Lake Atitlan Arrival

(Wi-fi here is too slow to let me add pics or google pinpoints. It won't load then. So I redid this and I'll add the colour pics later when it's faster. Here's just your letter)

Panajachel street noise was so busy and loud until late, with motos revving up the hill and small pickups tooting and microbus engines revving that we wondered if it would get quiet enough to sleep. The small stores and tiny restaurants are open till 12. Most are in peoples houses. We bought tacos barbacoas nearby for a late supper after we checked into the house. Grandma got fish at a different spot since she can’t eat pork.

   Now it’s so quiet at 4:40 am almost all I can hear is insects chirping and a rooster crowing here and there and the odd vehicle passing. Our beds are hard but I slept well till now. I think the extra croaky rooster woke me. The lake is a ten minute walk away and I’m thinking it would fun to walk there at sunrise.

   Our house is an old Muller place. I’m not sure what the history of the Muller is but I want to ask the owner. It’s embroidered on all the towels. Some floors are wooden and some are old tile. The doors are wood, walls are stuccoed block and painted bright, and the roof is red tile laid in an overlapping pattern. The pool and patio and flowers are lovely and tropical. We couldn’t get the little gas stove in the kitchen to work to heat water for tea but there is a microwave. The furniture here is wooden and the more ornate pieces are heavily carved.

   These are the highlands of Guatemala. The mountains are cleared in patches and planted by hand. The flatter area or passes we drove through were full of carrots, onions, lettuce, strawberries, corn, cabbage, celery, guisquil crops and more. People harvesting with a machete or a hoe. The corn isn’t to its heights yet like it will get. In spots people plant almost up to the road. The ladies mostly wear their woven skirts and embroidered blouses like I have at home. The men mostly dress like a farmer here, soft pants like a linen or cotton, long sleeved button down shirt or tshirt. I did see some men in traditional clothing of skirt and shirt but they all had pants on underneath. You see a lot of cowboy hats up here. You also see a LOT of kitchen pottery and jugs for sale at roadside vendors.

   When we flew in to Guatemala City it was overcast and hot. As we climbed the mountains and got over 8,000 feet it got to 20 degrees. It still feels like 20. It’s comfortable and nice to have a blanket for sleeping. We couldn’t see the volcanoes. We saw them when we drove though. It was overcast and rained a little.

   Two youth boys from Georgia that are here did the overnight hike of Volcan Acatanengo last night or the night before. I guess if it was cloudy the view won’t have been great.

   We dropped off the Bible story books at CadaNino Center. Timothy gave us a little tour. There were students taking computer classes in the IT room.they’d just got there from school and had a lunch served to them and then alternate between computer and math mentoring, Bible study class or field trip. He had a group of teens ready to go on a field trip to a business where they use Microsoft Excel (to see the ways they utilized the program.)

   There was a large group of students taking Bible class with the youth pastor. They were learning how the Bible is divided into sections and studying each books unique characteristics.

   Timothy was enthused about adding My Bible Friends to the book shelves in the library. I’d say the library was smaller than the size of Endeavor schools. Two large bookshelves and organized with stickers and checkout cards . He said the favourites were the C S Lewis Narnia series and my Bible Heroes set of stories. We only went to one of his centres. Over 200 children attend both centres and there us a waiting list of about a 100 more who want to joun. The building is set in the busy school, business and housing district. The streets are very narrow and usually only room for one way traffic because of all the parallel parking happening. We only had to back up a few times. Interestingly enough, the one Center isnt too far off the end of the runway we landed on, housing goes right up to the tin airport fence.

   Eddies and Benjamin and Carlos were on our same flight and they also came down here to the lake. Carlos will have to live here six months up to a year. He was offered a job by Berna, that’s Flors husband. Berna runs a car wash, the kind where you drop off your vehicle by the street (in a fenced lot) and he washes vehicles by hand. He also does sone construcción work so Carlos might do that too. They’re going to live near to the mission house in Yulianna’s Grandma’s house that’s empty.

   We rented a Toyota Hiace van that drives like a small truck. Wesley enjoyed shifting and managing all the tight switchbacks and steep hills.

   The chicken buses up here are amazing. In the daytime, their colours are flashy enough but at night they’re fully decorated with flashing and coloured LEDS. They like blinking or pulsing Leds on their little pickups too. Sone chicken buses are jacked up higher on the front . They all have to have bigger motors, truck motors and when we saw in them they usually have double stick shift. They do a good job of keeping up speed on the tight curves. I’ll buy a small chicken bus for you, Tony. They craft toy ones with authentic details of net wrapped parcels on top, bright paint details and everything.

   A few of our group got all stuffed up. It’s smoke from all the kitchen stoves, outdoor trash burning and just plain smog from the overworked traffic. It seemed like some people were clearing land by burning too up on the mountain sides.

   The fields are really steep. At some spots if you fall out of the field you’d land on the highway. Sone do a great job of using last years crop to build up terraces. Others use rocks and build small walls for terraces with a system of drainage on the terrace. It’s beautiful when you can look up or down across the terraced fields. Kind of like garden of Solomon except this is all veggies. There are flowers and small private run nurseries in peoples yards. They use anything for plant pots kind of like me in spring. There are a lot of tropical amazing plants people like to keep in their patios. Also hydrangeas and calla lilies and I saw amazing asters at one roadside booth.

   The peaches, apples and crops like that aren’t yet but there are a lot of booths selling canned versions of the fruits. The glass jars are lined up by colour and stacked a few high. It looks like any good housewife’s Dream.

  Nea, the roosters are really getting going now. I wonder if yours at home are too. And oh my, there are dogs everywhere. Some look really hungry and some look really dead on the road.  Others look like someone must care for them. Hannah said once, “I must have seen sixty puppies by now!”

  The birds are singing too. I heard a whippoorwill last night. ) In Georgia I went out at night and heard both a chuck wills widow and a whippoorwill.)

   Fran, you’d love the tortilla shops. We bought some hot ones on our way to the house. Bien sabrosas!

  Kajsa, you’d love the bright clothes on the small children. It’s so cute to see children dressed like their parents, I love looking at all the weaving patterns and different embroidery on their blouses.

   Oh! A funny thing. I went with Wesley’s  to one  shop to order tacos and  left with grandpas to go order that fish at a different place. Wesley’s came walking up the sidewalk with the boy from the taqueria following them and said “He’s trying to tell us something.”

   He was trying to tell them they couldn’t take their glass bottles of Pepsi and Fanta out but he could put the drink in bags for them. So we went back and he and his sister poured the gaseosas into little thin bags and tied the bag around a straw. The dad at the booth was laughing when we were all talking about drinks in bags. It’s so natural to them.

  We also got pineapple licuados later (blended fruit with ice and milk) and took them to our house in the little thin blue or orange bags.

   Now I’ll go. This will almost be too long to get read in the morning before school. Love you children and hope your day goes splendidly. I think of you about every five seconds.