I’m out in Uspantan now and have been since the 12th. It’s real nice out here. The weather has been awfully Seattle like though, which is a little sad. Haha. This is the same place I was when I went to Guatemala and took all the pictures on my website. I think there are a couple months left in the rainy season and then it’ll start getting sunny again. It’s actually a little sunny right now. ☺ Which is pretty rare. Haha. I’m chilling in a hammock right now on the roof. Then when I finish writing this I’m gonna go the internet café and post it. At least if they have service. Yesterday they didn’t when I went. It’s a real nice internet café though, the internet is at least half as fast as in Seattle and one of the people that works there lets me plug in my laptop (I’m kinda counting on that to post this haha). You’re probably wondering what I’ve been doing out here the last week and a half, huh? The day after we got here and yesterday we went out to Don Salomon’s cornfields to cut the corn. That consists of Don Salomon and his brother, Don Humberto (who’s 82 and in better shape than most American 50 year old guys), cutting the corn and laying it out on the ground for the rest of the people to carry down the muddy treacherous slope to the truck. I fell twice the first time we did it. There was plenty of mud to soften my fall though. Haha. The cornfields are on hills so it’s pretty tricky to walk down with a bunch of corn on your shoulder. Then after we pack the back of the truck about a foot higher than the cab we drive back to the house. At the house we separate the ears from the stalks and into to different piles for the different types of corn (I’m not so good at the distinguishing between types part haha). After we have it separated we let one type of corn dry and pull the kernels of the other kind for tortillas. I think. And I’m not sure what we’re gonna do with the other type when it’s dry. I think we might take the kernels of that too. When we were desgranando (the Spanish word for dekerneling) we put some cobs that still had kernels on them in the fire and cooked them then ate them with lemon. It was delicious. Kinda like fresh cornnuts but softer. Mmmm. Another thing I’ve been doing is putting plastic on the back of all framed paintings, photos, diplomas, you name it. The walls here get damp so some of them start to mold and my job is to stop them from molding. There are about 80 framed things in the house, so it’s been taking me quite some time. I got 5 left though. I’ll probably try and finish that today. That’s all for now, but I’m gonna start writing more frequently. I’ll try for at least once a week. 

I know it shouldn´t surprise me, but it´s weird being only with people that don´t speak any English. When I was in Germany everyone spoke English to some extent, but here the only English is when I want to say something and blurt it out before realizing that people probably won´t understand. Haha. The language hasn´t been too much of a problem though. I really have to focus to understand a conversation, but can usually understand when someone is speaking to me. I´m able to communicate, but I´ve got a cold so pronunciation is a little difficult right now which is kinda frustrating. I´m currently working on reading Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal and it´s actually helping my Spanish a lot I think. It´s just nice getting to see perfect grammar written down so I can really think about it and if I have any questions about which tense to use when or anything like that I can usually find it by just reading a few pages of the book.

I met up with the Hernandez family on Saturday night. They came to our hotel and had dinner with us. Don Salomon and Doña Mery are two of the nicest people I´ve ever met, and they come up to about my waist. Haha. I´m afraid I might stand out a bit having almost a foot on everyone, red hair, freckles, and light skin. Haha. The last two nights I´ve been staying with their daughter Shelley and her 4 kids, who are ballpark my age. I think Don Salomon is planning on going out to Uspantan within the week, but I´m still not entirely sure what´s going on.

Yesterday we went to church with the whole family, all 13 people. I still haven´t figured out everyone´s name... haha but I´m getting there. The service was very strange to me. It started with normal worship, then there were video advertisements for about ten minutes, then some dude came out and sang along to his own music video (it was a worship song, but still weird). Eventually the pastor came out and gave a sermon on how Jesus doesn´t want us to go it alone, during which he encouraged anyone who didn´t have a cellphone to get one. Multiple times. At least that´s how I understood it. I might just be crazy.

Today I "worked" at the hospital. For the first hour I tried to figure out what model the back-up generator was at the hospital because they needed to replace a piece. I didn´t have any luck though because all the labels had been removed from it. Then for the rest of the day I rode around in a car with Don Alvaro (a guy that works at the hospital) as he went on work related errands and I got a pretty good tour of Guatemala City.

I decided I don´t hate beans today. Funny how that works out. I never accept a food I don´t like unless I´m in another country, and then I usually eat it with no problem. Haha. I had bean soup and then uh... another kind of bean soup today. Beans are kind of a big deal here. Good thing I decided I can stand them. haha. They have this really strange cheese here that they make quesadillas with that are delicious. It might be goat cheese... but I hope I never find out for sure. Haha. They don´t call them quesadillas though. I can´t remember what they call them. They have different names here for everything than what it´s called as american mexican food. I kind of miss my good old American nachos though. Haha.

I think the plan for the week is to be here and then leave for Uspantan at the end of the week.

Adios,

Johnny

P.S. I´ve added my contact info to the right column.

I got into Guatemala city at about 11 PM last Sunday night. I was supposed to get in at 11 AM but the first plane I got on needed repairs, and I ended up being rerouted, getting on another broken plane, and having a delayed flight. But what counts is that I made it. :-) The next day we drove out to the Ixil (ee-sh-eel) region where Agros (agros.org) primarily works. It took us the whole day to get out there so we just had dinner and went to sleep when we got there. We visited two villages the next morning and I got to meet some kids at the villages. After I take a few pictures of them and show the pictures to them they pretty much follow me around wherever I go, wanting to see all the pictures I take because they hardly ever get to see themselves. I talked with a few of them and one thought that somebody on the trip was Rambo, but I told them he was in fact Rambo's brother. I was talking to a couple of kids and one said, "Eres muy grande, tu." which means you are very big. Then I just kind of laughed and one of the kids started squeezing my bicep. Haha. It was pretty hilarious. The day after that we went to the dedication for the Training Center. The whole building was dedicated to my dad by the Guatemalans which was really cool to see. Now we are at Lake Atitlán for the next few days. On Saturday I'm having dinner with the Hernandez family (the people I will be living with) and then driving out to Uspantan with them on Sunday. I'm pretty excited to be here.