My first visitor...

So this week I had my first visitor in Guatemala. I got a call on my cell phone around lunch time on Wednesday from my cousin, Sebastian, telling me he was in Guatemala city, it was an awesome surprise. My host family welcomed him and loved having him...I think they liked him more than me :) . Sebastian was taking a class in Costa Rica and is making his way back to Montreal, Canada...now that is a long road trip. He ended up helping out in our construction of the lavamanos. My cousin is somewhat of a traveling musician, so we had jam sessions with the guitar, drums, and another trainee brought her Irish flute...it actually sounded pretty good.

On Saturday we headed for lake Atitlan to meet up with a friend of Sebastian's. We had a blast, the lake is awesome and the little towns around the lake even better. I participated in my first street performance, here is a picture of us jamming out in the street. I was on the maracas...unfortunately I didn't have my trusty cow bell with me...but I held my own on the maracas. My cousin's friend also helped out with the singing. We did pretty good, made about 60Q in about an hour...not too shabby for my first street performance and I had a blast. I headed back on Sunday and my cousin stayed behind, hopefully we will meet up before he heads north again!

Other than that not too much going on here. On Wednesday we find out our site locations. It is actually pretty exciting...this is where I'll be for the next two years! Thanks for reading! Here is a link to more pictures of the lake...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=9pierbn.8eut92uf&Uy=v4458j&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1

Survived Field Based Training...

Well we just past the climax of our training finishing up Field Based Training (FBT). The last two weeks have been rough, I know sometimes I exaggerate but I can honestly say that I struggled. Living in an aldea (small town) is no joke. During the week we lived and worked in an aldea of Nebaj, a very mountainous region in Guate. I didn't realize how cold it gets in the mountains. I slept with two pairs of socks, thermos, two layers of shirt, a sweeter, and a beanie and I was still cold most of the night. 15 appropriate technology trainees, 2 current peace corps volunteers, 2 technical trainers, and 3 Spanish teachers all slept in an old school house, where everyone got wet when it rained and it rained every night. This picture shows the tent that I decided to build after waking up soaking wet in the middle of the night...this is an example of appropriate technologies. The latrines were outdoors which I had frequent visits to at night...which was an experience all in itself. The purpose of FBT is to have hands on experience in building all of the technologies. We built more efficient stoves for 4 families, we built a latrine/hand washing station for a school, we did water surveys to determine whether or not a natural water spring would be able to provide an adequate water supply to a town, and we built egg shaped water tanks that are capable of holding 2,000 L of rain water, so that families have water during the dry season. All in all it was a mentally and physically challenging experience. I know I will look back at all the great things we accomplished and have some pretty cool memories. It was an experience that brought the 15 of us (appropriate tech. trainees) closer together.

So what is next...well this week we begin construction of our lavamanos project in our aldea. This will occupy the bulk of our time for the next two weeks along with Spanish classes and preparing for a presentation we each have to give in Spanish to our communities. Next week is also a big week because we will find out the towns we will be living in for the next two years...it's pretty exciting. One more month of training left and I will be on my own. Well I know a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll let the pictures do the talking. Hope everyone is doing well. There are so many things I miss right now I don't know where to start...so I'll just say I MISS YOU ALL! Here is a link to more FBT pictures...enjoy

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=9pierbn.61coj3t3&Uy=-20za9k&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1

One month down...26 to go.

So I've been here for a month and Montezuma is still taking his revenge on me, but other then that things have been great. Tomorrow I leave for 2 weeks of training in Nabaj a small town in the moutains. It is supposed to be pretty scenic so I'll try and post some pics when I get back. I've decided that posting once a week is probably pushing it so I'll try and post whenever something good is going on. Only thing pretty funny that happened was a chicken got loose on the chicken bus...ironic...like the scene from Borat. Thanks for all the emails, I'm still waiting for my first care package though! Next post will probably be when I get back from training...around June 18.