First Week in Parramos

I survived my first week in Parramos (my training site) !! Parramos is a small town in the department of Chimaltenango. It’s more urban than rural and it’s known for its frijoles (beans) and its wide streets. I live a couple blocks from the center of Parramos where there’s the municipal building and a park. Pretty neat!  This week has been super busy with training sessions and Spanish classes, but I absolutely love my host family.  My host mom’s name is Susie and she has a 9 year old daughter named Katie. Susie’s sister and her husband and 3 kids live on the same plot of land. They have a 14 year old daughter Dairyn, a 9 year old daughter Shayela, and a 1 year old son named Diego. I have my own room that’s connected to a living room and the bathroom and opens up onto the porch. The kitchen is in a different little building across from my room and then Susie’s house is behind the kitchen and her sister’s house is behind that. We have 4 dogs, 1 cat, 1 rooster, hens, and a cow! Needless to say it’s super loud here all the time. They love fireworks here… no matter what time of day or night so it’ll be like 3am and I’ll get woken up by the dogs barking or fireworks (bombas) going off. Good thing I have ear plugs!

The food has been really good. Susie has been teaching me how to cook with Guatemalan food! Lunch is the biggest meal so we usually have rice, beans, vegetables, meat or some sort of soup with all that mixed in there.  And of course bread…. They love their bread here. They have pan frances which is just like sourdough bread and then pan dulce which is sweet bread that they have with coffee or for dessert. Susie goes out every day and gets fresh bread and it’s so yummy! We have cafecito or coffee with pan dulce everyday around 5:30pm and just chat about our day before we have dinner around 7 or 7:30. For dinner we usually just have beans or eggs, bread, and tea. My Spanish instructor took my Spanish group to the market, and I was blown away by the amount of fruits, vegetables, spices, and herbs they have here so I can’t wait to learn how to cook with all of them! The open air markets are probably my favorite place to go because there’s always so many people, and I love learning about all the different foods and bartering with the people selling them J

During the week I have Spanish class every day with a language instructor and on Tuesdays we go to the Peace Corps training center to have medical sessions and other info sessions.  I’ve gone running a couple times which is a great way to get to know the town plus there’s such beautiful scenery! The only bad thing is that the air is really dirty with exhaust fumes and smoke from all the fires in peoples’ houses so it’s kind of hard to breathe while running but I really enjoy it. Also, the altitude here is around 7,000ft. so that makes it difficult too. The people in the town are so friendly and are always saying Buenas dias or Buenas tardes! Unlike in the U.S. it’s considered rude here if you don’t say hi to everyone you pass by on the street. Greeting each other is a really important part of their culture. They are also all about family here. Susie’s extended family is always coming in and out of the house and stopping by for lunch or just to talk and they all live within walking distance of each other. There’s always lots of kids running around and they always want me to play with them so that’s a lot of fun! Plus they don’t care if my Spanish isn’t all that good J One girl asked me if I could teach her English so I’m going to start meeting with her on Saturdays to teach her some basic English.

This weekend Susie and I were alone at the house because the rest of the family went away for the weekend so Susie and I went to Antigua today. Antigua is a huge tourist attraction with lots of stores, hostels, and open air food and artisan markets. People go to Antigua to see the Mayan Ruins and all the old churches. It’s a really beautiful city with a lot of commotion! It was weird going from all Spanish to having English speaking people everywhere…. It was like reverse culture shock but Susie and I had a lot of fun looking at all the stores and haggling at the market.  On the way back the bus ride took an hour when it should only take about 20 minutes because streets were closed for a religious procession. Religious festivals, celebrations, concerts, and processions are really common around here. Almost every day there’s something going on. Everyone is either Catholic or Evangelical here and they sure do love to celebrate! Today there was a procession (una fería) going on in the streets honoring the Virgin Mother of Conception. Boys dress up as girls and wear cartoon looking masks and they follow a float with a statue of the Virgin Mother on it. Very interesting but it took us forever to get home…. We were crammed person against person on the chicken bus with all sorts of smells going on but at least they play good music on the buses J The Peace Corps always tells us that patience will be the key to success, and I definitely think I learned some patience today!

A couple things I realized I take for granted back home….

1.       Hot showers- I can’t just go out for a run in the morning and come back and jump in the shower. In order to bath I have to first heat my water which takes about 30min (if I want a lukewarm shower) and then fill a tub with water from the pila so that I can take a bucket bath. We don’t realize how lucky we are to be able to take a shower whenever we want! I have to plan my day around when I can bath because in the morning it’s freezing and then it gets dark around 6.

2.       Washer and dryer. I washed my clothes in the pila for the first time the other day and it was a lot of work! I have to manually scrub my clothes with soap and water and then they take a couple days to dry hanging out on the line. These women work so hard just to do a load of laundry! Ironically I actually really enjoyed washing my clothes in the pila… it was really relaxing and I felt like I was helping out around the house.

Things I love about Guatemala…

1.       Taking the bus- although buses are crowded and I’m usually white-knuckling it because the driver is going super-fast around bends and squeezing through tight spaces I really enjoy people watching  and site seeing. It’s a good way to learn!

2.       The climate- it’s not too hot and it’s not too cold (except for at night)

3.       The scenery- you can see volcanoes everywhere!

4.       The kids- all the kids are so cute! I can’t wait to work with them in the schools

5.       How nice the people are

6.       The beans and bread are delicious!