Nicole tiene nueve meses ahora [is nine months old today].

The imagination of a child…..

Here are some pictures of our cozy [ a.k.a. little ] apartment. We have this beautiful courtyard view from our porch. The rest of the building you see is used as a hotel. So sometimes late at night or early mourning [4 am] we hear groups of people yelling and laughing and having a high old time. But for the most part it’s pretty peaceful. On the photos looking towards the apartment, on the left is another building where the school is. So we have to walk about 40 ft to the stairs and then up one level and we are at school. Like a typical Guatemalan place it is surrounded by a wall and gate and they have a guard. So Christina can run around outside and we don’t have to worry. All the workers here know her pretty good by now and always talk to her [in Spanish of course]. For those of you who were wondering how school is, just think back to 1st grade when you were learning how English works. Well that’s how it is but in a language you don’t know! We are learning our verbs [ I am, you are, they are, we are, so on and so forth]. I guess all in all everything is going good so far but man I thought language in school was bad now I’m trying to learn Spanish with a teacher that hardly knows any English! The rainy season started and now it will rain about every afternoon/night for 4 or 5 months. O yea we live at the school so that I can go from 8:30 to 12 and Louise can go from 1 to 4 so we don’t have to stick our hijas with anyone and also traffic is horrible in the mourning and afternoon. What normally takes 25 min. on Sunday or at lunchtime takes 1 hour and 15 min. in the mourning and the afternoon during the week.

Easter in Guatemala. These alfombras are made out of colored sawdust and flowers. It’s a catholic thing, the nicer the alfombras the more devout they are. After they are finished creating these alfombras, they have parades [that are very slow] and they walk on top of the alfombras through the whole village. The people in the parades carry floats that depict Jesus carrying the cross or being crucified. Easter is held as having more importance then Christmas.