quarter century...

tomorrow i will be twentyfive years old. this will be the first of three birthdays celebrated in guatemala (a pretty crazy thought). i am definetely learning that age is a relative thing.

earlier this month we celebrated the birthday of Jose (i.e. Joseph), a fellow volunteer who i live with. it was pretty amazing to see how excited the kids were to throw him a surprise party. we made cards, blew up balloons, and i got a cake with a picture of spiderman on the box (el hombre arena, a pretty big deal in our household). Jose played the mandolin while me and Sara, another volunteer who lives across the street danced around like the goofy ¨gringas¨that we are. Doña Aura made some chocolaté that was pretty special and a good time was had by all.

sort of a big deal...

the material wealth here, there is just no comparison to the massive amounts of stuff we have in the states. objectively all of us as volunteers know that this great disparity exists between our new home and the country we have come from. still, it does not mean that we are able to truly internalize how deep the differences run.

what do you get excited about?

it was nice to see the kids get truly beyond excited about celebrating Jose´s birthday. it is nice that they are asking me about what we´re going to do tomorrow for my birthday. there is a certain amount of anticipation for little things here, because the little things are the big things, i guess.

last week...

last week they sent all of agricultural production out on a field trip. we visited a volunteer living in the oriente, aka, the wild west of Guatemala. we spent time hanging out with families there, and visiting farms.

it is amazing when we meet agricoltores who are taking risks in their work, and employing organic techniques. one man had been splicing together different varieties of avocado trees. he took the roots from the native version and spliced it with haas avocados which bare more fruit. he was a self taught farmer who was finding really innovative ways to better his farm.

he told us that within the next five years his goal was to have a pickup truck... that he would use his two hands to dig it out of the soil. it was definetely a really great analogy for how people achieve a liveable existence here. they dig it out of the soil little by little through hard work.

té...

i´ve always really enjoyed tea back home. every morning i would have a pot of green tea with breakfast. what is also pretty amazing is that i never really knew about the process involved in tea production. this past week we also went to visit a tea cooperative located in cobán. it was more of a community involved and the running both of the business and the town we´re done collectively.

tea plants it turns out grow in small bushes which are harvested about four times every year. learning about where food comes from has been definetely one of the rewarding parts about being here.

things are going well and i am excited to celebrate my birthday with my host family. although it will not be the typical experience of hanging out with friends and family back home, this is also part of what makes it special. it is also what has helped me realize how important it will be for me to develop strong relationships here with people. everyday i feel really blessed.