New Site / Address Change

As you all know by now, I have been assigned to my post for the next two years in the department of San Marcos in western Guatemala. It's beautifully scenic, though it takes 1.5 hours to get to the nearest big city, San Marcos, and the second biggest Guatemalan city, Xela, is about 2.5 hour bus ride, which is managable on weekend getaways when I'll just want to spend some time in the city and escape my Guatemalan reality for a couple days.

I met up with a women's group and got a chance to see them in action. While they were replicating a meal that another volunteer gave at a nutritional meeting a few weeks before, some of the women were crocheting yarmulkes (yes, yamakahs)- they're a great seller in Canada (again, go figure) and so I'm going to try to look into further markets to export them, because they are quite fantastic little things!

The trip there was 7.5 hours- apparently not that bad. I got in with my counterpart by 7pm, and let me tell you, the bus drivers had no remorse for any of in the bus. I took anti-nausea medication for the way back.

Right now we have just over a week of training left. We're all focusing on our individual projects now and are finishing up training things, swearing in on 31 October and headed out to our sites that weekend!

I hope you are all well and to hear from you!

Barbara