Happy Christmas!

Hello All!

I just had a lovely weekend with my mum in Antigua and have a few friends coming to spend Christmas with me, so things are bright and sunny in my world. I hope you all have a lovely and peaceful Christmas surrounded by family and friends. Thanks to everyone who sent me Christmas cards and packages- you made my first Guatemalan Christmas extra fabulous!

Well, Im off to pick up my friends at the bus station and prepare for a night filled with tamale eating, gift exchanging, and fireworks!!!

Long awaited pictures of my new home...

Crazy kiddies in my town

Our basketball/ soccer court with a beautiful sunset


My office, one of my coworkers and her son


Town center- park and church




The municipal building- my office is the second window from the left on the top floor


View of my street from my house (and my index finger in case you´d forgotten what that looks like)


My house! Rose bushes to the left


My pila in my secret garden behind the house- this is where I was clothes, dishes, veggies, etc.


My bed with my cool PACA (used market) blanket


My kitchen


Other side of my room with my homemade shelves

Thanksgiving on the Lake

RJ, Me, and Katie shopping in Panajachel


Scott, David, and Katie lounging at the hostel



The view from my hostel in the morning



Thanksgiving 2008 marked my first major holiday away from home. I was in London for Thanksgiving a few years ago, but the fam came to visit, (you should ask me about trekking a 25 pound Turkey around London via the Tube sometime) so this officially was my first.

I spent it at Lake Atitlan with my training group. We went to this fabulously rustic little hostel called Iguana Perdida in the town of Santa Cruz La Laguna, Solola, where our dorm room was actually a bungalow on stilts without walls! We arrived on Thursday afternoon and took a launch from one side of the lake, Panajachel, to Santa Cruz on the other. The weather was amazing so we swam in the lake until a) we were kicked out for swimming off the dock of the fancy restaurant down the street and b) it was time for Thanksgiving dinner! The hostel cooked the meal, which in the absence of mom food and grandma’s rolls, was pretty much as good as it gets. We then proceeded to lounge around in hammocks in the sun for the rest of the afternoon. Not a bad day, if you ask me.

In true Peace Corps fashion we stretched our Thanksgiving holiday into 4 days of lounging, swimming, kayaking, playing games, and Christmas shopping in the local artisan market. All in all, the weekend was a pretty wonderful, and a much needed break. It was really therapeutic to get together with others in my training group and share experiences from our first few weeks. I know it comforted me to realize that the loneliness and emotional roller-coaster-ness of the last month was a pretty standard experience.

Coming back to the reality of life at site was tough, but as my bus got closer and closer to my house I realized that I actually felt like I was going home. I suppose that means I’m starting to settle in here. Hogar, dulce hogar.