1 year in Guatemala!

This past weekend my training group and I celebrated our 1 year in Guatemala at San Marcos La Laguna, Solola. It is a little town off of Lake Atitlan. My friend Esther coordinated the whole trip and it was fantastic. Esther found this little hostel on top of a mountain totally wrapped in vegetation. The whole hostel just bathed tranquility, serenity and comfort. The hostel was much like a tree house where we all slept on 2 floors basically outside. You would wake up underneath a mosquito net and walk out onto an overhanged dock that looked out onto the beautiful lake. I would get up, walk outside, stand on the dock and just breathe in the fresh air and watch all the other early risers as they paddled away on their kayaks. I stayed 2 nights and each night I was able to share stories and enjoy the compay of my friends during an organically prepared vegetarian dinner that the owner of the hostel prepared and the other night, out-of- this world curry made from a Brit who built a restaurant at the lake in honor of his deceased daughter. At night we would all get together again, listen to music, enjoy the luxury of a cold beer and catch up. The last night we were at the lake I introduced a game called "garbage". On a trip I took to Florida with my girlfriends, my friend Katie taught me this game and since then I think its one of the greatest games to play when you have a lot of company. The rules: the group is divided into 2 groups. There are 3 rounds. Prior to starting the game each person fills out 3 pieces of paper (there is no rule on how many pieces you can fill out, the amount will dictate how long you would want the game to last). One the pieces of paper you can write anything you want. It can be a person, place, thing, description, something that doesn't make sense... anything. However, it is best to limit your thoughts/words to less than 5 words to each piece of paper. All the pieces of paper are then collected and placed into a bowl. A group is picked to go first and also a representative. This person has 1 minute to pick a piece of paper out of the bowl and get their team to guess what it says without using the words on the paper. When the minute is up, the next group goes. The round goes until all the pieces of paper are gone. Round 2: The same pieces of paper are folded and placed back into the bowl and this time a representative from the group can only use 1 word to describe what is on the paper and their group has to remember what the phrases/words, etc. were on the pieces of paper from round one. Round 2 goes on until all the pieces of paper are guessed. Round 3: This round you cannot speak, you have to ACT out what is on the piece of paper and your group has to remember what was said on each one of those pieces of paper. Round 3 is the most hilarious because some of the things that were written from each of my friends were completely ridiculous/hilarious. Examples: "Mr. Rodgers in a leotard", "Saggy Man Boobs", "Welcome to the Mustache Party", "Explosive Diarrhea", "Live concert", "Green Grass", "Twister on a Volcano", "Your Mom", "Airdale Terrier", etc. So you can imagine all the crazy/hilarious acting that went on that night. We were all laughing in tears!!

So now that I've competed a year... what are my thoughts? Well, I have a little more than 1 year left (15 months). I would have to say that my first year was really trying to get adjusted and situated. I was trying to find my niche. Have I found it, yes and no. I do predict though that this year will go by even faster and that my work load will expand. My goal for the next year is to be really busy. I think that was what was making the days go by and the thoughts of feeling like I wasn't accomplishing anything was due to the fact that I wasn't busy. I can sense the work growing and I am starting to feel like how I felt when I was in college working the the Student Foundation. I was constantly on the go, constantly working and I was so much more productive. I loved filling my days with work, having an adgenda and challenging myself. So I really do look forward to that. I think my experience will be that much more fullfilling.

This Thursday I give a big presentating to the mayor of my town about the work I am doing and the projects I plan on doing in the 3 communities that I've gone out to give a census on. I am not only presenting my data but I am also planning on asking him to give me money.... so we will see how that goes, eekk. I start giving health presentations to my familes this month and I was also able to get the support from a local NGO. They would like to help me translate my presentations from Spanish to Kiche to the women and have offered to provide learning materials based on the theme I want to present. So I am excited about that! I am also plannin on coordinating the with schools of these small communities. I would like to give little health talks to the children so that the health education is not only educating the women in their homes, but their children. This way my health education is more enforced and there is a better chance that the families with practice better health habits. I will also be doing house visits throughout the month to make sure the women are actually practicing the health habits I will be teaching them. I am excited about these because it will give me a chance to get to know the families on a more personal basis.

At the end of this month I have the pleasure of accompanying Charles to his best friend's wedding :) His best friend is getting married at Sanibel Island in Florida and Charles is the best man! So I get to look forward to seeing Charles again, celebrating a beautiful union and enjoying a nice weekend getaway :) Hopefully coming back to Guatemala this time from the States won't be nearly as hard as it was when I went home at the beginning of April.