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