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Guatemala - day three

 Looking up from the waterfront

On Monday morning, we woke up a bit early again and had a few hours to roam around the hotel grounds and check things out before Nate and the gang were coming to get us for the day.  Yelsi was taking a keyboarding class in town (Santiago), so someone was driving her in each day, making it convenient to pick us up and thus also saving us from sunburns!

 Sunlight reaches the distant village on the other side of the lake





These funny black birds hopped around on the floating algae


 Our cabin


Micah showed up with Yelsi, Nate, Lizzie, and Katherine, and we squeezed in too.  There are a number of errands that needed to be done, including dropping off the broken TV, picking up some gallons of water to tide us over until the water filter is fixed, gas to power the generator since the power has been out throughout all of Tzanchaj overnight and today, and some electrical parts to hopefully fix the broken dishwasher.  When it rains it pours!  People were pretty much enchanted by Katherine wherever we go...her sunny blondish hair, light-colored eyes, and bouncy personality catch a lot of attention.

 Mike considers a machette

We headed back to the house after Yelsi got finished with her class, just in time to help make lunch for the kids.  All the older kids work on school work after breakfast, and they have to finish up after lunch if there is more to do (there usually is).  Deborah, Lizzie, Nate, and Micah all help with correcting school work.  Dave usually works on some maintenance project, and he asked Mike if he would cut the grass on the airstrip, using a riding mower, thank heavens!  I went with Dave into the residential area of Tzanchaj to deliver some medicine to a friend who had broken his leg.  Each family has a small enclosure, or compound, with their various dwellings and animal huts surrounding an open central yard.  The family we were visiting had two buildings for beds, a cooking area, a cow, a hut for some chickens, and some type of outbuilding protected by a mother dog with new pups.

Back at the home afterward, I spent the afternoon playing with the babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, including Katherine and Rosa, who wanted to jump on the trampoline forever!  When Mike returned, chuckling, he told us that at one point he stopped the tractor for a short break and was surprised to see a hoard of small boys burst from the bushes yelling, "Mike, Mike!"  They swarmed him and chattered to him, and he quickly figured out that it was a group headed up by one of the boys from the service last night.  He couldn't understand a word they said, but they seemed happy enough to just have his attention, nods, and smiles. 

 Isaac, Jacob, and Josue with Kimber


 Mynor


 Saul


 Jhostin and Vidalia


 Saul, Isai, and Katherine


 Saul and Isai


 Rosa and Katherine



By the end of the day, the generator was up and running so that we didn't have any difficulty making dinner for everyone.  The water from the spring still wasn't flowing, but that would be a job for tomorrow.  Funny enough, our brilliant Micah had managed to fix the dishwasher, at least temporarily.  He by-passed the troublesome circuit by inserting a wireless doorbell.  Yup, now when they want to run the dishwasher, they just had to ring the bell! 






Copyright 2011 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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Comments

It must have been hard to leave those adorable children.

Ring the bell to start the dishwasher - lol - I can relate to that. In developing countries, it seems people can fix just about anything with stuff they have lying around. Hey, whatever works!
Cyndi L said…
*Very* hard to leave them indeed. I look at their pictures and think about them every day.