Much time has passed since I last posted. Much has happened since then as well.
I’ve spent time on the beaches of Costa Rica with my best Peace Corps friends, said goodbye to an amazing friend upon his very sad and permanent return to the states, travelled a ton, gotten closer with a few more amazing Peace Corps friends, visited more beaches, and had hardly any time to think about how I’ve spent the past 2 and a half months.
My host mother asked me to be the godmother of her son, Amer, whose FIRST birthday was on February 15th. I got to spend the day with the family, setting up the party and being a super-tall spectacle for all of the Tejutlecos I’ve met over the past year and a half. It was a really gratifying occasion to see familiar faces, be more to Amer than just this strange white giant, and to feel close to my host family. I love them. They call me traviesa, or naughty, because I have tattoos and travel so much… I love that they accept me. Although I still feel as if I cannot be 100% myself with them, I feel closer to them than almost any other Guatemalan. I am still working with Sarita on getting her travel visa so she can come home with me…
I got to participate in a three-day HIV/AIDS workshop with a Guatemalan counterpart from Tejutla (María Luisa) in the Peace Corps Office and am very excited to take on HIV/AIDS work as a secondary project. She’s excellent and so easy to get along with! We’ll be working with the Centro de Salud (health center) to recreate the workshop with many of the surrounding communities and I can’t wait. The workshop is so much fun to do, and so gratifying. It’s like you’re making a direct impact – something I don’t get the pleasure of experiencing quite as much with my work here as I’d like to.
At work I’m doing a real business plan with my counterpart and Board of Directors – we started it last month and I’m interested to see how far we get on creating a successful compilation of information. We plan to meet every three weeks to knock out pieces of it at a time… let’s see what Guatemala can do for us on this one.
I’ve also been in touch with a group called Soluciones Comunitarias, whose work is micro consignment: a non-risky business venture for rural communities, mostly women, in the hopes of making extra income. Soluciones gives products to the women to sell and the women make commission off of what they can sell. Soluciones and I will be meeting with one of my groups this week to see what we can kick off with. More exciting stuff.
I visited my friend Annalisa’s site on the coast of Guatemala, 20 kilometers from the border of El Salvador. A group of us from my training group went out there and had a great beach party. SO hot, so great. Annalisa is a great and sound friend – I’m happy to have had this time to get to know her as well as I do. She came to my site the next week to climb Tajumulco with me (the highest volcano in Central America, 1 hour from my site). We left the house at 6:00am, climbed to the top in about 3 hours and 45 minutes, and sat on the top of the world in freezing cold wind. It was an incredible and unusually clear day, and well worth the pain of climbing up rocks towards the top, at about 13,845 feet. I was a bit dizzy and VERY cold, but in awe of the amazing view and accomplishment. So worth it. We climbed down the same day, in about 2 hours time, and found it hard to move the rest of the day and next morning. It was just about as euphoric as running a marathon. Can’t wait to experience that again!
Since then I’ve been to several despedidas as a few good friends of mine are getting ready to finish their service. They’ve been so much fun, great way to say goodbye, but sad events nonetheless.
On that note, I can’t help but be consumed by the idea that I have about 7 months left. 7 MONTHS. That is NOTHING in comparison to the 27 months I signed up for. And the time this year has already gone away as if it were mere seconds. I love that the time flies, I love that I will be home sooner than I can imagine, and I love that I have so much time and realization under my belt. I do not like, however, that regardless of the relationships I’ve built, regardless of how I’ve learned so much about Guatemala and how it works, regardless of the newfound immense and great workload, my missing home and missing feeling at home continues to impact my motivation and excitement at what I’ve accomplished and what I have left to do. Every day, even with small victories here and there, is a constant struggle to be so 100% aware of the cultural differences and challenges. I will never be completely understood and accepted here as I am at home, and my work will never be fully understood or appreciated as it is when I am at home. I know that it is meaningful to be here and great to have this experience and I regret absolutely nothing. I am immensely grateful for what I have done and seen and learned. I am just constantly reconciling that with my desire to be comfortable again, all of the time instead of just some of the time. This is, consequentially, the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer.
So that’s life, all. Thanks for listening. Love to you.
