My Final Week My evening out with Luis and Marcario began a little strange...Oh yeah, it was because Marcario never showed up...¡Lástima! (I later found out that he got there about 5 minutes after we left). We ordered sandwiches at Guajimbos in Panajachel and then carried them off to the shore of the lake where we sat and drank beer and watched the sunset. We joked about Don Chema selling everything that people give him, about the well that Don, the American gave $3000 to build (Water costs, at most, $50 per YEAR in Guatemala), and about how mad Larry was [View Full Entry]

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Thanks for a Wonderful Week, Tennesseans I did as close to nothing interesting as possible on thursday and friday. My job all day was to carry cinder blocks down a ridiculously steep hill in a wheel barrow. There were 400 of them...Yeah. Saturday- A group from Tennessee came today and they are great people. One couple has adopted from the orphanage before and are in the process of adopting again. They are here to work on the archway that has yet to arrive...God bless Guatemala time. Sunday- We spent a little time today in Panajachel walking around and eating. We then [View Full Entry]

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Women of Guatemala [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so as a follow up on the civil unrest situation I have a lot more information now. Wednesday- After the people got so mad at the police about their lack of work to resolve the kidnapper situation they scheduled a town meeting in the soccer stadium. There were more than 5000 people in the stadium and their demands were just that the police arrest the KNOWN kidnappers before 30 days or they would use vigilante justice. Well the people were happy with this and started to disband. Well, most of them. A renegade gang of a couple dozen decided that [View Full Entry]

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Our trip to Lago de Atitlan was really great--except for the shuttle bus ride up there. We had to pick up a lot of people before leaving Antigua, the seating was uncomfortable, and the roads very windy. But we arrived safe and sound in Panajachel and then took a boat across the lake to San Pedro, where Margie's two friends were waiting for us. Our dormitory room in a lakeside hotel run by a Spanish couple had a view of the lake and was large and comfortable, and we spent the weekend "chilling out". It was so nice to see the [View Full Entry]

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An Entire Week of Moving Dirt...Oh, the Memories I moved dirt this entire week. It was incredibly boring, it would have been the most uneventful week ever if my computer had not broken in the middle of it. Yep, I am just about the only person that I know that has convinced his Apple computer hard drive to burn itself into a state of useless mush. Anyway, that is about the only exciting story for this week: Monday Feb 12: I took my computer to a guy in Panajachel who was supposed to be an expert with Apple computers. I [View Full Entry]

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alright, considering my last blog attempt did not work out very well, i hope that this will all work out. so, last week we met with a businessman here in Xela who does development work with small businesses. he had a really interesting perspective on how guatemala needs development, but that often entails sacrificing culture and environmental rights, but so often those are the sacrifices that need to be made in order to have economic stability but more importantly economic growth. but he was specultating that within the next four years or so, guatemala will have the #1 tourism industry in [View Full Entry]

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San Pedro is a little nice village where most people may spend only a day or so, yet it was hard for me to get out of there. I went there for a day trip but stayed two weeks .... Some of the turists stay for couple of weeks to learn spanish on side. The locals are Mayans and let turists to integrate easily. If you get there, go to Santa Clara and walk the mountain to watch the sun rise. We walked it at 4 in the morning. The sun rise view felt like looking at paradise and if I [View Full Entry]

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Not going to Antigua and watching the Superbowl Saturday: I was asked to go to Antigua with a couple of girls that work here and I politely declined citing my faithfulness to Kylie as my reason...(I hope you read this at least once, Kylie) Well, actually, I forgot that I needed to move more dirt so that we could lay some pipe on Monday and so I got to it. After work I went into town and walked around, got some cash, and left. Kensie was leaving early in the morning on Sunday so Claire had us all up for [View Full Entry]

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Santiago, Medical Team, Bear Photos and More! Tuesday: Mom and I woke up...And woke up again... And again... And again... All of this craziness was the result of a chronologically confused crowing cock (I added the alliteration for literary depth). It woke us up probably 20 times between 4 and 8 in the morning at which point we gave up and went out for breakfast. After breakfast (Pancakes and "acid-flavored" yogurt) we caught a boat to Santiago de Atitlan. It is a nice little town that has a lot of pretty crafts and things. I got two cool shirts and [View Full Entry]

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