Hi, all!
We are relaxing in our favorite little airport hotel in Guatemala City - Villa Toscana - having said our goodbyes in San Pedro and having cast a last, longing look at Ti Wachooch until spring.
In addition to the lovely meals with families celebrating their graduates, and the ones we prepared in our very own kitchen, we had this nice lunch out at Nick's Place with Mynor,
this nice breakfast out at Casa Atitlán with fellow Beca sponsors Laure and Tony, newly moved to Panajachel across the lake where Laure is the administrator at Life School,
and dinner at the Mikaso with Mynor, Josefa, and these awesome boys, Manuel and Antonio. We were playing a game where I would draw animal shapes on a napkin and they would provide the faces.
Our last few days weren't all about food, though. Here we're visiting Laure and Tony's Beca Project student María Osorio and her parents, then giving a passing bus a wide berth as we walk into town so Laure and Tony could take María shopping and buy 100 pounds of corn for her family.
I continued to bump into Beca students, this time Emilson at the Cooperativa Spanish School; out of 55 families, I saw at least 1 member of all but 10 families, mostly just random encounters.
Monday night Mike and I met with the 5 directors of the Spanish school who serve as our Beca Project advisors in San Pedro. We needed to make decisions about important changes to the student and parent responsibilities and set minimum grade standards.
Here are some more awesome things about San Pedro.
Saturday kids' art classes at a local gallery - "Help Me Paint My Future".
Nuts for sale
Murals and wire workers
Lights from the terraza - in this case, those of San Juan
Flowers
These nice boys, Manuel and Antonio - this time learning to use my Spirograph set
This giant, mango-colored lavadero
This oil painting that is an orignal from the book 'The Night the Animals Danced' which was illustrated by José and Henry Mendez of San Pedro - José was the dad in my 2009 host family and the brothers run the kids' art program pictured earlier.
Who knew you could buy hand made elf shoes in San Pedro?!
They fit like magic (but I did not buy them).
Sharing the gospel in many, creative, and usually LOUD ways
And finally, this once in a lifetime shot of a young man walking into my favorite shortcut between centro and the Cooperativa School (note the t-shirt)
We boxed and bagged our household items and tucked them into a corner to be tarped against the carpenter's dust as he sands and finishes the cyprus floor. We hugged and goodbyed until I couldn't take it any more, then headed to the dock, then took a boat across the lake to Panajachel; the lake was like glass - such a gift! I zoomed in to get this parting shot of Ti Wachooch - 3 giant eyes in a ghost face from this side.
We had a light lunch at Llama del Fuego in Panajachel and hopped into the car of Alfredo Garcia - trustworthy and personable.
Passing through Sololá
Nearing GC
The suite at Villa Toscana
Cloud and light show from the terrace outside our room
This is the last post for this trip. We fly out in the morning with a stop in Dallas and an early evening landing time at PDX. With luck, we will beat the snow to The Dalles.
As Mason Williams said, "Don't go down to the ocean with a notion of what you will find." We left Oregon hoping to move into Ti Wachooch straight away but what we got instead was a richer, warmer experience that will live in our hearts.
