More changes are on the way as the rainy season takes full force here in the altiplano of Guatemala. After a wonderful visit home to Minnesota I returned to the the land of mountains and brilliant weavings a little more homesick than before and with a big decision to make... where to move. As in, I had decided that for various reasons (most work or transport-related, some space and tact-related) it would be better to find a place to live down in the actual town of Totonicapán instead of in my little aldea up the mountain. Seems abrupt, I know... but as of March I had made up my mind and had also received the suggestion from my Peace Corps higher-ups, that I look for a place to live in the pueblo.
Let me pull out a favorite Minnesotan expression here: Uffda! Looking for a place in Toto is NOT easy, and everything is way more expensive than it really should be... land, house, and rent values are higher in Toto than they are in the much bigger and more cosmopolitan Xela, some attributing this fact to Toto's riduculous population density and land demand, and others to the high percentage of Toto youth being in or having been in the states for years making bank and therefore being able to pay those exorbitant prices.
Point is, I searched and I searched, and it took me until just before my trip home to find something I liked, with someone I liked, at a price I liked. Confusingly enough the proprietor's name is Doña Emiliana (just like my previous host-mom). She is a sweet little old lady who now lives by herself most of the time when her married daughter isn't visiting, occupies herself with beautiful embroidery and seamstress work on huipiles and cortes, has a few missing teeth which show with how much she smiles, and jumped at the chance to rent me the room for half the price everyone else was offering me.
Informing my neighbors in the village wasn't easy... mostly I just didn't do it. I told the people who would notice and be a little miffed not having been told, but as I don't live on the main drag in the aldea most people just see me coming to or going from work in the park, which won't change at all. The conversation was had with Arnulfo and Emiliana, my previous host-parents, long ago when I was in the searching phase. But telling my host-siblings was something I put off and put off, not wanting to have them feeling sad or guilty about it. Tonight for my last evening there we will FINALLY make lasagna together, something we've been talking about since I arrived a year and four months ago. Hard to believe that so much time has passed with this family! Their company, guidance, companionship, humor, and acceptance will always be the framework of my memories of Guatemala.
But sometimes change is good. I'm excited to jump in a little more to some aspects of my work without the logistical inhibitions of transport, lack of internet, lack of presence at the office, etc. There's a new compañero at work too, who it turns out will almost be my neighbor, as his house is closeby where I move in tomorrow - he drives, and has been driving the El Aprisco vehicle with my boss Vicky these last few weeks, so someone to share rides with!! No more pickups in the rain! Sometimes I wonder if the inconveniences were really that big a deal. After all this is Peace Corps. But being so close to a big down with connections and resources that could make me a more effective Peace Corps Volunteer, and just preferring to make excuses out of the reluctance to move and start over someplace new, seemed like a poor excuse. Life requires a little courage sometimes, you know?