Arrival in Guatemala

Well, I am here in Guatemala!

We arrived a few days ago and spent the first 2 nights in Antigua, which is a more touristy town with about 20,000 people I think. Then we took a 3 hour car ride through the most beautiful terrain I have seen, full of mountains and greenery, to the small village of San Lucas Toliman. We rented a house for the students that has 5 or so bedrooms, with 2 - 5 people sleeping in each room. I am in a double with another girl, Candace, who is a sweet heart and we are actually very similar, so we are getting along very well.

When we arrived in SLT we met the Mayan women we will be working with for the next 4 weeks. Everyone is so warm and friendly and excited to be part of this project. The Marketing team did the first workshop 2 days ago, and it went pretty well, but they definetly worked out some kinks so that when the business team presented yesterday we were better prepared. For example, there are so many kids running around that it can be distracting, but we learned from the previous day and made it work. So we did a workshop on pricing products and the women understood what we were trying to explain to them, even going as far as saying they were loosing money so maybe they should stop weaving and start doing other things (other designs), so that was a huge feat. The design team is doing a workshop today so hopefully the women can take what they learnt yesterday and put it into action today.

On another front, everyone I am here with is fantastic. Everyone is super warm and friendly, and we are all bonding and getting to know each other really well. We have bonfires at night in our backyard and are planning a trip to the town across the lake from us for this weekend possibly.

I will try to get some pictures up in the next few days so you can all see what we´ve been up to!
-n.