Bienvenidos!

Hola amigos y famila!!! Guatemala es muy bonita. Les Gustan muchos! Escriben en la Rainbow Cafe.

So, today we took a chicken bus to San Juan del Obispo for a community festival. Little did we know that we would be in the parade and the entire celebration itself. While observing the music celebration, some mimes from Clowns Without Borders approached us in hopes of talking us into joining the group in song and dance. We did our best to say "No Gracias", but they didn't take no for answer. They pouted and silently pleaded for our participation..down on their knees. After trying my best to get out of dancing on the basketball court in front of the entire town, I gave in. Cathy, however, wouldn't budge. Which you'll all be happy to know because she filmed the entire escapade on video. We are hoping to post it soon.

This first week revolved around becoming oriented to our new Guate community and our association with Familias De Esperanza (Common Hope). We spent time listening to well respected practitioners in our field of occupational therapy as well as anthropology.

We have made many new friends. Our fellow students include Caithlin, Lacie, Jessica, Mario, Sola, Josie, Laurie, Nicole, Monica, Abby, Kaithlin, and Katrina from Colorada, California, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Mexico. We are a mix of occupational therapy students as well as anthropology students. We look forward to collaborating with people from different disciplines and levels of experience. Our instructors exhibit a wealth of knowledge for us to draw upon in the areas of occupational therapy and anthropology. Monday should be our first day out in the field. This is exciting because we have no idea what treatment will look like. We are expected to be on our feet...think quick...be creative based on our client’s needs. Providing treatment impromtu with potentially limited resources as well non-western perspective will be challenging. This is what every new occupational therapist may hope for...the opportunity to provide treatment without the red tape.

Another great opportunity included with this fieldwork experience is our enrollment in Tecun Uman....a Spanish language School. We attend Spanish classes 4-5 days a week for three hours lessons. As I’m sure you can imagine, this has been both challenging and full of laughter. Our Spanish instructors are awesome! They are patient, charismatic, engaging, and appear to be interested in us personally...not just as another english speaking student trying to learn Espanol.

I, Adriane, had intended to be fluent in Spanish upon my return to the US. However, it appears that I may have been a little too optimistic. Cathy on the other hand will have a good handle on the language given her strong understanding of the language already. If you were to ask her though, she would disagree. The jury is still out...I might surprise myself. We’ll keep you posted.

Living with a Spanish speaking family is muy dificil para me (Adriane). We share three meals a day with the entire family....Jose and Karla Sanchez and their three children. I lucked out in that both Karla and Jose are also Spanish language teachers. So, every meal is a Spanish lesson! I have a love-hate relationship with this reality. I want to improve my Spanish and yet, it is exhausting trying to understand what everyone is saying and come up with a somewhat intelligent response. For example, they asked if I liked what they cooked for dinner one evening, I said in Espanol, “Si, mucho gusto”. Instead of saying, “Si, me gusta”. Instead of saying, “Yes, I like it”. I said, “Yes, nice to meet you”. We all laughed. The funny thing is I know the difference between these two phrases, but I think I was just nervous. They still continue to tease me however. I have my own room with three beds. I sleep with earplugs because there is some strange insect like sound coming from the ceiling and mosquitos buzzing around my ears. Unfortuantely, I had three days in a row in which my stomach was not working as well as I would have liked. Frequent trips to los banos and Ammonium AD (Thanks Alexis...good idea...saved me). Today is a good day though.

My (Cathy) host family is absolutely amazing! I have my own room, spacious and clean...kind of like a single room cottage across a little courtyard. It has a full-sized bed, a table and stool, a bookshelf and a 4-drawer chest for my clothes. Apparently this home has been in Clemencia’s family for decades. It is quaint and I love it! Me and one of the other girls share a bathroom. My host mother’s name is Clemencia and she lives there with her husband and their two sons (aged 10 and 5). We get three meals a day, sometimes they are “tipico de Guatemala” and other times they are more americanized meals. The pan dulce here is absolutely amazing! I am relieved because I don’t think I would be able to sleep in Adriane’s room!

We look forward to your comments and questions. There is still much to tell. But, until next time we hope this gives you a sense of our life here in Antigua.