Making progress

Somehow, this is our last week working together in the office! We leave on Sunday for a 12-hour trip to visit a few communities in Rabinal, where we’ll be until Wednesday, and then Darcy heads back to the states on Thursday, immediately after we return. I’ll still be here for another 10 days after that, but we’re hoping to get as much done this week as possible, while we’re still both here. We’ve had to modify our work plan a LOT since we started our Fellowship, and a lot of the work we’ve done will serve as a jumping-off point for much bigger projects to come! Here’s a break-down of what we’ve accomplished this summer…

Whirlwind week!

It’s been a crazy week, full of community visits, traveling, and exploring new places. My apologies for such a long delay between blog posts – there never seems to be enough hours in the day here, and my internet has also been spotty thanks to the low pressure system that’s been sitting over us for the past week or so. Silly me, just because it didn’t torrentially rain for two days last week, I thought that rainy season might be over…but this week’s monsoons have proven that that’s clearly not the case…

Ethical Dilemmas

My fellowship has not been without challenges – with the most difficult challenge being navigating the fine line between exploitation and assistance that constantly overshadows this – and all other – forms of development work. Though I’ve thought about this issue constantly, I still haven’t been able to figure out exactly where I stand, and I’m expecting my thoughts and perceptions to continue to evolve throughout the last few weeks of my time here.

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…