Staple it together, we'll call it bad weather

So today we met our host families! We woke up early and took a lancha over to San Juan la Laguna through a pretty messy Lake Atitlan. Due to the heavy rains there were a lot of mudslides and a ton of stuff washed into the lake. There was a refrigerator just floating around in the water along with a ton of plastic bottles, household items, and pieces of wood. The locals were all on the edge of the lake gathering stuff and cleaning.

When we got to our dock at San Juan, our families were waiting for us. There are three of us in the social work program who live in San Juan...Liza, Katina, and I. My tia, Elena, and brother, Tito, were at the dock to meet me and take me home. I will be living with Nora and Fransisco, the mom and dad, and their three boys, Tito (15), Kevin (12), and Alberto (1 month old). Nora's three sisters also live with us...Margarita, Maximina, and Elena.

The house I'm in is right on a main street. It is white and has two pieces of pizza and a chef painted in black right in front. My family does not make pizza. You would think that this distinct and unique adornment on the front of my home would have helped me to find my way back there after a morning of exploring. But no... the only landmark I had considered when leaving my house was the tigo store (not actually a tigo store..just a store that has a tigo sign, advertising the availability of cell phone saldo/minutes...) Needless to say, just about every single tienda in San Juan la Laguna sells tigo saldo, and advertises it with the same blue sign...so getting home took a little longer than expected!

The house is more of a compound of a few rectangular room-buildings. My room was the living room and is the one right on the street. I have a big bed, a couch, and a filing cabinet for my clothes. It is much more than I expected....I did not think I would have so much space to myself!

After meeting my family, Liza, Katina, and I went to San Pedro to visit our language school, Corazon Maya, for the first time. It is only a 10 minute tuk-tuk ride away. The tuk-tuks here are kind of a cross between the tricycles in the Philippines and tuk-tuks in Thailand. Anyway....today was just an orientation day at language school, and we walked around a disaster zone...there have been many problems caused by the rains and the derrumbe from one of the huge mudslides that happened because of the rain was right next to the school. Hundreds of houses were lost and they can't find one little girl who got pulled away. It was insane to be walking through the destruction and experiencing it first hand.

New kids on the block

Today we woke up expecting to go visit our host families but due to the weather it was postponed until tomorrow. It was actually nice to be able to explore Pana some more, have a bit more of an orientation, and get to know my classmates better.

We took a walk around town with Erika (the social work program assistant) and Linda (the social work program director) and surveyed the damage done to the bridges on the river the night before. The river had risen so high that it took out two bridges and sent them downstream. The heavy rains from the tropical storm affected many communities around the lake. We talked with a few local families, including our host families, and most were safe in their homes. But there were a number of mudslides that took out a bunch of homes.

After our walk around Pana, we had lunch at a place called Bombay, a vegetarian cafe, and then went to the market with Erika because she needed to go food shopping. (She and the other program coordinators are living in Pana during our stay here.)

At night, we walked around town, stopping in various restaurants, cafes, and tiendas, getting to know our new city and enjoying the last day of real free time before our program started!

Rain, I don't mind; shine, the world looks fine

Today we drove up to Panajachel. It was an extremely long ride, but we were certainly not bored. The torrential rains continued and the roads were pretty dangerous. As we drove through the mountains water rushed down the sides of the roads and even flooded some. There were trees, boulders, and mudslides that had fallen on to the two-lane pass and we had to swerve in and out of our own side of the road to avoid the obstacles. The roads are very steep and curvy in some places and literally had us holding onto each other for balance. Thankfully our driver was great and got us to Pana safely.

It wasn’t until we settled into our hotel and sat down at a restaurant for dinner that we heard the news that we were in the midst of Tropical Storm Agatha. I mean, we probably could have guessed that it was a tropical storm considering we basically had to swim through the streets to get to dinner. The cobble-stone roads had water more than ankle-deep and were like rivers rather than streets.

I felt a little guilty for thinking this, but it was kind of nice to have a small group of only 6 students and 4 professors instead of the 40 people that were supposed to have arrived for the two programs. It would have been quite a different experience if we had to bring around that many people in such conditions. And on top of that, the few of us have really gotten comfortable with each other in the one day since we met. I guess that is what happens to a group when you go through such excitement, uncertainty, and, well, just the unexpected things that go along with traveling!

Volcano Shmolcano

Had to take a break from song lyric blog titles to accommodate this one, courtesy of Julia!

But yep. Volcano schmolcano that's what I say to the sandy bits of ash that, with the rain, fell from the sky last night when Sofi and her friend Astrid picked me up from La Aurora airport in Guatemala City.

Directly from the airport, we drove to pick up more friends on the way to Sofi's house, as black bits of debris accumulated on the windshield and on the road such that you could no longer see the double yellow lines at all!

When we arrived Sofi's I was greeted by her lovely family- all 7 of her siblings (Diego, Daniel, Cris, Ceci, Irene, Mariana, and Nico) and her parents! We had a great night with Sofi's friends and sisters talking, scaring each other in the dark, and playing tea-pong :)

This morning, we woke up to a coating of black sandy ash over everything. Schools were closed and everyone was trying to clean up the mess that had been carried from Volcan Pacaya.

After breakfast, Sofi and two of her friends took me to a mercado and then to a barista for chai tea lattes. We finished our afternoon by watching Backup Plan and playing Left Right Center and Guess Who with Nico and Mariana- a perfect way to spend a rainy day! It was so great to be able to spend time with Sofi, meet her family and friends, and to know that I have such good friends around me event though I am not home :) Thanks again, Ibarra family and I’m looking forward to seeing more of you over the summer!

Around 6pm Sofi took me to the Eco Hotel Los Proceres to meet my group. When I met Erika, the program assistant, she updated me on the fact that only 6 of us had arrived in Guatemala- I had been one of the last flights last night before they completely closed the airport. Gracias a dios I was able to get in! The airport is still closed and no flights are coming in or going out, so we don’t know when the other 34 people will be arriving. Tomorrow, if the circumstances permit, we will be traveling to Panajachel where we will spend the night before going to our host families the next day. Things are still up in the air though, because although the volcano isn’t affecting the area to where we are traveling, there is a lot of rain and they are worried about mudslides.

And it seems like I've got to travel on

Ok so I'm all packed up and ready to leave on this summer's adventure! For two months I will be in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala...across the lake from Panajachel. I am placed with a family who I will be living with the entire time I am there, and have also been placed in a school where I think I will be teaching English. But I am not completely sure!

I am very much looking forward to tomorrow when I will get to stay with my good friend Sofi, who lives in Guatemala City, before my program actually starts on Friday.

I am not sure of the internet situation where I will be, but I will be trying to post on here with stories, updates, and of course, pictures, as often as I can!

Please pray for safe travels for me and the other students who will be traveling!

There's high adventure in the air

Ok, everyone, well you know I love the United States, but you also know that I love leaving it every couple months or so! It's been about 5 months since I've been on my last world exploration, and I am ready to get started on my next one...this time to a region I have never been before...Central America! I will be in Guatemala for two months this summer volunteering at an NGO in San Juan la Laguna, a village near Panajachel on Lake Atitlan, working on my Spanish, and doing a lot of photography!

Although my departure is less than a month away, I still don't know who I'll be working with, who I'll be living with, or exactly what I'll be doing, but that is half the fun! I should be getting some more information about my host family and placement very soon.