Silliness

My blog posts tend to be about serious things going on in Guatemala and in my life, but the truth is that there are still an awful lot of "normal", silly moments in my life.

For example...

Yesterday morning, I was in a rush, like usual.  (Why did I ever think that Peace Corps was going to be two years of meditating?)  The result of this rushing was that I locked my keys in my room and the spare key that my host family had made didn't work.  26 hours later, I finally got back into my room.

I just wanted to let you all know that for future reference, picking a lock is a great opportunity for cultural integration.  My host family and I joked about how we wish we knew robbers, because they'd be able to pick a lock.  Everyone from my five-year-old host brother to my host parents and my Mam* teacher took a whack at trying to open the lock.  I was freezing and my host sister lent me her favorite Angry Birds sweatshirt.  I stayed at my sitemate's old house last night because her bed was still there.  Finally, a carpenter came over this morning and took off the door knob.  (He couldn't come yesterday because carpenter's don't work on Sundays.)

I don't think I can overstate how unhappy I was being locked out of my room, but now that I'm back in, I know that I have a great story that my Guatemalan family and I will laugh about for a long time to come.

*Mam is the indiginous Maya language that everyone in my site speaks.  I am TRYING to learn it.  Stay tuned to see how that goes...