Swearing in, Party @ Antiguas and Settling in.

It took o nly about 40 seconds this past friday the 18th when the vice ambasador swore us in to become actual Peace Corps Volunteers. After, the whole group headed to Antigua to celebrate for the weekend. We said goodbye to our host parents of three months and headed for a funfilled weekend of drunkedness and happyness. I stayed at Kafkas along with Jessica, Kaying, Tim and Jane, and that night we celebrated at the famous Mono Loco, along with some other clubs I cannot remeber right now. Apparentlly it is dangerous to let 31 Peace Corps Trainees who have been housed in for three months loose. That night plenty of us were "BOLOed" or drunk.



We continued the party until Saturday night when we saw an awesome live Rock cover band. The band did plenty of Los Fabulosos Cadillac songs to have us jumping on top of each other, the energy in the room was fun and intense.
La SaLa, Antigua.
That Sunday was as depressing ad stressful as ever, Peace Corps IS a Rollercoaster Ride of emotions. With all the fun that weekend, everyone purposefully had forgotten they had to travel alone to their site with all their luggage. I personally had to take a shuttle to the Capital and a Pullman from there to Xela.

I didnt arrive to Xela until 7 pm that night making it too late for me to get to my site which is one hour north of Xela. I decided on staying in Casa Argentina which is a big Hippie Hangout in Xela and where the rooms are really cheap. Luckily 6 others from the group where also staying at the Hostel that night and were traveling the next day.
Casa Argentina Xela...

Casa Argentina, Xelaju, Guatemala, reminding people to clean after themselves

Settiling in has been O.K so far, I visited my site two weeks ago so the brunt of Culture Shock already has eased into my mind. I have been here almost three days and I have already started to work in some of my schools. I have also begun to look for housing for the next two years.

An hour ago I just finished giving a presentation to about 150 parents of students. Intense. Intense, Intense. Specally when you are a starnger in a community of people that have been oppresed for over 500 years. I was advised by the locals in My town San Vicente Buenabaj NOT to look at, or take pictures of children because of the bad reputation Guatemala has of children being stolen for illegal adoptions. But not too worry I am still ok, and I think I will be.