interesting morning!

first off just wanted to whats up to everyone. hope everyone is doing great wherever you may be.

what is up with Latin cultures and slaughtering livestock for special occasions? I say latin because at first i thought only us, Mexicans, did that but this morning I was wrong. don't get me wrong theres nothing like chivo, cerdo at a party but there has to be other ways of slaughtering the animal.

for example for my brother's 21st birthday we got a live pig and killed it, but it was nothing like what i heard this morning. With one gunshot the pig was dead. Not here!

The dueños to my apartment are celebrating their daughter's quinceñera, like a sweet 16 but happens when a girl turns 15. I don't know how long they have been raising this pig, but it was huge, and my apartment happens to be pretty close to where it was staying. This morning at about 530 a.m. I woke up to squealing, not just normal squealing but horrific squealing which lasted for about 15 minutes- 20 minutes, which can only mean that the pig is dead. But were those minutes necessary? I have seen a pig being slaughtered here in Guatemala, refer to the pictures on facebook. They first stun the pig by hitting across the head with the butt end of an axe, and just mount it up on a table and slit the throat and let the blood drain. I am assuming thats what was done here due to the minutes of squealing and being awoken at 530 and not being able to go back to sleep for a good half hour. Why not just get it over with, and cut the head off or something... all in all cant wait for the meal tomorrow!! Carnitas!!

Update!

so its been a month living in site. and things have been interesting. as you all may remember i got sick in february, and i got sick again this past week, but not with a bacterial infection, it was.....AND THE WINNER IS....AMOEBAS! dont recommend that at all. not as painful as the bacterial infection but very uncomfortable. now i can say everything is back to normal.

with work: Samra and I are just about done visiting every school in the municipality. Out of the 23 schools, we only have 4 left. after visiting all of them, we are having a meeting with all the directors, and then with all the schools individually to see what the teachers and parents have as a priority with accordance to the schools and what we are able to do. so work will actually be more invigorating and more hands on in the next couple of weeks. Even though our main job as for now is to integrate for the first three months and then when we go back to reconnect we will get the information needed to do projects.

The whole month of May, every weekend, there are welcome parties for all of us new volunteers. The Totonicapan/Solola party is not until the 30th of May, which coincidentally is the same day as Samra's birthday. This next upcoming weekend is the Huehue party!! we'll see how things go!

Can't wait to start projects, and start working, to do activities that inspired us to join the Peace Corps.