Random Pics: Swear In, a Birthday Party and a Wedding

For the first three months of a Peace Corps Volunteer's stay in the country where they will serve, they are trainees. Each training group goes through 12 weeks of technical training (learning how to do their job, getting resources, ideas and peer training), language training in small groups of 4-5, culture training and immersion through host-family living and health training (to ensure each one knows local health risks, necessary precautions and preventitive measures).

FINALLY after three LONG months arrives Swear In. After the ceremony the trainees are offically Peace Corps volunteers and shortly after all split up and go to their assigned sites.


Here are a few pictures from the January 2010 Guatemala training class Swear In.

The girls from my training group with our host families. The families were so kind...treated us like their own children they did.


Someone from every training town!

Everyone was all gussied up!

Here are the girls from my training town.

The first pic of the Olintepeque/San Francisco La Union duo (aka me and my work partner Cristina).

The hotel where they had the ceremony was beautiful!

During training one of the girls in my training group (5 of us lived in the same town) had a birthday. Her host family generously invited us all over to celebrate!

There was a pinata! Her little host brother was the first to take a swing.

It's a lot harder than it looks! Especially if people give you wrong directions!

We played musical chairs and did the limbo. I won the limbo despite being relatively enormous. My friend's host mom is so short she walked right under the bar for the first 5 rounds! Too bad I can't find the picture of her breezing under : /

There were firecrackers (a Guatemalan tradition) and whiskey toast!

The wedding:

Here comes the flower girl and the ring bearer followed by the bridesmaids.

And there's the bride!!

On her way out with the groom...you can tell I didn't care as much about him as I did about her dress because I failed to include his head in the picture....but I got the dress!

Outside waiting to go get food!

A picture with Mama Maira. MAN I look gangly.

That's all for now...more random pictures to follow!

Who said integrating had to be hard?

Aaaahhhhh....another successful day of integrating into the community!

Since my nose wouldn't stop dripping and I couldn't stop sniffing, I stayed home and started on the mountain of paperwork I'd been putting off. Having successfully accomplished more than I'd intended to (I set very low standards for myself this morning), I decided to make a blackberry pie while the dough for my calzones was rising.

Although I had initially decided to make a personal-sized pie, I realized that-if it turned out- this pie could be a great way to meet more neighbors. With the large mound of pie crust in fridge, there was no reason not to. Although I failed to add enough sugar, it was an overall very successful first attempt at blackberry pie!

Quite pleased with myelf, I ate a nice-sized piece, added some more sugar to the pie and took two pieces over to my neighbor who had just bought me some bowls and a few sticks of butter since she felt bad that I'm poor and my house is it next to empty...and then ate another piece.

Things were NOT looking good. I'd seen this trend before. Make a pie "for the neighbors" or some cookies "for the children" and a fourth....OK, alright...half ends up making its way down my intestines before the night is over. I had to do something before another afternoon ended with me eating an unhealthy amount of some kind of pastry.

Luckly, I had forgotten I promised the neighbor kids around the corner that we would play soccer at 4pm. SCORE! Maybe, I thought, I'll run off the cookie dough from the weekend and at least the crust from the pie I ate the other day.

After soccer and a few games of freeze tag in the field in front of the school (p.s. watch out for the hidden mud-holes...they'll getcha), we headed back to my house for a blackberry pie extravaganza!

It was a great sharing experience! I learned a few new words (marchitarse-to wilt), realized I didn't know the word for gazelle in Spanish (gacela), learned that if you touch a certain tree it stunts your growth and other miscellaneous but important things ....they asked about the States, shared the words they knew in English and each tried on my glasses; it was the kind of cultural experience you hope for when in a foreign country.

After sharing spoonfuls of blackberry pie on the steps of my house as the sun slowly made its way towards the mountains, we parted ways-sweaty, tired and covered in blackberry juice.

It was a good day!

The Average Day

So it's been nice/a lot of work settling into the routine of having my own place and no one to share the work with : )

Most days I get up before 6 and start the morning with a walk. Pia and I meander through the neighborhood and sniff other dogs and eat trash (well, Pia does, I usually just watch). We get home and I fix us both some breakfast and usually do some chores such as washing the dishes and cleaning the table--which somehow manages to get cluttered every five seconds!--wash the clothes or sweep. After eating and hurridly getting dressed, I race out the door to the day's appointment, late as usual.

We visit one school per day, the majority of which we travel to by bus. At the schools we visit each classroom, using a die to check the kids personal hygiene. The die has 6 sides of course, each with one aspect related to personal hygiene--clothes, face, hair, nails, hands and teeth. We do this to encourage the kids to come to school clean and to practice healthy habits at home like brushing their teeth before coming to school.

For the last 2 months we have been doing a baseline diagnostic at each school to see if they have the infrastructure necessary to practice healthy habits. The two main components are having water during the school day and having at least 8 "sinks" so the students can wash their hands. The majority of the schools always have water (5 schools only get water once a 5-9 days). However, the vast majority have only one or two sinks for 200-700 students. This is what we will be focusing on during our two years here. If the students don't have water or sinks, it's almost impossible for them to wash their hands or brush their teeth.

During the diagnostic phase, we are also judging their "Health Corners" to make sure each class has their personal hygiene utensils such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, nail clippers etc. We want to set up a creative environment where it's easier than ever to practice healthy habits.


Here are some picture of the Health Corners we have judged so far:

This teacher will probably win a prize for her creativity and because she has all the necessary elements in her Health Corner!
This teacher has a really cute Health Corner (each kids holder is a tooth!) but she didnt' have a high percentage of students with their utensils : (
During a meeting with all the staff members at each school, we discuss the results of the diagnostic and see what the school is doing well and what they are lacking. We then discuss each school's specific situation and what factors might impede them as they try to implement the program with their students. Sometimes it's that the parents aren't cooperative, often it's that the kdis aren't practicing the habits at home and there is no continuity, etc.


We then make a step by step plan as to where we want to start working in order to meet the program's goals. We have "Pasos" or footprints in order to make it a more interesting process. The big footprint is where we write the goal such as "teaching health lessons twice a week". On the the little footprints we write the detials of what we must do in order to get to our goal. This helps us break down a big idea into something more manageable and attainable (because each small goal acheived is recognized) and helps us to think in terms of what we must actually do instead of just saying, "I need to plan a health lesson, where do I start? There's so much to do."


That's pretty much it for the school day (the Guatemalan elementary school day begins at 8 and ends at 1pm). We get back on the bus to head home. By 2pm I'm fixing or eating lunch. After, I usually take Pia for another walk. We usually end of meeting some kids from one of my schools on the road and either playing soccer or basketball or visiting with them at their houses.

Some days I head to the Centro because they sell veggies and flour and other things my little town doesn't sell. Pia and I are always buying flour because my new big thing is to either teach my neighbors how to make pies or cookies etc, or make them myself and go over for an afternoon visit with the moms. I've already had several "dates" with the moms nearby and have several lined up for this week : )

It's a good way to get to know the adults since the kids already know me from school and a great way to share something from American culture as well as something from Guatemalan culture. Sometimse we we watch movies in Spanish and we always talk about the differences between life here and there --popular topics are marrying age, number of children in families, education, how young people don't live with their parents etc.

This has been an amazing and tasty way to get to know the community. Except, my teeth are going to fall out of my head from all the desserts and my heart is going to swell two sizes from all the butter that's in them!

So I'm a little obsessed with my dog...

Here are a few of the many shots I have of my puppy Ethopia. I decided to name her after a place I really want to visit-Israel and Cuba just don't have the same ring as Pia : )

After her first bath: she wasn't too happy with me (and who knew but she HATES hair dryers) but she was calm the whole time...she just whimpered this sad little tune sometimes that made me feel like a bad person.

Isn't she a beaut?

Who knows why, but Pia is obsessed with biting my hands and arms and legs. Sometimes she get's a little too focused on the biting and forgets just who she's trying to bite. I had to be ready with my camera to capture this not-uncommon moment when she got distracted and started chomping on her own foot.

Her colors have changed and she's a lot darker now.

Pia got into a bag of flour. This was the first of two. No bag is safe around her lol. I saw her staggerign around gagging and I saw this white thing covering her mouth. I thought she was choking on a bag so I rushed over to take it off her face....only to discover that the white stuff was all gooey. I ended up prying her mouth open to pull out gobs of saliva-y flour. Ohhhhhhh having a dog. lol

She loves to cuddle!

So here's my favorite video of Pia fighting with Terri. Terri came to stay with us while Michele (my sitemate) was in Antigua. Pia became a little territorial and would attack Terri if I petted him too much! My favorite part is how Terri just runs around crying like a little girl, letting a puppy beat him up!

Sometimes after their fights I noticed her pawing at her mouth and smacking her lips...it wasn't uncommon for her to have a chunck of Terri's stuck to her tounge! She's a fireball alright.

Sometimes, however, she and Terri just enjoyed a quite moment together.

It was really cute actually, she tried to cozy up to him and rest her head on his paws as they were breaking in between fights but he, like a crusty old uncle, was having none of it. This is as close as they got.

Hi, my name´s Reality

And now I will share with you the encounter I had with a little man named Reality. Here´s how it went:

Hi! What´s your name? Yuna? Nice to meet you Yuna, my name´s Reality. Now that you have your own place, you can get right to work doing all the chores you watched your host family do when you were living with them and didn´t have to help.

Since there´s no carpet, you can start by sweeping and mopping the floors. This will need to be done at least weekly since most of the roads are dirt.

Next, since there are no dishwashers and you only have two plates, one bowl and two pots, you´ll need to wash those by hand after every meal so you can fix food and eat during the next meal.

Don´t know what it´s like to live without a microwave? Well now you do! It´s not that great huh? Warming food in a non-non stick skillet is harder than it looks. You better get back to those noodles, they´re sticking already.

You know how you´ve always noticed that Americans spend a lot more time away from home than Guatemalas? Well now you can see why. When you have machines to do all the hard work, you can afford to practice hobbies and visit neighbors and read books. But when you (who just has to look out for you) have to wash the dishes and clothes by hand and can´t multitask them and do other things in between-you find the day a LOT shorter than you used to. Now imagine doing all that house work(with no vaccuum, no dishwasher, no microwave and no washing machine) for yourself and your four kids and husband. Life looks pretty different huh?

Well, it´s been nice talking to you but your rice is done cooking and you need that pot to boil water for tea so get to it!

So there was my first encounter with the little man named Reality. Myself and I laughed about the thought of having free time in between all the chores...but still...I enjoy keeping house. Plus, I make a mean apple pie! (except after I have used every dish I own and spend the next half hour cleaning up lol)