it's been a month!!

hi lovely friends and family!!!
i hope you are all well on this fine saturday! i'm hanging out at the cuerpo de paz office on the computer.. watching that victor borge video, thanks padre! he's real funny! anyways, the past couple days have been fuun. i'm trying to remember what i've been doing. hm. on tuesday we had technical training in the morning.. and then ate lunch and then in the afternoon we had a speaker talk about different forms of activism and community action. he had spent a lot of time working for a newspaper that investigated corruption in the government for a number of years. then now he's working with communities at a grassroots level, which is what we will be doing in our individual communities.. facilitating conversation, community mapping, getting to know what kinds of projects are most important to them. our position is on the sidelines, our position is to figure out what is most important to the community and then help them gain access to resources. i'm really excited about it! the guy talking was really smart, he had multiple different levels of how he thought about the world, cultivated probably over years of his thinking. i wish i could share, but i don't really remember too much. i just remember it was really fascinating!
then after that, i played basketball for awhile outside, that was wonderful. brings back so many memories of childhood with all the basketball i used to play with you, jenny!!! que mas? tiara, sidney, robyn and i missed the bus, so we came back sort of late that night.. which they always encourage us not to be out after dark.. muy peligroso, very dangerous! but we were good to go! then i ate some chicken soup for dinner with lots of veggies and tortillas. and then i think i went to bed. it was a long day of travels and learning.
then the next day, we had spanish class in the morning and learned about medicinal plants and herbs!!! that was soo interesting! and then we went to robin's homestay and her mom showed us the different plants because she was organizing hundreds to sell in guatemala city this weekend. then she was so kind to give us a group of the seven traditional guatemalan medicinal herbs- one was for healing your stomach, another was for cleansing your spirit, another was for diarrhea, another was a healing and cleansing the body, i can't remember the others, but it was really fascinating and she was so kind for giving us a bouquet of them!
that night i ate some dinner with my homestay family and then played cards with my homestay brothers for a couple hours! we had soo much fun playing. as i'm learning more spanish, we can really joke around with eachother about winning and losing and our cards and everything. it's so much fun!! then i went to sleeeep after that
que mas? the next day we went to the cuerpo de paz office to have technical training.. there was a presentation given by two volunteers about how to choose what types of topics we wanna teach about in our schools. and then they told us all about a week long sports camp that they planned like 4 months in advance. the presentation made me kind of nervous with everything because they were super duper achievers, but it will be okay. we'll all find our place and what works for us and what works for our community. it will all be good in good time!
let's see, that afternoon.. our spanish class, consisting of me and the three other volunteers from san mateo, watched a movie called El Norte. it was an incredible incredible movie about a brother and sister who lose both their parents to the guatemalan military who invaded their pueblo one night. so they get some money from their godmother to escape to the north- the mexico and eventually los angeles, which is what many guatemalan refugees did during the civil war here. it was an incredible movie, i would suggest you guys to watch it if you can get it. it's so tragic though, it is so sad. but it's very honest.
then that night we missed that early bus again, so we waited for a little over a half an hour at the bus stop for our bus to san mateo. then returned back to my homestay and ate dinner with my homestay family.. then i played uno againnn. we had a good time, i think i won a whole bunch! went to sleep.
hm, and we are up to yesterday.. what happened yesterday? i slept in til 9.. oh that was marvellous.. it's been weeeeks since i've slept in past 7 a.m.! then me and the 3 other san mateo volunteers hung out for a while and talked and studied espanol and talked some more. then we went to the school that we've been working at the past few weeks. we've been playing english games with them and observing the classroom and everything and meeting all the students. my homestay brother and sister are in the classrooms that we are working with, so that's cooool! and then later that day all 54 students and us fit into a classroom, ate popcorn and drank coca cola and watched parts of apocolypto.. which is based roughly on the history of the mayans. the subtitles were in spanish, so that was sort of tricky, but luckily most of movie is visual. then we helped clean up a little bit and went back to our homes.
me and my homestay family ate dinner together and then we played cards again and then i talked to dylan on the phone <3! and then went to sleeeep!
this morning we walked to santa lucia, where the peace corps office is.. had beans and bread for breakfast and left for santa lucia at 630 a.m. sidney robin and i walked for about 45 minutes up and down the mountainous roads, past the farms and arrived in santa lucia!!
this morning we were so incredibly lucky to be able to take part in a mayan ceremony.. i have to think about it more before i talk about it. i'm listening to seinfeld stand up while i'm writing this so i'm not in the right mindset to talk about the ceremony. but it was one of the most beautiful things i ever seen. and i feel so lucky and grateful to be able to be here and to learn about the cultures here.. and get a glimpse of the hundreds of years of wisdom and knowledge that the mayans have cultivated and reflect in their calender and their every day life. it's really incredible, i'm very happy to be here and also to share it with you all!!!
i hope that all of you are safe and happy and well!!!! happy saturday to you all! hope you enjoy your weekend and your upcoming week!!! thanks for listening! it's fun talking to you all!!! i love you all and wish you the best until next time!!!
love love love!

it's almost been a month!!!

heeey wonderful people!!!
it makes me sooo happy to hear from you and get your comments! really makes my day, thanks so much for responding!!!! i'm glad you enjoy the photos, no new ones today. but oh boy, last week was busy!!!
soo, lets see, came here to the peace corps office, talked to you wonderful family and friends, and then we played some ultimate frisbee-- i twisted my ankle! wooops! everyone was reeeally nice, i got a ride from a peace corps employee back to san mateo, the pueblo where i live! and then, my friend tiara's homestay mom came over and wrapped my ankle, and then my homestay mom brought me dinner in bed! soo that night i just chilled out and read pablo neruda poetry, it was lovely and relaxing. que mas? the next day it was hurtin a bit, it was a pretty rough day. then i talked to a few of you guys and that was absolutely fantasic and it made me feel so much better!
so the next day was an all-time high! the night before we were preparing a presentation for the rest of the youth development group that was coming to visit us in our community. so we planned a presentation for self-esteem in which everyone put a piece of paper on their back and we all wrote happy messages about the person on their back! everyone presented them and it made me so happy to see everyone feeling good and everyone was feeling good because everyone had helped them feel good! so it was just good all around!
that morning we had woken up at 5 a.m. to make the most delicious recipe in the world for tostados made with all these veggies and chicken! we made it for everyone for a snack after our presentation, everyone loovvveeddd it! fantastic!
then that night there was an earthquake that night!!! ahh crazy!!! i was lying in my bed around 5ish or so, listening to music, and i felt my bed start to shake and shake more and shake more!! ahh it was so weird!!!! i thought there was someone under my bed shaking it, or a giant had come to san mateo or i didn't even know! then i started laughing because it was an EARTHQUAKE! TEMBLOR!!! ahhh!!! it was sweeet and fun, but i'm sure it can be dangerous at other times. let's hope to god it's okay the rest of the time i'm here. anyways, so that was CRAZY!
so the next day, we prepared a presentation for san mateo for a group from san miguela duenas that was coming to visit us. so we made a super cool map with markers and crayons of san mateo, and cut it up like a puzzle, and then after we gave our tour, we had them put it together, while we sang a song we had made about san mateo to the tune of "in the jungle the mighty jungle..." they loved it and we loved singing it for them! then we went to their community to have a tour and got ICECREAM! thennn we watched a volunteer's neighbors play xylophones, huge ones, that 3 or 4 people can play at one time!!! it was really cool, i want one!! we tried to play, but eh, not so good at it. oh yeah, i've been practicing the flute recently, i bought one in antigua, it's really hard but i've learned 3 more notes since last week so i think i'll get better!
so then we went to antigua for the afternoon, went to the mercado (market) and huuung out!
then the next day we went to a sweet beach, took private buses there, and the sand was black.. that was really cool! the waves were super strong, pretty scary, but super fun to swim around in!! it was very refreshing but i am burnt like a tomato (sorry mom! i put on the sunscreen i promise). my homestay family thinks its really fun that i'm white but now i'm red. they think a lot of things are funny here. i love it!
then yesterday we went to guatemala city to check out the american embassy and the ridiculous mall and where the hospital is.. so it was a good day. i was so tired after because we had such a full weekend. good times though, i ate my first sandwich.. which was fantasic! and then that night, i put photos on my family's computer that they had taken of the catholic parade in town that weekend. i told them they could borrow my camera, and they did! and they were soo happy to have those photos and to be able to look at those and then to have the other photos from dia de la madre and the other festival that we went to a few weeks ago! then i ate dinner with them, did my homework and read and went to sleep! today i'm here and now i gotta go because it's time for some more youth development training! i took my first shower today in the peace corps office in about a month, which was wonderful! it was cold, but it was running water and thank god for that!
i hope you all are doing super duper! i miss you all dearly!! i love you all so much!! thanks again for your thoughts and comments! they make me really happy!!!
mucho amor, se cuidado, salud!!!!!
love
sarah

more pictures!

so here's some more pictures of...

a street in san mateo from the top of a roof, where we sometimes have spanish class, a picture of my san mateo group and my lovely and patient spanish teacher, mirsa, with a card that we all spent hours making for her for mother's day. and a picture of a volcano in antigua from the market, near where we take the bus to and from antigua, and a picture of the beautiful arts gifts my homestay brother and sister made for my homestay mom for mother's day, and a picture of another group that we also do a lot of adventure activities with. thanks for looking! there will be more!

pictureees

so i'm trying to figure it all out, that's a picture of us during the first week of training, we went on a hike up the mountain in the rain.. then there's pictures of my first homestay family, and then pictures of my san mateo buddies- tiara and me, and then a picture of sydney and robyn! i spent most of my days in san mateo with them in spanish class and then we've gone on trips to visit two other volunteers and then a trip to an indigenous community, xenaco.. so we've become super close, they are so awesome. oh yeah, and there's some pictures of the celebration of anivil, or construction workers of guatemala.. this is celebration every 3rd of mayo! it was really fun, i went with my family a few weeks ago! i think that's about it!

three weeks today!

Hey all!!!

I hope you are all doing super duper in the states! i'm doing really well here! i've had a fun week, with lots of spanish class. we went to the market in antigua for saturday's spanish class, learning how to bargain, which is an essential part of shopping around here, and then also about the fruits and veggies. there is such variety! so much to try!

yesterday was one of the best days here so far.. we had a fun spanish class and then after spanish i found out that tomorrow is triple for phone cards, so every phone card you buy today, you get triple the minutes! so i had icecream to celebrate! then i did my homework, which was all about thinking about american culture in ways i hadn't really thought of before, like our extreme optimism, sense of adventure and risk-taking, and our desire to surpass our inhibitions and mobilize ourselves beyond any percieved limits. it was really inspiring!

then i made tortillas with my homestay mom and sister. picking off the maiz/water mixture, kind of like clay, slapping it between my hands and making it nice and round. this was the second time i made tortillas, the first time, i was reeeally bad at it! but this time i got so much better. my homestay family was so proud of me, every one they were like, "mira! mira!" "look, look" "son iguales" "there is no difference" between ours and hers! they were really happy and i was alegre, tambien!!

then i helped my homestay brother, whose 14, with his english homework. that was really fun, and it got him really excited about his homework, too. then we played Uno, like we do for at least an hour every night with him, my other homestay brother and my homestay sister. this time i taught them how to play in english, like the colors and numbers, and the cards and different phrases for the actions on the cards. i really enjoyed that, and they totally did too!

i never knew how much joy and happiness Uno could bring, after dinner every night, we sit around and play, and my homestay parents and their visitors just laugh and laugh when someone has to pick up cards and when people win, or almost win! it has been such a pleasure and joy every night for them and for me!

then i talked to dylan before i went to sleep, which was wonderful, as well!

as for today, i'm reeeally happy to be here in the peace corps office with my fellow volunteers and to learn more about community development and to connect with everyone else and see how theya re doing, and to drink reeeally good coffee that will probably keep me up all night. and then we're all playing ultimate frisbee after our training today, woot woot!

i hope you are all are spectacular and enjoying yourselves and everything, the american philosophy: if you're not happy, change something so that you can be happy! with so much opportunity in so many ways, there's no reason to be sad for too long!

i love you all

take care of yourselves

and mucho mucho mucho amor

oh yeah, and here are some pictures!

cappin it all up

here's my address!!
PCT Sarah Tankoos
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America

So, let's seeee. thanks for all your posts. they mean a lot to me!
So the first day we arrived in Guatemala, we had some safety and health stuff and then we walked to our homestay families. i did not know ANY spanish at all, so that was preeetty awkward. I met with the family i was staying with, i'm sure i was the only one who was staying by themself.. but that's okay. it worked out the best because i could practice my spanish one on one. i showed my homestay family all the pictures of you guys and who you were and everything.. in spanish from my memory and then the dictionary was and has been my best friend since i've gotten here. So then we had two more days of health and safety and cultural training! All of us, 32, were in Santa Lucia. A little over a week ago, me and three other volunteers were assigned to move to San Mateo, which is where I'm staying now for the next three months. I absolutely love my homestay family and parents and their three kids, Norah, who has a 3 month old baby, Bryan, Eddy, whose 13, and Marline, whose 16. We watched Buscando Nemo a few days ago (finding nemo in spanish!)
Last weekend we went to a celebration for construction workers, which is every 3rd of may. it was reeeally lively, there were beautiful ground art made out of leaves, flower petals and paper mache items. there was a lot of music, food and dancing, and lottts of people! there was a huuge carnival, too! soo that was reeeally crazy.
oh yeah, i've not been wanting to mention this, but i've had fleeeas for a bit goin on there. not fun AT ALL! they like to find some warmness during the rainy season, now, in warm beds.. so they were keepin caliente in my bed.. lovely! soooo uncomfortable, i could feel them biting me at night. they were in my clothes and everything. soo i put some plastic on my bed, and eycalyptus all over my room, in my clothes, shoes, under my mattress and they are officially gone! soo yay!! itch-free!
hmm.. i've been eating a lot of tortillas, beans, rice, beef, pork, chicken, noodles, tomatoes, green chiles, mmm.. coffee and atoll, a really good drink made with rice and cinnamon and sugar. lots of soup with all of those items! yeah, the food has been reeeally good!!! the fruit is delicious, fruits of all shapes and sizes and colors sold everywhere.
i've been to antigua a couple times, antigua is one of the past capitals.. it's soo nice with cobblestone streets, you all know how much i love cobblestone streets.. and shops and a huuge market with all types of goodies.
i've been dressing pretty nice with nice shoes and skirts.. it's a real formal culture here.. they like to look nice as much as possible and they expect that you would too. so it's best not to offend them with my usual sneaker, flipflop and scruffy atire.
everyday we've had hours of spanish class, and some technical training. last week we worked on community mapping, mapping of daily activities and seasonal activities for our future needs assessment in our communities.. that is the foundation of our work here in community development.
all in all, i'm feelin real good about being here. i feel really good with the family and friends and teachers, mentors that i've met since i've been here.. so all positive things about that!
next week we're learning about the history and the civil war that was going from 1954 to 1996. so it's going to be a lot to take in. everyone here is really friendly though! and always offering such warm welcomes of "buenas" to everyone on the street. it's been really pleasant, i'm enjoying it a lot!!!!!
that's all for now, gotta get to technical training in community development for the next 3 hours! thanks for listening. i miss you all and send warm and loving thoughts your way! : ) : )

It's been one week since you looked at me

Ah, barenaked ladies, gotta love them! I miss you all, there are pictures all over my room, everywhere! I'm always reminded of you all and thinking of you always.. tellin stories, showin those pictures, thinkin good thoughts and hopes and health for everyone!

Anyways, hope all is well over and up in the usa! enjoyin those hot showers, let alone showers! i've been takin bucket baths! everytime i pour that bowl of water on my body, oh man, it's nice! and hope you all appreciate those refrigeradors and ice for those hot days and oh yeah, running water! Running water is great. Clean water is great, too. Not any of that down here, except in the bottle. We all got it reeeal nice up there in the states, just reminding you! :)

Let's see, must not dream of those luxuries too much! hehe. nah, it's actually really nice! They are really smart down here, they catch rain water for washing dishes and washing hands. A certain amount of water comes by truck every week with an amount for each household in the pueblo, so they definitely are big conservers! All of the fruits and vegetables and meat comes from the pueblo or from Antigua, an hour away! So, it's sustainable! I have a lot to learn from them, I think we all do.

Let's see, Guatemala is super mountainous!!! Mountains everywhere, so many trees, birds, flowers, plants! Oh man, it's absolutely gorgeous!

There's a lot of people waiting to get on this computer so I gotta go! I love you all and I sooo wish you all were here with me. You are all in my thoughts and dreams!!! Take care of yourself up there, mucho amor salud y feliz!!!!!!
Oh yeah, from my house I can see a volcano!!! It's sooo coooool!!!!!