Wednesday, December 31, 2008
New Years
I am sitting with three best friends right now waiting to celebrate the New Year! We are sharing stories and catching up!!! As much as I love Guatemala I miss my best friends! they are soooo incredible, they make me feel like me! WOW I have the best friends!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Thanksgiving
I cannot believe Thanksgiving has already come and gone, WOW! Sometimes time flies while other times it snails by!
I had an exceptionally great Thanksgiving (for being away from my family). Some of us decided to head down to the beach for some rest and relaxation! I actually felt like I was on vacation, far, far away from Guatemala! The beach was beautiful, clear skies, warm weather, and great people, what more could a girl ask for!
For Thanksgiving dinner, we did really well for being in Guatemala. We had mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, stuffing, pasta salad, broccoli salad, pumpkin cookies, carrot cake, and cranberry muffins, wow, and for the entrée we had grilled Maui Maui, what a way to top off a beach Thanksgiving!
We just lounged and hungout for two days. Played some beach volleyball, watched some baby turtles be released into the ocean and over all a great time hanging out and chatting! I was seriously depressed when I got back to site but life goes on and I am looking forward to December 17, when I get to come home and have another great vacation, only I hope that this one includes SNOW!
Yesterday I went out to my site mates aldea to help with a kids camp that she was putting on. There were about 16 kids who she divided into two groups to do art and sports. I was helping out with the sports end of it, which was fun but hard because there is a whole other set of Spanish words that go with the playground! But we jumped rope and did relay races and then finished up with some basketball! It was great to see the kids just enjoying themselves, with no worries or cares in the world! You don’t see that very often here in Guatemala. Most of the time kids are working with their parents in the fields or girls are taking care of younger brothers and sisters or helping with things around the house. The girls were feisty, they all wore their shorts instead of the corte and you actually can see the difference between personalities when the corte comes off! The girls are much more aggressive without it, so good to see! I hope that they can learn to mix the two personalities, that would make a world of difference one day!
I had an exceptionally great Thanksgiving (for being away from my family). Some of us decided to head down to the beach for some rest and relaxation! I actually felt like I was on vacation, far, far away from Guatemala! The beach was beautiful, clear skies, warm weather, and great people, what more could a girl ask for!
For Thanksgiving dinner, we did really well for being in Guatemala. We had mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, stuffing, pasta salad, broccoli salad, pumpkin cookies, carrot cake, and cranberry muffins, wow, and for the entrée we had grilled Maui Maui, what a way to top off a beach Thanksgiving!
We just lounged and hungout for two days. Played some beach volleyball, watched some baby turtles be released into the ocean and over all a great time hanging out and chatting! I was seriously depressed when I got back to site but life goes on and I am looking forward to December 17, when I get to come home and have another great vacation, only I hope that this one includes SNOW!
Yesterday I went out to my site mates aldea to help with a kids camp that she was putting on. There were about 16 kids who she divided into two groups to do art and sports. I was helping out with the sports end of it, which was fun but hard because there is a whole other set of Spanish words that go with the playground! But we jumped rope and did relay races and then finished up with some basketball! It was great to see the kids just enjoying themselves, with no worries or cares in the world! You don’t see that very often here in Guatemala. Most of the time kids are working with their parents in the fields or girls are taking care of younger brothers and sisters or helping with things around the house. The girls were feisty, they all wore their shorts instead of the corte and you actually can see the difference between personalities when the corte comes off! The girls are much more aggressive without it, so good to see! I hope that they can learn to mix the two personalities, that would make a world of difference one day!
More visitors!
Part 3: A little late but better than nothing!
My crazy month ended with my best friend, Juliane and her mom visiting! It was incredible to see Juliane again, she is the first friend to visit me here and it was exciting to get to share Guatemala with her and her mom, Marlies!
We hit up the normal “hot spots” the lake, Antigua, my site and the volcano. At the lake we took a boat tour, but the wind god was not on our side that day. The waves in the lake were huge. Our boat kept getting air and our butts hurt a lot the next morning! But we got to take in an incredible sunset and great food! Actually the whole trip centered around great food, what a surprise right! While Juliane and Marlies hit up the ruins at Tikal where in true Guatemalan fashion they had a drunken tour guide who continued to get more drunk it seemed as the tour went on, smile and nod moment!
While Jules and her mom were at Tikal, I had more Spanish classes. Now I have to admit something, I am perplexed by Spanish. It is the first time in my life that I cannot just get even the jist (sp?) of something. Normally if someone explains something I might not really understand but I will have a general idea what is suppose to happen but Spanish just really gets me, AH!
We finished off the trip by a visit to my site and a little time in Antigua. It was funny though because Marlies described my house and living situation the same way my mom did, camping. They think it is a lot like camping which in a way it is but come on people it is not as bad as camping, camping is uncomfortable, and dirty but I am comfortable and clean (well most of the time)! But really we checked out the market and had a meeting with one of my women’s groups. The kids were fascinated with Marlies’ camera which resulted in a ton of great photos!
We we got back to Antigua we hike volcano Pacaya, which is one of the active volcanoes here is Guatemala. This was my fourth time up so I felt like a pro but because the lava had shifted positions on the volcano we had to hike a different way, a crazy way, a I cannot believe I am doing this way! But all ended well, after our trek through the volcanic Sahara desert sand and made our way up the moon rocks we got to the lava! Juliane and I thought it was hysterical our ridiculous it was so we had a photo shoot at the top, Theta kites were involved to give you an idea!
All good things must come to an end but I had a great time with them, so a huge Thanks to Juliane and Marlies for making the trek down here to see me!
My crazy month ended with my best friend, Juliane and her mom visiting! It was incredible to see Juliane again, she is the first friend to visit me here and it was exciting to get to share Guatemala with her and her mom, Marlies!
We hit up the normal “hot spots” the lake, Antigua, my site and the volcano. At the lake we took a boat tour, but the wind god was not on our side that day. The waves in the lake were huge. Our boat kept getting air and our butts hurt a lot the next morning! But we got to take in an incredible sunset and great food! Actually the whole trip centered around great food, what a surprise right! While Juliane and Marlies hit up the ruins at Tikal where in true Guatemalan fashion they had a drunken tour guide who continued to get more drunk it seemed as the tour went on, smile and nod moment!
While Jules and her mom were at Tikal, I had more Spanish classes. Now I have to admit something, I am perplexed by Spanish. It is the first time in my life that I cannot just get even the jist (sp?) of something. Normally if someone explains something I might not really understand but I will have a general idea what is suppose to happen but Spanish just really gets me, AH!
We finished off the trip by a visit to my site and a little time in Antigua. It was funny though because Marlies described my house and living situation the same way my mom did, camping. They think it is a lot like camping which in a way it is but come on people it is not as bad as camping, camping is uncomfortable, and dirty but I am comfortable and clean (well most of the time)! But really we checked out the market and had a meeting with one of my women’s groups. The kids were fascinated with Marlies’ camera which resulted in a ton of great photos!
We we got back to Antigua we hike volcano Pacaya, which is one of the active volcanoes here is Guatemala. This was my fourth time up so I felt like a pro but because the lava had shifted positions on the volcano we had to hike a different way, a crazy way, a I cannot believe I am doing this way! But all ended well, after our trek through the volcanic Sahara desert sand and made our way up the moon rocks we got to the lava! Juliane and I thought it was hysterical our ridiculous it was so we had a photo shoot at the top, Theta kites were involved to give you an idea!
All good things must come to an end but I had a great time with them, so a huge Thanks to Juliane and Marlies for making the trek down here to see me!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
