The alarm went off at 6:15. I had not slept very well because I was thinking about what I am going to do in the rest of my time in Central America. Amber had been up for a while, just dozing in bed and she decided to go on a walk a few minutes after the alarm went off. I didn’t need an hour to get ready, so I went back to sleep until she returned about 6:35. I got ready and journaled/read. We had breakfast at 7:15, which consisted of oatmeal with bananas and cinnamon, tea, and bread. We left for school a few minutes late, as usual.
I talked with my teacher for the first hour and a half, but I don’t really remember what we talked about other than the day before. I learned how to say the ordinal numbers 11-100. During the break, Amber, Lauren, and I planned what we are going to do with the kids tonight at the church in Parramos. The second half of my class, we worked on a few grammar issues, although I still do not have a satisfactory answer to my question about “a menos que,” and I read a magazine article and the Mayan underworld and then discussed it with my teacher.
Amber, Lauren, and I walked back to our house talking about our plans for next week. The original plan had been that Amber and I were going to meet Lauren in Cobán on Saturday, but she decided to come to Antigua instead. Then we were thinking of leaving Friday from Antigua to go to Semuc Champey (or at least get to the town close to there), but now we think we will leave here on Saturday, as long as Elvira doesn´t need our room. The next part of the plan consisted of staying in Semuc Champey two days and then traveling to Copán, Honduras for two nights. Then I was going to come back to Antigua and Amber and Lauren were going to continue on to Lauren´s family in San Pedro Sula. However, there is really not any reason I cannot go with them. We will already be in Copán and it is not too much farther to get to San Pedro Sula. I have plenty of time because I don´t leave Guatemala to fly home until July 21. Lauren took a direct bus from San Pedro Sula to Antigua, so it would be easy for me to get back. We wrote down a tentative schedule of our travels before going to copy our passports.
For lunch, we had soup with vegetables in it and a delicious salad. It was the best salad I can remember. It had lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, shredded carrots, cheese, lime juice, finely shredded chicken, and dressing made out of yogurt, ketchup, and mustard. It was delicious! For dessert, we had mole (chocolate sauce) with plátanos.We left lunch right when we finished to walk to the school for the tour of the pueblos (towns) south of Antigua at 2. We arrived right at 2 and paid for the tour. Then we sat around for a half hour while we waited for the people to be ready. Thankfully, we had brought Lauren´s Central America book, so we spent time perusing the section on Honduras.
Finally, it was time to leave for the tour at 2:35. Manuel took us in a van. We were the only three people who came on the tour! We drove around to different places and were able to get out and take pictures. Manuel told us lots of interesting facts about the places, all in Spanish. The places were went were: El Calvario (a church built by Hermano Pedro). Hermano Pedro came from Spain to be a missionary in Antigua. He helped heal lots of people using plants. He planted a tree in 1657 that is still there. I have a picture of it, of course! Next, we drove to San Juan del Obispo and we saw a big church and an overlook of Antigua. Manuel told us that this town is famous for its chocolate and a yellow fruit called nispero, but we didn’t get to try either one. Next, we drove to San Pedro de Huertas and saw an orange church and a public tank (tanque) where the local women come to wash their clothes. Lauren told a story of one town where although the women have washing machines, they prefer to come to the community wash area and wash the clothes with their friends. The tank was very big and had sinks all around the edge. I took a few pictures, although I felt kind of bad about taking pictures of them doing their laundry. There was a stand selling typical sweets. We bought some rice crispy treat things made out of popcorn that were colored and some hard cream candy in chunks. It started raining about this time. We got in another van with Ruben and Manuel returned to the school. We ate the popcorn treats. The brown ones were not chocolate, as we thought, but rather had a burnt sugar taste (not my favorite). The green, yellow, and pink ones were sweeter. My favorite thing was the hard candy that was called “cocada.” It was very good and I wished we had bought more. We shared some with Ruben, too.We drove through San Miguel Escobar and saw a church and a school. Ruben told us that during the school day, that road is closed so the kids can use it as a playground. There are school buildings on both sides of the road. We did not get out here. The fifth pueblo we visited was Ciudad Vieja which was the second capital of Guatemala until it was destroyed by a landslide from the Volcan Agua. The people named it “Agua” because they thought that is was erupting water instead of lava, but it was really a mudslide. It killed most of the people in the town and when they rebuilt, they decided to move the capital to Antigua (which was the 3rd capital of Guatemala before it was destroyed by an earthquake and the capital was moved to Guatemala City). At the edge of town, we saw how much higher the town is today than before the landslide. The town is probably 50-100 feet higher today because of all the earth that was dumped on the town. The next place we went was San Lorenzo el Cubo, which is a town famous for its wood furniture. The main road is known as the Carpentry Highway because nearly every man in the town is a carpenter. We did not get out here either. We then went to San Antonio Aguas Calientes which is famous for its textiles. This town has a tradition that when people get married, the bride and groom walk through the streets so the town can meet the new family. The weddings last all weekend with celebrations on Saturday in the bride’s family’s house and then on Sunday in the groom’s family’s house. Girls learn to weave here at the age of 7 and by the time they are 14, they have to make a weaving for their future mother-in-law. When she gets ready to wed, she gives this fabric to her mother-in-law and the mother-in-law puts it around her shoulders. However, if she takes it off, it is a sign of refusal that she does not approve of her son’s choice of wife. We stopped at an artesania market and saw some women weaving. We ended up buying some things from a woman. Then we went upstairs and saw a museum of traditional clothing in Guatemalan. On the way out, I saw a scarf like Amber wanted. She bartered for it, but the girl would not lower the price very much. Amber decided she still wanted it, but when she went to get her money, she found that she only had 37Q and the girl wanted 45Q. She went to check if that was okay, and when she returned, she said it was fine. It was funny because Amber gave her mostly bills and a handful of coins worth practically nothing. I had more money, but she didn’t need it. I guess that’s a good bartering technique because the girl never would have given her the scarf for even 40Q! After this, we took some pictures of the church and fountain in the park, then we got back in the van and headed back to Antigua.
By the time we arrived, it was after 5:30. The tour had lasted three hours (and they had told us two hours) plus we had left a half hour late. We had less than a half hour to grab dinner before heading to Parramos. We went to a restaurant recommended by Ruben. We decided to order two items and share. However, one of them was going to take 10 minutes to prepare. We decided to get it anyway. We got the caldo de gallina (soup with chicken, corn on the cob, carrots, huisquil, potato, and onions) right away. It came with peace juice, three tortillas, flavored rice, and limes for only 25Q (about $3). It was a lot of food. We ate it all and asked for the bill while we waited for the other food to arrive. However, when we got the bill, our second dish was not on there. We didn’t have time to eat it anyway, so it probably worked out for the best.
We walked to the bus terminal and got on the bus around 6:20. The church service in Parramos starts at 7 and the trip takes 20-25 minutes. We shouldn’t have had problems, except for the fact that the bus didn’t leave the terminal until nearly 7pm!We read Lauren’s Central America book while we waited. When we got to the church in Parramos, it was after 7:30 because the bus stopped for a long time at each stop, probably because it was the last bus of the evening. They were singing when we got there. Bernabe was sitting at the back and he greeted us and we apologized for being late. We went and sat down and a woman shared her hymnal with us. After another song and a prayer, they dismissed the children to come with us. We went to the Sunday School classroom. The Nirmas came, too.
First we reviewed names, sang some songs, and then we played some games (Guess the Leader and a voice recognition game which led into the message). Amber read about Jesus being the Good Shepherd and how his sheep know his voice and then asked the children questions. When we were done with the lesson, we split up into groups to pray. I prayed with Esmeralda and Jocelyn. When all the groups had finished, I led a game where one person gave clues about a Bible character and the others had to whisper their guess into someone’s ear. The children were familiar with lots of the Bible characters that we used. After that, the service was over and we said goodbye. Bernabe drove us back to Antigua since there aren’t any buses that late. We got to Antigua a little after 9. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Bernabe. He has a very special family.
We went back to our houses and quickly got ready to dance. Lauren came to our house and we walked to La Sin Ventura near Parque Central. It was all salsa music, but no one was dancing when we arrived. We sat at a table and waited. Soon several couples started to dance and we tried to watch from our table, but people kept blocking our view. We went and stood at the edge of the small dance floor. Before long, all of us were asked to dance. I danced with Antonio for about a half hour. He was very good and we had fun. After that I watched for a while and then talked and danced with Mike, the instructor from our salsa class the other night. It was getting really crowded by this time and super hot. I went and stood in the doorway to cool off and watch the dancers. There were lots of really good dancers there. It was interesting to notice how many gringa/guatemalteco couples there were. At 11:45, they stopped playing salsa music and we got ready to go. Amber and Lauren said goodbye to guys they had danced with and we left. We walked Lauren to her house and then we went home. We weren’t very sleepy so I started writing this super long blog entry about our busy day and Amber worked on Spanish flashcards. We ended up turning off the light at 1:15.
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