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.....