So ive been in my site for about a month and a half now and it is goin pretty well. I still feel a bit like a trainee cuz Im working a lot with goats but know next to nothing. Luckily I just got a sweet book on dairy goats!! Thank you! This is very much needed here at Cuerpo de Paz, they are lacking goat info. Im not sure what is meant by the 2 pairs of white and yellow gardening gloves tho. Fijese que..
So my closest PC volunteer Shaila left, decided it wasnt for her. That makes me sad, but mostly for selfish reasons. We had fun hiking the mountains and the only time I got on the internet was when I visited her.
Work is good, have been doing a lot of chicken vaccination campaigns where we walk around the hills vaccinating chickens for a fair price. I sell a lot of seeds for the family gardens, and when its lunchtime, I work out a trade for some food! I traveled to Huehue (about 3-4 hours) to buy 6 pounds of seeds and ive already had to return to buy another 3 pounds. I will probably have to go back again in january. This has the benefit of being close to Barretts site, so I get to hang out there for the nite. Its really awesome that the people are so enthusiastic about using the seeds in their family gardens. My transportation is paid for, so I can give them really good prices compared to what else is available in the area.
Right now my neighbor is building my rabbit cages and I am lucky to wrok for the awesome organization SavetheChildren, because they are supposedly giving me rabbits and theyre gonna give me the wire for the cage and the tin roof. Once we have enough meat, we're planning on making a huge buffett with only rabbit dishes so the people can come and try it out and get excited about raising their own. I'll be using the New Zealand type which are also good for the fur, so i guess ill have to learn how to tan some hides.
I dont know how to reply to peoples comments or questions, but I think most of them were along the lines of language and stuff. Its goin OK, right now the hurdle is finding out the differences between the meanings of words and how theyre actually used by the people. I have more pictures of my village and the surrounding mountains to put up, but thatll hafta wait for another time. I got my address for my site, but I dont think im supposed to put it up online. Text me and I can text you the address back.
well thats all for now, happy holidays everyone!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
oh yeah
Forgot to talk about today.. today we went to the local school to help teach the english class (the english teacher doesnt know very much english). It was really fun, but the teacher wanted us to teach them simple childrens songs and stuff like that and we were very unprepared. We taught them "jingle bells" "if youre happy and you know it" and "head shoulders knees and toes.." If anyone can think of some other simple songs/games to do with elementary school kids please send them to me! Its been a long time for us, so Im hoping you parents can help out (kk, dawn, tate)! Thanks!
4 weeks left of training!
Where has the time gone?? 4 weeks left, and this thursday we get to find out where our sites will be. And then around Nov 1st, we move to our sites for the next 2 years! My guess is that Ill end up in Huehue, but really I have no idea.
Its been exciting here, lots of field trips, gardening and learning how to cook yummy stuff. Us trainees went to some Mayan ruins in Tecpan and took part in a Mayan ceremony which was interesting. My bday corresponds with the spirit K'an, who is the feathered serpent that created the world. The next day I went on a field trip with my fam to some hot springs, but they thought they smelled bad, so we went to the ruins in Tecpan instead. After that, we ran for 5-6 hours back home with a torch and a Guatemalan flag to celebrate their independence day. I dont quite understand it, but around independence day, Guatemalans like to drive far away and then run back home with a torch. People not running stand on the sides of the roads and throw water at the runners. Water, or blocks of ice. The place my host-sister went to took them 16 hours to run back.
2 weeks ago we went on a week long training trip to the mountains of Jalapa. It was actually reaally cold there! We got to learn how to take care of chickens, build terrazes on the sides of hills and other fun stuff. We also got to go ziplining thru the trees and walk across these huge suspension bridges which was awesome of course.
This is the ruins of Tecpan with Stephen. I posted this pic so he wouldnt feel so bad about one of the later ones.
Ruins of Tecpan with my fam
Running home
Guatemalans love parades. And they last forever.
Stephen is enthralled by chicken feed
Laurie and Daveed like vaccinating chickens. Hi Barrett's Mom!
This is the view from our cabin in Jalapa
Ziplining!
And I taught Laurie and Barrett how to shakey-face
If anybody knows how to make the images fit correctly in my post, please help me!
And also, if anybody wishes to send me letters or other fun stuff in the mail:
PCV Jared Lounsbery
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America
Gracias! And I hope everybody is doing well!!
Its been exciting here, lots of field trips, gardening and learning how to cook yummy stuff. Us trainees went to some Mayan ruins in Tecpan and took part in a Mayan ceremony which was interesting. My bday corresponds with the spirit K'an, who is the feathered serpent that created the world. The next day I went on a field trip with my fam to some hot springs, but they thought they smelled bad, so we went to the ruins in Tecpan instead. After that, we ran for 5-6 hours back home with a torch and a Guatemalan flag to celebrate their independence day. I dont quite understand it, but around independence day, Guatemalans like to drive far away and then run back home with a torch. People not running stand on the sides of the roads and throw water at the runners. Water, or blocks of ice. The place my host-sister went to took them 16 hours to run back.
2 weeks ago we went on a week long training trip to the mountains of Jalapa. It was actually reaally cold there! We got to learn how to take care of chickens, build terrazes on the sides of hills and other fun stuff. We also got to go ziplining thru the trees and walk across these huge suspension bridges which was awesome of course.
This is the ruins of Tecpan with Stephen. I posted this pic so he wouldnt feel so bad about one of the later ones.
Ruins of Tecpan with my fam
Running home
Guatemalans love parades. And they last forever.
Stephen is enthralled by chicken feed
Laurie and Daveed like vaccinating chickens. Hi Barrett's Mom!
This is the view from our cabin in Jalapa
Ziplining!
And I taught Laurie and Barrett how to shakey-face
If anybody knows how to make the images fit correctly in my post, please help me!
And also, if anybody wishes to send me letters or other fun stuff in the mail:
PCV Jared Lounsbery
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America
Gracias! And I hope everybody is doing well!!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Pics!
Soo its been a little over 3 weeks now but it feels like its been much longer! in a good way, that is. today was slightly horrifying, my group went to another town and we thought we were going to be doing tech training (building gardens and stuff like that) andwhen we got there we found out that we were actually going to the school to meet our groups of children who we will be working with for the next coupla months.
After writing that, I just realized how not-terrifying it sounds, but these kids were like 16 years old and they are not easily impressed. So we had to talk with them and play some games with them on our own. Not easy. My group wasnt that interested in talking and I did a bad job explaining the games, but we got through it in the end. I did talk to some of them about Daft Punk, so that was cool!
Pik-cha time!
This is my room; its cool I have my own door to the street and my own key:
This is the view of my town, Santa Maria Cauque:
These are the kids that live in my family compound, they are all cousins. From left is Celeste Cha-ta (thats her nickname because her nose is so small its like she doesnt have one..its a joke but i dont understand it) Daniel, and Josue:
This is the central courtyard of my home, the big cement thing is the pila, which holds water for doing dishes and clothes:
This is Laurie's backyard with David in the foreground:
This is the cathedral in Antigua; there are like 20 people carrying that huge thing:
This is Javi and Josue rocking out:
Our hike to the river. we had to climb down the mountain using these roots:
thats Don Juan, David's host dad who takes us hiking and teaches us about farming and plants. He's way cool.
Thats all for now, more later!
After writing that, I just realized how not-terrifying it sounds, but these kids were like 16 years old and they are not easily impressed. So we had to talk with them and play some games with them on our own. Not easy. My group wasnt that interested in talking and I did a bad job explaining the games, but we got through it in the end. I did talk to some of them about Daft Punk, so that was cool!
Pik-cha time!
This is my room; its cool I have my own door to the street and my own key:
This is the view of my town, Santa Maria Cauque:
These are the kids that live in my family compound, they are all cousins. From left is Celeste Cha-ta (thats her nickname because her nose is so small its like she doesnt have one..its a joke but i dont understand it) Daniel, and Josue:
This is the central courtyard of my home, the big cement thing is the pila, which holds water for doing dishes and clothes:
This is Laurie's backyard with David in the foreground:
This is the cathedral in Antigua; there are like 20 people carrying that huge thing:
This is Javi and Josue rocking out:
Our hike to the river. we had to climb down the mountain using these roots:
thats Don Juan, David's host dad who takes us hiking and teaches us about farming and plants. He's way cool.
Thats all for now, more later!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The beginning
Well I am now in beautiful Guatemala! This has been a great adventure so far and its only getting better. Started out in D.C. monday night where I was roomed with Alex from sacramento. We went out and had a great time meeting other soon-to-be volunteers and such. The next day was orientation and we met all of the 33 people going to Guate with us. It truly is a great group of people, they are all totally awesome and nice. Some really fun people and a lot from Cali. We are already good friends. The PC attracts pretty interesting people from all sorts of backgrounds.
After 2 hours of sleep we went to the airport and waited. Got to Guatemala around noon and soon met our 3-day host families. Well most people did; I found out that there was no room for me so a teacher had to scramble around and find another place for me to stay. Ended up staying at a spa-type place complete with sauna and a sweet garden and a nice older couple running it. Cooold showers tho, but that was to be expected. Actually, bucket baths were to be expected so the shower was a nice amenity (sp?). I think they are pretty well-off because we have had meat with each meal. Today was classes, a spanish test, and other orientation stuff. Tomorrow will be more of the same and saturday we move to our host-families that will take care of us for the next 3 months.
Hmm, not much else to say, adios!
After 2 hours of sleep we went to the airport and waited. Got to Guatemala around noon and soon met our 3-day host families. Well most people did; I found out that there was no room for me so a teacher had to scramble around and find another place for me to stay. Ended up staying at a spa-type place complete with sauna and a sweet garden and a nice older couple running it. Cooold showers tho, but that was to be expected. Actually, bucket baths were to be expected so the shower was a nice amenity (sp?). I think they are pretty well-off because we have had meat with each meal. Today was classes, a spanish test, and other orientation stuff. Tomorrow will be more of the same and saturday we move to our host-families that will take care of us for the next 3 months.
Hmm, not much else to say, adios!
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