Photos!

Some pictures!! First, a nice shot from the airplane of what Guatemala looks like: mountains and cerros everywhere, tons of little rivers springing forth, and everthing a lush verdant hue.

Here we are, fresh out of the airport in the capital, about to embark on our first bus ride experience in Guatemala. But not really, because this bus was chartered specially for us from the airport to PC Headquarters - therefore, we were about 25 people (plus a handful of babies, a money-collector, interesting smells, loud music, and a partridge in a pear tree) short of the so-called "chicken bus" experience.

I am pictured here with my first host family, with whom I stayed for 3 days with the two other Trainees pictured here. Consuelo, our host-mom, is the one wearing the pink shirt, and Jarol is her 5-year-old sitting on Maria´s lap. They were a great first host family!

This is my friend and co-trainee Jaime getting dropped off on our irst day with Community-based Training host families. These are the families we´re staying for our 3 months of training, so obviously we all wanted to make a good first impression, and were praying our Spanish would be good enough. I included this picture because I think his face says it all, as his host brother has just barely opened the door...

And next after Jaime it was my turn. After the hubbub of meeting all my family members and getting a brief tour of the place, I snapped a few quick photos to show Mom: my room is ENORMOUS!! my bed takes up maybe 1/20th of it.

...and the ceiling is completely adorned as you see here, with the family altar/devotion space complete with religious mural behind. I was floored by the realization that these were my lodgings for the next three months!