Weathered the Storm

First of all, yes, i am safe and sound, having weathered my first tropical storm (Agatha).... ok actually i think she passed to the south of where im at, technically. But i was still a little anxious as we waited for it to hit, not knowing what would happen. However, i am marooned at Lake Atitlan for the time being. I headed here to visit a friend despite the heavy rain, in desperate need of a weekend out of site. Shortly after getting here, we got the news that torrential downpours due to a tropical depression would continue throughout the weekend and that we were not permitted to leave our current location.
So i have been imposing on said friend since friday afternoon. Today, and yesterday, the weather here has been sunny and downright pleasant. However, the standfast for volunteers continues, as road conditions are unsafe for travel in most of the country. There are, however, worse places to be stuck. The town sits a little above the lake so i have an amazing view. Also the town itself is beautiful, a lot of money has been invested in making it ´tourist friendly´ so there are beautiful murals everywhere, actual trash cans, a nice market.
Anyways, wanted to assure you all that i am safe and sound, and waiting to get the all clear so i can make my way back home.

The month of may..

has come and gone, it seems... quickly! Yes, i´ve been busy here, but also frustrated with the internet speed, which is why no posting. So this week, I went on a hike from the town center over the mountains and through the woods to an aldea we also work in. The hike is estimated to be about 35km.... and took us about 7 hours to hike. There were 16 members of the community that are taking a class about tourism. Eventually we would like to develop this hike to the point that they can guide tourists on the hike, which ends in the aldea complete with hot springs, which, yes, we took full advantage of upon arrival. Also, it rained buckets on us about four hours in, we were caught in a thunderstorm with lightning and thunder like right on top of us!

The next day Audrey and I facilitated a workshop on environmental education with the teachers from the schools there. we talked about trash, made recycled art, tire gardens, and then talked about the active learning cycle we use. in the end, they got into groups to make up their own lesson plans. it turned out pretty great. we´re thinking about repeating it in other schools.

In other news, progressing slowly but surely with the bottle classroom. I am very fortunate to see this project being executed so i can learn from its successes and failures. It is challenging at times getting cooperation from the community for this project. Because most of the bottles we received were not filled well, construction is going at the pace that bottles are being filled. This is not the most efficient of systems, and in the future it would be wise to ´approve´ of bottles as they are being collected. All things considered, our contractor is awesome and at the very least, he totally gets the project and is working his you-know-what off to finish the walls of the school. I am hoping to do some manner of bottle construction during my time here so it is a great learning experience for me.

Went hiking in our forest today for a long while, brought mybinoculars and did some birdwatching. i am sooo stoked to have a forest rich in wildlife, and solitude, and green, so close to me in a country that has lost soo much of its original forest cover. what luck,huh? now, if i can instill that same sense of gratitude and wonder in the townfolk here.... thatll be the trick. but already people are bringing picnics up in the forest, running the trails, etc. its great to see a positive reaction in the community.

I know, i know-it´s been awhile. In short, i´ve been busy getting to know the town, the people, the projects.. and this last week actually helped a school with some art projects (i know, me, art....??) so i was relieved when the paper mached globes actually hardened and became paper mache! we are participating in earth day with a local school. the kids are really great, as is the teacher. and it was a nice way to get acquainted with the school where i hope to continue doing environmental education.

Also, i am fortunate to have a park nearby (like.... 3 blocks away) where we are developing a trail so i´ve been able to hike several times in thelast few weeks.

Not much else to report, just wanted to post some pictures from my town and my host family. Here we are at some pools near the pacific ocean.... They took me the first week i arrived. In the front is my host brother lemas, with Handy, who is friends with Cesi, the girl to my right. Cesi is my host sister. Everyone in the family, and friends of the family, have been so great about including me... the Guatemalan people are soo hospitable and have constantly shown it by inviting me into their homes, showing a genuine interest in who i am, where i come from, and what the helll i´m doing here in Guatemala..... most of them don´t understand why i wouldve left the states to come here. A majority of the people in town here have either gone to work in the states and come back, or have close family there working right now. I´d say a good deal of the town has been constructed with money coming from the states.... Its an interesting aspect of the culture here that i´m still digesting.

I´m getting to have a better idea of what i am going to be doing here for the next two years. One thing will be continuing with the second half of the trail that the volunteer before me started, and continuing to help with the construction of a playground-bbq area for families, birdwatching in the park, environmental interpretation for the trail... Another aspect of my work will be environmental education in the schools which i think is really important. Guatemala is a small country with big environmental issues... it might already be too late, but i think its still important to try to instill some values in the youth about caring for our earth while there is still some left.

On that same note, i will be continuing to try to do something with the garbage, countywide. One idea is to start a recycling center, continue to educate people about trash, and so on. The appalling thing here is that there is no national trash management program. The majority of the country either burns their trash or tosses it in a ravine somewhere. So here we have a truck that comes an picks up trash....only to then dump it off a cliff somewhere. The problem is that trash treatment plants are incredibly expensive...

So it looks like i´ll have my hands full here. right now am busy following the current volunteer, audrey, around like a lost puppy as she scampers trying to finish her projects here. I think i´m lucky to have her around for a little while to see how things work around here, to continue meeting important people, etc. and will be sad to see her go. I hope i can rise to the challenge of continuing with the great work she has started here. And below a couple of photos of the park, the trail and views of the surrounding area but i forgot to turn them and now i can´t find the delete key sooooo i apologize to your necks ahead of time. yikes.

its april!

geez, time flies. Ok i have arrived 'here' and haven't blogged for...a while. But I have a good reason! Its because.. well, the truth is that it was scary finishing training and becoming a Volunteer for several reasons. And, now i'm in a happy place. Why, u ask? Well thanks to my temporary site mate, i am using the internet in the comfort of my new bed, vs an internet cafe. Plus I am sunburned in places that haven't seen the sun in three long months. Relax, i'm just talking about, like, my shoulders and legs. Thanks hyper conservative Guatemala.
But today, today was different and muy alegre! My host family is awesome and have made it their mission to make me feel at home, welcome, part of the family...etc. I've actually met guatemalans my age and they actually are interested in why i'm here. BUt back to the beach... The whole family piled in the microbus (favored family vehicle here; picture the eurovan... like 15 person passenger van. oh yeah) at 7 am and drove to the beach! I saw my beloved Pacific Ocean, and guess what? The beach looks pretty much the same here. I mean, there are subtle differences... the sand is darker due to volcanic activity, the water is warm (like...bathwater warm), there are people selling all manner of things up and down the beach (but that's everywhere in Guatemala, it is a nation filled up with entrepreneurs). But... people playing in the sand and surf, enjoying the sun, pelicans. Yes. this i recognize.
So all in all, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I had an awesome day in the sun, I'm hoping that cucumber jasmine lotion will have some of the same calming effects as aloe?? And, more importantly, I got the feeling (how can you not??) that i'm going to be OK here. More than OK perhaps.
Also, sampled the ocean fare. It was incredible. I got shrimp mojo de ajo.... in a garlic sauce. My host mom wanted me to try the fried fish but I have to admit-i'm still squeamish about entire pieces of meat and fish. Even picking chicken meat off the bones of various parts of the chicken still really turns me off. Yet i have no qualms about eating ribs.. go figure.
We then spent the afternoon at some public pools, which harkened back to my youth spending whole days at the municipal pool. Why we drove four hours to the beach and then paid 15Q to pass the afternoon at a pool is beyond me-but i went with it. Jumped off the high rises, sunbathed, tested out my waterproof camera... (dont get too excited, pictures to come later...i don't have my usb cable) and played in the water and sun to the point of exhaustion.
Upon returning home, my host mom asked me what I wanted to eat... frijoles y huevos, of course! with her famous flour tortillas stuffed with cheese. A great end to a Great day.

Al fin!

At last, I received the much anticipated site assignment, followed shortly by the equally anticipated site visit. I am now preparing to return to my training town for a few short days filled with paperwork and such. Then, swearing in! a few days to relax in Antigua before returning here. Where is here, you ask? For security purposes, i'm not allowed to say exactly. I'll give you a few hints. Its in the western highlands, near Xela (Quetzaltenango), and the town is a major producer of milk, which is processed in xela and readily available here as mozzarella and cheddar cheese (!) as well as yogurt. I'm in big trouble....
The town itself is pretty quiet. I haven't heard one Evangelical church service, the roosters are far enough away to be charming, there is a park forest with trails like a block away from where i'll be living...... oh and my other site, an aldea of the municipality, is a rural community with their own hot springs !
My job, environmental interpretation for the trail that is still in construction, finishing the trail, environmental education in the schools and community, and trash management. Could I ask for anything more?!
To top things off, the volunteer who is here now has extended her service so i get to grill her for my first two months here and learn from her experiences. Also, had dinner (lasagna!!) with my future host family last night and they're great too. All in all, I feel very fortunate, and am so excited to begin my work here.
Stay tuned.....

what doesn´t kill you....

again, i know. but it might kill me waiting any longer for my site assignment! enough already! i´ve jumped through the countless hoops, gone through most of training, been a very good little trainee (in my opinion). But alas, we still wait with bated breath until friday, at 2 pm... be expecting an (hopefully) exuberant post sometime over the weekend as my fate for the next two years is bestowed upon me. Then things should progress rather like a whirlwind again until i get to my site and.... ?????? They weren´t kidding when they advised us to get comfortable with the ambiguity of the job.
Oh, I did get the opportunity to stretch my legs a little bit in the kitchen... i´m hurting to cook again. I´m praying i´ll get a little more control over my diet once the big move occurs. Not that the food is bad.. my host mother is a wonderful cook. But i haven´t had to just eat what was put in front of me since i was about 12 (sorry mom...) ish? at which point i started cooking for myself at least some of the time. oddly enough, i truly do want beans and eggs a lot of the time... i guess i´ve gone native in that respect. At any rate, we got the awesome opportunity to learn to make fruit jam from a local woman here who sells her product at the peace corps office. Can´t wait to eat it. Also hope that i have the opportunity to pass on the knowledge to others. There is so much fruit that is cheap and delicious when in season, its great to have another way to save it.

Anyways, if the anticipation doesn´t kill me, there will be news forthcoming on my new ´home away from home´ in the near futue!!!

get ér done...

Work! so we finally got to do some manual labor, or in PC terms, ´hard development´. We are encouraged not to get swept up in this type of project as the main focus of our service because, as our tech trainer says, its infrastructure work, and that can rot in 3 or 4 years.... sigh..... so its better to work with people, leave something sustainable, etc etc.
But lets face it, building something with your hands is just way more satisfying =) i guess i´ll enjoy it while it lasts. Our training project was constructing signs for the local municipal park, corazon del agua, which is gorgeous! Here are some pictures... i´m still battling this blogspot formatting ..... there´s a view from the park, me and tara painting the signs we made, me routering... and some local fauna... a lizard...er...anole?? that i chased down at steph´s house.