I've been in Guatemala less than a week, and already I feel like I could write an entire book about my experiences thus far. My new life feels like a wonderful dream, I couldn't have asked for things to be going better.

After an afternoon of orientation in Washington D.C. we headed to Reagan international airport bright and early for our 6 a.m. flight. We had a layover in Miami, where I had yet another last meal in a small diner near the airport with my brother and Grandmother, who happens to be renting an apartment for the winter in West Palm beach, and made the half hour drive to see me. After saying our goodbyes, I was off to my new home for the next two years.

After a short hop over the pond also known as the Caribbean sea, we touched down in Guatemala City, where we were met by Peace Corps staff. We had a short orientation in the Peace Corps compound in a small town between Guatemala City and Antigua, and then moved in with our new temporary host families. Walking down the street for the first time, I was overwhelmed by the 3 enormous volcanoes which surrounded us. My fellow volunteer Adrian and I went to play soccer in the central park with the family's 2 young sons.

The first few days are a blur, and seem to have happened ages ago already. I remember we had lots of orientation meetings with various Peace Corps people, and several injections by the medical staff. My 31 fellow trainees and I seemed a bit nervous, but very excited, and are all still very cheerful and enthusiastic.

For me, my time in Guatemala didn't truly start until my third day in the country, when we finally moved into our “permanent” (temporary) training communities, where we will live for the next 3 months. I am now living in the municipality of Santo Domingo Xenacoj (pronounced “Shen-ah-koh”), a very traditional Guatemalan town of several thousand families, most of them of indigenous of direct Mayan ancestry.

From my first moments in Xenacoj, I was amazed at the mixture of tradition with modernity. Walking through the streets from the central plaza, where there is a beautiful church and perfectly kept park, across the street is a bustling market, where local produce and fresh bread is sold alongside all types of clothing as well as pirated CDs and DVDs. Spread throughout the center of town are several internet cafes. On the street, most of the women are dressed in traditional hand woven dresses with beautiful colors and spectacularly intricate floral designs. Many walk with heavy loads balanced effortlessly on their heads. On the street, along with the various genres of music playing, one hears a mixture of Spanish with Kaqchiquel (“cack-chee-kel”) the local Mayan dialect whose pronunciation seems to rely heavily on parts of the throat that I never knew existed. Fortunately everyone except the very old seem to speak Spanish, and a greeting of “Buenos dias/tardes/noches” is almost always meet with a smile and a response in kind (I've begun trying to learn the greetings in Kaqchiquel but so far haven't had much luck being understood)

The highlight of my first week in Guatemala has been the wonderful family I am living with, who have already accepted me as part of the family. My 18 year old host sister Jamie (pronounced the same as we'd say in English) patiently showed me around the house the first day. The second sibling is 16 year old Erick—I couldn't believe he has the same name as my own brother Eric! Erick is very friendly and loves music, and we get along very well. The youngest of the family is 12 year old Lupita, who I simply adore. During lunch on the first day, she smiled at me with a mixture of shyness and curiosity. Nonetheless, after I made balloon animals for everyone, she quickly came out of her shell, and has such a happy smile. My host mother and father, Chica (short for Francisca) and Carlos are very kind, and both have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome.

After lunch on the first day, I gave my host family a few small gifts from the U.S.--a calendar with landscapes from the Western U.S., some chocolates, maps of the Steamboat Springs ski area and the New York Subway system, and a bottle of raspberry syrup. The winner was definitely the syrup—everyone (especially Carlos) began eating it at every meal, and within a few days the entire bottle was gone!

The first night they proudly showed me a DVD of the marimba band that Carlos plays in. The traditional instrument of Guatemala, the marimba is like a xylophone, I think the only difference is that it's made out of wood instead of metal. Carlos plays the tambor drums, and they're really an impressive group. Apparently they're going to possibly tour the U.S. This august, it would be great if it works out!

After the DVD, I showed them pictures of my own family from my going away party. (By the way, Mom, they say you have a very nice house!) I showed them a few other pictures from my travels; they were fascinated and asked to see more. I showed them more and more pictures, and they kept asking to see more. They loved the video of me jumping off a cliff into the snow in Steamboat and laughing in delight, as well as the picture of me riding the bike underwater in Utila, Honduras, and Chica keeps talking about the video of me swimming headfirst into the silt while SCUBA diving in the Philippines. I showed pictures for over an hour, and this morning Carlos asked if I'd show them some more tonight!

The other night I taught Lupita, Erick and Carlos how to play “UNO”. They loved it, and we've played a few nights since then. Lupita and Erick picked the game up in a matter of minutes, but Carlos took a bit longer. He kept on getting confused about which card to put down, and Lupita, always the loyal, loving daughter, would patiently explain “Papa, you need to put down a blue or a 7...No, not that...Yes, that works!”

The family is for the most part very traditional and conservative, but with modern influences mixed in. The 3 females all wear traditional clothes, but Jamie has several piercings in both ears and Erick wears Jeans and Abercrombie t-shirts. They have a T.V. With rabbit ear antennae, and I have watched the Simpsons in Spanish a few times with them (although some of the more risque jokes are a bit embarrassing to watch in the presence of Chica). I don't think they have a refrigerator (unless it's somewhere I haven't seen out of the kitchen) and don't have running water. There's one large cement sink outside, but water only comes every other day, and the water for daily use comes from large storage buckets. Adapting to bucket baths hasn't been much of a problem, and if the water is heated on the stove 20 minutes before hand it's not a big deal at all.

The family owns a small second house where they maintain a workshop. They make different clothing items which they distribute both within Guatemala and internationally. Chica brought me over to see it the other day, where I encountered the entire family—including all three children— working diligently on sewing machines. I had a pang of guilt to see little Lupita sitting at a sewing machine and think of her working hour after hour, when she should be out playing like 12 year olds in the U.S. Nonetheless, the entire family must work in order to get by, and fortunately when school starts in a few weeks Lupita and Erick will stop working in order to continue their studies. Jaime has already graduated and is in the process of looking for a permanent job. All three have impressed me with their intelligence and maturity, and with the changes that have come to Xenacoj in recent years I am confident that they will enjoy more opportunities in life than their parents and grandparents did.

The families of the other 3 volunteers in Xenacoj—Adrian, Amanda, and Sarah—are all within the same extended family, and we have all spent lots of time together getting to know the rest of the family. I am slowly learning everyone's names and family relationships. They are all wonderful people and I already feel at home in the others' houses. It is common to just stop by someone's house unannounced and stay and chat for an hour or more drinking coffee. On Sunday I learned how to make corn tortillas at Mama Chica's house (my host mother Chica's mother, the matriarch of the family). After a few attempts I got the hang of it pretty well, so I decided to get creative. While it would never cross the mind of a typical Guatemalan women to make anything but a uniform disk about 5 inches in diameter, I molded the soft dough into the shape of a heart, another into the shape of a moon, and another into the shape of a doughnut. Without saying anything, I put them onto the traditional metal stove where the other tortillas were cooking, heated by a burning log underneath. When someone finally noticed, everyone had a nice laugh. When a Guatemalan has trouble remembering my name, I help them by reminding them of the word “Travieso”, meaning “mischievous”, a word which has somehow stuck as my new nickname!

My first experience with Guatemalan public transportation was quite an adventure. I've been on some pretty crowded buses in my day, or at least so I thought. We started in Xenacol by piling into what in the U.S. Would probably be a 10 passenger van, but had been refitted with tighter benches to squeeze more people in—As we the van was winding through the hills from Xenaxol towards the main highway, I counted no less than 24 people crammed in! I assumed that our next transport—a full sized American school bus—would be more comfortable. Sadly, I was mistaken. I remember, 20 years back, riding the same kind of bus, we would always complain if we had to fit more than 2 of us into 1 bench. Little would I have imagined that in Guatemala, 3 full sized adults are expected to pack the seats, with the overflow standing in the aisles. Old people, women carrying babies, all casually squeezing by each other towards the front or back exit, all the while music blaring in the background. The first trip was a somewhat stressful adventure. I imagine it will become more routine in the future, but I imagine that being a commuter in Guatemala will not be the highlight of my Peace Corps experience.

Last Sunday I joined my family for mass at the Xenacoj Catholic church. The service was bilingual, in both Spanish and Kaqchiquel. We sat way up near the front, and I was rather self conscious of being the tallest person in the building, my head towering far above those of the surrounding Guatemalans. It was a beautiful experience—the sounds of singing, smell of incense, and the sights of people humbly praying on their knees.

In the mornings we go to the “Jardin Secreto”, or Secret Garden, for Spanish class with our maestro Don Felipe. An indigenous man whose native language is Kaqchiquel, Felipe is calm, patient, and funny. I think he we can learn much from him, not just about the Spanish language. He's begun to open up and tell us a bit more about his beliefs and life experiences, specifically his experiences during the Civil War here in which hundreds of thousands of people (predominately indigenous people like himself) were killed, many in genocidal massacres. It sounds like he's lived an interesting life, and I hope to learn more about it, as well as about the history and experiences of the Guatemalan people.

I've made it a personal goal to get back in shape while here. In addition to eating a lot less and a lot healthier (way less meat and way more fruits and veggies, pretty much all of which are organic), I've also taken up jogging in the mornings before class. It's a great way to get to know the area, and I love seeing the various sights of the early morning as I listen to my music and have the opportunity to reflect to myself.

As much as my life has changed in the last weeks and months (!), I'm happy to have the opportunity to settle back into a routine—something I come to crave during my periods of travel and constant change. I'm enjoying the process of adapting to my new life here in Guatemala and have nothing but optimism for my future time here.

The church is right around the corner, and the first bells for evening mass are beginning to ring. The birds are chirping, and I can hear some sort of music playing in the distance. The sun is setting and the clouds are turning orange over the partially finished house next to ours. Life is good.