Estoy en Guatemala! Que Fantastico!

I am in Guatemala!
Wow what a week it has been. At last I have a few minutes to sit down at an internet cafe and let everyone know what I have been up to.
The journey here was looong but we made it. When we finally arrived in Guatemala we were all tired but SO excited. I absolutely couldnt wait to set foot outside, my first time outstide of the US woooo! We took a bus out of Guatemala City, stopped on the way to eat our first Guatemalan meal, and continued to Xela where we are all staying. At the restaurant Kim told us who we would be rooming with. I am living with Allie! I was so excited. When we arrived in Xela our families were waiting for us. I am absolutely love my family here. My moms name is Judith and she is absolutely HILARIOUS and awesome and caring and she adopted us right away. We also have 2 host sisters, they are actually not the daughters of Judith but they live in her house. Anna is 26 and Sara is 21. Judith also has a son, Luis, who is around all the time but does not actually live there. I love all of them. On our first day there we met in the Central Park and got to explore the town a little bit. It is absolutely beautiful here in a way soooo different than the United States. That night Allie and I went out to eat with our mom and Luis. The food here is great. The restaurants are interesting and have a lot of great options. Also, Judith is an AMAZING cook. For breakfast she makes pancakes or eggs and beans. For lunch lots of vegetables, potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, celery, peppers, always rice, sometimes soup. Yesterday we had lentil soup, steamed carrots and rice. Today we had cauliflower dipped in egg and cheese stuffed mini pumpkins!!! The big meal of the day is lunch so we just have leftovers or go out for dinner. OH and mama overheard Allie and I talking about how much we love peanut butter and she went out and bought some for us! Oh my gosh it is sooo good, made right from scratch. This morning we had pan integral con mantequilla de mani y marmelada de durazno. Which in English is whole wheat bread with peanut butter and peach jam. Not at all that different from what I eat every day in the US!
Anyway, Monday was our first day of school at Casa Xelaju. We were all paired up with our teachers and off we went to our classrooms. The name of my teacher is Lucky and I really like her a lot. We have school from 8 to 1030, a small break for coffee, tea, and bread, and then we return til one. It is crazy having a one on one learning experience. Soooo much Spanish. And it is so different in the US because I cant ask what does this mean or just resort to English. It is good for me though I can feel myself improving already! Being surrounded by Spanish and having to speak it constantly is exhausting but fantastic!
On Wednesday a bunch of us went out to a club to learn how to salsa and oh my goodness it was soooooo fun. There were I think 4 guys who were teaching and they would stand in the front of everyone and everyone would just do their best to follow as the teachers rotated around each side of the room. Then they let everyone do their own thing for like an hour. One of the teachers asked me to dance and he taught me to how to salsa. We danced almost the entire time and I learned so much it was so fun. Then they started playing pop music like all of the stuff played in the US so we danced to that for a while. Most of our group left after a couple hours but Allie and I and a few others stayed to dance more! After the pop music they cleared the dance floor and three of the salsa teachers picked girls to dance with. Two of them were with Guatemalan girls who were really good and the main teacher guy came and picked me! aaaahhhhh it was so crazy he was so good and I had no idea what I was doing but I just pretended like I did! My friends said it was so fun to see me out there with this Guatemalan salsa man haha it was great!
Anyway, there is just way too much for me to post in a blog. I am having so much fun and experiencing so many new things. I feel like Ive been here way longer than 5 days!
This weekend we are going to for an overnight stay at a lake that is a couple of hours away. I heard it was beautiful and I am so excited!
I hope to update soon because there is so much to share!

uggghhhh I just tried for SO long to upload pictures but its not working! Maybe next time...

Adios Amigos!

I can hardly believe it. TODAY'S THE DAY!!! I'm packed and ready and have about a million butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. In a mere 10 minutes I'm headed over to the HUB for our campus send off. It is so weird, I feel like this day was just a dream, something in the far distant future that wasn't really a reality. Well it is a reality and that far off date is happening right now.
I have never felt so anxious, terrified, and ecstatic in my entire life. I am also asking myself, "what the heck did I get myself into? Can I do this?" YES I CAN. I've been praying like crazy and God keeps reassuring me that I wouldn't have been chosen for this trip and everything wouldn't have worked out if it wasn't his plan for me to be going. So I'm diving head first into this adventure woohoo!
The next 30 hours are going to be interesting. Our send off is at 4pm, we load the vans at 4:30pm, our flight leaves Spokane at 7:45pm, we arrive in Seattle at 8:45pm and then depart for Houston at midnight. We arrive in Texas at 4am and leave for Guatemala at 8am. We will arrive there around noon. From Guatemala City we then drive 7 hours to our final destination, Chela, arriving at about 8pm. I am praying for safe travels!
I can't wait to meet my host family and start language school!
Voy a Guatemala! Adios Amigos!

Ridiculous or not...?

Wednesday Dec. 7 2011

I am safely back in Spokane and for the past few days my fellow CASPians and i have been doing a little pre-departure training. It was great to see them all after our break and I am excited as ever to embark on this journey with them. It has also been great to see my friends not going on the trip and spending time with them before I leave.

As we all returned and started talking about our journey conversations arose about which bags we were all taking and how much stuff we were bringing along. I soon came to realize that uh...I might have packed a little too much. It was my understanding that I needed a big hard core backpack, a smaller backpack for day use, and a satchel type purse thing. Since I have never really traveled before and didn't really know what I was doing I kinda just started throwing things together and throwing them in my bags. My mom did a lot of shopping for me for things like shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, bug spray, etc (thanks mom!) and I also recieved a bunch of stuff for Christmas. However, these bottles were rather large and needless to say my cosmetics bag and bag of medicine were really heavy and taking up a LOT of room. I had stuffed my backpack, my big pack, and my satchel and it was almost impossible to carry all three. I made it to Spokane but then I saw that almost everyone just had there big bag and a purse and I said to myself, "dang...what the heck am I going to do?"

I decided to enlist the help of my dear friends Taylor, Alex, and Peter who are all well traveled and who i figured could help me maybe consolidate some of my stuff. During a break in one of our training sessions I had them come to my room and assess my situation.

They were appalled. Not only did they mock half of the things I had packed but the fact that i had neglected to loosen the straps on my pack to expand it was unforgiveable. i had no idea what all those straps and buckles were for, who knew they did so much!?!? and they also showed me all these little pockets and zippers it was amazing! Taylor proceeded to repack my bag, trying to fit the contents of both bags into the big one, while Alex ripped through my stuff and chucked all the things he found ridiculous at me insisting that we make a pile and take a picture...Some of the "ridiculous" things included a big mirror (totally my mom's idea). burt's bees facial moisturizer with royal jelly (Alex: "ROYAL JELLY!?!? What is this? You won't even be washing your face in Central America!!!"), like 8 balls of yarn (haha yes that I suppose was rather excessive but I really like to knit okay?!), big bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc. which Peter exclaimed that I could just buy down there.

My response to this was "why don't friends who have traveled a lot help out other friends who don't know what the heck they're doing!?!" And Peter said "Friends who don't know what they're doing need to tell us they don't know what they're doing."

Dang wish i had thought of that sooner.

HOWEVER, after ditching some stuff and learning how to properly pack a backpack I think I am set to go with my big bag. Once we had it all packed they wanted me to put it on and make sure it fit. It was so heavy and huge and when i put it on I felt like I was going to topple over! Alex picked up on this and proceeded to punch my bag so that i would go toppling to the ground. He finds it very entertaining and pushed me over at least six more times. He calls it "turtle" because with the huge pack as my shell I lie there like a turtle unable to get up...he better not keep this up when we get there...

Tomorrow is our last day of pre-departure training and we are going through the syllabus woohoo! Gotta get to bed soon so I can be rested and ready! 

This is Alex tipping me over...

All of the things my friends deemed ridiculous
and are making me leave in Spokane

Both of these were PACKED when I arrived in Spokane.
With the help of my dear friends I have consolidated down
to the huge pack instead of both
...however the huge pack is well...rather huge

Alex trying to fix my bag and
mocking my imcompetency

We got it!

I was sad to give up my yarn and burt's bees but at least I only have to carry one pack now!

ADVENTURES TO CENTRAL AMERICA!!!

Hello everyone! I have decided to create a blog so that all of my wonderful friends and family can follow my adventures in Central America! Tonight is my last night at my home in Newberg, OR before I depart for Spokane for our pre-departure retreat at Whitworth and then on Friday I leave for Guatemala. I am traveling with 18 other Whitworth students in a program called CASP (Central American Study Program). We are traveling to 5 Central American countries in this order; Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. We will spend about 3-4 weeks in each place. In each place (except Honduras) we will be accompanied by a Whitworth professor. In Honduras, we will be split up and put in rural homestays by ourselves aaahh!

 There is so much about this journey that is completely unknown, the faculty team keeps telling us to "embrace the ambiguity." I usually like to know what's going on so this has been somewhat of a struggle but at the same time it is so refreshing. I have never been out of the United States and have absolutely no idea what this international adventure will be like. All I know is that it's going to be AWESOME and I'm soooo excited! I just finished packing my 70 liter backpack which I shall be living out of for the next five months, another very big change. I'm really hoping I don't forget anything...

My mom asked me today what I'm expecting to gain from this trip and to be honest, I didn't really have a direct answer. Like I said before i really have no expectations so its hard to determine what exactly I plan to achieve/gain/learn BUT after a little thought here is what I have come up with:

1. I am so excited to be exposed to new cultures, traditions and people. I want to learn how to embrace other cultures and become a part of foreign traditions.

2. SPANISH I can't wait to better my ehem not so great spanish speaking skills

3. I can't wait to learn the ins and outs of travel, how to communicate with the natives, what to eat, where to stay, etc.

4. Some would say (alright almost everyone who knows me would say) that I sometimes tend to get a little stressed out when deadlines approach, when busyness overwhelms, when huge tests and assignments threaten my sanity, on and on. BUT i am looking forward to a new learning experience as a student this next semester. I plan to learn by completely immersing myself and learn from experience. The best part? NO PLANNER. It's going to be so different from my insanely routine, planned and dedicated school life and i think it will really change me as a student and possibly my approach to college :)

God has so much in store for me and this short list just touches on what I'm sure I'll learn. There are so many things I didn't mention and if I were to blog about everything I'm looking forward to I would be up all night. I hope that I can update this blog fairly frequently so that I can share my experiences with everyone. I will be praying for everyone back at home and I hope that you all will keep me in your prayers as well!

I am so excited for this adventure CENTRAL AMERICA HERE I COME!!!!