Many times during our training we heard the Peace Corps experience compared to a 2 year roller coaster ride, with lots of ups and downs. That analogy certainly seems an accurate description of the last week.

Last weekend, swearing in as official volunteers, was the high point, the culmination of our last 3 months of training. Friday morning bright and early, dressed in our best clothes (in my case much of which was borrowed from my host father Carlos) we all piled into Peace Corps vans en route to the U.S. Ambassador's house in Guatemala City. The house and surrounding lawn and garden were all immaculately maintained, leading to the inevitable remarks about where our tax dollars go. Our host families were all invited as well, and I took a few pictures with Chica, Lupita, Jaime, and the rest of the Xenacoj crew. The ceremony, mixed between English and Spanish with more of the latter, was quite poignant, with speeches by our training director, country director, a representative of the Guatemalan government, the U.S. Ambassador, as well as one of our fellow PC trainees, Jaime. We also got individually recognized in front of everyone with Peace Corps certificates and pictures shaking hands with the ambassador. After the speeches was our swearing in, which consisted of raising our hands and saying the oath in unison, which was virtually identical to the vice-presidential oath Joe Biden took in January. We mingled with our families and other newly sworn in volunteers for the better part of an hour while munching on yummy brownies and finger sandwiches. It really meant a lot to me that after so many years of working towards the goal of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, this dream was finally a reality!

After a final farewell lunch with my wonderful host family, I finished packing up my bags, swapped my slacks, tie and loafers for my one pair of shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals, and hopped on the bus to Antigua (actually, to be correct, it was 3 different buses, but who's counting?)

We spent the weekend having a truly wonderful time in Antigua. We ate out every meal, our last chance to enjoy comfort food, and Friday night I had some of the best Indian food (spicy butter chicken) I've had in a long time. We stayed in a relaxed hostel with a beautiful rooftop terrace and, best of all, free wi-fi! I spent numerous hours online calling my friends and family with skype, watching youtube videos, reading news, and of course updating my very out of date anti-virus definitions (as expected, I discovered I had several new viruses from using my flash drive at the internet cafes here).

Our first night, after some drinks at the Red Tree and then Mono Loco, we went dancing at a club. I'm definitely not much of a dancer but really had a lot of fun. We stayed out until the club closed at 1a.m., by far the latest I've stayed up in Guate so far!

The next day I lounged around in the hostel, went out a few times to eat, sent a few postcards, etc, and not much else. It was very nice. There was a reggae concert at the Red Tree that lots of people went to, but I was still tired from the night before so I only stayed for about an hour.

On Sunday morning, after a final farewell breakfast of all-you-can eat pancakes, we parted ways and headed to our sites. Just getting out of Antigua proved to be a challenge in and of itself, as the festivities for “Semana Santa”, the holy week leading up to Easter, had already begun to fill up the streets, completely screwing up the normal bus routes. Nonetheless, we made it in the end, and after a 3 hour or so bus ride, I arrived in site.

This moment had been in my mind the whole weekend, and it didn't take long for the shock of my new reality to sink in. After all the ceremony and celebration, this was it. I was an official Peace Corps volunteer, and this was my home for the next 2 years. Then again, I didn't actually have a home yet, so finding a place to sleep was my first task. Lucia, the teacher who has been a tremendous help to me, met my bus in the center of town. She had looked around for different housing options, but reported that a group of nurses were currently in town (she didn't know how long they'd be staying for), so there weren't many places available at the moment. We walked around and looked at the three different options she had found, but none of them seemed really great, and the thought of spending 2 years in any of them was frankly depressing. Only 1 actually had a bed already, but was a dark room with only a tiny window and no hot water. I decided to go back to the room I'd stayed in during my site visit. It's not a bad room, but the problem is that there's a corn tortilla grinder about 20 feet from my bed—it sounds like a machine gun and they turn it on and off every 5 or 10 minutes or so throughout the entire day starting around 5 am (or 3am on Wednesday, market day, as I discovered a few days later).

The first few days were really hard. I was still exhausted from the weekend and didn't sleep much at all my first night, which only made me feel more emotional and stressed about things. The thought that kept on running through my mind was “OH SHIT! WHAT HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOURSELF INTO??? I waited 4 years and worked my ass off to spend the next 2 years of my life here?!?” The thought of staying here for 2 whole years just seemed unfathomable. Not just any 2 years, mind you. These 2 years are the very prime of my youth, the years where I have the experience and lack of responsibilities to do anything I want. I'm almost 26 and the years are ticking by, never to return. I'll be 27 when I get out, just around the corner from 30! And me, being the stubborn guy that I am, wasn't satisfied until I got myself put in this forgotten backwater, miles from civilization. More than anything, however, I felt sad and alone in this new place where I barely knew anyone.

A friend of mine who I met in Peru where she was a Peace Corps volunteer doing a very similar project to me, recently wrote me an e-mail with the advice to just focus on making it through every day in the beginning. She said to just focus on the small successes like learning 2 peoples' names. I had arrogantly assumed that with all my experience traveling alone, with all the time I spent waiting to join the Peace Corps, that I would be immune from the hardships, or at least that they would affect me a lot less. Nonetheless, I am now taking Erin's advice to heart and it has helped me a lot this week. I'm trying not to think too far ahead, and am instead focusing on making every day as good as it can be. I visited all 3 schools this week, and am starting to build a rapport with the kids as well as with my fellow teachers.

Wednesday was market day, and I enjoyed walking around from stall to stall, taking in new sites and smells (well, some of the smells were less than enjoyable—e.g. Thousands and thousands of tiny dried out fish). The highlight of the day, however, was when not once but several times I heard my name shouted out through the crowd, always by different children. They were from the schools in the villages I will be working in, and had come to town to help their parents buy and sell. I was delighted that they not only remembered my name, but also felt enough rapport with me to shout my name in greeting.

Every day has felt a little bit easier. I still have times when I feel lonely or scared about things, and I'm sure I'll have lots more tough times ahead, but overall things could be a lot worse, and I have to admite that they really are pretty good. I went to the Chuachioj school today, where I had a great discussion with Luis, one of my fellow teachers, and taught the kids to play capture the flag. They had a great time and all seem to be completely comfortable with me already, which I take as no small victory.

I've started back up my running routine to train for the Coban half marathon next month. I've lost about 20 pounds since arriving in Guatemala, and have also converted a lot of fat to muscle. In 3 months I've gone from being in the worst shape I've been in since my freshman year of college 7 years ago to the best shape I've been in since the last time I cycled across the U.S. I'm more pleased each time I look in a mirror and have a renewed confidence in my body.

I was initially concerned that I didn't see any flat places to run here, and would be forced to kill myself climbing up and down the area's numerous valleys. This afternoon I went for a run and was absolutely elated to find a new road that's exactly perfect. Most importantly it's fairly flat. It's rural, but not so isolated as to be dangerous. It's stunningly beautiful, ´real´ Guatemala in every sense of the word. Running along the dirt road, I passed by fields and houses made of mud bricks, as well as people walking by, most of whom returned my greeting warmly and with a smile. The sky is wide open, with jagged mountains to the south rising from the horizon in the distance. At the end of my hour run, on my way back to town I passed an incredible white colonial church at the top of a hill right as the sun was sinking in the horizon, illuminating the entire sky with a brilliant orange glow. I have no illusions that the next 2 years will be easy, but motivation like that make me think that I may make it after all.