Haha, my host sister has some crazy hair in the morning...

Thirteen of us PCVs had Thanksgiving together! A complete T-day feast minus the pumpkin pie- apparantly they don't sell Libby's pumpkin pie filling here!

Two girls who's family I work with in a neighboring aldea. Believe it or not, the blonde girl is Guatemalan!

Can you believe it’s December already? I sure can’t- that means I’ve been in Guatemala for almost four months now! And in Soledad Grande for almost a month now! But you know what, it’s almost starting to feel like home. I mean, no, it doesn’t feel like CNY, but I really like it here. Haha, but people are always asking me (as in at least once a day) “¿Ya se halló algo aquí?”, which means more or less, “Have you settled in/do you feel at home?”. I always answer yes to that question. They also ask me constantly “¿No ha desesperado?”, meaning “Haven’t you lost hope/despaired?”, and I always say no.

Today was an especially busy, but good day. I got up early to finish my laundry that I never did yesterday, then went on a house visit with a woman from my group. The woman we visited is interesting in building a chicken coop, so we looked things over and hopefully she’ll buy some chicken wire soon so I can help her get started. Then she roasted corn for us, gave us coffee and bread, and manzanillas (they’re like tiny little apples that have a lot of seeds and are a little sour). Needless to say I wasn’t hungry for lunch! After a quick stop at home I headed to Pino Dulce for a meeting with the teachers. They have an elementary school, and this year was the first year that they added classes for middle school aged kids. One of the professors sounds pretty enthusiastic about starting a school garden, and even wants to organize the mothers to make nutritious snacks for the kids instead of just having junk food sold during snack time. School is out until January, so we’ll see what happens when I talk to them then.

From there I rushed back for a meeting with the Comité de Emergencia in my aldea. There are about 14 members in this committee, and they each are in charge of a sector of the community. With the help of an American doctor who has visited, they’re working towards helping identify the people in the community with high blood pressure (there are A LOT). This doctor donated two automated cuffs and taught the committee members to use them, and they’re currently doing a second round of measurements of everyone in the community over the age of 18. With the previous volunteer they completed an extensive latrine project, and today we chatted about their hopes and dreams for the community, which include getting first aid training and equipment and starting a garden of medicinal plants at the local health office.

During our meeting I also found out that a group of girls in the aldea have started a soccer team! Exciting! They had just finished practice by the time I got there, but their coach said that I’m welcome to practice with them and play in games whenever I can! I was getting kind of bummed because it seemed like girls playing sports here was kind of taboo, but I guess I was wrong!

Yesterday I got to witness the homecoming of the brother of my host mom/sister. He’s been in the states for five years, and left when his only son was just three months old. They told me that whenever he talked on the phone with his son, the son would always say, “No, I don’t want to talk to my dad, I want to meet him”. Can you imagine? And that’s pretty normal here. Needless to say it was pretty cool to see his son “meet” him for the first time that he’ll actually remember.

On a sadder note, there was quite a tragedy in another aldea I work in last week. A two year old girl went to use the latrine, and the floor was so rotten that it caved in. Her older sister was able to grab onto the ledge and climb out, but the little girl died. Thank God that the majority of families in my aldea have decent latrines, but I’m sure the family of that little girl could use your prayers.