First off here is the room that I am staying in. The house actually belongs to Jacky's parents, but since they live in Guatemala City Archy and Jacky live here with their sons. This room is downstairs and is perfect for me. They have both joked (I think) about me coming and living here full time. Know that I have actually spent time picturing what my life would be like here before realizing that I should probably just stay in Pana and come visit often. Apparently I have an open invitation for whenever I want to come stay for the week, so let's see how many times I can take them up on that before I get kicked out. :)One of my favorite things about being in Xela is that this house comes with cute little kiddos to play with. This adorable baby is Nicki, and he actually turned 1 yesterday. Since I have been here this month he walked by himself for the first time, and also started saying Mama and Popi. I really can't begin to explain how obsessed I am with this little kid. He is at the age where he laughs at everything and communicates through grunting.
Archy and Jacky's other son is Dominic Santiago, but we call him Santi. It took him longer to warm up to me, but this past week we have become best friends. When I first got here he cried when I sat by him in the car and at the dinner table. However, now he asks to sit by me and cried the other day when I left the room. I owe my awesomeness to the Talking Tom and Cat Paint Apps on my iPhone. Seriously it was the only way to win this kid over. He thought my phone was cool, so he started sitting in my lap to play with it. Then I guess that is when he realized I wasn't going to attack him. Before I came I only knew Archy and I only knew him from when we work with teams together. It has been amazing getting to not only meet and fall in love with his family, but also to see how he is with them. I am getting to see a whole other side to him and also am becoming equally as good of friends with Jacky. Just such a beautiful experience to have.
Another thing that I have loved about being in Xela is hanging out with some of our other translators outside of work. Besides working with most of them on teams I have really only hung out with a couple without teams. One translator that I knew before was Jose Galicia. I had actually spent a week in Xela with my roommate Heather last Spring for Semana Santa. I told Jose I was going to be spending some time in Xela, so he offered to show me around. Luckily for me he hasn't been working with teams the last few weeks, so we have been hanging out a lot. It is harder for Jacky and Archy to get out of the house with the boys, so Jose has been the one to explore Xela with. The photo below is from a lookout over Xela called Baul. Check out how beautiful Xela looks from this hill.
After looking at the view for about an hour we walked around the rest of the park. It was such a beautiful day.
Also at Baul I found this Mayan dudes. I never get old of seeing and hearing the stories all all of these Mayan ruins. However, all the stories do run together after awhile. I really love all the history that I have been experiencing here in Guatemala.
Next up we went to a restaurant called La Casa del Parado which is on top of another hill with another view of Xela. We ate fried plantains (no matter how much I want to like these I never do) and drank hot drinks because it was freezing. Even though it was really cold we stayed outside because I loved sitting there with the Christmas lights and listening and singing to the 80's American music that they were blaring. It constantly makes me laugh how many places LOVE to play Bon Jovi.
Below is the view we were looking at from the restaurant. After we left we hiked up to a little gazebo on the property, so I could take pictures. Again Xela is really beautiful especially at night.
On another exploring night we went to the Cathedral located in the Central Park in Xela. I had been to the park before because that is where we watched the Good Friday Procession during Semana Santa, but I had never been inside the cathedral. It was really beautiful with people all around lighting candles and praying during mass. I was not the only tourist taking pictures inside the cathedral (note that I was using my iPhone which I like to think that makes it a little sneakier and therefore better.). Every time I do take pictures inside any kind of church it always makes me uncomfortable because I think about how rude I would think it was if I was worshiping and someone came into my church and took pictures. However, Jose assured me that it was OK. Still not sure how I feel about it though.
A couple of weeks ago Guatemala Tours had their yearly meeting with the translators and asked if I would join them. It was actually set up as a team building exercise, so they brought in Carla who used to work with VIM to motivate the staff. We played team building games, watched little videos about good and bad situations, and then spent a few hours talking about the coming year and how things were working. The entire meeting was in Spanish (obviously), so I was grateful that I was in a room full of translators to help me. Later on that day Jose called me and asked if I wanted to drive up to San Francisco La Union to take Raul home. Since I hadn't been there I said yes and they came to pick me up. I really enjoyed hanging out with them and seeing another village close to Xela. On the way to Raul's home we talked about the world ending in December. I used my dad's line about the Mayans just running out of paper which made them laugh a lot.
When we got to San Francisco La Union I saw Jose Hernandez who I work with at the clinic jumping out of the back of a chicken bus. I yelled his name and he jumped in the car. He then invited us over to his house to meet his family. It was such a great experience not only seeing where he lives, but also meeting his daughters, wife, mom, and other family. I work with all these guys so much that I have loved seeing where a lot of them live and meeting their family. It is fun to see what their life is like outside of work.
When we got back from San Francisco La Union we stopped downtown at Cafe Baviera for dinner. I loved everything about this cafe. They were playing Christmas music and the staff was actually decorating for Christmas while we ate. There were also old photographs plastered all over the walls and antique cameras everywhere. Absolutely a place I would go back to. They even had a little couch area where you could sit and study. Such a cool little indy coffeeshop/restaurant.
Another place that we went to was the main cemetery in Xela. I'm not sure why, but every place I go in Guatemala someone wants to show me a cemetery. It always makes me laugh because in the States I would never suggest taking someone to a random cemetery just to visit and take pictures.
This cemetery is known for Vanushka's grave. The story is that Vanushka was a gypsy from Europe who came to Guatemala and fell in love with a rich son of a Spanish ambassador while working in the circus. His family didn't approve, so they took him back to Spain breaking Vanushka's heart. She cried for weeks before dying of a broken heart. Now the story is that if you visit her grave and leave flowers or write her a note then you will be reunited with your true love.
Ok that only covers a few days of my time here (did I mention that I was WAY behind on writing this blog), so I will write more probably tomorrow. Right now I am sitting around the table laughing and drinking hot chocolate with the family. Jacky's family is here for the weekend, and her brother knows some English so we are speaking Spanglish to each other. It makes me laugh on a daily basis the conversations I have with people here.
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