Monday, Monday! Got up early, met Patti at 6:50am, got a Tuk Tuk (kind of like a go cart type taxi) to the gas station at the edge of town, and got picked up at 7:15 by Flavio, our program director. We had a special day planned since it was a holiday. We went to San Vincente Pacaya, the home of a current ecotourism volunteer, Miguel. We made some short stops along the way to talk about crops, harvest times, and other things like that. The purpose of our visit was to see the life of a current volunteer. So we first went to his house. We got a tour and talked a while about his life in Guatemala. He was fortunate to inherit a family in his town from the previous volunteer. I saw this as the most important thing I could learn from him. He put it simply: the family there became his family and he would not dream of leaving there before his time was over. The son is his best friend, the mom cooks all his meals, the host sisters do his laundry and clean his place, etc. Anyway, we were in his house drinking coffee when we felt an earthquake. It wasn't major but it lasted a minute and literally shook us up. We all went outside after/during it because we didn't know if it was over or not. Kind of scary since there was just a major earthquake in Haiti killing hundreds of thousands.
After checking out his house and office in the municipality, we headed to his worksite at the Volcano Pacaya, which hosts thousands of tourists a year. We learned more about his specific duties, had lunch, and then headed to PC headquarters to discuss with the other group that went to a different place the similarities and differences of the experiences we saw. This was a good experience to really see what the next couple of years could be like.
Got home kind of late and had a family dinner, where Siomi's boyfriend updated us all on his cousin's situation. Apparently he can't see or talk, but is still alive. It was hard to excuse myself from the table, but I finally did.
Adios!
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