Holidays and such..

Since I got back in December I’ve experienced celebrating holidays in a different culture, looked back upon my experiences of 2011, had to find a new home and move out within 2 weeks, and completely stress out over changes in our PC Guatemala program.

Me and Venoni on New Year's

 I spent Christmas with my boyfriends’ family in Chimaltenango where we celebrated by blowing off fireworks at midnight along with the rest of Guatemala and then cooking meat on an outside fire until 3AM.   The next day, Christmas Day, I was woken up 4 ½ hours later to ‘do an errand’. I figured it was something to do with Christmas but instead we drove 2 hours away for his brother to do some secret errand while we ate breakfast in Pollo Campero consisting of French fries, 7 up, and chocolate that I bought from the Dispensa. Normal Christmas morning, right? The rest of the day was spent cooking more meat , playing soccer, making chuchitos, and drinking ponche. Although it was a different kind of Christmas, I was luckily to have a family and a boyfriend to spend it with.

The arch in Antigua. 2011-2012

To ring in the New Year I decided to spend it in Antigua with Venoni and some other Peace Corps volunteers. From 5pm until about 10pm there were many activities on one of the main streets consisting of fireworks, mimes, people on stilts, marimba, amongst others. At 10pm we watched an amazing firework show right above the arch.  We then met up with other volunteers and some El Salvador PC volunteers as well. At midnight we all went to the park to watch the massive array of fireworks which was incredible.  Overall, it was truly amazing to experience such a beautiful night with someone I have grown so close with.

Now, I am still in the process of finding housing.  I was supposed to be out by the 5^th or 6^th of January but due to vacations and busy schedules Peace Corps just came out 2 days ago to approve the house but I have yet to hear anything. So hopefully within the next few days I’ll get a call saying it is approved so that I’ll finally be able to start the move.  I’ll most likely be going from a 2 bedroom house with my own patio, own bathroom, and own pila to one room with a shared bathroom and shared pila. Peace Corps definitely tries to keep their volunteers safe.

As for the upcoming weeks, it’s all a waiting game. Right now we have the option to leave on ‘Interrupted Service’ if we feel we are unsafe serving here in country. This option was given to us due to security incidences in Guate and some surrounding Central America countries. However, currently we are waiting on details and possibly new PC rules to ensure our safety. So the past few weeks have all been about waiting but at least Peace Corps is teaching me how to be patient J