Meet the Kids

Since January I (kelly) have been working 2 days a week at a shelter for abused women and their children. It is one of only two shelters in Guatemala, the other having just opened in the capital a few months ago. The shelter provides food, clothing and a safe place for women who have nowhere else to go. They also provide health education and vocational training so these women improve the quality of life for them and their children. If you want to read more information about the organization go to their website at www.ahnh.org. I work with the children of the women who are not yet old enough to go to school. We play games, do art projects and go on field trips outside the shelter. I´ve been trying to teach some basic hygiene skills and creativity through art. The pictures below were taken on a field trip last week that we took to play soccer on ¨field¨ above the city. It was the first time that the kids had gone outside this year (2008) because other outings had been cancelled... The kids are great, very loving and trusting despite all they have been through.

New Mailing Address

Thanks to everyone for your letters, cards and packages! We love getting mail and being reminded that people at home are thinking about us. Our address has changed as the Peace Corps office is being moved outside the capital due to security reasons. Our new mailing address is:

Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps
Kelly and Mosiah Montoya PCV
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala, Sacatepéquez
03001
Guatemala, Centro América

Lots of love,
Kelly and Mosiah

What we´ve been up to

We realize that we have not written a really in-depth post for some time. Sorry. I wish that we could say that it has been because we have been so busy with work, but the truth is that in December nothing really goes on as far as work goes. The truth of the matter is that we have been having too much fun getting to know our new country and sharing it with friends and family.
Dave came down on Halloween and spent about a week with us here in the Xela area. I hope that he had as much fun as we did. It was a little strange having our first guest. Not that it wasn’t a pleasure on our part, it’s just that it is kind of strange to have these two very distinct worlds and lives come together for a short time. I sometimes worry that people wont like Guatemala as much as we do. I think that the highlight of that trip was our journey to Todos Santos for the Drunk Horse Races. It was a truly amazing thing to see and I would suggest that anyone traveling through Guatemala November first make the trek up there to see the colorful and inebriated town.
Our next adventurous visitor was my wonderful mother, Diane. We were honored that we got to steal her away from the family for thanksgiving. I was happy to show her not only our town but also our life here in Guatemala. She was also a trooper through her bout with traveler stomach for a few days. We got to take her to one of our favorite spots in Guatemala for Thanksgiving, Lago Atitlan. Anyone who gets to visit this high volcanic crater lake falls in love with it. Not only for its spectacular views (it is surrounded by volcanoes), but because the people around the lake are so unique and wonderful. I think the highlight of the trip for me was when my host family took a trip to Antigua to visit Diane because she was too sick to leave the hotel. Although I found translating to be harder than I thought, it was great to have my Guatemalan mother meet me real mother.
After Reconnect we awaited yet another visitor. Trevor came to visit about mid December and spent the New Year with us. As our previous post describes we had a great time traveling around Guatemala and Belize. I really don’t think that I can explain to everyone how beautiful the landscape and the people are here. While I can’t say that we will have the time to do the trip that we did with Trevor I would encourage all visitors to Guatemala to take more than a week to get to know this wonderful place.
Well, there is a summery of some of the things that we have been up to in November and December. We are now trying to get back into the swing of things. I have started school again and have high hopes for a more productive year with the kids and the teachers in Cantel. Kelly is trying to expand her role in the cooperative and is meeting with a women’s shelter to see about volunteering. All in all we are having a great experience and I think that we fall more and more in love with Guatemala everyday.

We're Back

Well, we are finally back in Salcaja. We would like to apologize for the lack of posting lately, but with the holidays we have not been in front of a computer much.
We returned last week from a journey around Guatemala with a short boarder jump into Honduras and Belize. We realized when thinking about the trip that we really had not been East of Guatemala City, so we planned to head that way and try to get to Placencia, Belize by the 22nd. We also had the great fortune to have Trevor (from the CU days) traveling with us and our friend Kate (PCV) joined us for Christmas. I would hate to bore everyone with a blow by blow of the vacation, so I will give you the highlights.

Copan Ruins (Honduras) – Just a skip across the Guate boarder you can see some amazing Mayan stone carvings.

Livingston – While still in Guatemala you get a great feel for Caribbean and Garifuna culture. Just don’t stay in a hotel that is throwing a party for the owners girlfriend

Placencia, Belize – A great place to swing in your hammock and dip in the Ocean. Kelly and I also had a great time at the Christmas eve Reggae dance party on the beach. We spent Christmas day relaxing, eating, drinking Belizian rum and playing cards with Trevor and Kate.

Tikal – A breathtaking Mayan site full of temples and wildlife. Any visitors to Guatemala should make the trip up to the Peten

Lanquin - A great place to hangout for New Year's and close to Semuc Champey and cave tours.

Holidays in Guate and Belize

Día de acción de gracias / Thanksgiving

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day back in the US; we missed you all but were lucky to be able to spend the holiday with Mosiah’s mom. For the occasion we decided to spend the holiday at Lake Atitlan. Lago Atitlan, besides being one of the most beautiful places on the planet, is also home to many ex-pats and hippies (or one in the same). For this reason we were able to find a place that was serving the traditional thanksgiving dinner with a scrumptious vegetarian option. We stayed in a little village called Santa Curz accessible only by lancha (small boat). This town has become our favorite spot in all of Guatemala.

Many Guatemalans knew the basics of the holiday: big dinner, turkey, giving thanks etc… However, when we explained how the holiday started some were amazed to learn the United States has an indigenous population like Guatemala.

Here is some Spanish Thanksgiving vocabulary for you:

turkey - pavo (or in Guatemala “chompipe”)
mashed potatoes - puré de papa
pumkin pie - pastel de calabaza
cranberry sauce - arándano rojo



Some pics from Diane´s trip:

Field Trip!

I have been working with a women's group in Pachaj, Cantel for the past 3 months with another volunteer, Marissa. The group of women was started over ten years ago and has done various projects, the last of which was a literacy course through the Guatemalan agency CONALFA. Marissa and I were asked to help them with their next venture, a medicinal garden. I was really excited about the prospect until I remembered that I don't know anything about medicinal plants and even less about gardening... However, with a little Internet research you can "seem" like an expert on just about anything. The group meets every Friday and we've done a mixture of nutritious cooking classes and preparing the land for planting. We've made some fun stuff like homemade peanut butter (made by grinding the peanuts on the hand stone grinder), lentils and stir fry on the wood stove, home made jam and no-bake cookies with oatmeal. We were purposely stalling with the garden because we were having a hard time finding seeds or starter plants for medicinal plants. A couple of weeks ago after we had churned the ground, disinfected the soil and built a fence around the garden we decided to go a head and plant some "winter" plants, squash, carrots and such until spring when we will have the resources to start the medicinal garden.

One of the great things about Peace Corps is that since there are over 180 volunteers in Guatemala there is usually someone that has experience with a project that you might be working on. During training I met another volunteer, Olivia, who is working with an association of women that has a medicinal garden on Lake Atitlan. After contacting her she invited us to bring our women to her group to learn about what they are doing with medicinal plants. Our group was very excited about the trip. Many of the women had never been to the lake, which is only about 3 hours from Cantel. We rented 2 micro buses and left at 4:30 am with 20 women and their children. We did introductions and they gave us a tour of the garden. We had lunch on the lake and played in the water. The trip ended up being a huge success with both groups excited about the cultural exchange (the groups speak different dialects of Mayan, our women speak K'iche and the women in Olivia's group speak Sutuhil) and being able to share knowledge of the medicinal plants. Olivia's group is going to help us get seeds for our garden and send someone up to Cantel to help us get started. My experiences with this group of women have been some of my best times in Peace Corps! Here are some of the pictures of our field trip.

Group picture

Marissa and I with women from our group

Charla

Garden tour