Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Halfway point!

So tomorrow marks exactly one month since I arrived in Guatemala. Bad news for all of you back home: I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to leave. There’s something about Guatemala, and the people who live here, that just sticks with you and doesn’t let you ever forget.

Darcy and I have had a wonderful time over the past week spending time with new friends and exploring the lake. We’ve made a great group of friends here – locals, volunteers, visitors – and almost every evening, we gather at our friends café to play bilingual scrabble. We were considering taking some Spanish lessons at one point, but we realized that spending a few hours each evening playing scrabble and just talking with friends is about as good of language practice as we’re going to be able to get! Not to mention the amazing coffee that I’m slowly becoming addicted to…

Friday, June 24, 2011

Community Visits - Chuacruz, Morales, and Santiago

This week, we had our first community visits – to Chuacruz, Morales, and Santiago – and the experience was eye-opening, humbling, and truly something that I could never have prepared myself for. I’m still not really sure how to organize my thoughts about such a jam-packed week, but here goes (sorry in advance for such a long post!):

Berkeley in the World!

Check out the new BERKELEY IN THE WORLD BLOG - just launched today! The blog features Cal students living and working all over the world this summer - from India to DC to just in the Bay Area - and I'll be writing about my experience with Nest and Oxlajuj B'atz' while I'm here in Panajachel.