From time crunch to time crunch...who handles it better?

As my anticipation to arrive in Guatemala was escalating, my excitement and desire to experience a new culture was growing without bound. Leaving the country I realized why this break is much needed. 1) Even in my last conversations with my family, I found myself arguing about pointless details. 2) The Americans in the airport were visibly 1000 times more stressed than the Guatemalans. 3) On the plane I sat next to an uncle and little boy who spoke English and Spanish so interchangeably that sometimes they were speaking every other word naturally in both languages. This is a skill I am terribly envious of but I find myself wondering if that child actually knows the difference between the two languages.
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I'm officially here and am already busy and learning a ton. I got the airport and through customs in no time...walked right out of the airport into a shuttle which had me to Antigua within 45 minutes. I got to sit in the front seat of the van so I got to talk to the driver who didn't speak English rather than the Americans and Irishman in the back.

Got to CasaSito where I will be working and no one was there! Luckily some of the other volunteers showed up within 2 minutes and they showed me my room. Super tiny but I have already spread out and flooded the entire room with my stuff. By the time I was half done packing, another volunteer came so I went out to talk to them. It turned out that they were 3 of the 4 people I will be working with on a music festival in a nearby village.

The music festival will be on August 2 and it's mainly a choir competition. There will be 5 choirs competing but each will win a donation toward their music program and a musical instrument. After the competition, there will be live music. There will also be some local artisans and food vendors set up. The goal of the festival is to promote extracurriculars in education and to get publicity for CasaSito and the local womens' orgs that will be setting up booths. We'll be advertising a lot this week for it.

Anyway, the other volunteers were practicing for a presentation they were giving tonight for a big Antigua Network meeting where all the NGOs in Antigua get together and update each other on their work and their needs. They warned me not to go because it would be long and boring and they almost had me convinced...then Alice (the head honcho at CasaSito) came and started introducing me to the volunteer's house and she said I should go with them.

I'm really really glad I did. They had presentations from almost 20 orgs in Antigua..some were less interesting but there were a few sustainable development, education, and health programs that were pretty interesting. Afterwards, there was a snack and time to network with the other groups.

I talked with one group, CREA, that does almost the same work as Health in Action (the UM org that I work with...plughia.com) and I started asking the presenter about how he decides what the community needs. He will be a really valuable resource while I'm here I think. He started to explain that they spend about a month or two getting to know the community putting on fun programs for the kids and adults to really gain their respect and confidence. Then, they set up a town meeting and it's easy to get them to tell you what they need and want. CREA offers what they can and serve as a link to the resources the community needs to get their other problems solved.

Another group put out pamphlets (but they didn't present) on the Estufas Mejoradas (the reason I got the grants I got) so I have contact info for them and another organization that uses them and water filters. Hopefully I will be able to get in contact with them while I'm here and they will be a really good resource for HiA as we move into our planning for next year.

Another set of guys work for a group called Encountours which links US university students to volunteer opps in Guatemala. They're also good resources because they know about a lot of the projects going on. For example, they just sent a group to Xela to start the construction of the radio station training center where EGL and I will be going in August. I asked them about how it works...meaning are they just doing construction work or do they be able to get something more out of the experience. They said the group that just got back had an excellent experience and they loved the coordinator. I guess, they got to hear endless stories about the history of the war between the indigenous populations and the newbees. The coordinator even set up a 'guerrilla lunch' where they ate what would have been eaten during the war and got to hear all about the history and talk to a lot of local people. So, I'm really excited for that program.

Anyway, finished with that and back at the house now. Just met the other girls living here. We're going out tonight to an American bar where it's ladies night and they have lots of salsa music.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take the morning to get acquainted with Antigua, do some grocery shopping and stuff. Then in the afternoon, I'm going to check out one of the girl bands who may be playing at the music festival.

There's a lot of flexibility to do what I want so I need to make sure I can keep myself structured. I will work on that tomorrow morning too...start to set some schedule. Let me know if you have any suggestions.