Un hogar nuevo

Hola a todos! Hello from Guatemala! I arrived yesterday and am safe and sound here, although it has been quite a whirlwind day and a half! I got to the airport yesterday around 5 pm and was ready to check my bags, when I was informed by the man giving me my tickets that he would not allow me to leave the country without a return ticket, because I would most likely be stopped by customs in Guatemala and deported. So I had to buy a ticket last minute. Back to the states. For $400. I was NOT happy about it, but it is fully refundable, so I can use the credit for another trip somewhere else – hopefully back to the states for un poco vacacion :)

After a long and arduous trip, thinking that I lost my wallet (don’t worry I’m just an idiot and put it in a different bag…), and about 15 hours of travelling total, we arrived at the NPH house and were given our housing assignments. Unfortunately I cannot move into my house for another 2 weeks because the old volunteer is stilling living there, but once I move out of the visitors’ house, I will be living with 3 guys and 3 girls. One guy is from Germany and all the rest are American, and 2 of them are married – so cute! My house is REALLY nice, although very cluttered. All of the girls have already talked about it and we’re going to clean EVERYTHING when we can finally move in – I’m very excited – you know how much I like to clean :)

In other news, today was my first day of orientation here. Let’s just say it was a VERY long day of trying to understand a lot of Spanish and getting very confused. However, our volunteer coordinator has very good English and was able to say everything in Spanish and then translate into English. There are 11 new volunteers who started today at NPH – 9 from the US, and 2 from Germany. The English translations are VERY helpful…to most of us anyway :-p and after one day I already feel my Spanish improving – imagine what will happen after a year!

Anyhoo, I just wanted everyone to know that I have arrived safely, that everything is going well, the food is actually a lot better than I was expecting (!), and that todo esta bien. Now it’s time for me to head to a bonfire :) Hasta manana!