey, I found out that my potential living situation was not going to work out because the Doña of the house couldn't afford to put doors on the bathrooms because her father was very sick. This came as a shock and left me feeling very confused and down! but after battling it out with Peace Corps throughout the week, I was able to find a much better situation with another family, so now I am the proud renter of an apartment above an incredibly nice family! And the apartment is absolutely beautiful! i am constantly asking myself, how did i end up here? this is just too nice! I feel incredibly blessed and lucky! thanks to all of you that sent out good vibes last week! they definitely worked!
We started visiting schools last week and were happy to find that about 13 of our 14 schools are on the same road and some of them are even in the same school area! which is going to make working with these schools much easier than we orginally had thought! Most of the schools seemed really receptive, which is also a good sign, I am sure when we actually start trying to do training of teachers and charlas with the Padres and Madres de la Familia (the PTA of sorts) we will probably hit some road bumps, but for now things seem to be going smoothly! In fact today I went to a Padres de la Familia meeting to introduce the program and myself and had to talk in spanish in front of 150 people! they all encouraged me on as a stumbled through what I wanted to say! I feel very comfortable speaking in spanish now, but in front of 150 fluent speakers, the task because very daunting! But they all seemed very excited about their part in the project as well, even after i told them, I had no money to fund any of the infrastructure projects that we have to do in the next two years! haha
Big Excitement of last week though was.....in my second to last day in the hotel, I woke up early to visit schools, took my normal cold shower and started brushing my teeth. I have had an infestation of flying ants (seriously the size of a penny) living in my sink since the day i moved in and have learned how to coexist with them. So as I am brushing my teeth, i see them running around the edges and go to spit my toothpaste into the sink....Bad idea. The next thing i see are these pincher like things coming out of the drain...and i am thinking (half asleep) that doesn't look like an ant. Next thing i know a SCORPION is crawling out of the drain, tail ready to strike ( i am guessing he didn't like being spit on?) Picture this: me with toothpaste all over my mouth, hair in towel, tooth brush in hand, Jumping around like a crazying person and squealing "what do i do...what do i do?" Luckily the maintence guy at the hotel heard the commotion and came running into my room where he informed me that the scorpion was very dangerous and then proceeded to stab it with a very short stick, scoop it out of my sink , and stomp it in one fluid motion. I am telling you the guatemalan's do not mess around here!
I learned that the spanish word for scorpion is Alacran, something i feel like i should know for the coming years!
this week it is more school visits, these are the ones that are very far away (3 hours in a car) so it should be very interesting! until next time.....
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Semuc Champey...welcome to the real jungle!
So this past week was easter break here in Guatemala, which meant there was no school (again). So my site mate, two other PCV's that live about an hour N.E. of us, and myself decided we would take an adventure into Alta Verapaz to a place called Semuc Champey. It is about 2 hours north of Coban (the capital of Alta) because about an hour outside of coban the road turns to gravel and winds down into the valley below. We took a micro that had assigned seats, but if you know anything about the micros in latin america that does not mean it will be comfortable! there were 5 of us crammed into the very back seat for the 2 hour ride, the whole time the micro is getting fuller and fuller of people and i just keep thinking to myself...how are we going to get out of here? really? well we ended up climbing out the back window! haha it was crazy!
The Hostel we stayed at was soooo cool! its called El Retiro and if you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it! (it does draw a young crown though) they put a lot of time into decorating the place and the bathrooms have all this mosaic tile and paintings all over them, even the sinks are decorated! the food there was ah-mazing! each night they do a themed buffet and after recently switching over to the veggie side of life, i was a little apprehensive of the fact that i had to pay Q45 a night (which is a lot on a pcv's salary!) but wow, there was so much delicious veggies and sides, i think i had the equivalent of a thanksgiving dinner every night!
Thursday we went to the Semuc Champey pools, which are these natural formed pools over a limestone land bridge. Because of the limestone the water in these pools are turquoise blue and are absolutely breath taking. we decided to do the hike to the top of a mountain so you can see the overview of all the pools first. The sign said it was difficult, but good lord, i think that might have been the hardest hike i have done in a while. it was straight up the mountain and it was so slippery because of all the wet leaves from the rain forest. it felt like it took forever to get to the top, but the view was so breathtakingly beautiful, the pools looked like they were glowing! i have honestly never seen anything like it! when we came back down (which also took a long time, there were a lot of steps, that were definitely made for a 6 foot man! my legs were so sore hahaha!) Natalie (the PCV that lives about an hour away from me in baja) and i found a pool with a lot of waterfalls and not many people and it was so peaceful. there was so much natural noise there, it felt really cool to be connected to it all! Everything was just so peaceful! After that we went to a rope swing, we all thought it was going to be something you held onto and jumped into the river with, but we were all wrong! it was an actual swing that you sat on and then jumped off of when it was at the height of its swing! i didn't want to pay Q10 to do it, so i had the responsibility of taking pictures and cheering people on! Everything was going great until natalie's second jump, she jumped off wrong and ended up flopping on her side. She had a hard time getting out of the river, which was really scary, and is now sporting a huge bruise that goes all the way from her shoulder to her knee! talk about extreme sports!
Friday we decided to see some of the caves in the region. from the description in a brochure and lonely planet, we would be going on a "candle lit tour, with a professionally trained tour guide". In my mind i thought we would be walking through big caverns, that had candles places strategically throughout so that one could see all the neat parts of the cave. well i thought wrong. The "candle lit" part of the tour was a thin candle that the guide lit before entering the cave. there were no flashlights, there were no other candles. we ended up on a tour with a rather large guatemalan family and we were all equally surprised to find that instead of walking along pathways, we were swimming through a river under ground. after the first slippery ladder i climb i was already thinking, this is more than i bargained for! but we pressed on and the cave was actually really neat, i wish i could have seen more of it, but it was a cool experience. well, we get to the end of the tour where you can jump off a ledge into the water. the family all wants to do it, so we wait for them, meanwhile our candles are starting to burn lower and lower. One of the women from the family starts saying that we need to keep walking to get to the exit, but our guide keeps telling her that the only exit of the cave was the one we entered through. she continued to argue with him because she wanted to see more of the caves, but there was no way that we could continue on because all of our candles were about to go out. at this point i am on the verge of a panic attack, natalie who grew up with a colombian family and is fluent in spanish is trying to take charge of the situation. finally after what seemed to be 30 min. the family finally agreed that we should turn back and get out of the cave, it was ridiculous. we made it very quickly through the cave on the way out, what seemed to be like miles, turned out to only be 30 min. it was absolutely loco and not something i plan on repeating when i return!
that night we took it easy and went to bed early. this morning we caught a ride home with the shuttle and i am safe and sound back in my site, with some sort of stomach bug....i am hoping this turns out to be nothing because the coming week is going to be a busy one! the teachers have finally ended striking so we can start working on monday! which although having a month of vacation was incredibly nice, it will also be nice to start to get to know the people we will be working with and start forming more relationships in site. Also i get to move into my room on monday so i will finallllyyy be out of this hotel! the rains officially moved in today which puts moving time on a schedule, but i am excited non the less!
well that's all for now, i think i am going to drink some more gatorade and call it a night. tune in for more crazy guatemalan adventures!
The Hostel we stayed at was soooo cool! its called El Retiro and if you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it! (it does draw a young crown though) they put a lot of time into decorating the place and the bathrooms have all this mosaic tile and paintings all over them, even the sinks are decorated! the food there was ah-mazing! each night they do a themed buffet and after recently switching over to the veggie side of life, i was a little apprehensive of the fact that i had to pay Q45 a night (which is a lot on a pcv's salary!) but wow, there was so much delicious veggies and sides, i think i had the equivalent of a thanksgiving dinner every night!
Thursday we went to the Semuc Champey pools, which are these natural formed pools over a limestone land bridge. Because of the limestone the water in these pools are turquoise blue and are absolutely breath taking. we decided to do the hike to the top of a mountain so you can see the overview of all the pools first. The sign said it was difficult, but good lord, i think that might have been the hardest hike i have done in a while. it was straight up the mountain and it was so slippery because of all the wet leaves from the rain forest. it felt like it took forever to get to the top, but the view was so breathtakingly beautiful, the pools looked like they were glowing! i have honestly never seen anything like it! when we came back down (which also took a long time, there were a lot of steps, that were definitely made for a 6 foot man! my legs were so sore hahaha!) Natalie (the PCV that lives about an hour away from me in baja) and i found a pool with a lot of waterfalls and not many people and it was so peaceful. there was so much natural noise there, it felt really cool to be connected to it all! Everything was just so peaceful! After that we went to a rope swing, we all thought it was going to be something you held onto and jumped into the river with, but we were all wrong! it was an actual swing that you sat on and then jumped off of when it was at the height of its swing! i didn't want to pay Q10 to do it, so i had the responsibility of taking pictures and cheering people on! Everything was going great until natalie's second jump, she jumped off wrong and ended up flopping on her side. She had a hard time getting out of the river, which was really scary, and is now sporting a huge bruise that goes all the way from her shoulder to her knee! talk about extreme sports!
Friday we decided to see some of the caves in the region. from the description in a brochure and lonely planet, we would be going on a "candle lit tour, with a professionally trained tour guide". In my mind i thought we would be walking through big caverns, that had candles places strategically throughout so that one could see all the neat parts of the cave. well i thought wrong. The "candle lit" part of the tour was a thin candle that the guide lit before entering the cave. there were no flashlights, there were no other candles. we ended up on a tour with a rather large guatemalan family and we were all equally surprised to find that instead of walking along pathways, we were swimming through a river under ground. after the first slippery ladder i climb i was already thinking, this is more than i bargained for! but we pressed on and the cave was actually really neat, i wish i could have seen more of it, but it was a cool experience. well, we get to the end of the tour where you can jump off a ledge into the water. the family all wants to do it, so we wait for them, meanwhile our candles are starting to burn lower and lower. One of the women from the family starts saying that we need to keep walking to get to the exit, but our guide keeps telling her that the only exit of the cave was the one we entered through. she continued to argue with him because she wanted to see more of the caves, but there was no way that we could continue on because all of our candles were about to go out. at this point i am on the verge of a panic attack, natalie who grew up with a colombian family and is fluent in spanish is trying to take charge of the situation. finally after what seemed to be 30 min. the family finally agreed that we should turn back and get out of the cave, it was ridiculous. we made it very quickly through the cave on the way out, what seemed to be like miles, turned out to only be 30 min. it was absolutely loco and not something i plan on repeating when i return!
that night we took it easy and went to bed early. this morning we caught a ride home with the shuttle and i am safe and sound back in my site, with some sort of stomach bug....i am hoping this turns out to be nothing because the coming week is going to be a busy one! the teachers have finally ended striking so we can start working on monday! which although having a month of vacation was incredibly nice, it will also be nice to start to get to know the people we will be working with and start forming more relationships in site. Also i get to move into my room on monday so i will finallllyyy be out of this hotel! the rains officially moved in today which puts moving time on a schedule, but i am excited non the less!
well that's all for now, i think i am going to drink some more gatorade and call it a night. tune in for more crazy guatemalan adventures!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Hello Everyone!
Another week down in site and things are continuing to become more and more familiar. I do officially have a place to live but have to wait one more week so that my new host family can put doors on the bathroom and "shower"/ bucket bath area (i say "shower" loosely because we only have running water from 6-9 am every morning). The family seems very nice, it is a young woman that is a teacher, her daughter that is around 9 years old, and her father. I am very excited to get into my room and make it my own space. It is big enough for me to have my own stove and a full size bed so I am not complaining. I am trying to find a space to start a garden, but i may be getting ahead of myself!
I wish I could say this week was super eventful, but unfortunately the strike raged on. The teachers have a big list of demands and unfortunately all of them are about money in some way, which Guatemala unfortunately doesn't have. SO the strike will officially come to an end on Monday April 25 because at this point school will not have been in session for close to a month. This is good for us because it means we can start visiting schools on the 26th and really get to work. I know I shouldn't be complaining about not having to work for the past couple of weeks, but getting out to the aldeas will help us integrate into the community much quicker as well as learn the ropes and all the things we want to accomplish in the coming weeks!
This week was interesting though, Maggie and I had a bit of a scare on the way home from Antigua monday, when we discovered that there were no longer buses running from the cabicera, Salama to our town San Miguel. Fortunately there was a taxi that agreed to drive us out there, but for a large fee. Tuesday we had another awkward experience, when Maggie's host dad invited us to coffee with some of his friends. This is fishy for many reasons. One Guatemalans don't "grab coffee" and two normally the only time guys and girls will hang out is because they are dating. the term "guy-friend" does not exist here. if you show interest in the opposite sex you are dating. which means you are engaged. there is no inbetween. haha so the whole time we were drinking our coffee, maggie and i kept exchanging looks of "oh god please let this not be what i think it is. " I think it was all in good fun, but that is something we probably will not be repeating any time soon.
On Wednesday I was invited to a church meeting where I finally met the women from the evangelical church that have lived in town for over 30 years. Both seem incredibly nice, one said her sister went to App State (small world) and that there was no way she believed I was from NC because I definitely don't have the accent! ( I wasn't sure how to feel about that but smiled and said 'yeah I get that alot') I think in the future I might be working with one of them to start up english classes as a secondary project, but again vamos a ver.
Thursday I visited my friend that lives about an 1.5 away from me. We made a delicious coconut curry lunch and watched a movie, it was an incredibly nice break from speaking spanish all the time! haha and the curry was soooo good! i can't wait to get into my room and be able to make food like that all the time! (what are leftovers for?) We met up again yesterday to go to a nice private pool which was also a nice break from men constantly making rude sounds and gestures at me. It was almost like we were back home.
Things are definitely looking up here though. I found myself relieved to see the familiar sign of bienvenidos a san miguel chicaj when we returned on Monday night and even more relieved when i woke up and realized i knew exactly where my market was and that i could go across the street and talk to the owner of the hotel and feel like i was having a real conversation again. I am constantly blown away by the niceness of people here, it is definitely starting to out weigh the bad stuff!
the next couple of weeks are going to fly by! this week because there is no school (again) we are going to semuc champey. if you have a guidebook i highly suggest looking this place up. to everyone else it is a river that runs over a natural land bridge and has made these emerald green pools because the land bridge is made of limestone. The guatemalan's claim it to be the 8th natural wonder of the world, my guide book author says it is still one of the most beautiful places he has been throughout the world! So i am very very excited to say the least! the following week work starts and then we have our welcome to the verapaz's party which will be nice to finally meet all the volunteers living in the region! (there are not a lot....i think there might be 16-20 out of the 260 in Guate)
I hope everyone is doing well and i think about you all often! thank you for all your support during this rocky first months, i know that the roller coaster ride is nowhere near over, but its nice to just be coasting for right now!
Hasta proxima vez!
Kata
Another week down in site and things are continuing to become more and more familiar. I do officially have a place to live but have to wait one more week so that my new host family can put doors on the bathroom and "shower"/ bucket bath area (i say "shower" loosely because we only have running water from 6-9 am every morning). The family seems very nice, it is a young woman that is a teacher, her daughter that is around 9 years old, and her father. I am very excited to get into my room and make it my own space. It is big enough for me to have my own stove and a full size bed so I am not complaining. I am trying to find a space to start a garden, but i may be getting ahead of myself!
I wish I could say this week was super eventful, but unfortunately the strike raged on. The teachers have a big list of demands and unfortunately all of them are about money in some way, which Guatemala unfortunately doesn't have. SO the strike will officially come to an end on Monday April 25 because at this point school will not have been in session for close to a month. This is good for us because it means we can start visiting schools on the 26th and really get to work. I know I shouldn't be complaining about not having to work for the past couple of weeks, but getting out to the aldeas will help us integrate into the community much quicker as well as learn the ropes and all the things we want to accomplish in the coming weeks!
This week was interesting though, Maggie and I had a bit of a scare on the way home from Antigua monday, when we discovered that there were no longer buses running from the cabicera, Salama to our town San Miguel. Fortunately there was a taxi that agreed to drive us out there, but for a large fee. Tuesday we had another awkward experience, when Maggie's host dad invited us to coffee with some of his friends. This is fishy for many reasons. One Guatemalans don't "grab coffee" and two normally the only time guys and girls will hang out is because they are dating. the term "guy-friend" does not exist here. if you show interest in the opposite sex you are dating. which means you are engaged. there is no inbetween. haha so the whole time we were drinking our coffee, maggie and i kept exchanging looks of "oh god please let this not be what i think it is. " I think it was all in good fun, but that is something we probably will not be repeating any time soon.
On Wednesday I was invited to a church meeting where I finally met the women from the evangelical church that have lived in town for over 30 years. Both seem incredibly nice, one said her sister went to App State (small world) and that there was no way she believed I was from NC because I definitely don't have the accent! ( I wasn't sure how to feel about that but smiled and said 'yeah I get that alot') I think in the future I might be working with one of them to start up english classes as a secondary project, but again vamos a ver.
Thursday I visited my friend that lives about an 1.5 away from me. We made a delicious coconut curry lunch and watched a movie, it was an incredibly nice break from speaking spanish all the time! haha and the curry was soooo good! i can't wait to get into my room and be able to make food like that all the time! (what are leftovers for?) We met up again yesterday to go to a nice private pool which was also a nice break from men constantly making rude sounds and gestures at me. It was almost like we were back home.
Things are definitely looking up here though. I found myself relieved to see the familiar sign of bienvenidos a san miguel chicaj when we returned on Monday night and even more relieved when i woke up and realized i knew exactly where my market was and that i could go across the street and talk to the owner of the hotel and feel like i was having a real conversation again. I am constantly blown away by the niceness of people here, it is definitely starting to out weigh the bad stuff!
the next couple of weeks are going to fly by! this week because there is no school (again) we are going to semuc champey. if you have a guidebook i highly suggest looking this place up. to everyone else it is a river that runs over a natural land bridge and has made these emerald green pools because the land bridge is made of limestone. The guatemalan's claim it to be the 8th natural wonder of the world, my guide book author says it is still one of the most beautiful places he has been throughout the world! So i am very very excited to say the least! the following week work starts and then we have our welcome to the verapaz's party which will be nice to finally meet all the volunteers living in the region! (there are not a lot....i think there might be 16-20 out of the 260 in Guate)
I hope everyone is doing well and i think about you all often! thank you for all your support during this rocky first months, i know that the roller coaster ride is nowhere near over, but its nice to just be coasting for right now!
Hasta proxima vez!
Kata
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The journey continues.....
Week two in site was a little bit more productive than the previous week. The teachers have gone on strike nationwide which makes things a bit tricky when trying to visit schools and introduce ourselves because there is no school, but we did manage to get to one of our 26 schools monday before everything shut down. Which was awesome. the teachers were super into the project and really excited to get started. It gives these really small school pride to reach this goal. Of course we will definitely run into problems in the future but for now it was nice to get going!
The housing search has not given me much hope, but peace corps is going to come look at a room in a house on monday and see if it is acceptable for me to move into. the only problem is that in three months i am going to have to go through this process again, but i think i am moving into their living room right now and they don't want me to be there for more than three months. But vamos a ver. hopefully something else will open up! but i am very excited to be moving in with a family and getting out of the hotel. its incredibly lonely and i am excited to be able to start cooking and nesting! it will definitely make this week go by much much faster if i can focus on making my living situation better! but otherwise i am really enjoying being in Baja VeraPaz. We made it into antigua this weekend to meet up with some friends and have had a great time sitting at the top of our hostel at the terrace catching up about sites and making plans to come and visit each other. its fascinating to me that no one here will have the same peace corps experience. One of my friends doing the sustainable eco-tourism project is living in a remote aldea two hours from the closest town and she said the first week she woke up to it snowing because she is so high in altitude! they only take bucket baths once a week, but in a sauna-like building! because it is so cold there!! which is the exact opposite of my site....mid 90s everyday, palm trees, tropical fruit.....it definitely made me thankful! I never thought i would say this but.....things are so much easier for me!
my days in site are spent playing with my site-mate's puppy, meeting the town officials, talking with my site mate's host family and trying to stay cool! Maggie (my site mate) has a kiddie pool in her back yard so we spend most of our afternoons in it with her host sister splashing around! it defintiely makes things cooler! haha. we did venture to the next site over and visit with some of our friends, which was a nice because their town has these natural pools that is in a park like area! it was really funny because they have all the statues of boys peeing.....which is weird because the men here frequently urinate in public! haha
well that's about all that is going on right now....more to come on my new room and my new host-family!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Home sweet home
Well i have been in site for a week now and i have to say things are definitely looking up. I am still currently living in the hotel, but Maggie and I have made a lot of effort to get to know the people in our town and will continue to do so this coming week! Although i am still currently in the search for housing, i am keeping in good spirits that something will turn up!
Maggie and I have also spent a lot of the week exploring the area around us! and it varies greatly city to city! we live in what is called a "Tropical desert" it is common here for there to be no water for half the year and the other half of the year it feels like a rainforest. very interesting to see palm trees and tropical fruit right next to a cactus the size of a house! haha
the next town over is Salama, the capital of this department (baja verapaz) and it is like most cabiceras, very busy with the bussle of people coming to and going. this is the hub for us for food that you can't find in a mercado, and for things that we will need for our housing situation (when we find it!) its is equally hot, but with more people and definitely is not as tranquilo as San Miguel.
a little further east you start to climb the mountains again and are in a cloud, rain forest. it is about 30 degrees cooler and has beautiful green scenery!
Maggie and I are discovering that communication here can be very funny at times. We wanted to buy a huge jug of SalvaVidas water, only to be confused by the fact that if we buy a new one it will be 3 times more expensive than if we return a used one for a new. in order for us to explain that we do have one (a old used bottle), we just need to return to maggie's host family and get it was only met by blank stares and us cracking up!
The teachers are planning on going on strike for the next couple of weeks, which means that we won't be able to start work, which will definitely make things interesting! but next weekend i have to return to the office for some medical supplies, so that will most definitely get us through this week!
well i can't wait to tell you more about our adventures! until next time!
Kata
Maggie and I have also spent a lot of the week exploring the area around us! and it varies greatly city to city! we live in what is called a "Tropical desert" it is common here for there to be no water for half the year and the other half of the year it feels like a rainforest. very interesting to see palm trees and tropical fruit right next to a cactus the size of a house! haha
the next town over is Salama, the capital of this department (baja verapaz) and it is like most cabiceras, very busy with the bussle of people coming to and going. this is the hub for us for food that you can't find in a mercado, and for things that we will need for our housing situation (when we find it!) its is equally hot, but with more people and definitely is not as tranquilo as San Miguel.
a little further east you start to climb the mountains again and are in a cloud, rain forest. it is about 30 degrees cooler and has beautiful green scenery!
Maggie and I are discovering that communication here can be very funny at times. We wanted to buy a huge jug of SalvaVidas water, only to be confused by the fact that if we buy a new one it will be 3 times more expensive than if we return a used one for a new. in order for us to explain that we do have one (a old used bottle), we just need to return to maggie's host family and get it was only met by blank stares and us cracking up!
The teachers are planning on going on strike for the next couple of weeks, which means that we won't be able to start work, which will definitely make things interesting! but next weekend i have to return to the office for some medical supplies, so that will most definitely get us through this week!
well i can't wait to tell you more about our adventures! until next time!
Kata
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Baja Vera PAZ
Buenos Dias todos y todas!!!!
I AM AN OFFICIAL PCV living in the beautiful Baja Vera Paz. This past weekend was a whirl wind. Friday we (my host family and myself) woke up very early to get ready for the swearing ing and 50 anniversery of the PC world wide at the ambassadors house. This was an affair to remember, we had many guest speakers and the ambassador himself, swore us in! after word it was like a stampede to get to the hor'dors, which of course i missed out on because all the Guatemalans (all the hosts families were invited) were sitting in the back and they do love to try food that they have never had before. So because our light lunch had disappeared, the ambassador had them bring out tiny ham and cheese sandwiches. on these had the "special", mayo and ketch-up combo on them, so i missed out ......
But the ambassador's home and gardens are absolutely gorgeous! it was the greenest place i have seen since coming to Guate! There is a massive yard that had tennis courts and a swimming pool- the work of an ambassador must be hard, because the housing is quite nice! he told us that he would try to come to the majority of our sites because he is a very big supporter of the PC and i really hope he comes to Baja because word on the street is that he make killer brownies!
Next we all returned to our host families for our last couple of things and a very tearful goodbye. It is hard as american's because we are always thinking of what's next? what can be improved upon? what can we change? where as here, it literally is the day to day living of surviving and waiting for the hand of God. So i finally understood that having me as a guest in a host family wasn't just being a guest, they made me a part of their family, so it was hard to see them go, but i plan to visit as often as i can!
The weekend in Antigua was not only fun but a blur, full of meeting other volunteers (all of which live close to 7 or 8 hours away from me), learning the ropes, and eating A LOT OF AMAZING FOOD! i think i gained another couple of pounds this weekend! haha we had everything from yellow curry to homemade raviolis with pesto sauce to killer coffee. I have to say it was a very nice vacation!
Sunday we headed out to our sites, the 6 baja-ers in a tiny van and the 28 oxidentes in a bus. the closest person outside my site lives near the lake Atitlan but that is still a 4 hour bus ride! so its going to be very weird not seeing the people that i have grown so fond of over the last 3 months! but i do really like everyone in my department so i think this is going to be a good two years full of work and fun. it took us about 3 hours to get here from the office with a lunch break, but it felt like we drove into another country. First we drove through the capital which felt like it lasted for ages, then through the department El Progresso, which is where it began to get hot and very dry- it was like a desert! there were cacti and tumbleweeds. it was crazy! i haven't ever seen cacti grow in the wild so it was definitely an interesting experience for me. then we enter baja my home away from home for the next two years! things here are definitely hotter here, we arrived at our hotel for the night and immediately jumped in the pool! (the hotel we stayed was AH-MAZING, it had hot showers, a pool, a restaurant- it was also a nice break!) yesterday we had our counter-part day, in which the CTAs (superintends) of our schools were going to come and meet us so we could start making a game plan for escuelas saludables, but there was an emergency meeting at the ministry of education, so we worked with directors and maestros instead, which turned out very nice. They seem incredibly excited about the program and are ready to get things going! we are going to meet with our CTA tomorrow afternoon, to fill him in on our initial plans and get him on board!
then it was off to the houses, i ended up in the hotel for the time being, and have the mission from PC to find a house asap, my partner, Maggie, recently adopted a puppy Husky and went to live with the family. It is a small house, but they have a stove and refrigerators and shower and working water so, as far as things go it could definitely be worst! Our site San Miguel Chicaj is small and quaint, there are a couple evangelical churches and a main catholic one in the center of town with a really beautiful park. there are about 23,000 inhabitants but most of them live in the aldeas around San Miguel. There are a couple of internet cafes, always access to water, and power. So far the people seem nice, I am having difficulty finding housing because they think we are weird outsiders, but I am sure that will change the more people get to know us!
So today is full of meeting people in town, finding housing, and going to Salama to find things for dinner and our housing!
Definitely will write more later! miss you all bunches!
I AM AN OFFICIAL PCV living in the beautiful Baja Vera Paz. This past weekend was a whirl wind. Friday we (my host family and myself) woke up very early to get ready for the swearing ing and 50 anniversery of the PC world wide at the ambassadors house. This was an affair to remember, we had many guest speakers and the ambassador himself, swore us in! after word it was like a stampede to get to the hor'dors, which of course i missed out on because all the Guatemalans (all the hosts families were invited) were sitting in the back and they do love to try food that they have never had before. So because our light lunch had disappeared, the ambassador had them bring out tiny ham and cheese sandwiches. on these had the "special", mayo and ketch-up combo on them, so i missed out ......
But the ambassador's home and gardens are absolutely gorgeous! it was the greenest place i have seen since coming to Guate! There is a massive yard that had tennis courts and a swimming pool- the work of an ambassador must be hard, because the housing is quite nice! he told us that he would try to come to the majority of our sites because he is a very big supporter of the PC and i really hope he comes to Baja because word on the street is that he make killer brownies!
Next we all returned to our host families for our last couple of things and a very tearful goodbye. It is hard as american's because we are always thinking of what's next? what can be improved upon? what can we change? where as here, it literally is the day to day living of surviving and waiting for the hand of God. So i finally understood that having me as a guest in a host family wasn't just being a guest, they made me a part of their family, so it was hard to see them go, but i plan to visit as often as i can!
The weekend in Antigua was not only fun but a blur, full of meeting other volunteers (all of which live close to 7 or 8 hours away from me), learning the ropes, and eating A LOT OF AMAZING FOOD! i think i gained another couple of pounds this weekend! haha we had everything from yellow curry to homemade raviolis with pesto sauce to killer coffee. I have to say it was a very nice vacation!
Sunday we headed out to our sites, the 6 baja-ers in a tiny van and the 28 oxidentes in a bus. the closest person outside my site lives near the lake Atitlan but that is still a 4 hour bus ride! so its going to be very weird not seeing the people that i have grown so fond of over the last 3 months! but i do really like everyone in my department so i think this is going to be a good two years full of work and fun. it took us about 3 hours to get here from the office with a lunch break, but it felt like we drove into another country. First we drove through the capital which felt like it lasted for ages, then through the department El Progresso, which is where it began to get hot and very dry- it was like a desert! there were cacti and tumbleweeds. it was crazy! i haven't ever seen cacti grow in the wild so it was definitely an interesting experience for me. then we enter baja my home away from home for the next two years! things here are definitely hotter here, we arrived at our hotel for the night and immediately jumped in the pool! (the hotel we stayed was AH-MAZING, it had hot showers, a pool, a restaurant- it was also a nice break!) yesterday we had our counter-part day, in which the CTAs (superintends) of our schools were going to come and meet us so we could start making a game plan for escuelas saludables, but there was an emergency meeting at the ministry of education, so we worked with directors and maestros instead, which turned out very nice. They seem incredibly excited about the program and are ready to get things going! we are going to meet with our CTA tomorrow afternoon, to fill him in on our initial plans and get him on board!
then it was off to the houses, i ended up in the hotel for the time being, and have the mission from PC to find a house asap, my partner, Maggie, recently adopted a puppy Husky and went to live with the family. It is a small house, but they have a stove and refrigerators and shower and working water so, as far as things go it could definitely be worst! Our site San Miguel Chicaj is small and quaint, there are a couple evangelical churches and a main catholic one in the center of town with a really beautiful park. there are about 23,000 inhabitants but most of them live in the aldeas around San Miguel. There are a couple of internet cafes, always access to water, and power. So far the people seem nice, I am having difficulty finding housing because they think we are weird outsiders, but I am sure that will change the more people get to know us!
So today is full of meeting people in town, finding housing, and going to Salama to find things for dinner and our housing!
Definitely will write more later! miss you all bunches!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
time is starting to fly
“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”
With only one week left in training I am really starting to learn how quickly time literally flies by. this week has been a very good one, the first couple of days were spent doing tech training and listening to my fellow healthy-school trainees give presentations about the independent projects they have been doing here (their spanish is a at advancado medio or alto and no longer need language instrustion). which was incredibly interesting because at least around the antigua area there are a lot of projects one can do. it has definitely given me an idea of what i would like to do for secondary projects, but i have a couple more months to go before i am going to even think about starting secondary projects.
The second half of the week has been spent on IDA (Independently directed project) this is the opportunity to visit a current healthy schools volunteer and see what life is really like here in Guate. We (my partner and i) have been very fortunate to stay with Ms. Lauren Wert and her cat Manchitas (little spots in spanish). She has been a very very kind hostess and it has been a wonderful couple of days. Her site is in Tecpan, one of the sites near some Mayan Ruins. We have visited a couple of schools, but mostly relaxed and asked her a million questions about getting started when we get to site, how busy we can actually be down here, and day to day life. we have gotten to eat some wonderful food, which makes me very excited to get to site and start cooking again!!
This week is the big one, we find out our sites and swear in. they have decided to change the day we find out our sites from thursday to wednesday so we are all very happy about that! the first two days of this week will be going over policies and maybe some introduction to mayan languages, but mostly wrapping up training.
friday we will be in the capital at the American ambassador's house to swear in, so far 400 guest have RSVPed so this is going to be a huge deal. PC is putting a lot of pressure on us to look our best, but it sounds like it is going to be something incredibly memorable! and i cannot tell you how excited i am! in my next post if i can figure it out, i will put up pictures from the day!
next weekend is the first weekend of being a volunteer so we are all staying in antigua until sunday where we return to the office, jump in a van and head out to the cabicera of our department. from there we get to meet our counterpart, and stay in another hotel. On monday i will finally be in site and will be able to start looking for housing! and start work! estoy emocionada
on a sad note, two of our fellow trainees were asked to leave this week. it came as a shock to all of us and many of us are still angry and sad about it. they both would have made amazing volunteers.
well i better hit the road, but can't wait until next time, blogging as a volunteer (ojala!)
Kata
With only one week left in training I am really starting to learn how quickly time literally flies by. this week has been a very good one, the first couple of days were spent doing tech training and listening to my fellow healthy-school trainees give presentations about the independent projects they have been doing here (their spanish is a at advancado medio or alto and no longer need language instrustion). which was incredibly interesting because at least around the antigua area there are a lot of projects one can do. it has definitely given me an idea of what i would like to do for secondary projects, but i have a couple more months to go before i am going to even think about starting secondary projects.
The second half of the week has been spent on IDA (Independently directed project) this is the opportunity to visit a current healthy schools volunteer and see what life is really like here in Guate. We (my partner and i) have been very fortunate to stay with Ms. Lauren Wert and her cat Manchitas (little spots in spanish). She has been a very very kind hostess and it has been a wonderful couple of days. Her site is in Tecpan, one of the sites near some Mayan Ruins. We have visited a couple of schools, but mostly relaxed and asked her a million questions about getting started when we get to site, how busy we can actually be down here, and day to day life. we have gotten to eat some wonderful food, which makes me very excited to get to site and start cooking again!!
This week is the big one, we find out our sites and swear in. they have decided to change the day we find out our sites from thursday to wednesday so we are all very happy about that! the first two days of this week will be going over policies and maybe some introduction to mayan languages, but mostly wrapping up training.
friday we will be in the capital at the American ambassador's house to swear in, so far 400 guest have RSVPed so this is going to be a huge deal. PC is putting a lot of pressure on us to look our best, but it sounds like it is going to be something incredibly memorable! and i cannot tell you how excited i am! in my next post if i can figure it out, i will put up pictures from the day!
next weekend is the first weekend of being a volunteer so we are all staying in antigua until sunday where we return to the office, jump in a van and head out to the cabicera of our department. from there we get to meet our counterpart, and stay in another hotel. On monday i will finally be in site and will be able to start looking for housing! and start work! estoy emocionada
on a sad note, two of our fellow trainees were asked to leave this week. it came as a shock to all of us and many of us are still angry and sad about it. they both would have made amazing volunteers.
well i better hit the road, but can't wait until next time, blogging as a volunteer (ojala!)
Kata
Monday, March 7, 2011
LO SIENTO!!!
I am so sorry for the long pauses in between post, as training is begining to wind down so is our free time! but so much has happened since my last post that i will try to bring everyone up to speed! this is the last week of spanish classes for me, so we spent the morning at a macademia farm, learning about all the amazing things macademia nuts can do for your health and the environment....they do a lot! after the tour we received complementary facial with macademia nut oil ( a very nice bday present if i do say so myself!) and had macademia nut butter pancakes with blue berry pie! again a very nice way to start my 23rd year!
this past weekend we had a free day in antigua, which was a blast as always because we get to hang out with everyone from our training group without structure, which is something that is arare commodity here! we spent the day eating n beautiful courtyards, drinking good coffee, and people watching in the park. i am still working on my bargaining skills and i have to say that they are also improving poco a poco!
this previous week was an exciting one because we found out our site mates, i am very very happy with who PC chose for me, she is from minnisota and loves march maddness, so i think we are going to work out fine. 8 people will either be working solo or with another volunteer already in site! after we found out our partners we had a NGO savanger hunt in antigua and chemaltenango to find ngo that will potentially be good partners in our site. I learned a lot about resources in antigua that could definitely be applicable to what i will be doing where ever my site is!
the next two weeks are going to be very busy and exciting. instead of doing our site visit next week :( we are going to go and stay with a volunteer for a couple of days to see what life is really like in the life of a healthy schools volunteer. which i am looking forward to! and then within the following week, we learn mayan languages, find out our site and swear in! i can't believe that training is almost over!
i hope everyone is doing well and that it is starting to warm up for you! i was happy to see that the tarheels prevailed over duke! HEEL YEAH! haha, i will try to be more consistant in my blog post! miss you all! hasta luego!
this past weekend we had a free day in antigua, which was a blast as always because we get to hang out with everyone from our training group without structure, which is something that is arare commodity here! we spent the day eating n beautiful courtyards, drinking good coffee, and people watching in the park. i am still working on my bargaining skills and i have to say that they are also improving poco a poco!
this previous week was an exciting one because we found out our site mates, i am very very happy with who PC chose for me, she is from minnisota and loves march maddness, so i think we are going to work out fine. 8 people will either be working solo or with another volunteer already in site! after we found out our partners we had a NGO savanger hunt in antigua and chemaltenango to find ngo that will potentially be good partners in our site. I learned a lot about resources in antigua that could definitely be applicable to what i will be doing where ever my site is!
the next two weeks are going to be very busy and exciting. instead of doing our site visit next week :( we are going to go and stay with a volunteer for a couple of days to see what life is really like in the life of a healthy schools volunteer. which i am looking forward to! and then within the following week, we learn mayan languages, find out our site and swear in! i can't believe that training is almost over!
i hope everyone is doing well and that it is starting to warm up for you! i was happy to see that the tarheels prevailed over duke! HEEL YEAH! haha, i will try to be more consistant in my blog post! miss you all! hasta luego!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
week 6 or field based training
hola a todos!
this past week i was living in the altoplano learning all about what it is like to be a real live volunteer and i have to say i am extremely excited to get to work! it was a lot of work! my FBT group taught two seperate groups of teachers about experiencial learning (something that they DO NOT teach in guate) i taught a group of parents about family nutrition and then taught 50 second graders about brushing their teach. so it was a very busy week!
we were in a small town named Cabrican. It was incredibly cold but incredilby beautiful up there at 15,000 feet. from our hotel we could see the highest peak in all of central america, a volcano that is 22,000 feet. There are 35 different schools in the muni of cabrican and they are all about an hour to 2 hours from the town´s centro but the views were breath taking. but it was cold, it would be in the 30s at night and 40/50s during the day, definitely not what i thought central america could be! it is one of the possible sites, so two of us maybe going there in a month and a week! we were there until thursday when we came back down the mountain to salcajal. salcajal is another future site, but only one person will be replacing a volunteer there! it was a beautiful site as well, and a lot warmer! it still was really cold at night, but a lot more comfortable than the altoplano! we stopped by a glass co-op in a bordering town and got to see the men pull the glass out of the fire (all the glass is recycled) and it looked like melting carmel, it was sooo cool to see! we also went to another future site, i have forgotten the name, but it was equally beautiful!
i am so excited to become a volunteer and start my life in my site and start work! all of the places here are so beautiful and i feel very very lucky to be in a place that is so rich in culture and the people are so kind! we were going to find out our sites in three weeks, but because there are so many of us trainees and one of the departments had to be shut down, they are not ready to place us! so we are going to find out the day before we swear in! so in 5 weeks i will be able to tell you exactly where i am going to be! we get to look forward to field trips, meeting our site partner, and other experiencal learning things in the coming weeks! so look forward to more information! i miss you all very much! hasta la proxima ves!
Kata
this past week i was living in the altoplano learning all about what it is like to be a real live volunteer and i have to say i am extremely excited to get to work! it was a lot of work! my FBT group taught two seperate groups of teachers about experiencial learning (something that they DO NOT teach in guate) i taught a group of parents about family nutrition and then taught 50 second graders about brushing their teach. so it was a very busy week!
we were in a small town named Cabrican. It was incredibly cold but incredilby beautiful up there at 15,000 feet. from our hotel we could see the highest peak in all of central america, a volcano that is 22,000 feet. There are 35 different schools in the muni of cabrican and they are all about an hour to 2 hours from the town´s centro but the views were breath taking. but it was cold, it would be in the 30s at night and 40/50s during the day, definitely not what i thought central america could be! it is one of the possible sites, so two of us maybe going there in a month and a week! we were there until thursday when we came back down the mountain to salcajal. salcajal is another future site, but only one person will be replacing a volunteer there! it was a beautiful site as well, and a lot warmer! it still was really cold at night, but a lot more comfortable than the altoplano! we stopped by a glass co-op in a bordering town and got to see the men pull the glass out of the fire (all the glass is recycled) and it looked like melting carmel, it was sooo cool to see! we also went to another future site, i have forgotten the name, but it was equally beautiful!
i am so excited to become a volunteer and start my life in my site and start work! all of the places here are so beautiful and i feel very very lucky to be in a place that is so rich in culture and the people are so kind! we were going to find out our sites in three weeks, but because there are so many of us trainees and one of the departments had to be shut down, they are not ready to place us! so we are going to find out the day before we swear in! so in 5 weeks i will be able to tell you exactly where i am going to be! we get to look forward to field trips, meeting our site partner, and other experiencal learning things in the coming weeks! so look forward to more information! i miss you all very much! hasta la proxima ves!
Kata
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Hola a todos!!!
this week is flying by! i can´t believe i am exactly halfway through my training experience and going strong! this past week has been very interesting! we had class in antigua which was a ton of fun because we got to go back to the bagel barn for class, where i enjoyed a delicious bagel and delicious coffee! afterward we went back to the market to learn how to bargain which is a lot harder than it seems! we have another free day this weekend (but it is a whole day!!!yaay!) and i plan on heading back and trying again because i am in desperate need of some new shirts! but after trying to bargain in the mercado, we went to a traditional comida place for lunch where i enjoyed chiles reyenos and plantains!
Saturday was the traditional mayan dance ceremony, which was incredibly interesting and different from anything i have seen in the usa. she started by explain how each direction has its own color and each direction represents a different part of nature! the whole thing last about three hours and she called all the mayan gods to come and give us blessings. it was very moving and i really enjoyed it!
Sunday was spent in the campo watching soccer and one of the girls in my language class had her birthday so we celebrated with a delicious lunch, cake, and a pinata. it was a lot of fun, because we followed the guatemalan tradition of slamming the guest of honors face in the cake and playing with the pinata. i throughly enjoyed myself.
On monday we had our language interviews and more technical training. i have gone up a level in my language skills to advanced beginner, which is exciting because it doesn´t feel like i have improved that much! the rest of the week has been a pretty normal week, a lot of technical training and practicum.
next week is Field based training or FBT, where we split into groups and go to sites throughout the country, i am going to Cabrican in the department quezaltenango, it is about 4 or 5 hours away in a car, but 7 or 8 in a bus! quezaltenango host the beautiful city of xela, which i am really excited to see because it is suppose to be very different from all the other colonial cities in guatemala!
i will be sure to make sure i write a lot next week because it is the first week we get to do charlas (classes of our own) so it should be very interesting!
i miss you alll so much and can´t wait to have a more reliable internet so i can spend more time talking with all of you!
hasta proxima semana!
this week is flying by! i can´t believe i am exactly halfway through my training experience and going strong! this past week has been very interesting! we had class in antigua which was a ton of fun because we got to go back to the bagel barn for class, where i enjoyed a delicious bagel and delicious coffee! afterward we went back to the market to learn how to bargain which is a lot harder than it seems! we have another free day this weekend (but it is a whole day!!!yaay!) and i plan on heading back and trying again because i am in desperate need of some new shirts! but after trying to bargain in the mercado, we went to a traditional comida place for lunch where i enjoyed chiles reyenos and plantains!
Saturday was the traditional mayan dance ceremony, which was incredibly interesting and different from anything i have seen in the usa. she started by explain how each direction has its own color and each direction represents a different part of nature! the whole thing last about three hours and she called all the mayan gods to come and give us blessings. it was very moving and i really enjoyed it!
Sunday was spent in the campo watching soccer and one of the girls in my language class had her birthday so we celebrated with a delicious lunch, cake, and a pinata. it was a lot of fun, because we followed the guatemalan tradition of slamming the guest of honors face in the cake and playing with the pinata. i throughly enjoyed myself.
On monday we had our language interviews and more technical training. i have gone up a level in my language skills to advanced beginner, which is exciting because it doesn´t feel like i have improved that much! the rest of the week has been a pretty normal week, a lot of technical training and practicum.
next week is Field based training or FBT, where we split into groups and go to sites throughout the country, i am going to Cabrican in the department quezaltenango, it is about 4 or 5 hours away in a car, but 7 or 8 in a bus! quezaltenango host the beautiful city of xela, which i am really excited to see because it is suppose to be very different from all the other colonial cities in guatemala!
i will be sure to make sure i write a lot next week because it is the first week we get to do charlas (classes of our own) so it should be very interesting!
i miss you alll so much and can´t wait to have a more reliable internet so i can spend more time talking with all of you!
hasta proxima semana!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Hola everyone!
sorry for the long pauses between blog post, last week i picked up a bacterial infection from some food and was not able to get on the internet at the office and this week the internet at the office wasn´t working so i wasn´t able to get on and catch everyone up!
these have been a couple of crazy weeks, last saturday for our spanish class we got to go to antigua for the first time, antigua is so beautiful, but very touristy and a lot more expernsive than the rest of guatemala! we explored hidden court yards, the market, the jade factory (one of the best in the world) and then had brunch at the bagel barn (if anyone comes to visit we are probably going to have to hit this place up.....it has every kind of bagel imaginable!) all and all it was a very enjoyable spanish class followed by a nice relaxing afternoon back in San Lorenzo.
Then on monday we went to Guatemala city to learn how to use the correct taxis, locate the hospital that we will go to if we ever have a serious medical problem, and see the embassy. I thought that as far as latin american capital cities go, it was very clean, but very american as well. we ate at a mall foodcourt that had almost exactly the same resturants that there would be in an american mall. our spanish teacher loved it, we were less than impressed, but still gorged ourselves with panani´s, ice cream, chuchuros and hot chocolate. the mall had a movie theater, belks, victoria secret and many other americanish things in it! we are only allowed to be in guate if we are leaving/entering the country or going to the places listed above, so i don´t think i will get to utilize the malls and i definitely wouldn´t be able to afford it on my pc salary! haha
the rest of the week past pretty normally, spanish classes and training. But this past saturday we had our inter-community exchange with some of the eco-tourism trainees. They came to San Lorenzo first and then we went to Santa Catarrina. Santa Catarrina is very beautiful and has a lot of coffee farms around it so it is very green. Afterward we had our first free afternoon so we headed back to antigua for a afternoon of hamburgers and more exploring.
But this weekend was very different from the last weekends in SL becuase the fierra came to town. this is a big parade/fair that is set up in the plazuela. it starts at the bottom of our town with people in the town dressed up as oversized stuffed animals and they do this shuffle dance for about 30 minutes before proceeding to a neighbors house, having snakcs, and starting their dance again. they normally start around 3 or 4 in the afternoon and arrive in the plazuela around 9. it is so loco! definitley one of the more bazarre things i have seen!!! then the town sets up a dance area and the entire town comes to dance to a band(on saturday night) and a dj (sunday night) until 12 or 1 am! it might not sound very crazy, but considering that normally bed time is 8:30-10 pm at the latest, this is definitely a chance for the people to cut loose. the next town party isn´t until august so it is always fun! it definitely made the weekend go by quicker!
today we started our practicum, which just makes me more and more excited to get to site and start working! tomorrow it is back to spanish and training but friday we get to have class in antigua again and practice our bargaining skills at the market and the pacas (used clothing stores). Saturday we are going to see a traditional mayan ceremony and sunday is one of the girl´s bdays in my language group. its hard to believe how quickly the days pass here!
i miss everyone very much and hope everyone is surviving the winter! más venir!
sorry for the long pauses between blog post, last week i picked up a bacterial infection from some food and was not able to get on the internet at the office and this week the internet at the office wasn´t working so i wasn´t able to get on and catch everyone up!
these have been a couple of crazy weeks, last saturday for our spanish class we got to go to antigua for the first time, antigua is so beautiful, but very touristy and a lot more expernsive than the rest of guatemala! we explored hidden court yards, the market, the jade factory (one of the best in the world) and then had brunch at the bagel barn (if anyone comes to visit we are probably going to have to hit this place up.....it has every kind of bagel imaginable!) all and all it was a very enjoyable spanish class followed by a nice relaxing afternoon back in San Lorenzo.
Then on monday we went to Guatemala city to learn how to use the correct taxis, locate the hospital that we will go to if we ever have a serious medical problem, and see the embassy. I thought that as far as latin american capital cities go, it was very clean, but very american as well. we ate at a mall foodcourt that had almost exactly the same resturants that there would be in an american mall. our spanish teacher loved it, we were less than impressed, but still gorged ourselves with panani´s, ice cream, chuchuros and hot chocolate. the mall had a movie theater, belks, victoria secret and many other americanish things in it! we are only allowed to be in guate if we are leaving/entering the country or going to the places listed above, so i don´t think i will get to utilize the malls and i definitely wouldn´t be able to afford it on my pc salary! haha
the rest of the week past pretty normally, spanish classes and training. But this past saturday we had our inter-community exchange with some of the eco-tourism trainees. They came to San Lorenzo first and then we went to Santa Catarrina. Santa Catarrina is very beautiful and has a lot of coffee farms around it so it is very green. Afterward we had our first free afternoon so we headed back to antigua for a afternoon of hamburgers and more exploring.
But this weekend was very different from the last weekends in SL becuase the fierra came to town. this is a big parade/fair that is set up in the plazuela. it starts at the bottom of our town with people in the town dressed up as oversized stuffed animals and they do this shuffle dance for about 30 minutes before proceeding to a neighbors house, having snakcs, and starting their dance again. they normally start around 3 or 4 in the afternoon and arrive in the plazuela around 9. it is so loco! definitley one of the more bazarre things i have seen!!! then the town sets up a dance area and the entire town comes to dance to a band(on saturday night) and a dj (sunday night) until 12 or 1 am! it might not sound very crazy, but considering that normally bed time is 8:30-10 pm at the latest, this is definitely a chance for the people to cut loose. the next town party isn´t until august so it is always fun! it definitely made the weekend go by quicker!
today we started our practicum, which just makes me more and more excited to get to site and start working! tomorrow it is back to spanish and training but friday we get to have class in antigua again and practice our bargaining skills at the market and the pacas (used clothing stores). Saturday we are going to see a traditional mayan ceremony and sunday is one of the girl´s bdays in my language group. its hard to believe how quickly the days pass here!
i miss everyone very much and hope everyone is surviving the winter! más venir!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
hola a todos!
This has been a fun and exciting week. the weather is definitely not hot like i had hoped, but when the sun is out it feels so nice. it rained a little on wednesday and has been cloudy ever since, which makes taking bucket baths very very cold! haha. But I have been busy taking spanish classes, going on field trips to where i will have my practicum (starting in 2 weeks), training at the office and in Parramos, the town that my pueblo is a suburbish like place to, and spending time with my host family and learning the ways of the guatemaltecas. One thing i have learned is that no matter who you pass (unless they look very sketchy or dangerous) you are to greet them with buenas dias, buenas tarde, or buenas noches according to the time of the day. Everyone in my pueblo greets each other. there are only 6 main families here, so pretty much you are always greeting a host relative of some sort.
Spanish classes have been fun. I am learning so much here because i am practicing what i have learned almost immediately from walking out the door. We have classes at one of our houses for a week at a time. This past week it was at Joe's casa, this week it will be at my casa and I am not sure where it will be next week. There are 5 of us in all so we will all get to host at least once, maybe twice.
training has been really really interesting because we are covering everything from health to how the school systems work to how to be a successful volunteer at my site. From what my leaders have said, we will all be in semi-urban sites and going out the the more rural parts of guate. This of course has its pluses and minuses. A plus is that i will be able to find whatever i need at a somewhat reasonable price, but it will be harder to meet people and gain confidenzia. but i am excited none-the-less!
on sundays we go down to the campo to watch soccer games, then we normally come home, take our bucket baths (which i take everyday, they take once a week), eat a big lunch, take a nap, go to mass, and then go to another court to watch soccer until late into the night. Their weekends completely revolve around the towns' soccer teams, which is very interesting to me. i think i have watched a total of 16 hours of soccer this week! but I am having a lot of fun with my host family, i have really enjoyed getting to know the girls and the mom and am starting to move away from small talk about the weather to actually conversations. but they are talking extremely slow when we speak and are so patient with my seriously broken spanish. this feels like a really good fit. One of the sister's is going to highschool in a neighboring city, which is pretty unheard of in guatemala (most girls will drop out after middle school, because they need to find a husband or because they need to work) and she wants to go onto university, which is amazing! she is very driven which is such a great thing to see and her parents are very supportive of her, which is equally great to see as well.
well i better start reading this weeks packet! more to come!
This has been a fun and exciting week. the weather is definitely not hot like i had hoped, but when the sun is out it feels so nice. it rained a little on wednesday and has been cloudy ever since, which makes taking bucket baths very very cold! haha. But I have been busy taking spanish classes, going on field trips to where i will have my practicum (starting in 2 weeks), training at the office and in Parramos, the town that my pueblo is a suburbish like place to, and spending time with my host family and learning the ways of the guatemaltecas. One thing i have learned is that no matter who you pass (unless they look very sketchy or dangerous) you are to greet them with buenas dias, buenas tarde, or buenas noches according to the time of the day. Everyone in my pueblo greets each other. there are only 6 main families here, so pretty much you are always greeting a host relative of some sort.
Spanish classes have been fun. I am learning so much here because i am practicing what i have learned almost immediately from walking out the door. We have classes at one of our houses for a week at a time. This past week it was at Joe's casa, this week it will be at my casa and I am not sure where it will be next week. There are 5 of us in all so we will all get to host at least once, maybe twice.
training has been really really interesting because we are covering everything from health to how the school systems work to how to be a successful volunteer at my site. From what my leaders have said, we will all be in semi-urban sites and going out the the more rural parts of guate. This of course has its pluses and minuses. A plus is that i will be able to find whatever i need at a somewhat reasonable price, but it will be harder to meet people and gain confidenzia. but i am excited none-the-less!
on sundays we go down to the campo to watch soccer games, then we normally come home, take our bucket baths (which i take everyday, they take once a week), eat a big lunch, take a nap, go to mass, and then go to another court to watch soccer until late into the night. Their weekends completely revolve around the towns' soccer teams, which is very interesting to me. i think i have watched a total of 16 hours of soccer this week! but I am having a lot of fun with my host family, i have really enjoyed getting to know the girls and the mom and am starting to move away from small talk about the weather to actually conversations. but they are talking extremely slow when we speak and are so patient with my seriously broken spanish. this feels like a really good fit. One of the sister's is going to highschool in a neighboring city, which is pretty unheard of in guatemala (most girls will drop out after middle school, because they need to find a husband or because they need to work) and she wants to go onto university, which is amazing! she is very driven which is such a great thing to see and her parents are very supportive of her, which is equally great to see as well.
well i better start reading this weeks packet! more to come!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hola mis amigas!!!
I am sorry for not being able to blog sooner, but I am just now getting enough time on a computer to actually write something worthwhile! The past couple of days have been a worldwind- between arriving in guatemala and meeting our temporary host families (I was only with the first family for three days) to having our language placements to starting language classes to finally moving in with the host family that we will be with for the three months of training, i have barely had time to catch my breath!
But so far this has been an extremely enjoyable experience. I am situated now in San Lorenzo, a small (very small) village located about 15 minutes from antigua and 1 hour from the capital. The family i am living with has two daughters and one son. One of the daughters wants to attend a uiversity one day and is very serious about her studies. we have made a deal that if she teaches me spanish, then i will teach her english. so far it has been a lot of her teaching me spanish and less of me teaching english, which is probably a good thing! I am here with 4 other healthy school volunteers that placed into a similar level of spanish as myself. I think that they are a little bit more advanced (most had studied abroad in spanish speaking countries) than I am but I think if i work hard enough i'll be able to catch up soon! my family is a huge help because they correct me wheneveer i mispronounce something or use the wrong tense. it is definitely hard though! I am hoping soon i will be thinking in nothing but spanish and writing in english will be what is difficult!
Guatemala is a beautiful mountainous country. right now my elevation is about 7,000 feet and it feels like spring in greensboro,nc would feel like: pretty warm during the day but freezing at night! the first couple of nights i had to wear two pairs of socks to keep my feet warm! and it is very dry, the altoplano is suppose to be completely unforgiving when it come to cold all year round, so i am really hoping i am not placed there because the bucket baths in anything lower than 60 degrees are absolutely miserable!
This week I am going to be diving into my spanish lessons, we will meet monday, wednesday, friday, and saturday for 6 hours a day. tuesdays and thursdays are what they in the office call "core training days" and technical training days. those days will mostly be covering safety and security techniques, health, and actual on the job training. The entire 54 person volunteer training group will get back together those days, so it will be nice to catch up with some of my friends I made during the initial orientation days!
so far there have been no major adventures to report, just the day to day life in guatemala. The people are extremely friendly and generous and have made it know that they want to help me in whatever way they can, which makes like much easier! i have my own room at my homestay and there is a flushing toliet and bathroom sink. the shower is a bucket bath which is definitely something that i am going to have to get used to! that is all i can think of now, hopefully i will be able to post again in about a weeks time with many more enriching stories but until then hasta luego!!!!
I am sorry for not being able to blog sooner, but I am just now getting enough time on a computer to actually write something worthwhile! The past couple of days have been a worldwind- between arriving in guatemala and meeting our temporary host families (I was only with the first family for three days) to having our language placements to starting language classes to finally moving in with the host family that we will be with for the three months of training, i have barely had time to catch my breath!
But so far this has been an extremely enjoyable experience. I am situated now in San Lorenzo, a small (very small) village located about 15 minutes from antigua and 1 hour from the capital. The family i am living with has two daughters and one son. One of the daughters wants to attend a uiversity one day and is very serious about her studies. we have made a deal that if she teaches me spanish, then i will teach her english. so far it has been a lot of her teaching me spanish and less of me teaching english, which is probably a good thing! I am here with 4 other healthy school volunteers that placed into a similar level of spanish as myself. I think that they are a little bit more advanced (most had studied abroad in spanish speaking countries) than I am but I think if i work hard enough i'll be able to catch up soon! my family is a huge help because they correct me wheneveer i mispronounce something or use the wrong tense. it is definitely hard though! I am hoping soon i will be thinking in nothing but spanish and writing in english will be what is difficult!
Guatemala is a beautiful mountainous country. right now my elevation is about 7,000 feet and it feels like spring in greensboro,nc would feel like: pretty warm during the day but freezing at night! the first couple of nights i had to wear two pairs of socks to keep my feet warm! and it is very dry, the altoplano is suppose to be completely unforgiving when it come to cold all year round, so i am really hoping i am not placed there because the bucket baths in anything lower than 60 degrees are absolutely miserable!
This week I am going to be diving into my spanish lessons, we will meet monday, wednesday, friday, and saturday for 6 hours a day. tuesdays and thursdays are what they in the office call "core training days" and technical training days. those days will mostly be covering safety and security techniques, health, and actual on the job training. The entire 54 person volunteer training group will get back together those days, so it will be nice to catch up with some of my friends I made during the initial orientation days!
so far there have been no major adventures to report, just the day to day life in guatemala. The people are extremely friendly and generous and have made it know that they want to help me in whatever way they can, which makes like much easier! i have my own room at my homestay and there is a flushing toliet and bathroom sink. the shower is a bucket bath which is definitely something that i am going to have to get used to! that is all i can think of now, hopefully i will be able to post again in about a weeks time with many more enriching stories but until then hasta luego!!!!
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