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