All Volunteer Conference

So day two of a two and a half day All Volunteer Conference.  What does that mean? Well last week we got an email saying that all volunteers needed to be in Xela to attend a conference to discuss new options for volunteers who wish to leave early.  I guess Guatemala (along with Honduras and El Salvador) is too violent to keep going with business as usual.  That means that two groups of volunteers equaling about 70 people are being forced to leave up to 4 months early because they need the numbers of volunteers to drop drastically (right now we're at about 220 and they want us to be down below 120).  A lot of these volunteers are in the middle of infrastructure projects which means that for a majority of them, the families that were promised stoves or latrines or floors or whatever are now not going to receive them.  All this plus the volunteers were notified only a few weeks or months before they were to leave, not giving them enough time to either train volunteers what would replace them or to wrap up the loose ends that are hanging around from their service. It's kinda a bummer if you ask me (or any other volunteer really).

What it also means is that all the volunteers in the majority of departments (like US states) are going to be moved to the "Central Western Highlands" which indecently is exactly where I am located. So a bunch of volunteers who have been in site for a year or like me 7 months or others who have been in site for the past  3 months are being relocated and have to start all over in a new site.  It sucks for everyone pretty much.  Which is why we were offered the option of early Close Of Service.  This lets us dig out now and receive all the benefits of a volunteer who has served the entire service.  We also have the option of re-enrolling in a different country and starting the whole service over.

So needless to say this All Volunteer Conference was TENSE.  People were pissed off.  Not quite as pissed as a meeting that the group who was told earlier this month that they were to COS in a month's time.  I hear through the chisme mobile that there were F bombs dropped at the country director and personal attacks were made to the staff.  At least this time <most of> that was kept in check.

Me personally? I'm not super stoked about my site.  I'm not in a relocation zone so I'm not getting a new site. One option is to move down to the Muni (kinda like if I were to move from Waimanalo to downtown or from Ralston to Omaha). I'm actually leaning more toward this option because I would be around more volunteers and have things to do there. In my aldea there is nothing and I am a city girl I don't know what to do with myself in the country.  Another option would to take the early COS and re-enroll in another country.  This option is super tempting because how cool would it be to get to do this all over again in another country? At least I think it's cool, a lot of my peers would not be down for that.  Not to mention all the security issues and new rules that are going to be put in place that could make my service a pain in the arse.  I also know that I am in that period of service where everything sucks.  Talking to other volunteers they say that they were thinking of leaving (with or without the early COS option) at this point in service but that now they're really glad they stayed. So balls up or move out? 

Stand fast.... again

So as promised i got another blog entry done and with less than a day to spare.  the other two resolutions are going so so. i did study some ki'che' this week (not quite 3 hours worth but some).  and my friend said i could have her GRE book when she's done taking the test.  so there's a start.
right now i am chillin in my bed on a lazy sunday afternoon.  I was invited to an evangelical church service that was supposed to be today but i didn't go.  i was really excited to go too, but last night i couldn't sleep (i think i fell asleep around 430) and the service was at 9.  i really wanted to go because i heard evangelical services here are intense. the whole 9 yards: screaming, yelling, crying and of course praising the Lord. Its interesting because the family that invited me seems pretty low key so i was real interested.  Anyway, i traded in some intense Lord loving for some intense z's. That is until the host fam decided to get up and yell across the yard at each other and rev up the pick up truck for 15 mins which of course drove mono (the dog) nutz.  so it was also a slightly restless morning.

good thing we're on standfast again! meaning for the 5th time in as many months PC/G has issued the order that we are not to leave our site for the weekend.  This is actually a good thing for my wallet.  i would probably have been hanging out in Xela on Saturday drinking coffee and aprovecharing the free fast WiFi that & Cafe has in the parque central.  Then it would be off to a comedor lunch and then of course there's always pasaje to get back to site.  i may have dropped about 100Q in the day (~$15).  in stead, i hung out here.  I made some delicious Kim Chee fried rice.  SOOO good. I still have a bit of Kim Chee left so i'm thinking repeat performance.

As far as work goes... well eh. Actually, during the restless hours of the morning i was thinking about starting a girls group with the high school girls here.  kind of a before school (they only go to school in the afternoons), hang out fun sesh.  it seems like a lot of work so here's hoping that i have the ganas to pull it off.  other than that, i have the health promoter group rolling.  we have another meeting at the end of this month.  I also had a meeting with my unofficial counterpart who works for a NGO run out of Xela and it was a fairly productive meeting.  I'm going to start working with her more in one of the other aldeas (towns/villages) so we'll see what that future holds.  I think the people there need a bit more help than a lot of the people in this other aldea where my site mate is working.  its going to be tough work.  lets get 'er to it.

shooties.

New Year's resolution

So I'm going back and forth about new years resolutions.  i have a few in mind and i think that the smart, responsible thing would be to just go with all of them but i'm kinda lazy... so i'll prioritize and make sure that at least one of them happens.
1. would have to be study for the GRE.  i'm thinking i need to get my life together and as it stands its looking like that will involve taking the GRE.  I have no study materials and my english vocabulary is going to shit (thanks to my limited spanish and even more limited kiche vocab) but if figure if i start within the next few months i'll be ready to go by end of summer/fall. Since this is going to help out my future i think this should be priority numero uno.
2. is to study Kiche a three hours a week.  maybe an hour every other day.  i really feel like i should know more than i do.  its not like its a super hard language, i just don't put the time into learning it.  maybe less facebook more kiche.  who am i kidding... less facebook?!
3. and the third and only one that i have completed so far in this, the first week of the year, is to blog at least once a week.  it is going to be hard. seeing as how i've blogged super sporadically throughout the last 8 months.  my bad. but at the core the resolution is to be more consistent with the blogging so hopefully it will at least work out to every other week.

wish me luck.