Tortillas are life

"you have tortillas in the US right?" "no" "well then what do you eat?" "meat, veggies, fruit, rice, pasta, the same stuff as here, just without tortillas" "do you have corn there?" "yes" "well what do you do with the corn?" "eat it" "but you dont make tortillas?" "nope!"
-a conversation Ive had more than once here in Santiago!

So it has been a while since Ive blogged.. here is a quick update on my past several weeks!

In the city we had a 4 day meeting with all the MCCers and partners here in Guatemala and El Salvador. It was like an advanced class in spanish! It was a great time for me to practice my spanish and learn a lot about planning and developement within the projects MCC has here in Latin America.
After this reunion, I had another week of orientation with our country representitives. It was a relaxing week of preparation before heading to my permanent placement!

And now here I am, in Santiago Atitlan!
I wake up in the mornings around 7am to the sound of roosters, dogs, and the clapping hands of tortilla making. I know that this is my cue to join my host sister Concepcion in the kitchen and help her make tortillas for the entire day! She doesn´t speak very much spanish, but I try to help out and do things with her when I can. She´s super nice and it will be interesting this year to see how our relationship can develope with few words try and share our lives. I leave for work around 9am with another worker for ANADESA, and we ride in the back of a pick up truck to the location of ANADESA in Panabaj. Takes about 30 mins or so after all the waiting, driving, and walking. But the journey is always entertaining as the lake and volcanoes amaze me every morning.

Work varys from day to day. Right now Im learning the ins and outs of the organization and trying to help out where I can. I work some days in the office doing organizational stuff, cleaning, and getting oriented. One day we worked out in the tree nursery that they have growing out back. 3 days a week i work with the kids program in the afternoons, we do crafts, and help the kids with their reading, writing, and math skills. I already have some new ideas for the kids program! I also am teaching english classes on mon and thurs to my co-workers and anyone else who is interested in joining. It is actually really rewarding. They are very eager to learn so that they can talk with the groups who come from US and Canada. One day I also met all the women who are apart of the ANADESA womens program. They do beadwork, making jewelry and keychains which they sell to the tourists.

Our ANADESA team is made up of 3 teachers (Tono, Juanita, another Concepcion) that managed the adult and children programs, and then 2 women (Josefa and Estela) who manage the womens program, and then our director Juan. I am loving my time with them. Sometimes after work we´ll go into downtown Santiago and drink atol and eat tostados in the park. One day I went with to of the girls to a neighboring town on the lake and had lunch and sat by the beach. I also met some people in my neighborhood who like to play soccer! So weve been playing every saturday and Im even going to join a team sometime in the next few weeks. Im really excited to play soccer here and its fun to have a way to connect with the community.

In the evenings I come home and have supper with my family. My host brother-in-law, Javier does speak spanish so we have some good conversations. The only trouble is that in this indiginous culture they women don´t have a lot of say. So I was hoping that Javier would involve his wife in the conversations, and translate from Tzutuil to Spanish, but a lot of times he does not. This is difficult for me to witness and will be a challenge this year. I also have a younger nephew named Antonio, who doesn´t speak much spanish either but it really fun to play with. He does know the phrase for "lets play cards" because I brought UNO for the famliy and now he wants to play every single night. I think I´ve played more UNO in the past week than in my entire life. They are also interested in learning some english and of course force a lot of Tzutuil on me to learn! Ive been here a little over a week and already know a good amount of common phrases and a few animals in their language.

Another interesting thing about living in this community is that at the moment we don´t have running water. So about 3 times a week we have to carry water back to the house and fill up buckets and our "pila" which is kind of like a sink that they use to wash dishes, hands, hair, ect. I usually try to help and they taught me how to carry the water on my head. The people get a good laugh as I often spill some on head. I have some pictures that I will have to post at a later time.

I thought that being short and having dark features would help me fit in more, but I still stand out quite a bit because Im the only woman not wearing the traditional dress. Sometimes I feel like an animal on display at the zoo as everyone comes out of their houses to stare at the gringo playing with the kids, walking down the street, playing soccer, or attempting to carry water on her head. But overall I am having a great experience and feel really welcomed and loved here in the community!
Thanks for all the prayers and support!

"so you don´t know how to make tortillas?" "no, Ive been learning this week" "does your mom in the States know how to make tortillas?" "no"
- another conversation I had

and with that I´ll end, here... tortillas are life.