The Good Life

I didn’t realize until I started writing it all out that we actually had a very busy and exciting week. We saw lots of people, and I got to watch Brooks take two very important steps in his life, including his baptism and getting his first tattoo. And for my second to last week in Huehue, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way; my days here are numbered and I am ready to continue to enjoy them to the fullest. 

Monday we finished our San Cristobal de las Casas trip with a seven-hour bus ride back to Huehue, heading over to the orphanage in the afternoon (like I’ve said before, just leaving for a weekend makes me miss the kids). Tuesday evening we enjoyed breaking a piñata with our host family, which conveniently occurred when we were already Skyping my sister. We brought the computer down with us so she could see the festivities, and a precious 3-year-old neighbor boy, José Pablo, was completely mesmerized by my computer and Skyping with my sister. It was hilarious. 

Wednesday was a beautiful and fun day at the orphanage, where we had a party to baptize Brooks. Brooks had left early in the morning to go to the orphanage, and filled up 400 water balloons and set up a large inflatable pool we borrowed from our neighbors. Mom and I came over at 10:30am for the baptism ceremony, where Brooks spoke a few words, Hermana Sandra prayed, myself and some of the older kids read Bible verses for Brooks, and then the defining moment, when Pastor Ubaldo and a friend of his baptized Brooks in the pool. It was a beautiful ceremony, and then what made the day even better was our announcement after the baptism that everyone needed to change their clothes, because we were going to have a massive water fight. The weather all week had been cold and overcast, but on Tuesday the sun shone brightly, as if God was smiling on Brooks’ baptism and us. We pulled out all the balloons, and Brooks yelled “1, 2, 3, go” and pure chaos ensured. All the little kids and some of the older kids jumped into the pool, water balloons were being thrown at all angles, pastors and volunteers were being thrown into the pool, and once all the water balloons were gone, the kids started grabbing buckets and filling them with pool water to throw at others. It was incredible. After the intense water fight, everyone changed again, and we enjoyed popsicles Brooks had bought to share; the kids loved it. After popsicles (dessert before the meal, right?), all of the lunch tables were set outside in a long row, and we enjoyed a lunch of chicken, rice, tamales, and lemonade together. Needless to say, it was a fun and beautiful day, probably one of the best we have ever had at Fundación (which is saying a lot, because we’ve had some pretty incredible days there).

Thursday morning we invited our tienda friends out to coffee with us, which changed from coffee to ice cream pretty quickly and desirably. Our friend Leidy, one of her sisters, her sisters’ two kids Valeska and Greta, and the mom/grandma joined us. This family has been so kind and generous with us during our time in Guatemala, giving us free ice cream and always greeting us with kind words and friendly conversation, we were so glad to finally have the chance to be generous with them in return. We all went to Pops in Paiz, ordering four banana splits, two ice cream sundaes, and one Coca-Cola float. We enjoyed conversation with them, and smiled realizing we were so blessed to know this family. Friday morning we had a repeat of good company and good food when we went out to eat crepes with our friends Guisela and Ubaldo. We spent pretty much the whole morning talking about the orphanage, and again I felt like I was basking in the glow of enjoying the company of incredible people.

Saturday our day started with a bang when I joined Brooks to get his tattoo. He had met a guy through the man that runs the pharmacy at the orphanage, Wilder, and decided it was time for him to get his tattoo. He had asked one of the older boys at the orphanage, Jhony, to design something for him, and he came back with a beautiful cross and verse tattoo. Saturday morning Brooks and I walked over to the orphanage, got Wilder and Jhony, and walked over to the house of the man that would be doing the tattoo. This tattoo experience was so Guatemalan it’s not even funny, but I think Brooks wouldn’t have had it any other way. We met his wife first, who told us to wait because he was still working on a car at his second job, a car wash. We chatted with the wife a bit, who was very nice, and who we learned was selling ceviche out of the back of her car and asked if we wanted to buy any. From there we followed the man into his house (a few minutes late of course), and walked to an upstairs balcony that had nice couches set out on it. He already had Brooks’ design, and had shrunk it down a bit. After looking at the design again, he then started setting up his “shop”, which consisted of pulling out the tattoo gun, needles and ink, and setting it all up on his coffee table. He stenciled Brooks’ tattoo on, and the whole tattooing process took place on his balcony, with Brooks laying down on one of the couches. It took about two hours in total, but the finished product looked great. It was a tattoo experience to remember. From there we headed home for lunch, and afterwards my mom and I left to wander the city center of Huehue. We went to the outdoor market and checked out some Christmas stalls, but unfortunately there’s not too much to see in the Huehue city center; in an hour or so, we saw most of it. At 4pm we joined Brooks and Cony in the central park where they were having a grand opening for the park, complete with a mariachi band and many city officials. We hung around for an hour, but after nothing happened an hour after the scheduled time, we decided to skip out and get some dinner. Cony joined us for dinner, and we had amazing pizza at a place called Lakaf (finally seeing the nicer restaurants of Huehue). After dinner we said goodbye to Cony, and walked on to the orphanage; they were just finished up with a visit when we arrived (their third visit of the day, what? All complete with lots of cake and lots of candy). After enjoying the end of the visit with them, we decided to start the beading party we had planned. My mom brought tons of beads from the States, donated by her beading group, and she thought it would be fun to have a quiet beading party with some of the girls. Well, this of course in not what we got. Most of the older girls had left for church that evening, leaving us with some younger girls and a lot of boys. Although we decided to open it up to some boys, we didn’t realize how that translated to everyone else until mom and I found ourselves in a room full of 25 loud 5 to 12 year old boys. We had Brooks take away and occupy the youngest boys, and some girls started trickling in to balance out the numbers a bit. Although it was hectic and loud, we had no idea how much the boys (and the girls too) would love beading. They ended up making some very beautiful bracelets and necklaces, with really cool designs and tiny, meticulous beads. Mom and I were utterly impressed, and so content with how it all turned out. Many even asked if we would be doing it again the next day. After cleaning up from beading (we surprisingly didn’t find too many beads on the floor), mom and I headed over to the Pequeñas room for the night to sleep.

Sunday we awoke at the orphanage, went home for breakfast, and rested a bit before heading out again. My mom wanted to see Paiz, the second largest shopping center in Huehue, which is really just a grocery store in a mall-like building surrounded by small, somewhat deserted shops. I had decided to get my haircut there, more out of curiosity than need (and because it cost Q40, around $5). I was amazed to walk into one of the nicer looking salons, to realize I was the only customer, and to be done with my cut and wash in about seven minutes. She did a pretty good job actually, and it was definitely worthy of the experience and the $5. After shopping around in Paiz, we went back home for lunch. We took naps, and while I was sleeping Brooks worked on our massive Pen Pal collage project (more to come on that in a later blog). We spent most of the afternoon doing mundane things and making sure the Pen Pal collage looked good, but it was an enjoyable afternoon.

With the clock ticking down on my departure, part of me wishes I could just fast forward to next Monday, past all of the sad goodbyes. Although this next week is going to be a good one, with my dad coming, Christmas with our family, and our Fundación Christmas party coming up, it doesn’t change the fact that I hate goodbyes. This is simply weird, leaving, and I wish I had more profound things to say about it; at this point, though, I am mostly in shock that December came so soon and that my six months passed by so quickly. Luckily, I’m almost positive I will be back again, meaning the “adios” came be an “hasta luego”, a much easier end to such an amazing experience. 

San Cristobal de las Casas

This weekend my mom, Brooks and I enjoyed a relaxing break from Huehue life with a trip to San Cristobal de las Casas. Brooks and I had met an American woman living in San Cristobal months before at the Spanish School, and her invitation to stay in her house was coupled perfectly with my mom’s arrival to Huehue, and Brooks’ need to renew his Guatemalan visa. My mom had only arrived the Wednesday before (actually the day of the “Burning of the Devil” in Guatemala, a dangerous yet fun holiday where people haphazardly set off fireworks, burn devil piñatas or dolls, and eat tamales), but we decided to keep her trip exciting with a mini-vacation to Mexico. Friday morning at 9:30am we were greeted by our taxi, which took us to a gas station to wait for a shuttle bus to San Cristobal. Because we didn’t want to deal with the hassle of chicken bus-taxi-walking-taxi-chicken bus, we splurged for the fancy shuttle option, which was a great choice. The shuttle found us about an hour late at the gas station, and cruised onto the boarder where we passed through various passport checkpoints. After the checkpoints we got on another shuttle on the Mexico side, and headed onto San Cristobal, only stopping once for a delicious, late lunch. Once in San Cristobal, Brooks and I were amazed by our surroundings, and felt we had been transported much further away from Guatemala than Mexico. San Cristobal greeted us with clean, cobblestone streets, nice stores and restaurants, and less general chaos than we were used to seeing in Guatemala. We quickly found Alison’s house, said hello to her and her husband, and headed out to the “andador” (a walkway with lots of shops and restaurants) for an incredible Italian dinner. Brooks and I soon realized this was going to a great gastronomic weekend.

            The next morning we awoke around 7:30am, and were unfortunately more awake than the rest of the town when we went searching for our breakfast place. We settled for the only open restaurant, which actually offered an amazing, and delicious, selection. From there we wandered to the central park, and then onto Templo Santa Domingo, where an open-air market was set out in front. We spent hours wandering between the stalls (poor Brooks. He was a trooper, but I know it wasn’t his first pick of activities), looking at colorful blouses, scarves, and pottery. From there we grabbed a snack of jicama on a stick (dipped in chili and strawberry powder – very interesting but very good), got some lunch for Brooks, and headed back to our little apartment to eat lunch (leftovers for mom and I) and take a nap. Alison’s second floor, our accommodations for the weekend, was a precious and pristine little apartment with two rooms, three beds, a bathroom, coffee maker, fridge, microwave, and TV. Brooks and I were in American-luxury heaven. After our naps, mom and I decided to head out again to visit Templo de Guadalupe while Brooks rested a bit more. The weekend of our visit was actually the time when all of Mexico (and some of Guatemala too) was celebrating the Virgen de Guadalupe (a darker version of the Virgin Mary), and it was the perfect time to be in San Cristobal. Groups from all over Mexico had been making pilgrimages all week to San Cristobal, running in relay teams passing a lit torch. Up at the church (which rose above the city on a large set of stairs) mom and I witnessed the groups finally arriving to the virgin, entering the church crawling on their knees, and singing songs to the virgin. All leading up the church the streets had a carnival-like atmosphere with games, rides, and food booths. It was a really cool site to see. That evening we enjoyed a delicious dinner at a place called “TierrAdentro”, a restaurant with hippie vibes, and came home to watch a movie on our TV (the first movie in a long time Brooks and I had watched not through a bad internet connection).

            The next morning we planned to hit the andador a bit later to have breakfast at a bagel shop, but were disappointed to discover the staff hadn’t shown up yet and we therefore could not eat breakfast there. We returned to our trusted breakfast spot from the day before, and enjoyed another great meal. From breakfast we took a walk to Templo de San Cristobal, set high on a hill up a series of switchback stairs. When we arrived at the church, we learned that it was actually the church of the drivers, such as taxi and bus drivers, which was one of the most unique dedications I have ever heard of for a church. After enjoying the view from up top, we descended the stairs again and decided to head out on an adventure to an orchid garden we had read about. Although the guidebook said it was only a mile outside of the city center, after 20 minutes and many suspicions of being lost, we realized the guidebook was wrong. We found ourselves far outside of town, walking along a busy road that reminded Brooks and I a bit of our experience walking along a highway in Venice (a long, but funny, story). Eventually we came upon the orchid garden, which was actually a hippie utopian dream project. We met the owner and creator of the orchid garden, an older hippie from the States, who gave us a private tour of the property and taught us more about plants than I think I ever needed to know. All of the plants on the property had been rescued from forests that were being clear-cut, and had been transplanted to create a large, lush garden. After our tour we entered the prize of the land, a cool and creatively constructed greenhouse, filled with thousands of plants and a moist jungle feel, complete with piped in jungle sounds music. After seeing the greenhouse we decided to take the hiking trail from the property, which we only intended to see for a bit, and then ended up continuing on for the full 2.2 kilometers. After our hike we were tired and hungry, and decided to catch a taxi to the finally open bagel café instead of walking the whole way back into town. We enjoyed some INCREDIBLE bagels (seriously. I think it was because I was so hungry, but it was absolutely delicious), and then walked home for a nap and showers before dinner. We took Alison and her husband, Enrique, out for dinner that night as a thank-you, and enjoyed nice conversation and amazing Italian food yet again. After dinner we walked home with Alison and Enrique, and were blessed with some perseverance on their part, calling many travel agencies in San Cristobal to figure out a) what shuttle company we were going home with, and b) if they knew where to pick us up. It turns out they didn’t know where to pick us up, and it was a good thing we had called.

            The next morning we took the shuttle bright and early at 7am, and enjoyed a peaceful and uneventful shuttle ride home (aside from the many runners on the road on their way to San Cristobal, but I slept through all of that). With only a week and a half left in Huehue, I am experiencing very mixed emotions yet again, where part of me is panicking about having to say goodbye to Huehue and the kids at Fundación Salvación, and the other part of me is ready to move onto other adventures. Only time will tell how I actually end up processing these last days here. I have had an incredibly blessed time here in Huehue, and it has all almost been too good to be true. This experience has been nothing short of beautiful, inspiring, and life changing, and I know I’m a better person because of it. I will miss the amazing people and the incredible children I have met here, but thank you Lord that I have had this experience to miss. 

The Gift of Beauty: Natural and Relational

After relaxing on Sunday from our crazy Thanksgiving week, Brooks and I found ourselves busy again with catching up with our pen pal program and our social lives here in Huehue. On Thursday we had pizza with our friend Gaby, the girl that works at the front desk at our gym, and enjoyed getting to know her even more. By Friday it was time to leave town again to conquer the climb up Tajumulco over the weekend.

            We were planning to leave for Xela early Friday morning in order to have time to visit Xocomil again, the amazing water park an hour from Xela. But after I realized on Thursday that I was still a little sick, and that going to a water park would not help that, we decided to stay home and head over to Xela Friday afternoon. We left right after lunch on Friday, catching a 2pm bus to Xela. Unfortunately the ride was slow and with an unknown transfer in the middle, meaning we arrived later than intended in Xela. We rushed to catch a micro to the city center, and then walked quickly to Casa Argentina, where we were expected for a Quetzaltrekkers meeting. We came too late for the meeting, but fortunately because Quetzeltrekkers is so relaxed, they gave us a private meeting and set us up with the right gear for the trek. We checked into a room, and called our friend Doris to meet us for dinner at El Sabor de la India, one of our favorite restaurants in Xela. Doris met us at the restaurant with her daughter and her daughter’s friend, and after a delicious dinner we made a drive to the Agua Viva campus. Agua Viva is a missionary group based out of Xela with an extensive campus of missionary housing, a school, and soon to be an orphanage. We went over to Agua Viva because Brooks is currently working on a dream to build a school at the orphanage, and knowing that Agua Viva has a school on their campus for missionary children, we took advantage of the opportunity to meet with some of Doris’ friends that help run the school. After a sleepy meeting (it was late and almost everyone was exhausted), Doris drove us back to Casa Argentina so we could get some sleep before our early morning wake up call.           

At 5:45am the next day we met up with our trekking group, which we had actually not met before because of our M.I.A. status during the meeting. Our group consisted of three guides – Patrick and Rachel, who both attended Willamette University in Oregon, and Santi, our Guatemalan guide from our last trek – as well as three other trekkers and ourselves, Kate from Australia, Kevin from San Luis Obispo, and Lisa from Germany. It ended up being a great group whose company Brooks and I really enjoyed. We all loaded into the back of a pick-up truck at 6am, and were driven to the bus “terminal” (a large space with a lot of buses and food stands) to board the bus to San Marcos. After an hour and half drive, we all slowly loaded off the bus and entered a nearby building filled with comedores. There we enjoyed coffee with pancakes and fruit, and our last real bathroom for the next two days. From San Marcos we got back on a bus, a very crowded and uncomfortable bus, and drove about an hour up a winding hill to be dropped off at the base of Tajumulco. From there it was three hours of uphill, with lots of breaks thrown in of course. Tajumulco, as the tallest point in Central America, is obviously at a very high altitude (4200m to be exact), but the trek luckily only covers 1200m because we started at 3000m. The trek wasn’t very steep or difficult; what did make it more difficult, though, was the slight altitude sickness I was feeling, my first ever experience with altitude sickness. By 2pm we arrived at our base camp, an open area with plenty of space to set up our tents. We set up camp, and then had a delicious lunch and a much needed nap. At 4:40pm we were awoken from our nap to begin our sunset hike, a short hike up the smaller peak of Tajumulco. Once at the top, we marveled at how “on top of the world” we all felt, realizing that the next day we were going to be even higher. The sunset was breathtaking, with perfect rays of light shining through the fluffy clouds, and beautiful colors painting the sky. As beautiful as the sunset was though, the unfortunate thing that comes with a sunset is the lack of sun in the sky… And the terrible cold that comes with that; at 4000m, it got pretty cold that night. After the sun was completely gone we slowly made our way back down to base camp, where we layered on more clothes and started boiling water for our hot drinks and dinner. By evening I was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, a short sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a fleece, a down jacket, gloves and a hat, and was still a little cold; by the next morning it was even worse. We all climbed into our sleeping bags around 8pm, but had a terrible time falling asleep due to the other campers around us, the cold, and the lack of oxygen at that altitude.

The next morning we awoke at 3:30am, quickly stuffed our sleeping bags in our backpacks, and were hiking the last 200m to the top by 3:45am. This part of the trek was the most difficult, given that is was steeper and even higher up. The nausea from altitude sickness was really bothering both myself and Lisa, which was good because we could stop together, and bad because we both wanted to throw up and stop hiking the entire time. After just an hour though, we made it to the top and set out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags, climbing in to wait for the sunrise to begin. After about 20 minutes colors began appearing in the sky, and more and more people began trickling up the mountainside or emerging from their tents (some people camped at the top). The sunrise that we witnessed from Tajumulco is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and almost brought tears to my eyes. The sun rose just behind another volcano chain to the east in Guatemala, making for amazing picture opportunities. We stayed until the sun was past the cloud line, and packed up our stuff to make our way back down to breakfast. The night before Brooks and Patrick had been talking about the volcano crater and how much they wanted to climb into it, so they (along with Kevin, Kate and Santi) sped ahead while Rachel, Lisa and I took our time, taking pictures at every vantage point possible. The walk back down was beautiful, which indeed included circling around the volcano crater, a pretty shallow crater at this point in history. The climb down was probably about 50m, and at the bottom of the crater was an array of names and symbols spelled out in rocks people had left behind. The boys and Kate enjoyed a moment in the crater, and then met the three of us at the top to walk the rest of the way down. By 8am we met up with Santi at the camp, and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and hot drinks before packing up camp to head back down. The trek down was surprisingly painful, with my knees and toes bothering me, but the view was again stunning. We stopped a few times on our way down, but blasted most of the end to make it to a restaurant and earlier bus in time. The restaurant we ate lunch at was very nice, with a large, airy space, beachfront feel, and real bathrooms for us to use. Our group was exhausted, yet very satisfied with our trek and our delicious lunch. After lunch we hurried to catch a bus by 12:45pm, which Brooks and I were hoping would mean being back in Xela in time to catch the last bus to Huehue. Our first bus ride was crowded and pretty terrible (it’s hard to sleep on a bus when you’re person number three on the seat, and the bus keeps whipping around curves in the road), but luckily by our second bus ride we all had seats and could sleep a little more comfortably. Back in Xela Brooks and I unloaded our borrowed gear on the group, said our goodbyes, and boarded bus number three back to Huehue. We were so thankful to be heading back to our showers and warm beds, the quick walk home in dark didn’t even bother us.

Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to rest after this adventure, because by 8am on Monday we were back at Fundación Salvación, ready to witness a very special morning. Guisela and Ubaldo used to work for Agua Viva, and because of this connection were able to ask Agua Viva if they would come to the orphanage as part of their annual Project Shoebox event. Every Christmas Agua Viva puts together hundreds and hundreds of boxes of donated gifts and distributes them to kids around Guatemala with the help of a large mission team that comes down from the States. Monday morning was Fundación Salvación’s time for a Project Shoebox visit; they had the kids ready and lined up by 8am, but unfortunately the team didn’t make it to Huehue until around 9:30am. They had a quick skit for the kids explaining the real reason for Christmas (I’ll give you a hint: Jesus), and sang some Christmas songs in Spanish. After this they lined the kids up again, and walked them over to the big room at the orphanage where all the boxes were stacked up. They would give a kid a box based on their age and gender, and after each kid received their box they were ushered over to another open space where they could sit down and open their box. And that is where the madness began. All of the boxes were taped up with packaging tape, and those that couldn’t get passed the tape ended up ripping whole leaves off of their boxes to get into them. The excitement on the kids’ faces was amazing; they were so overjoyed to receive so many presents and candy. All of the kids would hold up their gifts and say “mira, mira!” (look, look!), even for things like flashlights and toothbrushes. The kids loved the gifts, and it was such a joyful morning. Sadly the team had to leave after about an hour (because they had another destination to get to), so we all waved goodbye and helped the kids carry their presents to their rooms where they could admire them some more. It was a beautiful weekend to be in Guatemala.