It’s not easy being ridiculously un-green

There are little things I fail to understand more than the celebrations that occur in Guatemala.  Being an incredibly Catholic country, there is some sort of fiesta every weekend, usually related to a huge moment in the life of Jesus that occurred no where near the time that the festival is occurring (See: Convite a.k.a. drag fest).

I guess the most recent festival was somewhat appropriate in the moment.  Being Lent, every weekend there is a “procession” of some sort in a different town, as well as a huge one in Antigua.  These processions consist of a bunch of people dressed in purple robes carrying a huge platform on their shoulders with some depiction of a moment in the life of Jesus.  Generally a mass of people slowly follow this slow moving parade that lasts roughly 6 hours until they finally return to the church.  There’s also a band.  And people waving incense balls which make me nauseous.

This past Sunday it was Pastores’ turn.  This procession was especially interesting because it consisted of all the houses lying on the parade route making “alfombras,” or basically decorating the street in front of their house where Jesus would pass over.  Picture massive amounts of pine needles, cut flowers and leaves, along with a variety of paper decorations ranging from flowers to sheep to angels.  (Un-green point #1: massive waste of greenery and destruction of natural environment.)  The street in front of my house was one continuous strip of greenery, although some people used colored woodshavings to make really intricate designs.  People spent the whole day making these in the blistering sun while simultaneously “watering” the sidewalk and their creations for the entire day.  (Un-green point #2: It is ridiculous to me how much water our community wastes.  They’re currently repaving the highway up the road from us, which has consisted of over two weeks of just dirt road that they daily “water” to prevent the dirt from flying up everywhere, which it does anyway.)  Some houses even decorated their streets with vegetables.  One particularly creative one cut carrots and beets and made them into flowers, but many just strewed mangoes, watermelon, and avocados across their display.  Let me point out that the ultimate purpose of these displays is to be completely destroyed by the passing parade.  (Un-green point #3 and Abby’s BIGGEST pet peeve: WASTED DELICIOUSNESS!  My friend’s house had an entire bucket of delicious avocados that they just placed on their display to be trampled and squashed.)

Now, it may be because I wasn’t feeling spectacular yesterday, but I pretty much walked around ranting about how stupid the whole thing was.  Very culturally sensitive of me, I agree.  So let’s try to put it in a different light: this is technically a display of their offerings to God, and a lot of children ran after picking up flowers, and possibly the fruit although I didn’t see it.  Either that or some street dogs got a fabulous lunch of guacamole.

Anyways, I apologize for being so absent lately.  As it’s the end of training all of a sudden everything seems to be moving light speed.  We spent several days visiting other volunteers which was fabulous.  It made me realize that after training we will actually become real people again that are allowed to stay out occasionally after dark and maybe even go out dancing.  My group helped out with a workshop some of the volunteers were giving, and it was especially fun to make fools of ourselves singing health songs to a bunch of professional teachers.

Since returning from that, time has just flown.  We had two workshops with the teachers at our school and on Friday visited some of the homes of our students, which I must say was quite the shocker for me.  Our school is tiny but most of the kids come clean and they’re pretty good with their healthy habits, so for some reason I didn’t expect quite the poverty that we saw.  One family slept 4 kids and 2 adults in one bedroom.  I will say that the most ridiculous thing that I’ve discovered about developing countries (or whatever the pc word is for it nowadays) is that no matter how impoverished and underfed families are, they always seem to have a TV and big sound system.  Every house we went into proudly showed us theirs and encouraged us to spend some time watching, which we politely declined.

My big mistake of the day came at the third house when I asked the woman that was showing us around “Is your husband working?”  She proceeded to break down sobbing and told us that her husband left her with six children for another woman.  NICE ABBY.  Now you may think “it’s not your fault Abby, you didn’t know!” but the reality in Guatemala is that this is not an unusual situation, and it’s kind of a known social grace not to ask about the husband if you don’t see him around.  Lesson severely enforced, I guarantee it will not happen again.

In other big news, our fate has been decided for us.  We now know our partners and sites, which means that all the tension and fear is over, mas o menos.  I was very pleased with my partner, but unfortunately we got one of the sites that neither of us had any desire to go to.  I will not lie, I did not take it too well and may have shed 1 or 2 (or broke down sobbing) tears, but since then I have made my peace with it and actually gotten excited.  So, for the next two years I will be living in ******** in Chimaltenango (roughly an hour from where we’re living now).  Here’s some little known facts about *******:

******* is a majority Mayan town, with the maternal language being Kaqkchiquel (which I will speak after two years, even if the majority of the people I’m working with speak Spanish anyways).  The Zona Urbana (main city of the municipality) consists of roughly 7,500 inhabitants with around 23,400 in the entire municipality (and we’ve been told we can move into some of the surrounding aldeas after the first 3 months).  The major economic activity is agriculture (insert excitement here.  Two years of farming!  And public health of course…).  We’ll be working with 17 schools in the district, one of which was already certified as a healthy school by the current volunteer who’s ending when we swear in.

So, after a 1.5 page b*tch fest in my journal about my situation, I made a huge list of positive things and I’m actually really excited about where I’m going, despite my incredibly close proximity to probably 25 other volunteers.  This week we go visit our sites and figure out where we’re going to live and meet our counterparts.  Super exciting slash terrifying.  Let’s just say I’m incredibly excited to no longer have someone else making all the important decisions in my life.  It’ll be nice to make some choices for once.

I’ll be back in a week, hopefully…

and sorry about the lack of pictures, I didn’t have time last night to upload them onto my flash drive and today I have the asientos (i.e. diarrhea) so am not in the mood to spend too much time on the internet and am more eager to get back home where I can lie in my bed, drink lots of fluids and watch GLEE all night long…and pack

A clear miscommunication

After returning from FBT last week, I expected to find my mail box at the PC Headquarters overflowing with letters, postcards, and chocolate (mostly the latter).  Of course, there was nothing, which leads me to conclude one of two things:
1) The Guatemalan Postal Service has a huge soft spot for TJ’s dark chocolate or
2) I did not make my address clear enough
Judging from my experience with Guatemalan’s obsession with disgusting sugar candies, I’m going to go with reason number 2.  Thus I’m sure you all have a huge heap of packages with my name on them just waiting to be addressed and sent out, so here’s my address again:

 PCT Abigail Harper
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala, CentroAmerica

This is slightly different from the previous address I gave you but this one is better.

I apologize for being absent so long, but really this past week has been pretty dull.  We spent the previous week on Field Based Training, which was basically a week of 27 trainees in a hotel visiting volunteers currently in the field and getting a feel for what their day to day life is like.  We had the opportunity to talk to some of their counterparts and see the schools their working in, and for me the most helpful part of it was seeing that schools are actually genuinely interested in improving the health of their students and working together with Peace Corps.  Of course they really only showed us the schools that were well on their way to being certified or had accomplished a big infrastructure project so we didn’t get a taste for the schools that weren’t quite as compliant (which are probably more numerous than those that are).

By coincidence FBT occurred simultaneously with Fat Tuesday, which they celebrate here by bombarding you with eggshells filled with confetti and glitter and paint.  Being the token gringos around several people got thoroughly beat up with sparkles and kids became pretty ruthless.

This past week we were supposed to go back on schedule with school visits and working in classrooms, however this was interrupted by the current teacher strike.  We didn’t think our school would be affected because it’s run by the municipality, not by the minister of education, but apparently they too decided to strike in solidarity.  My host aunt, Carolina, is a contract teacher here and anyone who doesn’t have the equivalent of tenure has so far not received any compensation for their work, so all week teachers from all over the country have been sleeping outside the ministry of education in Guate city to protest.  Apparently, as I understand it, the Guate Government likes to hold on to the money as long as they can so that they can accrue the interest, so schools haven’t received money to buy student supplies and many teachers aren’t expected to be paid until the end of March.  This was all exciting enough, and then on Thursday the Minister of Education got sacked.  Don’t know why, didn’t even know it was possible and doubt that it will change anything but I have been wondering if it’s going to impact our program at all, especially since the few who are working in phase 3 work very closely with the Ministry.  Vamos a ver!

I finally got around to getting to Mayapedal this week.  For those of you that didn’t read my Macadamia Nut Freak Out this is an organization that takes old bikes (many sent from Bikes Not Bombs in Boston) and either recuperates them into working bikes or turns them into bicimaquinas – bicycle powered machines – including washing machines, coffee grinders, corn grinders, water pumps (my favorite), cement somethingers (I don’t understand construction), and biciliquadores – apparently there are a few of these in the Antigua marketplace where you can biciblend your own smoothie.  Rest assured this is a high priority of mine.

I also attended my first to celebratory events.  The first of these was last weekend when I went to my friends house to steal his music and immediately got invited to his mother’s surprise baby shower that afternoon.  The second occurred yesterday and was the first birthday of someone in my family, which made me realize that I still know virtually no one in my family.  I think this family may possibly be bigger than my Ecua family and am having very little luck remembering names.  Anyways, all parties in Guatemala seem to start out the same.  The invitation says 2:30, you arrive sometime around 3:00, and then wait for another hour or hour and a half for the rest of the guests to arrive.  Then the party starts, which usually consists of games that involve 4-6 people at a time while everyone else sits around watching.  Then there’s food and cake.

These events helped to solve another pet peeve of mine – the lack of a Spanish word for awkward.  It turns out that awkward doesn’t exist in Spanish.  I mean, it does for me, but I’ve come to realize that awkward is purely an American (maybe European?) concept.  Awkward is merely a consequence of our inability to simply exist in each other’s presence.  Guatemalans, on the other hand, spend much of their day just sitting with each other, so those moments that make me want to squirm and vomit inside with awkwardness are just normal for them.

The only real news I’ve heard from the outside world is that of the earthquake in Chile, apparently 700x that of the one that demolished Haiti?  I’m fairly convinced that this is further proof that the Mayans were genius and that 2012 is no longer just myth.  The events of the past few months have reassured me that December 24^th will in fact be the end of the world as we know it.  At least Chile’s economic status seems to have allowed them to prepare enough that they didn’t face the devastation that is still rampant throughout Haiti (at least death toll wise), and soon to get worse as the rainy season comes and starts spreading all those wonderfully preventable infectious diseases. 

This coming week we are leaving again to go spend one on one time with current volunteers throughout the country.  I’m returning to one that we spent part of FBT with, but it’ll be good to talk to them outside of the listening ears of our directors.  Will be back Saturday and then really only have 3 weeks until we move out to our more permanent sites.  Scary how fast time flies.

Last night I hung out with my host cousin enjoying Heinekens and watching Droopy cartoons in Spanish.  I forgot how freaking fantabulous the cartoons from my youth were and I highly encourage all of you to reminisce

I´m too lazy to attempt to artistically put pictures throughout, so here are some:

Hanging at the pools in Santa Catarina...Peace Corps or Real World Guate?

 

Getting demolished with pica pica and brillantina at one of the schools on FBT visits

 

Me and Cousin Ivan at the bday party

Me and some other PCTs at FBT (love the acronyms)

MayaPedal Bike Shop - I swear I saw some bikes here that were definitely at one point in my Belmont garage

Miracle Nuts

I´m such a sketchball but I tried to take this without anyone noticing because otherwise all the kids go nuts and it´s super disruptive. But, that´s the classroom I work in

This week marked the first big milestone in training which was our health presentations to the classes we’ve been working with.  I had major de ja vu of the group of girls I worked with in Nicaragua and got slightly nostalgic, but I decided to do  different topic than what I’d done before (especially because I’m in second grade now and I don’t know how a-okay it is to talk to them about STDs and pregnancy prevention…tal vez a little young!) so I talked to them about nutrition.  Very basic overview, we talked about the “Olla Familiar” (basically food pot instead of food pyramid) but the biggest thing that came out of it is a bunch of them talked afterwards how they weren’t going to drink coffee anymore because they wanted to grow tall.  (update: came in today (Friday) and asked how many had drank coffee for breakfast.  About 10 out of 13 hands went up with a million ¨YO¨s.  I think they thought that was the answer I wanted).  Coffee is oh so popular in Guate, and in my first family they fed it to the one and a half year old baby after dinner.  I’m slightly reassured that it’s the infinitely weaker Nescafe (really it’s sugar water with a dab of coffee flavoring) but is still unsettling to see them gulping it down in mass quantities before they’ve hit puberty.

 

This has nothing to do with this post except that it´s the drop of death outside one of the buildings of my school. The doors to the classrooms line this cliff. Apparently Global Visionaries was funding the building of the new building but then went bankrupt so it was abandoned as a construction site.

I came home for lunch to two avocados on the table split open, and after asking what was wrong with the one my mom told me it was bad and she was going to use it for her face and hair, so she gave me half and 5 minutes later we both came out with our faces covered in avocado.  Alright family bonding!  I also had a fairly extended unawkward conversation over dinner with my awkward uncle Ruben.  I think it was a definite milestone in our relationship. 

Kicking myself in the butt for not including my doña in this one

After lunch I and a couple other volunteers sought out a nearby Macadamia nut farm.  Valhalla (which apparently is the Vikings Paradise) is really a little piece of paradise located just outside of Antigua.  I hadn’t really heard anything about them except some other volunteers went and loved it, but the second I entered I thought I was in heaven.  This was mostly due to the fact that there was not one ounce of trash on the ground and I could actually breathe as opposed to getting consumed by bus smog every five seconds. 

Pardon me while I freak out a little bit, but this place pretty much combines everything I love…Let me just start by saying that Macadamia nut trees are baller.  They require essentially no water so they can exist anywhere (except where there’s snow…go figure), one tree removes 75 pounds of carbon from the atmosphere DAILY, the nuts are high in Omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acid and a bunch of B vitamins (plus protein), and the oil from the nuts is really good for skin care (we got free facials at the end).  AND Macadamia trees live for over 200 years and produce once their 3 years old for the entirety of their lives.  The guy who runs it is an American from San Francisco who came down 34 years ago after breaking his back as a firefighter and pretty much just started the organization, although everyone else who works there is Guatemalan.  Can you tell I’m a complete convert? 

Plus, the farm is totally self sustainable.  They use no electricity (they have two solar panels and their shelling machine runs on gas), compost all the shells, are 100% organic, have bees to pollinate the 350 different varieties of trees (they have 400 trees so there’s virtually no repetition to prevent diseases from spreading if they ever occur), have their own restaurant where you can have blueberry macadamia nut pancakes (unfortunately it was closed when we got there), and are now even helping indigenous communities and families who want to start their own mini macadamia operations.  So, the organization is promoting reforestation by planting more trees, helping to reduce environmental deterioration (and I think they do education efforts to promote understanding of global warming, though I’m not 100% sure), and promoting community sustainability by providing trees and teaching maintenance.  PLUS on another level of environmental preservation apparently the inner shells are super high in carbon content so they’re super hard and really good for cooking fires because they emit essentially zero smoke.  In a lot of these indigenous communities the women spend all day in a closed, unventilated kitchen with the stove going constantly and the usual fuel (corn husks or wood) emit a lot of smoke, causing environmental pollution and massive amounts of respiratory infections (I know I probably mentioned this before, but just to reiterate a woman who spends her day in such a kitchen does as much damage to her lungs as smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day), so providing them with these trees also provides them with the shells to use as kindling which could have awesome effects on improving their health (on top of eating super nutritious nuts). 

Cloud 9

So, it’s safe to say I’ve found my happy place.  For me I’m seeing it as an awesome public health opportunity as a lot of indigenous communities are not economically well off and so don’t have access to nutritious diets, and so for a lot of kids that may only get a piece of bread and coffee (don’t get me started) for breakfast this could provide access to a whole new source of nutrition and protein!  Plus, with the alternative cooking fuel (the shells) there could be lower risk of respiratory infection and more people being healthy!  Plus it involves playing in the dirt and growing things which I am seriously missing in my life right now.  I think when I get to my final site placement I may find a farm to work at half time and just become part public health part agricultural volunteer without anyone knowing.  They´re interrelated anyways, right? 

 Now as if it couldn’t get any better…
 

husking machine

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking “The husking machine requires gasoline which may be something not economically feasible for a lot of indigenous communities.”  You’re thinking that, right?  Well this is where I get super excited.  Valhalla works in conjunction with Mayapedal.  Mayapedal is an organization near Chimaltenango that builds self-powered machines out of old bicycles shipped from the United States and other locals.  They make a variety of machines from blenders to corn grinders (for making cornmeal) and also have designed a macadamia nut de-sheller powered by pedaling a bike.  AND, Mayapedal partners with Bikes not Bombs in Boston (where Poppa Harper volunteers) which collects donated bicycles and sends them to developing countries to rehabilitate as bikes or turn them into awesome MACADAMIA NUT SHELLING MACHINES!  And the world keeps spinning…. 

So once I get back from Field Based Training next Saturday I’m going to seek out Mayapedal and become even more connected to the cycle of bicycle love.I apologize for this post being so long and for ranting about Macadamia nuts for two pages, but I was pretty overwhelmed by everything yesterday.  Plus, they give you free samples of their nuts and of their dark chocolate with macadamia nuts.  Of course I bought some and am trying (fairly unsuccessfully) to ration them and make them last as long as possible.  If I failed to mention previously I just recently finished the delicious Ecuadorian dark chocolate my dear friend sent me down with, so if anyone has the hankering to send me some news I would not object to you including a piece of chocolate.

Anyways, if you ever come down here I encourage you to visit it because it is awesome and free.

This morning a friend and I visited our local Puesto de Salud (Health Post).  Our group and two other groups have stopped Spanish class to do more independent work related to our program, so we’ve had some free time to explore on our own (thus the Macadamia visit).  We figured we’d just stop in and meet the people who worked there and hear about what they did.  Definitely should’ve come prepared with more questions to ask because I thought of a million that I wanted to ask on the way home, but it was cool just to see it and chat with the nurse and doctor that worked there.  It was very similar to the health posts I saw in Nicaragua and brought back major de ja vu again, but it seemed slightly better equipped and had tons of great educational posters everywhere.  The big program going on right now is they’re offering hysterectomies and vasectomies for only 25 quetzals, or 3 American dollars.  I feel like it’s such a deal but I don’t know if I’m ready to make that commitment yet.

On Sunday we leave for Field Based Training, which is a week with the other 27 Health Schools Trainees visiting current volunteers and learning what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.  Should be fun!  Will be back next Saturday but expect no updates until then because I will be freezing my butt off in Totonicapan.

Go eat some macadamia nuts and get your omega fatty acids.

I’m coming out of here with lung cancer…

So it’s well known that respiratory infections are somewhat out of control in Guatemala.  I’m not surprised.  After the first week here it became a wonder to me that more people don’t die of lung related diseases.  Here are a few of the many potential sources:

1. Black Death – I’ve spent my fair share of sentences ranting about the ominous clouds of smog emitted from every passing camioneta and feel my lung capacity weakening every time one passes me.  Emissions from cars are not much better.
2. Burning Trash – The people in Guatemala have very little access to trash disposal services.  Pastores is fortunate enough to be able to dispose of its trash, but it costs 35 quetzales (roughly 4 dollars) a month to have the twice a week pick up.  Thus, people take one of the far easier and much more sanitary options of 1) Dumping it into the river, 2) Dumping it into any ditch or trench in the surrounding areas or 3) Burning it.  The delightful stench of burning plastic is such a wonderful daily wake up call.
3. Poor Ventilation – Many families in Guate don’t have adequate kitchen ventilation and use wood burning stoves.  Women who spend their entire days in the kitchen, often with small babies on their backs, are exposed to a room full of smoke essentially 24/7 (except for maybe sleeping).  Apparently working in a kitchen without ventilation is the equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes A DAY.  Can you say emphysema?
4. Church Services – Every Sunday the services at the local Catholic Church start with the priest entering leading a trail of alter girls/boys carrying blazing candles down the aisles and wafting their clouds of smoke upon all.  Then they sit up at the front for the remainder of the service filling the entire hall up with smoke and making it all the more enjoyable to sit and listen to the Guatemalans singing (who are probably some of the more tone-deaf people in the world).

Iximche

Well, this past weekend I discovered a new source of respiratory infections: Mayan religious ceremonies.  Our entire group took a field trip on Saturday up to the ruins of Iximche in Tecpan (if you know you’re Guatemalan geography it’s up in Chimaltenango, a nearby department and roughly an hour away from me in car).  These are definitely some of the more famous ruins in Guatemala outside of Peten (the northern jungles that are probably the most visited by tourists).  I believe they are the ruins of an ancient palace of some sort, although in terms of Mayan history they’re much more recent than the other ruins (I believe dating back to the 1400s or something?).  We came up to learn about Mayan culture and witness a religious ceremony.  Apparently we got lucky because we happened to come on a day when one of the ceremonies could be performed (got a little lost here and don’t know exactly what day we came on…sorry).  Anyways, it was definitely interesting to watch, but it went on a little longer than I would have ideally liked and had us all standing extremely close to a bonfire that provided us with constant sweating and coughing (YAY ASTHMA!).  Plus he spoke in a Mayan dialect the whole time so no one understood what he was saying except for the occasional “Cuerpo de Paz” that he threw in, so at least we know we’re blessed!

On Sunday I spent some time in the afternoon talking to my family about problems in our community, and one key detail I forgot to mention in previous posts about Pastores was this lovely little river we have running through the town.  There’s a bridge on the main road that passes over it, and as soon as you turn onto the street you’re overwhelmed with this heinous stench that very closely resembles that of a toilet.  My family told me 40 years ago they used to bathe in it, but I’m fairly certain that if you tried that now you would probably contract multiple infectious diseases.  There are numerous causes, from the fact that local residents use it as a dumping ground for trash (respiratory infections from burning or putrid river?  What a choice…) to grazing animals (grazing, and pooping, in the river, thus toilet smell).  Apparently the local coffee beneficiary also dumps their discards into it.  This weekend I learned of another source of pollution.  Apparently in San Lorenzo el Tejar (a community about 12 km away maybe) there is a pig farmer, and when he slaughters his pigs all the blood and guts and gore that isn’t sold for consumption goes straight into the beloved rio that runs right through the heart of Pastores.  My host aunt told me that at times the river looks red and that’s all the pig blood running through it.  Care for a drink?

This has caused me nightmares, so I’m hoping that over the next 2 months I can do some sort of educational workshop on trash management, maybe in the schools where we’re working or elsewhere.  I feel like it’s kind of necessary.  Apparently no one’s able to really do anything about the big guys dumping because the administration prior to Don Miguel was very corrupt and received a lot of bribes from the Coffee Beneficiary to just let them continue dumping.  I feel like the more I’m learning about Guatemala the more I’m wanting to do and contribute, but at the same time the more impossible it seems to do anything because there are so many contributing factors to all of their problems and I have no idea where to start.

Anyways, time for another fun and exciting day at the training center in Santa Lucia

Anniversaring

Today marks one month exactly in Guatemala!  It’s odd…it feels like it’s been going fast, but it also feels like I’ve been here forever and I’m finally starting to feel at home here.

Today was our first day visiting the schools where we will be working for the remainder of our training.  It was really exciting because it felt like we were actually starting to do something rather than just having Spanish classes.

My community is working in a nearby school called Cerro el Nino.  It’s about a half hour walk from our community although the last five minutes are pretty much a 90 degree climb.  Between the frijoles and the hills here I’m sure my butt will grow threefold in the next couple months.  I’m kind of excited for my Guate butt though.  It will give me something to battle the other Guate butts on the chicken buses with.

Unfortunately I didn´t get any pictures of the school since it seemed awkward on the first day, but I will try and get some when we go friday and post them later.  Anyways, the school is 6 classrooms – preparatory through 6^th with 5^th and 6^th grade combined – and only 90 students.  There are two main buildings, one just recently built (and still under construction) by who else other than the famed alcalde Miguel Lopez, that stud.  If you haven’t already seen him, here’s the center of the calendar my family has hanging in our dining room.

Rawr…what a fox.  No wonder the Donas love him.

Anyways, we eventually found the director in the more recently built building, which in order to get to you have to walk on a crumbling precipice that overhangs the part of the construction site not yet finished.  It’s about a 4 ft wide walkway and one of the volunteers spotted a 3^rd grader sitting on the edge during snack time chiseling away at the edge.  Safety first in Guatemala!

We all took classrooms to observe for the day and I got to sit in with the directora’s class (the directors in schools here are all teachers with slightly more responsibility) in second grade.  The kids were freaking adorable and we made friends quickly.  Ages ranged from 7 to 10 with one 15 year old (although I think he may have some legitimate mental issues which held him back so far).  The day went something like this: from about 7:30 am when school started until around 8:15 they practiced their cursive handwriting and differentiating between upper and lower class letters.  Then we had gym, which they have once a week.  We hiked up to the cancha (which was quite the subido) and the gym teacher said “run” and they ran laps until he eventually threw a ball in and they played boys vs. girls soccer.  The ball continuously fell down the hills surrounding the cancha and children would run down into the trench that seemed to be the trash dump for the community and wade through plastic bottles and garbage to get the ball.  The teacher is 20 and goes to five different schools throughout the week but didn’t seem to do much in the way of mediating conflicts or encouraging safety and the multiple times that kids went down on the cement he just commented that ‘isn’t it funny that they never complain when they fall.”  Tough little Guate kids.  He then spent the next few minutes talking about going dancing in Antigua and something that was happening on March 23 and would I like to go and did I have a boyfriend and I believe my response was somewhere along the lines of yes I definitely do have a boyfriend and he is coming down soon to visit…so if anyone has any good fake boyfriend names throw them at me, I’m open to all suggestions.

Around 9:00 we went back to the classroom for refaccion where nearly every kid offered me a bag of their chips or have their cheese sandwich.  I declined as I heard the Burbank lunch ladies scolding us for sharing snacks, although I don’t think regulations are quite as strict down here.  At maybe 10:00 we went back to practicing our letters and played a game sort of like hot potato and when the ball landed on you you had to quick get up and say the first letter of your name or you were out.  Several kids had issues with this game, and if you lost you had to get up and dance the “gallanita” which goes like this:

Queremos que todos bailen la gallina (we want everyone to dance like a chicken)
Alita por aqui, alita por alla (wing on the right, wing on the left)
Pechuga por adelante, colita por atras  (breast in the front and tail at the back) 

With movements and shaking of tail feathers to accompany.  I was excited for it only because I had already learned it when the losing team at our bar-b-que had to dance it (myself included).

 Around 10:30 was recess and another refaccion.  This was the highlight of the day as we observed the utter chaos of Guatemalan energy.  There were several various activities going on during this time.  The largest was myself and another volunteer and about 30 kids playing various games, the first of which, “gato y raton” (cat and mouse), we had also experienced at our potluck.  Upon the fantastic suggestion of my friend I took the role of the gato and about five seconds into it my inadequate footwear mixed with the layer of polvo on the ground and I wiped out into the trash can.  Luckily I have quite the history of falling and have learned that the best thing to do is get up and keep playing, so I ignored my bleeding finger and carried on.

Other activities included the group of boys in the corner playing dice, roughly 5 kids struggling to lock other kids in the bathroom, the group of boys that spent the entire period punching each other in the balls and fighting on the ground, the 6^th grade girls sitting quietly in a corner gossiping, and the group of teachers in the corner chatting and eating watermelon.  It was quite the site.  For the remaining hour and a half of the day my class practiced writing the numbers 1-100 in cursive.

I had sort of expected not to be too surprised today – I’ve seen Latin American schools before and worked with them in some context – but it was the first time I’ve seen it during the day in action, and found myself comparing their experience to my own.  Belmont – with its exceptionally perky classrooms and overflowing shelves of books – vs. Pastores – with bare walls and roughly 7 books in the corner.  Kind of a rude awakening.

Anyways, we’re going back on Friday and next week we start teaching health charlas to the kids which should be exciting.  My biggest issue with training right now however is that I feel like we’re using these schools for our own benefits.  The health groups continuously use the same schools, and it feels like we’re coming in to practice on them so we’re better once we start working with different schools on a more continuous basis.  I think this is the first year that we’re coming on a more consistent basis, but it still seems unfair to neglect these schools and only use them for practice.

my friends don´t believe in flash so the picture´s a little blurry...but that´s me with a plateful of deliciousness in the form of chiles rellenos

In other exciting news, on Monday we learned how to make chiles rellenos in our Spanish class.  They’re generally only made for special occasions and holidays, probably because it’s a painstakingly long process, but basically it consists of roasted peppers wrapped around seasoned meat and veggies then battered and fried and covered in fresh homemade salsa.  I put my vegetarianism aside because these babies are freaking delicious, and I also took it upon myself to introduce green plantains to my fellow classmates (and some Guatemalans who were somewhat skeptical).

Doña Lupe mastering her kitchen

I’ve had two major culinary disappointments since arriving.  The first is the absence of gallopinto, the rice and beans combo that I fell in love with in Nicaragua.  The second slightly larger upset was the absence of tostones/patacones/whatever name other countries use for them – which are basically fried green plantain chips.  They are amazing and I thought a staple of every Latin American diet, but apparently Guatemala is an exception.  When I asked my mom where I could find some she looked the most confused I’ve seen her yet as if to say “ha…look at this crazy gringa not knowing how to properly eat a plantain!”  After a tip off from my Spanish teacher though I headed to the market on Saturday and dragged my friend to multiple veggie vendors, finally encountering a woman with green plantains hiding in the back.  I think I may have converted a few Guates and maybe I will start a movement of unripe plantain lovers down here.

In other essential news, I discovered the cookie shop and fancy panaderia in Antigua – soon to be weekly contributors to Abby’s Guate butt.  I may have to cut out the one quetzal cookies that I´ve been buying 5 packs a day of.  I’m currently gnawing on my pre-bedtime banana bread snack, but I think its time for tooth brushing, malaria pills, and bed.

 Besitos

Abby

A day in the life of…

Apologies for not posting sooner…we’ve actually had work to do and I think this may be the first night that I’ve been able to just sit in my room in over a week.

I realized that I have spoken very little of the town I live in or my daily life or anything of the sort of Guatemalan culture…que pena…so here’s a little taste of my life.

Bomberos

I live in a small town outside of Antigua called Pastores.  It’s claim to fame is a two line blurb in lonely planet highlighting it for its boot making industry.  The main ¨highway¨ that passes through town (which I live on) is lined on both sides of the street with leather work shops, all selling essentially the same products.  It’s hard for me to imagine how they all stay in business as I only ever see the occasional Guatemalan shopper and the rare adventurous gringo who dares the 10 minute camioneta ride to get there, and then never leave the main stretch of leather shops.  Aside from that, we also have a coffee processing plant.  Apparently Guatemalan is ranked 3^rd highest in the world for coffee quality.  Woot woot.  The town “center” consists of the Catholic church (which dominates all celebrations) and the basketball/soccer court where most of the evening activity takes place (although women only ever sit and watch…and despite my desire for exercise and to improve my game, the guys are really freaking vicious and I don’t know if I should dare concrete with my history of eating pavement).  My daily walk takes me down my street, all the while dodging the clouds of black death smog that the chicken buses emit, to the “Muni” (where the mayor’s office and town services are) where I turn down the other main road in town where the other volunteers live.  Sometimes I go further to the soccer field or one of the two internet cafes we have, but I have yet to explore too much further.  I say roughly 200 buenos dias/tardes/noches on a daily basis as it is custom here to greet every single person you pass on the street, and am on a first name basis with some of the police officers and the boy who sells me my daily cookies (they’re only 12 cents a pack here, so needless to say I’ve been gorging myself).  I am currently working on becoming best friends with the lady who sells pineapples and the taco vendors that set shop up at night (although I am still abiding by rules to avoid street food, I figure if I become friends with them I can encourage sanitary practices and then eat it all).  Our town has a police station, fire station, and health center which serves pretty much as the principal for all the surrounding communities that are part of the same municipality.

My family lives on the main road in a fairly decent size house, and a prime location as every parade stops right in front of our house for dancing.  It’s centered around a large outdoor patio and I think is much bigger than I’ve seen although I have not seen all the parts of my aunt’s or uncle’s portions of the house.  We have a fairly large backyard with coffee and avocados trees and our little troupe of hens and chicks, and the rooster that frequently wakes me up.  This is also our outdoor cooking area where we make beans and such.  The majority of the rest of our extended family live in a house two doors down and across the street in a fairly large compound.  They also have terrain in nearby Parramos where they grow avocados, corn, and beans.  My mom and I had a talk about American food industry and the issues of chemicals the other day (I am STARVED for conversation topics with her) so now she always reinforces when I’m eating things from their land that don’t have pesticides.  She also frequently tells me that I’m much healthier than any of my compatriots because I don’t eat meat (although she tells me this as I’m eating a huge portion of battered and fried cauliflower).  My daily diet usually consists of, among other things, at least the equivalent of a can of beans, plantains, an avocado, French bread, and at least 6 tortillas.  I had contemplated keeping a tortilla count but I lost track around 45 and decided it would be too much effort for two years.  I also get this very sugary tea that confused me for the first two weeks because it always smelt like tortillas to me, but it turns out it’s made from corn so I’m not going crazy (at least in that sense). 

The only time we ever venture out of our little town is when we have training elsewhere or feel the need to Americanize ourselves in Antigua, in which case we hop on the local chicken bus (a volunteer recently proposed that they are called such because we are stuffed into it like chickens in a crate), cram ourselves in squished between fairly curvaceous Latin American women while the helper hangs out the doorway attempting to collect money, and fly down the road at probably 20 miles per hour over what is safe for the aging school buses to handle.  The only other form of public transportation in the area are the “touk touk”s, which are essentially motorcycles with a platform and canvas enclosed back seat.  They have the added benefit of sucking in all the ominous black death smog from passing vehicles.

It’s been a challenge for me to find ways to spend time with my family, mostly because they always seem to hide out in the parts of the house that I haven’t yet been in.  Lately I’ve been spending lots of time being a stenographer for my aunt but I feel like more than being a source of bonding it’s just made me bitter at her.  Originally I had planned on her just using my computer to type but then they discovered that the gringa is a nerd who tried really hard in sixth grade typing class and can finish the work in much less time…excellent.  The other day I came home a little late and she said “oh, my secretary is late to work!” and then giggled and I just glared.  I tried to breach the subject of watching telenovelas (latin american soap operas…super cheesy) with my host mom last night, to which she responded ¨they´re all stupid.¨  However, I discovered today that we both share a love of cooking shows, so perhaps we will soon reach new heights in our relationship.

Making plastic hotdogs with too much input from my overbearing aunt

This past weekend we threw a party for all of our host families in Pastores, using our meager Peace Corps budgets (we get about $3.50 a day for our own personal enjoyment) to buy hamburgers and hotdogs and drinks and chips for 30.  We underestimated a little on the food, and the highlight of the eating was 3 hot dogs in when my aunt came up to us at the grill to tell us that we needed to remove the plastic casing from the hot dogs before cooking them, which was brought up multiple times throughout the day.  Ah, gringos provide such entertainment!  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing games, and at several instances had all our Donas falling on the lawn in fits of laughter.

This weekend also marked the convite celebration in Pueblo Nuevo, the town over from ours.  Everyone was excited because Sunday night there

churros!

 was a big concert with some famous group from Antigua, so I and some of the other volunteers walked down to see what all the fuss was about.  Guatemalans go all out for celebrations and the streets were lined with food vendors and makeshift bars, and packed with drunk adolescent Guatemalans.  It was pretty ridiculous, but what was most interesting to me here is that NOBODY DANCES.  People just stand and watch, and then I’m the awkward gringa who attracts even more attention to myself by dancing.  It’s odd because I feel like dancing is something I normally associate with Latin America, but apparently Pastores missed that memo…  I also had my first taste of street food (if you don’t count the ice cream, which I don’t because I’d like to forget that experience) in the form of churros, which are fried donuts covered in cinnamon sugar and are freaking delicious, plus I’m pretty sure the hot oil kills any possibility of food borne illness.  We stayed out relatively late in terms of our standards but I was still in bed by 10:15…nightlife in Pastores is fairly limited.

On Monday we took our first trip to Guatemala City, which everyone seemed pretty excited for but I really didn’t care very much.  From my experience with Latin American cities they’re really just not my cup of tea.  Our trip pretty much consisted of seeing the hospital we would be using (if necessary…I hopefully will never see it again), the embassy, and the two major malls in the area, as well as Hiper Pais – the Walmart of Guatemala.  All of the important things, of course.  Most of the city is off limits it seems to us due to gangs, drugs, murders, robberies, or all of the above.  The ride there and back is also not the most enjoyable as it solely consists of curvy roads through the mountain and psychotic drivers in USA school buses from the 1960s that I’m sure have not had their break pads checked since being deemed outdated on US standards and sent down here.

Tuesday we were back at headquarters for training, which are great because we get to see all the other volunteers and also awful because we sit for hours listening to really obvious stuff and talking about our poop.  Here´s a group shot of the Healthy Schools kids

Overall I feel like a 12 year old, which I feel like I was warned about in advance but is still very frustrating to be in.  In two weeks however our group is ceasing Spanish classes to do more technical training, and next week we start working with local schools, all of which I think will keep me much more occupied and challenged than what I’ve been experiencing thus far.  The one good thing is we´re starting to figure out what we are actually going to be doing in our program and getting more excited about actually starting to do some work.  Next week we start working in schools in our area teaching workshops for the rest of training which should be fun, and in a couple weeks we have Field based training which is going to a volunteer site and seeing what people are actually doing.

The most exciting thing lately is we all got a chance to meet the mayor of Pastores.  He seems like a decent guy (although we have no political opinions here) and is doing a lot to improve infrastructure stuff around here.  I mostly got excited because I feel like he´s a superstar as his face is posted on the calendars in all of our houses. 

I’m noticing ants crawling out of my computer right now…so I’m going to go see what that’s all about.

Abi

Oo also…here´s an older picture of us learning how to make tamales from our spanish teacher´s mom

 

Too much tension…

This week our Spanish teacher, Chepe, decided to make class a little more fun by playing games instead of the usual boring vocabulary lessons. Apparently Chepe underestimated the cut-throat competetiveness of some members of our group (including yours truly, of course) and I think the effect was that we all have a tiny desire to kill one another now.

It started when the bananagrams got broken out in the Washington airport. I thought I acted innocent enough, attempting to conceal my true personality until people learned to love the good side of me, but alas several days later my intense competitive nature was brought up my one or two of my fellow volunteers. I should’ve taken that as a sign to lay off games for a while, but Chepe had to undermine me with a Spanish version of Scattegories. Blast!

Now I’d like to say that this sudden loss of camaraderie within our group is not ENTIRELY my fault. It turns out several other volunteers in my class are equally competitive, just not quite as good, and were not pleased when I dominated them all. Of course it probably didn’t help that I called them out a couple times on improper spelling…but I still say they’re just poor losers! Regardless, this has earned me the (hopefully temporary) nickname of “hooked on phonix” and ended in several challenges to futbol games on the local turf. This is where I lost face, because unfortunately being ill-nasty at word games does not earn you street cred in Guatemala (nor anywhere, I think, except maybe in my head). 

Regardless, this has earned me the (hopefully temporary) nickname of “hooked on phonix” and ended in several challenges to futbol games on the local turf.  This is where I lost face, because unfortunately being ill-nasty at word games does not earn you street cred in Guatemala (nor anywhere, I think, except maybe in my head).  Needless to say, today consisted of a SOLO game of bananagrams in my room, which I soon quit because it is still a little early to lose sanity.

I am happy to say that I am, finally, better!  After 5 days of nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, I can eat again, although much less.  My family is super confused, and keeps remarking that I’m so big and I need to eat.  I tried to tell them that this is not the normal, and attempted to explain the term “hollow leg,” but it was lost on them.

So it turns out that January is the month of Convite in our little neighborhood of towns.  You may recall I missed it in Pastores last weekend because of a bad case of the ¨asientos¨ as it is called here, but fortunately my incredibly large family has more family in Alotenango which was celebrating it´s convite this past weekend.  So, Saturday we climbed into the pick up truck and drove through the gorgeous Guatemalan scenery to celebrate I still don´t know what.  I was again offered numerous rounds of Tequila shots, and it now seems to be the running joke in my family to offer me more Tequila as I continue to reject it.  Thanks fam, it´s a little too early to bring that side of me out with ya´ll.

The celebration in Alotenango was slightly different in that the whole day was one large parade with multiple different dancing groups.  There were figuras (the large cartoon characters), fieros (essentially men dressed up like women…some incredibly innapropriate this time), dancing kids, and abuelitas (essentially people dressed up like grandmothers doing a hoe down).  Here are some excerpts:

A small portion of my familia. Right to left: my aunt, cynthia, maria elena, gimena, and my host mother Esperanza

Mickey and Pepe pre-bailar

Slightly R rated...fieros, some with too much buttocks showing

Me with one of the dancing abuelitas

I have some from the convite in Pastores the previous weekend but they´re very similar, although we did have Ralph from UP in ours and apparently some of my host cousins were fieros (I found this out after the fact).  This event will happen again in the two towns next to us in the weekends to come, but I´m kind of over it already.  I do have a good video of some bobbleheads dancing that I will try to put up once I figure that out. 

Yesterday (Sunday) I went to church with my mom for the first time.  I decided to view it as an anthropological experience and thought maybe I´d learn some Spanish from the service, but I ended up spacing out as I do on the rare occassion I attend at home and not really hearing anything.  There was a lot of kneeling and standing up that was new for me and probably made me look like a big dumb gringa, especially since I was at least a foot taller than all the people around me (Guatemaltecos are SHORT).  Afterwards my host cousin took me ¨hiking¨ in the surrounding hills, which took MAYBE 40 minutes in total.  I have this obsession with going up and while this satisfied it a little I still need to go higher, tal vez up Volcan Agua or Pacaya.  It did give a beautiful view of the landscape though.  We also stopped at our towns soccer field which is up high with beautiful views.  Picture to come.

Today we spent the day visiting current Healthy Schools volunteers and seeing where they live and the schools they´re working with.  It was great to get a more concrete feel for what we´re going to be doing the next 2 something years and it made me really excited and nervous at the same time.  (excited to get started, nervous because I really want to be in a rural setting and there aren´t too many posts for Healthy Schools that live in rural settings, although all work with rural schools).  We are basically a transition group between phase 1, which works directly with schools on a smaller scale, and phase 2, which works with municipalities and ministers of education to do more far reaching work.  Most of us will be in Phase 2 which seems to be a much more innovative program that could have a lot more impact but for that we´re placed in pairs and I´m not sure if I really want to be in the same village as another volunteer, I kind of want to be out there (ideally in the jungle but that´s impossible because it´s a drug trafficking route so they don´t place people there…figures).

Other than that I´ve been spending a lot of time with my host family trying to figure out how to speak Spanish again.  I also turned into a stenographer for my host aunt as she has to create all these plans for her school and doesn´t have a computer and doesn´t want to break mine trying to type.  I spent an hour and a half transcribing for her last night before I made up an excuse to go to my friend´s house to do homework.  Not looking forward to going back tonight.

Also, I felt my first earthquake today.  It kind of scared the begeesis out of me (I´m sure I´ve been in a small earthquake before and just never realized it) but no harm done.  The house we were in just started to kind of move and it took me a second to realize what happened.  It was small though and we´re all good, these happen from time to time down here.  One of the other volunteers mentioned that all the volcanoes here actually relieve some of the potential earthquake threat, so I´m safe!  Don´t worry!

Here´s a couple pictures I meant to put up last time:

The pollitos in my back yard...we´re not friends yet but I´m working on it

View of Volcan Aguas from our director´s balcony

Volcan Fuego y Pacaya

Oky doky…spent an hour in the internet cafe and ready to blow my mind off.  Love you all and keep emails coming!
Abby

address and phone update! Check the contact page and SEND ME PICTURES

Every party needs a pooper…

So on Saturday we arrived in what is to be our ¨home¨ for the next three months.  We´ve all been split up according to our program and spanish level, an myself and four other volunteers are residing in Pastores, a town about 5 minutes north of Antigua.  We were fortunate enough to arrive on the weekend of a, in my opinion, very bizarre holiday.  Unfortunately I was on bedrest for most of it (title taken literally) and only was able to arise for a few moments on Saturday to see what the spectacle was all about.

Mind you, we had been warned of this earlier by our Spanish teacher, Chepe, but I was still extremely unprepared for what I saw.  Apparently Convite is a celebration of the conception (why now?  Because there was no other excuse for a party, claro) but in reality it is a parade of men dressed to the nine like women.  While the general idea was that it was a contest, for most it seemed an excuse to get beligerantly drunk and express some repressed sexual fantasies (at least that´s how it came off to me).  They parade around and dance for miles and then continue to dance in the main plaza til the late hours of the night.  I only know this because I could hear it when I got up to sprint from my bed to the bathroom (which, luckily, I have in my room.  word to the wise…avoid the ice cream).  I have a few pictures but unfortunately brought the wrong camera cord with me so these will have to be posted tomorrow:-/

Sunday is the more kid friendly version where people dress up like giant cartoon characters (my favorite was from UP) and do a coordinated dance throughout the streets.  Some other volunteers have host siblings who participated and my family provided refreshments as all the dancers snuck behind the scenes to take off their enormous foam heads which they proceeded to squeeze sweat from (ew).  In the evening they have a procession of the virgin which is a giant virgin mary on a rolling platform surrounded by statues of angels that people push through the streets and onlookers set off fireworks in front of.  (Which is another thing.  Fireworks are the favorite posession of every guatemalteco.  Apparently they mostly set them off for people´s birthdays, but I have been woken by them consistently every morning I´ve been here.)

Anyways overall life has been pretty tranquila (despite my sudden burst of stomache nastiness that fell upon me this weekend).  The first three days were spent with host families in Santa Lucia, where headquarters is.  I stayed with a family along with another girl from peace corps and outside of training we spent the days playing massive soccer games with the local children.  I´m sorry to say that they are ALL better than me.  Even the five year olds.  I wish I was kidding.  Fortunately I figure I have, say, two years to improve my game?  I still am going to make it my personal goal to bring volleyball to Guate (which reminds me, I forgot a volleyball…so if anyone really loves me and wants to send me one:) ).

There are 45 of us in total, divided into healthy schools (my program) and Ecoturism.  Guatemala is unbelievably gorgeous and I feel so lucky to be here.  Santa Lucia has beautiful views of nearby volcanoes Agua, Fuego (active), and another Mayan name that I have no clue how to pronounce.  The food so far has been good, although I made the mistake of going after a one quetzal (roughly 12 cents) ice cream in Santa Lucia that did not agree well with me.  I knew it was probably made with unpurified water, and discarded it after another volunteer pointed this out to me, but come on…ONE QUETZAL!  I feel so betrayed…  Since then I have hardly eaten anything so I can´t speak much to the food of my new host family.

So Saturday right before we left was spent in a several hour question and answer session (which nearly killed me) but one of the main points stressed was how even ONE DROP of local water could give you a parasite (still want that ice cream?) and ways to discreetly dry off utensils should any come to you wet.  I arrive at my wonderful new host family´s house (consisting of my ¨mother¨Esperanza, her sister Carolina with her husband (name?) and 6 year old son Rodrigo) and as she´s showing me this beautiful jug of purified water she proceeds to plunge the pump that has just been rinsed off with water from the Pila (not good) and not dried off directly into the jug.  AH!  Gorgeous, healthy, clean water gone to mud.  Lucky for me my Aunt had the foresight to give me a water bottle with a built in self purification system for christmas (which has gotten countless green eyes from all the volunteers…at least in my mind).  So so far, no harm no foul, but I don´t think the cartridge I have will last for three more months so hopefully next time I´ll be able to take a bit more preventative action.  I tried this time with a pathetic  ¨can I dry that for you?¨ but she didn´t seem to get the picture…

I live in a fairly large house centered around an outdoor patio with my family, our dog valentin (who´s cray cray) and a tiny cat whose name I forget, but in a 2 foot radius live the rest of my mother´s incredibly huge family.  She has 8 siblings and I think I met the majority on the first day (although I was not functioning very well).  They also had cousins in from Guatemala city, who proceeded to offer me tequila shots to celebrate the fiesta.  I politely declined, although certain guatemaltecos have reassured me that Tequila is good for stomache aches (I have to say that based on experience, I highly disagree).  Needless to say I remember no names, and it really doesn´t help that my mother and her 4 sisters all look exactly alike.

Gah this has been so fragmented and wonky.  My head is not in the right place needless to say and I¨m trying to type quickly because folks are waiting on the basketball court (no, I still am not capable of playing basketball.)  Now it´s getting too dark and my family is probably waiting for me to come home so I can politely decline any more solid foods and continue to spend the night entre bed and bathroom.

Swearing off helado for good…or at least until I regain my strength from this bout… (come on, it´s only one quetzal!)

Missing you all much

Abby

Also, I have my address but forgot it at my home so will try and post it in the next few days.  I would LOVE mail, and especially any pictures you may have that I´d appreciate.  I forgot to bring any (stupid).

Less than 24 hours to go…

and I am sitting on my couch, watching ellen degeneres, eating my last bowl of oatmeal (although I guess oats are one of those universal staples), and pushing packing to the farthest, most unreachable corners of my thoughts.  I must say that despite my relatively frequent travels this is the part of it that never seems to become easier.  Usually the few days leading up to a trip consists of walking to my closet, opening it up, staring at everything for a few minutes, and then closing it and deciding that I don’t actually want to pack right then.  This trip has been no different, except after a little motivation from Zohar I did get as far as pulling everything out of my closet and throwing it on the floor.  The prospect of having to bring everything that I’m going to wear/use for the next two years is extremely daunting (even though yes, I know, there are stores in Guatemala) on top of the fact that I have no idea wear or what climate I’ll be living in for that matter (Peace Corps has informed me that the majority of their placements are in cooler mountain climates but I’m still crossing my fingers for somewhere warmer…I guess anywhere at this point is warmer than Boston in winter).

That being said, I actually know very little about what will go down in the next few days/weeks/months/years.  I tend to go into experiences like this with completely no idea of what I’m getting myself into, but maybe that naivete is better.

Time to find new ways to procrastinate.  This is fun, I haven’t truly had to procrastinate since May.