Sunday, July 20 - Zacapa

Wifi has been spotty - going to try to jot down the high points of the last week.

The kids and I finished language school strong.  The girls and I finished and graduated book A.  Wil finished book A but didn't "graduate"  whatever that really means.  Our last week of language school we buckled down and really plowed through our lessons and homework.  We didn't take any more excursions or tours so there wasn't much to write about.  We just went to school, found a cool place to eat and do homework and then went to bed and did it all over again the next day.  We checked out the other language schools and questioned the students of the other schools and we all believe that CSA is truly the best in Antigua and worth the extra $$.

We left Antigua on the afternoon of the 18th and found Steve at the Barcelo that evening with no problems.  We had a nice family reunification dinner and swim.  It was the first night in two weeks that the kids and I didn't freeze half to death during the night - Antigua gets really cold at night and the houses don't have complete roofs so the rooms get really cold.  And, we had really missed having pillows.  If we get to return to language school next year, we are bringing a gift of pillows to the host family.

Sarah Mae came down with a troublesome guatebug over that Thursday night (our first hint at any troubles this entire trip) so we had to change our plans up a bit to accommodate her recovery time.  We ended up leaving her in our room under the supervision of the hotel manager while the rest of us went ahead and traveled to San Lucas to meet with KidsAlive Guatemala director Corby Dukes.  Now, reflecting on that simple statement "we traveled to SanLucas" I feel I must expound on that a bit.  Unless you have been in a 3rd world country you can not possibly appreciate the "we traveled" part.  And really to arrive anywhere safely is a cause to take a moment and send praises up to our Father in heaven.  For lots of reasons,  we simply can not get out of Guatemala City without undue duress and hassle.  We have been coming here for 10 years and we have come to accept the fact that we will never be able to leave the city without narrowly escaping death or calamity,one time we even ended up driving across a pedestrian skybridge.  Anyway, I digress, we did make it and we spent the better part of the entire day on the pristine and beautiful campus of Oasis in San Lucas.  Wow, what an amazing operation that they run there.  Their facility is at maximum capacity with 50 girls who have all been rescued out of the human trafficking trade.  In the US we hear a great deal about the trafficking in Cambodia and here in Guatemala it is just as prevalent and organized.  It is truly a victory to celebrate when you can find a facility that is doing the rescue and rehabilitate operation well.  Some of these girls were 5 years old.  Really, let that last sentence sink into your head for a moment . . . more than one little girl we saw with our own eyes was 5 . . . 5 years old . . . not through kindergarden yet.  www.KidsAlive.org if you want to read more about the work for the Kingdom that is taking place there.   Sorry no photos for obvious reasons.
When we got back to the hotel we found Sarah feeling much better.  We all walked to a local Guatemalan restaurant and then back to the hotel for a swim.
Saturday we were up and around by 5 am checking out and heading through the mountains to Zacapa.  (see note above about trying to leave city . . . yes, yet again, we ended up lost in the dreaded zone 1 - murder capital of the world)  It took us 1.5 hours to get out of the city.  Then the always hair raising drive through those mountains but we made it to the government orphanage in Zacapa and through answered prayer we were admitted inside to see Dulce for the first time since last year.  She was pretty quiet when we first saw her but through the blessing of Sarah Grace's violin talent she warmed right up to us.  The girls had her giggling and laughing and the whole experience was a blessing to her and us.  She looks amazing.  She is eating well and her hair is a rich dark color again which is a great indicator of her overall health.  She remembered us.  We were able to spend about 2 hours at the orphanage.  Sarah Mae and Sara Grace were even allowed into the infant room to help hold babies.  After we left there we went with one of the missionaries here to a traditional Guatemalan lunch and then she took us us to an aldea that we had never been to before.  It is a little village slightly behind LaFrogua (where we were last year) and the entire village has no water.  None.  I guess I will never be able to comprehend in my American raised brain how these villages form around no water.  No clean water anyway.  They do have a dirty brown stream running behind the aldea where they get their water, bath, and wash clothes but seriously the water looks like chocolate milk.  Anyway, we met with pastor in his home.  What an amazing guy.  They don't have a church but they are raising money bymaking

muey fabuloso pics

Sunday & Monday pics


Hey y'all. I got some pics from Jeana so I thought I'd post them. I head to Guatemala Thurs for a long weekend and we will all return Next tues afternoon. I can't wait to see them. --steve

Sarah getting her salt scrub and pedicure

Guate Snail!!!

Guate library.

A typical tropical garden. beautifully primitive.

balconey inside la Casa.

bluest of blue skies

mmmmm cafe con leche

late nite homework in the garden

the ever present Volcano

breakfast



Wil exhausted and sleeping in the midsts of his homework.....

A Day Out

So as you already know, we have to fend for ourselves food wise on Sunday. And sometimes that can be dificil. Last night we bought Pan Dulces and we ate them for el desayuno hoy but buying food the day before won't always work.  After el desayuno we went to go look for a iglesia de christianos but we did not find one. By then we were starved, and cansado so we stopped at the Bagel Barn and had a delisioso almuerzo while enjoying the Wifi.

  After almuerzo we went to al mercado y we bought or hair ....... bracelets, braid thingys... We will post a picture. As soon as that was over we headed to our favorite salon but after a 30 minute walk realized that it was closed so we had to settle for another spa. As soon as we walked up to our 2nd favorite salon we realized that it was closed as well. feeling tired we stopped for a quick snack and then started home. As we trudged wearily home we spotted yet another spa place. 

   Poor Will decided that he would gladly walk home while we got our nails done so we quickly made ourselves at home. one of us got a pedicure and the other got a manicure. We were quite relaxed until they started the sugar scrub... Let us just tell you... We will probably have scars for months. We could barely keep from laughing when the took the dead skin off with foot file and finger file. But after a few minutes we had pretty coral colored nails and soft skin to go with it.

 We have to go out to eat now so we will post pictures later. Luv ya'll

-Sarah and Sara <3

  

Uno semana finito

Well, we finished one week of language school.  45 hours of instruction.  Our brains are seriously oatmeal at this point.  Wil has started to loose his English and hasn't quite got his Spanish so basically is unable to communicate sometimes which provides the girls and I with lots of laughter.
All four of us have bonded with our maestras.  We have been on 3-4 "excursions" with them.  We traveled to Chimaltenango to tour a working Guatemalan dairy farm on Friday.  That was really cool.
Today, Saturday, we toured a mountain near Antigua.  It was really beautiful.  We can't post pics from here - internet toooooo slow and we don't have the right tools.  We will do that when we get home.

We are exhausted.  It is 7:45 p.m. on a Saturday night and we are showered and heading to bed.
We will only be studying 6 hours per day this next week.  I will be curious to see how that changes our experiences.  It is pretty weird to spend 8 solid hours talking to a stranger.  I'm pretty sure that I have never spent 8 solid hours sitting at a table talking to Steve!   I have grown particularly close to my instructor.  Ella se llama Fide.  She is a traditional Guatemalan with an amazing view of life.  Life is so different here in so many many ways.

Currently it is raining with thunder here and the temperature is chilly.  Our host house doesn't have a roof (techo) over the main part of the house so rain is really interesting.  It really is like just being outside enjoying the shower and the lightening show.  It is beautiful here where every living plant blooms and mountains surround you.  We walk everywhere we go so we feel so much more a part of the community.  All four of us love it here.

Buenos Noches.

TGIF pics



Restaurant across the street from the Dairy Farm.



real cheese from a real dairy in Guatemala...who knew?

In his "spare" time wil is learning the violin



Even the McDonalds has a neato fountain

Lunch with LaMaestras (our teachers)

More Pics



Not sure why the street is pad locked.......

 

Inside the main house part of our host home. Notice the car parked - in the house.

Many of the buildings have fountains...I assume its to sit and enjoy your cafe con leche at



another 70 degree day...



View from central park of the famous volcano



famous ruins...thanks to the volcano



2 of the prettiest girls in school

La Primero Dia de la Escuela

Dear All,
Today we started the oh so exciting adventure of Spanish Language School. Going into this we thought that we were doing very good on our Espanol skills and we joked that we did not even need to go to language school but as soon as I walked into through those doors I knew that my understanding of good spanish was a "little" different than my teacher's understanding.

       At first I was feeling confident "Wow, only 8 hours a day. This will be a piece of cake" but as the hours went on, I felt my understanding of the Spanish language get smaller and smaller until I started wondering if even the Grado A that I am working on is to hard. I have 2 teachers. One for the morning who is kind and knows how to deal with a grumpy 12 year old, and the other for the after noon who knows how to keep someones attention and how to keep me from falling asleep.

      As soon as we left the school for lunch I was seriously considering just getting "Sick" in the afternoon or maybe even getting "lost" in the streets de Antigua but after eating and a little time for my brain to recover from the damage done that morning, I was in a little better spirits.

   Well it turns out that the "Americanos" That were coming are actually canadians and they speak French. Sarah and I had been hoping for some fun and exciting Americans who actually know what Dr. Pepper is and know what peanut butter tastes like, but NO we have to learn French as well and my bucket list is getting kind of full. After dinner we went to the Luna Grill or something like that and had Crepes for desert while racking our brains to find the answers to our tarea or homework. We were hoping to get away from the busy school day and just relax but WHO do we see sitting right next to us at the grill. I will tell you, it was Sarah's teacher on a romantic date in the moonlight. After all these hours of school and we sit next to someone from the school! What?!?!?!

      Anyway, we had a great first day of school and if we continue our progress we might even make it to level B. I need to get to bed now. :)
                                                         
                                                                                                  - Buenos Noches :)
                                                                                                    Sara Grace

pics

Our view of the neighbors yard from our window.

Funny sign, wonderful crepes.

Parque central.

First day of school.

shopping.

Guess who' back... back again... william's back... tell a friend!

Hello, it's Wil again!

I just wanted to say that the BentTree trip was amazing!  I couln't have asked for a better team!  I would go back to Guatemala with that team in a heartbeat :)  The trip was fun and action packed.  I will have to tell you about all of the cool and funny stories when I get back.

But, I am still in Guatemala.  I'm here for 3 more weeks!  Which I am very excited for.  I am going to be in a spanish school for 2 more weeks, so when I come back I will be able to speak spanish!
The house we are staying at is very nice.  I have my own room with a bathroom, and jeana, sarah, and sara share a room and a bathroom.  The house is 2 stories and very big inside also with roof access.
How is our spanish comming you might ask?  Well we have managed to teach the family of the house  English and a Korean man who is also staying here.  A new family came today and we have yet to teach them English.  But our spanish...  We start school tomorrow.  We were talking to the Korean man about how long it took him to learn spanish and he said he had been here for 3 years.  We told him that we were doing 8 hours of school a day and he said that we must really want to learn Spanish. 0_0
 I will try to blog more but I have school tomorrow and I have to get up early.  Thanks for reading and I'll type to you guys soon!
Your Bro, Wil

Off to Antigua

First mishap of the trip.  Our driver to Antigua picked us up precisely at 2 as scheduled.  Eddie is super nice.  Pulling out of the Barcelo onto the 3 lane super busy street and there is a sudden super sonic burst of lightening - kaboom - sets off Eddie's car alarm which is complete with an engine kill feature . . . would be no problemo if Eddie knew how to work said auto alarm . . . stranded in the middle lane of whizzing, honking Guatemala traffic.  And, Eddie speak very little English and we, well you know, we are on our way to learn Spanish . . .  broken communication and hand jestures and Jeana ends up steering as Wil, Sarah and Sara are pushing and Eddie is . . . well Eddie is being absolutely worthless at directing insanity traffic in the street.  Must find a lot to pull into before kids get run over. . . . It is worth mentioning that in Guatemala all parking lots are attended by guys carrying big giant guns and notepads and not just anybody pulls into a parking lot . . .  all the while our car is blaring a completely annoying noise at the top of its lungs.  Eddie works a deal with scary gun toting parking lot dude and we push our way into the parking lot . . . scary gun guy notes our license plate and time that we pulled in lot into his notebook .  .  . whatever, just please get this car to quit making that noise.  Eddie spends some time opening and closing all the doors and flipping switches all to no avail.  Finally he disconnects the battery to get the car to be quiet.  Wait, reconnect  . . . blaring begins again . . .  hmmmmm.  One phone call later and a few more tricks and we are back on the road  - no problemo.

One hour through mountain roads and rain and we arrive in Antigua.

Host family is great.  Host house is great.

In Guatemala, the cars are pulled right into the middle of the houses like this.

Our first mission - to drop off Wil's stinky mission trip laundry to be washed.  Found the launderia.  Wil had 9.5 lbs of very stinky laundry.  Charge at 4Q per pound is 38Q for wash/dry/fold.  Equivalent to $5.50 U.S.   Total score. And, it would be done in 4 hours.

Today, Saturday, July 6.  We toured the ruins at the Cathedral de San Antonio and the Cathedral de St. Pedro.  Truly breathtaking and rich with history.

 Lunch back at our house.  The market in the afternoon.  We did the touristy market and then we took Sara Grace into the bowels of the locals market cause every kid from the US needs to see it.  Piles of raw meats being fanned to chase flies off, piles of not so fresh fruit, piles of tortillas everywhere, piles of totally crazy stuff for sale and true  non touristy things going on all around us.  Both markets are totally exhausting for different reasons.  The touristy market is exhausting because all the vendors are trying to force you to buy something from them, the language thing, the exchange rate thing.  The market for the locals is exhausting because it is a dirty, gigantic labrynth with just too much weird.

On the way home we had to duck into a cafe to wait out a rain storm.  There is some seriously cool thunder here.  By the time the rain let up we only had 15 minutes to get home for dinner (not that we were hungry but it would be extremely rude to be late or not show) so we were hustling the 6 blocks back when we encountered a river rushing down one of the roads that we had to cross.  There was no way around.  Giant leaps yet the only one that didn't get wet was Wil.  We made it home with 3 minutes to spare.  Another day of excellent adventure.  Buenos Noches.

We Found Will

Well we made it to the hotel in Guatemala City and we found Will after a search. When we found him his group meeting was not over so we went swimming for an hour and relaxed in the hot tub. We borrowed some towels but don't worry we will bring them back. We went to bed at 12 but Will never came to bed. we had to turn his laundry in to get washed at 1 in the morning but we never got it back so we will have to get his laundry done in Antigua and we also have to smell his laundry for a while until we get there. We already burned themselves on the hotel shower and because the door is in the wrong place we had to climb the top of the shower!!! after a nice breakfast and video making session we decided to ride the elevator while videoing the people riding in it. We shined our flip flops and ran around eating goldfish. Will woke up from a long nap at 10 and barely got breakfast. We walked around town trying to kill time until our shuttle gets here at 2. While we were out we stopped by McDonalds and tried to order but apparently people in Guatemala do not know what Dr. Pepper or Fanta is so we better get to language school fast. Apparently we look like Guatemalans because every time we see someone they start babbling to us in very rapid spanish and we just reply with "Si si, Gracias".

~ Sara 🙉 and Sarah 🐢