Bienvenidos a Panajachel

After what felt like days of flying, (despite the fact that it was only about 10 hours or so) I’ve made it here safely! This place is wonderful. I was pretty tired and a bit cranky on Monday when I got off the plane, because I hadn’t been able to sleep very well, but I met up with Salvador, the driver that Mercado Global sent to come get me at the airport, and we set off for Panajachel and I started to feel a lot better. It was nice to just sit in the car for a few hours and stare out the windows in awe of this place. I was trying so hard not to fall asleep so as not to miss any of it, but I was so exhausted that my eyes were rolling back in their sockets and my head would fall backward and hit the headrest and wake me up again.

The drive though, despite being gorgeous, made me a little nervous. Once we got out of the city and were nearing the highlands, the drive got more and more mountainous and there were hairpin turns and rough roads and signs everywhere saying to watch out for rocks falling from the sky. At one part of the drive, it looked like part of the road was actually out because it crumbled away, so we had to drive on like a makeshift dirt road that went through a stream. So that was comforting. But it was some of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. And they surround Panajachel, so they’re still everywhere I look.

Salvador dropped me off at Doña Angelica’s house and I met my host family for the next couple of weeks or so. There’s Angelica, the oldest member of the family, who’s a woman probably in her late 60s or early 70s. Then there’s Jenny, Angelica’s daughter, who is maybe in her mid 30s or so. Then there are Jenny’s two daughters, ages 7 and 11, named Jacqueline and Shirley. They’re not around much, but they seem very nice, and throw me an “hola” every now and then when I run into them. I only speak Spanish with the family, and they’re very patient with me. There’s actually another person living with them right now, a guy from New York who is close to my age. He’s here taking Spanish classes every day and just living here for a couple of months. He and I seem to be close to the same level of Spanish, so the family is helping us a lot by speaking slower and helping us improve our speaking.

Anyway, I probably arrived around 2 or 3pm and they showed me to my room, which has its own bathroom, so that’s nice. There’s running water in the shower, but not in the sink, so there’s a giant bucket for washing your face and hands. This house seems to be set up almost like a boarding house, so there are a few other rooms just like mine, and an open-air area that they all open up to, and a kitchen upstairs. It’s a beautiful house. En la Calle Navidad. Christmas Street.

After lunch, I went downstairs to take a nap for a while, but had some difficulty sleeping at first due to a screaming child outside my door. I opened the door to go get some water and because I wanted see what the fuss was about, and it turns out it wasn’t a child. It was a big, green parrot that sounded eerily like a screaming child. His name is Lorenzo, and he’s very old and seems to be hanging on to life by a thread. Anyway, when I opened the door he stopped screaming and just stared at me, so that solved that problem. I quickly fell fast asleep after that. One of the ladies I’ll be working with stopped by at some point during that nap to welcome me to Pana, but I was so out of it that meeting her felt like I dreamt the whole thing. I may have embarrassed myself, but I can't really remember anything I said, because I am a champion at napping.

I was woken up from my nap at 7ish to go have dinner, where I met the other guy who’s staying at Angelica’s house. He and I went to hang out and have a couple of drinks after dinner and chatted for a while, so it’s nice to have someone at the house to be able to hang out with every now and then. What’s also nice is that drinks here are really cheap, especially during happy hour, so I spent the equivalent of like, less than $3 on two G&Ts, and they were delicious. We went back pretty early and I went to sleep again, and still slept through the night despite my long nap.

On Tuesday morning I got up a little late and went to go have breakfast, where Jenny and I engaged in some small talk, which is all I can really manage at this point. Like how beautiful the weather is, as well as the flowers on the balcony, and I asked what hummingbirds are called here. Carrillónes, is what I thought she said, but I looked it up in my dictionary and that means “chimes," so I don’t know if I got that right. But I swear that's what she said. Then I went out for a walk to try to find the office, but got lost because I apparently misunderstood Jenny’s directions. So I just decided to give up and explore. I found the lake! It was my first time seeing Lake Atitlán, because it was really cloudy and foggy when I arrived on Monday. But it truly is gorgeous. I could see one of the three volcanoes that surround it as well. I even met a friend from the area when I was walking around there. We were speaking in Spanish for quite a while, so I was super duper proud of myself. I think I was almost a tad better at Spanish than he was at English, so whenever we tried speaking English we would give up and go back to Spanish. So that experience gave me a slight boost of confidence with my language skills. I think I’m actually going to be fine, despite how extremely nervous I was about that aspect of this trip. I might still take Spanish lessons every now and then, because a couple of people here said they have Spanish lessons for really cheap somewhere near Doña Angelica’s house, and you can just go whenever your schedule allows. So I’m considering that.

So then after slowly finding my way back to the house, Leah, my supervisor called and wanted to send someone to help me find the office and show me around. So another intern Karyn came and picked me up, and we went to the office where I met some of the team. It seems like a very relaxed, casual work environment. I really liked it, and everyone was really nice. There's even someone here who just started working in marketing and product development who went to UW-Madison as well, so we bonded a little over that, because it's a small world after all. Today was my first day actually working, and it’s going well so far. They’re just kind of easing me into it, so I didn’t do a whole lot on my first day. Next Wednesday, I’ll be heading to one of the communities with the training coordinator, to see what it’s like and get a better feel for what kind of work they do here within the communities.

So far I’m really enjoying myself! This weekend I might go explore one or two of the neighboring towns along the lake. We’ll see how that goes, or if I can even figure out how to get there. I’ve heard you just catch a pickup truck that’s headed in the same direction. Which makes me kind of want someone to go with me, so hopefully I can find someone who wants to go.

I’ll put up pictures sometime soon. Hope everyone at home is well!