Living Anderson: typing with wil

Thursday, April 12, 2012

typing with wil

Yesterday we (as in me, dad, and Peter) went into Guatemala city. On the way out of the campus gate pastor German yelled "pasaportes" so we went back to get them - sure enough on the way we were stopped by some city officers. (us gringos) And as my dad was getting out of the car his phone fell out of the seat and broke the glass. Oops! Guatemalan Federales carry big guns and want to see gringo pasaportes. They keep them for a while and they stare with blank looks when you speak Ingles to them.
We were driving 2 trucks so we could take multiple stops at once. So me and my dad stopped into a mall. We tried to buy some simple blanco, 100% cotton, no pattern sheets for 12 beds. We asked the closest person who looked like they spoke English. Turns out, they didn't speak any. But we tried to explain to her anyway. We told her we wanted sheetos (not Spanish)in cottonos (also not Spanish). She showed us a shovel or something like that. (obviously didn't know what we were saying.) Apparently when you ask someone in Guatemala for help, they are determined to help. So she called her friend (we don't really know, for all we know, she dialed the operator and called someone in America.) Except her "friend" didn't really know English. After some more charades, we got to sheets, but still couldn't tell if they were cotton. After we looked at the sheets, (we didn't end up buying any) we walked around the store, not understanding anything. We then went and bought the rest of our beds, and then bought 2 refrigerators. We decided that the traffic would be to bad and would take us a long time, so we stopped at the only Starbucks in Guatemala. To have a "meeting". That consisted of drinking coffee. The drive back was in the dark (pitch black). In Guatemala they don't have ANY street lights. One time Peter got ahead of us by passing a Federal on the road in the only passing zone for miles. We were kind of speeding and the Federal was driving 10KPH slower than the speed limit. So Peter got far ahead of us. With out Peter to follow it was hard to see the road when a car would pass on the other lane going the opposite direction. One time we couldn't see the bridge, so we went where we thought the bridge was. I think we made it. It would go like that every time we lost Peter.
Sorry there was not much interesting stuff going on. It was just like a normal day.
One thing I thought was funny was that I kept saying, "Buenos Retarded" It is actually "Buenos tardes". Don't forget and get the 2 confused. And, by the way, cotton sheets are sabana algodon.