(Roomates: Katie & Claudia) (Central Park) (J & K out to dinner, not common)
(Indigenous woman celebrating their saint) (view of city from hill)
(Wallace & Hippie, roommate's dog)
August and September have been good months. The weather here was beautiful. It was about 85 F everyday and comfortable at night. We got to experience the time of the year that is during the rainy season, but for about 3 weeks it stops raining; it is the most beautiful time of the year and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Kindra and her friend Katie would take the dogs hiking on Saturdays up to the top of Baul, which is a small mountain where there are bbq areas at the top and long slides for kids and adults. The slides are cement and it looks as though they poured it right down the side of the mountain… super fun! John had a “caught in a torrential downpour” experience, while on a hike with our roommate Josh and one of his friends. They decided to trek up towards Volcan Santa Maria, and ignore the impending signs of rain, and not take rain jackets. The journey up was fine but the three guys had to run down the mountain in cold rain and try to avoid the quickly growing river on the path. They made it home safe, cold and wet but safe.
(slides of fun!) (Heather, Kindra, and Claudia at the top of Baul) (half way point)
(dogs are digging in the trash)
John has been doing a lot of DJing (here the use the verb: pinchar, which means to pinch). He DJ’s at El Infinito on Thursday nights (which is great because Kindra works that night there too) and at El Cuartito every Wednesday night (where he works). Not only is it a fun pasttime for him to resurrect, but he also is getting paid! One party that John had a really great time DJing at was the “Fuentes Gorginas Party”. Fuentes Gorginas is a hot spring about an hour from Xela. Pedro, Kindra’s boss at the restaurant, organized the party and we all had our part in helping set up, work, enjoy good music and soak in the hot pools! It was one of those “only happens once a year” kind of parties and fortunately Kindra’s best friend Heather was here visiting and she was able to come too. Good fun! Once the month September hit many of the college students went back to their country to start school again. Business has been slow ever since. Kindra was working a lot because she had 3 jobs, but now she is only working a few days a week. No complaints from her!
(John Djing at El Cuartito) (Kindra's fellow coworkers) (making seiten, fake meat, with Carlos)
(hanging with the girls at El Infinito, Kindra's work) (Pedro, owner of Infinito, & Claudia)
Heather, Kindra’s best friend came in August to visit for a week and then travel a bit with her partner, Angel, who is from Guatemala. The live in L.A., California, but he has a lot of family that still lives here. We went to Guatemala City to pick Heather up, but since her flight was so early in the morning we wanted to get there a day early and spend the night. Angel’s cousin was nice enough to let some strangers stay at their house… we were very thankful to have met them and stay at their house. We also had planned to get our passports renewed at the immigration office. Luckily Carlos, Angel’s cousin, went with us to pick Heather up from the airport and helped us get all of the paperwork done. Wow, what a big help. I think we would have gotten lost just trying to get to the airport. On our way back from running around town, we stopped at a mall near by and met up with some of Kindra’s family. She has a cousin, Patricia, who lives in Guatemala and just my chance her mother was visiting her, whom Kindra had met several times at family reunions. We calculated that Patricia’s son would be Kindra’s 3rd cousin. It was great to finally met them since we had spoken over the phone several times, but never got the chance to meet in person. Heather hung around town with Kindra for a week until Angel came into town. Once he was here we drove down to a coffee finca, Angel roasts and sells coffee in L.A. It was strange being out of town since it had been awhile, especially the weather change. It got a lot hotter and humid. Let’s just say we were happy to be back in the Xela weather by the end of the day.
(Out to dinner with Heather & Angel) (Andrea, Claudia, Heather, & Kindra at Fuentes Gorgina's Party) (Angel's family that we stayed with near Guate city)
(taking friends back to town in the back of the truck after the Fuentes Gorgina's party)(Kindra and a few others got their faces painted by their artist friend Javier) (Kindra reuniting with her family!)
(exploring the coffee finca)
The month of September is like one big celebration. All of the schools’ marching bands have been practicing to get their rhythms and steps just right for the big day, Sept. 14th, Independence Day. But don’t think for a moment the party was just held on one day. Oh no, they took advantage of the whole month. There was at least one marching band a day that took up a whole street lane for about an hour forcing the local chicken buses to take an alternate route. You may be wondering if all of the other towns in Guatemala take Independence Day a seriously as the locals of Xela… well, not as much. Xela is actually the central celebration place for all of Central America. (It is independence for Central America, not just Guatemala). It’s kind of like Town Square in NYC on New Years Eve. On Sunday, the day before Independence Day, Xela hosted a 10K. Kindra has been running the track near where she teaches and thought it would be fun to take part. She and her friend got there just in time and joined the 200 or more people that also ran. John on the other hand, being the lame-o that he is did not take part in the race. But since then he has met a guy from the states who is training for the Xela ½ marathon, and is running more or less every day. It’s been great for him to find someone to run with, at a challenging pace, and with goals. Sept. 14th was Independence Day for Central America and boy can they throw a party. It was hard to decide what to do since they had so many options; there were concerts near the large roundabout, the ‘midnight yell’ at the central park, and the various restaurants and discos with their Independence Day specials. Kindra decided to go out with three of her girlfriends and wander around Central Park eating glutinous amounts of street food and waiting for the fireworks. They had a blast! John unfortunately had to work that night, but after he got off he went to DJ at a club. Unfortunately half way through his set the electricity went out in half the town. How common this has become for us.
(Jenn & Kindra) (The theater all lite up for Independence Day) (Loving the street food)
(street vendors during Independence Night) (The four of us had a last that night)
(another round of street food) (at midnight, fireworks went off in Central Park)
Our caramels have been doing great around town. We sell them at 5 different places around town and each week they sell out. It is not making us a ton of money, but enough to keep us fed. We also have been experimenting with peanut brittle and a snickers/turtle-ish type chocolate. They are yummy and we sell them at a few places.
Our recent endeavor has been to use the front hallway of our house as a second hand clothing shop. We sell used clothes that we find at the “Pacas” market. Pacas pretty much means packs (of clothes in this case). Clothes are donated from the U.S. and shipped down in huge ‘packs’ and then sold at the market, for CHEAP. Tables and tables of clothes, shoes, and blankets are piled up like mountains. People either come to do their own personal clothes shopping or to take it to their stores and sell, like us! There are certain days that you can get the stuff cheaper than others. For example, on Tuesdays, there is a table that sells everything for .50 centavos, which is about 6 cents U.S.! Last month I got an Rei rain jacket for 1 dollar. Some of the stuff we can’t help but keep for ourselves. Business is pretty slow, but we have sold some stuff. We’re putting the money we make towards paying rent.
(Rose, sitting on a mountain of clothes) (yeah, street vegetarian food!) (Kindra picking through the pile of clothes)
(John, working our paca store in the front hallway of our house)
Both John and Kindra have improved immensely in their Spanish understanding and speaking abilities, Kindra more so than John but for the amount of time they have been learning and practicing, equally impressive and accomplished. Kindra is studying with a teacher a couple days a week and also doing a one on one language exchange. John is not taking any classes, but is learning a lot of slang from the people at his work.
ciao ciao kindra and john
