11 LONG days straight of work...

I am EXHAUSTED!! Last week was the first week of school which was crazy busy. Then this weekend I spent in Chichicastenago with a mission team followed by working everyday this week. Needless to say I need to go to bed early tonight and sleep in tomorrow (my day off...YAY!) and I'll be back to normal. Anyways, I've had a tiring, but beyond wonderful week in Guatemala. Here are some highlights. (Sorry I haven't blogged in a week... I don't know if you've heard or not, but I've been a little busy.)

I went to Guatemala City on Saturday to pick up a team who did some construction around Salud y Paz this week. After picking them up at the airport we traveled to Chichicastenago. On the way they asked me dozens of questions about Guatemala and I was very proud that I knew the answers to almost all of their questions. I went to Chichicastenago for the first time in August, and was really excited when I was asked to 'host' the team for the weekend. We did almost all of the same things that I had done in August which was comforting to me since I then knew my way around and how to answer questions. There were 3 teenage girls on the trip which I loved. I walked around the market in Chichi on Sunday with the girls and I laughed the whole time because they kept referring to me as their personal tour guide and translator. The idea of me being a translator is pretty hilarious. You know since I'm horrible at Spanish so far. Anyways, I have been missing the youth a lot at church and it was a blessing to have them here this week to hang out with. It made me miss home a lot, but also it got me really excited for future mission teams.

This first picture is from the cemetery in Chichicastenago. Cemeteries here are completely different than in the States. This one is beautiful to walk through. I translated this verse for the girls and was pretty proud of myself.

This little boy (Alex) and his friend were playing around the cemetery. They would go from climbing this tree and posing for pictures to climbing on top of mausoleums.

The rest of the weekend in Chichi was amazing. It felt like home to me to hang out with this team. On Sunday we went to Juan's church together which I also went to in August and loved. Juan works at Salud y Paz and is also a Methodist minister. He has actually been to Houston and has talked to the Bridgebuilders Sunday school class at the church. He is amazing and I was very happy to go to his church again. That night the team had a devotional at the hotel after dinner. Again it reminded me of home.

I took this picture a few nights ago from my house. Heather and I looked out the window and saw how beautiful the sunset was, so we both ran outside and up the path to our compost (yes we have a compost which I love) and garden. I wish this tree wasn't in the way, but you can still see how AMAZING it was. There have been several cool sunsets this week.

Here is another cooking adventure I had. I bought some bananas at the market last week that went bad really quickly, so I decided instead of just throwing them into our compost I would make some banana nut bread/muffins. My roommate made lemon poppyseed bread the next night. Maybe we should look into opening a bakery in Pana. :)

This next picture doesn't do this story justice. I've learned that every morning around 7:00 this little bird and his friends have a meeting in my yard. He/she is actually BRIGHT blue, and I have no idea why in all my pictures it looks black. We have 8 windows in a row in our living room and this morning when I walked out of my room I saw that there was a bird in EVERY window looking in. Luckily Heather walked out at the same time and I could show her that we were being watched... So funny!

Here are the girls I was talking about on the mission team this week. This is Carrie (in blue) and Maggie. Neither of them have a parent on the trip nor are they from the same church as the rest of the team. Carrie's mom came on the trip last year which is how they got connected with this team. They are amazing and it was a blessing to hang out with them all week. It was a week full of laughter that I am most grateful for especially since I was exhausted and needed some fun/joy.

We decided we should take cute pictures together, so we took a lot of self pics. They both took hundreds of pictures on their cameras of us playing with kids, so when they upload them on facebook when they get home I'll post some on here.

Sarah joined the picture party. Sarah and her mom came on the trip and were amazing. They worked a lot with the children in the school and I thought it was such a cool trip to experience as a mother/daughter duo. Seeing them share this experience made me greatly look forward to my family coming to visit. I can't wait to show them what I'm doing here and have them share this which I hold so special with me.

The team wanted a picture of all the kids in the school, so I took advantage of the situation and took one to show y'all. On a side note what is so funny about the word y'all? Every Guatemalan asks me what the heck I am saying when I say it and every team I have met down here point out how many times I say it. I think it's about time the rest of the world catches on to how great of a word it is. :)

This team also brought recorders for the kids to play. It was pretty hilarious to watch them try to play. It reminded me a lot of when I was in college and had to take a stupid recorder class since I was an education major until I switched majors. My roommate and I used to sit in our dorm room and practice Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had A Little Lamb for days. It's sad, but I'm pretty sure if you gave these 5 year olds a week they could beat me in a chair contest.

This is the amazing team I have been talking about. I am going to miss them when they go home on Sunday. It was a joy to work with them this week. It made me really look forward to working with future teams. This may sound weird, but even though I haven't met any of them before I could picture them all in my church which made it weirdly comforting and reminded me of home.

I also loved that I got to work closely with some of the Guatemalan staff. It has been a slow process to get to know them because most of them don't speak any English and my Spanish is still horrible. However, this week I got to work with Archie (in the back row of the pic) who is a bus driver Salud y Paz uses a lot for teams and with Jose (front row). Jose works at Salud y Paz full time with teams. Both of them speak English, but would constantly talk to me in Spanish to try to help me learn. Our conversations would go like this a lot. We would talk a little in Spanish until they would say something to me that I had no idea what it was. Then instead of telling me what they said they would wait for me to go google whatever they said and come up with a response. Needless to say our conversations went on for hours and were filled with lots of laughter.

The team is spending the weekend in Pana and said that they would let me know what all they are doing, so I can join them. I have the day off tomorrow, so I think I am going to try to sleep in then do some chores around the house I've been putting off. Hopefully I'll get back to blogging more often. 

Lastly, I just thought I would update you on my Guatemala bug situation. A member on one of the mission teams last week left me a lot of lavender oil because the bites on my legs are so bad she thought I needed it (apparently it makes them go away faster). Also several people on this team have commented on how bad they look. If you watch Survivor (which I still do even after 20 something seasons) then do you remember the seasons when the contestants have so many bites on them that it looks like they have some horrible disease? Well Janet told me a couple of days ago that I could win a metal for how many bites I have on my legs. Not a contest I want to win. Also while I was writing this blog my roommate (who is sitting next to me on the couch) felt something biting her and discovered that it was a jumping bed bug (who knew they jumped??). I really hope I don't get bed bugs. I really don't want to have to wash my sheets and quilts by hand tomorrow. She also killed a cockroach while she was cooking dinner earlier and a few minutes ago I realized I was bleeding from a new spider bite. We are getting attacked!!!

If you feel like praying tonight maybe pray for all the bugs in our apartment to die... or you know for world peace.