There is an ice cream place right down the street from us, the only one in town! We had been there before only to get popsicles, but yesterday we tried the banana split and fell in love! They have real whipped cream and real ice cream! I am for sure not going to come back as skinny as I thought!
We ate dinner with the elders and one of them was cold so I let him borrow my sweater! We were teasing him saying that he looked really femmy and then he made the perfect pose for the picture!
Elder Reyes and Elder Ramirez. Both from mexico!
Kass and Maxi! Best friends forever! They made friendship bracelets together.
Today we delivered another pila! We are so grateful that we have so many people who are willing to lift those things because here is no way that we could do it ourselves, in fact, when the men are there we just step back and let them do their thing! The missionaries helped us today which was awesome! They were such a huge help. The family was so appreciative! She made us some delicious corn drink! Neither of us like it, but the Elders sure did! We let them drink all of ours. She also made tamales with spicy beans in the middle. I really liked them! Kass, not so much. It was so nice of her to make us food to show how grateful she was! Her husband who has spine problems even came out and attempted to lift the pila with the rest of the men. We were really impressed that even though he was suffering, he was still trying.
There is a boy in town who is just a little flaming gay. He wears the girliest clothes and talks in a high pitched feminine voice. He saw me dancing at the gym activity and has been begging me to teach him a dance class ever since. I seriously can’t wait! Every girl needs a great gay friend. I insisted we get a picture together, I hope this captures a little bit of his “amazingness!” p.s. pay no attention to the fact that I look like a drowned rat. It rains a lot.
This is the Spradlin's daughter, Natalie.
So this weekend we went to Coban, which is a 4.5 hour CROWDED bus ride on windy carsick like roads! Carolina, Guillermo’s wife, had to go to Coban for a work meeting so we went along with her!
We left at 3 in the morning and we were shocked how many people were up and riding the bus! They just kept packing them in! Luckily, we were able to sit in the front both ways! It was so much fun and well worth the carsick drive! Honestly, the only reason we went was for the food. We had heard that there was a dominos, subway, and McDonalds and we were pretty desperate for something new and american! We ate all three of these things and were very stuffed! It was so crazy to see the contrast. The mall in Coban looks like a mall you would see in the states! At least I think so… I haven’t seen a mall in the states for a while haha. We also stocked up on the essentials, nutella, peanut butter, ritz and oreos, and some other snacks. They were about double the prices in the US but it was well worth it. Some fun things happened on our trip!
We are sad that we are missing halloween, but didn't want to spend money on a costume that no one would understand, so this is our halloween picture for the year!
While we were in Coban we needed a taxi to get from the Plaza to the bus. It isn’t that far away, but we were in a hurry because we were going to miss the bus! We stopped a Taxi driver and asked him how much it would cost for the short trip. He told us 20 Ketzales and Carolina said, “no 15!”. He was really hesitant and then I told him that the other taxi did it for 15. He finally obliged and let us in the taxi. While we were driving he was asking us where we were from and we told him the USA. He was telling us that he has been practicing some English with the people who travel to Coban. He pulled out a notebook that had simple phrases written down, such as, what is your name, where are you from, etc. I told him we should practice speaking in English! I started off with something very simple, I asked his name. He told me his name was David. I then moved on to something much more complicated. I knew his vocabulary couldn’t be too broad, so I decided to be bold. I asked him in a rapido voice, “Do you always try to rip off the white people? Is this some hobby of yours? Why did you tell us 20 when the real price is 15? You think we have money? Are you trying to rip us off?” and so forth. It was hilarious. He had no idea what I was saying and he was just laughing his head off because he couldn’t understand. Kassara was in the backseat laughing her head off as well! We found out that he was a member and that he talks to the missionaries a lot and that is how he learned some English. I asked him if he ripped the missionaries off too. He still didn’t have an answer. It was hilarious. We love being able to say whatever we want and not be understood, although we fear that we will have the same tendencies when we get back to the states, and that would not be good. There was a bit more English in Coban than there is in Senahu. There were two guys who screamed, “I love white girls!” out their truck window. So flattering.
SUBWAY!
The view of the nice mall!
On the bus ride home we were in crazy moods and we were just eating our little lychees enjoying life. I had my feet in the middle compartment at the front of the bus and gave the bus driver a wave with my toes and said, “hola!” Everyone was looking at me like I was a freak. Another incident occurred when the bus driver stopped in Teleman (like 2 hours from Senahu) and was just talking to some people outside for 30 minutes! We were impatient, and also in a crazy mood. I hopped up in the driver seat and started honking the horn. Then I put the bus in gear and started to drive. Well, in this bus, reverse is where my first gear usually is. I didn’t have my contacts in and it was dark, so I couldn’t tell that I was in reverse! I started driving and was only going backwards! Turns out the bus driver was behind the bus talking and I kind of ran him over. Don’t worry , no one was injured, but the bus driver hurried up! He still likes me. I saw him in the street again and he told me he would teach me how to drive if I wanted to learn. I told him that I know how to drive in the states and he said, “yeah but that’s an automatic. Cars here are different because they are manual.” I tried explaining that my car is manual at home and that I was just confused because first gear was in a different spot, but he wasn’t getting it! I can’t imagine something like that happening in the states.
Little baby nerd outfit we found! It had a little fanny pack!
A chicken eating a dead baby chick :( Sad
So in the weird language of kekchi there are many words that are similar to English so we have learned to be careful what we say. For example eat is butt hole in kekchi. We were wondering why the kekchi women were laughing so hard while the missionaries were encouraging each other to finish all their food saying “eat, eat, eat!” Know we know. Haha Another word that is the same with a completely different meaning is kiss; in kekchi a kiss is a fart. One day while we were walking in the market Ashley’s obsessed young lover Mario saw us and told Ashley he would like a kiss. I (kass) told him that she would be happy to give him a kekchi kiss. He was not at all amused but some kekchi folks close by sure got a kick out of it.
I don’t know if we have mentioned this but there are bugs EVERYWHERE! A couple of days ago we were eating at pollo express and I felt something crawling on my leg, I looked down to see a coach roach the size of a baseball! (that might be a slight exaggeration but it was certainly close to that big) I started screaming and Guillermo hit it off my leg and stomped on it. Needless to say my chicken did not taste so fresh after that. Meanwhile, Ashley was gorging herself with ice cream without a care in the world.
Today was probably one of the greatest days of our lives. We had seen a family a couple of days who was in need of help and we had been wanting to go back for quite a while. Not only was the family really poor, but the mom was very neglectful and unknowledgeable. Although the family had a pila and running water, it had probably been months since the kids had had a bath. Today when we went to visit, the five youngest kids (all under the age of 8) were home alone with no food in the house. And a little bit earlier the two oldest children had been playing down by our house which means the three babies were completely alone. All of the kids had ragged, dirty clothes and no underwear. The youngest three didn’t even have pants, but were left sitting in the mud with bug bites all over them. (this is one of the families we mentioned earlier with the picture of the little naked malnourished boy). We gave all of the kids their new clothes and underwear, cleaned them up a little with wet wipes, and brushed and did their hair for them. We also gave the oldest boy some money to run and by some food for himself and his siblings. When I started dressing the 3 year old little boy he looked up at me with the biggest smile and Guillermo said he was going to cry. It was such a great feeling. They were all so excited to have new clean clothes and just to have attention. We held and hugged the kids for about an hour and none of them wanted to leave our sides. We returned later that night so Guillermo could talk to the mother. He told her that he was afraid her children would be kidnapped if they were always home alone and told her that there was a government paid daycare for her children where they could eat and play with the other children while she was gone. He also talked to her about the importance of hygiene for the little kids and we gave each of the kids a toothbrush and toothpaste. We also gave the mom soap for the family. Two of the children were very malnourished and one had a very swollen and lumpy looking arm due to bug bites. We offered to take the kids to the free medical clinic but the mother said she would take them on monday. I really hope that she woke up a little and will try harder to take care of her kids. In words of Guillermo “making a baby is fun but they are hard to raise, that is the problem.” -kass
We went to a baptism at the church today! It was awesome! I love seeing how many people come out to support their friends and family. They were an hour late of course, but they eventually showed up. When they first entered the font they only had the water in the font up to thigh level. They filled it up a little more and then started to baptize. They had to try 3 different times to baptize him because the water was so shallow and his knee couldn’t be immersed. There was such an awesome spirit in the room and we are so glad that we went. Its amazing how the spirit can still be felt even when you don’t understand exactly what is being said.
There is this group of boys who is always hanging out at a little tienda/barber shop right down the street from our house. Every time we walk by they say “hola mis amores!” For you people who don’t have the awesome Spanish vocab that we do, that means “hi my loves!” We like messing with them. We either ignore them, or reciprocate the love. This particular night we were buying something for dinner and they told Kass that they wanted to see her dance moves because they had seen her dance at the gymnasium activity! She did the splits and then it turned into a full on dance off! There were about 5 more kids who showed up and there were probably 10 boys total. They felt so cool to be dancing with the Americans!
I don’t know if we have emphasized enough how awesome we are here in Guatemala. Everyone loves us and we feel like celebrities. In fact, Kass and I were talking the other day and said that we don’t think that American celebrities would be treated any differently than us. We walk down the streets and people scream, KASS! Or ASHLEY! It gets exhausting having to respond to everyone. Being popular is not easy, people! This particular night, we were walking down the street and someone screamed “Kass!” she turned around and waved and then they asked if it was Kass or Cat. I instantly said, “cat como GATO!“ and Kassara kept trying to say her name over my loud voice but then finally gave up. They asked my name and I told them my name was Ashley. Kassara said “ella es ass!” and they all started chanting. Awesome. Let the battle between cat and ass begin!
Natalie and her dad holding pinkies. How precious!
While we were eating dinner at our favorite place, El Almacen, Kassara decided that she needs to eat slower because she eats like a whale and inhales her food. We were talking about table manners and how we need to be more proper. We came up with the grand idea that we would pretend that we were on a date and we would correct each other when we did something wrong. We were completely serious about this when we first started. We attempted for a few minutes and then it just got hilarious. We were acting really awkward and weird. This was one of the times that we wished that we spoke the language because we were pretty hilarious. Kassara kept asking me with a strange look on her face, “So where do you come from originally?” or said some inappropriate things. Kassara told me that she liked my tongue, and then asked me if I prefer milk or cheese. I asked what type of milk and she looked down at her boobs and said, “don’t get any ideas.“ Pretty sure the people in the restaurant think that Kassara has some problems, maybe a case of the downs. I guess they will continue to think that until we can explain to them in a deep conversation that Kassara is just different than the rest of us. J I love her.
I fell in love with the cutest down syndrome girl EVER. She was so sweet and just kept hugging me.
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