Best week so far. We went on out second and last field-based training up North in Coban. We spent the week running around with two volunteers who are on their way out and are going to be replaced by two of us. Both are good volunteers, but more importantly, they´re actually sane. Both have learned to speak both Spanish and Kekchí­ and have had a lot of success with their communities. It was encouraging to spend the week with them.

Basically, we ran around with them all week and had some training activities. This included giving presentations to local groups in order to practice. I gave mine to a bunch of fourth-graders on how to use worms for composting. I had planned on giving it to adults, so I scraped my plans at the last minute just walked around and let them play with the worms. I think they liked it.

We also met with a family of Mennonite missionaries who are running a school in Coban. They run a large organic farm outside the school where we spent they day. They were hilarious. They´ve been their for four years and the whole family is tri-lingual, including the kids. What´s best is that they look like the Children of the Corn and live in totally indigenous community. On Thursday, we ended up going out to a nature preserve with them. There were a bunch of waterfalls and caves. We cooked-out and soaked it up. It was great to go swimming.

We also had meetings with the jefe to discuss our sites. After seeing the two Coban volunteers, I decided I´d really like to learn another language and requested a Mayan-language site. We find out this coming Thursday. At the moment, we know all the sites, but they have yet to be assigned. All we have to go on is hearsay and hunches, so we´re all pretty nervous to find out. Based on my requests, my guess is that I´ll either end up in Coban or way out West. I´m suspecting I´ll get the one out West. It sounds pretty rugged, but I´m up for that. However, in the past, people have gotten sites totally contrary to their requests, so I could end up somewhere else. We´ll see. Till then, we´re placing our bets.