guatemala... te amo

I just was looking though some old photos and found this amazing picture of Jen. And since I've been thinking about my little sis lately - I decided I'd post it! For the record, I have not had delicious pizza like that since arriving. Actually, lately our food has been pretty interesting. We almost always have beans. Lots of them - mashed, fried, pureed, whole, flattened, fluffy, black, brown, red, orange, slimy, dry, powdery, runny... any variety you could ever wish for in a bean. We also eat a lot of hard boiled eggs and meatfat. Meatfat = "meat" that is half meat half fat.

Things are going great - I just completed my first day in my new hospital... and I love it! It's a hospital run almost completely by donations here in Antigua (so I only have to walk 5 minutes to get there!) I got up nice and early today so I would actually have time to eat breakfast and throw on my scrubs. Walking to the hospital I got quite a few weird looks... apparently scrubs are not the normal attire to wear while walking the streets of Antigua. But, I arrived just fine and they sent me to go work with the kids until the doctors got in at 9. The kids are so sweet! They all have developmental problems (cerebal palsy, spina bifeda, etc) or mental disorders and they live in the hospital indefinitely. I helped get them up and feed them a very "tasty" breakfast. Well, I told them it was tasty anyway. I snuck a peak at how they prepared it and all they do is get some stale bread and break it into pieces into a bowl, cut up some salchichas into the bowl, and douse it all in really really liquidy black beans... it makes a stew of some sort. But, the kids seemed to like it! They are all fascinated with my hair - always touching it and pulling it. I guess it's true that they haven't really seen many redheads around there.

I can't remember to which wheelchair place you all have donated to, but I saw a few wheelchairs there from the "Wheelchair Foundation" - is that who grandma donates to? Anyway, it's good to see that the wheelchairs actually get to kids who need them!

Side note: back in the day women gave birth in these things - I couldn't even get in! I can't imagine trying to get in there with a huge panza!! Who were these women?!! It's not the little hole you see by my hand - there is a bigger entrance right behind me... but still!!

Here is a pic of the "playing field" of Copan - we were pretending to play... it didn't work real well. BUT - the game kind of works like it does in the movie "The Road to El Dorado." watch it!.

Newsflash: I am still the reigning champion of Egyptian Ratscrew! Mwa hahahaha!

I talked with Shirley's sister and she said that she is going to be in town this weekend - so we are going to do something :). I am also going to go to church (really excited about that!). Hopefully I can meet the missionaries and set up some times to go out with them. Either way I'm going to meet some great people.

Well... hope you're all great!