These Are the Best Days of Our Lives

I can’t believe this is my last week of training! Time is flying by. I remember when I first got here I thought that 3 months was such a long time but now I can’t believe it’s over. I am really excited to become a volunteer and settle into a new house and a new site.... even though I still don’t know where I’ll be but I find out tomorrow so stay posted J

Last week I traveled to a town called Olintepeque which is near a tourist town similar to Antigua called Xela (Shela). We were supposed to be visiting our sites last week but with the change of plans we just visited volunteers instead to fill in the time. Olintepeque is about 2.5 or 3 hours away from where I live, and I was so proud of myself because I took all the right buses and got there without any mishaps. It was the first time I had traveled with luggage on the camioneta so I was a little apprehensive at first. There’s no room to put your bag inside the bus so you have to put it on top, and I thought for sure that when I got to Olintepeque that my back would either A. not be there B. be soaking wet with rain or C. have stuff stolen from it but fortunately me and my backpack arrived safe and sound and in tacked. The ride there was interesting though… just like all camioneta rides are. The bus was packed full of people from front to back with 3 people to a seat, and I just happened to be stuck in an aisle seat so basically I only had one buttcheek on the seat and the other in the aisle while I was holding on to the railing for dear life and trying to brace myself while the driver was flying around the mountains and the person next to me was falling asleep on my shoulder. How people sleep at a time like that is beyond me, but 1 numb buttcheek and 3 hours later I finally made it!

I was with another trainee and we got to stay in a volunteer’s house for the week. Wednesday night we went to her neighbor’s house for dinner, and I got to kill a chicken! Ok that’s a lie… I didn’t actually kill it… I just held the chicken while someone else cut its head off. Gross I know but it was worth the experience! We got to kill a chicken, de-feather it, cook it, and then eat it. I don’t know if I’d do it again but it was definitely something I had never done before so hey why not. Don’t worry… video to come soon J We actually killed 2 chickens to eat and one of them had 3 eggs inside and like 4 yokes. It was crazy! We got to eat those too. The family was so cute. We helped them cook the entire dinner over their wood burning stove. We made caldo which is like soup with chicken and vegetables. It was really good and we had an awesome time making it. It just blows my mind how much time they put into cooking. The women are in the kitchen all day long.  I’m not sure I’ll ever look at chicken the same again, and I’m thinking about going vegetarian but it was worth it and we had a ton of fun and that’s what it’s all about. Check out the pictures on facebook!  Thursday we just kind of hung out with the volunteers and went to a meeting with them, and then we made cupcakes with the neighborhood kids. This is right up my alley! I can’t wait to get a little entourage of kids when I get to my site. They are so fun to be around and they love being around us too. Every chance they get it seems like they want to play with us or just hang out… we probably don’t even realize the impact we are having on their lives just by being with them and loving on them J That’s one thing I’m most looking forward to at my site…. Being a role model and a friend to the neighborhood kids.

On Friday we went into Xela and ate at an amazing Indian restaurant. I think I’ve found my new favorite type food… or it just tasted 2374627346 times better than beans and eggs and whatever else I’ve been eating for the past several weeks. It was so yummy! We also went to this hole in the wall book store which I could have spent all day in. Xela is full of cute little shops and hole in the wall places like that. Then we ate more food at Xela Pan because you can’t go to Xela without going to their bread store. If I get placed near Xela I am going to need some real self-control to not eat at all the yummy restaurants they have. Afterwards we went back to the volunteer’s neighbor’s house for round 2 of making dinner. This time we killed a turkey. They don’t mess around here in Guatemala. You just go to the market and buy everything fresh… including your meat. So they killed the turkey and de-feathered it and all that jazz and then we made paches. You can make paches out of rice or potatoes and we ended up making both kinds. Paches are like tamales or dough with a kind of tomato sauce and a piece of meat inside and cooked in a big banana leaf looking thing. It’s hard to explain but you can see pictures on facebook to get a better idea J The family bought  14 pounds of potatoes to make about 60 potato paches and 3 pounds of rice to make about 40 rice paches. The abuelita (grandma) was mixing together all sorts of spices and seeds and sauces and crushing things on a stone in order to make the perfect sauce for the paches. It was incredible. These ladies sure know how to cook! The paches turned out really good! I definitely like the potatoes ones better. Guess you guys will just have to come visit so you can try one J But I’m getting to the point where if I never eat another Guatemalan dish I would be ok with that. I miss my mom’s cooking!! But I’ll be able to cook on my own soon. So anywho we had a great time in Olintepeque, and I came back to good old Parramos on Saturday. I was happy to be back though because this is my last week with my family so I was happy to come back and spend time with them.

On Sunday me and the fam went to Antigua for the day. At first just Susie and I were supposed to go and hang out and I was going to treat her to a nice lunch somewhere and we were going to shop in the market because I needed a couple things. But here in Guatemala nothing ever goes according to plan and if you know me at all you know that I hate when my plans get messed up or go awry. The whole family…. Me, Susie, Myra (Susie’s sister), Myra’s husband and their 3 kids all ended up coming too. At first I was super frustrated because I wasn’t able to take my time in the market and shop for the things I wanted to get because the fam had other plans, and Susie and I couldn’t go have a nice lunch somewhere without inviting the rest of the fam and that would have just been hectic. So by this time my patience was pretty much gone because my plan no longer existed but I was just going with the flow and we ended up buying lunch and taking it to the Las Ruinas Capuchinas which are ruins in Antigua where monks and nuns used to live and now it’s a tourist site. We got to the ruins and things started to look up. We explored the ruins which were really neat and beautiful and we found a nice spot outside in the grass to eat lunch. Although it wasn’t the nice lunch I wanted to share with Susie, this experience ended up being a million times better. God works in mysterious ways and ended up turning this frustrating day into the best day I’ve had since I’ve been here. I had so much fun with the family just running around playing with the girls and taking pictures and laughing. We were taking family photos and funny pictures of us jumping off the ruins and of Diego being cute as ever. It made me realize how close and how comfortable I’ve become with all of them, and I am so lucky to have them in my life. That day turned out to be such a special day and I ended up making a photo album for the fam with all the pictures we took. I am so blessed to have such an awesome support team not only at home in the states but here in Guatemala as well. Even though I’m moving to my site in a few days, I know that I can always come back and visit or call Susie and the fam if I ever need anything. It’s so nice to know that I have people looking out for me. It’s going to be hard to leave them but I know that our relationship will not end when I move. Plus I have so much to look forward to that there’s no time to be sad!

Although I love living with Susie and everyone I’m ready to move out on my own and have a little more space and freedom. Here are a few things I’m looking forward to:

1.       Cooking my own meals/being in control of when and what I eat

2.       A shower… hopefully with warm water but I’m not going to get too ahead of myself

3.       A comfortable bed because right now I sleep on a 2 inch mattress… I feel like I’m 90 years old

4.       Drinking real coffee from a coffee pot instead of instant coffee

5.       Getting to know people in my new community wherever that may be

6.       Getting back in shape

7.       Settling into my new house

8.       Starting work!

Can’t wait! But the anticipation of knowing my site is killing me. I’ll find out tomorrow and be sure to let everyone know. Also, I am changing my name before I get to my site because Maddie is too hard to pronounce so if anyone has any suggestions I’d love to here them!

xoxo Maddie