Soaked!

Warning: this blog may ramble like a river and flow like a rain storm (meaning this may be a long introduction)

I just hung my clothes up to dry because it was nice and sunny only to hop on the bus and have the rain start pouring down. But I should know better by now :). The past month there's been no escaping the rain. It visits for at least a few hours every day. When it really starts pouring the streets clear out, and little (or not so little) rivers start pouring down the dirt and cobblestone streets. Everything cloth tends to smell slightly of mildew. One Sunday we sat through a 2 hour church service unable to hear anything more than the rain slapping against the corrugated metal roofing. But the flip side is everything is green green green. In the highlands, where I´ve been living and traveling the past few weeks, cities and towns sit in valleys and at the base of hills and volcanoes, which rise up into the clouds as great green giants. Its impressive.

I´ve been living along with the five other volunteers in a small town called San Juan del Obispo just outside of very touristy Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua was the capitol of Guatemala prior to its current one, and is now the home of many expatriots, mostly from Europe and the US, and lots of Spanish schools. Living just a 15 minute bus ride up the hill, our group of six are the only foreigners in town. As I walk along the dirt road to school each day everyone greets each other with Buenos Dias. Chickens and dogs scurry out of the way when a car or motorcylce zooms by. Women pass with plastic tubs on their heads full of corn kernels to take to the molino, or corn grinder.

4-5 hours of one on one Spanish school each day has been great for getting to know Guatemalan vocabulary, which has a lot of hard to remember Mayan words, cultural norms, and history. And my teacher has been studying Mayan culture within Guatemala at a university so I´ve been able to pick her brain a little.

I've been living with an average sized Guatemalan family, which is supersized to compared to mine. All in one house we have: Eduarda (mom), Hector (dad), Maria (grandma 1), Mariana (grandma 2), and the 5 kids, Josue, Ana, Osmundo, Lourdes, and Dulce. They take super good care of me. Highlights have been Eduarda's cooking (could have its own blog entry), helping the kids with their English homework (and them calling each other animal names in English), hanging out with Mariana and talking about her life (even if I only understand half of what she says). And I almost forgot the animals! They have about a dozen rabbits, half a dozen chickens, 2 tucans, a squirrel, 4 green parrots, 2 baby turkeys (growing up for Christmas), 1 blackbird, and a partridge in a pear tree (well not really).

Reflection Time
There's been so many new things and people all around that its been hard to process through all of it. And these first months I might just write a lot about new "stuff" without knowing what to do with it. Talking with the other volunteers we find so much of our conversations revolving around food, laundry, transportation, health, weather... things that I never thought much about before but now suddenly determine so much about what I'll be able to to each day. For me its been a little hard to have over a month of "prep" time and not feeling sure of if I'm really preparing well or what purpose God has for me in this time. I've also missed all of you a lot, and wondered quite a few times why I left :). What I have noticed is that in this month my heart has grown more grateful to be here. As I'm about to head to my permanent host site, I'm excited to get to know people, and with a renewed hope in the Spirit as my guide and God's love for me and those I meet.

And just for fun...
Things I hope to blog about:
- riding the "chicken" buses (think Disneyland Indiana Jones ride)
- 101 uses of corn (#1 homemade tortillas mmm!)
- handwashing and sundrying clothes
- top 10 most delicious Guatemalan foods