Strong as passion

Sorry yall, these updates just keep getting farther and farther apart.

Tuesday: Work went well, I brought this braided thing and some clips to make an art display area for the kids in the class. I think they liked seeing their work up there, and the pictures on the line now are the macaroni art we made on Monday.

After work we just kinda chilled till Spanish lesson, and it was later than usual so we had all taken naps before and we were all pretty tired, but regardless, Spanish was good, and we even learned some words in Katchikel too! That night me and abbey decided we wanted Italian food so we found this place online called "Jake's Tomate Bar" that was supposedly good. So we got a taxi over to zone 10 and got all the way over there only to find out ONCE AGAIN that the place no longer exists...seeing a common theme here? Well luckily we were in an area with alot of good restaurants so we wandered around until we found a place called Mexico Lindo with awesome Mexican food, and it wasnt a total bust. Also the toilets there are so weird, they have this thing where the seat is basically covered in some sort of plastic wrap and there is a crank on the back of the seat that you turn when its done and it refreshes the wrap...

cool lights at the restaurant

fundido!

Wednesday: At work I had a pretty normal day, I got a really cute video of a kid though, he's pretty camera shy. He's 2 and he just learned the word "mariposa" so he was running all over the patio and pointing to all the butterflies yelling "posa! mariposa!" it was adorable, but he kinda stopped when I pulled out my camera.

After work we went on a group field trip to Antigua to a coffee museum and plantation and a Mayan music museum. The coffee museum was pretty cool and we got to taste coffee beans and even chocolate they made there! It was funny cuz they kept talking about how adding sugar to coffee ruins it, and anyone who knows me knows that my own philosophy on that is a bit different.."I like my sugar with coffee and cream."

The Mayan music museum was really neat, alot of pictures were really hard to take though cuz the lighting was really bad, but a guide also came and played some of the instruments for us, so heres a few videos I got of that!

After the Mayan music museum we went to this church in Antigua that had one of the vigils for Holy Week! It is basically like a painted canvas with elaborate scenes in front of it and on the floor there is an "alfombra" made out of painted sawdust and vegetables and there are lights and music going on during all of this. These are found in the main churches during lent as a way of showing respect to God and celebrating Holy Week. Again sorry about the poor quality of the pics, the lighting was terrible. 

the alfombra made of sawdust

the vigil

Im excited to see alot more of these vigils during Semana Santa. After the church Virginia took all of us out to a really nice ITALIAN dinner in Antigua at a place called Tre Fratelli. It was delicious and Im so glad we finally got our Italian fix in. It was kind of sad though because Virginia said it was our goodbye dinner since we are leaving next Saturday and we'll be in Antigua for Semana Santa wednesday-friday :(

Today: Work went well but I got there way later than usual because there was a procession going on in Zone 1 where I work and they had a ton of roads blocked off so I got dropped off last instead of first. It was ok though because I finally got to see where everyone else is working and I've been wanting to do that for awhile. After work we went to the Popol Vuh museum at the private university here in Guatemala City. If you dont remember the Popol Vuh was the Mayan scripture book equivalent. But interestingly the museum didnt have a whole lot to do with that. They more showed us lots of old artifacts they had found in excavations and in lakes in Guatemala which were given as sacrifices to the gods. They were still pretty cool, unfortunately they wouldnt let us take any pictures in there. But afterwards they took us to learn how to make Mayan pottery! It was so cool! I wasnt very good, but I had fun and made a coffee cup and a bowl thing. The symbol in the middle of the bowl is actually a glyph that is of the date December 21, 2012. 

Tonight me and Abbey decided it was time to try Pollo Campero, which is this fast food fried chicken place here in the city that we heard was sooo awesome that people brought it back with them on the airplane. Well, it was good, but I mean, meh, not great. 

Overall its been a pretty awesome week. I actually dont have work tomorrow because there are all kinds of crazy processions and demonstrations going on by my placement and I wont be able to get in. There are the usual processions that happen every Friday during lent, but they will be even bigger since it is the last week before Semana Santa, and there is also a huge student demonstration going on. Apparently there is some sort of secret student organization in all the campuses across Guatemala and they wear masks and put on plays and parades and demonstrations as parodies of Holy Week and of the Guatemala government. Tomorrow is the biggest one of they demonstrations and so it's going to be pretty crazy around here. Me and abbey are still trying to decide what to do this weekend, so we'll see what happens!