We slept in this morning until 8:30, which is the latest we’ve slept in. We got up and had a relaxing morning showering, reading, journaling, and talking. We finally ended up leaving around 10:45 to go to a breakfast buffet called Personajes de la Antigua. We got a discount with our card from the school. We had pineapple, strawberries, cantaloupe, an enormous omelet made just for us with cheese, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes, black beans, fried plantains, some kind of a tamale with leaves on it, and fresh pineapple juice. It was delicious. We sat and talked for a while and left around noon.
We headed back to our room where we made a list of everything we want to do before we leave Antigua and plugged our activities into a schedule for the week. Then we studied a little bit of Spanish before leaving around 1:30.
We went to La Merced, the big yellow Catholic church near our house and bought atol de elote, which is a thick, sweet drink made out of corn. It kind of had a flavor similar to creamed corn. It was hot and warmed us up; we had been cold wearing skirts for the first time here. We walked by the school to see if it was open to talk about classes for Lauren (it wasn’t) and searched for an internet café so we could check and see if we had any messages from Lauren, Amber’s friend who was going to arrive Sunday night. We finally found one and Amber quickly checked her email. Then we continued on toward the market where Amber continued the search for shoes to her liking. She found a cute pair of tan sandals (not for dancing), but the man was charging more than double what she wanted to pay. We finally made our way through the market and found the bus to Parramos about 3:15.
We sat together on the bus, which was not super crowded (meaning mostly two adults to a seat). We got to Parramos around 3:50 and walked to the church where they were already people. We went back to their house and talked to the family. Baby Nirma was wearing a tiny corte (the traditional skirt that the women wear). It was super cute and regrettably I did not get a picture right then. Later, after the church service, Mama Nirma had Baby Nirma tied to her back and you could no longer see the corte. We went into the service as it was starting. They sang lots of songs in Spanish, but we did not have a hymnal so we could not sing but we clapped along. After several prayers, more songs, offering, Communion (with bread and grape pop), and Scripture reading, they dismissed the children to Sunday school (about an hour after the service started) and we went with them to the other room.
Two teenage boys lead the class of 18 children. First the children went around and said their names. We learned all of their names! Then, we played Telephone with the message (Dios esta aqui/God is here) and then Hot Potato where the children (and us) passed around a glue bottle and Erick, one of the leaders, tapped the wall with a pencil and when he stopped, whoever had the glue bottle had to do something like sing a song, dance like a chicken, or make an animal noise. When we finished this, Walter gave the lesson about Naboth’s vineyard. The children worked on memorizing a verse from Proverbs. Then I prayed (in English, at the children’s urging, although I would have preferred Spanish) and it was over. We asked what time the last bus to Antigua would leave and some people said 7 and some said 7:30. It was a little after six. We went out in the courtyard of the church and ate crunchy tortillas with noodles on top. The noodles reminded me of fried noodles from Hong Kong. We also had atol de platano (a sweet drink made out of plaintains). We chatted with the people of the church. Mama Nirma was passing out invitations to Baby Nirma’s first birthday celebration. If I am in Antigua then, I will go.I am still not sure what I am doing. I might possibly travel longer with Amber and Lauren instead of returning so quickly to Antigua.We ended up leaving after 6:30. Bernabe walked us to the park to make sure we got on the bus okay. As we were approaching the park, we saw a bus pull up. I started walking quicker, but Bernabe said that we would never make it and that another bus would come. However, it stayed there for a long time, so as we got closer, we all began to run toward the bus. We made it with plenty of time to spare and found seats across from each other. We chatted on our way back to Antigua. It’s interesting that every time we go from Parramos to Antigua, my ears pop, but when we go from Antigua to Parramos, I don’t notice anything.
We got back to Antigua around 7:15. We walked back to our house and grabbed some school stuff to work on. The plan was to go to Café Condessa and work until Lauren arrived. However, when we got to the café around 8, they were starting to shut up shop. We decided to sit on a bench across from the café so we could watch for Lauren to appear. I read some of my math stations book while Amber worked on Spanish homework. It started to sprinkle. Finally, we saw Lauren wander up. She only brought a backpack (regular-sized) and a large purse bag. Pretty impressive for about 10 days in Guatemala! We walked back to our house where we met Elvira and Enrique. They walked us to Elvira’s cousin’s house where Lauren is going to stay. We went inside and met her and her white little dog. Elvira’s cousin had the honor of having special statues in her house that morning for the Corpus Christi procession. The priest came to her house and lit the candle in front of the statues. I have a picture to post later.We walked back home and journaled/read a bit and went to bed around 10:30.
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