So I have been in Guatemala for almost two weeks now, and it has already been a whirlwind of emotions and new experiences, of hopes, excitement, fears, and being very much out of my comfort zone. After a week-long orientation in Louisville, our crew of six set off for the airport bright and early at 4:30 in the morning. After a few layovers and much anticipation, we arrived in the airport in Guatemala City that afternoon, overwhelmed by the barrage of new smells, sounds, and sights. Our director Marcia picked us up at the airport, and took us to our first destination, an old Catholic monastery which is now a retreat center, located in Antigua. For the first few days, we took some time to settle in and to get to know Antigua and each other. Antigua is a very strange place - an old colonial city, with red, yellow, blue, and white buildings and cobblestone streets, surrounded by breathtaking volcanoes and mountains. Although the city itself is fairly small, it is much more international than I expected, and there is a strange blending of cultures that is sometimes confusing. There is a large expatriot community here, which makes Antigua feel sort of like a bubble, disconnected from the realities which are very much a part of life in other parts of the country.

After a few days of getting acquainted with Antigua, we packed our things once again to go to San Juan del Obispo, which is where we have been staying for the past week and a half for Spanish school. San Juan is a small town, with cobblestone and dirt roads, and lots of stray dogs in the streets. Across from the school, there is a little shop where you can hear a lady making tortillas all morning. We will be in San Juan until October 13, when our group will split up and we will all go out to our individual placement sites. It has been strange to be in this sort of transitory period, but I am trying to just live each day and soak in as much as I can. I still don't quite feel like the experience is real, and it hasn't completely hit me yet that I am going to be here for a whole year. But I am trying to take things as they come and focus on being here now.

In San Juan, I am living with a host family, and it has been a very humbling and challenging experience. My host mother and father are named Maria and Mario. They have two children living with them, Mario Jr. and Patricia, and Patricia has two small children, Melanie and Diego, who are the cutest kids. I have been welcomed into the lives of these people with love and grace - they have opened their home to me and they take care of me. It is very awkward a lot of the time, because my Spanish skills are not very good; I feel like most of my conversations with my host family have been about food and the weather. It is hard to not be able to communicate much beyond the surface-level, to not be able to express my heart and what I'm feeling and thinking. But I think that feeling awkward and uncomfortable is an important part of this experience - I need to be broken and humbled a bit before I can be remolded into the person I am meant to be.

Here is what a typical day in San Juan is like: I wake up at about 6:45 (or actually, much earlier than that, because I am scratching the bug bites on my feet or have woken up suddenly, wondering where I am). I proceed to get ready for a shower; I collect my soap and shampoo and try to balance my change of clothes delicately on the back of the toilet. My shower usually doesn't last very long at all - the water is ice cold, and I just stick my head under long enough so that I can soap up my hair. After a nice icy shower, I eat breakfast, usually with my host mother and/or Diego and Melanie. After breakfast, I get my books and head to language school, where I sit with my teacher Mirian and talk for about an hour or two in Spanish (with a lot of effort and concentration on my part), before proceeding to some grammar, reading, and writing notes in my cuaderno. It is a very slow, frustrating process learning Spanish, but I guess we have only been here for two weeks, and I shouldn't expect it to come so quickly. My brain usually hurts by the time I have to head home from school - four hours of Spanish school and intense concentrating really takes it out of you. At the house, I have lunch with my family (which usually consists of some kind of veggies, rice, and tortillas - mmm, there is always a basket of warm tortillas in the middle of the table). After lunch and a bit of awkward conversation with my host mother, I head off to meet the other girls for our afternoon activity in Antigua. The school plans activities for us in the afternoons, to help us learn more about the history and culture of Guatemala. Some of the activities have included watching a movie about the recent civil war, taking a salsa class, going to visit the ruins of the San Franciscan church in Antigua, and walking the Cerro de la Cruz, a path which goes up to a huge cross on a hill, overlooking beautiful scenery below. From the hill, you can see all of Antigua and San Juan in the distance. After the afternoon activity, I return to San Juan on a crowded camioneta (in English, a "chicken bus"). I have a delicious meal with my family and attempt a bit more conversation, but at this point in the day, I am usually so exhausted and overwhelmed that I soon retire to my room to do some homework and fall asleep, sometimes with a book in my hand and the light still on.

Some highlights of my time so far in Guatemala:
1. Climbing the Volcan de Pacaya!!! - Last weekend, our group climbed Pacaya Volcano, and saw lava up close! It was a terrifying and thrilling experience. The 2 hour hike up was completely in the rain - it was bone-chilling and super windy, weather more like you would picture in Northern Ireland than in Guatemala. The fog was so thick that we couldn't see anything of the supposedly beautiful view. Toward the top, we were climbing almost straight up, over the volcanic rock (one tumbling rock hit my leg, and I still have a big scrape). All of the sudden, it got really warm, because we were near the lava, and my soaking wet clothes dried almost instantly. It was certainly a crazy adventure - I feel like now that we've hiked that volcano, we can do anything. I think it was a good way to start off our Guatemalan experience. :)
2. The delicious food...the homemade corn tortillas are muy deliciosas!
3. How friendly the people are - everyone says hello and buenos dias when walking by in the streets
4. Playing tag with my host brother and sister after school some days

Some lowlights:
1. The scuttling noises I hear on my roof at night, and the family of spiders living in my room
2. Having a man throw up next to me on a very crowded camioneta one night
3. Being stranded in the bathroom without toilet paper sometimes
4. How the food is sometimes not so friendly on the stomach...:(

Overall, my experience so far has been a mixture of many different emotions, and I am trying to appreciate and live in every moment, whether good or bad, because all these moments are going to shape me. It has been very overwhelming at times, because so much is unfamiliar and unknown. I feel like for the first time, I am not just looking at poverty from the outside, or visiting it for a brief time, but I am actually experiencing and living it, being with the people in their struggles and joys and day-to-day realities. There is so much more to say and I don't have the words to say it. I'm sorry this is so long and rambling, but so much has happened and I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. I will try to be better at writing from now on...
I will have more stories soon!