Beach Day

We headed out to the beach last weekend.



It was great fun, we were practically the only people no the beach, and it was beautiful. The sand was black and really hot, and the waves were huge (and quite strong).

We rented two mini busses and stopped off on the way to buy beer and snacks.

Overall a really great day out!

What's in a name?

Today we had our practice charlas and feedback interviews with our program manager Basillio. Overall I think both went well, and I feel pretty confident about our "real" charlas (in front of an audience of actual people in the community and in Spanish) next week.

However, during the interview Basillio decided to tell me that he though it would be better and easier (for me of course) if I went by my middle name.

"Do you have a middle name?" he asked quite innocently. "yes," I replied, "it's April".

"Oh that's a great name, you shall go by that from now on. It will be easier, and there will be fewer connotations if you know what I mean...."

"connotations?" I reply

He didn't answer, put according to my Spanish teacher Sandra, Pippa, and certain forms thereof can sometimes mean prostitute. I've been here for a month, I'm so glad I'm being informed of this now.

So now I simply have to get used to saying: "Hola, mi nombre es April" and responding to the name in due course. That should be easy enough...right?

Moving along

Time seems to be flying by. Tomorrow we're watching a health charla at our health center as well as giving a charla in the afternoon to our advisers. On Friday we're meeting up with our promoters to discuss their charla, and next Wednesday we're giving one (in spanish) to our promoters and others at the health center.

In less than ten days, we're going on our Field Based Training, where we're split up into two groups and sent out to live and work with other volunteers for a week. I am really looking forward to that.

Last night however, after class Meredith and I stayed late and watched an ultimate frisbee game with a volunteer Juanita (Jane). She's been here for almost a year, and is one of the most frank and honest people I've met. I think this is a good thing, but she definitely doesn't sugar coat things, which I ultimately appreciate. The three of us had a nice chat over a beer, and she talked about how she didn't know any spanish until she got to her site. Once she arrived (it's a tiny, tiny indigenous town) she admitted that she couldn't understand anything, but she quickly learned. She's super fluent now and seems to be progressing with her project which is good and even starting to learn a Mayan language.

Contact

Really quick, if you want to (because you love me and I'm poor, lonely and sad), please send letters/candy/hatemail/beauty products/divorce papers/anti-gas medication (frijoles!)/books!/ anything else that you think I may need to:

PCT Philippa Wood
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America

I would really appreciate anything, especially a real 'snail mail' letter letting me know what's going on in your life, and filling me in on the gossip!

Getting dow n to business

After a great afternoon out in Antigua with the other 30 volunteers on Saturday, this week really marks our first week of working in the health centers in our towns.

We went in on Friday and this afternoon and will be returning on Wednesday to meet all of the health promoters we are meant to be facilitating...in spanish.

As of now we´re really trying to get to know the people who work in the puesto (health center = puesto de salud) and see where we can help out. It´s a lot of asking very shy women questions, and then trying to understand their very quite mumbled answer. It is a bit frustrating, but we´ve only just started, so hopefully we´ll only get better.

On top of that we´ve upped our technical training to at least 3 or 4 times a week, so we can actually have something to teach our health promoters. It´s pretty intensive, but at least we had Saturday to blow of steam:

Some quick pics

I thought I´d post some quick pictures from life here! Here´s my Mamá Silvia, she´s great! This is the image from outside my bedroom door of Fuego, the active volcano that smokes a lot: This is a pretty street in Antigua Gutemala it´s a really pretty city. These crazy Gringas are Meredith and Lauren, two of the three girls who live in Dueñas with me. This was our day in Antigua with our Spanish teacher. Another street in Antigua Gutemala, and a church we went into.
This vidoe is nuts, it´s from a mother´s day event we went to at the school of our spanish teacher´s daughter, so great.

Site Visit!

Yesterday was a really really interesting day. It was our first "field trip" up to visit other volunteers who have been in country for 1-2 years.

We split our group into smaller groups of 4 and drove to different sites.

My group went to a site of a girl who has been serving for just over a year named Ellen. Ellen was a very interesting person to visit due to her amazing streak of luck...bad luck.

In her first year of service Ellen was:

-In a serious chicken-bus accident where multiple people died
-Robbed at least five times (she showed us the jeans where one guy cut into the pocket with a knife to get her wallet while she was on the bus)
-Threatened by locals with large knives because they thought she was kidnapping children
- Her grandma died
-and had a really unhelpful counterpart to work with.

So...while the other people met people who were having a great time, and nothing much had happened to them but illness or petty theft, we met someone who really, really had to struggle. But honestly it was cool, because we talked and she was telling us about her experiences and we met the women and clinics she was working with and even after all of that, she stayed.

It was really nice to see how hard she worked and what she had accomplished, and while of course I hope that I won't have to struggle quite as hard, and I won't have quite as many obsicles, it was cool to see what we could get through if we had to.

On an unrealated note, yesterday was also my birthday (23?!) and my homestay family was so wonderful.

They made an ENOURMOUS special dinner for me including (but not limited to...) Tacos, BBQ, Fried Chicken, Cake, Pie, Fried Plantanes, rice, Chilie and lots of orange soda!

When the cake came out, they sang to me in English and Spanish, and then Leo, my 11 year old brother shoved my head into the cake (thus the pie...it was kinda like the second cake).

It was so nice and delicous!

OK MUST RUN as I've used up most of my lunchtime!

Earthquakes, Lava and Food...oh my!

So...

A. No swine flu in the area yet....luckily the US government has given me tamaflu, so no need to worry.

B. There was an earthquake yesterday. Super interesting, I´ve never felt an earthquake before, it wasn´t too strong (thank goodness), but it went on for about 30 or so seconds. It felt as if there was water underneath the solid earth I was standing on, and there were like small waves pushing the earth up in rolls...does that make sense? yo no sé.

C. Spanish is going alright. Right now we´ve been divided into groups of four and sent out to small villages. Our village is called San Miguel Dueñas

Ver mapa más grande

and it is me and three other girls. They divided us (the original 32) up into two groups of 16. One is the youth development program, and one is the health (mine) program. They then divided those sixteen into four more groups of four based on our level of spanish, so we are living in a village with three other people who are at a similar level.

We have about eight hours of spanish a day, except tuesdays when we go back to the Peace Corps headquarters in Santa Lucía for a day of technical training. Then on thursdays we go to another village or stay at ours for technical training in the afteroon. Add on top of that lots of reading and spanish tarea. I´m a bit busy (but not too busy to procrastinate in the internet cafe!).

C. My village is located near two volcanos, Fuego (fire) and Agua (water)...sometimes if the night is clear you can see lava flowing out of Fuego and down the side of the volcano. It´s quite pretty, as long as I am FAR, FAR away.

D. The food is great, lots of beans (made everywhich way, yum!) y tortillas y huevos (eggs) y jalepeños. My homestay family loves feeding me and telling me I am not eating enough. Let me tell you...I am.

That´s it for now, up to Santa Lucía tomorrow for a full day of training

Another Quick Update

OK, so I have a bit more time now, sitting in an internet cafe in Santa Lucia (a small town which is just outside of Antigua . The buses are lining up outside, getting ready to take everyone home. They are pretty much the only form of public transportation here and look like pimped out school buses (see below) that grind around the corner like a tractor stuck in second gear trying to get up a very large hill.



In addition, stray dogs roam the streets, just as hungry for tortillas as I am and construction workers click their tongues at you as you try to go to work.

Work itself is going well. Although it seems as though the Peace Corps does its best to try to scare you out of staying. The horror stories are great. We have 2 hours of spanish in the morning, then two hours of medical training-education, one hour for lunch, two more hours of spanish and then two hours of either IT, practical, or technical training.

Tomorrow however we move out of Santa lucia and into smaller villages further away from the Peace Corps headquarters with three other trainees. We will live with a new family and have spanish training everyday, and technical training every day, and then every Tuesday, we have to make our way back (on the infamous buses) to the Peace Corps headquarters for a day of training with the rest of the group (we are 32 in total, although statistically by the end of the 27 months we will be down to 24).

After 11 weeks of that, it is our swearing in ceremony and we are sent off on our own to start our service....yay!?

We will see.

Bienvenido A Guatemala

So I have been here for a couple days, and all is going well. Training is busy, lots of spanish, medical and security training as well as living with a family that only speaks spanish (I think I have already improved a LOT, but it's still a bit rough).

I am late for Spanish class but I just wanted to get a few points across.

A. I am alive
B. I had a great time in DC thanks everyone who participated in making my extended weekend awesome
C. Guatemala is going well
D. I am learning spanish!

alright, must run.