Moving is never easy. At least this time we have some good help.

We had no idea when we started building our house in Decatur that we’d be moving in during a global pandemic. We also had no idea that it’d initially be a short stay. Less than two years later, we are off to Guatemala City. This may come as a surprise to some since we never made a splashy announcement, and didn’t have a going away party like we’d hoped (#ThanksCOVID). But here we are!

As I type, the movers are on day 3 of clearing out our house completely? Our excitement over having full service movers for the first time was quickly dimmed by the incredible amount of pre-work required as we tried to figure out, sort and label every single item in our house to either be put in storage, sent to Guatemala by sea, sent by unaccompanied air, or checked in \240luggage for our flight. I think everyone in our family would agree the best word to describe this process would be “painful.” Thank goodness we are at the final stages and can soon hand our keys over to our property manager and have one less thing to worry about.

Our flight to Guatemala City is this coming Sunday. Please stay tuned for our posts as we attempt to journal our adventures.

Love,

The Suchdevs

A little foosball and then off to school! The bus comes right outside our hotel.

First day in the office. So nice to meet my CDC Central American Region office colleagues.

Our first day of school

This figure explains the focus of much of my work here in Guatemala. Low COVID-19 vaccine coverage compared to other countries in the region with also limited resources is a microcosm of deep inequities, political instability, lack of investment and trust in health, and more. Hope to begin to understand this better and help reduce the gap next week when I travel to the rural highlands region to meet with health officials about Covid vaccination campaigns.

Our first weekend in Guate meant a visit to the Zoologico La Aurora or zoo. We were impressed. Nia was the photographer and Jax wanted to pet every animal

Had my first field visit with folks from my CDC team to Totonicapan, a department in the highlands of Guatemala at 8200 ft elevation and primarily K’iche Maya. We visited several health posts where we were supporting COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. Was surprised to see no Mayan representation among the Ministry of Health staff as well the providers in the clinics. And all posters and promotional materials were in Spanish. No wonder there is so much distrust in the healthcare system and low coverage of vaccinations among indigenous peoples.

Walking through the streets of Cayala on our way to dinner. Cannot get over how fancy this area is. Hard to believe we will be moving here from our hotel in the next few weeks. We got to see our townhouse today as the family moving out showed us around. More to come…