Travels travels

This past week started out great, with a visit to my future site and meeting my counterpart (my Peace Corps' officially assigned coworker) and all the other colleagues in my office, as well as seeing the apartment I'm moving into. I am lucky to be replacing a really dedicated volunteer, as well as inheriting her amazing fully-furnished apartment. It has electricity, hot water, TV, two bedrooms - I got really lucky! I also got to meet the mayor and city council of the municipality. It is a really large municipality and I think that I will definitely have my work cut out for me, but I am looking forward to the challenge. My site is kind of far away from the capital city but in a really beautiful area of the country and also an area where there are a lot of Peace Corps volunteers. Eight trainees of my group of 32 alone are headed to Huehuetenango! So I definitely will be able to visit people in their sites and enjoy some visitors as well.

Unfortunately, I received news from home that my grandmother passed away while I was visiting my site. So I cut the trip to Huehuetenango a day short, took eight hours and six buses to get back to my host family's house, and flew to Boston the next day. I was in the US for three days, two in Boston and one in Philly, and returned yesterday to Guate. It was really weird to be back in the US after two months which feel a lot longer for some reason. But I'm so happy to have been able to go home and be with my family. My grandmother was a really special person and I am going to miss her a lot. Everyone at Peace Corps, both the staff and volunteers, were really nice and helpful which made me feel a lot better. An added bonus of the unexpected trip was stocking up on cold-weather clothing, since my site is in the mountains, it is really chilly at night, as well as seeing my parents, brother and sister in law, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and my friend Stefanie in DC came up to Philly for the night to hang out with me. So overall, a good trip even if it was for a sad reason. And now I'm back in Guatemala with one week left to go of training. I will be sad to be leaving all my training friends but excited for the next step - moving out to my site and officially becoming a Peace Corps volunteer!

Some of you have asked me about receiving mail in my new site - here is my new address! Feel free to send me photos to decorate my new house :)

Cara George
Voluntaria de Cuerpo de Paz
5 Calle 4-12, Zone 1
El Correo
Chiantla, Huehuetenango
Guatemala, Centro America