Waiting...waiting...gone

So, things have pretty much turned back to normal, spanish class and waiting to get our site assignments. BUT, we had a great, great Saturday with Grant (you're the best!), a volunteer who invited us up to his house in a muni just outside of Chimaltenango

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for delicious homemade food (what a homemakers!) and drinks!

I met up with some people in Antigua to pick up some drinks and we hopped on a Camioneta and headed towards Chimi. About fifteen minutes into the ride the bus pulls over...and doesn't start again. We hear the driver and the ayudante (the driver's assistant who squeezes his usually bulging body through the masses of people crammed onto the camioneta to collect the fare) screaming some stuff at each other and wait...and wait. Finally we decide to try to get off and hail a passing camioneta, Anna wants to hitchhike....vetoed. We try to hail down a passing camioneta but it's too full (that never happens) so we hang out on the side of the road for about 40 minutes, and then we hear shouts from inside, see everyone get on, climb onto the back of the bus through the emergency exit (as it starts to move) and head back on our way...Either the bus broke down or the driver had to take a REALLY long dump in the milpa.

Regardless, we FINALLY make it to Grant's amazing house where he's prepared homemade cookies, homemade hummus, baked pita bread, veggie dip and homemade salsa. WHAA??! can you say heaven? It ended up being the girls from Pastores, Ryan, Anna and Kiki from San Luise and Marta and myself from Duenas. It was a pretty fun time, not to mention Stacy had her first solid poo in about a month (she has some tropical disease and amoebas, it's nuts).



In addition, life with the family has been pretty nuts.

We've been partying it up like nobody's business. It was my brother Pablo's Birthday on Saturday, and we also went to a fiesta in a nearby town, Alotenango, Saturday night, where my homestay Dad Alvero tried to find me a husband. Unfortunatly, none of the applicants were above five feet tall so they were all rejected, but it made for some pretty awkward dancing (think middle school slow dancing with a small person...but more awkward). Thank goodness Alvero always seems to know who's supplying the booze, so that helped with the social lubrication...a little.

We then went to Dona Christina's house yesterday night for dinner. We ate delicious food and then watched Guatemalan music videos (my favorite is one where two people hace amore en la milpa) and talked about how the youth today is being led astray by vulgarity and promiscuity.

Today was also Alvero's birthday, so the celebration started at breakfast when he told everyone we were having cuba libres and cornflakes...I denied as I was already late for class, but I don't think anyone else got as lucky (even Erica who's still breastfeeding...awkward). But, as soon as I return I'm sure the party will still be going on.

Enough ranting for one day, I find out my site on the 1st of July so can't wait. Until then....

Post FBT pre Assignments

First off some more Field Based Training recap:

We spent the week working and playing pretty hard. The girlies on the trip with me were AMAZING...We went with the Pastores crowd, so quick shout-out to Stacy, Haley and Courtney. Stacy who had the Big D (diarrhea) all week and Haley who single handedly put back a bottle of wine, and Courtney for making some BOLLA guac. We put together delicious stuffed peppers in our swanky hostel in Xela as it had a kitchen.

The hostel itself in Xela was great. We were supposed to be in a different hostel, however when the first group arrived, it was quickly discovered that this 'hostel' was in fact a brothel and they were quickly evacuated (apparently Ryan still had his open bottle of vodka in hand) and moved into Xela to Casa Argentina.

So we lucked out.

Secondly, post FBT fallout:

OK, so as of now I feel like we're almost in limbo here. We've gone through field based training, we've given and are giving charlas, we've worked with volunteers and are ready to go...however we still have to wait until the 1st before we get our assignments. I'm not saying we don't have stuff to do, we're still very busy and always working. But our brains seem to always be thinking about the future, we're not really focused on our work here in Duenas because our future is elsewhere, we just don't know where yet. We're meeting with our Tech Trainer David tomorrow, and I THINK with our program manger Basilio as well (communication could be better at the moment, I think he came to our town this morning, but we were down in Jocotenango at a La AzoteA Finca y Centro Cultural....obviously -which was really cool by the way, it had a Mayan Music Museum and a coffee tour which included FREE coffee at the end...lord it tasted good). But I suppose that's what you get for living in Guate.

Also, I am really excited for the 4th of July party being held in Santa Lucia. We'll be able to meet more volunteers and by then we'll know where we're going and we can meet up with people who live near us (our future neighbors!). It should be a great time.

Until next time, Peace!

Some things about Field Based Training...

This past week our group was split into two and we visited two sites, one in Quiche and one near Xela (pronounced Shay-la). It was a lot of work and we had a lot of fun, and today I am exhausted. We gave charlas and visited Puestos and centros de salud, but there are some things from FBT (Field Based Training) you can't describe accurately with words....that's why I love videos:





Yeah...that's right...she just killed those chickens then handed them off to her sons and killed two more. I watched that.

Second, I have some great footage of CRAZY GRINGOS dancing around a group of scared Guatemalan children:




But after nine days of giving charlas and working with the Puestos and Centros, we had a nice break and went to the hot springs that were AMAZING!

Rolling out

Yesterday we gave our first charlas to a school here in Dueñas. I had a class of about 25 to 30 sixth graders. Considering my major language barriers etc. I think it went alright?

Today however we´re leaving for nine days to start our field based training (or FBT).

We leave today at noon from Antigua and head up to San Antonio Ilotenango Quiché.
There will meet up with current volunteers, have some "Medio Ambiente y Salud" classes and get intoduced to the Muni there. After a few days we´re going to have to give our own charlas there as well.

On Wednesday we´re heading down to San Martin Sacatepequez where we give some more charlas, and learn about that Muni (municipality or town/pueblo) and learn about an HIV taller (pronouned tyre and means workshop) we´re meant to be giving when we get back to Dueñas.

We get back on Sunday, just in time to start getting ready for the four hour taller and classes on Monday. It should be an interesting trip of meeting new volunteers and hostelling fun with fellow trainees. The Dueñas crowd is going with the group from the town Pastores so there will be eight of us in total, plus a volunteer and Basilio our APCD, a driver and a spanish teacher, so we´ll still have Spanish classes throughout the week.

It´s going to be busy and I expect to return on sunday exhausted and dirty.

Charlas

I've had a few emails asking me what exactly a Charla is so I thought I'd throw up a post to clarify.

To define: the literal translation of a charla is "chat"...however we 'give' charlas as lessons because our audience is usually made up of barely literate adults. Therefore we "chat" with them about certain aspects of health and have participatory activities, making it not a lecture but a dialogue between the facilitator (me) and the participants (them). It's very Peace Corps.

You will notice here in Guatemala, that breakfast is a synonym for dinner

I thought I'd post a normal meal here in Guatemala, it is what I had for breakfast today:

Frijoles Negros Volteados (Fried Black Bean Paste)

Ingredients
2 cups black bean puree (canned refried black beans)
1 Tablespoon oil

Procedure
Heat oil over moderate heat in a skillet.
Add bean puree and mix well with a wooden spoon.
Stir until the puree thickens and the liquid evaporates.
Continue until mix begins to come away from skillet and can be formed by shaking the skillet to give a sausage shape.
Serve warm with tortillas, cheese, sour cream, or bread.


Now, take a few loafs of pan francés and slather them with butter and stick them in the microwave for one minute thirty seconds.

Once the beans are ready, put them in a bowl and put a dollop of cream cheese in the center and stir until melted.

Enjoy!