Hurricanes, Volcano Eruptions...What's Next?

I'm sure you've all been hearing about Guatemala in the news lately, and yes, things have been kind of crazy this past week! What with Volcano Pacaya erupting on Thursday, then again on Friday, and then Hurricane Agatha blowing in for the weekend, Guatemala was turned on its head.

My dear friend Claudia had no idea what she was signing up for when she decided to come spend two weeks with me in Guatemala...The first week and a half that she was here we spent in my site. She may have thought she was coming to relax, but instead I put her straight to work. Haha, well I let her relax some, but she followed me around all week, helping out with my women's meetings and activities in the schools. Also, I finally got my garden planted! The second week, I took some vacation days so we could explore Guatemala a little more. We had planned to climb Pacaya...but then it erupted. So we opted out on that one. We visited Lake Atitlan, but it rained the whole time. And then that weekend I got a text from Peace Corps saying that we were in "standfast" mode, meaning that we weren't supposed to travel at all until further notice. Luckily Claudia and I were in Guatemala City, since she had her flight out booked for Sunday. However, with the massive amounts of ash that fell on the city, topped by the massive amounts of water, things at the airport were pretty much shut down, until today or tomorrow I think. Standfast wasn't lifted until Monday afternoon for me, and Claudia ended up taking a bus to El Salvador so that she could get home. Phew! So not exactly the way either of us had planned her visit, but it was still great to be able to spend time together!

Upon returning home, I was relieved to find my house still standing, and very little damage in general in my village. When the main road was built, a lot of it seems to have been kind of carved out of the mountain, leaving a lot of rather unstable looking banks along the way. With all the rain, a lot of those banks gave way, at least partially, making quite a mess of the road. But they've got a lot of it cleaned up now, and I was told that it was only impassable for one day. Not too bad. A neighboring village didn't fair so well, however. San Miguel, which is down off the mountain and has a small river running through it, was nearly washed away. They say that with all the rain the river overflowed, and took a lot of houses and cars with it. Luckily most of the damage occurred during the day, so everybody was able to get out safely. It's so sad though, a lot of families have been left with absolutely nothing. All the neighboring communities are really working together to help them out, collecting food, clothes, medical supplies, etc. And I heard that the first lady of Guatemala even came to pay them a visit today!