Photos from Guatemala

Here are some of my photos. Once you are at those pages, you can view the slideshow by clicking on the icon in the upper left-hand corner.

Arrival and Training


Swearing in and first pictures of Santa Maria Visitacion


First 3 months at Santa Maria Visitacion


Thursday, August 16, 2012

A little off topic

My favorite song is, and always will be, Flo-Rida’s Club Can’t Handle Me.  Granted, it’s not really a good song, but it’s my favorite because it was the first song I heard when we landed in the airport in Guatemala.  It will forever and always remind of that wonderful, crazy, terrifying feeling of walking out into a country I had never been to and was going to spend the next two years of my life in.  It’s such an exhilarating feeling- stepping out of your comfort zone and into the unknown!  The feeling that something really, really, really BIG is about to happen and that your life will never be the same.  It will always remind me of moments like walking into the hotel in Washington, D.C. to begin staging for Peace Corps with a room full of people who were to become like family, and when my counterparts whom I had met for a couple of days were driving me down a sketchy, bumpy road to my new home, Santa Maria Visitacion.  Maybe that's why once I started traveling it's been hard to stop...maybe I'm addicted to that stepping-out-on-a-ledge-without-looking-down feeling.  That song reminds me of all the reasons why I joined Peace Corps, which for some reason, when written down, just seem corny and fake.  And so to get out of my year and a half slump of serving in Santa Maria, August has been all about Flo-Rida and getting out there and doing things I’ve never done before.  Which, is actually not that hard!  They don't necessarily have to be huge actions to change up the routine.  From eating half a watermelon for dinner to singing Alleluia while planting beans with Lucia, doing things I hadn’t done before was very simple and a breath of fresh air.  I went to some hot springs, I changed up my running route, I had an open discussion with a Catholic Guatemalan about religion, I put my corte on all by myself without any help, it's just been a great month!  So while yes, July was tougher than most months due to various reasons (3 of my best friends came to visit in June which was AMAZING, but of course that meant they had to leave after that, and then I got lice), August has turned out to be much better!  So thank you, Flo-Rida.  Also thanks to Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant, and Karl P. for their ridiculous and hilarious podcast.  Side note: my second favorite song is actually the Titanic song, because it seems like EVERYONE knows it no matter where you are.  I’ve heard it in Spanish, a techno remix, played on recorder, on the chicken buses, in the muni, you name it!  Which was why I was so bummed when the movie came out in 3-D and I couldn’t go see it.

Pictures from the past couple months/feria in Santa Maria

1. Learning how to make chocolate from cacao beans with the girls!
 2. During feria, diferent town "queens" from all over Guatemala came in their best traje to participate in the crowning of our new queen, or Rukotz'ij Tinamiit (Flor del pueblo en tz'utujil= town flower).  It was the most beautiful pageant I've ever seen...and there wasn't even a swimsuit competition!
 3.  Some of my students from the basico, or middle school, before the parade in their brand new uniforms.
 4.  Me and one of my students in the parade
5. Cheerleaders from the basico in their new uniforms.  
 6.  Glock girls!  Man walking on those streets in heels was hard...don't know how the women here do it!  I had to walk home barefoot.