Vineria

It has begun. I knew I wouldnt be able to keep up writing in my blog everyday for long. I'm gonna be honest, I wasnt busy, I just wasn't feeling it yesterday. haha. But, regardless, yesterday was a good day!

At work it was pretty much the same but all the kids really started getting excited about English. They out me in the 3 year old classroom for like 30 minutes to teach English alone without any warning though so that was kind of difficult trying to fill that much time without any notice, but I still think it went as well as it could with 10 3yr olds running around in there. Little Jose also confessed his love to me and now only refers to me as "mi amor", which is precious. Josh may have some competition, haha.

After work we ate lunch and then we got to go to our field trip to the winery! We thought maybe this winery was like down the road a bit but we soon found out it was almost 2 hours away, wooo. The drive was pretty though and we got to go through Antigua and a small Mayan village called Santa Maria Jesus on the way. Antigua looked beautiful and very colonial and I'm really excited to go there, me and Abbey are planning on going fro Holy Week in April because we heard there were all kinds of beautiful celebrations there during that time.

Antigua

an old church in Antigua that was turned into a theatre

 Santa Maria Jesus was a tiny town and there were tons of Mayan people. It was interesting seeing their lifestyle as we passed through. Women and children were waiting in a couple in town to collect water because there is no running water in the town. The men and boys were coming back from working during the day in the fields, riding on mules and carrying machetes and wood on their backs.

In Santa Maria Jesus

The problem with this town, as with much of Guatemala was the trash situation. People just threw their trash all over the town and the sides of the road were completely covered in mountains of it. Virginia was telling us that a huge reason for this is because there is no trash pick up in the mountains where they live and also because of the introduction of plastics into their lifestyle in a town where it used to be all natural, biodegradable food; so when they threw their trash on the road, it simply dissolved unlike the trash they have now. Way to go America.

 

After we got through the town we started this 30 minute drive down possibly the worst road I've ever been down. Virginia said the last few governments of Guatemala completely ignored the road situation and so they are in terrible condition. I'm pretty sure we all almost go sick on this road. FINALLY we reached the promise land.

Entrance to the winery, Chateau DeFay

The winery was small, but beautiful and was on the side of a mountain where you could see a bunch of the volcanoes in Guatemala from the top. Our guide told us how they make the wine and showed us the grapes and the vats for fermenting the wine, blah, blah, blah. Then we got to taste. Personally, I didnt really like much of the wine, since it was mostly white, and there was some sort of strange spice to it that I had never tasted before.

 BUT it was still a really cool experience, and the best part was there were PUPPIES there. Their german shepherd just had a litter of the most adorable puppies, and so I got pretty obsessed and we tried to convince Virginia to let us bring one back to home base with us. She actually said yes....but I'm almost positive it was the wine talking.

puppies!

On the way out of the winery there were tons of coffee trees growing so we got out and picked a couple of berries (did you know coffee beans came in berries cuz I sure didnt) and peeled them where we sucked on the beans which were covered in this gel-like sweet stuff. It was interesting.

eating a coffee thing

The way back down from the winery was way faster and when we got home we had some delicious pasta waiting for us. yay! So overall yesterday was a good day.

TODAY at work I got to lead a surprise gym lesson, which was awesome cuz it kind of tired out the kids, thank goodness, they have wayyyyy too much energy. Then one of the nuns who works there is trying to learn English so we sat and talked for like 30 minutes and tried to help each other out. Her name is Magdelena and she is so sweet, and hilarious, I really like her. The teacher in the room I spend most of the time in is Sr. Patti and she's not a nun, and she is also really funny. I really do enjoy my work there, the women are all really good people ( i mean, theyre nuns) and the children are so sweet and funny.

This afternoon we had a Spanish lesson, and it was pretty helpful, we went over body parts and new things to talk to the children about, Rosario is such a sweet lady. Then we came back to the house and we've been trying to figure out our housing and ride situation for this weekend's trip to Lake Atitlan, which is proving to be extremely stressful. When we're done we've decided to hit up happy hour at tacontendo a couple blocks away. I cant stress enough how much I need a margarita.

Well thats its for now, if you havent already seen, I posted new pics from the winery on facebook so be sure to check em out!