Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The main theme in Guatemala the last month or 2 has definitely been: RAIN. I can definitely say I've never seen as much rain in my life as I have since the beginning of August. Last week I went to help some other volunteers give an HIV-AIDS workshop to middle school students in a village a few hours from my site. It had rained a lot the whole week before, and after the workshop we got word from peace corps that we should avoid non-essential travel due to the danger of landslides caused by the rain. This was later moved to a formal stand fast order, meaning we weren't aloud to travel anywhere. I ended up getting stuck with no way to get home for over a week. It was a bit annoying, and also scary--lots of people across the country were killed or hurt in landslides and other accidents. The worst case was a landslide which buried a bus and several cars on the Interamerican highway in Nahuala, only to be followed by a second landslide in the same place which buried dozens of rescue workers trying to save people buried by the first landslide. It was really awful, especially since that was the road I needed to take to get home. Despite the circumstances, I had a nice time hanging out in Xela and the surrounding area and visiting several friends that I hadn't seen in a while. I got to eat lots of amazing food (was introduced to an incredible Indian restaurant in Xela!), play scrabble, and just get a needed break from things here. Despite not having clean clothes after the first few days and getting worried that Tango (my turtle) was home by himself, a trip to the laundromat in Xela and a call to some friends in site to go rescue Tango made me feel like a new man. Putting on a shirt which was still warm from coming out of the dryer was a luxury I hadn't experienced in ages!