What awaits for me back home....

ALesiaLaura es la rubia, y Diana parece como yo..jaja  

Ever have 439875 emotions at once? that's me right now, well actually that's always me I'm a drama queen. I like to blame it on the fact I was born the night Aries becomes Taurus, maybe that's why theres so many sides to me?! I dig. Can't believe I'm heading home for a visit. I'm already overwhelmed...it's gonna be amazing but im scared of everything...culture shock..like will i freak out in the carride from the airport in my parents' new whip? tal vez, tal vez...here are Diana  and Laura, you jealous fools! my sissies! I think Diana might have to work the night of my arrival which sure as hell is all good with me, she works at THE GAP, its a pub, not the world wide sweatshop corporacion i worked for for 7 years..lol..anyways they serve this BOMB ASS Hawaiian chicken sandwich with bacon Ive been dreaming about for approximately 3 months. It's funny cuz my old pet peeve used to be 2 animals in one sandwich but look at that! i got the HELL over that! I'm not getting in from the Airport til 10pm on thursday, but for me it'll only be 8..yayy! On friday, us sissies plus Val ( thats mama) are going to get our pedis and manis...spoiled I am.. Nana would be proud of me, i take excellent care of my nails...she was always a stickler about that..but hey 7 months in the PC and not a day without nailpolish! I think that's a big deal, my mom thinks Im a diva..which I am but whatever. Diana is the MOH in Shannon and Aaron's wedding and the rehearsal dinner is Friday night. It'll be the first time Ive seen them, AND their daughter Jaiden, omg my NOOSH! I used to babysit Noosh 4 days a week...she is my little angel. I get to talk to her once in a while when I call Shannon to talk about her being a bride. Jaiden say "gayycie, gayycie, Imma go to school!" haha SO PROUD! Shannon's gonna make a BEAUTIFUL BRIDE OMG! It was supposed to be a surprise that i was going home for her wedding and it was til about 3 months ago... I didnt want to bombard a bride on her special day, come on now.lol. The wedding is Saturday night, I can't wait..There's a surprise! Itll be the first time i get to see some of my best friends like meg, kyle, and of course THE BROTHERS! I hope everyone comes in increments, other wise I'll be too overwhelmed to function..WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO WEAR? Hopefully I can fit into some of Laura's pretty dresses but I dont know if Ive lost THAT much weight..she is eensy. I'm looking forward to the delicious meal...I'm gonna have to shut off the game and FOCUS. Ive been thinking about it forever...haha i sound like a fatty dreaming about al this food, but you would too! ALl i know is Im gonna tear up the dance floor todo el noche!

Jaiden!

On Sunday, my closest friends from all over are coming for a cookout at my house! My family, my aunts and uncles and Gramma, cousins etc will come early afternoon for some quality time, then the friends will come.

Holly's Bday ( faltan Angela who i think is chungin the pic and Paige, she is carrie bradshaw in NYC)

The girls are crazy, but theyre my best friends...oh and theyre effing GORGEOUS! Holly is the bffl..Ive been really good about calling her on the reg. I've been good at calling meg too the other girls understand im on a pc budget and i make sure to call them al on their bdays! Were a unique group of friends, I really believe we have soomething special. We go thru life together and support eachother no matter what. Before I left, they gave me the most INCREDIBLE gift- they made me a scrapbook of our favorite memories...so i cried, that was with the help of rum and coke's but i still cried like a babe. I was bummin cuz i missed Holly's 25th bday...cant believe it, we're so old. I think for like the past 5 years Holly has had some sort of TIKI party bday celebration, haha i remember last year i wound up in french maid lingerie and sweatpants hahaaha..sounds about right!

Hot-brother sandwich, Matt's Bday Dinner last November!

If all goes as planned Matt and Mike will be heading to the airport for the big showdown! I met Matt in Summer '07 in Salamanca, Spain when we were 'studying' ...the first night we met I took this "cannibus" shot, i think it was Absynth, Im not sure, when all was said and done matt had to carry me home thru the PLaza Mayor and around the city. Of course I was wearing  a shirt as a dress that wound up over my head many times over the course of the trail home...we have been best friends ever since. So god bless life because turns out Matt has his cousin Mike who shortly thereafter entered my life and now we're best friends too... Oh, and he'll forever stay in the top 5 dopest brothers of all time. He's not movin. Probably my fav spot in the world would be right smack between the two of them. They have an apartment in Quincy that I used to bombard all the time in the states. I wrote MATT a song before i left ...changed to tune of "Dangerously in Love" by destiny's child and made it all about our friendship...it was a TOTAL hit! I called him last week to get the deets on our friends' wedding, and matt says "I effing lost my RAY-BANS" I was like I think throughout the course of our friendship, you've told me that sentence atleast 7 times...thats matt!

Holly and the Dogs the night before I left!

"WHOS DA BIG BOY? WHOSA MISSING THERE SISSY? SISSY GONN GIVE U DA BELLY RUBBB" thats me in my animal voice practicing to see my dogs! Truman, Newman, and blind Oscar..the people in Guatemala get a kick out of the fact that one of my dogs is named Oscar because usually every has atleast one member of their family named Oscar! jajaja Sometimes mom puts them on the phone and i talk to them but then we realized that we're insane and we stop. Im sure truman and newman will be excited to see me, im sure blindy wont be able to see me and try to bite me! "blind bastid" as my mom would say!

Abby and Robin!

Abby and Robin...Good Lord Abby and Robin. Robin was my roommate Sophomore year at UMASS, we lived in the penthouse of Kennedy. I would go to work and she would clean the room, we were married. Abby and I met working at Old Navy, and then we were roommates Senior year. If you havent had the pleasure of being with all three of us at the same time, get ready because we are three of the same person. We have the best life talks ever..mostly about the world, sometimes outer space, if we can handle it. The world blows their minds like it does mine so thats why we are perf friends. They moved down to ST John after we graduated and lived the island life...Abby is west indian, she lived their growing up..island baby! the last time i saw them was my birthday, 4-20, 2009. we went to all you can eat pasta buffet at pizza hut then i slept from 6 oclock thru the night haha. this reunion's gonna be intense...Robin informed me that she will be the starfish-shaped human on the ground trying to deal with her emotions! hhaha

Me Mom and Dad at my going away party!

Of course, I can't forget the most important people...MIS PADRES!... good ol Glenn and Val. I call them all the time, i think my mom answered the phone last week "WHAT THE HELLLLL DO YOU WANT!?" haha I am kinda annoying with that but oh well. its a lonely guatemalan world sometimes!   They are completely redo-ing the house which is exciting for them now that all 3 of us are out of the house, they're doing something for them! oh and they both bought new whips, and sold mine but im ok with it...she was good to me, the ol 'rolla.

MOM and HOLLY!

They'll be celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary this October and i'll of course be back in Guate! but WOW! they're still in love with eachother two and easy to tease...I called home last month and i was like 'mom what are you doing" her response-"I'm flirtin wit ya fathah, but the sonofabitch isnt payin any attention to me!" haha like mother like daughter ..for real! Cant wait to chill and have wine night by the fire with the fam and the dogs...me Val and Holly are FAMOUS for our wine nights! haha remember before Kyle got married she came over for wine night and my mom made her wear her wedding veil around the fire haha, that's my mom's veil, not kyle's haha!

Nana at Kendra wedding shower

nana and mom 1958

Well, alot has changed back home since my departure Jan5th, we lost Nana in the beginning of February, we miss her so much! Nana was so funny, last time i talked to her I was at home having a fire with mom and matt, and i was like "nana, i'm with matt, do you remember matt?" she proceeds to say "how the HELL could i forget THAT tall drink of water!?" haha Nana had the best attitude, and i mean "attitude"...so sassy! i obviously wasnt able to attend any of her services but i sent something to my mom via fb, (looove fb) to be read at the funeral. I believe she was 87, nana had 4 kids and my mom was the baby <3 como yo! nana lived to be a greatgrandmother! can you imagine such a life...we love you NANA! I can't believe you wont be there when I get home =( Nana loved strawberries, the birds, feeding the birds, people magazine ( as we all do) and boston creme donuts ..haha! 

We miss you Leesh!

We also lost our girl Alesia on may 16th, to a senseless boating accident. This just shook everybody's world. It was just shocking, holly had wrote on my wall there was bad news from dighton and i needed to call home but i didnt have any minutes, then i saw someone else status said "rip Alesia" and i knew instantly. oh man it was awful, but i'll tell you what..our dighton friends came together as a FAMILY and sopported eachother. I didnt know what to do really so I made an RIP group on fb where people could write notes to her and share their favorite memories, i think theres over 900 people in the group now, she touched everybody's lives. I also recorded a song i wrote for her on video and posted it on the page, i was having a hard time dealing with it and not being around my friends. the night of her wake my dad called me and the girls had gone over to my house to be with my parents and have a campfire, and we just talked about Alesia and remembered funny things from growin up like how she would get so mad at all of us cuz we thought her little brother was so hot, haha, and playing softball with her all those years...it was nice. Alesia was such a talented dancer, a love we shared <3

Hasta pronto NEWMAN!

 So yes, all emotions possible for this trip home! I cannot wait tho! Gonna spend some qt with Mary in Antigua the night before i go, and we prob will be visiting our friend "oscar' ha told ya....now do i tackle my mom at the airport? chances are ill be too emotional and just fall down and everyone will have to come to me! I'm into it, I'm into it... first stop, logan airport dunkin donuts!

I'm jealous of my blogging friends...

Laura, you win. I guess i gotta start blogging about my experience here in Guatemala cuz sometimes the old "book" doesnt cut it. but dont get me wrong i love the book, i get made fun of all the time for being an fb creep, but whatever, its how i talk to my family so GET OVER IT EVERYONE. Kbye.
I'm actually starting this blog 8 days before i go home to the us for the first time, been in country now a little over 7 months. 7 months? thats crazy talk, its flying by and creepin at the same time.

Let me start with training, oh training...it was the funnest/hardest 3 months ever! it was fun because i met like 3 million new friends, well 44 actually but i love them all. we all got divided up into training towns based on our spanish level so we could take classes together, and LUCKILY, my girl mary and I stunk up the joint compared to everyone else, so we lived right near eachother and took our classes juntos. That's us in the pic at a mayan ceremony..and hey! thats patty throwin her desires en el fuego! hey patty!

This is all of us in Healthy schools, im the one in the dope cornrolls and my old body lol!

On the technical side training was kindofa bitch. we had classes almost every week day slash sometimes saturday for spanish and atleast once a week for our tech. program. Mine is Healthy Schools. The idea is we are trying to certify schools here by i guess the guatemalan board of health standards, also pc standards, and the requirements are 8-fold. Water 5 days a week for atleast 5 hours, atleast 8 faucets, atleast 2 lessons in health each week, clean kitchen, kids practice healthy habits i.e. brush theyre teach and wash their hands, a rincon de salud in every class (which is basically a fun corner with toothbrushes and soap), atleast 80% of the kids come to school with clean faces, hands, hair, clothes etc..and clean/functioning bathrooms. most of the time here that just means letrines but atleast its something, no wi find myself with schools who don't have anything and dig holes outside the classrooms =(

Here are some of the kids in an already certified school with their toothbrushes and guacales. (those little tubs) Those carrots behind them is their "rincon de salud" where they put their toothbrushes! GET CUTER THAN THEM. cuz you can't. As far as my projects go, im making some progress but its just so much sometimes. We work in pairs and my partner is Cliff, he drives me nuts but he's alright. I asked the Lord to teach me patience and hence...now i have cliff! haha He's hard to explain but if it helps, our training group is getting Tshirts made that say "God Dammit Cliff" on them..... Here we are at Swear-in Ceremony..lookin fly i might add.

So together, we have 35 schools, technically 33 because 2 of them are already certified. We live in the mountains of Cabrican, Quetzaltenango, and some of these schools are over 2 hours away on foot-thru the hills! but hey, ive lost almost 30 lbs here in Guate so I'll take it! we recently divided the schools in half so we can get be a little more efficient, we share one because its a creep-walk thru the woods for real. He took the schools the very furthest away because we decided he's more likely to look for the transportation and I'm more likely to get the workout and hike those bad boys. my 17 schools are all at totally different levels. I have some with water 24/7, but everyone lacks in healthy habits so there is still plenty of work to do in every school. I have 2 schools with legitmately nothing at all, i'm gonna make those my babies =) It's so sad, Los Hornos and El Cebollin, they dont have water, faucuets, bathrooms or a kitchen...can you imagine? the hard part is the communities they are a part of don't have water either so in order to get it to the school, We've gotta get it to the comminuty. It's just gonna be hard looking for that kind of funding, or the manpower to do these projects but OMG once their done..what a difference itll make! thats why I'm here right?

Seriously?

Since i've been in site, its been hard to see my friends considering we're all spread out over the country but we had a BOMBASS 3rd of july party. Full of great music, COOKOUT FOOD! and of course BEER! btw, i'd kill people for a sip of budlight...no such thing here in Guate...anyways...we spent the weekend in Antigua and just chilled, ok fine we drank like fish, but none of us drink insite so when we get together..simply look out...mom dont get mad im not the only one! So there was a talent show at the cookout and i simoply HAD to dance the Single Ladies dance!... I messed up the 1st chorus cuz i couldnt here the music over the wild crowd haha, but its true...here it is!!!!

I was a little nervous but not really, did a costume change and everything...could not NOT WEAR ROCAWEAR i mean please. I was surprised to know the administration would be watching because i mean lets face it, it can be a little provocative but afterwards Wendy came up to me with a huge compliment about getting the crowd going and that i was talented! so i was floating for the rest of the night...maybe i'm still floating? I stayed in the outfit for the after party to pretend im beyonce for alittle longer...dont hate.

THE TWISTED SISTERS!

Leah is also really important in my life here. Shes the queen of everything, especially spanish. The brothers gave Leah, Mary and I the nickname of "the twisted sisters" which by the way is the best thing ive ever heard...it's probably because we do things like go out for the night in matching shirts....

I think the biggest changes in my life since ive been here would have to be..the constant use of public transportation..Theyre called camionetas but really they are old american school buses painted fun colors. legit use them everyday, all day. I miss driving. Probably my diet too, kinda had to teach myself to cook which has been fun, i call my dinners "food victories' lol. In my site i don't eat much meat, actually none. I simply can't handle it if i want a chicken i have to go buy it from a lady with a stand who sells whole chickens with their heads and feet cut off to order. NO. In training our teacher took us to the market to practice spanish and she made me buy half a chicken and i gagged in the ladies face and couldnt do it. And beef is just a gross set up too, they just got the cow all sorts of cut up hanging on hooks, but dont worry they'll keep the hooves and head right on the counter if you'd like that too. Now i know this happens all over the world even in America but its the in-my-face part I can't take. BUCKET BATHS OMG! well i just last week moved into my very own house yayy! I've been living with a host family since ive been here but the biggest excitement is RUNNING HOT WATER! Everyday i would heat up water in a bucket to take a shower-ish type thing. Easy from now on, easy from now on. My host family was a little upset that i chose to move out, it's a cultural thing, they simply cannot wrap their heads around a young woman wanting to live alone-it IS an american thing, i often forget, you know that whole independent woman thing. But that's simply who I am. Its so much better, but i mean living with a family was a blessing in my first family there was Wilson, "mi novio" or my boyfriend..GOD I MISS HIM!

Here he is dressed up as Moses for Feria!

In my new host family, there was a 2 yr old girl, i called her Guapa, too ashamed to admit to myself i had lived their too long to ask about her real name..haha but everyone called her "nena, or mami" so i wasnt the only one. She was born with a birthdefect in her hips and legs so for the first 3 months i lived there, she was ina full body cast from her toes to her armpits...omg the poor thing! but those are off now, after she got them off, two days later she fell and had to be back in them for another 3 weeks..UN BELIEVABLE, but she was so good with it, still a happy little girl! here she is!

Guapa's BDay!

Well thats it for now I guess... I'm gonna keep up witht he blog I swaer..it'll be easier now that ive condensed the last 7 months...poco a poquito now! ps im really proud of myself for my progress in spanish... maybe if there was a "most improved" trophy, I'd get it...just a thought Peace Corps...just a thought..nos vemos!