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This is the where we lived......right on the Pan American Highway!

Well, I made it to Guatemala. This is going to be super scatterbrained and probably not coherent, so sorry for the spelling errors or Spanish words. We don’t have a lot of time and I just wanted to make sure the parents knew that we made it and tell you a little about this place. The flight was.........well, pretty long and crappy. We got to Atlanta at 3 in the morning and had 5 hours to hangout. We got into Guatemala at 1 in the afternoon. It is so beautiful here!!! We have a pretty sweet house (compared to our neighborhood) -you’ll have to see pictures-it’s pretty ghetto. There are 13 of us in the house, 3 guys and 10 girls. We have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, but that means there are 5 girls to each bathroom. We do have hot water sort of. It’s the electric showers so I feel like I’m right back in Argentina. We found out today that if all 3 showers are being used it blows the electrical box and when there is no power there is also no water. So we have no lights or water and they aren’t coming to fix it until tomorrow (hopefully tomorrow anyway). The greatest part of it is that I was one of the people in the shower when it all went dead. Luckily there was a bucket of cold water out back so I could get the soap off. Man, I love this!!!! No really, I do. The church is just a five minute walk from our house and there is a ward there. Some of us went to choir practice yesterday and it was great.....2 hours....but great. We sang "Dios Te Bendice" over and over again. I can’t remember what it’s called in English but it’s the one that has the same tune as ¨"Go tell Aunt Rhode¨¨.....you know.....go tell aunt rodie the old grey goose is dead.....that one? Well anyway, it was a kick in the pants anyway. Today we ran errands and got cinder blocks to make book shelves and put our beds up. We are setting up a lot of the projects this week. We are trying to help fund and give them manual labor to get running water out to a community of 600 people. On Wednesday we are going to Antigua to set it up so we can volunteer at the orphanage a couple times a week. Then on Friday we are going down to Lake Atitlan. I hear it is beautiful there. There is a pueblo called Solalá (or something like that). But we have to cross the lake to get to them. Apparently they are severely malnourished because they live too far from any markets and can only grow fruits and vegetables in the rainy season. So for 9 months of the year they don’t eat fruits and vegetables. So we are hopefully going to be able to go out there every other week and teach nutrition and square foot gardening. Some guy has spent a lot of time out there and says he has never seen nutrition that bad. We are also set to teach English a few days a week and also business classes. We are going to be pretty busy, but it’s exciting. Well, I know I had a lot more to say, but I guess you’ll just have to wait till next time. Thanks to those of you who already emailed me. I'll try to get some personal emails out. I love you all!!!
Kirsti