The internet has slowed to a crawl, so it is likely that we will only update the blog every other day and post the blogs when we are at the school and can use their WiFi. The internet connection has been one of the only things about this trip that we would change if we could. But if you think about it, it does force us to disconnect even more and spend time with each other. :)
Thankfully Tim thought to bring playing cards and a new card game Alex got for his birthday called “Dos”. A bit ironic, yes? It is from the makers of Uno and operates on similar principles. It has been fun teaching the family Dos and how to play Kings in the Corner. The last two evenings have been spent around the dinner table with family and friends playing cards. And trying to teach a new card game entirely in Spanish to Spanish speakers was a real test of all of our combined Spanish experience. We all had a great time.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We last left off on Tuesday. Tim had not been feeling well on Monday, but seemed to rebound by Tuesday. In the after noon Tim decided to run a few errands and check out some of the small shops. He was on the hunt for hammocks and Guatemalan coffee :). Michelle and Alex went with Rosa to the lake and her families property. Rosa was going in search of more plants for her kitchen and said that Alex could swim as she was searching. She will often go to her families lakeside property to see if there are any pretty native plants there. If so she replants them in containers around her house. They are a beautiful addition throughout the property.
The lake is also such a peaceful place, and Alex had a great time swimming with all of the little fish.
We all met back at the house almost at the same time as a big storm rolled in. And when we say big storm, it was a big one. It has been a while since we have experienced lightning and thunder quite that strong. The power flickered off a few times, but always seemed to come back on after a few minutes. After dinner was when we taught the family Dos, and by the last round we had 10 people playing around the table. It was a great experience and they were all having a great time.
On Wednesday morning it dawned on us that this is the half way point of our trip. :( Rosa made a delicious breakfast of eggs, onions, and fresh tomatoes. We all ate so fast as this is one of our favorite breakfasts.
Back to school and more lessons. Tim and Michelle are starting to feel like their brains will explode as the material is coming faster now. Our homework has gone from easy fill in the blanks to transcribe these three scenes from English to Spanish. Alex and his teacher have settled into a nice routine of study/play/go to the local tienda and buy a snack/study/play/go to the tienda again. And his teacher is so sweet that she buys him little cookies in the store. We told him that he can only go once per day to the store and we will give him money so that she isn’t paying for everything. A number of the teachers have remarked that he is a very calm and sweet boy, which makes Tim and Michelle happy. Apparently that isn’t always the case. Poor teachers!
After school we headed back to Rosa’s for lunch. Lunch was a rice dish with meatballs. Imagine spaghetti with meatballs but substitute in rice instead. It was delicious. Rosa sure does know how to cook.
Since the weather was still good we set off to wall around town for a bit. We bumped into a small shop that sold licuidos, which are similar to a smoothie but a bit more liquid. Alex ordered a pineapple, papaya and banana one that tasted great.
As we were walking home we walked past the gymnasium and remembered that one of Rosa’s daughters had a soccer game today. We popped on in and saw Rosa and the youngest daughter Leah. It turns out that Erica (the daughter who was supposed to play) hurt her foot in a previous game during the day and did not play in the afternoon game. We sat and watched a few halves of games and then continued on our walk.
We bought a melon ice cream from a street vendor and headed down to the more touristy area to explore. The locals call the touristy area “gringo-landia” which we find both funny and sad. While there we poked into a coffee shop on the outskirts and had a great conversation with the shopkeeper. They roast their coffee on site, and Tim got a great view of the process and more than enough coffee roasting fumes to fill his nose for the afternoon. Between Tim smelling like coffee roasting smoke and Alex and Michelle smelling like DEET to keep away the mosquitos we are quite the stinky family!
The rain never really came today, which gave us all some time to hang out on the top deck of the house. We enjoyed a great dinner of vegetarian burritos which are one of our favorite meals from Rosa. She also made home made French fries, which were a real hit all around the table. We opted to make it another early night so that Tim and Michelle could catch up on both sleep and homework. Which we are going to do right now.
The rain never really came today, which gave us all some time to hang out on the top deck of the house. We enjoyed a great dinner of vegetarian burritos which are one of our favorite meals from Rosa. She also made home made French fries, which were a real hit all around the table. We opted to make it another early night so that Tim and Michelle could catch up on both sleep and homework. Which we are going to do right now.
Love to all!
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