Journal #20

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Let me catch you up on what we have been doing. Thursday afternoon we went to the official flag raising ceremony in Central Park which begins the holiday festivities. There were at least 1,000 people there if not more. The mayor and governor both gave a short speech and the holiday began. It is a very festive time for Guatelmaltecos.

We enjoyed our day off yesterday from school. Besides regularly talking in Spanish with our family, we put the language aside and took a break. A needed one! You can only take so much. Yesterday afternoon we went with our family to the material store because Maria wanted to buy some material for some new tablecloths. She bought 5 different ones and will sew them to fit her table. I entertained Ana Inez (the 2 year old) at the store while the ladies shopped. The store was more of a medium size warehouse with rolls of material on shelves. Ana Inez thought there was a monkey on the second floor and she wanted to go see it. It was not safe to go up there so it was fun trying to keep her down. You can imagine a her and I making monkey noises back and forth to each other to keep her occupied.

After that, we ran back home to pick up the son and go out to their family farm where he works. It is in Duanas which is only about 20 minutes away. Maria's husband established the farm and worked it for many years. His son has now taken it over since his death. It is not large, only about 5 acres maybe but they have every square inch of it covered. The largest and most productive part of the farm was an acre worth of tomato plants. It was quite impressive to see. They sell them for salsa. He had two cows which are named after his daughters (How about that for a compliment) and about 50 pigs which were absolutely HUGE. If you have been around pigs much, they are just plain SLOBS! He breeds them to sell their piglets. There were several ready to be sold. He has 3 concrete tanks of fish, advocate trees, orange trees and flowers which he grows. It is a nice job for him and their family and seems to provide the necessary money needed to survive. We enjoyed seeing the farm and how proud they are of it.

Today does not feel like Saturday since we had yesterday off. Shelly and I keep thinking that we should be in church this morning but that is not until tomorrow. Shelly is fixing lunch for us today. She is making spaghetti. All the ladies have gone to the grocery store to find all the needed products. She is also making CHOCOLATE COBBLER! No, the oven is not fixed so it will take about 2 hours for it to bake. I hope it turns out. Just think, chocolate cobbler with vanilla ice cream. My mouth is watering as I type. We shall see if it turns out.

Other than the update, we are doing well. Enjoying our break and look forward to finishing strong the next 2 weeks. Shelly and I both want to cover a lot of ground so we plan on working long and hard to finish. One thing, we have had some problems with some of your emails going into our Spam file and we cannot get all of them. If we do not respond to you in a few days after you send your email, please send it again to make sure we get it.

Have a great rest of the weekend!
Chad