Trip from my parents and updates

At Tikal

It has been a while since I have written to you all but a lot has been happening since I last wrote.  My parents came to visit me for a few days and it was GREAT to see them both.  It had been a little over 7 months since I had seen anyone from back home.  It was a pleasure for me to be in their company while they were here.  They took care of me and gave me a little break from my day to day life here in Guatemala. 

I took them up to my site which was an adventure of itself because both my parents said to me ‘we want to see how you live and what your daily life is like.”  So on the trek of camionetas we came up to my site and 5 hours later we arrived.  I have to say that I am very impressed with how both my parents faired on the twist and turns, vendor packed smelly speeding ride.  Kudos to them.  We spent a few nights here my site where I showed them my town, talked about work that I do and gave them a feel of daily things that I go through.  Cooking, getting food, bucket baths, no water at times, what to do with free time things like that.  The only thing that they didn’t get a full dose of was the solidarity and long time on your hands after work and when you are just in your home alone.  Since the time I have been here now, I look forward to the time I have by myself to where I can read, study, or just look outside and just enjoy the clouds going by. 

The highlight of our trip was Tikal.  This was an extremely fun part of my parent’s trip and something that one must not pass up on a trip to Guatemala.  Tikal is an ancient Mayan city that was once rumored to be as big as 200,000 people.  I cannot even begin to try to describe what I saw except that it was an incredible site and something that is breathtaking to be walking around.  There are still many many temples and areas that have still yet to be excavated discovered.  We would pass flat areas with enormous mounds dozens of meters high that must be something that were still covered by the thick jungle vegetation.  I enjoyed walking around and exploring and trying to imagine what it must have been like during its pinnacle.  Simply incredible.

Dad in Antigua

We spent a little time in Antigua and one of my favorite moments was when we invited my host family from training to come to dinner with us.  That was a moment that I really enjoyed where I introduced both Ingrid and Armando to my parents so that they could see how special they are to me and the amount of fun we have together.  We ate dinner and had a drink and Camilla was great as well.  It was great to stay in some nice establishments around Antigua and eat some really good food too. 

Mom and a temple at Tikal

All in all it was just good to be around my parents and glad for me to show them my place, what I am doing and what I deal with on a daily basis.  For most volunteers, I think that it is very easy to form quick strong long lasting friendships because we all know what we are going through.  To give me parents this glimpse of the ups and downs, twists and turns give me an ability to relate to the experiences that I am having.  As a volunteer we can whine and complain with what we are going through but now that I have people that have seen a glimpse of what I go through it just allows me to relate to them.  No I wont have to explain everything when I am having a bad day, I will just be able to say it stinks.

Me and President Colom on a visit to a project

On another note (sorry this blog is all over the place (just trying to recap everything is tough)) we had the 50^th anniversary of the Peace Corps.  This was held at the ambassador’s house and was attended by over 350 volunteers, staff, host families, administration, and guests.  It was cool to see majority of Peace Corps Guatemala in one gathering. 

Other than that my next blog entry will be all about work and some of the things I have done here.  I have just created a plan for the next few months as I will give you an insight into some of the professional struggles and benefits of working as a PCV here in Guatemala.

I hope all is well with everyone!!

Take Care!

Updates and Reconnect

Greetings everyone.  Time for updates.  My cast is off and I didn’t have to spend the night for them to take it off.  Granted they moved the appointment back a few times, I am glad to report it is off.  It is still pretty weak and was a little purple but I can walk and day by day it is getting better. 

Last week was pretty busy as after my cast removal on Friday the 11th, the following day I made the trip to Antigua where I got to meet up with my training group for Reconnect.  Reconnect is a 2-day get together with our group to well….reconnect.  Most people got in a few days early and got to spend some extra time together and catch up.  With our travel restrictions and personal days vs. vacation days it is hard to see people when you are on one side of the country and they are on the other.  We are only allowed to travel 3 hours out of our site and have it count as a personal day.  Anything technically more than that we need to take vacation.  Antigua is anywhere between 4-5.5 depending on traffic and connections.  So this was my first extended stay in Antigua really since I have been here in country. 

Sunday and Monday night I stayed with my host family Ingrid and Armando and got to see Camilla.  It is always to see them as they make me feel like I am at home when I am there.  They are such a nice family and I hope to see them again soon.  Camilla is getting so big and is starting to walk and say a few words.  She’s so cute!

Reconnect was good, we got to meet up with other volunteers and have specific meetings on things that went well, what didn’t, and scenarios to help fix them.  Many people have similar problems and frustrations but just with different named people.  The most common thing here is ‘hora chapina’ aka Guatemala time.  You can ask someone to show up and you can expect them to show up usually that day.  I will say they average an hour to two behind that scheduled time.  Very frustrating. 

On Tuesday, we had another packed day with meetings but got to have Pizza and have a lunch/discussion with the Ambassador again.  He’s a really straight forward guy who made us feel welcome and appreciated our work here in Guatemala.  He asked a lot of questions of ourselves and what we saw in the field working and living along side Guatemalans.  He gave us insight on development and some of his thoughts about the upcoming elections and where Guatemala might go.  It was definitely a better session as we had more pertinent questions to ask him than we did during our swear in at his house. 

I am back at site now, and staring to get a few projects underway along with the day to day office work I do alongside my team.  A few people are taking vacation right now so the ‘office’ has a little more space and I can get a little bit more work done.  I am working on a few bottle school projects that uses empty bottles filled with non-organic trash in place of cement blocks to cut costs.  I have proposed a plan to build three schools with an initial investment from the mayor, and with this help and showing to NGO’s that we have the capability to do projects like this in hopes to attract more funds for other programs as well.  We are just in the very early stages of this project(s) so we will see where it all goes. 

I get to look forward to a little visit from my parents in a few weeks which will be a welcomed treat for sure.  Its amazing to already know that I have been here for 6 months. As the saying goes here in PC.  The days are slow and long but the months go by fast….. until next time!