Drumroll, please

Just got my site assignment. I don't know why I was so nervous. I tossed and turned all night.

Here's the word: they're sending me to an aldea (which I will not name for security reasons) of San Pedro Carchá in Alta Verapaz. I'll be a second generation volunteer, which means that I'm replacing a volunteer who's finishing her two years now, Kelsey. I'll be going up there next week and meeting her and my counterparts, seeing the schools I'll be working at, and hopefully getting a feel for where I'll be living and working for the next two years. The first three months of my service I'll be living in an apartment with a few other local teachers, and then I'll have the choice of looking for other living arrangements or staying there. I'll be working at three different schools, one larger one with 181 students and 11 teachers, one with 91 students and 3 teachers, and a new school of 27 students and 3 teachers. According to the packet of information that Gonzalo gave me with my assignment, my site is a small rural aldea in the larger municipality of San Pedro Carchá. It's population is totally indigenous, of the ethnic group Kekchi, which is also the predominant spoken language (although they also speak Spanish…good news for me). It's inhabitants mostly work in agriculture, growing corn, coffee, cardamon, and beans.

That's basically all information I have thus far…it will be really exciting to go out there next Tuesday and see what it's like. I've heard through a few other volunteers that it's absolutely beautiful up there; it's super-hot (which I'm happy about) and "tranquilo" (calm). Since I'll be so far north (from what I've heard it's about 6-8 hours from where I'm living now near the training center) I'll be far away from most of my friends in my training class (who are mostly in the West); but visits are always possible, and I'll have a few volunteers close by who are working on other projects, who I have yet to meet.

It's pretty surreal…now I have my site, but I have very little idea of what it all means until I go up there and see for myself. Gonzalo told us this morning before handing out our sites that it is part of our job to develop our sites…in other words, our sites, and our volunteer experience, are what we make of them. I'm anxious to meet Kelsey and get some "insider" information about the aldea.
Vamos a ver...

[Dad, if you read this...you won't find my aldea on the Guatemala map...but San Pedro Carchá is to the East of Cobán...you can see a map here.]

Dear Mike

Dear Mike,

Nerves nerves nerves. At 8am tomorrow morning we find out our site placements...the place I'll be spending the next two years of my life. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep at all tonight. It's like Christmas when I was young...the anticipation is wrenching. Wish me luck...will post tomorrow and let you know where I'm going.

Lytm

Hannah

Dreary Days

Ever since I got back from my site visit, it's been super dreary here in San Bartolo. Cold, rainy, and windy…apparently there's another storm passing through. I get homesick when it rains here. It rains everyday, of course, but I mean when it really rains, like all day and night, cloudy-gray-full-of-rain-day rain. Those are the days I find myself missing the comforts of home.

So nervous about my site placement I could scream. 8 am Thursday morning Gonzalo is going to come into our town to hand out our assignments. The nervous energy is palpable. I visited Gonzalo at the office today to express a few last-minute concerns, and he finally gave me the piece of mind that my site is a hot one (I had basically begged him not to place me in a cold mountain region…I don't do well in the cold especially where indoor heating doesn't exist.) So that's all I know. My site is warm. The rest of the details I'll just have to wait until Thursday.

On another note, we had our out-of-site activity yesterday; we were all dreading it, and agreed that if it wasn't a requirement, we wouldn't have done anything. We have no place here in our training community; we're barely here between classes and travels, and we definitely haven't earned the "confianza" of the students or teachers in the school in the few short weeks we've been here working. Thus organizing an out-of-school activity for the youth seemed pretty futile, and honestly quite forced. Nevertheless we decided to have a free showing of Pixar's Wall-E, and ask that the guests pick-up and bring 5 pieces of litter from the streets (a bit of an environmental theme.) Garbage is a real problem here; culturally it's completely acceptable to throw trash in the streets or dump it off the side of the highways. Public garbage cans, where they exist, aren't used. Recycling is basically obsolete unless in larger cities. So we liked the idea of spreading a positive environmental message.

But alas, the day of the showing came and we were pretty worried that nobody would show up. We had talked previously to the mayor, who had agreed to lend us a room in the municipal building, as well as the muni's projector and screen to play the DVD. We hung some flyers in the school hoping that kids would jump at the chance to see a movie on their day off from school. When 3pm rolled around and not a soul had come, we started getting worried. That's when the muni police saved the day. The muni police, whose post is right next door to the room we were patiently waiting with our movie and snacks, must have taken pity on us, because they agreed to make a town-wide announcement (they have a loudspeaker that basically blares announcements to the entire town from time to time) summoning people to come see our "family-friendly" movie, and then proceeded to stand outside ushering passerby kids into our showing. Midway through the film, we had filled the room. It was in no way the policemen's responsibility to help us out, and we of course thanked them dearly. I guess it just shows that you never know who's going to come out of the woodwork to help out a poor gringo trying to do some good. We're going to bake a batch of brownies to thank them for their efforts.

Dear Mike

Dear Mike,

Just got back yesterday from my site visit to Amanda's aldea (she's the volunteer who I might be replacing). It's only about a 2-hour bus trip from where I'm living now, but it's amazing the difference. The climate is totally different (she's at a much lower altitude so it's super warm), the people are mostly indigenous (they still wear traditional Mayan dress and speak in a Mayan dialect), and it's a lot less developed. If it does end up that I'm assigned to her site (in which case I'll be totally elated), she's already got some great projects up and running that I'd be able to come in and continue to build upon…she's got this great women's group that I met on Wednesday night that are really interested in the possibility of exporting some of their hand-made weaving to the U.S., and of course she already has relationships with 3 local schools where I would be working and teaching the Youth Development curriculum.

These last 4 days have really been the best part of training for me…I really got a sense of what I'll be doing for the next 2 years, what sorts of projects I'd like to pursue, what kind of image I want to portray in my site. We've visited several volunteer-sites now, but upon visiting Amanda's I immediately knew that I wanted to live there. There was this vibe that I immediately sensed and felt like "Ok, this is what I want my Peace Corps Guatemala experience to be like." And so now I just wait until Thursday to get my site assignment. I hate to get my hopes up too high, but honestly I can't help it. This past week all I've been thinking about and dreaming about is my site placement. It's a pretty big deal to let somebody else determine where I'll be spending the next 2 years of my life, with whom I'll be spending them with, and what kind of work opportunities I'll have. I don't now whether I'm more excited or nervous at this point. All I know is that Thursday seems light-years away.

Also on my visit I almost saw a cow give birth! Amanda rents a room from a family in the aldea, and the family have several chickens and a cow. Now this cow was SUPER pregnant when we got there on Wednesday night, and we were hoping that she'd give birth sometime that night or the next day so we could witness it. But she gave birth sometime during the day on Friday but she was up in the field where they take her to graze and we weren't around. But the family brought them back so we could meet the new-born, who was the sweetest thing. So so gentle. Did you know cows had 9-month long pregnancies just like humans? I had no idea.

I miss you every day. Hope life is good. Lytm.

xoxo,
Hannah

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

Mario loved his Cubs hat. Still don't think he understands what baseball is, but to him that's beside the point. He wore it around all night; refused to take it off for dinner, and apparently (my host mother told me this at breakfast), refused to go to bed until his mother cleared a special spot in the closet for him to put it. He also loved the markers…especially that they were scented. He wanted to smell every one of the 100 markers in that pack, hence the marker all over his face in this picture.
Have a good week at work, talk soon.

Love,
Hannah

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Nice talking to you guys on Sunday. I hope you're enjoying the start of summer. I leave tomorrow morning for a site visit to a volunteer living in Estancia de la Virgen, a small aldea outside of Chimaltenango (it's about a 2 hour bus trip from where I'm living now.) I'll be staying with her and shadowing her until Saturday, so I won't be updating until then. Just didn't want you to worry.

Also, I received your packages today! Thank you SO much. I've already eaten about half that bag of M&M's...what a wonderful wonderful treat. Is the Cubs hat for Mario? He'll love it. Dad just loves sending Cubs paraphanalia to all ends of the world, doesn't he (one could argue that's propoganda...just saying).

Thanks again and enjoy your week, and if I don't talk to you, happy birthday on Friday!! I'll be thinking of my old ma. :)

Love,

Hannah

Good quote

"The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling." --Keroac's The Dharma Bums, my current read