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| 7/27/04
Hola hola hola!!!
Today is Tuesday.
We had to wake up this morning at 5:30. Breakfast was 6-6:45. We left at 7:00 for our cites.
The road we take we're on for an hour or so, and it's very bumpy, Makes my summer reading a little hard to acomplish! We went to three cites in the morning, and then had lunch.
For lunch we ate at this fahbulous place...a local gas station. We had penut butter sandwiches, which I normaly don't like at home, and some nector.
We had allmost finished lunch when we ran into this little boy sitting on the kurb. We gave him our left over food. He was crying because he some older men pointed a gun at him and stoll the money from what the little boy had been selling. We started praying for him while he cried, and we just loved on him. He was so scared, he couldn't stop shaking. I started tearing up it was so sad, because the little boy was talking about not wanting to go home because his father will be so mad at him for having the money stolen. But we weren't sure if he was lying or not, because in some parts parents rais their kids to make up stories like this to get sympathy money from tourists like us...it's quite sad. Pastor Mark talked with him, and we gave him some money. Even if he was lying we didn't need the money, he needs it more.
We were only going to do one cite in the evening, but we decided on doing two. After we finished all our cites it was time to go back and chill before dinner.
Dinner was good, but the ice cream afterwards was a real treat. Down here it just tastes so much better.
We had worship that night after we read a little bit our of our bibles and talked about what God's been doing. Worship was really good, God was deffinatly moving in me....I started crying, crying for the people of guatemala and the ones we've met. I seem to think about them a lot down here.
After a some refreshing worship I took a shower, and got ready for bed. Even though the shower are cold it's still really refreshing.
I knew that fan was dangerous, cause Em cut her finger on it too, her's is a lot worse though.
bueno...eso es todo | | |
| Sorry, I sort of haven't kept this up real well.
7/26/04
Today is Monday. We had to wake up at 3:00 this morning, blah, for our flight to the Petén. We left at like.... oh.... 3:30 for our flight. Our flight left at 6:30. I slept literally the whole time on the bus. When we got to the airport we said goodbye to Donet and our bus driver. I'll miss them both, but hopefully we'll get to see them again next year.
We all grabbed our luggage and got it weighed. Since our flight didn't leave till 6:30, we had like an hour or so to chill, so we ate doughnuts on the floor.
Finally it was time to board, we walked through the metal detector and then to our plane. Our flight was only 30-45 minuets long. Once we got there we waited for our luggage. We almost would have had to smuggle Kim back into the U.S., because she left her passport on the plane. Luckily Pastor Mark went back on and got it.
we rode in the back of a truck to the lake...good times. Then we waited for the rest of the group.
The boat ride was about 45 minuets long, so I caught up in my journal some. When we arrived at the town we took a long bus ride to the ranch. When we got there we ate breakfast and then chilled for a bit. The chilling consisted of writing in my journal. Then we went to lunch.
After lunch we worked half a day. My job, along with Kim, Tina, and Ann, was cleaning out the pantry. And it's not your normal sized pantry. It was quite big. Our work got interrupted by a rat that was in there. Kim and me got on the ladder to protect our selves from the rat, but then it climbed up the wall, which was totally unexpected, and we didn't feel safe anymore. The little boy finally caught it, he just hit it really hard with a broom stick and then left it on the porch to die. It was actually kind of sad. The rat was just lying there....dying, and breathing really hard, I almost cried. We went back to work after the episode was over.
We finished out work and went out to help Gabby, Hill, and Kayla finish bagging food. We bagged food like rice, beans, and mush.
We played cards until dinnertime once we finished our work. After dinner we shopped at the store a bit, then we had prayer. Prayer was awesome as usually. I could not stop crying. I was crying for all the poor people and the children in this country. I mean, they don't have it half as good as we do, yet they never complain, they're content with what they have, and they have such big hearts.
After prayer us girls had to kill a cockroach that was in our room...ok...actually the boys killed it for us. I took a shower, and then went to bed.
While lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, the fan was really bugging me, because it was blowing right on my face. So, I attempted to turn it a different direction. I reach up my hand to turn it, and my finger slipped through a hole in the metal gate that surrounded the blades. My finger literally stopped the fan and made a really loud noise. It didn't hurt too badly, but in the morning I had a blood blister. And it sort of hurt when things touched it during the day. | | |
| 7/25/04
Today is Sun. I've been here about a week now, and I love it.
We got to sleep in till 9:00 today. It was nice since we usually wake up somewhere around 5 or 6. But, we got to sleep in because we decided not to go the Jail cite. We didn't go because there are only 4 guys on our team, and the rest of us are...well...girls, and this jail is a guy jail only. It would have been a scary situation. The last jail we went to was scary enough. I have to say it was kind of hard to sleep in that late, because I so used to waking up at the break of dawn. I kept waking up, but we needed to rest.
We ate breakfast at the Rainbow cafe...pancakes.... yum! After we ate we either got 2 minuets on the phone, or 25 minuets on the Internet, free. I chose the Internet, because 2 minuets on the phone isn't very long. So, I got on the computer, signed on the AIM too. But, Alana was the only person on. I also sent Aaron an e-mail, and I told him to let everyone else read it too.
After breakfast, we hopped back on to the truck and went to the jade factory. The ride there was so much fun. We only had one truck at the time, so a bunch of us had to pack in the back. There were so many of us, we couldn't even sit down. So, we were all standing.... feeling like we were going to fall off. But the wind against our faces was a nice cool change, and it was exciting.
The truck had to go back and pick up the rest of the group, so while we were waiting, Nathan and me bought a real Jade bracelet for Grandma. It was really pretty.
When everyone got there we went on a tour of the jade factory...it was cool I guess. But there are only 6 locations in the whole world where Jade is found, so it's very rare. And Guatemala is obviously one of them.
After that we went back to our hotels to get ready for a cite. We were at the cite at 3:00, it was a teenage girl orphanage. I think a lot of the girls there were...slow.... and I think that is why there parents didn't want them, or maybe they couldn't take care of them. But I felt so bad for them. They were so sweet, and so nice. They had the biggest hearts ever, and we did a lot for them. There were a lot that were crying, so we prayed with them. And we danced a lot with them, so we had a good time, and I think that was the first time in a while that they had enjoyed themselves that much.
After that we went to the market. There I bought a skirt for myself, a purse for Anna, a picture for Grandma P, and some random jewelry for whomever. I would have bought more, but we're going to go shopping again before we leave later this week, they just don't bargain as much there.
After the market, we went to Campero for some pollo (chicken). We had glazed cinnamon rolls for desert and Adrea's surprise birthday cake. it was really good! It was really moist and just fabulous.
Then we went back to our hotel room. We hung out in Em's room for a bit. I yelled "Holla" really loud out the window, and this guy standing in the street looked at me all funky like. I was so hyper, and we were all just being really goofy. Me and Tim had a water fight out on the balcony. I was on Em's balcony and he was on his, so we weren't on the same balcony, which made it all the more hilarious. Then everyone went back to their rooms to pack up.
There were fire works going off like all night, they were pretty, but loud, and I managed to fall asleep...
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| 7-24-04
Today we got to climb the volcano! It was absolutely wonderful, but there is some stuff we did before that.
We woke up this morning, packed and got ready to climb. We packed everything onto the bus, and said our goodbyes to our friends working at the hotel. Including Fronko!!! Wooooo!
The bus ride was maybe 1-2 hours long, I don't know exactly. When we got there Susanne gave us our lunches, we used the bathrooms, and then started climbing. They say the beginning is the hardest part, but I thought it was about the same until we reached the cone. We had to stop only about four times to let some people catch up. Me, Hill, Gabby, Nicole, and Dennis were leading. Anne and Turned around before the first stop, not sure why, but they did. Tina didn't come at all, because she wasn't feeling to well.
We stopped to eat lunch a little ways before we reached the Plato...the food was really good...and the orange juice (tampoco) was awesome.
We reached the Plato, it was so pretty, and there were some wild horses running around. The view was absolutely amazing. We walked over to the edge and looked down.... amazing. It was so cool.
Not everyone climbed the cone, because they're bums. Ok, not really, but they should have anyways! I thought the cone was the easiest to climb! All you had to do was stick your toe in the ash/dirt, and you wouldn't slide back as much. I though it was fun climbing the cone. It got really cold up there, I'm sure the pouring down rain had something to do with it. We got socked, but it was worth it. Not even the rain could ruin the view, it was amazing. I was thanking God constantly, it was just absolutely beautiful.
When we finally got up to the top...it was even better, you could see beautiful valleys and mountain for miles! But, we couldn't see into the volcano itself because of all the smoke the rain against the heat was causing.
Going down was incredibly fun. It was scary at first, because we were slipping so much.... I almost tumbled forward, that would have been bad, but I caught myself, so everything was all good. I was the first to start running down. All you had to do was lean back and dig your heels in as you slid. Oh my gosh, it was SO much fun!
Because of the storm, not everyone reached the top. We got so dirty from going up and down the cone. My pants stretched about 3 inches longer, lol, no joke.
When we got back down to the Plato the storm cleared up. Me, Hill, and Nicole decided to run down the rest of the mountain. It was so much fun, and took a lot less time. But, Nicole rolled her ankle on the way down, but she was fun. When we got to the bottom, Susanne had juice for us. Gabby and Nathan we the next two to get to the bottom, they also ran. They said we must have really been bolting down that mountain, because they were, and we got down fist.
We changed into dry clothes before our 1-hour drive to our new hotel. It was fun on the way to the hotel...Nathan and Hill kept throwing insults back and forth, because they said "anything is an insult if you put 'head' after it!" So, for about 20 minuets they were sitting there like..."butthead"..."stupidhead"....”treehead"...."broomhead".... and on and on they went. But, it was amusing. Then we played the actor name game, where a person would say the name of an actor, or actress, and the last letter was the letter that the next actors name had to start with.
We finally got to our hotel, but we had to walk 2 blocks to get there. We put our stuff in our rooms, and then we walked to dinner, while it was raining. Fun! Actually it was fun, even though we were scared of being mugged, and we walked forever! I don't think they knew where they were going.
That was my day, long, but full of fun.... Oh yeah.... I forgot...before dinner, me and Nicole went up on the roof of the hotel, it was cool, but we didn't want to get in trouble, and we felt like we were an easy target to be sniped, so we got down. And we got to take a shower...it wasn't hot.... but it was a tiny bit warmer than we had before. | | |
| Hello Dello
Today is the 23rd, a Friday. We had so much fun today...we went to the beach, but I'll tell ya more about that later.
We only did four cites today, it was nice to take a break. We were supposed to do five, but one got canceled. We did three in the morning, and one after lunch. All the morning ones were little kids, so I gave my testimony. It wasn't much of a testimony, since I've never really done anything that bad.
The coolest, yet saddest, thing happened at the third cite. We did our skit and everything, blah blah blah. But, right before we left we prayed over this little blind girl. She was so cute. I fist noticed her when we were doing the icebreakers. Her eyes were of a really light color, and all the other kids kind of pushed her out of the way. It looked like she was dancing with us though, so maybe she could se very little. But we prayed over her, and talked to her. She'll get her sight back if God wants her too.
After that, we went back to our hotel for lunch, and to get ready for the beach. We got on the bus, we were on the road for about 20 minuets. The first school we were going to got canceled, and we thought about doing an open air to make up for it, but we later decided not to. So we went to our last cite for the day.
It was cool, we did what we always do, but there were perros y pollos ru8nning around everywhere. And the girls we were talking to kept asking us how old Tim was. So, we were like, "guapo?", and they all said, "sí!!" (eww) There were also some girls "macking" on Nathan, so we told the girls he had a girl friend (in reality he didn't).
After that we walked to the beach to watch the sunset. It was so pretty! We played in the ocean too, like the whole time, and trust me...there is nothing peaceful about it! I just started out by putting my feet in, because I didn't want to get all wet, then this huge wave came (and it was big, way taller than any of us) and swept us all off our feet. I got totally wet, and sand was everywhere. So we just swam the rest of the time. The waves were incredibly huge, there was a couple of times when it pulled me and hill out into the ocean and we couldn't touch te ocean floor. We got so scared, we seriously thought we were going to die, because we would start swimming back and another wave would come and make it deeper...we obviously got back safely.
The one thing weird about the beach was that the sand was black, all of it. I guess it's from all the volcanoes and such. We had tones of fun! We had sand all over us though.
We took the canal back, and that’s about it. | | |
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