Cite Assignment

Before I start, can I just say that I just “killed” a huge butterfly that looked like a beetle mixed with a wasp mixed with a tarantula flying – more like spinning out of control – throughout my room. After losing my heartbeat for about a minute and running out of my room without shoes or socks on I came back in with a broom to kill it. However, on my way into my room I had to a kill a huge fat spider crawling its way into my room, go figure, and a huge daddy long leg mosquito that looked more like a dragonfly. As I was squishing this moth-like creature it somehow escaped through the door and as it was trying to fly away it ran head on into one of the kids in my house (Andreas). Let me just say that Andreas saw this creature flying towards him and let it ram into his chest and he kept on walking! This was like old news to him, almost as if that is supposed to happen. I mean I shouldn’t be shocked, he was on his hands and knees earlier in the day looking for spiders in the dark places of the house… really?! There are brown recluse spiders her, might I add.
Today was a BIG day! It was our cite assignments! Everyone in my training group found out where they will be living for the next 2 years. I will be in the department of Toconicapan in a town called Santa Maria Chiquimula. This is what I will be calling home for the next 2 years! It is also not too far away from Antigua either (where I basically live now), only about 3 ½ - 4 hours. There are 8 other people from my technical group that are also in my department which is a lot but they are all spread out through Totonicapan (about 45 mintues to 2 hours away). In my cite I have 2 citemates, both in 2 different technical groups (Healthy Schools and Municipal Development), so I will at least have some American company. There are approx. 40,000 people in my town but only 5,000 of those people are urban, the rest are indigenous and live in outlining communities, which is a lot! 35,000 rural people!! Bastante! 97% are indigenous and speak the Mayan language, Quiche… so I will soon be learning a new language. So far the neat things that stand out in my town are the waterfalls that are close to my town and they are known for a special type of bread called “shecas”. This coming Monday we are all meeting with the doctor and the health technician in our town’s clinics to go over expectations and goals for the next 2 years. Then we are off to our cites for 4 days to find a place to live for the next 3 months and meet people in the town. When we come back we have out swear in date as volunteers on the 17th of July and then I am off to my cite!

I just finished making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for my host family… all I had to say was chocolate and their faces lit up…. They are so cute.