Two Brown Birds

On Monday I went on strike from the motorbike. I decided to walk home instead of ride the bike because I hate it. I also didn´t want to ride the bus alone in fear that I would communicate incorrectly. The only thing is that now that we live with Lily, the house is much further away from our past hotel. So, right as I was enjoying my walk it started to rain, like always these days. I went inside of a mini-mall and decided to study and hang out until the rain chilled out a bit. As I was sitting there I noticed two brown birds about three feet away from me, both the same size, but one light brown and the other dark brown. As I watched these brown birds I noticed that the light brown was flapping its wings like crazy in a nervous or hurt kind of way. The dark brown bird was going around picking up crumbs and feeding them to his friend. I was kind of shocked to see that because most animals care about feeding themselves first (unless they have babies, which this wasn´t). I almost started to cry at the charity and love this bird was showing it´s friend. I then realized the symbolism these birds played in my life! When I came to Guatemala I was hoping to be the dark brown bird that would come to this country and help all the light brown birds in need. Boy was I wrong. It has been the complete opposite. I have been a helpless little brown bird since I arrived and the people have been the dark brown birds. I have been taken under the wing of these people, been taken care of and loved. The people here have helped me to realize the person I am and the person I want to be. I have so many faults that I want to and hope to change (stating the obvious, I know) and I feel like this journey has helped me begin that process. I regret not being more of a dark brown bird but hope that the things I have learned here will help others down the road.
What kind of bird are you??

Fun weekend...

We had a great weekend! Hope the same for all of you. On Friday we went to Panajachel/Lake Atitlan again. We loved it so much the first time that we wanted to go back and spend more time exploring. It is much warmer there than in Xela and we were also in need of some heat! The only bad part was, of course, the bus ride. Not only is the bus ride bad enough, but when you add that I was up the entire night before, hugging the toilet because I ate salad (I really, really miss salad!) it was not pretty. I think I can confidently say that that was the worst bus ride of my life. BUT, it was so wonderful when we got there!! We stayed in a bungalow that was surrounded by beautiful gardens. Loved it. Once I could stand up on my own, we went for a little walk. When on the walk, we ran into a Turkish man who had been living there for the past two years. We ended up talking to this crazy guy for 45 minutes. He really was crazy but he said some thought provoking things. He kept talking about how addiction will ruin your life. The three worst addictions are consumerism, drugs, and sex. It was a conversation I will never forget. On Saturday we got up early and took a boat ride around Lake Atitlan. Talk about perfect. The scenery was amazing and the temperature was perfect. I could have stayed in that moment forever. We got off the boat in San Marcos de la Laguna. It is a tiny lake town that was AMAZING. We decided that is where we will live when we retire. It was warm, beautiful, so friendly, and no pollution!! There is only one dirt road that passed through the town (we only saw three cars the whole 4 hours we were there) and the rest of the town has beautiful foot paths everywhere. We ate a delicious breakfast there and then went exploring. I have been craving retirement ever since! Once we returned to Panajachel we had another amazing meal and spent more time exploring. On the way home I experienced the second worst bus ride of my life. It started to DUMP rain. We had a bus driver who was, at the most, 14 years old. The mountain literally was falling into the road. The four lane highway turned into a two lane river. The driver kept texting and talking on his phone during the madness! Don´t be surprised if when I get home I never ride a bus again!

Lake Atitlan and two of the surrounding volcanoes.

Can you imagine living here? Oh, man it was beautiful!

Delicious breakfast. No, I do not eat the benedryl cream but it goes with me everywhere. Side note: I had to take a bleach bath and wash myself in anti-flea dog shampoo the other day because the bugs will not leave me alone!!! Disgusting, I know.

This is one of the foot paths in San Marcos de la Laguna. Gorgeous, eh?

We met these kids in San Marcos de la Laguna. For their pure entertainment they were throwing a rock at a can sitting on the wall. We gave it a shot and were horrible. This girl did not miss once! Pretty impressive.

This was a sign in the garden at our hotel. Pretty funny!!

Field Trip!

Today my Spanish school took me on a field trip to Copavic, a glass factory in a nearby town. It was facinating! I never realized how cool glass blowing is!

This is my teacher, Claudia, giving the glass blowing a shot. She is such a fun teacher and she speaks in a way that I can mostly understand (I think that makes me like her extra).

This guy is using scissors to cut out any dirt or bubbles from the hot glass.

They keep the finished product in this fire pit for three days to cure.



You would never guess that this fireball would turn in to a giant twisty vase. It was incredible to watch the transformation.

Things I love this week....

1. Guess...........the markets of course!
2. Pupusas. It´s a traditional food from El Salvador. It´s kind of like a stuffed tortilla. Excellent.
3. Lily´s cooking. Oh my heck!! It is insaine good. I am making sure she teaches me as she goes so anyone that wants some Guatemalan grub when I get home, just let me know!
4. Black market movies. They sell movies here in the market that are illegally copied. They have a huge selection to choose from, including new releases. If anyone is looking for something special, let me know!
5. When the peeps practice their English with me. Cracks me up but I know I sound just as horrible when I try to practice my Spanish with them.
6. The crazy street dogs think it is a fun game to chase motorbikes. Yes, it freaks the crap out of me, but it is hilarious to watch (when it is someone else). Perros Locos!
7. Fernando´s laugh. I want to record it in case I ever have a bad day I can listen to it and it will cheer me right up!
8. Watermelon suckers. mmmm....

Celebrations and Safety Matters....

So when I wrote yesterday, I totally forgot that it was the 4th of July. So, Happy Independence Day late! Hope it was great for everyone! We didn´t have any big plans because, well, it wasn´t a holiday here but Lily surprised us with a BBQ! She has a traditional wood burning stove in her backyard so we roasted hotdogs, made smores and celebrated in style. She is awesome to do that for us. She is probably the most thoughtful person I know. It has been great living with her family, I am learning a lot from them (Spanish, new recipes and about who I aspire to be).
It is just another rainy day in Paradise here. It rained all last night (which is our favorite time for it to rain because then the street dogs don´t bark like crazy) but the bad thing about that is all the roads turned to mud this morning. Ben and I look like Dumb and Dumber on this little, blue, P.O.S. motorbike with mud splashing all over us. Lame. I wish that I had my camera to take a picture of Ben. He had so much mud on his face that he looked like the peeps down here.
Here are some pics from the past week. I am really upset because this stupid computer program won´t turn my pictures the right direction. I even had Edwin who is a computer whiz check it out and it was a no go. Sorry-you´re just going to have to turn your head. In some of the pictures, I would like to demonstrate the strong level of safety standards that the people adhere to.

 Here are the hermana missionaries. The one on the right is Hermana Ramos, the one that is afraid of Ben and the one on the left is Hermana Olsen, which is my buddy. We hang out with them every week. Yesterday we all got ice cream together. I think that Hermana Ramos is warming up to Ben a bit. It took a lot of work but she will finally talk to him.

Safety Picture #1- when it rains, put a plastic bag on your head. This is a cow lady in front of our house. Yes, people walk their cows like they are dogs down here.

This is Ben and the kids washing Cookie, the best dog in Central America. She is so affectionate; she gives us our dog fix since ours are at home.

This is when it rained last week. The street literally turned into a river.

Safety Picture #2- when they have jammed 30 people into one of the minibuses (a van) that doesn´t stop them from picking up more people. Unfortunately, we were those people last weekend. For about 20 minutes, we rode hanging outside of the bus. Freaking sucked-it´s not like they try to drive slower or careful, just their normal crazy selves.

Safety Picture #3- this relates to picture #1-when it rains, put a plastic bread bag on your toddler and a plastic walmart bag on your other toddler. We would HATE for them to get wet!

Lake Chicabál

This last Saturday, Ben and I headed to a sacred Mam-Mayan lake, Lake Chicabál. It is an old volcano that has filled with water. It is surrounded by a cloud forest in the rain forest. It is beautiful! The lake is closed for most of May so that the Mam-Mayan people may go there to worship and complete their traditional ceremonies. There are altars all around the lake and tons of flowers that people have brought and placed on the shore. There was a mysterious yet fascinating feeling at the lake. The rain season here has really picked up this last week so of course it rained while we were there but it didn´t stop us from having a great time! It was super foggy and everything looked really cool.
The worst part of the journey was the way home. We had to ride in the back of a pickup truck on a dirt road. Only problem was it was a VERY steep road on the ledge of a mountain and the road had turned to mud road from all of the rain. The driver was actually doing fine and going plenty slow but that didn´t stop the truck from sliding. That´s the closest I have ever come to having a heart attack.
The rest of the weekend we took pretty easy. Ben finds every excuse he can to ride the stupid motorbike. I need to take a picture for you all to see this thing. How it is still running is a miracle to me. We made dinner for the family yesterday-they loved it. The best thing about my weekend, by far, was getting to Skype with my nephew, Daniel. We are seeing and experiencing amazing things down here but nothing in the world is more valuable than family.

We saw this girl when our bus was stopped to pick people up. Can´t help but wonder if this is her food for the next month.

This is the start of our hike when there was still sun in the sky. It was so pretty!

This is the half way point when the clouds started heading our way.

Lots of water on the lens but this is us at the lookout over the lake. Uh, there is a big cloud there so we couldn´t see the lake, but it was cool. We took 700 stairs (not exaggerating!) down to the lake shore. Once we got there the fog was so thick that we could only see about 10 feet in front of us but we could still see enough to know it is beautiful!!

We´ve Moved!

Yep, we have moved locations! We decided it wasn´t worth paying the big bucks for living in a hotel so we moved in with Lily and her family (she offered). It will definitely be a louder and busier place then it was with just the two of us but well worth it. We love Lily´s family so much that the change wont be that difficult, for us at least-I can´t speak for them :) The only, real, real bad thing about this move is they have a scooter...........and they are letting Ben drive it. Now, in my opinion, Ben is not the greatest driver. On top of that, the way people drive here has me sure that something bad will happen. I try to not be paranoid but sometimes its hard. Ugh.
I have a nasty cold right now and approximately 5,000 bug bites from the nasty hotel bed. Gross, I know. Even though I am not in tip top shape, I absolutely love being here. If I don´t come home, you will know where to find me.
Don´t think I will have a chance to write tomorrow but want to wish everyone a HAPPY 4th of July weekend! Hope it rocks!