guatemala day 3

Domingo literally translates as "day of most fireworks" in Guatemala. POP POP POP it's 6:15 baybeee rise and shine! POP POP POP In my early morning stupor, I convinced myself that some cruel soul was actually stomping back and forth on our back porch just to spite me. Between bouts of sleep, I'd rouse, always with the same train of thought, "WHO would be so awful as to be stomping on our porch at such an hour??? Who and why? WHYYYY Rude.." Then fall right back asleep. I got up eventually, and jumped in the shower. Showers in Guatemala are fun because you kind of feel like you are living life on the edge. They hype up the water contamination so much to make sure that nobody slips up, so everyone has the idea that a drop of water that doesn't come out of a bag is a death wish. In the shower, you are forbidden from opening your mouth or other such blasphemy. Then, if you are able to survive the treachery of the shower water, you advance to the battle of brushing your teeth. This task must be performed with bottled water, and most prefer to brush their teeth outside, as far away from the sink as possible. Personally, I use the water scare as an excuse to shy away from hygiene from the week. I shower as infrequently as possible, forgo shaving, and put my faith in men's deodorant. You say bad hygiene, I say saving the world. Tomato, to-mah-to. After a giant breakfast and three cups of cafe, I was ready for the day. There was an optional church service at the hotel right after breakfast, but in expectation of the two other services we'd be required to attend later in the day I said no gracias. My breakfast table stuck around after Thomas had picked up our plates and decided to play the zoo game. GREATEST GAME EVERRR (shout out to my c rica peeps. obvi.). I had been spouting ostrich stats [[45 mph, can kill a lion (king of the animals--ha!) with a swift kick to the neck, imitating the mating call, etc.]] since we arrived so Victoria chose to be the ostrich, the true animal king. I was the elephant, as usual, Jason chose the lynx, Trey chose the hippo, JLo chose fish out of water, and Steve chose the snake. It was glorious. Duh. We played til our hands stung and then switched to Jamaican Me Crazy, or the slap hand circle game. We drew a crowd because of our amazing skills, but then had to break it up so we could go get our shop on at the market, Chichi's main tourist attraction. I went around with Jason and Victoria, which was fun because it was Jason's first time. All of these women and children run up to you in the market and try to get you to buy their useless souvenirs, and Jason was hilarious with them. They'd say a tablecloth for your table! And he'd respond that he didn't have a table. They'd say a purse for your mother! And he'd respond that he didn't have a mother. He was just lying all over the place, to anyone and everyone. Mentiroso. I was able to walk around and honestly tell the vendors that yes, that is lovely, but I already have two thank you very much. Some were persistent, and would say but this one is different! You should have this one! And I'd assure them no, no. Have two. Yours are the exact same. Then there was one girl who wouldn't stop following me, and trying to get me to buy her headbands, but then all of a sudden she decided to change her approach and started asking me for the headband that I was wearing. I told her sure thing, and gave it to her, and she ran off. That was definitely a first. I ended up getting two new tees, a purse, and some bracelets. But really, I already have my fair share of kiss kiss dolls, patchwork purses, ponchos, artwork, pens, headbands, braided bracelets, keychains, skirts, etc etc. I was such a sucker for the trinkets back in the day. We headed back to the hotel in the afternoon to change for round two of church for the day. For this service, we were going to Abel's church just down the road from our hotel. Unfortunately, when leaving the hotel property, we are required to wear closed-toed shoes. The only closed-toed shoes I brought are my Keen hiking boots. I paired them with a dress. Fail. Victoria rocked blue Sketchers with a skirt she bought in the market and her t shirt from the scholarship dinner. Fail. Needless to say, we looked ravishing. So we headed over to Abel's little church down the road and Trey and Jessica told me they wanted me to help out with VBS in the basement of the church instead of listening to Tim's sermon. Score. So we stuck around long enough to belt a rousing rendition of santo, santo, santo (in an entirely new tune, of course) then Trey, JLo, Jason, and I peaced out with all the little ones and followed them to the basement of the building. Trey and JLo had told me they just wanted us to come and hang out with the kids and kinda help out with the teachers when needed, so it was a great surprise when we got down there, and there were 60 or so kids waiting eagerly in a circle around the room. They were all staring at us, and we all kind of looked at each other not really knowing what to do, and that's when the teachers asked what we had prepared. F our lives. We scrambled to figure something--anything--out. We ended up playing simon says (ran out of things to say in Spanish very quickly..), head shoulders knees and toes (we did it in English, then couldn't quite keep up with their Spanish version because they threw in these weird verses about Jesus), hokey pokey (the song is so different in Spanish..the only part I could sing was HEY! and I don't even think that was right), and we sang I got the joy in my heart because it was the only song we knew in Spanish. Ah. So then we were each sent with a different age group to classrooms. Jessica got the littlest ones, I had the next age up, and Jason and Trey went with the oldest kids. So I sat down awkwardly on a bench in my classroom, and just kind of let the teacher know that my thinking on my feet skillz were MIA for the time being. She gave me one of the workbooks, and so I sat there and recited a bible verse with the rest of the children half my size. She went around the room and made everyone recite it from memory, and I actually managed to do it when she called on me. I was so nervous! Then she asked if I had any words for the children, and I panicked and said no. Then all I could think was how awful I must seem as she prayed us out of there. Then we all walked upstairs to join the congregation again, and I just stood with JLo and held babies with her. Love the babies. We handed out the thirty suckers we had brought with us to the kids that walked by us because we couldn't hand them out earlier (too many kiddies). After church, we went back to the hotel and changed out of our fancy clothes. Then we had some time to kill before dinner, so JLo and I ran off to the market to buy some bread for pb&j. We came back and I gathered a few peeps to help me creep into Jennifer Squires's room and decorate for her birthday which was yesterday. We threw crepe paper around and made a few signs, hung a banner, and were just about ready to peace out when we were SPOTTED. Kady, specifically. Fail. Jennifer sent her hubby Will up to beat up the intruder, and so he tried to cover for us but was sent up two more times before dinner to double and triple check because she was SURE she had seen someone in an orange shirt in her room. She finally went and checked for herself, and thanked us at dinner. After dinner came round three of church. Actually, I had managed to skip both the first and second services soo it wasn't too bad. We did this weird relay activity, where the entire group divided into two teams, so we had two lines of 22 people. Everyone was told to grab the shoulders of the person in front of them, then basically do two laps around the room in a race against the other line. The next time around, we were told to walk with a limp as we did our laps. Then for the third one, the best of them all, we were told to cover the eyes of the person in front of us. Trey tried to pick my nose, then ended up nearly ripping my face off, so that one was super fun. Tim tried to tie the relays into his talk, but it didn't make them any less dumb. Good times. Afterwards, pb&j krewe round 3. It went so much better tonight. Hooray. Tomorrow will be our first real day of VBS and construction. I'm so excite.

peace love and ostriches