trans-kaqchikel

Buenas noches! As of tomorrow, I will have been here in Poaquil for one month. And it has gone by so fast. I've been at the Centro de Salud everyday, some days just giving a charla in the morning to the waiting room, other days going out to the aldeas, and others going to schools. We spent 2 days doing topographical surveying for potable water lines in one of the aldeas, Nueva Esperanza. That was awesome because we worked with my companero Ryan that lives in a town 12 km away. He was quite helpful, whilst I spent my time whittling him his own Harry Potter wand with my machete.

I've been out of my town the last two weekends, one in Xela and the other in Antigua. Xela was lovely - stayed in San Franscisco El Alto, Totonicopan, with my lovely pal Anna. There's a ton of volunteers who live within an hour or so of Xela, so it was a hoot to see all of them. Antigua was exactly as we left it - tourist central. On the way back from Antigua, I fell off the camioneta in Chimaltenango when I was changing buses and busted the crap out of my elbow. As in gushing blood and it's still killing me a week later.

I went to Chimal this morning to get out of dodge and see if I could buy wireless internet there or if I'd have to make the trek to Guate. Long story short, I'm sitting in my bed with my computer right now. Yay. Days just seem to come and go here and there's not much stress. Which is awesome. I was discussing with my sitemate earlier today about how the people here don't really seem to have any self-consciousness, which is admirable. I'm sure a lot of it is that it's a much less materialistic place, mostly because it has to be! The people here are really just, in the words of one Jacqui Stewart, "just trying to live." I wish I had coined that, but it's really the best way to describe things here.

I think the reason I haven't been too quick on the blog updates is that things are all starting to seem normal. What was surprising and blog-worthy a month ago now is commonplace, so I'm finding less things worth mentioning. And day-to-day work would be unbelievably dull to recount. I'm starting to find a groove here, really without even trying to. Next up: time to find my pony.