Primorosa.

Buenas. I´m so tired! I´ve been working all week on this presentation for tomorrow afternoon. It´s essentially just about a 30 min ¨charla¨to middle school kids about why it´s a good idea to wash your hands, but in a fun and educational manner. I don´t know how teachers do it. I´ve been working and editing the same lesson plan for like three days.

This pastSaturday, we all met up in Santa Lucía for some kind of Mayan ceremony; I´m still not totally sure exactly what it was for. I learned that apparently because of my specific birthdate and year, I supposedly have tons of energy and share that and other attributes with Carlos Santana and Winston Churchill. Snazzy. For the afternoon, we met up in Antigua, surprise, surprise. It was really nice just to chill out because things are really starting to roll along. I spent about 5 hours on Sunday at Valhalla, the macadamia nut finca thats about 1 km from my town. I read almost all of Unaccustomed Earth...fantastic book. Couldn´t put it down. I got a funny text in the afternoon from our techníco de salud in our Puesto. Earlier in the week, we had been joking about going to happy hour on Sunday, but we all thought she was kidding. Nope.

On Monday, we switched Spanish teachers...so sad. Our town really misses Sandra, but Rafael is our new teacher and he´s pretty good too. I had my second language proficiency interview on Monday, and am apparently now at the level medio/medio. The only reason that´s a good thing is because you have to be at that level at least at the end of training to go out in the field.

I was on pins and needles for most of Tuesday because we were in Santa Lucía at the training center all day, and I was anxiously awaiting an email about Libby Mae! I´m so glad she´s here and Candace is doing well, too. And Aunt Kath, I know you´re reading this...I tried to call and text you to tell you happy birthday, but I couldn´t get it to go through!

Next week, us Rural Home Preventive Health (RHPH, or salud preventiva) trainees are going on field based training (FBT). Go look at a map, we´re going to Quiché and San Martín Sacatepequez (en Quetzaltenango). It´s going to be 8 days of some really intense stuff, but should be really fun too. We´re headed off with the kids from Pastores (another training town around Antigua). Tomorrow morning (Fri), we´re going to Antigua for a specific class on how certain terms and phrases translate and don´t really mean the same thing...should be pretty beneficial for all of us.

Please send me mail! It´s so fun to get snail mail (and emails...Kels, where´s my weekly fix?). I finally uploaded some pictures to Facebook that I had taken throughout the last 6 months or so I was in the States...it´s hilarious that I finally get around to uploading them when I´m having to pay to use the internet here in Guate. Since we´re leaving Saturday, I won´t have access to a computer for a while...

Wish me luck with my charla tomorrow. My spanish needs your luck.

Marta