Home Sweet Home...Casa Dulce Casa!! :)

okay...sorry for not writing while on the trip but it was just too much fun going down to be stuck in the eternally slow internet cafe!! The group of 13 that went to Guatemala had an amazing time. We helped out at many different projects.

There was:

* the women's center- the Mayan culture has great emphasis on the honoring of women. It would be a great place for the women of the community to get together and exchange recipes, talks and knowledge. We painted, hauled dirt bags, chillsed rock, and the ever-infamous and popular activity of straightening nails!! :)

*new community- the church bought new land and are moving in the residents of the old finca (plantation). We help build houses and kitchens. We also went to the finca and played with the kids with the balls and toys we had.

*rebar- we help build many reinforcement bars for use in the construction of buildings and such. Elder was the main guy working there. He was awesome by all means!! : ) he gave Lisa an awesomely cool necklace!!

*reforestation- my favorite person Toribo was in charge here!! :) We learned why it was so important to conserve the environment becuase it helped protect the small town from mudslides and other extreme weather conditions. We also learned about the coffee spoon project, where the local kids would help make spoons made out of the tree barks. The kids would get some of the profits made from the spoons and the rest would go to fund the planting of more trees. We tried our hands at this spoon-making business.... : /..Brandon did an amazing job!! the others made a good attempt. Some spoons were hurt in the process unfortunately!!

*clinic/ doctors- some of us went to help out the doctors when they would set up the clinics in the local villages. It was a really cool experience. I helped with the reading glasses table. At frist, the line of people would laugh at anyone who would even try on these glasses. But as the time wore on, the people all wanted a pair of glasses, even if they didn't need one. We also got to see the doctors diagonse the patients with whatever their problem might be. I got to check a little girl's ear that had a lot of puss and stuff in it. VERY COOL!!

*school- some of the time, we were able to go to the local elementary school. We helped them learn and played with the kids during recess. It was cool to see how the kids were being taught and pass on the spanish we learned to them.

okay, okay.....we did do a lot of different stuff there. But no worries becuase we had an awesome group dynamic. :)

we met tono, byron (who is moving to Miami with his wife and kid because his wife, Michele, got a job at the University there), Father Greg, and others.

We tried many of the sweet resturants and stores in San Lucas. We traveled to the markets of Santiago and Panelejehal. We saw the Mayan ruins in another city. We saw the butterfly and moneky reserve of Panelejehal. Beautiful waterfalls!! :)

Some of us did climb the volcano. It took them 7 1/2 hours to climb up and about 6 hours to get down. I was really proud of them. It was an amazing challenge. It pretty much rained every single day we were down there... except the day before and kinda the day that the group climbed the volcano.

One of the most memorable moments for me was when we went to the finca (plantation) with toys for the little kids. We bought balls and stuff for the kids to play with but it started to rain as soon as we got there. But we still tried to make the best of it and made a foolof ourselves and let the kids watch us. : ) We didn't want them to get all wet so we just played with some of them and took pictures. We also brought coloring books and whatnot to give to the kids. It was an amazing experience because the kids were sooooo happy. As Michele said..."they were not forgotten"

I enjoyed the group dynamic of our group. : ) It was a bit rough at some points because someone was sick or some other reason, but we honestly became a family over the 3 weeks. We were with each other 24/7 and learned so much about each other. I was really into wanting to learn about each other and helping others in the group get the most of the experience. It has inspired me to really want to lead a trip in the winter.

Speaking Spanish with all the people of the mission and others of San Lucas was a HUGE highlight for me. There were a lot of American students to speak English to, but I loved speaking Spanish. The drivers, the local store owners, and others had so much to say about their lives and their land. I caught myself sometimes thinking in Spanish. That was a life-changing experience! :)

I want to thank I-i for allowing our group of 13 people to take this incredible adventure. I cannot believe I did not know about this sooner. It really is an experience that is unique and unforgettable.

mucho gusto- AMI :)

oh home

soooo since I was updating my own blog I figured I would throw an update here too. Gualapuro is back after sleeping in 2 airports (quito and miami) and spending a day in the Bogota, Colombia airport.

most of us got by eating crackers the whole time. marjorie slept under chairs, by plants, pretty much anywhere there was a 2x6 ft flat space.

im glad to be home, and whats weird is that i got sick upon return...but no one really got sick down in Gualapuro, save for Justin.

we checked out some of quito and the atacames (crazy) beach region before we jetted out.

I'll let miriam fill in the details, but I took a ton of photos...here's what our backyard kinda looked like.

-pedro (peter)

and tonite we dance like we´ve never danced before

funny thing-my bug bites have turned to blisters! sweeeet. actually our host mom was laughing like HYSTERICALLY when she saw them. oh celestina, why must you take such pleasure in our pain. the last time she laughed that hard was when she hit justin with the ortega stick.

but no bother, and even if we have yet to see any llamas, edor is still rocking it out. today is our last day in gualapuro and we are trying to soak it all in. the mountain has disappeared the past few days...we suspect on a vacation to the coast, where part of our group will be heading tomorrow. we have made many successful family dinners..spaghetti, chile and all the flan you could ever want...2 batches worth thank yuh.

we went to cuicocha, guinea pig lake and didn´t see any guinea pigs but the lake was everyone´s favorite crayola color, cerulean. some good words of wisdom we´ve heard so far in gualapuro-

-if you put dog tears in your eyes, you can see ghosts. (our host sis)

-tomorrow is my 8th birthday and i´m going to eat 40 meters of cake. (our man ishmael)
(note-this was later found to be an inaccurate statement)

-DAS DAS DAS DAS (dance party central)

speaking of dance party...tonite we are to perform uhh for like the entire community. they want us to do some kind of cross cultural exchange and peform...so we have chosen to do a rendition of the peanut butter jelly song that you all may know of. it goes a lil something liek this-

peanutbutterjellytime peanutbutterjellytime whereuat whereuat peanutbutterjellyandabaseballbat

this will then lead us into take me out to the ball game...and of course we will be making a human pyramid with corozon to pay hommage to our gpuro backdrop.

the school looks better and better. we FINALLY kinda finished painting the one room white...oh man...so many coats of pain...so many white splotches in my eyebrows. we also rocked it with an assembly line to move a huge pile of bricks up to the ceiling, where janelle narrowly escaped a brick rockslide.

we totally got to use the icepack i brought..in fact our first aid kit is almost out. we are so hardcore.

justin and pedro got keys to the city from the boys at transito´s and mary has a boyfriend by the name of ishmael. (yes the same lying cat who claimed he would eat 40 meters of cake)

melissa is trying to curb her strip club addiction and anna, or as she´s known here ¨the devil¨, is a fly killer extraordinaire.

we are hoping to be back here in december...if the school is already done then perhaps we can help by teaching english. in any case, the champaign-gpuro connection has been made and i think it will last a lifetime.

p.s. we have watched mulan 2 about 3 times now.