Every day here you learn something new about yourself. Yesterday I discovered that i love using a router! Our training group is making signs to direct visitors to the local park here, so i spent the greater part of yesterday routering signs... it was way too much fun.
In other news.. we felt two or three little earthquakes on Tuesday this week. That may or may not have been the first time i have ever consciously felt one. And even then, Tara had to nudge me and inform me that the ground was shaking... Not always the most observant.
Still not tired of tortillas, beans, eggs.. which is a lucky thing for me. The first ripe mangoes appeared this week so it looks like we will soon be in the throes of mango season. I´m sooo excited.

This week has flown by and I¨m on the countdown until March 12th, when they finally tell us our site assignments! After that, a week long site visit where we meet our counterparts, arrange housing, and get to know the community, then we return to swear in as official Volunteers. I´m anxious to know where I can call home for the next year, but with that sense of security comes a whole new set of anxieties, questions, adjustments, etc. to look forward to. The fast approaching, much anticipated Site Assignment has prompted me to think back on everything I´ve accomplished to bring me to this point. I began the official Peace Corps application in September of 2008. I´ve jumped through a lot of hoops to get here. Now i´m finally ready to begin service as a Peace Corps Volunteer... I hope.

Pictures!

Okay here we go. Some promised pictures here, in no specific order. First a picture of Samac, the community where we spent our week in Field Based Training. One of us will spend the next two years here.















Below is a tiny frog i found on our 'birdwatching hike.' I was stoked to find it in the leaf litter, since we weren't really seeing any birds.
This picture was taken from the back of the pick up truck on our crazy truck ride out to the birdwatching site. It was definitely the highlight of FBT for me.

Here I am with Tara and Mirsa, our spanish teacher, making puposas, which are basically tortillas with queso mixed in. SOOO good!

Here are some of the trainees with some local children during field based training. they followed us around like local celebrities.

Here's a shot of the boys' cabana during FBT. not too shabby....

Tara and I on our hike down to Salto de Chilasco, which are the tallest falls in Guatemala. Unfortunately it was so cloudy that we couldn't see them when we got there. The hike, nonetheless, was amazing.

Stephanie, Patty, and I mid-hike down to Salto de Chilasco. Stephanie is practically my neighbor in my host community, and Patty was my roommate the first 3 nights we were in country.... !

What doesn't kill you....

So one of the big mantras that I have and will continue to fall back on is the tried and true 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' I'd like to share one example from yesterday. One thing that has been really difficult to adjust to here in Guate is the volume. In general, Guatemala is just a really noisy place. This begins around 3:30 or 4 am when the roosters wake up ( I have one right below my bedroom window). Then the chicken buses and delivery trucks get going, the dogs wake up, babies start crying, music starts playing, and it all builds on each other into a general pandemonium that lasts most of the morning.
My neighbors perfectly exemplify this love of volume here in Guate. Tara and I had just settled down to work on our project plans a little bit on our balcony, when they decided to blast Alvin and the Chipmunks.... in spanish........for about an hour. Who in their right mind wants to listen to that, and at full volume nonetheless? And when I say full volume.... I mean the walls were vibrating with the harmonies of Alvin and his spanish, chipmunk brothers.
All I could do was laugh and practice 'tuning it out' which I'm beginning to get the hang of..

I survived our Field Based Training. We had a jam packed schedule every day from 7 am until 8 or 9 at night. Our Tech Trainer has lost his mind! But we were staying in the rustic little village outside of Coban.. but you would never know you were so close to ´civilization.´ The highlight of the trip for me was our attempt at birdwatching on Friday morning. Breakfast was scheduled for 5:45 am, and optimistically, starting birdwatching shortly thereafter. The birdwatching trail was up and over this crazy dirt road down into this huge sinkhole where the village of sanimteka is located. They loaded all 20-something of us into the backs of these early 80´s era toyota pickups... the preferred form of transport in the back roads in guate... and up up up and then down down down we went. i love every minute of it. I´ll try to post some pics later in the week. Anyways, by the time we actually made it to the birdwatching trail, it was after 9 am.... you can probably guess how many birds we saw. Nonetheless the trail took us through this incredible cloud forest that was so lush and green. It was beautiful. I took to watching the ground instead of the trees, on the lookout for crawly critters. I found a tiny frog and a tiny anole lizard. no jumping pit vipers..yet. the volunteer there was a bit of herp enthusiast too and was giving us the skinny on the snakes, lizards, etc in the area.
One thing that was really impressed upon me this week was how genuine and welcoming the people of the village were where we stayed. I´ve been hearing about how wonderful the guatemalan people are, and this week that really hit home with me. We were officially welcomed by the entire ´junta directiva´of the town, and by the way were the first overnight guests the community has hosted. I was touched by their heartfelt welcome. I was sad to leave on saturday morning, only comforted by the fact that one of us will be back for good, and i´ll at least have a chance to go back to visit.

Aqui estoy...

A month has passed here in Guatemala. Time flies in the life of a Trainee, our schedules packed with Spanish classes and technical sessions. I still have to pinch myself sometimes as I start to feel comfortable in my host community, with my host family, with my fellow Trainees. The hardest part so far was just getting on the plane in Miami heading to Guatemala City. I guess I´m still waiting for that moment when I realize that I´m finally here, under the umbrella of Peace Corps, and that I survived a month of training!
To sum up the last month would be impossible so I´m not going to try. I´ll just start with today. Our spanish teacher took us to an Organic Macadamia Nut Farm outside of Antigua to sample the goods and take the free tour. This included a macadamia nut oil facial and the heavenly macadamia nut chocolates. I was just sad we didn´t make it for breakfast- macadamia nut pancakes with macadamia nut butter.... yumm...
Aside from that, tomorrow i´ll be frantically preparing to leave for a week of Field-Based Training which I am really excited for. A week of meeting ´real live Volunteers´ and hear about what their jobs are (the big questions for us Trainees). You´ll have to hear about it later!
Writing from an internet cafe so i´ll cut myself off now. More to follow.....