EST. 2011

The other day I was at my pila , or outdoor sink, washing some dishes. It was a normal day in Guatemala. The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. Everything was as it should be, when I looked over and saw something that was so subtle and often would have been looked over on any other day. However, for some reason I stopped and stared as though I had seen a ghost. It wasn’t anything ghastly by any means. In fact, it was simply three women sitting on a bench inside my house’s patio. Yet, it was whom these three women were that made me do a double take and see, not for the first time, the sad reality some women face in Guatemala. I’ve written before about how overall cultural attitudes towards teen pregnancy often make many young Guatemalan girls into uneducated women by the time their 16 or younger, but this was different. Never before in my 20 months of being a PCV had it been so blatantly spelled out in front of me. Sitting on this bench were my host mother Aura, host sister ...

This is a picture of the street I live on. My windows are the first 2 on the right hand side. The bigger window is my kitchen and the smaller window is where my bedroom is located. I live in the downtown area of my pueblo, so there are always loud motorcycles, trucks, and cars whizzing past my window at every hour of the day. I’ve never before in my life valued the idea that “silence is golden” more than I do now. I look forward to getting back to the states, if for no other reason, so that I will finally be able to work, read, and sleep without Guatemala disturbing me. I’ve made a list of things that have past my windows before 8 in the morning, many of which have woken me up Cattle – Cows, goats, sheep Motorcycles who have tampered with the muffler system so they sound 10x louder Mother’s Day wishes at 5am from a bullhorn mounted on a pick-up truck Bombas - Loud firework esk’ things that are set to explode normally between 12am and 6am. They are very loud and often shake my ...

This photo was taken on the way to one of my farthest out schools. Frank, my site mate, accompanied me on this day as he normally works in the Muni or local Mayor’s office. He wanted to get out of the office for a minute and so he decided to come with me on one of my school visits. He took this awesome photo of me walking at about 6 am in the morning in a village called San Ramon .