Sorry about the weird photo additions, I have to learn how to work on public computers, so the photos are not in order and obviously not integrated into the text. Will try to do better next time.
Part of my first host family. The mother Dona Eva is to my right and her oldest daughter and husband and child along with another PCT Cara are to my left.
Reagan International at 2am a pretty hopping place to be
Part of my first host family. The mother Dona Eva is to my right and her oldest daughter and husband and child along with another PCT Cara are to my left.
Reagan International at 2am a pretty hopping place to be Hola a todos! I am writing now from the training center about an hour outside of the city of Guatemala and ten minutes from Antigua. The center is absolutely beautiful (I will try to post photos later), and I have spent the past two days here for pretty much all daylight hours for the first intense part of training. But I am getting ahead of myself, so a small summary of my past few days:
On Monday I flew out to Washington DC for Peace Corps pre-departure staging. I stayed in a hotel room with Annalisa, a girl entering the Agricultural Marketing program after a few years working in marketing for high end car manufacturers. Unsurprisingly I was unable to sleep, and the next day I met the 31 other people in my training class (we are 33 total, about evenly divided between Municipal Development and Agricultural Security/Agricultural Marketing). From 3-7pm we went through basic orientation, were shown our new passports, a lot of group bonding exercises and stuff, and then I went out for my last dinner in the USA and ate Pad Thai with Tofu.
I was super nervous/excited about heading out to Guate, so I did not sleep well again on Tuesday night, and at 1am I woke up to head down to the lobby to check out of the hotel and go to the airport. We arrived at Reagan at 220am, a mere four hours before our flight. As one of three people who volunteered to be a group leader, I kept myself busy by helping print all of our tickets out and at 4am we were allowed to finally check our bags and go through security.
We finally arrived in Guate around 1230pm and were met by a group of Peace Corps staff and got on a bus to the training center. After a brief introduction, I was assigned with two other girls to live in a house in town for the first three days of training. My first night in the house I made a fool of myself attempting to eat chicken with just a spoon and a fork. I was a vegetarian for 9 years and for the past year, while I have been eating chicken sparingly, I really never had to cut it that much...and if I did a knife was available. Anyhow, I had chicken on my plate and I was pretty hungry, so I tried to hold it down with the spoon to skin it with the fork and then use the fork to take pieces off. This technique, while logical in theory ended up getting a lot of chicken juice and pieces onto my skirt, which I thankfully had already decided I would not be wearing again since it was dirty. After dinner, I asked if I could take my shower in the evening and was given a bucket of warm water with a smaller bucket inside to pour water over myself with. To be honest, the experience was not as bad as I thought it would be. It is definitely not as warm as taking a real shower, and I can imagine it would be unpleasant in a really cold climate, but yesterday I went ahead and even washed my hair that way, and I think it was pretty successful.
In training the past few days we have basically just been bombarded with health and security information. We have also been told a lot that Peace Corps is not for everyone and that just because we came out here does not mean that we need to stay. I guess I appreciate that I have an out, but I really hope that I can be successful and roll with the punches especially since so far everything has been great, I do not want to end up being one of the people who do early termination.
Yesterday we were interviewed and based on our performance everyone was placed in a Spanish class. I am in the highest level class with three other people doing Municipal Development (our classes are divided according to technical area). Our two hour class this morning was great, we just talked the whole time and tomorrow my three classmates and I are going to be placed in our training site for the next eleven weeks. Starting on Monday we will have Spanish classes in our host community from 8am - 3pm, followed by technical training in the afternoons. Since we are at a high level of Spanish ability, most of our Spanish classes will also revolve around doing technical activities. On Tuesdays all PCVs from the 8 training communities we are being sent to will be coming back to the training center for health and security training.
It is all very exciting so far and I cannot wait to meet my new host family (I was told there were three little kids!!!!). On the off chance that anyone wants to send a letter or a package (which should be in a padded envelope in order to avoid taxes), the mailing address here is:
PCT Athalia Markowitz
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America
Hope all are well and I will try to post again with photos soon!
On Monday I flew out to Washington DC for Peace Corps pre-departure staging. I stayed in a hotel room with Annalisa, a girl entering the Agricultural Marketing program after a few years working in marketing for high end car manufacturers. Unsurprisingly I was unable to sleep, and the next day I met the 31 other people in my training class (we are 33 total, about evenly divided between Municipal Development and Agricultural Security/Agricultural Marketing). From 3-7pm we went through basic orientation, were shown our new passports, a lot of group bonding exercises and stuff, and then I went out for my last dinner in the USA and ate Pad Thai with Tofu.
I was super nervous/excited about heading out to Guate, so I did not sleep well again on Tuesday night, and at 1am I woke up to head down to the lobby to check out of the hotel and go to the airport. We arrived at Reagan at 220am, a mere four hours before our flight. As one of three people who volunteered to be a group leader, I kept myself busy by helping print all of our tickets out and at 4am we were allowed to finally check our bags and go through security.
We finally arrived in Guate around 1230pm and were met by a group of Peace Corps staff and got on a bus to the training center. After a brief introduction, I was assigned with two other girls to live in a house in town for the first three days of training. My first night in the house I made a fool of myself attempting to eat chicken with just a spoon and a fork. I was a vegetarian for 9 years and for the past year, while I have been eating chicken sparingly, I really never had to cut it that much...and if I did a knife was available. Anyhow, I had chicken on my plate and I was pretty hungry, so I tried to hold it down with the spoon to skin it with the fork and then use the fork to take pieces off. This technique, while logical in theory ended up getting a lot of chicken juice and pieces onto my skirt, which I thankfully had already decided I would not be wearing again since it was dirty. After dinner, I asked if I could take my shower in the evening and was given a bucket of warm water with a smaller bucket inside to pour water over myself with. To be honest, the experience was not as bad as I thought it would be. It is definitely not as warm as taking a real shower, and I can imagine it would be unpleasant in a really cold climate, but yesterday I went ahead and even washed my hair that way, and I think it was pretty successful.
In training the past few days we have basically just been bombarded with health and security information. We have also been told a lot that Peace Corps is not for everyone and that just because we came out here does not mean that we need to stay. I guess I appreciate that I have an out, but I really hope that I can be successful and roll with the punches especially since so far everything has been great, I do not want to end up being one of the people who do early termination.
Yesterday we were interviewed and based on our performance everyone was placed in a Spanish class. I am in the highest level class with three other people doing Municipal Development (our classes are divided according to technical area). Our two hour class this morning was great, we just talked the whole time and tomorrow my three classmates and I are going to be placed in our training site for the next eleven weeks. Starting on Monday we will have Spanish classes in our host community from 8am - 3pm, followed by technical training in the afternoons. Since we are at a high level of Spanish ability, most of our Spanish classes will also revolve around doing technical activities. On Tuesdays all PCVs from the 8 training communities we are being sent to will be coming back to the training center for health and security training.
It is all very exciting so far and I cannot wait to meet my new host family (I was told there were three little kids!!!!). On the off chance that anyone wants to send a letter or a package (which should be in a padded envelope in order to avoid taxes), the mailing address here is:
PCT Athalia Markowitz
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America
Hope all are well and I will try to post again with photos soon!
4 comments:
hurray athalia!!! i'm so proud and happy for you! thanks for keeping us updated, i'm looking forward to sharing all your adventures there vicariously! :)
raka
I am glad that you have made it safety to Guate, and seem to be enjoying yourself! I am already extremely jealous and a bit homesick, although I don't miss the "bucket showers" all that much!
I'm sorry you had problems with the chicken - as I remember, they give you basically the entire animal, and expect you to eat it without any real utensils. Fried chicken in such easier, should you decide to become a full-blown omnivore.
I think I've been to Sacatequepez - it's where they do the HUGE kites on Dia de Los Santos. I don't know the other towns though - next time I go to Bishop I'll have to recover my Guatemala guide book, and track your travels.
I'm not surprised you got placed in the highest level of Spanish (and you were worried), but I'm glad they won't make you do something lame like teach English because your Spanish is already so good. But what is Municipal Development anyway?
And when are you allowed to have visitors?!?!
Ya te hecho de menos!
Hook me up with some good Guatemalan hip hop for my new blag: http://foreignrap.blogspot.com
Thanks for the well wishes Raka and Vera:) Since my last post I have been moved into my training town, also in Sacatepequez but about 15 minutes on the other side of Antigua called San Antonio Agua Calientes. The town has about 8000 and is right next to another town of 7000, so I am in a vertiable metropolis:) I am going to try to write a good follow up blog soon with pictures so I hope you keep reading!
athalia
PS Starting in February I should be good for guests Vera, so plan in advance.
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