One Month In...

The view of the lake from our hostel. 

Hiking into a meadow for a break during our hike. 

A view from my "office" for the next couple of years. 

Ola a todos y todas. I am about one month into living in my site and while it has been an adjustment (it was pretty easy to get used to someone cooking and cleaning for me) it has been going well. Work is a slow process, I have been able to visit several communities and meet a lot of people who have interest in my project, but we are still working to determine when and how we are going to get started. A great deal of the work is just getting the people to feel comfortable with me and forming a trust there, so it takes a few visits to make this happen. I am settled into my house and am really enjoying it so far. While not having my laundry done and food prepared for me is a drawback, being able to determine my own schedule and having a bit of privacy is definitely a plus. A couple tidbits from the last month:

A couple of weeks ago I was outside at my house doing laundry when a man approached my gate. He told me that he was from a community close to mine, had family that lived up the hill from me, and that they had informed him that a veterinarian lived here—me. It seems that his cow was not producing milk, but instead had blood coming from her udders. He was in my town today and was very happy to discover that a veterinarian, a gringo veterinarian nonetheless, lived here now. After clarifying that I was not in fact a veterinarian, I invited him in and we began to consult some books given to me by Peace Corps about animal husbandry and health. While looking for information, he mentioned that he thought the illness was called mastitis and not 30 seconds later I happened upon a recipe for remedying mastitis in a book of homemade animal remedies. I wrote the recipe down, gave it to him and asked him to let me know how it goes. He asked me how much he owed me, which was nothing since this is what Peace Corps is paying me for. Plus, I don’t need a lawsuit for practicing veterinary medicine without a license, despite the apparent rumors in Guatemala of my qualifications.

For Thanksgiving, I was not able to celebrate due to a meeting with my Junta Directiva on Friday morning, but after the meeting I was able to meet up with a group of other volunteers in my group at a hostel on Lago Atitlan and stayed there for the weekend. The lake was pretty amazing, on Saturday we rented kayaks and paddled out to the middle for a while and took a dip. 

One of the communities that I am working with is about a 2 hour hike, after a 25 minute ride in a pickup, from my house. There is a road in from the back, but from where I am, it is a hike. While that may seem like a bit of a chore, the scenery on the way there is amazing. So much so, that when a friend of mine visited a couple weeks back we decided to make the hike on a Saturday afternoon, just to check it out. She took some pictures which are posted above. Actually, all the photos on this blog are credited to Katie, as I forgot my camera on these trips. 

Well, that is about all for now; I will try to get more updates/photos on here when I can. Enjoy the photos and if I don't get back on here in the next few weeks, a happy holidays to all.