The experience we had in the
airport on our way to Guat was unforgettable, and not in a good way. Thankfully
we were there 3 hours early to make sure that all of the fires were put
out! When we were checking our bags, the
lady helping us rudely told us that our bags were overweight because the weight
requirements were different internationally and that we had to take 20 pounds
out of each of our bags. There was NO
way that was going to happen. Our carryon bags were already stuffed to the brim
and we could barely carry them as it was. I asked how much it would cost to check
the extra weight and she said it was $140 for each of our overweight bags. We
kept asking her if there is any other option and she said that there wasn’t
unless we took out the weight. I told her we were doing this all for charity
and that all of the overweight baggage was supplies we were taking to Guatemala
to donate. She had no sympathy. I asked if I could talk to the supervisor and
she said that we could but that she wouldn’t say anything different. She also
said it would take 40 minutes to be able to talk to her. She called the supervisor
on the phone anyway and said, “yeah there is nothing we can do. She said the
same thing.” It was hard at this point because we didn’t want to miss our
flight, and no one in the airport cared if we missed our flight. So we were
contemplating what to do when the flight attendant told us to step aside to
another empty line and try to get our bags down to that weight. She was such a
witch. Kassara thought we should just pay the fee and get it over with because
we had no choice, but I couldn’t do it. That money could go way too far in
Guatemala to be spent on something so mundane and stupid! So I asked where the
supervisor’s office was and walked up there to talk to her. Even though the
witch said that I would have to wait 40 minutes, I didn’t even have to wait for
2 minutes. I explained the situation to her and she was very understanding and
sympathetic. We found a way to make it work and we didn’t have to pay the 280
dollars for our bags. There are 2 lessons to be learned here. 1. The squeaky
wheel gets the oil. 2. There is ALWAYS
something they can do! We were so
grateful that we were able to make our flight and keep our money!
The airplane had the awesomest touch screen tvs! You could play games, listen to music, watch a movie or watch a tv show!
The view of Guatemala City from the airplane!
Later that day, we got to Guatemala
City and spent the night in a really nice hotel! We went to Pizza Hut for
dinner because we knew it would be our last pizza for a while. Guillermo said
that Hawaiian was his favorite type of pizza. Kassara and I both don’t really
care for Hawaiian but we could tolerate it and wanted to get it for Guillermo.
We decided to get a half and half pizza. Guillermo ended up eating only
pepperoni and left the nasty Hawaiian for us. We were so confused! Why wasn’t
he eating the Hawaiian if it was his favorite? I asked him after why he didn’t
eat the Hawaiian and he said he didn’t notice it at first, but when he did, he
thought that we liked the Hawaiian more because we were eating it. What a
horrible miscommunication! We got to
hear how loud Guillermo snores in the night! If I had known him better I would
have thrown a pillow at his face!
Kassara snoozing by the pool!
People riding in hammocks above the animals!
We saw this happy, smiley baby and started talking to him. His parents handed him over to us and we were so happy! He loved us!
The next morning we headed for
Senahu! It is a 9 hour bus ride and you take 2 buses to get there. The first
bus isn’t bad at all, but the second makes you very motion sick and is SO
PACKED! We were at least 3 to a bench and there were people standing in the
aisles. It was so hot and packed! Kassara sat on my lap with a bunch of pillows
and we switched off a few times. It is
about a 4 hour drive on a bumpy bumpy road and the bus is just like a very old
school bus. All of our luggage was at the very back of the bus, and we thought
all of our important things were with us up front. When we finally arrived in
Senahu, Kass realized that some of her things were stolen. Some of these things
were, license and credit cards, chargers and cords, pepto bismol, and
headphones. It was a very sad day!
Us, sitting 3 to a bench with Angela. Notice how packed it is??
Video of the bus ride!
Senahu is Literally in the middle
of a jungle. It is crazy! The whole village is soo green and so lush. We love
it already! Everywhere we look we see crazy things that would never happen in
the states. For example- wives carrying their babies in little blankets tied loosely
around their heads or from loose nails in the wall… Or men and boys carrying
full grown live turkeys down the road. It is soo different!!
Us in a tuk tuk with Hermana Spradlin.
The Choc family
We went to one of the schools to
schedule a time to teach English and while we were there we started dancing and
playing with the kids. They loved it! As we were getting ready to leave the
teachers insisted that we come back for the independence day celebrations; They
would be having skits , dances and competitions on a little stage. What we didn’t
know is that they intended for us to be the stars of the show. They first asked
us to dance for the opening number. We started dancing around like nerds and
everyone loved it. The song went on and on and on, it was seriously about seven
minutes long. We tried to leave in the middle of the song but were cheered back
on. We were soo tired when the song finally finished.
After our act they had a couple
different little numbers including some dancing, singing, and balloon blowing
competitions. It wasn’t too exciting. Our favorite was a little boy wearing
safety goggles (his cool sunglasses) lip singing a popular song. He was so
cute. This was one of the numbers they had.
After about five numbers one of the
teachers asked if we could go up and dance again. We couldn’t believe that they
were asking us back after our first crazy attempt to entertain them. We were so
tired and really didn’t want to dance again but they insisted. This time we had
Fatima film.
We figured we were done after this
but ended going back up on the stage two different times throughout the show.
The first was a coke drinking contest
that I volunteered Ashley for. She hates coke so she was thrilled. (Serves her
right for making me eat her nasty tomatoes at the Orphanage. Revenge is a B…
haha) Ash, being the super competitive person that she is, won the competition
and was given a medal that she wore proudly for the rest of the day. And our last appearance on the stage was a
partner dance with two teenage boys who picked us from the crowd. It was a very
interesting experience to say the least.
This is us dancing before the performance!
Our backyard
This Man had grills shaped like stars on each tooth! Click on this pic and zoom in! It's pretty common here!
This was our competition!
We met the family we were staying
with and love them. We are staying with Antonio and Argentina (grandparents)
and their grandkids tony 15, Fatima 10, and Marcus 8. Right away we gave Fatima
and Marcus each a present and let them watch the Lorax with us in our room. We
thought Fatima was the sweetest girl and she came everywhere with us the first
couple of days. Little did we know what was up ahead.
Saturday we decided we would take
Fatima and Marcus swimming with us; Earlier that day I had looked in my purse
and realized that I was missing at least 100 kets (about twelve dollars). We
thought it was kind of strange but figured I had set it aside in our bedroom or
something. When we got to the house I set my zipped bag on the table and went
into the bathroom while Ashley was in the next room getting dressed. When we were ready to go I grabbed my bag and
realized that another 105 kets were missing; we had only been in the house for
about five minutes so we knew it had to be one of the kids. Ashley started
questioning them but they acted clueless. Finally after a couple minutes the
kids ran out of the house and came back with the money, saying it was in the
street and that it must have fallen out of the bag. We told them this wasn’t
possible but they continued to act clueless.
After getting frustrated and not
being able to express ourselves very well in Spanish we went and got Sister Spradlin
to translate. We told the grandparents the situation and they eventually got
the kids to confess. Marcus took the money and Fatima covered for him. The
Grandparents were so ashamed and apologized over and over. The grandfather took
each of the little kids into his bedroom and whipped them with a belt. Ash and I
were already so frustrated because it was our second time being robbed and we
felt like we were causing tension in the home so we each had a little melt
down. Sister Spradlin reassured us that it wasn’t our faults and we shouldn’t feel
bad for what had happened.
A couple of days later we realized
that all of our little boy toys were missing from our suitcase, including a
special transformer toy we had set out for a little boy named Maximo. We were
just going to drop the issue until we heard that Marcus had a backpack full of
new toys that he was showing off to all of his friends at church. We decided it
was time to confront the grandparents again. Marcus lied for quite a while
before he finally brought us a bag of toys.
We told him we knew he had more and we wanted the transformer toy back.
He lied about it for another five minutes before he walked across the street
and got the transformer toy from a friend’s house. We know he has more toys and it worries us
that he took other things we just haven’t noticed missing yet. And he obviously
won’t confess until we interrogate him about each individual thing. We told the
kids that we couldn’t believe them anymore and that they broke trust, but they
didn’t care; they looked right through us and said that they had nothing to
say. We couldn’t believe their reactions. Who knows who we can trust.
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