Traveling Adventures: Pics will follow:)

Teresa:

On Thursday night, Vincente and his daughter, Hilda, joined us for dinner. Hilda sings “like an angel,” as one person described it to me. After we ate, Vincente played his guitar while Hilda sang to us. I am hoping the video comes through for this.

We made our last trip into El Yalu Friday morning. I stayed behind with the kitchen crew again while 3 other teams headed out to start new stoves. In the kitchen, we cleaned the rice for the day and sat talking and laughing again. Otter went out with Peter again, whom I asked to keep him away from the machetes this time. When his team returned, Peter was all too happy to report he had kept Otter away from the machetes, but showed me a picture of Otter with a great big hatchet. Nice. Thanks Peter!

Time seemed to fly by in the morning and it was time for lunch. We presented the women and gentlemen who work in the kitchen with a new microwave. Some of the team members had suggested buying it the first day we had worked in the kitchen as the microwave that was there “sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.” We took up a collection and Oscar brought some team members into town on Thursday to buy it. We were all excited to present it to them and they were excited to get it. It was neat to watch them move the old one and put the new one. I hope it makes their work easier for them!

We served lunch to the kiddos one last time. Otter, as always, was out there serving food, clearing dishes, and trying to converse with his Spanish. I looked for my little buddies I had made over the last week and said goodbye to them. I know at least a few of us had heavy hearts as we drove away from El Yalu yesterday. It is odd that we had such good times in a short week and did such work, and now were leaving it not knowing if we would ever see any of those people or children again. I left with the hope that the work we did helped empower some of the families and the children to live healthier lives and hopefully be an influence on other families in the village on the benefit of the stoves. I also hope the time we spent here in some way helps give at least some of the children aspirations to learn and make their village better.

We came back to the hotel and washed up a bit then headed out to Sumpango to just enjoy a few hours of free time. We saw the house Oscar is building and I got a lesson on rubar (rebar?) and how it stabilizes concrete. Now, I am equipped to go build stoves and houses with the masonry, electricity, and construction lessons I have had on this trip….ok, maybe not, but it was good stuff to learn and know. We took Otter to get his hair cut. At the cost of 15 quatzles (about $2), it was worth the cut and the experience! We went to a hair cutting place and saw a sign on the door. We thought it said something along the lines of “the door is around the corner.” We spent about 5 minutes looking for the door for the salon and getting different advice from each person we asked. Turns out, the sign we had originally seen on the door just said “ring the bell.” Oops. The boys lucked out as a Scooby Doo movie was playing in the salon Otter had his hair cut.

We went downtown to the market and saw the central park area. We mosied on through and saw all the beautiful clothing the women wear for sale. The bottom of the market had an incredible produce selection. Krysta, one of the people who is going to live here, was telling me about this fruit that tastes kind of like a nectarine but had the texture of a pear. We found a woman who sold them and Krysta helped me buy one. Then she starts laughing as she says “you will probably get sick, remember the list says you shouldn’t eat the fruit from this market.” Great. I had completely forgotten about this and was trusting Krysta. I should have known better as Krysta is married to Peter, the guy who lets Otter handle the machetes and hatchets and then shows me the pictures. In fairness, she had part of one as well. It’s the morning, and I’m still not sick, so I’m glad I could provide Krysta with that little bit of entertainment. J

Dinner was delicious, as we have come to expect! Oscar grilled steaks and pappas (potatoes), served alongside some of the best guacamole and salsa, nachos, and corn. We headed off for our last night of EFL lessons, which were a blast. We had quite the class clown this evening with Augusto. His wife and twin children were there and I could only give sympathy to the poor woman married to someone with such energy J He was a riot. One of the groups had Augusto in their class the night before. Roger from that group came in to our class at one point and gave Augusto a headband with reindeer antlers on it that jingled. It was perfect for him! After all of the classes were done, the students gathered all of us who had taught (4 teams in all) in the upstairs room and gave us beautiful tablecloths to bring home. Everyone took lots of pictures and exchanged emails and names for Facebook. Facebook has added a great dimension to our ability to communicate and keep in touch as now we will have the faces of everyone with the names and won’t forget them!! We also handed out some of the gifts we had brought with us. I gave Margarita and Veronica, the 2 older women from our first night of class, candles and Margarita’s granddaughter a doll. We had a good time saying goodbye to everyone. What an incredible opportunity those EFL classes were for us to develop friendships with some of the people in Sumpango. I told many we would be back next year and I would be bringing my husband with me (right Joe?!?!?) It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we were definitely a tired bunch and it was getting to be a late night for us all again.

Back at the hotel, Otter watched a little bit of TV while I read. It was nice to take a breather. This morning, we get an extra hour before our day starts. We are going to be doing some “touristy” stuff and hitting some markets. I would almost prefer do a half day of work before doing anything touristy, but, I think my body will appreciate the break from work (not that cleaning rice was really hard work at all). I think everyone needs this day as several in the group have started to get colds and in general are worn down. Those of us with our bad legs, knees, or shoulders are starting to show signs of wear. Others remain as strong as they were the first day! It is great to see such different dynamics in this group and know that everyone has truly in their own way contributed to the work done this week. Today will be a good day of just relaxing.

Otter:

Yesterday was pretty similar to most days. We woke up, got breakfast, and then got on the bus to go build ovens. We built the ovens, went back to the feeding center, and fed the kids. After we were done, we shot hoops/played soccer. Adam fell down and scraped up his knee pretty badly. After that, we headed back to Oscars, but we had so much time that we were allowed to walk around town. I went and got my hair cut for the equivalent of two dollars! It was cut for fourteen quetzales. One quetzales is the equivalent of fifteen cents. Anyway, once we were back at Oscars, we had steak and potatoes. It was very good. Once we were done with dinner, we headed over to the church, and did our last lesson. Everybody said his or her goodbyes when we were done teaching our last lesson. I got a LOT of emails. We got back to the hotel, and I stayed up till ten o clock watching kick buttowski in Spanish. It’s almost funnier that way. Then, I crashed.