Lots of Work!

Well, the pace in my Guatemalan world has just sped up considerably. This weekend we are having a community interchange and volunteers from another community are visiting us and then we're loading up in a micro bus to go to their community. We are going to walk around the town, visit the futbol stadium, and have some snacks on the roof of one of the volunteer's house. We bought lots of different kind of fruit that is local to the area that doesn't grow in the States. I thought my this time in my life I have tried a lot of exotic food, but there is still some fruit here that is completely new to me. One is anona. It is a fruit that you peel with a really sweet white inside and big black seeds. The fruit reminds me of a pina colada. Another is zapote. It is a fruit, but kind of tastes like squash or sweet potato, but a little more sweet. It looks like an avocado on the outside, but it is light brown. When you all come visit me, we'll go try it all too. After our rooftop snack we're heading to another town.

Next week I have to give a presentation to the Municipalidad about how to promote their park. It is all in Spanish and is a fairly complicated subject, but I'm going to try to figure out how to simplify it. I'm going to start with an activity where everyone recognizes certain logos, like McDonalds, Nike, Coke, Pepsi, but without the name of the brand on the label. Then I'm going to ask how they recognized the brand and where they have seen it before. Then I am going to try to relate these ideas to ways they are market their park. For example, Coke just doesn't market once, they have a campaign going all of the time. The same with their park. They have to keep it up. So, I'm working on stuff like this. My charla is going to be very participatory where they come up with the answers. All of this has to be figured out by next Thursday.

Time is flying down here and next week we'll be in February already! We've got a week of field based training coming up and that will be action packed and then we swear in at the end of March.

Everything else is going well. I'm sleeping through the night admist roosters who don't know what time it is (they start in at 3 a.m.), bus horns, idling buses, and the church next door that starts up at 6:30 a.m. on the weekends and plays the same song complete with trumpets, drums, and guitars every day. They play every night too from 6-10 p.m. with drums, horns, and a sound system to rival that of any touring rock band. Yeah for ear plugs!!

Top 3 Things That I Love Here

1. Camioneta music (music that is played in the bus) - wide variety - from reggaeton, salsa, bachata, etc. The Peace Corps even made a CD called, "Now that's What I Call Camioneta, Vol. 1" for only 10Q if anyone is interested.
2. Everyone greeting each other on the street - buenos dias, buenos tarde, buenos noches
3. Watching the local town soccer game

Hope all is well with everyone in the States and write often!
Cheers!
Tara