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We woke up at 6:30 a.m. and then headed over to the house to be able to say good morning to the girls before they headed off to school. Paulina was already making pancakes for breakfast as we entered the house. She served them with butter and maple-flavored syrup. I held Eddy on my lap at the table and fed him small bites of my pancakes. Eddy played with his blocks at the table. He took the comb that the girls had used to do their hair and ran it through his black mop.
Fed and happy, Paola, Yoselin, and Yasmin walked off to school. I decided to do the dishes this morning, and I headed to the outdoor sink. They brought Eddy out in his high chair as company for me. He was playing with his conojito (little rabbit) stuffed animal. Aracely had my camera and ran around taking photos. Most of her photos have a very interesting effect - some parts are in focus while other parts appear to be swirling around. Craig decided to take a shower while I finished up the dishes. Vanesa was sitting at the dining room table doing homework - a report on indigenous Mayan dress. She cut out pictures of women in different traditional Mayan clothing and used a glue stick to paste them into her essay. As usual, Vanesa was very careful and deliberate with her work. I took a shower and got dressed. Paulina gathered her basket and tied Eddy onto her back with a piece of traditional woven cloth. Aracely, Paulina, Eddy, and I met Craig at Humberto's office. We ran into the girls' cousin Neli there. She was wearing a very cute dress and we got a photo of her wearing Craig's sunglasses. Craig, Aracely, Paulina, Eddy, and I then walked to the market. It was raining a bit as we left the house, so Paulina brought an umbrella. Aracely tried to carry it and it was bigger than she was. Eddy was wrapped up on his mother's back, safe and dry. Aracely was a little bit cranky this morning. She wouldn't hold our hands on the walk, and seemed to want to stop to buy snacks along the way. When she was denied, she was not very happy and insisted on walking by herself. But, as our walk proceeded, the rain soon cleared up, and so did Aracely's mood. I noticed a metal sculpture of a dinosaur skeleton in City Park near the market, and I asked Aracely to stand next to it for a photo. She went along with it (she's never one to refuse to be photographed), but she seemed a little nervous – like she didn’t trust turning her back on the scary dinosaur. At the market, we went to the fish area, which is in a small passageway between the indoor market space and the outdoor market space. Paulina bought some fresh perch, which were weighed on a two pan scale. Aracely stopped in a small shop and picked up a box of Trix cereal and then plunked a quetzal (less than 20 cents) on the counter to pay for it. Everyone laughed, and Paulina paid the difference. I took a photo of Aracely hugging her Trix box. Craig and I bought some Gatorades at this same little store. We came home and Aracely immediately had a bowl of Trix. We all sat around the table and ate some fruit from the fruit bowl that Juana had so kindly given us yesterday. Paulina cleaned the fish and prepared lunch, and Yoselin, Yasmin, and Paola arrived home from school. Yasmin asked for my gift from last night back and I took her into our room to get it. It turned out that she really just wanted the box and ribbon, to re-use it. She placed some candies inside and gave it to Craig as a gift. The girls gave him some small candy in a small plastic container and it had a tiny little plastic spoon to go with it.Vanesa, dressed in her blue school uniform, headed off to her afternoon classes. Terry, the family's dog from our last visit, came into their yard. This was the first time that we had seen him on this visit. He had "found a wife" (as Humberto put it) and had some puppies several streets over, and had run away to live there. The girls had been sad and had missed him, and Humberto said that once in a while he would come by to visit. Well, here he was, walking right into their house as if he had never left, curling up in a corner to take a nap. It was good to see Terry, as we had had a lot of fun with him last year, and we knew that the girls enjoyed having him around. Humberto was home for lunch today. Paulina served the fresh perch, rice, and tomato, cucumber, and onion salad for lunch. My stomach hadn’t been feeling all that great since I woke up this morning, and unfortunately I wasn't able to finish my lunch, delicious though it was. I decided to take a rest in our room. Meanwhile, Craig played with the girls and went with them to Humberto’s office. Their cousin Josue came over to play with them as well, and Craig found that Josue is getting much less shy as he grows older. He even sat on Craig's lap for a photo! It didn't rain at 3 o'clock today, which was unusual. We assume it was probably because it rained briefly this morning instead. When I woke up from my nap at 4 o'clock, Craig and I went to sit in the dining room. Juana was there, holding a sleeping Eddy. We chatted with her and Rocio for a while. Humberto came in and asked if Craig could go with him to his office, as he was having computer problems. Craig went with him to try to help, while I stayed with the girls in the dining room. The girls did their homework. We watched Lindsay Lohan dubbed in Spanish in "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" on the Disney Channel. This is what the U.S. exports for entertainment? Craig came back from Humberto's office. Because I was feeling under the weather, I was also freezing cold. This is not something that usually happens to me in Guatemala in July, and I had to borrow several layers of clothes from Craig. We had our afternoon tea and bread and played with the kids around the dining room table. As Paulina prepared dinner, she tied Eddy onto her back with a piece of cloth. He happily looked around while she puttered around the house. Yoselin took a drawing of a parrot that she had done, glued it to a piece of cardboard, and cut it up into a puzzle. She and Rocio and I had fun putting it back together a few times. Paulina served us a nice chicken soup for supper, which felt really comforting to my sensitive stomach. The girls put "Malcolm in the Middle" on the TV. We sang along to the theme song with Yoselin. Once again it was cute to see her trying to sing English words that she doesn’t know. She seemed amazed that we actually knew the words ourselves. It was the episode where Reese reads his mother's diary. Not knowing it is his mother, he gets a crush on the writer. When he found out her identity, it generated a lot of laughter from Paulina and the girls. I developed a major headache, and ended up going to bed at 9 o’clock. Humberto went to the store and bought me some Gatorade and medicine, which was so sweet of him. Craig visited with the family in the dining room as the girls drew pictures and wrote notes for us. Craig came to bed at around 11:45. We went to sleep at 12 en punto (on the dot). |
     
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