Ch-ch-ch-changes!

The adventure begins! Ha, you might have thought it began three months ago, but last week represented rolling up my sleeves and getting started in my “site” community. The bad news first: my site is real cold. On a beautiful sunny day, it might get to 65 or 70 degrees. Most of the time it's in the 40s, at least now in the winter. Let me remind you that the heat sources are nonexistent or only in the kitchen. But I just tell them I'm from Minnesota and I'm already used to the cold... and even if that's a lie, I'll GET used to it!!
I started today learning K'iche' which is the indigenous language in my new site, a village near the city of Totonicapán. I visited for a week and learned from the older gent who's our park guard how to say things like Good Afternoon and Food and How Are You? My head is reeling from all the other things I learned how to say today, but hopefully it'll help with my projects. Even though almost everybody also speaks Spanish, I'm sure a few sentences in K'iche' would work wonders with local school kids, working with the staff in my park, teaching K'iche' names for birds and trees to visitors who come to visit, etc.
For now, it's hard saying goodbye to my fellow trainees-soon-to-be-volunteers (we swear in and move to our sites this Friday the 27th!) and to my training community. I've been living with this host family in a pueblo near Antigua for almost 3 months, and tomorrow is my last day with them - it's hard trying to find words to say goodbye! I presume I'll go a little out of my way to visit them when I come back through this area to the Peace Corps/Guatemala Headquarters (for In-Service Training, for Reconnect, for occasional Medical evals, etc.) because I'd like to check in on their lives. But to be honest, I'm really excited to move and get started on my new projects in my new home! Wish me luck!