Puchika! That’s the best way to describe what I’ve been experiencing here in Guate. Also known as wow in English. I have been unbelievably busy, active, and learning a LOT daily. Information overload! It’s all been great though. The first three days I stayed with a kind family of four in Santa Lucia, right outside of the Peace Corps headquarters. They had the most adorable, happy baby ever, Gabriel, and three other sweet kids.
I have since moved on to a lower altitude (Santa Lucia is about 7,000 feet) and am living in San Luis Las Carretas, about 30-40 minutes by camioneta (chicken bus) from the training center. Before I continue, let me explain the chicken bus--they are old, unregulated Blue Bird school buses from the states that have been painted over with bright colors, flashing lights, and if you‘re lucky, covered in decals of a glow-in-the-dark Jesus. Only the most deferential! They also drive at breakneck speeds up and down winding mountain roads stuffed with people squeezed in seats or standing in the aisles. The schedule is chock-full of small group language classes in our communities, technical training, and basic medical and safety training at headquarters. That means lots of chicken buses--oh my!
Our training group is about 52 people, divided up into two separate programs, Healthy Schools and Eco Tourism. All of the trainees are positive and friendly people so it’s been fun to share our thoughts, expectations, and feelings. Our training coordinator keeps telling us that we have to remember three things: enthusiasm, flexibility, and patience. Good advice so far as things are quite…unpredictable!
My host family is quite friendly and open. Dona Susana and Dona Gavin have five children, the oldest is a single mother with an (almost) three year old and the youngest are 15 year old twins. Then there are the 22 and 24 year old sons. Needless to say, there’s a lot going on! We live in a sort of compound in which there is a cement courtyard with rooms around it. The two older sons actually live across the street in their other house since the one we live in is actually Dona Susana’s sister’s house. Her sister, Maria (who I haven’t yet met), works as a live-in nurse for an American man in Antigua, the nearest city and one of Guatemala’s major tourist destinations. Ok now picture a short Guatemalan woman telling you all this and showing you the house in Spanish within the first 3 minutes of walking in the door! PUCHIKA!
Even though I like to compare my Peace Corps experience thus far to walking through a thick fog in which I can only see an arm’s length distance ahead of me, things have been great! I feel like each small step is slowly preparing me, making me ready for what lies ahead. Training will be a three month process, and we will only discover our sites for the next two years about a week before we start there. I’m not worries though. Just open to the possibilities!
It probably doesn’t seem like so long since I’ve gone, but it seems like weeks considering all I’ve done so far!
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