I am here, San Martin Jilotepeque! I am in my first “apartment” really it is only two rooms with a bathroom. I moved in on Sunday, but moved in really isn’t the word since I didn’t have anything but clothes! I had to hit up the market for everything, plates, bowls, forks, food, a stove, etc.! I had to buy purified water which to buy your first one is expensive! I know that I probably got a “gringo” price for a lot of my things but when you don’t have anything you are willing to buy it at any price (supply and demand at its finest)!! Sunday night since I did not have any gas for my stove so I went to eat at a restaurant owned by another American! He married his wife and moved here and started this awesome restaurant/ homemade movie theater, where he shows whatever movies you want with a projector and a big screen, kinda like drive in theaters but no cars!

Everything went really smoothly moving in and all, expect for finding gas! It took me two days to finally get some. On Sunday I went to the electronic store to buy my stove and the guy there was really nice but I thought he was ripping me off by offering me the stove, the connector, the tube and the gas for Q 600 ($85), so I only bought the stove, the connector and the tube (Q395). Come to find out, it is expensive to buy your first cylinder of gas (Q 325) so I went back to the store to see if I could buy the gas for the extra Q 200. At first the guys were like no, sorry it will be Q 275! Of course me being me was not going to have that, if I could have bought it on Sunday for Q 200 more then I should be able to buy it now for that price! Well after a few minutes arguing and a call to the manager, they were going to sell it to me for Q 200! Victory for me and my Spanish! Well then they tried to give a cyclinder that only had like 5 lbs of gas (it holds 25 lbs.) and of course I was like, I don’t think so! I will not pay for this! So then I think they decided they did not want to deal with me any more and they gave me one that was significantly heavier although still not completely full, but hey I got a bargain!

My first day of work was yesterday (Monday)! Things went a lot better than they did on my site visit a week earlier! They had cleaned out an office for me and gave me a computer (like the first one my family owned when I was 11), but it works! They gave me a bunch of cost of productions that they had done with the farmers and told me to put them into Excel. At first I was thinking, I am not a secretary, but then as I went through and realized that the farmers did not really get what a cost of production was and that many of them were losing money, I realized my first job, to teach them about cost of production, to make sure they can all do it and to help them achieve a profit! I am a person who jumps to conclusions right away but my Peace Corps experience has been teaching that everything really does work out and that you have to just with whatever comes your way!

I went out to lunch with my two counterparts and a technico from San Joes Poaquil (where our other office is)! We went to a great comeador, carne asada (yummy) and I had a smoothie! Well instead of having a smoothie the men opted to split a liter of beer or so I thought! In the end, lunch ended up being 2 hours and 15 minutes long containing four carne asadas, one smoothie and four liters of beer (between three “Guatemalan” men, think shorter than me)! Let’s just say it was an interesting afternoon at the office, my counterparts were acting like “bolos” (A bolo is a drunk, normally sleeping on the sidewalk or somewhere in public)!
So I cannot believe that it is Thanksgiving already! I actually get to spend Thanksgiving with about 20 other volunteers in Guatemala City at the Ambassador’s house! I am pretty excited because I am sure it will be great food and I think since it is such an outrageous thing that it will make me miss my family a lot less (kind of tearing up just thinking about not being there)! We get to swim in the heated pool and play tennis if we want, kinda cool (actually I think it is really cool)! On that note, again I wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

What did I get myself into?!

The last week has been incredible busy! I had counterpart day, which is were all of our counterparts come and we have two days of workshops! It was actually really fun, I really liked my counterpart, Nazario! Then we actually went to our site for four days, whole other experience. My other counterpart is only a year older than me and is very serious and is a non-game playing kind of guy (totally opposite of me)! I will be working in an office of ten men (in the States I know that would deserve a Holla but here not so much)! It is actually intimidating because they are all trained in coffee production and then there is me, the white girl in the corner with her broken Spanish trying to give suggestions, talk about feeling out of place, wooo, wake up call for me!

Another aspect of my site visit was to find a place to live, which I did! I am really excited my very first apartment (if you can call it that)! I am going to be living on the second level of a family’s compound! I have a front porch, two rooms, a private bath, my own pila and a large back patio for drying my clothes and a tire garden! I am really excited about being on my own but at the same time I am terrified! Also I am the only one in my site! There are three other volunteers in the aldeas of my site but they only have transport two days a week so I will not see them all that much! I really experienced loneliness for the first time this past week! In three days it is going to be me, Spanish and a town full of Guatemalans! It really hit me that I am either going to be talking Spanish or not talking at all, and for all of you that know me well, the not talking part is probably not an option so my Spanish should really come along!

So I am going to let everyone know that I am scared SHITLESS (I know I said I would not cuss on this blog but no other words can describe this feeling)! I am so scared about my work, my counterpart, my site, being alone, knowing no one, having no friends, only speaking in Spanish and living on my own! I have never been so scared of anything in my entire life! Normally I am scared but know I will get through it but not now! In this situation there is nothing that I feel comfortable about and there is no one there to lean on, AHHH! I just wanted to let you all know that as happy as I am and as much fun as I am having here, I am also SCARED out of my mind! Mommy, Daddy….

I have a couple of funny stories…

Number one actually happened today while I was in Antigua with two of my guy friends! We were walking along and we happened upon a group of 6 men trying to unload a “tuk tuk” (a mini cab like thing)! Being the nice guys that my friends are they offered to help unload this “tuk tuk” from the truck! I thought it was the most hysterical thing that I might have experienced here! I could not resist taking pictures so here they are…

Number two: Some volunteers stumbled upon this dive bar in Antigua who always has really cheap deals on beer! With our limited income (Q26.00/ day durning training, which is equal to $3.75/day) we were totally excited and have become frequent (once a week) customers! We had an afternoon free this week and decided to grab a cold beer. When we got there they were having a special, two beers for Q8 which when you change that to dollars, we were drinking $0.53 beers! I just thought that some people back home, aka my friends and brother, would find that amusing!
I cannot believe it is almost Thanksgiving, WOW! If I do not get to post again before then I want to wish everyone a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! I will be thinking about all of you and safe travels to all! And to my family I love you and miss you (P.S. Eat a lot for me and make sure to do a lot of shopping on Friday for me!)

My Site!!

I found out my site this week…I am going to be living in San Martín Jilotepeque, Chimaltenango! It is about a hour and a half from where I am now, located in the middle of the mountains, which are beautiful! I will be working with an organization called SID (Strategies for International Development), a US run NGO that works with farmers to help them organize so that they can sell and export for higher prices. I will be working in about five or six different aldeas (smaller communities around the municipal)! I am really excited because I think that I will learn a lot, from Spanish to legalizing here in Guatemala! I also get to learn Kaqchikel, one of the 22 Mayan languages here! I don’t know much more about it right now except that it is a new site for a marketing volunteer and that it is a new SID office! I meet my counterpart on Tuesday and leave for a five day site visit on Wednesday! I am just really excited to get started now that I know where I am going!

This has been a busy week, received our sites, had a final presentation and it was Dia de Muertes/Todos Santos! So Thursday the marketing gang headed to Santa Maria (three other trainees live there) for the kites! The Guatemalans believe that flying the kites allows them to be closer to the deceased! Families build these huge kites, 8-12 feet in diameter and then they go to the cemetery to fly them! We walked to Santiago to see the biggest ones in the area, it was INCREDIBLE! I cannot believe that they had kites that big hundreds of feet in the air! They are not just the diamond shaped kites these are octagon shaped kites with elaborate designs on them, seriously I cannot even begin to describe them! They also build four huge kites for different things within the community; these do not fly because they are like 50 feet high…and the same across! They are also elaborately designed with the history of Santiago and the Mayan traditions of the day!

When I got home I had the chance to go with my family to the cemetery to decorate their family graves! It is one of the most beautiful celebrations I have ever seen! Everyone brings flowers and wreaths to the graves of their deceased family members and it is a time to remember the family members and what their life stood for and who they were! They are so open about death…they still see it as a sad time but at the same time they see it as a happy time! My mom was asking me if we had the same holiday in the States and I was telling here that it would not be ok for kids to be running around flying kites in a cemetery in the States, the cemetery is sort of a different place for us! Then she continued to ask why do we not have a day to remember our family members didn’t we love them! I had no response for this statement, except that we remember in our own way! She also asked if we were scared of death in the States…I told her there was somewhat of a fear surrounding death but it was more of a personal thing! She then proceeded to tell me that I did not need to be scared of death because life is just a period of time before we began our everlasting life in the true Kingdom! I am blown away everyday by the my family’s faith…they believe that everything that happens in a good thing because God allowed it to happen therefore there is a higher meaning that we don’t know about! I am continually overwhelmed by their strength!

Well I swear-in in two weeks…I cannot wait! I will be officially living in my site on November 18th! I cannot wait to find my own house and set it all up so that I can start having visitors (come visit, flights are relatively cheap)! I have to say that if two years go as fast as the last two months, I am going to be home before you and I know it!