Aspiring Site Rat

After a two-week extended stay in Antigua, it feels wonderful to finally be back in Tactic. This was the longest amount of continuous time that I had been out of my site since arriving here, and by week two in Guatemala’s tourism mecca I was more than ready to go back home.

Due to its central location, the culinary and nightlife options it provides, and its proximity to the Peace Corps office, Antigua is more or less the de facto PCV gathering place. But just because it is the city in which every volunteer will have stayed at least once during his/her service doesn’t mean that everyone shares the same affinity for it. Among volunteers the Antigua love/hate spectrum is vast, with many, including myself, harboring a mixture of the two opposing sentiments. Some avoid Antigua like the plague while others make the trip there any time they get the chance.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in Antigua during my first year of service due to VAC meetings, client visits, and the occasional birthday or despedida, I must say the novelty and enjoyment of being there is increasingly wearing off. The draw of Antigua for many volunteers is in the fact that while you are there you forget you are in Guatemala—a mini sabbatical from the campo. But what I realized more than ever during this last trip, my life in the campo—with women wearing traje, people speaking Poqom, chuchos roaming the streets, my Tactiqueño friends who I see everyday, and the solitary nights in my house—is more normal to me now than the western luxuries of Antigua. And although I know circumstances (and probably eventually my sanity) will not allow it, right now I desire nothing more than to stay put in Alta Verapaz for the rest of my service.