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!