Totonicapan

Hi All,

Sorry I haven´t updated in a while. I just moved to my new site and home for the next two years in Totonicapan. Apparently I am now living in the poorest town in the poorest department of the third poorest country in the world, but I´m sure there are lots of different studies with conflicting statistics...nevertheless it´s pretty poor down here.

Last friday we swore in as Peace Corps volunteers, said bye to our host families and moved out to our new sites all over the country. My first host family in Magdalena Milpas Altas was amazing. We had a great time together and it was hard to say goodbye, lots of tears.

I arrived in my new site, a small town in Totonicapan, on Friday and it´s been a bit rough. My host family does not compare to my first family in the least. I live on the 1st floor of a 2 story house and the whole family lives upstairs. There is no reason for me to go up there nor for them to come down so it´s been pretty awkward. I asked them two nights ago if I could eat dinner with them one night this week becasue I want to get to know the family and they said that would be great and that the next night we are having tomales. So the next night came and there were balloons all over the place and lots of people coming into the house..I was getting a little overwhelmed casue I thought you were going to have a welcome party for me but about an hour later the father came downstairs to my room and gave me a tomale and a cup of coffee..I asked what was going on upstairs and it was a birthday party for their 5yr old son. Unlucky.

It has been getting a little better each day. Yesterday a girl from my work invited me to accompany her family for the celebrations for Todos Santos/Dia de los Muertos. So last night I sat on the top of the mountain in a graveyard ontop of mounts of dirt that were covering bodies with a Mayan family. The girl from my work was the only one in the family that spoke Spanish and we spent about 2 hours translating different things between english, spanish and k´iche. It was really amazing to spend some time with a Mayan family and to celebrate such an important day in their culture. They said a couple Mayan prayers and lit tons of candles and we ate in the graveyard with their deceased family.

On another note I have had bananas, tortillas and avacados for my past 4 meals. Down to my last belt loop already.
Anyway I´ve got to run for now, but I´m going to try to post some pictures online soon from the last nights with my previous host family and hopefully a couple from the graveyard.

Matt