Officially A Volunteer

I was sworn in to the United States Peace Corps. as an Official Volunteer for Peace Corps Guatemala on March 27th, 2008. WOOH HOOO!

These past three months of traning have been leading up to my current status. I´m very excited to have made it this far and I have so many people to thank for it. I had to overcome my terrible memory to build my comprehension of Spanish to an adequate level. I suffered for three weeks with some aweful bacteria in my stomach (I´ll spare you the details...). And I jumped through all the hoops that my technical trainer and training director placed in front of me.

All that being said, I still feel incredibly unprepared for the task ahead of me. I am not worried at all because I can look back thinking how unprepared I felt before I left the U.S. But now I face my two year stretch dead in the face and figure out how well I measure up.

I am going to live in the aldea Chirrepec in the reigon of Coban in the department of Alta Verapaz (Chirrepec, Coban, A.V.). 100% of the people living there are indegionious, which means they speak Q'eqchi (don't worry, you're not going to pronounce that right). So, as I come to know and understand these people I will also be picking up my third language spoken by only a minute portion of the population of Guatemalans and spoken no where else in the world! So as useless as it may seem when I leave it will be esiental to getting to know and love the people that I'll live with.

Luckly, I will be working with a few of the members of my community that speak Spanish, so hopefully I'll still be able to continue building that vocabulary. So as I head off... away from the comforts of my home away from home in San Bartolomé... I will be filled with a mountain of emotions, but with them comes a sense of calmness, open-mindedness, and optimism for what my future holds in the little Tea making Coopertive of Chirrepec.

Adios!


p.s. My new address is:

my name, PCV
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala, Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala, Central America

Office Tel. # 502.2384.3800
(needed for courier packages:FedEx, DHL, etc.)


And my telephone number if you'd like to get a hold of me here:
502-4532-6433
You may need to try several times before you're call makes it through.