Now almost a full month into training, things are still such a whirlwind. Over the weekend, I was happy to have the chance to spend more time with our trainee group in a casual and social setting, because most of the time when it’s all 33 of us together, it is at the PC HQ in Santa Lucia during our all-day sessions on health, safety, technical, and receiving every shot that you could possibly imagine and I feel like I haven’t really gotten to know people too well yet. (Except that 33 number is now a 32 – sadly one of my fellow P-town sitemates is leaving – we’ll miss you, Michael!) On Saturday, we all met at a very gringo bar in Antigua to enjoy some beers, college football, and gigantic plates of nachos, and on Sunday, 14 of us went to the beach, Puerta San Jose, on the southern coast, about 1.5 hrs away. The beach was awesome and relaxing. It is a black sand beach, thanks to Guatemala’s lovely volcanoes, and the sand gets REALLY hot. Luckily it’s been a little while since my last pedicure so the bottoms of my feet didn’t feel too scorched. This particular beach is really chapin (meaning really Guatemalan) so it wasn’t at all touristy, and interesting to see how most of the chapines (Guatemalans) wear clothes in the ocean instead of bathing suits! This is mostly the women I’m referring to, who wear shorts and t-shirts instead of bikinis like us gringas. But I half expected this, because the public beach in Nicaragua was the same way. We scoped out the cleanest looking beach café to enjoy some fresh fried fish. To think that back during my junior year of college studying abroad in Spain, I’d ask waiters at the restaurants to serve my fish with the head cut off, and now I’m picking the whole thing apart like a pro! (sorry Julie and any other vegetarians I may be grossing out – at least I didn’t eat the eyeball…although supposedly, it’s good luck).

On Monday, we had our first trip into Guatemala City, the capital, since our arrival in country at the airport. The objective of the day was to learn where is the safe part of the city to get off the bus, how to use the PC-approved taxi company, and to see where the US Embassy and PC approved hospital are located. We ended the afternoon at a shopping mall, which was exactly like a US shopping mall, except the security guards have huge rifles…weird. Everyone was excited about the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in the food court, but I was wishing I were home eating lunch with Dona Esperanza after eating a Quiznos sandwich which cost almost double my daily stipend. Guate City is not too impressive of a place, and most of us are pretty scared to go there because it is really dangerous. The PC Safety and Security Officer had told us a scary statistic; that 25% of the country’s population resides in Guate City, but it’s where 80% of the crime is. And with the murder rate eight times higher than that of the US, I don’t think that most of us mind that PC doesn’t really allow us to spend time there! But having the chance to buy some shirts at Zara and eat some frozen yogurt definitely made it a worthwhile day.

Site placement continues to be a topic of conversation among all of us and is something often on my mind lately. The best advice that current volunteers have given us is to not have too many hopes or expectations on where we are assigned, because then we won’t be disappointed. When Roberto, our program director, asked me about my site preferences, like Indigenous vs. Ladino, Municipal Planning Office vs. Municipal Women’s Office, etc., I told him that all I care about is being somewhere WARM. You may not associate Guatemala as a cold place, but in the highlands where many volunteers work, it can get really cold! So hopefully this is a request that can be accommodated – I’ll find out in exactly a month! Before I left the US, I originally felt that I wouldn’t want to necessarily work in an indigenous area, due to the possibility of having to learn another language, but I have really been rethinking this. The indigenous Mayan populations are what make Guatemala really unique and special, as compared to other Central American countries whose indigenous populations were mostly eradicated during the Spanish conquest and colonization period. This may be redundant info to you, but before leaving the US a lot of people seemed confused about this, so just to clarify: indigenous populations refer to groups of people who have roots in the country wayyy before Christopher Columbus accidentally stumbled upon the Americas. The Mayan population speaks languages entirely different from Spanish – in fact, 23 different languages are spoken in Guatemala. I think that something that makes me nervous about the possibility of working in a Mayan community is being able to communicate with people who don’t speak Spanish as a first language, if at all. From what we’ve learned, things take a much longer time to happen here in Guate than at the speed which we’re accustomed to in the US. And I fear that things would be even slower if I have to start learning a new language upon arrival in my site. But at the same time, I think, when else would I ever have the chance to live and work with a rural Mayan community in Guatemala!? So, we will see what happens : ) In two weeks, the 16 of us in the Municipal Development program embark on a week-long trip to the department of Huehuetenango (pronounced “way-way-ten-ango”) which will offer us a lot of insight into the work and lives of volunteers.

Otherwise, I feel like I am still adjusting well and feeling more comfortable here; knowing a bit more of what to expect from daily life and how to interpret different behaviors here. Peace Corps has us do a lot of reading on intercultural and multiculturalism, which is actually really interesting to both understand what Guatemalan culture is a certain way and why the culture of the US is a certain way. An example: Guatemala is more “high power distance”, meaning that people accept that inequalities in power or status are natural; some people have more than others, and those who do have it tend to emphasize it and distinguish themselves. Whereas, the US is more “low power distance”, meaning that people see inequalities in power and status as artificial and those who do have power tend to minimize the differences between themselves and others. So, when I feel uncomfortable about how my host family treats or talks about the woman who comes every once in a while to help take care of the nieces and do the wash, I have to try to be really aware of this as a cultural difference, and know that they are not just mean people, but that these “class” relationships are more or less accepted in Guatemalan society, although they have certainly caused enough problems in the country. But that’s a story for another day…

Next week is Guatemalan’s Independence Day (Tuesday, Sept 15) so feel free to have a celebration on that day commemorating the national independence of my new home! : ) It should be a pretty awesome and fiesta-riffic day, and we are also giving two presentations next week, one to a women’s small business/microlending group and another at a junior high school. So hopefully my next blog will have some good updates. And by the way, feel free to leave comments! I’m really not sure who all exactly is reading this, so I’d love to know more of your thoughts and remarks!

Other random thoughts:

-I can tell that I’m getting accustomed to life here because I no longer have to force myself to remember to throw the toilet paper in the wastebasket, not in the toilet. (The pipes and sewage system here can’t handle paper, so every bathroom conveniently has a trashcan right next to the toilet) I know, pleasant thoughts, right!? We’ve learned that to survive Peace Corps Guatemala, we have to get realllly comfortable talking about bodily functions.

-This weeks’ Health training was on sexual health. Each of us received a different poster stating the necessary steps to putting on a condom, and then we had to put ourselves in the appropriate order. The first poster said, “a quiet evening at home” – you can imagine how the rest goes and how hard we were all laughing.

-My six year old host brother and I have been watching my Simpsons DVDs together almost daily. I’m hopeful that doing so will at least make him learn English!

-This week I saw my colleague from Partners of the Americas, Matt Bond, who now lives and works here in Guatemala. He is leaving soon to go back to the US but it was nice to see a familiar face!

-I offered to make dinner for Dona Esperanza on Sunday, and she asked if the rest of the family could come too. So now I am making a dinner for 12 people and I am so scared. Please wish me a LOT of luck!

The remains of our delicious oceanside lunch
Testing the water at Puerta San Juan