Sorry for the Delay, lets talk about Oaxaca

So, recently I have been very poor with my upkeep of my blog, but with a renewed vigor Im going to start writing in this bad boy again.

So we set off on our trip to Oaxaca mexico( that if you follow the news was just hit with an ungodly amount of rain, which led to landslides of incredible measure and buried somewhere around 500 houses in various towns) in microbus, we crammed all of our luggage into the small microbus, which is basically a van, which guatemalans find the ability to fit 25 people in at times. So there we were heading into the Sina loa gang run area of the Guatemalan border. We were just about to make our first crossing of borders in central america. It was an experience to say the least, approaching the border was like throwing food to ants (not to be insulting), but the moment we all stepped off of our micro to get exit stamps, where were swarmed by people trying to change money with us, people trying to lead us away from where we needed to go, and people like always trying to sell us something. All of the money exchangers, were giving ridiculously horrible rates of exchange. We all decide to just wait it out. We received our exit stamps and walked our way to the entry station of mexico.
There was a natural divide between the borders which was a huge river. It reminded me of the trip that many migrants must make in order to travel to the states to find work. The book Enrique's journey elaborates much on the hardships that they all must experience. I did not stop to take a photo since we were surrounded by people trying to sell us things and exchange money.
Once across the border all of us had our bags searched and then we were back in the micro for the rest of our 6 hour journey to Tapachula from Xela, our next destination to catch a bus to Oaxaca. A thirteen hour bus. Luckily, we were not on a chicken bus, and it was a coach style bus. It was moderately comfortable....as comfortable as a 19 hour ride on buses could be.

The Cast


When we arrived in Oaxaca, we were immediately paired off and sent with hour family homestays for a week. My buddy ryan and I were paired together, and we were picked up.....oddly in a Subaru. This was a little more than I was expecting, because the fmaily home stay I have had in guatemala is most likely on the lower section of middle class and they do not own a car. We arrived at our new mothers home. My mouth literally dropped, because we were staying in a mansion. It was a georgous home, with private bathrooms and a huge area for lounging with every channel immaginable. For a little while, I thought i was dreaming and there was no way possible that this could be where we would be staying for the next week.

The attitude that we were given before coming to Oaxaca was much different what we actually experienced. Majority of us thought it was going to be dangerous and similar to guatemala, mostly inpart to the movie that our program showed us before we left. It was an interesting film about the teachers protests in the city of Oaxaca, which led to a large amount of government repression by Mexico and hit squads that eliminated certain leaders of the protest for more monies for students books, etc. The citizens of Oaxaca set up road barricades and it ultimately led to the intervention by military forces to stop the protests. This set the mindset that where we were headed was going to be quite intense.

The truth was quite different, Oaxaca was a gorgeous city, with a very vibrant culture, and many cafes and tons of great places to go and hang out. There was also an awesome market that had a section that was completely dedicated to smoked meat as there was just meat hanging everywhere. It was pretty interesting.

One of the first days went to the ruins of Monte Alban. It is one of the oldest ruins in central america with an origin around 500BC. Monte Albán had an estimated population of 17,200 making it one of the largest Mesoamerican cities at the time. This massive site was truly incredible and definetly had the awwwsnap factor to it. It had that mystical sense to it, that I have grown to truly enjoy. There was also an incredible view of Oaxaca from the ruins.




















Right to bottom: ruins, Old Bball court....where the losers were scarificed, mystical pic, Somos hermanos....jamz



There was also an incredible church, that Ryan, Ann and myself went to check out. The Church of Santo Domingo is impossible to miss, as it is directly in the center or the city. The monastery was active from 1608 to 1857. In front of the entrances there are huge patches of agave plants. That in my mind is very reminiscent of the childhood video game Zelda. The building its self was magnificent and so beautiful. Inside they have a huge museum, which was definitely one of my favorite parts of our trip to Oaxaca. There were so many relics of the history there and a huge botanical garden that was most likely 200 years old and very impressive. The old walls of the monastery just had that feel of you know they have so many years. In their library there was books literally 100s of years old. Old surgery manuals and such that I found particularly interesting.

Right to left:
Overlooking the court yard, The ceilings, the awesome garden







Santo Domingo and Zelda like agave









We spent much time exploring Oaxaca and the various attractions that the city had to offer. One of the first nights out we went to a bar of a friend of our field coordinator ellie who is super cool! and there was a traditional Mexican band that was playing the local music, but and one member was playing a horse skull. I have never seen that before haha. The music was awesome and the experience equally awesome. The band was the Family Raices. All of their music was political to some extent, but was extremely enjoyable and totally unique, unlike anything I have ever heard, the mother and daughter stomped on a wooden box to the beat, was a form of salsa but making music at the same time...totally legit.

Also, while we where there it was approaching the bicentennial of independence of mexico, so every night there were various parades and different events going on. The whole atmosphere of Oaxaca, was dare I say it, much more exciting than Xela. The culture seemed so vibrant and so many people took so much pride in their country. It was something else to witness.

One of the night festivals !









One day we had a real cultural experience with a traditional medicine man...er woman....i guess...it was a very interesting procedure. It was known as a cleansing to remove the bad chi from your body....well it wasnt chi, just something similar. I wasnt sure if she was playing a joke on us, but i couldnt help but smile a bit, even if it wasnt culturally sensitive. The shaman was literally smacking us with ferns.....and for some reason smacked me especially hard in the groin.....guess she thought i needed cleansing, but who knows, it was interesting. She then proceeded to blow intense smoke into our faces that had some old tree sap in it. I felt like I prolly became sicker after the whole process since i couldn't breath, but I was relaxed....or just extremely lightheaded. Not sure haha

For your enjoyment,












Another day we traveled to the Milta Ruins, which were equally impressive. The city itself had such an old presence and was very alluring we were all very sad to have to leave, but as always, Es la Vida.

old aqueducts y calles









All in all I truly enjoyed our time in Oaxaca, except for the part where our tour guide hit a speed bum going like 60 mph and slammed my head into the roof of the van.....well i recieved the least of it, my buddy ryan was bleeding from the head after that.


ES LA VIDA

Sean

THE WORST PAIN EVER

So in the past few weeks I've had my nice run-ins with stomach issues. Around the second week in Xela, I started to experience some diarrhea, which was pretty fun in itself. Although, I have been extremely careful in terms of what I eat and drink and make sure to wash my hands throughly. I had some rumbles in the jungle. However, I thought that possibly it could have been just adjusting to the diet of Guatemala, which is high amounts of sugar and carbs, something totally opposite of what I typically experience back in the states. After a week of toilet struggles, I started to feel much better and thought it must have just beenthe food here. Then while on an excursion to a AID/TB hospital, I started to feel some extreme urges to go to the bathroom, so I went, but afterwards I started to feel some extreme pain. I sat down on the curb and looked around. I said to everyone I should prolly go home, the pain was so intense. I drank water, and tried to do anything I could to make it stop. I could not even stand up the pain was so intense.
Soon I found myself shaking out of pain and turning a nice pale coloration. I was drinking gatorade at the time and I found myself crushing the bottle to divert my mind from the pain, which was only getting worse. Finally, a my friends Rachel and Jimmy decided to take me in a cab home. While in the cab, I found i was gripping the seat so hard the leather was cracking under pressure as the pain continually worsened. Then rachel and jimmy made an executive decision to take me to the hospital.
Our driver began to run red lights and speed through the tiny streets in an attempt to get me to the hospital as soon as possible. We pulled up and I hoped out of the car and was taken into the emergency room. The hospital was much dirty than that of a standard american hospital, but it seemed as though all the tools they used were sterile. I made sure of that. i was put in an old rickety wheel chair which jimmy found a delight to push me with. I took a nice stool sample and waited an hour for the results. All the while, the pain was steadily increasing to a point where I couldnt take it. It hurt so much, and there was nothing I could do.
Even though the pain was so intense, I couldnt help but think how good of a bad experience this was since I was recieving a first hand experience of the health care system in guatemala, while also experiencing the pain that tons of patients go through in a years span, and even those who succumb to GI disorders.
Back to the experience at hand, so the pain was so intense at one point that i could feel my body needed to produce any kind of relief from the pain. This was the first time I have ever in my life vomited from pain alone. I can safely say it is an experience I would only like to have once. After that momentary lapse in pain, which i believe was primarily mental, like a biting a finger to ingore a shot, the pain returned once more. Finally, my results arrived and the young doctora notified be that I have amoebas and they most likely caused an intense intestinal infection which is why I was experiencing a pain that could only be described as if someone had reached into my body grabbed my intestines and started to crush and twist them.
The young doctora told me she could give me a muscle relaxant that would take away the pain. At that point, I would have gone sky diving to get rid of the pain. Then she told me it was an intravenous shot. Reluctantly, I said yes and the next thing I knew a nurse, who really didnt seem like she knew was she was doing, was sticking a big needles into my left vein. The pain I experienced from the shot was almost as bad as the pain I was experiencing in my stomach. It really felt as though it lasted forever...all i could do was squeeze my hand in relation. Then I could feel the sweetness of the shot as the pain in my intestines subsided. Then i went home to sleep for a very long time.... To this day it is the worst pain I have experienced........it was treated with anti-parasitic and antibiotics.

That was my first encounter, my second resulted in me experiencing 9 diarrhea episodes a day for a week until i went get lab results done, which indicated I had high yeast and an intestinal infection.....I like to call this round two. Which I am currently treating. We'll how it goes.

The epic Benjamin induced bike ride

Yesterday, Ben( tallest kid in our program) from san Francisco suggested that this morning we go for a bike ride. I was all about it. There were 3 of us in total who went. Ben, Ryan, and myself. The bikes we rented from vrisa were pretty shitty, but they worked and only cost Q40 for a days use. Even though I inspected mine and tried out the brakes, I should have tried them out on a hill ahah because they were terrible. This made the ride in Xela that much more exciting.....
So we set out around 8 am this morning and after some hilarious troubles with directions that led us in a gigantic circle we were off onto a trail that spanned through the mountains. The scenery was spectacular and the air was so nice in comparison to the city...ahhh fresh air haha. The air pollution in Xela is crazy. The roads up through the mtns were pretty tough... or atleast a little harder than I expected and were covered with alot of mud which forced up to step off the bikes and walk...my white shoes are now brown ahah. It was completely worth it though. The trip was great. It was initially supposed to take 3-4 hours round trip....total understatement...We rode into two towns on the outskirts of Xela. The first I forget the name of, but the second was Zunil. In the first town we had to navigate through a gigantic market with our bikes, which was a pretty funny sight since we were the only gringos in the town at the time. We then saw a main attraction of a huge pile of garbage at the bottom of the hill, which made me think what a shame the natural beauty of the area was being trashed.
In Zunill, we checked out the main attraction of a church that was first built in 1529. It is so crazy to see such building since they have stood and been around longer than the entire history of the US.
After checking out Zunil, we rode a little further and came upon hot spring. There we chilled in a sauna for about an hour and they were rediculously hot! It was awesome though and a great experience. After a king's lunch for 8 us dollars we grabbed a bus back to Xela. The overall trip took around 8 hours haha.....5 more hours than we had expected, but totally enjoyed every moment.

Mt. Baul

July 17th
On the outskits of Xela one can find Mt. Baul, it is one of the many peaks that surround this beautiful city. Our school, El Mundo en Espanol, sponsored a little excursion out to the peak of this mountain which really was not all that tough or much of a struggle at all. It was a nice little stroll that had a dead dog on it, which was interesting. Each person in the Somos Hermanos familia went on this nice little hike. The hike could not have taken more than say an hour to reach the top, but it provided some wonderful views of the city. The trip up our guide Jorge, suggested that we take the short cut up, which included an interesting wire rope ( literally I believe it was a telephone wire that had been finished its usefullness and someone thought it would make a great wire to be used to pull people up the side of steep mountain. The wire was very strong but frayed at certain points, needless to say I was happy that I had a tentus shot before I left. Once we made our way to the top we were able to reap the beautiful views of Mtn Baul...simply georgous.

The troubles of changing money in Guate

So I have found that changing money in Guate can be quite annoying because it typically leads to a fun hour long event. One particular little journey I had was at a local bank in which it took almost 2 hours to change my American express travelers checks. While in the bank, I began to hear all of these loud cracking and explosion noises that were coming from outside. I looked at the teller who then looked back at me with an unconcerned facial expression and kept going on about her buisness which by the way was taking so long. Everyone looked like they didnt know what the hell they were doing....that was a bit worrisome. The explosions continued outside, and having been spending the past few weeks learning about the horrors of guatemalan history....i was a tad concerned to say the least.
So there I was taking out a decently large amount of cash and there were explosions outside, all i could think was no way, how in the world the first time i go to change money could this bank be robbed or there be a small uprising or something crazy like that. But considering the guards which were holding automatic rifles did not seem to concerned I just went about my business.
When I arrived home I asked my abuela about what those explosions could possibly be and she told me that it was the day of the nino or of baby jesus. I thuslearned that guatemalans love explosions and blowing things up with large and small poppers which kinda sound like bombs ahah. It was a funny experience to say the least.

Things I wish I would have taken with me

Things I wish I had brought:
• A pack of Precise V5 Rolling ball point extra fine pens
o I love writing with these and there aren’t any to be found in Xela and their pens aren’t that great…it’s a little thing I enjoy
• A Spanish studying guide and review book
o I need more review and practice
• Markings Journals
o I really like the design of these and I think I want to start using them for everything, there are none to be found in Guate
• Notebooks, Index Cards
o Its just a hassel to have to try go buy these things since we have no free time


So if anyone wants to send carepackages haha those things would make me very happy

El MUNDO EN ESPANOL y XELA

The Spanish lessons have been going well, I have had 2 professors so far, my first was a woman named Rosa who taught me a lot of the basics but is very nice. Mauricio on the other hand is hilarious and he was my second professor. We talk about a lot of silly stuff and he’s always making bromas. The Spanish school itself is pretty incredible and has a kitten and used to have a rabbit before Sergio got rid of the bunny. The two were funny together and I thought of them as a milo and otis, just a different Guatemalan version. The two could be seen running and playing together amidst all the students practicing Spanish. Its hilarious. The school is great I have really been enjoying my time there, it is so much information though, in the first two weeks we surpassed the amount of Spanish I learned in a year of high school . I guess that makes sense since it is 4 hours of one on one lessons a day. Above is a picture of the schools learning area.


Our first week involved a lot ranging from movies to learning about the history of gutemala, which is incredible and something I never was really exposed to. It is interesting the influence and impact the USA had in spiraling the country into a 36 civil war that lead to the massacre and death of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans. However, it is extremely interesting overall. Being a huge fan of futbol, I soon traveled to the complejo for some good footy. I traveled to the sports complex with ryan and Rachel two other students in my program who are both fun and chill people We immediately found some locals to play with and man were they good. I watched as a family spent 7 minutes heading a pelota to each other without letting it drop. Simply incredible. We played a 3 on 3 game with them and quickly found that altitude totally leaves an effect on our running and breathing abilities. Hilariously, after only a few sprints we were all sucking wind. It was an amazing time. I have found that it is very easy for me to connect with others I can’t speak with by just bringing a soccer ball with me. It is really incredible.


We also did a lot of walking around to get familiarized with the City. We explored zones 1. 2, 3 and there is so much visual stimulation. People left and right are trying to sell things, but they’re typically the same things over and over just sold by different people. There is so much knock off ropa y cosas en general. One of the things that I noticed that I found particularly hilarious, yet frightening is how many shopkeepers have armed men for hire outside their shops. All of which carry shotguns, you can find them almost every other corner and at every bank. The hilarious part of this is that they are at some of the most random stores. My prime example is a pizza hut/ pastry store that had inbetween them was a man holding a shotgun. I like to call Xela the land of Shotguns and Cakes after seeing that, but it isn’t very dangerous at all if one keeps their head about them.
Things sold in Guatemala are quite perplexing as well because there are strange combinations such as this Vodak and Pringles in the same box, we all saw this and were very confused but there are tons of these combos everywhere you go.


The end of the first week we had our first salsa lesson which was really hard. I have never really done structured dancing before, but it is really tough, you have to always be thinking and trying to incorporate the steps together. So least to say the first lesson was stressful and annoying . However the second lesson was amazing and I have been getting much better which has made it much more fun. I love the spins and different moves involved in the dance.

1st day in Xela my new home for the next 6 motnhs

The drive to Xela was an interesting one to say the least, there were at least 10 times where we were required to hop over to the other side of the road because of landsides. The ride was four hours long through the green mountains of Guatemala, with incredible scenery and winding roads the continually went higher and higher. When we pulled into Xela, it is a very beautiful town embedded in mountains and volcanoes of the Guatemalan highlands. We pulled into our school with our bus driver weaving in and out of the narrow streets of Xela. It was reminiscent of the time I spent in Italia and the I could definitely feel the Spanish influence in the city. My first impression was that the city was huge. Xela has 300,000 inhabitants and many zones which kind of substitute for area codes. Entering the town, the streets were bustling with 100s of people just going about their lives, selling random goods such as chickens, and practically anything you can think of.

The first stop of the day was “El mundo en espanol” the Spanish school. Instantly, we were greeted by the head of the house; Gladis. A large woman with an even larger heart. Immediately we were all treated like family. The world cup final was on and we thought that we were going to miss it due to the ride to xela. On the bus we were listening to the broken Spanish over the radio trying to hear what was happening in the game. Luckily, we made it back to the last over time to watch Spain win the world cup. It was great that gladis quickly ushered us to the TV and was so sweet.
El mundo en espanol is the Spanish school in xela I will be learning from for the next 6 months. The school itself is literally the home of Gladis’s family and all the learning takes place in their backyard. As quickly as we arrived at the school, our host families arrived to take us all to our new homes in Xela.
Meeting my new host family was interesting and I have found to have quite a large family, consisting of 2 sisters, 1 brother, mom, grandma, and a father. However they have numerous people arrive throughout the day. First meeting was interesting since I really didn’t know how to speak Spanish at all. I rather attempted to use a few basic words and then point and make funny gestures to get my point across. The family is extremely nice and very loving, they feed me like im a horse haha. It is a bit too much food for me. The family is really great though and are very patient with me and love to laugh. This has made for a great inital living environment.

Jose the champ

So last time I believe I left off with the story of Jose, the little guatemalan boy who made my first day in guatemala so enjoyable. We played a bunch of futbol and really connected. I have found that futbol is an excellent why to connect with people here in Guatemala since everyone here is a diehard fan. Before leaving the hostel, I felt that i needed to give jose something to remember me by, so I ended up giving him a hat that had Jim Thorpe written across the top. I could tell that it meant a lot to him because he gave me a bottle of wrinkle free spray as a token of appreciation. Although this isnt a whole lot on american standards, it was all he could give and I appreciate his token of friendship.
One by one students from my program began to arrive. With each new arrival, excitement was mounting exponentially. One after I began to meet interesting people. Our program director Ellie was really cool and came to meet us in the hostel. The other students arrived the morning be departed. I am very glad that I arrived earlier to spend some time in the hostel.
As we were leaving the hostel to start our journey to Xela, which would be our home for the next 6 months Jose ran up and pretended to hop onto our bus. Before I left he gave me a big hug and I wished him the best of luck. I wonder where his life will lead him and what adventures lay before both of us.

The picture on the upper left was a snapshot of the drive to Xela from guatemala city. A road filled with beauty and a heck of a lot of landslides. Luckily we didnt run into any.

Keep on Keeping on,
Maloney

1st night in Guatemala City

I arrived in Guatemala City around 8pm and the trip to San Salvador was pretty incredible being completely surrounded by a culture so different than my own. My short stay in Salvador gave a little taste of how diverse my experience really will be since no one was speaking English. Excitement was mounting as I stepped onto plane and took the 30 min trip from Salvador to G-City. I wasn't sure how to feel about going to G-City a day before anyone else from the program was going to be there, since I had no linguistic skills in spanish and pretty much would have to wait and hope that the driver from hostel volcanes would arrive and pick me up. Leaving the airport was a crazy experience as there are hundreds of people asking whether or not you want a taxi. Since I didn't know any spanish I had to continually tell people no no no thank you. Luckily, I was able to catch the sign and found the driver who took me to the hostel, along with another girl Staci who was also a pre-med student who had come to take spanish lessons. She had taken two years off from medical school to do americorps and told me she loved the experience but wished that she had done the peace corps like I am planning to.
The picture above was my hostel room that was 25 bucks and had two beds, talk about jawsome. I opted to get a room that locks since I really didnt know anyone yet or how the situation was going to be. I went to bed super exhausted from my trip and woke up the next morning to make a new friend, a girl from holland named floo. Eating breakfast with Floo and Staci, I was able to chat about our individual travels and our expectations about our time in guatemala. Unfortunately, the two of them left for san pedro that morning and I am unsure if I will ever see them again.
My next experience was one of the most incredible ones so far in Guatemala. I saw a little boy sitting and helping his mother since she was the house keeper of the hostel and I noticed he had a futbol jersey on. Not understanding spanish I went up to him and said "futbol" and did a very basic simplistic version of air juggling. That moment I saw his light up and it was like I lit up his whole day. From that moment on he came up to me doing a funny rendition of my air juggle and smiled and ran off, only to come back and poke me and imitate the motion again. I want to play futbol and figured out how to ask where we could buy a ball. He nodded in understanding and went to ask him mom. He then took my hand and led me down the street saying vomos and laughing the whole way.
He led me to a small shop with bars on the entrance. I guess that is how the owners protect themself from being robbed. At that same time, I thought oh man if the shop keepers are like that it must be pretty dangerous, and I looked around making sure no one could run up behind me.
The boy's name was Jose, and he got the ball and I purchased it, then we ran back to the hostel to play some futbol. We ended up playing for 2.5 hours ahah, it was incredible. The imagination he had was very fun. We pretended as though we were in the world cup and we were in a PK shoot out for the championship. He had a very good foot for a lil guy and very accurate. I thought geeze this lil dude must play all the time. I asked him if he played with other kids his age and he sadly shook his head no. All i could think was I wish this guy could play with some other kids he has such a bright bubbly attitude and was laughing and similing all the time.

I must run Ill finish this story soon.!!

The Flight: adidos mi casa

As I said my last good byes to my home for the next six months, I didn't begin to really feel that I was going to be away from home for 1/2 a year until the car ride that morning. I finished my packing around 2:30 in the morning, which was everything other than what I had wanted to do in terms of sleeping before a long journey. My family was getting up at 4 am in order to get me to newark int airport. So least to say, getting to sleep an hour n a half before we wanted to depart for the airport was not ideal. So def start packing 2 days before any travel is my first piece of advice. My packing consisted of 2 pairs of jeans, toiletries, 4 t-shirts, 1 pair of nice shorts, 2x athletic shorts, 2 long sleeve shirts, 7x underwear, 7x socks, merril geortex boots, running shoes, leather sandals, shower sandals, futbol cleats, workout tubes, trekkers shirt, trekkers pant, trekkers, shorts, ll bean all sport fleece, ll bean rain resistance warm jacket, columbia waterproof/breathable jacket, netbook, external harddrive, ipod, osprey ather 70 pack, ketly redwing 2650 backpack. I brought around 13 books as well which made packing pretty tough and heavy, but all together both packs weighed around 25 lbs and were full to the brim.
Driving on the way to the airport it was a little strange realizing that I wont be seeing my parents and family for 6 months, but I think for taking the adventurous style of life those are the sacrifices that one will have to make. Not seeing friends or family, both of which really have played such a critical role in making me the person I am today will be a tough challenge to overcome, but I feel confident that I will meet many people on the way to help prevent the feeling of homesickness. I said my last good byes to my parents both of which I could sense had feelings of excitement and worrisome for me. I think my mom showed much more of the worrisome attitude since Im her little boy and she wouldn't see me for the next few months. I think my dad was worried as well, but he likes to hide it a bit more. I could definitely feel that both of my parents were so proud of me and that gave me a lot of strength to step into security and begin my journey.
Security went pretty quick besides the hassle of continually taking my netbook out and putting it away again. I hoped onto the flight that would take me to Miami in order to connect over to a flight that would take me to El salvador and then to Guatemala City. The flight to Miami was pretty regular, standard American flight. The couple sitting next to me and very unengaging and had a list of properties they were looking into buying. My flight from miami to san salvador was much more engaging and really fun. The man sitting next to me was from Honduras and was heading home. We spent a good deal of time chatting about different topics ranging from his home, where he works, what I am doing in Guatemala. It was very interesting since his name Moses, kinda like he was the first shepherd of my journey or something cool along those lines. I still cant believe how nice he was and helpful. He told me of areas to avoid and must sees in central america. He was very impress of the life I wanted to take and that I was going to spend so much time in guatemala. He told me that if I really wanted to learn spanish from a basic level i needed to maintain a curiosity to keep asking questions such as "Como te llame and point". We both had a really good laugh about this and he said when I wanted to learn english that is how I did it. His english was perfect, and it really shows on many levels as to how important keeping curiousness an aspect of your life is the only real way to move past plateaus that we encounter in life. I was so delighted that this was my first experience as crossing the borders from Norte America to Central America. so inspirations and very foreshadowing of my experience thus far. The picture in the upper left hand corner is my view from the plane. The entire flight was simply an amazing experience. Seeing the volcanes off in the distance kinda spoke like a metaphor for the upcoming adventure I am embarking on.
This was the view from my seat looking at a volcano in El Salvador.


Oh man so this is just the flight, and Ive been in Guatemala for 8 days now and will update more in the next post.

Hasta pronto!
maloney

The First Post

Hello friends, family, well-wishers, and people who may have just stumbled upon my blog,

So I have recently started this blog as a way to document my travels in the next few years, as well as to keep family and friends update as to what I am currently dipping into since I may not see many people for quite some time.

Who am I? Where do I even begin? At the very beginning or just give a brief little few tid bits about myself and where I am heading to. I guess I could start there, so My name is Sean and I recently graduated from Muhlenberg College, a small liberal arts college in PA, with a B.S. in Biology with the focus of eventually going to medical school and becoming a Doctor. I grew up in Bayridge, Brooklyn and Jim Thorpe, PA -- two areas with very different living dynamics with I won't go into now, but maybe will tackle that in another post.

Where am I heading to? well I have always loved the experiences that accompany traveling, I love when things are changing and I think it keeps everything exciting. Currently, I am going to participate in a program known as Somos Hermanos, http://www.somoshermanos.org/home , which is a language/ cultural immersion program that is medically focused in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. I will be spending the next 6 months living with a host family, learning spanish, and participating in volunteer projects while gaining exposure to urban and rural healthcare systems. Ill go into that more another time, but that is where I am heading July 9th, so in little over week.

Further, I have just submitted an application to the Peace Corps yesterday in the hopes of becoming a volunteer in latin america.

I am currently watching the world cup Ghana vs Uruguay, after watching the upset of brasil by netherlands, and just saw Andy murry get pounded by nadal. I am a huge fan of football and tennis, they are the two sports I love the most.

Ok i think i've jotted enough down for right now, but there will be many more posts to come. Thanks for reading and Cheers till next time,

Maloney