(HT) (1) Welcome

Hi everyone at Holy Trinity,

I am excited to working with you all and to have the opportunity to share some of my experiences while living as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala.

Now I certainly am not the most talented writer, in fact you could probably use my writings in English class for your grammar exercises. My hope, though, is that you are able to grasp even just a smidge of what life is like for others outside the US.

First before we start getting down to some of the deep stuff, I’ll explain a bit about me.

I am a Grand Rapids native and went to Sts. Peter and Paul. Back then, centuries ago, I even had the same principal that you have right now, Mrs. Kryger. After grade school I went to West Catholic and then Michigan State University. While at MSU, I studied physiology, a degree more commonly used to get into medical school. A year or more before graduating, I looked at all my options to decide what my next step would be. I prayed, talked them over with family and friends, and tried to listen to my heart. Through a long period of discernment, I realized I was most passionate about dedicating some time in my life to serve others who have not had the blessings I had had in my life. Thus, I joined the Peace Corps, an organization funded by the US Government that sends volunteers all over the world to countries who are asking for help. In late August I went to Guatemala, a country in Central America just below Mexico and began 2.5 months of training on things ranging from Guatemalan culture and Spanish to the work that I am doing right. I work in a program called Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition. My work down here deals with working in rural community in the department of Jalapa (it’s like a state but they call them departments down here) trying to combat the malnutrition that is in the town. I moved to this town about 2.5 months ago (making my total stay here so far 5 months) and have used these past months to meet the people of the community, gain the confidence of them, and adjust to my new living environment.

So the technical goals of my project are to improve the nutrition of a designated number of families through teaching and sharing and motivating in how to raise a diversified vegetable garden, how to raise chickens, and how to get the most nutrients from the food and resources that they have available. The idea is to improve the family’s nutrition without having them spend more money and to teach them activities that are culturally acceptable and easy to understand and repeat so that they can continue to do these same activities long after my tour as a volunteer is done. A change such as that in anyone’s life is challenging to do; I only hope I start to improve some aspect of these people’s lives, the people with whom I am living and working side by side.

Besides my main reason for coming that I already mentioned, another goal of mine was to learn. I wanted (and still want) to learn about different cultures and what it was like to live outside the US in poverty. I wanted to learn another language and learn to see things from new perspectives. I wanted to learn from my fellow townspeople on things that are important to them in their lives and other knowledge that they wanted to pass to me. In a way even though I don’t have any tests or homework, school has not stopped for me; I am just in a different type of classroom.

I hope this help you all in understanding what I am doing. Feel free to read the last 5 months of posts on my blog to see what I have been doing. On the right of my posts is a huge list of words which represents a lot of the topics which I have written about. Also, to help you know which posts are specifically meant for you all, I'll put (HT) in the title and put the number in paretheses as well so that the posts can be kept in some kind of order.

Also, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them and try to answer them. You can email them to me at joenaitis@gmail.com. It usually takes me about 2 weeks to reply since I have no internet access in my community.

Take care and hope you are all enjoying the cold!