5 Days with Mom

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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 we walked around a little and then left. We ate lunch back in Panajachel where mom felt sick after eating her chicken and I didn't eat my fish (it was "grilled fish" as in a fish that had been grilled, not scaled, not filleted, just grilled, eyes open and everything). We then grabbed our bags and got aboard a bus to Sololá. This was relatively uninteresting except for the look on the baggage-loader's face when he saw mom's 2 HUGE bags that he had to get up on the roof. We got to the orphanage nearly 3 hours before the Stillwater group and rested the entire time. Mom got sick and threw up and then felt better. We didn't do anything the rest of the day.

Wednesday: This was the medical clinic day and it was really busy with people. For the first half of the day I helped my mom and Stephanie hand out clothes to the kids. And the second half of the day I helped Dick and Robert and Luis build a workbench. The whole day was a lot of fun and for dinner mom and I had pancakes and eggs.

Thursday: The Stillwater team went to Santiago so mom and I stayed and helped out at the orphanage. I moved dirt (my specialty) and mom helped Barb and Claire take pictures of babies surrounded by all of the bears that mom brought. The pictures turned out great and some of the kids got to keep the bears. In the afternoon mom and I went and saw Sololá and then got picked up by Paul in the van and went down to Panajachel for dinner.

Friday: The group left for Antigua and then Guatemala City at 10:30 am so that they could be ready for their flight by 7:00 am Saturday. It was tough to say goodbye since they had given me so much great company in the last 7 days and I had really gotten to feel welcomed by them. I then went in and got on the computer and sent e-mails asking about internships and applied for jobs online and filled out my experiential learning form. It took all day to get everything done that I wanted and I was exhausted by the end of the day.

I got some pictures of this whole week but you all can see how well the pictures have uploaded so far...I imagine people saying things like "wow, Andy really has a knack for taking great pictures of pixelated blank sheets of paper." Anyway, when I get them up on flikr or something I will put in a link so that you all can see them.

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