pucica

INTERNET, YAY!
i just borrowed my neighbor's USB modem.  She's another PCT (peace corps trainee) and i decided it would probably be better to pay her a few quezales here and ther to use her modem rather than buy one for myself because i really dont  need one that bad if i can use her's once or twice a week.  Saves me money - see mom i'm learning!
so hangin out here in a TINY town here in Guate (that's what the locals call it, they cut off the mala). My town is pretty small, we're talking like a quarter mile long, with one row of houses.  I like it though.  my fam bam is pretty cool.  my "mother" is pretty young (less that a decade older than me) and her and her husband live with their two young kids (8 and 4) and the parents of the dad in a small house. They are super nice, and they keep offering me more food, which i guess is a norm here in central america.  But mom and dad you can tell grannie that she has been my excuse for not stuffing my face everytime i eat.  I told my host mom that my grandma told me before i left that i should only eat half of what i'm used to eating in the states (i think she was trying to tell me something :-D). 

speaking of, the food is way better than i thought it would be.  Although, i must say CARB central! last night for dinner i had beans (with a bit of cheese), bread, and a tamalito (corn masa wraped in a corn husk) and for dessert i had a bit of a small root plant that tasted like sweet potato.  it was tasty but yea. whoo, lets just say i'm pretty regular.  They have been pretty good about providing a balanced diet, there's not as much meat as we're used to in the states, but i really haven't minded that much. I thought i wouldn't like the beans, rice or corn tortillas (all the main staples of a guatemalan diet) but when they're cooked well they are yummy. 
oh i also have to note that today for lunch i had "arroz china" or chinese rice.  I told my host mom that i was eating the food of my people.  btdubs, it wasn't as good as my fried rice, but i'll let this one slide.

k, i don't want to type your ears off, but i did also want to say that i start work tomorrow with the municiple health post.  im traveling down to a larger city near by to start working there with their health educator.  it will be practice for when i actually start at my site.  i'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing but i'll try to keep you posted.  My spanish prof said that my group will probably be working with the post more than other groups because since we're at a pretty high level of spanish we're only gonna have another week or two of spanish classes so the teacher can be freed up to tutor struggling students in other groups.  we won't be learning a myan language though until later when we find out where we're posted because there are more than 20 myan languages and they don't want to start teaching us one and then find out that we'll be placed somewhere else... yea...