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!

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!!!!