Two More Weeks of Training...Gracias A Dios

I cannot wait to be done with training.  About a month ago, I was freaking out because I realized once training was over, we were going to be in a new town with no one telling us what to do.  For some reason I did not like the idea of this...now I can't wait.  Training has been great and very helpful but I'm ready to be done.  Last week we got our sitemates!  We will be working together within the schools and living in the same town.  Everyone was freaking out and I don't think many people got much sleep the night before.  My sitemate is Kata.  She's from North Carolina and I couldn't be happier.  I think we'll work really well together and we'll have some fun.  I'm ready to cook my own food and have my own home!

What else is new... We find out our sites the day before we swear-in as Peace Corps Volunteers.  They tell us where we will be living by drawing a huge map of Guate on the ground, they blind fold us, place us in our towns in the drawing, hand us a folder with all the information about our sites, and then we take off our blindfolds.  The other group (Eco-Tourism) got their sites last Thursday, so Healthy Schools is a bit jealous. 

I guess I haven't really explained what my job is, while here in Guate.  My group is in the second level of Healthy Schools.  There are three levels (and different phases) and this is about a 15 year project.  Kata and I will be given around 30 schools to work with.  We will be giving workshops and trainings to teachers and CTA's about healthy habits, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, and self confidence.  We are training the teachers because it is more sustainable than telling the children how to be healthy. The goal of Healthy Schools is to certify as many schools as possible in Guatemala.  It may take many years to certify a school, depending on what their school has and doesn't have.  Some (many) schools don't have water so that will be the first step, to build a water system for the school. 

Its weird that after only two months, I'm used to the life style here.  Last week I got pretty home sick, though.  I'm over it now but it made me realize how hard this was going to be.  I got fleas and had bites all over my body.  I did everything to fucking get rid of them but nothing worked.  Mi madre and I cleaned my entire room, washed everything, sprayed the room, but nothing seemed to work.  Finally, I just gave up because theres not much you can do about it.   Just two more weeks...

I wish I could explain my life here better.  I don't think anyone can really understand until they come visit.  So come visit!   The other day we went to a pool in another town and it was beautiful.  The water was freezing cold but I forced myself to get in.  I was actually the first one to get in, if you can believe that.  We were gonna go to the beach yesterday, but because of the horrible earthquake in Japan, the Pacific Ocean was off limits due to tsunami warnings in Guate.  

Love you all and please send me some love (email)!! I miss you all very much and encouraging words are always helpful. 

~margarita~