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!