getting into the swing of things...

The Future's so bright...

Well, April is almost over and May is on it‘s way. On the 5th I will have been living in Guatemala for 4 months and…it feels pretty good. Another notable benchmark in the wonderful month of may would be my 24^th birthday which (mark your calendars) will happen on May 22^nd.

…so if you’re feeling like doing something different from a facebook wall-post this year, you could send a card to:

Kristin Morton

Voluntaria/ Cuerpo de Paz

Oficina de Correos

Jacaltenango, Huehuetenango

Guatemala, Centro America

I’d adore it.That's a picture i took from my roof...random. but neat.

I am currently feeling the urge to start a diary in the spirit of Bridget Jones wherein I try and turn over a new start “on the eve of my 24^th year of being single…” Just to start documenting all of my adventuring and try and guilt myself out of my marshmallow eating (I just looked down and the bag was empty, I have no idea what happened…) I have this fantasy about becoming an awesome journal-keeper and someday looking back through it laughing at how silly and/or neat my observations were.

Step 1. Buy journal.

Step 2. Write in journal

Step 3. Take select info and update blog.

Step 4. Will stop eating whole bags of marshmallows.

Good Plan.

Cue music.

Here are some tidbits on what i've been up to...

I'm reading lots of books. I just inherited the 4th Harry Potter book IN SPANISH from my sitemate, Kristina so my life is pretty awesome.

I found a cockroach in my room, named him lenny and then killed him. feel a little sentimental about it after the fact...

I found out that in Guatemala the Disney Show, "Hannah Montana" is called "Fannah Montana" which i think was nice change...

I am possibly an awesome cook...i made a whole mediterranean meal from scratch right down to the pita bread, taziki, Hummus, Falafal and rice tabouleh. I can't spell any of these things but i did make them and they were TASTY. I also made an awesome vegiterian pizza from scratch that i must recreate as soon as possible...i ate the rest of it cold for breakfast this morning.

It has been really hot here, i took a picture of my clock to illustrate this insanity and color my blog a little... if you can read it...it definitely says that it's 90 degrees...in my room...at 5:26 in the evening... Those of you that know me well know how well i function in the heat... thumbs up moment haha.

This was a pretty big week for me in the world of work and play.

in the world of work:

My work-partner, Damian, and I finished visiting all of the schools and meeting all of the directors which was awesome. Then our counterpart had a meeting with all of the directors where we re-introduced ourselves and reiterated to them that we’re here to stay…well, for the next two years anyway. I really would have liked to have had more to present to them in the way of handouts and an introduction to a requirement for the program like Rincones de Salud (basically a corner in the class where the students can keep all of their toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, towel, etc.) but our counterpart didn’t tell us that she was having the meeting until the night before at 7pm…this was really unfortunate because it gave us no time to prepare copies of documents or print out pictures. Oh well, what can you do? I do think that it was helpful to see all of the directors again especially since our counterpart only accompanied us to 3 of the 24 schools. It was an excellent opportunity to be re-introduced by the CTA (the US equivalent =superintendent). I hope that being re-introduced by her will inspire some confidence and trust in us by the directors and foster cooperation with us in the implementation of the program.

We shall see.

This week my schedule is more relaxed as Damian and I are creating a schedule and gathering materials that we want to present in our second visit to the schools . In this visit we will perform a diagnostico (survey) to evaluate all of the schools on the same criteria to see what we’re really working with- e.g. where we are now and where we want to go with the schools in the program; goal-setting, etc.

In the world of play, My sitemate has just left us in Jacal to move back home after completing her service. I feel really lucky that we had her here for our first month in site. She introduced us to a lot of people in the community and was a great resource for where to find things, how to do things , how to say something in Spanish haha etc. etc. I miss you already Kristina! Thanks for all the furniture and Conejos y la amistad! (advice and friendship).

It was also my sitemate, Damian’s, birthday this week. He celebrated by going to Xela and meeting up with friends. I stayed behind on this trip and watched over his new puppy, Rico.

Puppies are a handful. I will say that after my first day with Rico I was re-thinking my ability to be a dog-owner even to the point of whether or not I am fit for parenting haha. I went and played with the dog outside in the yard for hours and then walked him back to my place where I had some laundry to do. I am standing outside at the pila (outdoor sink) washing my clothes and I look in though the open door just in time to watch the dog pee on the kitchen floor! I had to count to ten to react properly…I was ENRAGED, we JUST got back from a long walk…but that’s puppies for you. So after his rude behavior of peeing on my floor I decided that he was not a guest fit for my home. So I returned him to Damian’s house where he could pee all over the yard if he wanted. I left him there for a couple of hours while I finished my laundry and ran some errands and when I went back to check on him and give him his dinner I walked in on him with a RAT in his mouth!

I looked at him in horror and quickly ran over to try and get the rat out of his mouth (because god knows what diseases that thing is carrying) and as I have my hand around the dog’s neck to grab him I feel him swallow the thing, whole. SO GROSS. Then what does he do? He decides he loves me and wants to lick all over my legs and jump up on me and try and give me kisses. Well….I put food in his bowl, told him he was gross and went home to try and rid myself of the memories of the rat in his mouth and then the feeling of it going past my fingers when he swallowed it.

I still haven’t fully recovered. These were isolated incidents, yes, but combined with the whining and crying and yapping that puppies do when you’re trying to sleep, when you leave them alone in a room, when you tie them up outside etc etc. this dog-watching weekend convinced me that I don’t want a puppy. If I have a dog at any point in my life I think I’d just prefer for it to be a full-grown dog first…even better, a full-grown, well-trained dog. Yes.

Here’s a picture of the little scamp…

In other news…I have put my room together and I am finally feeling all nested and moved-in. I took some photos to show you all my new pad. It’s pretty choice and completely unlike any ideas I had about peace corps living. I am definitely in one of the more “posh” sites and I know I am extremely lucky. Of course every place is not without it’s quirks…The cockroaches and spiders really like what I’ve done with the place…

Here's my kitchen/living room/office/bedroom setup! I thin that my favorite thing in my room is the coffee table i made out of a cardboard box and my neat basket wall hanger that i made...I got a little OCD on making the baskets all equadistant apart so it took longer than it should have but it was great fun all the same...

Mi Sitio

First of all let me just say- i'm sorry...very SORRY that I haven't updated in quite some time... as a newbie blogger and sporadic journal-keeper I sometimes find it difficult to write about what i'm up to...especially when there's a lot going on; so here we go- headlong into my first two-weeks in my new home!

Semana Santa
My first week in-site was during the biggest celebration of the year- Semana Santa (Holy Week). it was a great time to be out and about in my community, get my face seen and meet some people. The main event for Semana Santa is the procession through the town. Basically there is a "parade route" of sorts mapped out through the town and it is sectioned off and then invaded by people in the community who make these elaborate drawings out of colored sandand flowers and beans that are then sort of cemented to the pavement by a process i am unfamiliar with... little kids with spray bottles mainly and are left in the street to be viewed. I walked around and took some pictures of these "alfombras" (rugs) and then went down to the church to watch the beginning of the procession which consisted of a large homecoming-type float with a religious scene on it being walked through the town by a group of men in robes along the alfombra; effectively destroying it...followed by a crew with brooms who then sweep up all of the sand, flowers and beans. It is kind of amazing to me that they spend all of this time on making these alfombras only to be walked over and ruined in an instant...of course it's no stranger than my obsession with those sand bottles that i had as a kid- you know the ones where you stack the different colors of sand in the bottles and make art with them...once the bottle's full the fun is over because you can never get the different colors of sand apart to try it again...don't act like you didnt have a sand art set haha. To each his own. I am living in a house with a teacher who works in one of the schools that i will be working with. It is really nice to have someone to practice my spanish with and even nicer to have access to a kitchen! I have been enjoying getting back into cooking and hopefully back into eating healthier now that i am not at the mercy of whatever's put in front of me. Turns out that cooking without a microwave is a real pain but i'm up to the challenge. I have access to all sorts of fresh vegetables and fruits which is really nice; the trick of course is going to be learning to disinfect and prepare them all in delicious ways...i'm optimistic.

I have outfitted my room so far with a bed and two chairs for reading and relaxing (but right now they're just acting as a place for me to stack my clothes and healthy schools materials because as of yet i have not gotten a dresser or any sort of table or shelves). I stopped by a carpenter today and ordered a desk to be made for me. It was really cool because i could ask him to make it however i wanted it; turns out, I wanted my desk to be taller than your average guatemalan desk and i wanted a bookshelf on one side, his response, "no problem, how big?" how rad is that? you just can't find that in the US...well... to be fair, i didnt really look, but you know what i mean. And the best part? it's going to be ready for my by Saturday! I am really looking forward to having a workspace if for nothing more than a place to stack all of my books and free up one of these chairs for sitting in again.

Turns out the money for buying stuff for your house doesnt go very far around here so i have yet to purchase anything else but over the next few months i intend to acquire a few more choice items, they may include:

- dresser

- table

-guitar

-sewing machine

- bicycle

- television

The dresser and table are the things I will definitely get and the other items are more...fun-oriented...obviously. I would really like to learn to play guitar and feel it is time to start. I have a lot of down time in the afternoons and I am feeling a lot of creative energy right now; better put it to good use. Maybe i'll write a song about washing hands... who knows.

Other than that i've just been reading a lot. Today i finished reading a pretty good book called, "backpack" its about this gal who goes backpacking through Asia; there's also some murder mystery in there...and well, i dont want to give it all away but turns out the murderer is someone close to the protagonist, shocking.

My next book of choice is entitled, "why girls are weird," I'll let you know what it says, i'm interested to know myself.

As for my work...
I had my first day of work today! My work-partner, Damian and I visited 3 of our 24 schools and did introductions. It was great to see the schools that we'll actually be working with and it also gave me a lot of ambitions for projects to work on with them... For example, one of the schools that i visited today had all of these computer moniters and hard-drives stacked up in classrooms, collecting dust. it would be SO great if we could get those up and working to start computer classes for the students and parents in the communities to build basic typing and software skills. Of course...this type of project would fall way behind the primary concerns of the schools- which in two of these three we visited today appears to be water- there is not sufficient water for the school during school hours; i'd really like to do a project to build rain-catchmans and depositos for these schools so that they can utilize all of the water from rainfall during the rainy season during the dry season, but this is not my job. Infrastructure projects are not what i'm here to do. it's really hard for me to stand on the sidelines when i want to do a project so badly but the reality is that i have too many schools and to try and take on projects like that would be spreading myself too thin...and it would be unfair to choose just one school to work with when so many would benefit from a project...can't pick favorites. annoying.

I am going to visit 4 more schools tomorrow and then 4 more each day until i've been to them all and then we're going to go back to them and complete surveys to figure out where we're at, to mark our starting position and begin to make change and chart progress...

when it comes down to it there really is so little time and so much to do.

as for building confianza (trust)...

I went on a camping trip with a group of teachers from one of the schools. They had planned the trip as a despedida (goodbye-party) for my sitemate, Kristina who's been working with their school for the past two years. We went to Laguna Brava which was absolutely stunning. it was about a 3 hour hike down into the lagoon and a 2 1/2 hour hike out (how we made it out faster than in is a mystery, i can only guess that we really hauled up the mountain, my thighs are killing me). The Lagoon was absolutely beautiful- it's the picture of what i thought of when i think "lagoon" it really reminded me of these stories my dad used to tell us about felix and the lagoon. Supposidly there are spider monkeys that live there but try as i might I did not see any. Regardless, it was a great chance to get to know some of the teachers and work on my spanish as well as just swim around in the lagoon, get some exercise, ride in the back of pickup trucks, and relax. A great time had by all.

here are some pics of the lagoon

Well, that's all i've got for you for now. I'm almost done downloading episodes of grey's anatomy from itunes and i feel like a snack.
more to come; i miss you all. write me letters if you've got some free time and extra money lying around for postage... my new address is :

Kristin Morton

Voluntaria/ Cuerpo De Paz

Jacaltenango, Huehuetenango

Guatemala, Centro America.


until next time! Peace & Love!