Hola!

First of all, I´m sorry for the delay in letting everyone know what is going on!  It has been a crazy first week and a lot of adjusting.  The first night I arrived was the first night of Semana Santa.  Semana Santa is like Easter week here, but it is a huge fiesta week.  Parties every night and a lot of people on holiday.

I flew into Guatemala City, got in cab to go to the bus station, and immediately got on a bus (hopefully) going to Rio Dulce.  I ended up sitting next to a girl from Boston on the bus!  She also had been doing stem cell research, but was now finishing her 4th year of medical school in Vermont at UVM.  She would be studying Spanish near Antigua (West of Guate) but had a few days to backpack before beginning class and wanted to see east Guatemala and the Rio Dulce area. So we were at least going to be lost together if nothing else!  We got dropped off at dark on the side of the road (basically what seemed to be in the middle of nowhere) and started heading towards ´civilization´.  We found a sign saying backpackers and followed it that direction until we came across the backpacker hotel.

So, I am currently in the Rio Dulce area, very close to Fronterras and a 6 hour bus ride east of Guatemala City.  (about a 30 minute walk over the river to Fronterras) For the first two weeks, I work in the restaurant/bar- Hotel Backpackers.  It is a pretty famous backpacker hostel and ´nice´ restaurant and bar.  It is one of the main support systems for the orphanage where I will be going.   I work doing a little of everything, waiting tables, washing dishes, cleaning, running food and drinks, etc.  Basic restaurant work.  For the first week (Weds-Sat) we worked until around 3-4am and then the volunteers and workers hung out some after that.  It was a HUGE party everywhere and backpackers was a big place to be.  Interesting crowd....
It was actually a perfect time to arrive becuase it was so much fun and I got to meet a large majority of the volunteers (they had many of them come up from the orphanage to help in the restaurant these few days).  A lot of work, very little sleep, but fun.

This week, I have been taking Spanish classes every morning and working in the evenings.
So, I wake up around 6am (you are sort of sleeping outside, so once workers arrive and the sun comes up, you basically have to get up) run, head to class, go to town, then work all night, last night we worked until around 12:30am.  Running here is interesting, they definitely look at me wondering what the hell I am running from.  But oh well. There is still one other volunteer with me, a German guy, and he runs w/me sometimes. 

So there is a brief overview of what my days look like now.  I do have some access to internet, but once I go to Casa (the orphanage), I will only be able to come to backpackers at most, twice a week.  And may or may not be able to email/post then.  We will see..

But my Spanish is improving, and on Monday when I was getting out of the shower, a GIANT iguana fell off the roof and almost landed on me.  Awesome. 

Currently, I have diarrhea.  I got heat exhausted on Tuesday night and got really pale and started throwing up so I took a cold shower and went to bed.  However, since then, I have only eaten bananas, and even that isn´t really workin.  I bought some more medicine today so hopefully....
But me and el bano are best friends right now.

That is about it.  I will try to post more and tell about a few of the fun things I have been doing as well.
And pictures!

I am sure this is full of mistakes, as I don´t have much time, but I will write more soon!

And thanks to Andrew for helping me and making sure I let people know what´s going on!