guatemalan greetings.

this is day 4 in guatemala. for a short recap....
day 1: arrived in guat city (so i think it should be guac city because the aguacates (avocados) from which to make guacamole are absoloutely fantastic). took a shuttle to antigua--the antigua (old) capital of guatemala. antigua was first settled in the mid 1500s and in the late 18th century much of the city was destroyed in a series of devastating earthquakes. it is really a beautiful city, lots of ruined churches with some partially rebuilt, some turned into really fantastic buildings--a really cool ruined monastery that is now a hotel (that was unfortunately booked) with a series of museums (photos to follow). about 8 years ago they passed an ordinance that required people to paint their houses from a particular palette. Ok so forced charm, but charm none the less. There is also a very cool yellow and white cathedral that is definitely not that new, so maybe not completely created charm.

i met suzanne at our hotel almost painlessly, but the lack of sleep from the red eye flight and the cobblestone streets made for some very unfriendly knees. thankfully they've continued to improve. we went to the market and began browsing the guatemalan goods and then had a fantastic dinner of vegatable fajitas with some amazing aguacates. I WENT TO BED AT 9pm and SLEPT UNTIL almost 9am. since that is almost unheard of for me, i suppose i was tired.
TI-RED.

Day 2: we went for a walking tour of the city given by this woman whose father moved their family from palo alto when she was 14. evidently, he worked for sunset magazine and came down on a story and decided to pick-up and move the whole family. she spoke english with a spanish cadence (not unlike recently returned missionary sister jackie). i saw a lot of interesting architecture and archeology and learned that the earrings i bought the night before at the market were definitely not jade, despite whatever the woman told me. but they were cool and cheap and i'm ok with them not being real jade, most of the real jade stuff i liked was way out of my price range. we got massages and pedicures in the afternoon extremely cheap. i used my walking sticks this day and the knees did pretty well, but i was still pretty wiped out that night when we walked like 6 blocks to this place that was supposed to have live cuban jazz in the courtyard only to find that friday was music night, not saturday. but, we did find a very cool cuban resutaurant will great live music. white pants and black and white wingtips, very cool 40s cuba.

Day 3: off to lake atitlan. the lake is quite large (it took us about a half hour to get across it in one of the "fast" boats) and surrounded by three volcanoes. there are a series of towns that surround the lake, suzanne is staying in santiago. we left antigua quite early, but unfortuantely the bus made a million more stops than we planned on (we didn't take the chicken bus because that's the one that stops a trillion times...little did we know that we took the one that stopped only a million times) and we didn't make it in time for church. i'm excited to go to suzanne's branch next sunday. i'm really enjoying speaking spanish again. it's hard to hear myself make mistakes, when i know how well i used to speak and i recognize the mistakes about 2 seconds after they have left my mouth, but i'm so glad i can still really speak it and the mistakes are getting better as the days pass.

the place suzanne is staying is really fantastic. great tile and amazing windows. so it really is beautiful here. amazing. i get to see the lake and this amazing volcano out my bedroom window every morning as i live in this fantastic house in the middle of the jungle. fabulous gardens and plants and a walkway stright down to our own private beach. is it really a beach if there's no sand? just rocks? anyway, it's really beautiful. we walked around the town with some new volunteers in the afternoon and suzanne had a pot luck last night where i got to meet all her new friends--interesting people from palo alto, logan, london and spain.

suzanne is volunteering for the month at the hospitalito atitlan. she's a nurse practitioner and is helping a lot with the patient load for their resident doctor. she's delivered two babies so far and just missed delivering one today. she also had a girl come in today who had never had sex, yet was pregnant. she's sure it's witchcraft. babies without a family is definitely not a good thing, but a culture that is so repressive that you can't even admit what you've done to anyone (let alone a doctor), makes me sad. but i guess witchcraft is as good an answer as any...ok nix that...what is going to happen to that child if they really think it's the product of witchcraft? ay, ay, ay. anyway, on to less painful topics.

people asked me last night what i was doing here...how i was contributing, i told them i was the drug mule for suzanne. i suppose that would be another painful topic...then i rephrased...drug runner perhaps better since i didn't ingest any of those drugs to get them over the border. i had to bring my big suitcase to bring down all sorts of meds for the hospital, much easier and less dangerous than swallowing ballons. so now my job is done and i can just have fun now and relax.

Day 4: my first day on my own. suzanne went to work and i slept in. woo hoo. once i finished my book (enna burning...the follow-up to goose girl by shannon hale - definite thumbs up) and read my scriptures, i went into town - hiked the hill in town - not a mountain, but my quads fell like i'm actually doing some excercise. i spent the morning walking up and down the hill looking at all the things they had for sale....evidently they are not fond of "just looking"--even when i told them that i would be here all week and would probably be back. (of course i only told that to the ones that i thought i would actually go back to.)

going down the hill was not quite as knee friendly as up--it's a pretty steep hill--but it wasn't bad. just as i was about to take the lake trail to go back to the house, i met up with suzanne and her friends for lunch. the chicken was a bit questionable, but the guacamole and the little mini tortillas were fantastic. after a lovely lunch i went back and then went swimming and laid out and read at the little private beach on the lake, it's really beautiful. can i say that again?

anyway, i'm such a guatemala fan. i do want to see other things around here, but i could be completely happy just hanging out here in santiago de atitlan.