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.

First week of school recap...

I can't remember the last time I was this exhausted. This week has been beyond crazy. Here is everything we have going on... first week of school... 2 mission teams both with about 15 people... 3 members from a church in Seattle who wanted to check out Salud y Paz for future trips... have I mentioned it was the first week of school? It was a CRAZY week, but I have realized this week how much I really love it here and working with Salud y Paz. I am going to try to summarize the week through these pictures. I really wish I had the time to write out and share everything that made this week so amazing (yet stressful). The first picture is of a little preschooler during recess time. During recess I usually stop what I'm doing and go out to the playground to play with the kids.

This is Jose the PE teacher. He comes to the school on Wednesdays and Fridays. He is great and you can tell how much the kids love him. They sing little songs which are cute and it was hilarious this morning to watch the little kids try to hula hoop with hula hoops bigger than them.

In case you haven't gotten enough pictures of me with Luisa Elaine here is another cute one from a few days ago. Just precious.

One of the mission teams here this week brought backpacks filled with supplies to all the students. Here is the first grade class with their new backpacks (which are for the most part almost as big as they are). This may be my favorite class because they have learned my name. When I walk into their class in the morning the students yell (and I do mean yell) Buenos Dias Kelly to me. Already knowing my name = favorite class.

The same team brought this parachute for the school last year, so we took it out yesterday morning to let them play with it with the students. The kids were obsessed with it, and their favorite thing to do was to try to get their heads through the hole in the middle. I couldn't get a great picture of it though because they were too quick.

They also LOVED running underneath the parachute. So much laughter and smiles.

The kids want to love on you all the time. They want to be picked up and hugged and snuggled with. They are adorable and hug so tightly.

I sat on the ground to take some pictures of the kids under the parachute and these cuties came to join me.

The kids LOVE to have their picture taken, but then I discovered yesterday that they also love to take photographs with my camera. I adore this picture and this little girl. Here I am teaching Patti (a first grader) how to take a photograph on my camera.

She took about 20 and this is my favorite one. It's actually a pretty cool picture, so I was highly impressed. Also most of the other pictures she took had her finger over the lens... precious and hilarious.

So tonight Heather and I had our upstairs neighbors down for sushi. When Heather said that she wanted to make sushi I just thought go for it because I had never made it before, but I was actually impressed at how easy and fun it was to make. Here is the first step... place seaweed on the bamboo wrap thingy.

Second step... spread out the sushi rice (Yes you can buy all this stuff here. I find it VERY odd that it is hard to find so many things from back home here, but you can find dried seaweed and sushi rice).

Third step... put all the fillings in the middle. I added carrots, green mango, avocado, chicken (weird I know, but it's what we had), and cucumbers.

Fourth step... roll the sushi using the bamboo rolling thingy. Fifth step... smile when your roommate says she's going to take a picture of you with your finished roll because she could probably tell how proud you are for making homemade sushi.

Sixth step... take a picture of your finished product then enjoy. :)

Tonight we made a fire in our fireplace for the first time. After such a long week it was great to just sit by the fire and be quiet for awhile.

So yesterday Wayne told me that he wanted to me go to Guatemala City tomorrow morning to pick up a new mission team and stay with them for the weekend in Chichicastenango. I am excited to start working with Wayne with the mission teams coming to Guatemala in addition to the work I'll still be doing in the school. I know this weekend will be a challenge for my Spanish. To be honest I am completely excited to be working more closely with the mission teams, but I am worried about my Spanish skills. I just have to keep reminding myself that the more I use it the more I will learn. Wish me luck this weekend. 

ASHLEY BOUGHT HER PLANE TICKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I forgot to add in my blog last night that one of my favorite moments yesterday was sitting down at my desk for a few minutes and checking my email surrounded by all the hecticness and getting one from my cousin Ashley saying that her flights are booked and she's coming to visit me for a week in February.

We are still planning, but I think I'm going to meet her at the airport then we will travel to Tikal (some Mayan ruins that are suppose to be amazing) for a day then head to Belize. After a few days we will travel back to Guatemala and I will show her around Pana (where I live) and Camanchaj (where Salud y Paz is) then we will spend the last night in Antigua before her flight back out of Guatemala City the next day. 

My parents, grandfather, and brother are also coming to visit me over Spring Break. Yes I do count my blessing everyday to have such an amazingly close supportive family. Know how much I love y'all (on a side note people here judge how much I use the word y'all... it's depressing).

Ashley gets here in 25 days... Let the count down begin!!!

First day of school...

Today was the first day of school and the kids were even cuter than I thought they would be and the village was even busier than I was expecting. Here is a little recap (and lots of cute pictures of kids) of how the day went.

Janet and I left Pana at 6:30 (SO EARLY) to drive to Camanchaj to get there in time for the opening ceremony (yes I thought of the Olympics every time someone called it that). The students and their parents gathered in front of the school and we had a ceremony for about 30 minutes. I was in charge of carrying in the Guatemala flag during the National Anthem (which lasts for about 5 minutes). It was kinda a big deal to carry the flag... Just saying.

The first picture of the ceremony is from the stage (outside step at the school). Check out the very cute little uniforms the kids are wearing. The second is from the back where I was waiting to carry in the flag (again I'm kinda a big deal in Guatemala).

After the ceremony was over school started. Here are the different classrooms in the school. The first one is Ana's class. They are the youngest kids in the school (think preschool) and are adorable.

This is Mary's classroom. Mary is the first grade teacher and is the one who visited my church in the US when she came to visit her dad who moved to Texas 9 years ago. She is the only teacher who speaks English and is amazing. I can talk to her like I can to my friends back home. She asked me the other day if I wanted to "know her house" which I learned means she wants me to visit her home after school one day. She lives about 10 minutes away from the school in Camanchaj. She is a great friend.

This is Paulina's classroom. She is the Kindergarten teacher. All the classrooms usually have Guatemalan fabric hanging from the ceilings, but we didn't have time to get it hung until this afternoon. I'll post pictures of the finished classrooms once we get them all together.

On Mondays and Tuesdays when the clinic is open these ladies set up these tables and sell food to the patients. The rest of the week is much quieter since the clinic is closed.

This is the view of the playground from the 2nd floor of the school. The classes take turns using the playground during recess. While one class is on the playground the other 2 play around their classrooms.

I played dolls with these first grade girls for awhile. They had several Dora the Explorer dolls. Their favorite thing to do was to sit in my lap and play with my hair. I have noticed that they do that to all of the volunteers. Their hair all looks the exact same, so I think they find our hair fascinating because it is different.

I also learned today that most of the preschool kids have never used a toilet or washed their hands in a sink before. These 2 boys played in the water in the sink until they were soaking wet (post picture). Heather caught a boy peeing by our car and on the way home we talked about how you see moms allow their kids to use the restroom in the middle of the street/market/wherever. Since they are allowed to do it up to this age it is hard to teach them not to do it anymore.

When there are teams working at Salud y Paz these women travel to Camanchaj from Pana to sell their stuff to the mission teams. They have such patience to sit out there all week just hoping that someone will buy something from them. The lady on the right is Cecilia who was the one who brought the screaming prayers to our house the other night.

So one of my projects today was to take a picture of every kid to 1. help the mission team make buttons of all the kids faces to put on their backpacks and 2. to print out and put in their student folders. Here was our system. Janet went into the classrooms and sent the kids out to me to take their picture. I would then take it and show the picture to the kids on my camera. I love how much they love seeing their pictures on my camera. They would sit in my lap and hang all over me while I was taking the pictures. Hence the following pictures. I took a lot of pictures with the kids to then show them. It is maybe my favorite thing to do.

I taught this little boy how to take a picture on my camera and he proceeded to take 23 pictures of the wall of the school. We're photographer buds.

These are some of the kids in the first grade class.

Each class takes their turn brushing their teeth after lunch. Here are a few preschool kids brushing. They brush their teeth then just spit it out on the ground. When I saw them doing it today I laughed and thought about our Colorado trip. (If any MDUMCers are reading this they looked exactly how we probably do when we are brushing our teeth and looking at Pagosa Peak).

I can't remember this little girl's name, but she sat in my lap while I was taking pictures of all the other kids. Beyond precious.

Today was a great day, but I'm not feeling the best. I came home and took my temp (or should I say my nurse roommate did because I couldn't figure out how to read my thermometer) and I have 100.4. I have a lot of work things I need to do on the computer (I was also suppose to sharpen 500 pencils, but the sharpener broke... shoot.) before I go to bed, so I better get started.

Beautiful Sunday...

This morning my dad facetimed me (think Skype for IPhones/IPods) during Youth Worship at the church. My internet has been going on and off all day, so it cut out a couple of times while we were talking. However, even though I couldn't always hear what he was saying I could see all the kids smiling and waving to me. It made my eyes water thinking about all the love and joy I would be feeling if I had been there this morning. I am loving my time here, but I am missing home a lot. However, every time I feel myself getting sad about missing out on fun things going on at the church or with my family/friends back home I have to remind myself that in May I am going home to everything/everyone I love. I know I am incredibly blessed to have been allowed this time off to come experience serving the people of Guatemala, and that I couldn't have asked for a better situation. That being said though it doesn't mean I don't have many moments here where I think about/miss home greatly.

Anyways, Guess what Heather and I did today... We roasted a whole chicken for lunch!! We had a couple that Heather had met a couple of times over for lunch today, so yesterday when we were walking around the market we decided to roast a whole chicken. We bought one from the market (a whole chicken for $5). Neither of us had ever roasted a whole chicken before, but we bonded over the fact that both of our dad's watch BBQ shows on the food network, so surly we could figure it out. Heather prepped the chicken then carved it when it was done and I was in charge of the veggies. I also checked on our little pal every 20 minutes and basted him. Here is Heather putting the herb rub in the chicken.

Here is our cute little birdie before he went into the sauna. You can't tell, but there is a herb olive oil rub all over and under the skin along with some lemon slices.

Our finished product! Not going to lie Heather and I were VERY proud of ourselves (keep in mind we've never done this before). We googled how long it should take to roast a 5 pound chicken, so we thought it would only take an hour. However, we have a propane stove here that would only get up to 350, so it took about 2 hours and 15 minutes until it was finally done. Such a pretty little bird.

 I found this quote the other day at the coffee shop here that I love. I thought it was beautiful.

Today after lunch Heather and I went to a worship service called Solomon's Porch. It is held in a coffee shop in the back of a bigger coffee shop (I know that may not make sense, but it's the best way to describe it). Also just to make it funnier outside the bigger coffee shop that open up to the street there is a huge metal dinosaur on the sidewalk. Anyways, the couple who run the coffee shop/church is in the States until next week, so the couple that we had over for lunch are leading it while they are gone. It was a small group of both English and Spanish speakers sitting around a couple of tables and reading the bible. Next week the leaders will be back and there is suppose to be music and more of a worship setting. I've excited to go back next Sunday afternoon and check out how it usually works.

On the way home from church Heather and I stopped at the Dispensa (it is a grocery store here that looks like a small warehouse and is owned by Walmart Central America). I bought a bag of dog treats for a couple of dollars and handed out treats to all the dogs on the way home. I am going to start carrying a small bag of treats when I'm walking around town to hand out. When I walk to town I probably pass 30 or 40 stray dogs on the streets. They make me incredibly sad, so I thought the least I could do was be that girl who passes out treats. :)

This is going to be a CRAZY week! Not only is tomorrow the first day of school, but there are also 2 mission teams working at Salud y Paz this week and 3 staff members from a church in Washington who everyone refers to as the 3 VIPs. It is going to be very hectic in the village, but I'm so excited to see all the kids and start meeting them all and learning their names. I know it's going to be a challenge to communicate with them (I've been told it is so much more difficult to talk to the kids because they speak very fast and don't know how to figure out what you're saying like adults can). Tomorrow we are leaving Pana at 6:30, so we can get to Camanchaj in time for the opening ceremony for school. Janet and I have to present the flags in front of the school (apparently it is a VERY big deal if you do it wrong and when Janet was showing me last week how to do it right she couldn't remember exactly how to do it).

Anyways wish me luck tomorrow...

End of the week recap and Guatemalan prayer time.

This week has been really busy (hence the lack of blogging for a few days). Also our internet has been going out a lot and running really slow. Anyways... Here's what I've been up to the past few days.

Wednesday morning we had a parent/teacher meeting for the start of the school year (on Monday). We all met in the "library" upstairs and the meeting lasted about 3 hours. At the beginning of the meeting Janet introduced me and I had to say a few sentences in Spanish. This is what I said...

Buenos Dias. Me llamo Kelly. Soy de Tejas, Estados Unidos. Estoy aqui hasta Mayo. Voy a una escuela para aprender Espanol. Estoy feliz de estar aqui.

Very basic and simple sentences, but if you know me then you know how much I HATE speaking in front of a group of people. It doesn't matter how much I know the group or how confident I am in what I'm talking about. I still get panic attacks when I have to talk in front of them. That being said even though it was a simple introduction I was extremely happy that I was able to come up with it and memorize it in Spanish (especially since I didn't go running out of the room crying). :)

This week we have had a board member named Aubrey in town helping out getting everything ready for school to start. It has been amazing getting to know her and hanging out with her around Pana. On her last night here all the volunteers that work at Salud y Paz went out to dinner with her at The Sunset Cafe. It is right on the lake and is beautiful. It was really cloudy on Friday, but it was still a gorgeous sunset. This was the view from our table.

I sat next to Janet who is the director of the school and amazing. I know I have said this before in a previous blog, but I know how blessed I am to be working with this amazing team.

One of the volcanoes at sunset.

Heather and I with Aubrey. The 3 of us have shared a lot of laughter and great conversations. She told us to call her Granny A. I really wish she was going to be here the whole time I am.

This morning Heather and I went to the market. I usually go on Sundays (it's the biggest market day here), but we are having a missionary couple over for lunch tomorrow. We decided to go today to get everything we needed. I bought everything in this picture for about $4.50. Food is so cheap here and I love buying fresh fruits and veggies at the market and giving money straight to the farmers.

Whenever I buy fruits, veggies, and eggs I have to soak them in bleach water (or I bought some organic bleach stuff because the idea of using bleach bothers me) for 15 to 20 minutes. A lot of people here also rinse their dishes in bleach water after washing them. I have heard so many horror stories from everyone here about getting sick and I know it's going to happen sooner or later, but I am trying to be extra careful to try to prevent it. My roommate has gotten so many stomach illnesses that she is now lactose intolerant for the rest of her life. It's a scary thing to come into, but I'm praying I can make it until May without any long term effects from getting sick here.

This picture is because in my stocking at Christmas my dad gave me 2 ice cube trays that make the same kind of ice we have at the Refuge (think sonic ice). I used them for the first time today and it made me smile.

So I have joined 2 really great groups since I have been here. The first club I have joined is a knitting club on Saturdays at 3:00 (no I don't knit, nor can I remember if I have already blogged about this or not). We meet in the apartment upstairs at the coffee shop and spend a couple of hours knitting (or in my case cross stitching and drinking lots of coffee/tea) and talking. It is a group of 6 women of all different ages (a couple of which I work with which is how I got the invite) and it is always fun to sit with them and hear about all the gossip going on around town and also to listen to all of their amazing stories. Each of them have spent years overseas in different places as missionaries and I am always fascinated with their life stories. Today after knitting Adele (her and Mike own the coffee shop) and I took their dogs on a walk (all 6 of them!!) down to the river. We had a great conversation and met a few families along the way.

The second is a bible study that meets on Thursday afternoons (Janet and Heather are also in the study, so we just leave work a little early that day to get back in time). We are doing the new Beth Moore study on James and so far it is great. I have never done a study like this before, so I am excited to get into it and hear what the others in the group are thinking about it. I was worried about being lonely here, but I am constantly surrounded by so many amazing people. I am blessed.

Lastly, I want to share a most special moment that happened tonight. When I got home from town I walked into the house where Heather was sitting along with 3 Guatemalans. She explained to me that a Guatemalan women who she is friends with invited 2 people who were in town from Guatemala City to come pray at our house. I sat down and listened to them talk and read from their bible in Spanish. Every chance Heather got she would try to translate for me, but they were speaking so quickly that it was difficult. Then they stood up and Heather explained that they wanted to pray for us. This is when it got interesting. I closed my eyes and expected a prayer like I am used to back home, but all of a sudden all 3 of them started yelling (in Spanish I might add, so I had no idea what they were screaming) at the same time. I looked quickly at Heather and she had her eyes closed and I could tell was trying not to laugh. I was the same way, but once I got over the shock of them yelling it became less funny and more special. The lady who seamed to be the leader (because you know she was yelling the loudest) then poured oil on her hands and rubbed it on both Heather and I. She touched our necks, arms, face, and head with the oil (after they left Heather and I were laughing about how it just smelled like olive oil and how we were both incredible greasy and in need of a shower). This all went on for about 5 minutes (which trust me is a LONG time to be yelled at in Spanish and doused in oil) before we all said Amen and they were on their way. After they left Heather tried to explain to me some of what they were yelling. It was a lot of giving thanks for us serving in their country and reminding us to open our hearts up to God. It was a very surreal moment that made me tear up at how beautiful it was.

God... Thank you for blessing me with this time here in Guatemala and for allowing me to experience and live these precious moments. You are good to me. Amen.