Finding out my site!

This week I found out my site, which is the town in Guatemala in which I will be living for the next 2 years. All week, I got more and more anxious as Thursday came closer. Our training group is separated into two different programs, Heathy Homes and Youth Development. Healthy Homes found out their sites on Wednesday. When I got home on Wednesday, there were so many happy people on Facebook, just so excited to know their sites. On Thursday, our training class got together for class in the morning at the Peace Corps office. We had meetings on Behavior Change and Secondary Projects. Everyone from Healthy Homes was calm, and some of them smiley. Youth Development was not feeling this way. Some of us were sitting in a row during the meetings, and all of us were moving our legs, using our bodies to act out our anxiousness. Classes ended, and we had lunch in Santa Lucia. We all ate lunch within 10 minutes, and then we had one hour to kill before we were to leave to find out our sites. That hour passed so slowly. I would keep looking at my watch, and only 5 minutes had passed since I last looked. We were finally able to leave, and we were driven to San Bartolme Milpas Atlas, where some of the trainees live.

We arrived and Gonzalo, the boss man of Youth Development, set up a big map of Guatemala. Gonzalo and Aliyya worked on putting 15 pins in the map, to show where all of us are going. The pins were pretty spread out over the Western Highlands, with some in Quiche, one really close to the Mexican border, some in Baja Verapaz (which is close to Guatemala City), and some by Lake Atitlan. We were all given heavy manilla envelopes with our names on it. We then all opened it together! I opened my envelope with much excitement and hestiation, and I saw the name of my site. I yelled "Sololá!" My site is Santa Clara La Laguna, located in the department (state) of Sololá! Sololá is the department of Lake Atitlan, which was described by Aldous Huxley as "the most beautiful lake in the world."

I picture I found online of the road to Santa Clara. This is where I will be living for the next two years! I am so incredibly lucky!

I am so excited to start my work. I am going to be a first generation volunteer, and going to be working with 4 schools in the area of Santa Clara. I am going to visit my site on Tuesday till Saturday, and I could not be more nervous. I am also very nervous to meet my counterpart tomorrow! My counterpart is basically my boss, the guy who I will discuss my plans, and possibly get his help. I am so nervous to meet him! I can speak Spanish ok with my family and my Spanish teachers, but I am nervous about speaking with him!

The rest of the day of Thursday was spent celebrating! That manilla envelope had a lot of information about Santa Clara, for instance the highest temperature in Santa Clara is 24 degrees Celsius, which is about 74 degrees Fahrenheit. I have internet, a bank, a market, and I am surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. I am at about 6500 feet, which is more than a mile above sea level. The main business is agriculture, and the main products are rice, coffee, beans, and avocados! (I am obsessed with avocados, so I am super pumped about this!) 

On Friday, all of the trainees got together in Parramos and started learning the mayan languages of our area. I tried my hand at learning some Quiché. It is such a hard language, and it makes Spanish look like a piece of cake. Saturday was a very fun day. We had a celebration for the 4th of July! All of the volunteers were there, and I definitely had loads of fun! It was a very different way to celebrate the 4th, and I loved it! Today, I have started packing up my room for my site visit this week. I am packing up my stuff because we are suppose to bring most of our stuff with us to leave in site, and then come back to it after swear-in. 

I am so excited about where I am going to be living! And I can not wait to start this new adventure in my life! I am going to miss training, I have had so much fun and made some really good friends. But everything must come to an end. When one thing ends, something else begins. I am getting really excited about that something else.