Great, fun, exciting news.

Two events have recently occurred that are of great interest to Andrew and me. One of the two items is exciting news. The other item is, well, um, interesting?

1. Today we received an email from the executive director of an organization called Amigos de Santa Cruz (www.amigosdesantacruz.org), who thinks we are a great match for their organization. This potentially means that we may be volunteering with the organization from January to October 2011. AND, there is the potential for a small stipend if we commit to the entire school year (January-October). Santa Cruz is another village on Lake Atitlan, and it has a population of 6000 people (San Pedro, where we are living right now, has a population of 13,000). Apparently there is no telephone service and not too many businesses. Anyhow, nothing is solidified yet, but it gives us hope that we will be able to find some sort of job that will allow us to be here longer!

2. Because of the excessive rainy season and tropical storm Matthew, there is some major flooding going on in San Pedro. Each day it seems like another business or building goes underwater. Yesterday, in particular, our hotel building began to go underwater. The entrance to our hotel is on the lakeshore, and yesterday it rained enough to bring the lake right up to the steps. So, as of right now, it is impossible to get into or out of our living quarters without walking through six inches of water. We are thinking about tying a rope to our room, which is elevated and located above the outdoor kitchen, so that we can climb right up to our apartment...

So I guess that´s the recent news. We're still struggling with our Spanish, but we´re catching on more and more every day. Now if only we could master T´zutujil...

They Came From The Lake... FOR REVENGE!

Well, we are currently surviving Hurricane Matthew Fest 2010 and all is going just fine. We have been without power for much of it (in fact, I´m pretty sure the power is due for a shut-off any moment now, so I´m making this brief)

 In more important news, whenever you are walking near our hotel at night, you can´t help but feel like you´re being watched. You hear a footstep here, a splash there, and you´re fairly certain that at any moment, some machete-wielding dude is gonna jump out of the bushes and make you a martyr. As it turns out, though, it´s not some scary person. It´s something far more...aquatic- FROGS. Or maybe toads. I don´t know the difference. But whatever they are, there are millions of ´em. 

A nice, tiny frog.

A frog in the exact moment my camera´s flash
caused it to jump straight into the wall. Sorry, Frog.

Two frogs, incognito

This one was guarding the bridge. No joke- it wouldn´t move.

Frankie the Frog

Frankie at his birthday party

(Left to Right) Frankie, Laura, Me, and Jason, our newest best friend

Frankie eating a cat. Oh, that Frankie...

Good Decisions

Dear Moms and Dad,

Today at Spanish School in San Pedro La Laguna we learned a lot of new things, including the correct phrase to say when we stub our toe, or get our wallet stolen, or fall off the side of a mountain in a Chicken Bus. We also started dreaming in Spanish, specifically about the woman who walks through the streets of San Pedro yelling, ¨Pan de banano!¨ (Banana bread!), repeatedly as she desperately tries to sell her goods in the low tourist season. Most importantly, we have learned to make rational decisions. For example, we had planned on visiting our dear friend Molly in the town of Totonicapan this weekend, but we decided against it after we saw on the news that a hurricane named Matthew is coming straight towards us, and after everyone we know in San Pedro told us that traveling this weekend would be a death sentence.

We made lots of new friends, including our friend Juan, who has a solution to everything, as long as his insight can be exchanged for quetzales. And our bar owner friend Ben, who manages to cope with the low tourist season by pretending that his bar is completely full when, in reality, we´re the only people there (besides the guy from Detroit, of course). And our friends Blake and Santos, who give us advice on how to open a restaurant in Guatemala and where we can go to learn how to make those delicious chocolates that come in the shape of hot dogs. We made the good decision of not making friends with TOO many stray dogs that will give us rabies, but we did make friends with a kitten named Lupe who thinks she´s a dog.

Tonight, I would like to tell you that we made the good decision of studying our Spanish the whole day, but I´m afraid that we actually just waded in the lake, drank hot chocolate with ginger, read for pleasure in the afternoon, and ate at a delicious restaurant during happy hour. I hope you´re not too disappointed. Everyone makes mistakes, right?

Love and kisses,
Laura and Andrew

Independence Day

This past week was Guatemala´s Independence Day. All week. We celebrated by watching some parades and listening to marching bands practice in the park next door. But if you folks from the USA are like me, you don´t really know anything about Guatemala´s Independence Day. So here´s a handy quick reference sheet which will hopefully answer all your questions.

Rebellion of the Tuc Tucs

Now that we´ve had a week an a half or so to settle in, I now slightly consider San Pedro La Laguna our home. We now know where we can get all of our desired food items, where to get the best coffee, and how to drive a hard bargain with the street vendors (kind of... I´m still working on this one). We´ve also had a couple of adventures in the past few days that I think are interesting enough to write about.

On Saturday, we went with our housemate, Sarah, on an adventure to find the town of San Antonio, where a ton of ceramics are made and then shipped to Antigua and other towns to sell to tourists. To get there, we first took a boat across the lake to a town called Panajachel- ´Pana´to everyone around here. Then we asked at least five people where we could find a truck to San Antonio. Eventually, we found a cop who pointed to a red pickup truck (picop, pronounced ´pee-cope´in Spanish) and told us to hop on. For 5 quetzales, about 70 cents, we got a 25-minute ride to San Antonio in the back of the pickup. San Antonio is a small town, and there were some pretty gorgeous textiles and ceramics.

On the way back, the REAL adventure started. It began to rain, and the pickup driver put a giant piece of plastic over the back of the truck, so the 10 passengers couldn´t see what was happening outside. All of a sudden, the truck stopped, and the other passengers began to speak in their Mayan language (that´s the trouble with learning Spanish around the lake- most folks here speak a Mayan language as their first language, and Spanish as their second.). Anyhow, we didn´t know what was going on, but a kind woman on the truck translated to us in Spanish that there was some sort of fight going on. Later, I found out that Andrew was thinking there was some sort of conflict between rebel groups and that we were going to be kidnapped. Fortunately for us, we soon found out that it WAS a rebellion, but of a different sort. Apparently the drivers of the Tuc Tucs (which are little red taxis here) were angry that the pickups were taking their business by driving folks from the center of town all the way to San Antonio for 5 quetzales, so they had blocked off the road. There must have been 25 or so drivers with their Tuc Tucs blocking the trucks from passing through. Therefore, we had to get out and walk the remaining 15 minutes back to Panajachel. When we got out of the truck, all the Tuc Tuc drivers were trying to convince us to take their Tuc Tuc to town. I told them that we were walking instead, and they responded by yelling ´Oh no! Ah! Ay!´, etc. We made it back to Panajachel, quite wet at that point, and soothed ourselves with some pupusas and a giant Gallo.

There have been other adventures in the past week, such as our horse ride up the side of the volcano guided by a thirteen year-old, discovering that a jug of Carlo Rossi costs about $20 here, and finding adorable dogs and pretending they´re our own,

but the Rebellion of the Tuc Tucs was my favorite. Andrew will write more about my other favorite event, Guatemala´s Independence Day celebration, soon.

Also, if you´d like to see more pictures, we´ve been uploading them to:
here.

Hasta luego!
-L

!Hola! ¿Como Estas? Ok, that is about all I can say at this point.

This is Laura, standing in our doorway,
just moments before a jaguar came and ate her.

These are reasons why my life rocks: I wake up in the morning to the sunrise and the sound of roosters. Then I perhaps go out to eat breakfast, which generally consists of black beans, eggs, some kind of fruit action, and delicious coffee. In my head, I have this notion that the food is all super fresh and local- the beans are straight off the vine, the eggs just plopped out some chicken’s uterus, and the fruit is actually washed. In reality, it is probably not so romantic (or heigenic). Nevertheless, at about $3, it is a great way to start the day.

Our cubical.

Its the end of the rainy season right now, so the first part of the day is usually much sunnier than the latter part. So during this time, we get most of our work done. Oh, and by ‘’work’’ I mean drink coffee, look at mountains, study spanish, eat some food, drink some more coffee, and perhaps use el baño a time or two. Yeah, that’s about it.


Then we have 5 hours of spanish lessons, one on one with our excellent teachers. My teacher’s name is really hard to pronounce (especially when you don’t actually remember what it was in the first place), but other than that, she rocks.

Me and Gallo (Rooster) Beer.

Speaking of names, I’m now known as Andres, not Andrew. ‘’Andrew’’ is too unfamiliar for most of these folks to pronounce, and they always seem a little relieved when I tell them my name is Andres. Its kind of like when you call some computer technician in India and he tells you his name is Peter or Steve or Harry or some equally American name.

Admittedly, the avocados aren't as good
as I was expecting. However, a sandwich
comprised wholly of avocados and
bread is still better than
anything else in life.

We also like to go to the market, where there are tons of Mayans selling their various fruits and veggies for very cheap. I think avocados are about 45 cents a pop, tomatoes are probably closer to 10 cents a piece. When I get the courage and the vocabulary, I'm going to ask some of the women what the other mysterious foods actually are, and whether or not I can make them into a burger of some sort.

I'm going to go work now. Those mountains aren't going to look at themselves!

Laura and our backyard.

San Pedro, as seen from our kayak.

Landslides and Other Things

Well, we made it! For all you worried parents out there, you can rest assured that we are safe and sound. Since we had arranged a shuttle to San Pedro from the airport, we were picked up by our lovely driver, Julio, and began our journey. Our ¨private shuttle¨to the school actually included several stops while Julio picked up one friend after another- all of them needed a ride to San Pedro. The recent landslides made the journey quite rough- driving on steep mountain cliffs through muddy roads (even some small streams!) could have been quite scary, but I felt surprisingly comfortable in Julio´s care.

Our living quarters are perfect- overlooking a school where the kids were practicing their band instruments in anticipation of the Guatemalan Independence Day celebration. As we tried to sleep on our first night, dogs were barking at each other, music was playing, and it seemed like a neverending party. I woke up this morning to a giant spider in the shower, which is definitely something I´ll have to get used to.

As far as Spanish goes, we´re starting our language classes today. So far, I´ve managed to communicate successfully with everyone we´ve talked to, but I´ve also realized I have a long way to go. We went to the market today to get some rice, beans, and veggies, so we can cook in our kitchen. Andrew used his Spanish when we bought some pens... maybe he´ll write more later.

Overall, it´s all crazy. And awesome. Oh, and also, Lake Atítlan takes my breath away.

-L

Phoneless

To everyone we didn't give a proper goodbye, we'll miss you! I know this is a blog that ANYONE can read, but really, we will miss YOU. We are turning off our phones and canceling the service, so this is it, folks.


As I type, Andrew is packing his backpack, and we're off to Washington DC in the morning, where we'll visit with our lovely friend Katie for a couple of days before we get on the plane for Guatemala City.


Adios, friends!