2,500 miles away

I have a few friends posted in the Peace Corps.  They are all very far away, like a few dozen lay overs and several thousand dollars worth of airplane flights away. Guatemala, however, is not far away. In fact, I wanted to find out exactly how far away it was so I used Google Earth to see.  The distance from my house in Berkeley, to the Peace Corps training site outside of Antigua is approximately 2,500 miles. Not a big deal at all. So, you ask, how far is 2,500 miles anyways. Well I'll tell you. Using Berkeley as home base, 2,500 miles will get you to Times Square in Manhattan,The White House, Disney World in Florida, or swinging around to the west, it will land you on Maui. So I really wont be far away at all, so there are no excuses for not visiting. You could even make it into a weekender. 

Donde esta Guatemala

After months of anticipation I finally received my invite to Guatemala. During the application process you are first nominated for a geographic region,  work area and departure time.  My nomination was for Latin America, Community Development leaving early Jan '08.  While waiting it out in Peace Corps limbo, as medical files are processed and dental and legal clearance go through, nominees love to play a guessing game of what country they'll be going to. This involves an elaborate collection of past departures, the work areas in specific countries and all sorts of online gossip and rumors. At first I thought I might be headed to Belize, possibly Nicaragua, at one point I'd hoped for Costa Rica and been not nearly as enthusiastic about a few other places.  In September, another nominee from Berkeley received her invite for Guatemala and I'd hoped I'd be joining her. As the medical clearance dragged out, and the 6 week departure deadline grew near (the PC will not send out an invitation to an assignment with less than 6 weeks notice) I gave up on Guatemala and started scouring blogs and online groups to see where I might be headed.  However, my medical clearance came on a Monday, and that Friday I received my invite, on the 6 week deadline date. 

So for those of you who don't know, Guatemala is the country directly south of Mexico... heres a handy little map of the country that Peace Corps describes as being approximately the same size as Tennessee, but since I dont know how big that is, its easier to say, about the size of CA from the bay to Santa Barbara.