2 year anniversary

On April 27th I celebrated two years in Guatemala, which means I'm on my last 3 month stretch. After finishing construction on my project, I am afraid I'm bogged down in paperwork and will also have to write up reports for the government about my service and town. So the last three months of service will be winding down community work and focusing more on reports, conferences and health stuff.

On my 25th birthday (May 11th, I take cash, check or credit!! just kidding) I will head down to Antigua, Guatemala for my Close of Service Conference, which is three days that wraps up my training groups' service. It will be the last time all of us that came here in April of 2009 will get together. Many people in my training group are leaving in June, however I will stay till the very end and am not leaving Guatemala until July 19th, completing all 27 months of my service.

I've also been setting the site up for my replacements. I have organized it so that I am replaced by two volunteers, one will live in the center of San Vicente where I live and work, and the second will live up in Xetena (pronounced She-te-nah) where the health post is (we have one health center, where I work and one health post which is smaller and only has two nurses and visiting doctors from Medical School) and work in the further communities (and dare I say it, colder!) up on the mountain of Tena.

So I have been working to figure out where they should work and have been setting up new promoter groups in new communities. I hope this is helpful for them, because I spent the first three or four months of my service walking around trying to create groups and starting charlas, however, as I have five groups already made and am starting two more, they will be all set to start working on their charlas and promoter training right away.

The "replacement" group has in fact already arrived, 37 new Healthy Homes volunteers arrived in Guatemala for their 3 months of training on the 27th, so I will be working with their training group a little bit (not as much as last year as I just don't have the time!) doing presentations about the Gender and Development Committee and hosting a couple of them in my site for Individual Directive Activities (IDA) working with me for a week. Then at the beginning of July is site visit, where the two volunteers who will be living here for the next two years, come and get to see where they'll be working and start moving into their houses (I've found them some great houses so they won't have the trouble I had when I got here finding a house!).

Regardless it will be a busy last few months and I'm sure they will fly by, and while I am excited about my last few months here, I am also starting to look forward to the summer in Madison, CT with my family and of course starting University in Sussex next fall.