Hey! The blog is now private due to some security concerns (in general, not about our blog) about having an open blog here. Another volunteer was dismissed for having something on his blog he shouldn't have. I don't know what, that's just the word on the street.
Anyways, we're just relaxing right now and we will be helping our friend at her site starting on Sunday up until reconnect. Yay for that, right? Hopefully by the end of all of our travels we will be ready to head back.
More updates to come as I get more pictures...
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
mini-update
Hey everyone. It seems my flash drive/mp3 player has a virus according to this computer so no big long update.
Things have been improving slowly and we're gaining the confidence of a few people at a time. Poco a poco, as always. Our boss and his assistant (our liason) are coming tomorrow to meet with the doctor and the health center staff. We have been meeting many times with the doctor to discuss what is going on, how to improve our working situation, etc. He just told us today it's not our fault, which was nice to hear. He told us he's been here for 5 years and still hasn't gained as much confidence as he'd like so three months is nothing.
That's all for now! Have lots to do on the computer so a big post will have to wait until next time.
Things have been improving slowly and we're gaining the confidence of a few people at a time. Poco a poco, as always. Our boss and his assistant (our liason) are coming tomorrow to meet with the doctor and the health center staff. We have been meeting many times with the doctor to discuss what is going on, how to improve our working situation, etc. He just told us today it's not our fault, which was nice to hear. He told us he's been here for 5 years and still hasn't gained as much confidence as he'd like so three months is nothing.
That's all for now! Have lots to do on the computer so a big post will have to wait until next time.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
October Update
Hey everyone. Forgot to put the long blog post on my flash drive so a detailed wall of text will have to wait. But here are some pictures in the meantime!
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Here is a relatively recent picture of me (for Joanne/mom dad and anyone else curious) on a little mountain on the outskirts of our town. Thanks for the sunglasses!
Cool macro shot sarah took of some (probably poisonous) plants
Cows! Seriously, they are everywhere here.
A cockroach about the size of Sarah's thumb. See his antennae? They are turned towards her thumb... he actually turned his little head to look at her hand. Pretty neat. We ended up letting the little guy live. (Hey, at least they don't bite)
One of our friends showing off a cool way to cut pineapple.
Landslide! Knocked out a good portion of someone's crop and went to go give him suggestions on what to plant to prevent another one. Not surprisingly my suggestion of "trees" was taken almost as a joke... *sigh*
Helicopter landing in a field next to the centro - the Health Minister came to announce the opening of 24-hour service here. Which means that our doctor, the only doctor here, is on call 24-7. 
Doctor is third from the left. The health minister is second from left.
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More to come soon... on a day when I'm not as absent-minded as always! Love to all.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Quince de septiembre and other fun stuff
LAGO ATITLAN
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Our First Batch of Homemade Brownies In-Country
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Quince de septiembre (15th of September)
El Día de Independencia
My favorite...
Hey Everyone!
Yes we’re still here… it’s been a slow-busy month. It’s funny – it doesn’t feel like we’re doing a whole lot but there’s barely enough time for everything in the day. I think it feels like that because we’re still accustomed to the ‘go to work/do lots of work/accomplish goals/go home’ mode of working. We make ourselves little to-do lists like “go to the tienda to buy laundry detergent” or “call this person”. There’s no way to forgot to do the things but it feels good to cross stuff off.
We went to a COMUDE meeting today. COMUDE is Consejo Municipal Desarrollo or something like that. Basically means a committee to organize all of the development in the municipality. It was the first COMUDE meeting in our muni’s history! I think we are officially members now, but I’m not really sure. We hung up our invitation on our bedroom wall because we’re nerds like that but it’s cool to have this big formal invitation in Spanish with our names on it. Not sure if we’re supposed to go to the next meeting – my plan is to show up and act like we’re supposed to be there. It’s really exciting because if the projects pan out we’ll have been able to be there from the beginning. Although it’s really boring too… today they argued in a governmental way (we don’t have a majority, who hear wants to suggest a different time and why) about what time to have the next meeting for at least thirty minutes. C-SPAN in PERSON! Sign me up.
School is rumored to end early this year, at the beginning of October. If so, that means 50% of our work is cut out. It will be a great time to learn Spanish and visit some communities close to our site to get to know the people. On that subject, Sarah has a new best friend in one of the outlying communities. The family has a few men up in the states working and usually the people are somewhat interested in talking to us when they have family up north. We went over to visit and the family was all women! I’ve been finding that a lot here. It was a little weird at first but I’m used to it at this point. I talked to another guy volunteer and he’s been working with women’s groups for a while as well. We have special ‘work with women’s groups’ privileges as gringos here, I think. Anyways, here are the pictures, the real reason for this blog. I’ve been recording some sounds of our town… can’t wait to upload them for everyone to hear. I think that one big part of Guatemala is the noise and it’s hard to capture it any other way. My favorite recording is of the band playing in the basketball court next to our house. It’s like 20 kids with ADHD got together and found instruments… I kind of miss it now that it’s gone :) How could one not like four hours of that every day?
Until next time…
Yes we’re still here… it’s been a slow-busy month. It’s funny – it doesn’t feel like we’re doing a whole lot but there’s barely enough time for everything in the day. I think it feels like that because we’re still accustomed to the ‘go to work/do lots of work/accomplish goals/go home’ mode of working. We make ourselves little to-do lists like “go to the tienda to buy laundry detergent” or “call this person”. There’s no way to forgot to do the things but it feels good to cross stuff off.
We went to a COMUDE meeting today. COMUDE is Consejo Municipal Desarrollo or something like that. Basically means a committee to organize all of the development in the municipality. It was the first COMUDE meeting in our muni’s history! I think we are officially members now, but I’m not really sure. We hung up our invitation on our bedroom wall because we’re nerds like that but it’s cool to have this big formal invitation in Spanish with our names on it. Not sure if we’re supposed to go to the next meeting – my plan is to show up and act like we’re supposed to be there. It’s really exciting because if the projects pan out we’ll have been able to be there from the beginning. Although it’s really boring too… today they argued in a governmental way (we don’t have a majority, who hear wants to suggest a different time and why) about what time to have the next meeting for at least thirty minutes. C-SPAN in PERSON! Sign me up.
School is rumored to end early this year, at the beginning of October. If so, that means 50% of our work is cut out. It will be a great time to learn Spanish and visit some communities close to our site to get to know the people. On that subject, Sarah has a new best friend in one of the outlying communities. The family has a few men up in the states working and usually the people are somewhat interested in talking to us when they have family up north. We went over to visit and the family was all women! I’ve been finding that a lot here. It was a little weird at first but I’m used to it at this point. I talked to another guy volunteer and he’s been working with women’s groups for a while as well. We have special ‘work with women’s groups’ privileges as gringos here, I think. Anyways, here are the pictures, the real reason for this blog. I’ve been recording some sounds of our town… can’t wait to upload them for everyone to hear. I think that one big part of Guatemala is the noise and it’s hard to capture it any other way. My favorite recording is of the band playing in the basketball court next to our house. It’s like 20 kids with ADHD got together and found instruments… I kind of miss it now that it’s gone :) How could one not like four hours of that every day?
Until next time…
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