I haven't written in a while and wanted to write a quick post before I get too far behind.

I decided on a whim to run the Antigua half marathon last month. I was worried because I'd barely run since Coban 3 weeks earlier and felt that I'd gotten out of shape. To my surprise, I cut my time from Coban by 16 minutes to 1:40 min. It was an awesome day! Despite the cobblestones, it was a lot flatter and felt wonderful the whole day afterwords.

I spent the next week at the Peace Corps center, the first few days having training/meetings for our 'reconnect' 3-4 months after swearing in, and the next 3 days receiving K'iche classes.

I spent the weekend having fun in Antigua, and on Sunday headed home with some groceries, a new toaster (which has been more exciting than you can possibly imagine), and TANGO, my tiny new pet turtle!

Besides having a new pet, the other big recent news is getting a new site mate, Courtenay. I've really enjoyed hanging out and getting to know her, and it's nice to have someone here that really understands the difficulties of PC life, and to speak in English to. We hang out at each others house, get meals together, go in to Quiche to hang out, etc. My only concern is that hanging out too much with Courtenay will be detrimental to my community integration, but so far we've expanded each other's Guatemalan social circles by introducing each other to our Guatemalan friends. Courtenay works at the health center, so I've met a lot of new people there through her.

My 26th birthday was a few weeks ago and it was very memorable. Courtenay and Jose, a Guatemalan friend of ours, woke me up at 5:50 with firecrackers outside my window--a Guatemalan tradition. Later, my friend Anthony called me, and had his entire English class serenade me with a heavily-accented version of Happy Birthday! That night I hosted a dinner of BBQ chicken and curried vegetables with Minga and Lorenzo--a middle-aged couple I've befriended, and Jose (Courtenay was unfortunately sick with Amoebas at the time). It was a birthday I won't soon forget!

Work continues to move forward. I've been teaching classes about nutrition for the last few weeks, and am coordinating a trip for all my 3 schools to visit a school in the area that's already been working with the program for several years and has already been certified as 'healthy' at the end of the month. I've also attended several parents meetings at 2 of my schools to introduce myself and give a little presentation about the healthy schools program, my recommendations for projects and how I can help them move forward with them, etc.

I'm headed to Guatemala City tomorrow, then flying north to Colorado the day after. This Friday I'm going to be best man in my good friends Aaron and Aneta's wedding in Steamboat! Then next week they're coming here to Guatemala for their honeymoon! It's going to be a great 2 weeks, more to come soon.