January 29, 2006

Latest Activities

It´s been about 2 weeks since our last update.  We´ve kept a pretty busy schedule of training.  Spanish is coming along, but it seems slow...
 
Unfortunately, the highlight of the past two weeks was that we both came down with some sickness.  Probably some kind of bug that made for a miserable couple of days.  After expelling a large volume of bad stuff from our bodies, we´re both feeling strong and like we´ve paid our dues to live in the 3rd world.
 
We also made a trip to the capital to visit the Peace Corps Headquarters.  It was good to get a handle on how to safely move through the big city, but it´s not really a place that we´re all that excited about spending much time in.  Aside from a few recognizable American restaurants (that can be a sight for sore eyes at times) and a transportation hub, it doesn´t seem like there´s much of a reason for too many future visits.
 
A big trip to an pueblo near Coban is coming up this week.  After a 6 hour bus ride, we´ll spend Thursday-Sunday visiting another married couple working for the Peace Corps.  This is supposed to be our chance to job shadow and ask all the questions we have about what it´s like to be volunteers in the field.  The others in our training group are doing the same thing throughout the country.  We´re all very ready to break away from the classroom and see some country.
 
We´ve also spent a few days (last Sunday & today) in Antigua and have been using it as a break from the 3rd world living.  Today we visited an Art Exhibit that was organized by a PC volunteer in the Lake Atitlan area.  We also were able to visit with a relative that is spending a few months here to get away from the North Dakota winter.

January 14, 2006

We're here!

Well, we're here. It's been a busy few weeks between getting packed up, moved out, and orientated. Everything went great in our first week. We have a half of a day off today (Saturday) and a free day tomorrow as well, so we're just now getting a chance to relax a bit.

On Monday, we arrived in Washington DC pretty close to on time & had our "staging event" for a day and a half where we met our training group. Aside from packing a little bit too heavy, everything went smooth.

On Wednesday, we woke up at 2 am to get ready for our flight to Guatemala City. The flight was delayed a bit, but we still landed in the early afternoon. Folks from the Peace Corps were there waiting for us all & had a couple mini-buses/vans to drive us to the training site in Santa Lucia. It's pretty warm, probably upper 70s (although it did rain this morning). They have an amazing site here, a little oasis with clean green grass, clean bathrooms, hot showers, and decent internet access. It's where we'll be doing our training session for the next three months with the entire group.

Eventually, we loaded into the vans and got dropped off at out brand new "host family". We have a great family. They don't speak english at all, so our spanish is coming along pretty well-->but we have a long way to go(Corby more than Kari). It's amazing how easy it is to spend time with them and talk/play even though we can't communicate easily.

Since then, we've been sitting in lectures about staying healthy, safety, spanish, and technical skills. It looks like we'll be doing slightly different programs --> Kari: Environmental Education, Corby: Ecotourism.

Sounds like our host family may take us to Antigua tomorrow to have a look around. We'll be traveling together to visit the Volcano Pacaya with a fairly large group on Monday. Probably a short hike & a visit with a current volunteer doing ecotourism work there. It also sounds like quite a bit more traveling is on our way in the next few months during training...

That's basically the latest news. We'll write more later.

Reminder: there is a place to make comments on these posts if anyone has replies that they would like to post.

January 7, 2006

About to Leave

We've had a busy week moving out of our studio in St Paul. We're thankful for all the help that we had from family & friends to help us get out the door. This trip is within sight.

We've added a lot of pictures from the last few years to our photo site. Check it out at
www.flickr.com/photos/corbylewis

FYI: We also have an address where we'll be able to recieve packages in Guatemala.
Peace Corps Director
c/o "Corby & Kari Lewis"
8 Calle 6-55, Zone 9
Guatemala City, 01009
Guatemala, Central America
Office Tel. # 502.2334.8263 (needed for courier packages)