ooh i didn´t mean to waste so much time reading all your lovely emails. i ADORE them!
emma, i´m so proud of you for sticking to veg, even with all those temptors.
isaac, i hope florida gets funner!
edward, i think we should have a dance party when i get back.
eleanor, now that you are three, i bet you can do things faster than anyone else in our house. you should try.
dad, i hope that the best thing happens with that bosnia contract. and thank you so much for persuading me to bring the brothers karamazov with me, it is truly awesome, and i keep finding stuff about myself in it.
mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!!
i read a thing in the dream maker (the book about patricio), maybe i already told you, about how when god keeps giving us the same kind of struggle, it´s a chance for us to see that our past experiences have tempered us for this one. guatemala is a classic case! right now, the best example for you that i have is the shower. ahhh showers of internationalia. you know how this goes, guys. for the first week and a half i thought there was no hot water. no problem. i´ve done sudan. the second half of the second week, i gradually began to realize that there is hot water: this weekend, the bottom half of the shower head kept falling off mid'shower to spray a forceful jet of water sideways at the wall, way above my head. i figured out that if i turn the water on to just a trickle, the shower head stays on. and if the water isn´t at full force, like it had been all the week before, the heating element has a chance to take effect (the heating element is an aging metal coil just above the shower head; lonely planet calls this a ¨suicide shower¨ and warns you not to adjust it), and the water is REALLY HOT! it makes me laugh every time i take a shower. i never know quite what to expect!
i understood a little more spanish in church yesterday! i just have to concentrate really hard. and two students from somewhere in north carolina arrived last night to stay with rosalina. they´re studying ecotourism, and their spanish is minimal at best. at breakfast this morning, i realized that i could translate for them everything that rosa tried to say. over years of hosting volunteers and students, she has developed this funny little defensive conversation technique of throwing out facts about guatemala that may or may not be interesting, but that you can´t object to, and that don´t require a complicated response. ¨there´s lots of birds here. it´s because of the many trees. there are many trees all around.¨or ¨here in guatemala, we like tortillas. we eat tortillas much of the time! we think tortillas are delicious in guatemala.¨ and everyone can just nod wisely, and say, ¨si, si.¨ i love it.
i was interpreting morning sounds for those new students today. i hadn´t realized how much i know about the rhythms of the manchen neighborhood! there´s the ZETA GAZ van that drives around with its gas tanks (we needed that in sudan!) and a loudspeaker, honking once, and yelling, ¨¿Zeta gaaaaaz? ¿Zeta gaaaaaaz?¨ and there´s the rooster, and the mayan tortilla lady, and the motor scooter lady, and the morning MorCaf with un panito tostado.
i start teaching tomorrow!!! with parvulos first thing (i think this is pre'K), then sexto after el recreo, and then segundo right before lunch. i´m pumpedddd. it´s good because teaching will preclude those lazy days when no one much feels like finding work for me to do, and angel sends me home early. there have been a couple like that, but i would wayyy rather be at the center, working. even if it´s the kitchen, you know?
la fiesta de la pionera was fantastic on saturday! JAS is jovenes adultos solteros, aka YSA, and the stake ran it in this church plantation type thing called Las Colinas. there aren´t crops, just forest and camping fields named Nefi and Gedeon and stuff, and soccer and basketball fields, and a cultural center where we had our thing. the different wards did different pioneer things, like a dramatization of joseph smith´s family life, or a square dance typ ehting, or singing come come ye saints in spansih. and then we ate pizza, and then we danced. the dj was apparently really into reggaeton, because there was a lot of that, but every once in a while he´d do salsa or something, and everyone, EVERYONE, would actually dance. it was so cool. a long succession of dark, Latin males tried to teach me to dance, too, which was only partially successful. i screwed up complicated twirls with regularity. also, they were not TALL and dark, but excessively short and dark. such is guatemala. in my high'heeled black sandals, i am as tall as the oldest brother in the alonzo family (that´s rosa´s family), and taller than everyone else. i feel normal height everywhere here :)
love you, but my time is up!!!
embraces and such!!!
ruth
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Postcards from Guatemala -- 26 June 2008
i have decided that the brothers karamazov has the best chapter titles ever, when taken as a group.
this week at the dreamer center, i have:
cleaned beans (this means sifting through a bucketful of black beans, palmful by palmful, picking out little clods of dirt.and once, a tiny seashell. while the regular kitchen boys, apparently spoiled by dona ana and dona mari who normally run the kitchen with iron fists, blast reggaeton and dance with brooms. there's a tendency in the project to do things in the most manual way possible. so, even though jackhammers exist, they would rather have us chip concrete with picks. and even though there's a photocopier in the volunteer office, we trace coloring pages with black marker. curious.)
chopped radishes (this was awesome to explain to people later on, because i didn't know the word for radish, but the second i said that it was a growing thing that was red and white, everyone knew immediately what i meant. is there nothing else red and white?)
rode in the bed of a pickup truck!!! this is actually very common, i just hadn't done it yet.
opened the monthly newsletter, "signed" it (john and mary kang... not ruth pimentel), refolded it, stuffed it with other flyers, put it in envelopes, and sealed and stacked the envelopes. this took something like 9 hours, because there were around 12,000 newsletters to send out. the entire volunteer crew at the dreamer center did it together, like an assembly line where we took turns at different stations. incredible. i want us to be on the mailing list once i leave. good thing we don't have to do the addressing; that happens in bismarck.
actually, i took a traitorous break in the middle of newsletter day, because angel came in and said, "we need two people." i thought it was for moving chairs or something, but it turned out to be for driving 10 minutes to san bartolomeo to harvest pears in a donor's orchard. what. the. heck. it was so fun. i got pretty dirty for a couple hours (i climbed a tree, and there were some sinkholes that i sort of stepped in), but then we went back to newslettering.
i did some stuff with the social work office, too. we took a street guy in to a treatment center called talitha-cumi. and i got to see the scheel center, which is part of asociacion nuestros ahijados, but it's a school that teaches elementary stuff to much older kids/adults, and it has clinics, too, but without the funding to be continually open (unlike the dreamer center's). scheel is about 10 minutes away from the dreamer center, in jocotenango/san felipe. it's a truly scary neighborhood. parts of scheel don't have windows, just for protection. the whole thing is completely gorgeous, though, with deep light wells and fountains and an unparalleled view of volcan agua.
i think there is probably not a single shop in the whole of los estados unidos called "the gethsemane shop". not so here.
last night, i tried to go to instituto with ana, and when we got there, we found some other members of the barrio waiting, but nobody showed up with a key. we called el obispito (even the BISHOP gets a diminutive!!!), but i guess he didn't want to come or something. or couldn't, i don't know. i spoke french, or tried to, with a guy waiting with us. i kept throwing in "si" and "pero" instead of the right french words. sigh. but i got a copy of the antiguo testamento manual, from 1 reyes to malaquias. muy bueno para practicar.
i found out that some of the cafe/bars in town show american movies. you can watch them if you order something. bagel barn (slogan: "relax, it's just like home!") is showing Big Fish this afternoon, and Cafe 2000 is showing The Prestige tomorrow night... tempting.
june 30 is national army day, so i don't have work. who knows what i will do with myself.
july 25 is also some huge holiday, and apparently there's stuff going on all month. i'm kind of excited.
june 25, ellie's birthday, was teacher's day, so somebody set off really LOUD firecrackers at like 5:30 am in my neighborhood. i woke up thinking someone was shooting at us. ellie, i went out onto the dreamer center's highest balcony in the morning and sang happy birthday to you! and i bought a bar of dark guatemalan chocolate to celebrate.
dad, do open keri's note and tell me what it says... patricio told me that the surest way to mail me something (like the copy of keri's cd, or actually anything) is to send it to the bismarck offices (i'm assuming there's an address online or something?), and people who are coming here from there can bring it along with them. when patricio just came to us from ND a few days ago, he brought some magazines to a guy named charlie who's been here for a couple months. i'm long-term like that, so it would probably work.
jessi is a triplet, it turns out, and her brother matt is also at harvard. awesome. talking to her makes me super excited for fall. too bad she's leaving on sunday. there are lots of young female volunteers, though. i haven't seen a male one except for charlie (who patricio brought magazines to) and a for-lifer, practically, named Luke. right now in girls, i have Susie, who is a californian high school senior, Irene, who is about to be a college senior at University of the Pacific, and her friend Katie, same situation. also another Katie, who's way older than us, and better at spanish. and Joan from minnesota showed up this morning.
i think i'm going to try and get susie (who's going to be here until late july) to sign up with me for a trip up volcan pacaya. that's the active one of the three volcanoes. i've heard there are agencies that will set you up for $7, but the cheapest i've seen is $8. apparently, you get added to a huge group of other people who want to climb it, and they put you in their truck and drive you to the base, and then you climb with the other tourists and a guide. it's "awful" for a while (maybe really steep? not sure what this means), but then it "gets better". and at the top, the lava, of course, moves very slowly, so it's safe. you can go in the morning or in the afternoon. the sunset is supposed to be amazing. and if you wear sandals, the volcanic rock will shred them. sounds beastly.
LOVELOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
ruth
this week at the dreamer center, i have:
cleaned beans (this means sifting through a bucketful of black beans, palmful by palmful, picking out little clods of dirt.and once, a tiny seashell. while the regular kitchen boys, apparently spoiled by dona ana and dona mari who normally run the kitchen with iron fists, blast reggaeton and dance with brooms. there's a tendency in the project to do things in the most manual way possible. so, even though jackhammers exist, they would rather have us chip concrete with picks. and even though there's a photocopier in the volunteer office, we trace coloring pages with black marker. curious.)
chopped radishes (this was awesome to explain to people later on, because i didn't know the word for radish, but the second i said that it was a growing thing that was red and white, everyone knew immediately what i meant. is there nothing else red and white?)
rode in the bed of a pickup truck!!! this is actually very common, i just hadn't done it yet.
opened the monthly newsletter, "signed" it (john and mary kang... not ruth pimentel), refolded it, stuffed it with other flyers, put it in envelopes, and sealed and stacked the envelopes. this took something like 9 hours, because there were around 12,000 newsletters to send out. the entire volunteer crew at the dreamer center did it together, like an assembly line where we took turns at different stations. incredible. i want us to be on the mailing list once i leave. good thing we don't have to do the addressing; that happens in bismarck.
actually, i took a traitorous break in the middle of newsletter day, because angel came in and said, "we need two people." i thought it was for moving chairs or something, but it turned out to be for driving 10 minutes to san bartolomeo to harvest pears in a donor's orchard. what. the. heck. it was so fun. i got pretty dirty for a couple hours (i climbed a tree, and there were some sinkholes that i sort of stepped in), but then we went back to newslettering.
i did some stuff with the social work office, too. we took a street guy in to a treatment center called talitha-cumi. and i got to see the scheel center, which is part of asociacion nuestros ahijados, but it's a school that teaches elementary stuff to much older kids/adults, and it has clinics, too, but without the funding to be continually open (unlike the dreamer center's). scheel is about 10 minutes away from the dreamer center, in jocotenango/san felipe. it's a truly scary neighborhood. parts of scheel don't have windows, just for protection. the whole thing is completely gorgeous, though, with deep light wells and fountains and an unparalleled view of volcan agua.
i think there is probably not a single shop in the whole of los estados unidos called "the gethsemane shop". not so here.
last night, i tried to go to instituto with ana, and when we got there, we found some other members of the barrio waiting, but nobody showed up with a key. we called el obispito (even the BISHOP gets a diminutive!!!), but i guess he didn't want to come or something. or couldn't, i don't know. i spoke french, or tried to, with a guy waiting with us. i kept throwing in "si" and "pero" instead of the right french words. sigh. but i got a copy of the antiguo testamento manual, from 1 reyes to malaquias. muy bueno para practicar.
i found out that some of the cafe/bars in town show american movies. you can watch them if you order something. bagel barn (slogan: "relax, it's just like home!") is showing Big Fish this afternoon, and Cafe 2000 is showing The Prestige tomorrow night... tempting.
june 30 is national army day, so i don't have work. who knows what i will do with myself.
july 25 is also some huge holiday, and apparently there's stuff going on all month. i'm kind of excited.
june 25, ellie's birthday, was teacher's day, so somebody set off really LOUD firecrackers at like 5:30 am in my neighborhood. i woke up thinking someone was shooting at us. ellie, i went out onto the dreamer center's highest balcony in the morning and sang happy birthday to you! and i bought a bar of dark guatemalan chocolate to celebrate.
dad, do open keri's note and tell me what it says... patricio told me that the surest way to mail me something (like the copy of keri's cd, or actually anything) is to send it to the bismarck offices (i'm assuming there's an address online or something?), and people who are coming here from there can bring it along with them. when patricio just came to us from ND a few days ago, he brought some magazines to a guy named charlie who's been here for a couple months. i'm long-term like that, so it would probably work.
jessi is a triplet, it turns out, and her brother matt is also at harvard. awesome. talking to her makes me super excited for fall. too bad she's leaving on sunday. there are lots of young female volunteers, though. i haven't seen a male one except for charlie (who patricio brought magazines to) and a for-lifer, practically, named Luke. right now in girls, i have Susie, who is a californian high school senior, Irene, who is about to be a college senior at University of the Pacific, and her friend Katie, same situation. also another Katie, who's way older than us, and better at spanish. and Joan from minnesota showed up this morning.
i think i'm going to try and get susie (who's going to be here until late july) to sign up with me for a trip up volcan pacaya. that's the active one of the three volcanoes. i've heard there are agencies that will set you up for $7, but the cheapest i've seen is $8. apparently, you get added to a huge group of other people who want to climb it, and they put you in their truck and drive you to the base, and then you climb with the other tourists and a guide. it's "awful" for a while (maybe really steep? not sure what this means), but then it "gets better". and at the top, the lava, of course, moves very slowly, so it's safe. you can go in the morning or in the afternoon. the sunset is supposed to be amazing. and if you wear sandals, the volcanic rock will shred them. sounds beastly.
LOVELOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
ruth
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Notes from Sam -- 25 June 2008
The District -- Elders Pimentel, McIntosh, Davies, Adams, Phillips, and Pettersson -- Helping do a primary school's gardenDear family,
Transfers is today. Elder Adams and I are staying together in Sale, though (the first time ever that neither I nor my companion has been moved), so we have a regular preparation day today. Elder Pettersson and Elder Davies are both leaving, however, so we have some changes in our district. I don't know either of the arriving missionaries very well, but by next week I should know them quite a bit better. We also have a new zone leader, Elder Frogley, who's from my MTC group and served near me when I was in Runcorn.
It's kind of nice to get another transfer with the same companion in the same area. Since there's relatively little new stuff to get used to, I can focus a lot on improving what I'm already doing. I'm going to focus in particular on being diligent this transfer - I'm feeling like that's something that's really crucial to my missionary success and that I can improve on significantly in the next six weeks.
Good news for the ward - one of the Altrincham elders' investigators, a young guy named Callum, has just managed to get work off on Sundays. He was ready to be baptized many weeks ago except that he had to work during church. Now that it's sorted out, though, he'll be baptized very soon! Exciting stuff. Our investigators are not quite so ready to be baptized - a lot of things are popping up to keep them from coming to church and meeting with us - but we'll persevere. There's a lot of potential in our area and there's great support from the ward, so all we have to do is learn how to use those resources and be patient. We'll get there!
We taught a really great lady in the ward this week, Sister Davidson. She joined the church almost a year and a half ago. Although she has tons of health problems and is confined to a wheelchair, she is a really positive person and she finds lots of ways to serve others. In particular, she's an AMAZING member missionary. She runs an Internet chat room focused on issues faced by disabled people, and she shares the gospel with others through that. Apparently about 6(!) people that she's talked to on the chat room have later been baptized as a result of her efforts! She finds it hard to focus on reading the scriptures for a long period of time, so instead she reads periodically throughout the day in short sessions. She also keeps the Book of Mormon by her computer so that she can flip through it and find inspiration as she talks to people in her chat room. Wow! We're working on getting her a copy of Preach My Gospel - that's about the only thing she's missing.
This week one of the families we are teaching gave us a bunch of fruit, including a papaya and a couple of mangoes. This morning for breakfast I made myself a fruit salad with papaya, orange, and mango. The mango was really nice, really tart and juicy. It reminded me of eating mangoes all the time in Egypt and Sudan, and it also made me think of Ruth eating tropical fruit in Guatemala. Her summer there sounds like a WONderful adventure. A bit like a mission in some ways . . . I hope she has a great time and learns a bunch. Ed's summer also sounds really exciting - I'm glad he's getting so much great exposure to research already. Plus research with ants sounds especially interesting (if a bit more painful than most other kinds). How was girls' camp, Mom and Emma Lucy? And how did the rest of the week of clean house - perfect obedience - yummy food - great fun go, Dad, Isaac, and Ellie? I hope you were able to spend more time worrying about the latter two. : )
Happy third birthday, Ellie! The other night I was lying in bed thinking about where I was exactly a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, etc. and I was remembering when Ellie was born and I got to come in and see her right before I left for the airport. Also, happy birthday to Mom this week!
Love,
Elder Pimentel
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Postcards from Guatemala - 23 June 2008
Dear peeps,
Can I Skype you tomorrow? I can get a headset at around 4:00 pm, for half an hour. . . . i´ve found an internet place (that is, not my spanish school) that also has headsets, so just let me know when´s good! I´m super super super excited that it´s eleanor´s birthday, and i´m plotting to bring her a present from antigua, so she can have that when i get back.
MOM: do you know how to cook wild rice? this is a matter of crucial importance, because the ND volunteers gave some to rosa,a nd she doesn´t know what to do with it.
i went to a wedding on saturday, just sneaked into the back of la merced cathedral.
patricio showed up at el proyecto today! it is the first time i have ever seen him (that´s atkinson, dad, whom you met... just everyone here calls him patricio. he´s not EXACTLY worshipped, but there are photos of him everywhere in el proyecto (which equals the dreamer center, yes, sorry about the confusion), and random people in town will talk to me about him. like my spanish teacher gave a speech about how he´s a good chico who has done a great work for antigua. and so on!
today, i loaded bags of milk, in crates. they were heavy.
next weekend,t he young single adults of barrio antigua (that´s the branch-ward, not sure which) are having a Pioneer Party in the colinas of Chimaltenango. they´re taking a bus. i´m going, too... i have to rustle up some Pioneer clothes. i understand there is to be country music involved. woww. mostly music here is translated american music (Somebody loves you, somebody needs you, somebody thinks about you every single night... only in spanish), or imported american music (abba´s chiquitita, too, if that counts as american), or salsa.
i saw some of the euro cup last week. at that point, holanda was doing ok... no idea what´s happening now, but i have this affection for the whole thing! i wish i could watch it. there is a television in my house, but it´s in one of the back rooms that i´ve never been in, and i don´t want to intrude.
isabel (the baby,r emember?) likes me sooo much. she always starts laughing and babbling when i go hang out by her stroller. everyone in mi casa thinks that´s really divertido,a nd they joke about how i´m going to teach her english.
OH, MOM, good call on the photographs!!! i´ve told mi mama all about you guys, of course, but the other night, when i offered to show her my photos, she got all excited. it was super fun. her daughter mayra came out to look, too, and we had this great conversation. then rosa went and got one of her (many) albums,a nd showed me photos, too. turns out she´s been to paris (?????), and she took photos of the beautifully wide, smoooth roads, which made me laugh. but also the torre de eiffel and such. she´s also taken to staying late over dinner with me, while we both drink MorCaf (i told youa bout that, right? cafe para mormones? like postum) and eat sugary bread, and telling me about her life. like how she married young, and studied at night for years while her kids were babies,a nd stuff like that. very cool.
my spanish teacher makes me have HARD conversations with her in spanish. like explaining finer points of LDS doctrine, and encapsulating the current political views of the american youth ... what the heck, i would even have a hard time doing this stuff in english. we spent forever talking about guantanamo, because she had it confused with some immigration prison in miami, where her daughter lives.
today she and i went out walking, and some random dudes in a pickup (that's a spanish word, guys, pickup) drove past us and yelled, ¨goodbye, stepmother!¨ to her because we looked like a madre y hija pair, but obviously not related by blood. it made us laugh super hard.
i love love love love love you guys!!! emma, i hope camp was AWESOME! (mom, you too.) elmo, you´re a hilarious kid, i love your emails, viva la vida is chill... i streamed some of it off la internet before i left... maybe you should buy it. and eat lots of good american junk food for me while you´re away from our health-conscious family (om nom nom nom... yeah, that was just an excuse to use om nom nom)... i´ll let you know if we happen to get the cd here in san felipe... but my expectations are low. sam, i´m assuming you´re getting these by post... i tell EVERYONE about you, and today i saw the missionaries in town and yelled, ¨hey elders!!!¨at them because i thought it would make you happy if someone did that to you. and also i´m totally digging my teeth into the doctrine of happiness. singing hymns while i wash tables in the echoey kitchen pavilion is the best.
BESOS, ruth!
Can I Skype you tomorrow? I can get a headset at around 4:00 pm, for half an hour. . . . i´ve found an internet place (that is, not my spanish school) that also has headsets, so just let me know when´s good! I´m super super super excited that it´s eleanor´s birthday, and i´m plotting to bring her a present from antigua, so she can have that when i get back.
MOM: do you know how to cook wild rice? this is a matter of crucial importance, because the ND volunteers gave some to rosa,a nd she doesn´t know what to do with it.
i went to a wedding on saturday, just sneaked into the back of la merced cathedral.
patricio showed up at el proyecto today! it is the first time i have ever seen him (that´s atkinson, dad, whom you met... just everyone here calls him patricio. he´s not EXACTLY worshipped, but there are photos of him everywhere in el proyecto (which equals the dreamer center, yes, sorry about the confusion), and random people in town will talk to me about him. like my spanish teacher gave a speech about how he´s a good chico who has done a great work for antigua. and so on!
today, i loaded bags of milk, in crates. they were heavy.
next weekend,t he young single adults of barrio antigua (that´s the branch-ward, not sure which) are having a Pioneer Party in the colinas of Chimaltenango. they´re taking a bus. i´m going, too... i have to rustle up some Pioneer clothes. i understand there is to be country music involved. woww. mostly music here is translated american music (Somebody loves you, somebody needs you, somebody thinks about you every single night... only in spanish), or imported american music (abba´s chiquitita, too, if that counts as american), or salsa.
i saw some of the euro cup last week. at that point, holanda was doing ok... no idea what´s happening now, but i have this affection for the whole thing! i wish i could watch it. there is a television in my house, but it´s in one of the back rooms that i´ve never been in, and i don´t want to intrude.
isabel (the baby,r emember?) likes me sooo much. she always starts laughing and babbling when i go hang out by her stroller. everyone in mi casa thinks that´s really divertido,a nd they joke about how i´m going to teach her english.
OH, MOM, good call on the photographs!!! i´ve told mi mama all about you guys, of course, but the other night, when i offered to show her my photos, she got all excited. it was super fun. her daughter mayra came out to look, too, and we had this great conversation. then rosa went and got one of her (many) albums,a nd showed me photos, too. turns out she´s been to paris (?????), and she took photos of the beautifully wide, smoooth roads, which made me laugh. but also the torre de eiffel and such. she´s also taken to staying late over dinner with me, while we both drink MorCaf (i told youa bout that, right? cafe para mormones? like postum) and eat sugary bread, and telling me about her life. like how she married young, and studied at night for years while her kids were babies,a nd stuff like that. very cool.
my spanish teacher makes me have HARD conversations with her in spanish. like explaining finer points of LDS doctrine, and encapsulating the current political views of the american youth ... what the heck, i would even have a hard time doing this stuff in english. we spent forever talking about guantanamo, because she had it confused with some immigration prison in miami, where her daughter lives.
today she and i went out walking, and some random dudes in a pickup (that's a spanish word, guys, pickup) drove past us and yelled, ¨goodbye, stepmother!¨ to her because we looked like a madre y hija pair, but obviously not related by blood. it made us laugh super hard.
i love love love love love you guys!!! emma, i hope camp was AWESOME! (mom, you too.) elmo, you´re a hilarious kid, i love your emails, viva la vida is chill... i streamed some of it off la internet before i left... maybe you should buy it. and eat lots of good american junk food for me while you´re away from our health-conscious family (om nom nom nom... yeah, that was just an excuse to use om nom nom)... i´ll let you know if we happen to get the cd here in san felipe... but my expectations are low. sam, i´m assuming you´re getting these by post... i tell EVERYONE about you, and today i saw the missionaries in town and yelled, ¨hey elders!!!¨at them because i thought it would make you happy if someone did that to you. and also i´m totally digging my teeth into the doctrine of happiness. singing hymns while i wash tables in the echoey kitchen pavilion is the best.
BESOS, ruth!
Postcards from Guatemala - 20 June 2008
so today i worked with diego, who´s in charge of donaciones. we drove his pickup truck way high up in the mountains to santo tomas las milpas altas, where there´s some kind of storage facility or packaging plant or something that wanted to donate boxes and boxes and boxes full of frozen fruit chunks: melon and mango. we made two trips, and i think they´re doing more tomorrow, just filling the truck (and stacking so high i thought the boxes would surely tumble out, even though we criss'crossed rope over the whole thing... the mountain roads are really curvy) and unloading it back at the dreamer center. my hands were so freaking cold. but then diego bought me doritos. who knew processed food could taste so good?
i talked a whole bunch more to jessi, who´s the harvard student. she´s cool. i might go out with her tonight... i still haven´t decided. depends if tonight, like the last jillion nights, is super rainy. i did decide,though, that i´m not going to lake atitlan with her and liz and eli (the funnest crowd of volunteers) tomorrow. it would require taking the very sketch chicken bus. and buying a ticket from a sketch travel agency in town... even though the ticket would only be like $14. i´ll stay home and read dostoevsky. if it´s not rainy, i´ll walk around town.
cue the thunder. haha that was good timing.
i heard ¨girls just wanna have fun¨ playing in town the other day, and it made me smile.
guate is reminding me of bosnia! how odd, you know? but i think it´s the cobbled streets, and the laundry hanging up to dry everywhere, and the old cement of the houses paired with the occasional shiny new door, and the wood smoke, and the little tiny stores selling curious junk food. the graffiti i don´t understand.
angel took my photo today to go up on the board of volunteers. it´s a whiteboard, and i was sad that i didn´t have an information card up there, so i drew one, with a little smiley face where my photo ought to go. nieto asked my name (nieto is patricio atkinson´s adopted son), and i pointed at my ¨¨card¨¨ and said, i´m ruth, don´t you recognize me? teasing him. and he went, ahhh it´s the smile. hahaha.
i met two dutch volunteers! geraldine and mijlaan. i talked to geraldine about pannekoeken, because they were making fresh tortillas in the cocina this morning, and she always has a hard time with them, because the dough is different. i got one fresh, though... it was delicious. tortillas come fresh to rosa´s door every morning, from some mayan women who walk around selling them. yummmm.
LOVE YOU!
ruth
i talked a whole bunch more to jessi, who´s the harvard student. she´s cool. i might go out with her tonight... i still haven´t decided. depends if tonight, like the last jillion nights, is super rainy. i did decide,though, that i´m not going to lake atitlan with her and liz and eli (the funnest crowd of volunteers) tomorrow. it would require taking the very sketch chicken bus. and buying a ticket from a sketch travel agency in town... even though the ticket would only be like $14. i´ll stay home and read dostoevsky. if it´s not rainy, i´ll walk around town.
cue the thunder. haha that was good timing.
i heard ¨girls just wanna have fun¨ playing in town the other day, and it made me smile.
guate is reminding me of bosnia! how odd, you know? but i think it´s the cobbled streets, and the laundry hanging up to dry everywhere, and the old cement of the houses paired with the occasional shiny new door, and the wood smoke, and the little tiny stores selling curious junk food. the graffiti i don´t understand.
angel took my photo today to go up on the board of volunteers. it´s a whiteboard, and i was sad that i didn´t have an information card up there, so i drew one, with a little smiley face where my photo ought to go. nieto asked my name (nieto is patricio atkinson´s adopted son), and i pointed at my ¨¨card¨¨ and said, i´m ruth, don´t you recognize me? teasing him. and he went, ahhh it´s the smile. hahaha.
i met two dutch volunteers! geraldine and mijlaan. i talked to geraldine about pannekoeken, because they were making fresh tortillas in the cocina this morning, and she always has a hard time with them, because the dough is different. i got one fresh, though... it was delicious. tortillas come fresh to rosa´s door every morning, from some mayan women who walk around selling them. yummmm.
LOVE YOU!
ruth
From Jon 6/21/08
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008
Subject: Zoo siab thiab txaus ntshai
Nyob zoo!
We've had some really awesome lessons with the Thao sisters (Molly and so forth), and they are preparing to be baptized...into OUR church! Very exciting stuff. The scary thing is that next Tuesday is transfer calls, and there is almost no chance we will both be able to stay, what with 3 new Elders coming in. I may have to get invited to do a musical number at the baptism to ensure I can be present in the event I get moved.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is running a Star Wars exhibit for only about two and a half weeks, so we caught it today. It was stellar. Very cool. They had a lot of the original props, costumes, and models from the movies, and lots of very fun things to do. The museum also had a lot of other really neat interactive exhibits. Many people thought we worked there and asked us questions. We had happened to have studied the map thoroughly as soon as we had arrived, and could answer their questions. I also happened to have had studied much about science and had worked at a science camp, so I could answer most questions about the exhibits as well. I figured there was no point in embarrassing them by telling them I didn't work there. :)
Thanks for all your letters! I love you all to bits!
-Elder Muaj Yeej
Subject: Zoo siab thiab txaus ntshai
Nyob zoo!
We've had some really awesome lessons with the Thao sisters (Molly and so forth), and they are preparing to be baptized...into OUR church! Very exciting stuff. The scary thing is that next Tuesday is transfer calls, and there is almost no chance we will both be able to stay, what with 3 new Elders coming in. I may have to get invited to do a musical number at the baptism to ensure I can be present in the event I get moved.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is running a Star Wars exhibit for only about two and a half weeks, so we caught it today. It was stellar. Very cool. They had a lot of the original props, costumes, and models from the movies, and lots of very fun things to do. The museum also had a lot of other really neat interactive exhibits. Many people thought we worked there and asked us questions. We had happened to have studied the map thoroughly as soon as we had arrived, and could answer their questions. I also happened to have had studied much about science and had worked at a science camp, so I could answer most questions about the exhibits as well. I figured there was no point in embarrassing them by telling them I didn't work there. :)
Thanks for all your letters! I love you all to bits!
-Elder Muaj Yeej
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Pimentels invade Central America
Anne and I just got back from a great trip - we went to El Salvador, where she served her mission. It was fantastic - we saw ancient ruins, volcanoes, and a bunch of people who love Anne almost as much as I do. We stayed for ten days, and had a great time.
We were disappointed that we missed Ruth during our brief visit to Guatemala. Oh well.
We have about a billion pictures, so we put them into these slideshows if you are interested to see.
We were disappointed that we missed Ruth during our brief visit to Guatemala. Oh well.
We have about a billion pictures, so we put them into these slideshows if you are interested to see.
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