Guatemala

Let's use this blog to keep up with each other! Excited to be in Guatemala, but also missing everyone! Post whatever!

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Christmas part 2


Our Bungalows with private pool!

Beach!

Delicious Chickens before they went in... Christmas Eve Meal

Christmas 2007 at Monterrico


Chillin in the hammocks
Beautiful Sunset!
Christmas Day Dinner!
Christmas Eve Dinner... great team work!
Taking in the Sun

I haven't forgotten about the blog!

So it definitely has been a while since my last post! I've been on summer vacation since the end of October and will be returning to classes next week. This week I'm busy giving talleres (meetings) with the teachers at each of my schools trying to get them back on track with the Healthy Schools program. Generally we review goals and discuss/brainstorm on how to accomplish them. I had my first meeting with the Parracana teachers yesterady, and what I enjoyed most was the comfort I felt with them, a comfort that I spent last year developing. I'm beginning to realize how invested I am in Guatemala, I can't believe it'll be a year on the 18th.
An investment that I'm beginning to reap in the form of good working relationships, growing friendships, and even in the comfort I feel within my daily routines. Who would've thought that it would take a year to reap the benefits of integration, and to even feel comfortable in my day to day activities. It feels good to be known in my town, to have people to say hi to, to be able to tell people to pass by my house when they're in the neighborhood. 2007 was a year of adjusting to different environments, a year of being new, and it was exhausting. I spent my first three months in training and lived with one host family. Every day was an adjustment, a get-to-know-you-and-your-culture moment, a slow progression along the comfort ladder. I learned that the best way to integrate is to adopt a fake it until you make it mentality- force yourself to be apart of the family even though you aren't, force yourself to make conversation even when it's so easy to just sit isolated in your room (many times this isolation is well needed and deserved). Talk about the weather, about your work, about cultural differences... talk about anything even though maybe deep down you don't really care. This is the exhausting part of Peace Corps: the need to be accepted in an environment and culture that is your opposite causes you to always have to be "on." When you're not trying to fit in, you can choose to be anti-social, but in Peace Corps not fiting in or failing to make any social connections can make for a very sad, lonely, and depressing 2 years. So in my opinion, not socializing, not making small talk isn't an option because I want to try and enjoy my time here. And many times it is forced! There are times when I don't feel like leaving my house, I don't feel like speaking Spanish but I do it anyway because it's why I'm here, and I always come back feeling better that I got to know someone in my town better. So after my first three months in training with my first host family, who I'm pretty close with, I moved to my site. My first week there I got a really bad cold and was in bed all day in the house of my new host family. Ahhhh, to have to get to know again! But sadly the second time around wasn't as succesful as the first. My second host family had never heard of Peace Corps, didn't seem to care to really know why I was there, and I just felt like I was trying way too hard! I was making all the effort, but they weren't really responding to me. Needless to say, I was very eager to get into my new house and connect with other people. But I was the first volunteer in my site, not to mention the first real foreigner aside from the Cubans who work in the town health center. The towns people didn't exactly welcome me with open arms, it took a while for people to stop staring at me when I walked by, and it took a while for them to respond when I said Buenos Dias. Every conversation I had involved my shpiel describing where I was from and what I was doing in their town. But poco a poco people began to accept me, and now they approach me! A great accomplishment but one that took some time. August I moved in to my house, and instantly felt more confortable. To cook your own food, to take a long shower, to blast music..... wow what a difference a little bit of freedom makes.