Salcajá

We found out last week that our future home will be Salcajá a town of 20,000 about 13k from Guatemala’s second largest city, Xela, in the Quetzaltenango department of Guatemala. “It is the home of the oldest church in all of Central America. The town is known for producting a large quantity of corte, the traditional Mayan dress for women. In Salcaja resides the oldest church in Central America. It was constructed in 1524, only 32 years after Columbus discovered the Americas and is known as "La Conquistadora" because of the period of time and the circumstances under which it was constructed.” Ok… so I just copied that from Wikipedia, but I thought it was interesting. The town is also known for caldo de frutas, a fruit and hibiscus liquor.

Today Mosiah and I are meeting with our host country agency counterpart at the training center and tomorrow we are off to Salcajá for a few days to find an apartment. I (kelly) will be working with a savings and loan cooperative that is looking to expand into new markets. They are thinking about moving into pharmacies, clinics or weaving… Mosiah will be working with youth development in schools around Salcajá and Cantel. Hopefully, we’ll be able to post some pictures of our new home when we get back.

Thinking of Leaving Magdalena

We are sitting at the training site awaiting our site assignments. In some ways I am very excited and in others I am a little sad. I know that I have not mentioned this before, but I have grown attached to my host family and I think that I am really going to miss being in their home. I am especially going to miss my best Guatemalan friend, Marvin. Sure he is 4 but I it helps that we have about the same Spanish language ability.
Everyday when I get home from work he has some activity planned for us. Some days we draw, other days we color, but more than anything he loves to play soccer. Now only if I can get my future students to make me laugh as much as he does.
The rest of my host family is amazing. They are so kind and generous that sometimes I feel like they are getting a raw deal. Not only do they provide me a space to live, food, and laundry; but they also provide laughter, conversation and truly care for Kelly and me. All I can really do is hope that our next family is as wonderful and hospitable as the Martinez family has been.

update...

2 more days until we find out our future town for the next 2 years of our lives and the specifics of our projects. Then 3 more weeks until we swear in as real Peace Corps volunteers and move to our sites. We can´t wait!

Today we had the opportunity to meet the US ambassador to Guatemala. It was a very informal meeting at the Peace Corps training center. They even ordered Domino´s pizza! The ambassador is very down to earth and open and honest about his roll here. It was also interesting to learn about the US agenda in Guatemala. Peace Corps and the State Department are completely seperated in order for PC to be effective and remain independent of foreign policy. This issue is very stressed on both sides. Anyway, it was an interesting meeting because as peace corps volunteers we were able to ask more pointed questions than your average ¨government¨ employee.

We´ll keep you informed about were we are placed. Until then you are all missed and in our thoughts. Lots of love!!

More Photos

Matt and Sean are the Best!!!

I would just like to take a moment to thank Matt and Sean for their wonderful and super thoughtful carepackage. We are more than open to letters, packages, and responses to our blogs.

Kelly and I have just returned from a week in and around Xela. We had the opportunity to teach a weeks worth of classes to 6th graders in the beautiful town of Cantel. The kids were so generous and fun to work with. It gives me hope that I (Mosiah) may have the strength to survive the next two years. We will post pictures as soon as we have more than a few moments of free time. Hope eveyone is well and we hope to hear from people soon.

Fotos

Here´s a small selection of some of our pictures thus far.

The small business group with Carlos our trainer

Spanish classes at Kate´s house

Kelly´s host brothers dressed up for mother´s day

View from Mosiah´s roof

Mosiah and other youth volunteers in Magdelana (Mosiah´s town)

Cowboys in Antigua

Elmo piñta as promised

Girls in Nahuala

poco a poco

We have been in Guatemala for a month now and the rain has finally started. Hurricane Barbara is off the Pacific coast of Mexico so we´ve been getting rain for the past few days... For some reason I had it in my head that Guatemala was going to be warm, even hot. To my surprise it´s been chilly and now wet.

Training is flying by; we have less than 2 months to go. We´re busy with classes from sunrise until sunset 6 days a week, but it feels like our Spanish and technical skills are coming along slowly. Our teachers keep reminding us poco a poca (little by little). We have our first language assessment on Monday. We have to reach a intermedio medio level to swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers on July 19th.

Mosiah and I spent this week in the indigenous town of Nahuala south east Xela on our PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) visit. We stayed with 2 volunteers doing some amazing work with a local radio station, women's groups that do weaving and a technology center. It was nice to see volunteers in action and makes us eager to get to our site and start!

(Humm... I just had to kill a little cockroach crawling across my screen... )

Thanks to everyone for your comments and words of support. We´ll try and post more often about the specifics and i´m still trying to upload our pictures.

Lots of love!!