Chocale- High Five

Howdy All!

I hope that everyone is doing very well and enjoying the gorgeous fall weather I am sure you are having (what I'd do to walk through some leaves and go on a haunted hayride right now...)

Instead of all that, I will be leaving for my new site on Saturday and it's HOT HOT HOT there! It's really weird to think that I won't be having a winter for the next two years but I'm excited to get a nice little tan going as well as sweat off all the tortilla fat I've gained (the important things in life, right?) I had my site visit this past week and it was interesting to say the least... I guess I'll start at the beginning and I'll try not to leave anything out cause it's a pretty good story if I do say so myself. Okay so the first day, I met up with my counterpart and another girl from my village who is 16 and her name is Brenda (and coincidentally she is freaking awesome and my new homegirl) and we left for Chiquimula. We had to go through Guatemala city and then take a bus (which I thought was going to be a chicken bus but ended up being a pullman, thank goodness!) It was a little crazy going through Guate but we made it without incident and I kept all of my luggage in one piece. We got to my village around 5 so I had dinner and met the president of my association along with her family (she has two sons and a daughter who are all about my age). After dinner I went to her mother-in-laws house, which is where I stayed for the first two nights and got situated and then went to bed. All was going great with that because I was so exhausted from the traveling until about midnight when I was abruptly woken up by some of the ceiling falling on my face... I immediately turned on my flashlight and started looking around everywhere for the source of this but couldn't find anything so resolved to hang my mosquito net in the morning figuring that it would protect me from the faulty ceiling for the next night... the next day I was reading in my room and all of the sudden two HUGE rats go running across one of the wooden planks that support the roof of the room. This is when i realized that the caving-in ceiling was due to the rats nighttime activities. After seeing that happen I just kinda shrugged my shoulders and said to myself "at least they are in the ceiling and not scurrying across the floor" (I'm so optimistic). So then I go to grab my shower stuff from my one bag when I notice that apparently my room has been built on top of the world's largest anthill. I have literally never seen so many ants in all my life (and hopefully never will again). I spent the next hour or so shaking out all of my clothes and other belongings to be sure I got them all. After that, I McGuyvered my bag to hang from the ceiling (with the rats) so that the ants wouldn't get it. TIG (this is Guatemala). To ice the cake, there was no running water which was surprisingly almost a relief because it's so hot there that cold water felt pretty great. The bathroom was also a latrine. So after the first two nights at this house I finally met up with my site mate, Felicia (or Omi, as she is known in our town) and she saved me! She took me to her house, which is SO awesome! I got to read in her backyard, while swaying in her hammock and looking at the gorgeous mountain views. She made me tuna fish wraps for dinner (first time I've had tuna since I left and I LOVE tuna) and I got to watch the phils game (which they won even though they have since been knocked out). Overall, it was great to hang out with her and get to know the village a little better without all the other stresses from the previous days. Needless to say, I chose to live with the president of my corporation who I am hoping does not have the ant or rat problem (vamos a ver... we'll see). I needed to buy my own bed which I was pretty nervous to do because of my communication skills in another language but luckily Felicia helped me out so I have a brand new bed that was delivered a few days ago (bug free yayyy!) and I'll be all set when I get there on Saturday :)

I am pretty excited about the group that I will be working with at my new site. It is a women's group that works with baskets made from palms (and other products as well such as earrings made from palms) but they harvest the palms themselves in many cases (or buy the materials if they don't have access to the actual plants) and then create the baskets, jewelry boxes, earrings and tons more. They have a ton of potential and their products are actually really impressive so I'm really excited to learn how that all is done as well as help them to find new markets/better marketing strategies to sell their products. It's also sweet because there are other women's groups in town or in surrounding areas that work with shampoo and with pastries which lends perfectly to creating gift baskets or pastry baskets, which are even more marketable! One challenge I see so far will be getting the group to meet more than once a month and to continue to make their product year round (since from what I've gathered they take some lengthy breaks from producing baskets throughout the year). I can't wait to try and learn how to make the baskets though and can't wait to see what we will all be able to accomplish together!

Coming back to where I've been for the past three months was amazing. I missed my family and the food here (not to mention the flushing toilet and trusty ceiling) SO much. I really don't know what I'm gonna do without them (I'm sure I'll be aok but it's gonna be rough for sure). My little brothers were so cute when I got back though... they ran to get the door and were jumping up to hug me and begging to come play with them. Today we got to have a party for our host families in our towns and ours was a ton of fun! All the trainees in my town got up super early and made 20 pizzas as well as a big bowl of pasta and guacamole for tostados. Our families all got together and we had a pinata (see facebook for pictures) which the kids (and adults for that matter) had a ton of fun with. It was nice to be able to give back a little something to our fams for all they have done/continue to do for us and I think they all really enjoyed it. This next week we have lots of stuff going on and then Friday is the big day when we move to our sites so wish me luck and pray that the rats have evacuated the premises especially for me (a girl can dream right?) I hope all of you have an awesome week and hopefully I'll get another blog up here before I leave or shortly after I arrive at site. Miss you all!