Laughs and a break in the rain

Alex and I went back to school after lunch yesterday to watch the movie “sin nombre” but no one could find the DVD so they had us watch “Estella de la línea” instead. This was a documentary about prostitutes in Guatemala City who made a soccer team and became semi-famous. Only in Central America would soccer playing prostitutes become famous.

After the movie we realized it had stopped raining!!! We enjoyed a slow walk to the central park where we finally found a café that had good Guatemalan coffee. Alex was elated to have good coffee! It was really expensive by Guatemalan standards (6 Quetzals) but that’s only 75 cents for us and it is way better and cheaper than Starbucks and is served by a cute little Guatemalan lady in traditional clothes.

The cafe - had great coffee and great crepes.

This reminds me of the colonial influence of Spain in central America.

A cute street in the city.

Alex walking without an umbrella for the first time.

Street with volcano view.

View of the city from our school

Another view of the city from our school.

After dinner we usually spend about an hour or so talking with our host family about politics and life in general. Last night was especially fun because we had brought coloring books and crayons with us and we gave them to their two little boys. They were so excited you would have thought it was Christmas. They had never seen so many colors of crayons (a 64 color box). While the kids happily colored the “adults” chatted. Part of the fun in learning a new language is knowing that you are going to make big mistakes as you learn. I was explaining to my hosts some of the new phrases I had learned in class. My new favorite is “no tenga pena”. This basically translate into the command “don’t worry.” However I miss pronounced the phrase and said “no tenga penE”. Which translate into the command “don’t have a penis.” Opps!!! I turned a hundred shades of red and we all laughed really hard! Our host family are about the same age as Alex and I and we are really enjoying their company.

On a side note, did I mention yet that the police in Guatemala carry very used double barrel shotguns? It is kind of scary but they are very nice and always say hello when we pass them. It don’t think it will be local violence that will get us while we are here, I think will be the traffic. They don’t have to have any sort of test or training to drive a care here and they drive like maniacs.