Anything that can happen, will happen.

Dear friends and family, I find it important to share with those that don't know that my grandfather, Lester Norton, passed away yesterday morning. He was 92 years old and ready to be reunited with his heavenly father. My family had been by his side day and night till the end. Although I could not be there in his final days I am comforted to know that there was no room for him to doubt my or my family's love for him. He was at peace and comforted to know that he was moving on to something much greater. With all the heartache I am happy to say that I will be able to come home briefly for the funeral and to be with my family. I feel very blessed with this opportunity and I appreciate all the love and support I have received already. Your warm sentiments have touched my heart. As far as I am concerned I will not be remembering him as the weak and frail old man that he became in his last week. I will be thinking of gigantic ice cream sundaes, battle ships, and Christmas time. On a lighter note, yesterday I also got food poisoning so when I say "anything that can happen, will happen" . . . I mean it! I am on the mend and I for sure don't have parasites, the silver lining in all of this. I don't have a picture for this post because you don't want to see what I have to show you. :) :) :) Once again, I want to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and for you all to know that myself and my family deeply appreciate them.

It has been a long week. Only to get busier!

Hola! This week has been an exciting and successful one! I have not only been taking one on one Spanish classes for 5 hours each day, but participating in two really cool projects. One of which was completed the other which was implemented. We had a group of women come from the masters program in Social Work of Shippensburg University this week (one a professor and the other three being her students). They were a great group of women with such open hearts and minds. They were ready to learn and get their hands dirty! They worked in the community of Chuicavioc which is about a 20 minute car ride from the town I am living in. With only 4, they all worked in the same home building a stove. It was the home of Doña Josefina and her 4 children. The women circle that Doña Josefina belongs to elected her to receive the next stove that came available through Highland Support Project because with the rainy season coming a river would soon be running through her kitchen. The eminent rains would make cooking over an open fire extremely challenging if not impossible. What I loved most about leading this group through their stove building project was being able to listen to the comments that came from the family. The eldest daughter, who was very profound in her words, had the most encouraging things to say to the women that came. After the stove was completed and everyone was saying a tearful goodbye she said, "You have shown both the men and the women of this community that women are capable and thank you for that". Those words could not have made me more happy as I believe that it is just as important to build the stove as it is to show the women and the families of these rural communities that people care about their well being. This is a picture of Doña Josefina and her family! At the end of the week we had a goodbye and thank you ceremony which consisted of the whole women circle coming and cooking a traditional Guatemalan meal of Pepian and tamolitos. I was in heaven. With the women came their babies. :) Look at her checks!! The most precious babe I have ever seen. The other project that we really got off the ground this week was the medicinal herb garden that is located in the community of Llanos del Pinal (again, right outside of the town I am living in). The garden was planted on the land of the communities mid-wife who has the knowledge to use the medicinal herbs. This is so cool because with this garden will come the pride and resurgence of traditional Maya healing techniques. A lot of what this garden aims to do is provide these women with an affordable way of healing as opposed to paying a ton for western medicine. We aim to provide them with an education on how to balance the use of both as sometimes herbs might not cut it. The long term goal is to not only provide the community with a medicinal source, but to produce enough that the women have extra to make teas, salves, and tinctures for them to not only use but to sell at market as well. We have very high hopes for this project and the women are thrilled and extremely proud of the work they have accomplished so far.

60 is a big number!

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY, DADDY!!!! I am so lucky that my family was able to celebrate my dad's birthday with me last weekend, but today is the official day! I am so sorry that I am not able to be there in person! He is the most kind man I have ever met and I don't know what I would do without him. Thank you, Dad for being so incredible. I'm sorry I can't be there for your special day. Also, HAPPY OFFICIAL US MOTHER'S DAY, MOMMY!!! I also wish I could be there to celebrate with you. I could not ask for a better role model! I'm missing you all terribly! I have the best family ever! On the Guatemalan Adventure portion of my life . . . I am beginning Spanish classes tomorrow and I will also be leading my first group of the summer tomorrow. I will be leading/translating for the group in the mornings and the classes are from 2:00pm to 7:00 pm in the evenings. I am about to have some long days, but Lord knows I need the practice. I was invited to a Mediterranean themed dinner/girls night last night and all day today I have not been able to stop thinking about all the wonderful food we all made. But what was so amazing about this group of girls is that they are from all over the world; Holland, Britain, Canada, Finland, and the US and the girl that has been there the shortest amount of time is 8 months and the girl that has been here the longest is 6 years! That is amazing! I am so jealous of what they know about this country and how beautiful there Spanish is. I cannot wait to catch up and I plan to quickly. I'm already making a list of things I have to do here if I can find the time. It sounds like to me that starting tomorrow I'm not going to have much of it. I am so excited to get really started tomorrow.

Happy Belated Mother's Day!!!! And Medicinal Plant Garden

The first thing you should know about Guatemalan's is that they set off fireworks for every occasion, big or small. Mother's Day here, which was May 10th, happens to be a very big celebrations which made the fireworks they used even bigger. Having been here the summer of 2010 during Father's Day I had prepared myself mentally for the early morning fright of fireworks going off around 6:00. On May 9th I went to be focused, saying to myself, "Penelope, you will not be terrified when you are awoken very early my bottle rockets". 12:00 am May 10th, I swear, canons went off!!!! I have never jumped so high. It was like nothing I have ever experienced and they did not stop for about 10 minutes. I promise, I really am not exaggerating when I say they sounded like canons. Definitely not your average bottle rocket if a bottle rocket at all. The town literally shut down for the occasion. Stores were closed and unless you had made a reservation a long time in advance you could not get into a restaurant. I wish I could be in the United States to celebrate with my mother tomorrow, but I am confident that the two sisters at home, Isabelle and Zipporah, will take good care of her tomorrow. Miss you and love you mommy!!! Yesterday, even though it was jump started a little early was a wonderful day. I got to go check out a medicinal herb garden that AMA and HSP are putting in the community of Llanos del Pinal. We have not put the plants in yet, but the women of the Llanos del Pinal Women's Circle have prepared the land and are waiting on further instructions on the perfect layout for the plants. We hope to start planting this coming week. All the materials for the enclosure that they are being planted in and all the plants were donated by Vale United Methodist Church so a big thank you to them!! The medicinal plant garden is being planted on the land of the communities mid-wife and our hopes are that she will be able to use them in her practices and that in the long term the women circle can use the herbs they harvest and convert them into teas and oils to be sold for a small income. I look forward tot he success of this project. It combines everything I love, gardening and community development! I look forward to planting next week. We had lots of helpers yesterday!

I have arrived safely!

Hello all! I have made it safe and sound! A big thank you to all the love and support I have received. It has been greatly appreciated. It meets the world to me. I am also thrilled to announce that I am at $1,955 out of $10,000 that needs to be raised for my year long experience here. I am thrilled. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I got into Guatemala around 11:30 yesterday morning. 1:30pm Virginia time for those following me at home. I had to be at the airport in Virginia at 4:00 am yesterday so needless to say I got very little sleep (45 minutes). My flight consisted of sleeping and more sleeping. Once I landed in Guatemala a HSP driver met me, Fernando, and we proceeded from there. The ride should have been 4 hours to Xela, but it ended up being more like 5 due to the several errands we had to run along the way. It was actually really cool because we had to stop to pick up medicinal plants from a botanic garden for the medicinal garden a women'c circle is starting in the community of Llanos del Pinal. We picked up over 200 plants. I felt like I was back working as a gardener at Mount Vernon. It was great! They even taught me the beneficial properties to all of them . . . can I remember them now, no, but I remember some. Did you know a stem of rosemary can purify water! Too cool. Anyways, I love being back here and I am settling in nicely. I have already put in an almost full day of work in the office today so that is great! As far as organizing my personal life my room is a bit of a disaster right now, but it will get better. Making dinner might be a struggle as I don't have a pantry set up yet, but I bought a few things at the market today that I am excited to try and cook with. We shall see if it ends up being tasty. I hope so! I'm going to go try them out now. Love ya'll!

6 Days till departure!!!

As I am packing and trying to organize I have started to overflow out of my room and into a sitting room (my mother is thrilled). But, with all this "organization" I am starting to get concerned that a years worth of stuff is not going to fit into a backpacking pack, a suitcase, and a carry-on. Coming from a family that that is famous for over packing this should be interesting! I will fight to make it all fit whether I have to have my dad sit on the suitcase to close it or not. With only 6 days left I have been saying a lot of goodbyes. I consider myself extremely lucky because my mother and I went and moved my sister Zipporah out of her dorm yesterday so now she is home for the summer! Just in time. My other sister Tallulah is coming home today till Monday to spend as much time as possible and the other sister Isabelle is still in high school so she will be here too. I am so so so happy to have everyone together before I depart. I even have some great friends that have decided to come home for the weekend to be with me and try to help me get organized before I go. I am so thankful to have such wonderful people and caring people in my life. With the sadness of saying goodbye I am also getting super pumped for going!! I don't think there is anything more exciting than learning about new cultures and make a new place a home. I truly believe everything happens for a reason and that going to Guatemala is going to be great for me. I have been talking more and more with my supervisor before I go and my responsibilities seem to be expanding which I think is great. I want to be busy, I want to experience it all, and I want to be useful. I hope I will make you all proud. I was searching on Hulu the other evening for something funny to watch and instead I came across a short documentary on poverty, only 56 minutes long. I watched only about 30 seconds of the film and immediately recognized rural Guatemala. The documentary is about the economics of poverty and the strategies families have to survive. Four boys take on the life style of poverty to get a sense of what its like and how you survive. I have posted the link to the video in the comment section below this post. You only need to watch about 5 minutes to get the idea, but if you watch the whole thing you can really get a good idea of why the work Highland Support Project does is so important. Pictures to be posted soon of the mess I've made in trying to pack!!!