Tuesday, March 29, 2011

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!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

time is starting to fly

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.

With only one week left in training I am really starting to learn how quickly time literally flies by. this week has been a very good one, the first couple of days were spent doing tech training and listening to my fellow healthy-school trainees give presentations about the independent projects they have been doing here (their spanish is a at advancado medio or alto and no longer need language instrustion). which was incredibly interesting because at least around the antigua area there are a lot of projects one can do. it has definitely given me an idea of what i would like to do for secondary projects, but i have a couple more months to go before i am going to even think about starting secondary projects.

The second half of the week has been spent on IDA (Independently directed project) this is the opportunity to visit a current healthy schools volunteer and see what life is really like here in Guate. We (my partner and i) have been very fortunate to stay with Ms. Lauren Wert and her cat Manchitas (little spots in spanish). She has been a very very kind hostess and it has been a wonderful couple of days. Her site is in Tecpan, one of the sites near some Mayan Ruins. We have visited a couple of schools, but mostly relaxed and asked her a million questions about getting started when we get to site, how busy we can actually be down here, and day to day life. we have gotten to eat some wonderful food, which makes me very excited to get to site and start cooking again!!

This week is the big one, we find out our sites and swear in. they have decided to change the day we find out our sites from thursday to wednesday so we are all very happy about that! the first two days of this week will be going over policies and maybe some introduction to mayan languages, but mostly wrapping up training.

friday we will be in the capital at the American ambassador's house to swear in, so far 400 guest have RSVPed so this is going to be a huge deal. PC is putting a lot of pressure on us to look our best, but it sounds like it is going to be something incredibly memorable! and i cannot tell you how excited i am! in my next post if i can figure it out, i will put up pictures from the day!

next weekend is the first weekend of being a volunteer so we are all staying in antigua until sunday where we return to the office, jump in a van and head out to the cabicera of our department. from there we get to meet our counterpart, and stay in another hotel. On monday i will finally be in site and will be able to start looking for housing! and start work! estoy emocionada

on a sad note, two of our fellow trainees were asked to leave this week. it came as a shock to all of us and many of us are still angry and sad about it. they both would have made amazing volunteers.

well i better hit the road, but can't wait until next time, blogging as a volunteer (ojala!)
Kata

Monday, March 7, 2011

LO SIENTO!!!

I am so sorry for the long pauses in between post, as training is begining to wind down so is our free time! but so much has happened since my last post that i will try to bring everyone up to speed! this is the last week of spanish classes for me, so we spent the morning at a macademia farm, learning about all the amazing things macademia nuts can do for your health and the environment....they do a lot! after the tour we received complementary facial with macademia nut oil ( a very nice bday present if i do say so myself!) and had macademia nut butter pancakes with blue berry pie! again a very nice way to start my 23rd year!

this past weekend we had a free day in antigua, which was a blast as always because we get to hang out with everyone from our training group without structure, which is something that is arare commodity here! we spent the day eating n beautiful courtyards, drinking good coffee, and people watching in the park. i am still working on my bargaining skills and i have to say that they are also improving poco a poco!

this previous week was an exciting one because we found out our site mates, i am very very happy with who PC chose for me, she is from minnisota and loves march maddness, so i think we are going to work out fine. 8 people will either be working solo or with another volunteer already in site! after we found out our partners we had a NGO savanger hunt in antigua and chemaltenango to find ngo that will potentially be good partners in our site. I learned a lot about resources in antigua that could definitely be applicable to what i will be doing where ever my site is!

the next two weeks are going to be very busy and exciting. instead of doing our site visit next week :( we are going to go and stay with a volunteer for a couple of days to see what life is really like in the life of a healthy schools volunteer. which i am looking forward to! and then within the following week, we learn mayan languages, find out our site and swear in! i can't believe that training is almost over!

i hope everyone is doing well and that it is starting to warm up for you! i was happy to see that the tarheels prevailed over duke! HEEL YEAH! haha, i will try to be more consistant in my blog post! miss you all! hasta luego!