This week has been going very well. Orientation and discussions with the new interns have been extremely informative and interesting, and I'm really excited to head out into the field with them on Tuesday. Izzy and I finished painting my apartment yesterday (pictures to come soon - keep checking the photos section) and I'll hopefully be moving in and beginning to decorate over the next few days. It's going to be great!

Tomorrow is a big day because all papers will finally be set and Soluciones Comunitarias will officially be an entirely Guatemalan-owned company. This is a huge deal and something that everyone involved in SolCom has been working towards for years. All future decisions about SolCom will be decided by the 'junta directiva' (board of directors), comprised of Guatemalans who have been working for SolCom for various lengths of time and have earned their shares in the company through sweat equity (one of the shareholders/owners is Yoly, my coworker and homestay mother). Being an entirely Guatemalan company allows SolCom to enjoy various legal benefits such as the potential to take out loans,etc. In general it's a huge sign of SolCom's progress and a very exciting moment in the history of the company.

That's the update for now!

Today was a very successful day. We picked up the new interns from the hostel that they stayed at last night and brought them to Belen, the convent in Antigua where we will be all week for discussions and orientation (the same place that we did wrap-up with the other group last week). We had group introductions and then Greg spoke for a while about the beginnings of SolCom and how he and Bucky came up with the MicroConsignment Model - a story I hadn't actually ever heard. It was definitely a very good introduction to our work and a good basis for me to have.

A few hours later, I met up with my broker and got the keys to my apartment! It definitely needs a lot of work, but I'm really excited to finally get moving on it. I went by later in the day with Greg and spoke to a carpenter about getting a door installed, so hopefully that will be done by the end of the week.

[The apartment consists of three separate doors for the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, all of which open out onto a somewhat public hallway. I am installing a door to make the hallway private so that I can, for example, go to take a shower without needing to lock my bedroom door.]

I also got to talk to Greg for a while about his experiences in Peace Corps and his thoughts on MicroConsignment versus MicroFinance, which was very interesting. One of the things that I'm loving about my job so far is how much I'm learning every single day, and how many interesting and brilliant ideas are constantly thrown around amongst the team. It's a great environment.

Tomorrow morning I am heading over to my apartment to clean so that Izzy (one of my coworkers/friends) and I can start painting the place as soon as possible. In the afternoon we have more orientation with the new interns. That's more or less the schedule for the rest of the week, though we have a campaign on Saturday morning and Sunday it looks like a whole group of us will be climbing Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano outside of Antigua. There are plans to make smores over lava.....more on that to come!

The first pictures are up! Head over to the 'photos' tab and let me know what you think.

Everything here is continuing to go very well. I have finally put down a deposit on an apartment and I pick up my keys tomorrow morning, which I'm very excited about. I need to build a door (long story), but other than that, it's perfect. I bought paint yesterday and I'm going to spend my (limited) free time this week cleaning and painting the place. I've also gotten keys to the office and set up a bank account, so Guatemala is really starting to feel a bit more like home.

The 8-week program ended on Friday and the 4-week program starts tomorrow, so we've spent most of the weekend sending off and picking up students, as well as preparing the schedule for the next four weeks. This past week has been really interesting - it was the wrap up week for the 8-week program so Greg has been down here leading final discussions and reflection groups. It has been a great way to learn about all the work that has gone on for the past two months, as well as hear some different perspectives on our initiatives and reflect on what we can do to improve and expand our impact. I am really excited about what SolCom is doing and has the potential to do in the future, and I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of this organization.

Everyone is here in Antigua for orientation through next Monday and then I will be heading to Nebaj (about 6 hours from here) next Tuesday with a group of 7 interns. I will be in Nebaj for a week and then going to Xela (pronounced SHAY-la, also known as Quetzaltenango) with the same group for the following week. I will be acting as a guide for the program along with several other employees, supporting the interns in the program with their work down here. The new interns seem great and I'm really excited to be helping to lead the program from the beginning, as opposed to coming in halfway through like I did with the 8-week program. It will also be great to see Nebaj and Xela and start to get a sense of each of the different regions in which we work.

My Spanish is getting better, though it's definitely not where I would like it to be. That will hopefully come with time, especially once the intern programs end and I'm speaking more Spanish than English on a regular basis. Everyone on the SolCom team is amazing, and we're all really protective of each other. I really feel like I'm becoming part of a family down here, which makes a huge difference in the whole adjustment process.

Time to figure out dinner - I promise that pictures will go up soon(ish)!

So, I made it! I've been here in Antigua for a week now and am loving it so far. This country is absolutely beautiful - unbelievably green and covered with mountains and volcanoes. Antigua is very pretty and reminds me a bit of Grenada, a city in Nicaragua that I visited last summer.

SolCom (Soluciones Comunitorias - the Spanish name for Community Enterprise Solutions and how everyone refers to it here) is filled with great people. I am learning very quickly what we actually do (primarily involving giving free vision consults and promoting and selling products to Guatemalans such as glasses, water purifiers, vegetable seeds, and more) and because of the student consultants here currently, the schedule has been quite busy, which means that I have been able to observe a ton of things in a very short amount of time.

For several days I stayed with Guatemalan woman and other SolCom employee names Yoly. She is extremely nice and has helped my tremendously with Spanish, as well as being a superb cook. And, Jenny and Alli - I am happy to report that despite a two-year hiatus, my bucket bath skills are still up to par! Yesterday all of the student groups working in different parts of the country came back to Antigua for the final wrap-up week, so I met some more of our stuff and we are all staying in the office/staff house-thing. This week will be final presentations for the current student group, and another group comes on Saturday. It is sure to be another extremely busy week.

In any event, all is going very well. I am really excited to see where the next few months will take me!