Stories and Musings from the First Few Weeks

I don’t have any great thoughts for a cohesive blog post, so I figured I’d just share with you a few of the stories that I’ve collected over the first couple of weeks.

•  So, the first day Kendra and I woke up and got dressed, super excited for the first day.  Then… we realized… Guatemala is one hour behind our East Coast watches.  So, we awkwardly laid back in bed, fully dressed, waiting for an hour to pass so that we could have breakfast and actually start our day.  Lesson learned.
•  Our second night here, some volunteers and neighborhood kids were playing cards.  I teamed up with a little boy to play Go Fish because he was too young to play by himself.  Another volunteer asked if he had any pairs and he replied “We’re a pair!”, pointing to me.  This made me more confident in my ability to interact with kids here, despite my poor Spanish.
• My host family decorated my room with balloons and this flower below before I came.  They are really lovely people and I can’t wait to tell you more about them!

• Everybody says hi to everybody.  Walking down the street, every person you see, you say Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening (depending on the time, obviously).  It doesn’t matter if you know the person or not.  It’s really nice.
• People here often buy clothes from “Ropa Americana” stores, which are basically things passed down from Goodwill stores in the US.  So, people here sometimes have quite eclectic wardrobes.  I saw a Guatemalan man the other day proudly wearing a green hat that said “Kiss Me, I’m Irish”.  I guess it really is a small world.
• After training, the group from my village and a few other volunteers near by went to the park to play Frisbee.  The ten of us were right in the middle of the park in a big circle, passing the Frisbee.  Then we heard these loud cracking, gun shot sounds.  All of us gringos, ducked and covered our heads.  Then we realized that they were these little crackler, fireworky things that the kids like to use.  We looked incredibly stupid and everyone in the park was laughing at us.
• There was a Walk for Peace in town.  Here’s a picture of the flyer below.  There was about a thousand people that participated, mostly churches and schools.  Everyone wore white.  It was very inspiring because it was such a sincere attempt for these people to improve their own lives.

• We visited the Maya ruins at I’xchmé and participated in a ceremony to bring us health over the next two years.  The ruins were beautiful and the ceremony was very interesting. I saw a chicken get its head cut off and then get thrown into the fire.  I guess I’ll add that to my list of firsts.
• On the Fridays leading up to Semana Santa (Holy Week), churches put on shows of different biblical scenes.  It is a HUGE production.  The scene itself is very intense and then there’s a carnival outside.  This makes me very, very excited for Holy Week.  People come from all of the world to experience Holy Week in Antigua.  I'm going to try to upload the video once I get better at this whole blogging things.

I hope to post soon about my family here, about food in Guatemala, and about Semana Santa!  There's lots of exciting things going on and I am very happy to be a part of it!