Guatemala

Thursday 12/29/2011 - Arts and Crafts, Lago Atitlan

We woke up at 8:30 a.m. The kids came into the room to say good morning and started playng with the computer. Eddy was in a much better mood today after a good night's sleep, and he came over for hugs and cuddling.

We all went over to the dining room for breakfast of toast with strawberry Ana Belly jelly. They had bought some fresh orange juice from Paulina's sister Olga. Humberto had gone to work bright and early this morning, and the girls were watching Pocahontas on the Disney Channel during breakfast. After breakfast, we hung out with the kids in our room for a while. All of them were enjoying playing pinball on the netbook.

Junior came over and we went upstairs with the kids to take a look at the construction. Nice windows had been installed up there. The four additional guest rooms were coming along nicely. The interior walls were in place, as were the ceilings. There was a lot of construction debris on the floor, but things were definitely coming together! The bathrooms didn't have their fixtures yet. The kids found some barbells of which the weights were made of concrete. They looked like something out of the Flintstones. We had seen these on previous visits, and also in old photos of Humberto working out during his boxing days. Junior and Yoselin held the barbells aloft for photos.

As we came back downstairs Craig, Aracely, and Eddy stopped and sat with Terry the dog who was hanging out on the staircase overlooking the yard. Terry is a dog who comes and goes as he pleases, and he is not always around when we visit. He is a nice friendly dog and we enjoy our time with him.

The girls were eager for more "surprises," so we gathered everyone at the dining room table and brought out some craft supplies - rainbow colored embroidery floss and colorful wooden beads with alphabet letters on them. Everyone dug into the beads, including Junior and Josue, spelling out their names and then stringing the beads onto embroidery floss. The floss had come with color-coded round cardboard "looms" which were supposed to make it easy to weave intricate patterns. I tried one but soon found myself hopelessly lost. Paulina tied pieces of embroidery floss onto the chair and began to expertly weave bracelets with beads spelling out Craig's name and mine. We had never really seen her do handicrafts before, and it just goes to show that she has a lot of talents.

After making a necklace with her own name, Yasmin made a bracelet which spelled out "Juan." She tried to hide it and we gently teased her about it. She said that it was one of Paola's friends. Yoselin had made herself a necklace with her name, and she made a ring which said "Poni", which was her nickname. Vanesa carefully wound up excess embroidery floss into neat bundles after pulling aside the letters of her name in light pink beads.. Aracely read my name in beads as spelled out by Paulina, and she asked me where the 'F' was. Budding English phonics skills! The bead stringing turned out to be a really fun activity that all of the kids and adults could enjoy together.

The kids were taking pictures with both of the cameras. Eddy was playing with his Tonka cars and garage, and the Wheel Pals. We had some nice fresh watermelon as a snack. Craig went into our room to take a shower.

I played with Eddy outside. He climbed the ladder against the house to be "mas alto" and I held on to him. Paola was using my good camera. Then Eddy went inside and Aracely climbed up on the ladder. Eddy was flipping through my pictures on the good camera, and I realized there were only a handful. I took the camera and my worst fears were realized - the pictures were gone. They had somehow been deleted while the kids were using the camera. I was devastated. We aren't able to visit the kids as often as we'd like, and photos from the happy times together are one of my most prized possessions. I searched my brain, trying to figure out exactly what had been lost. Yesterday morning I had downloaded some of the photos from the first day on my netbook. So I had lost everything from then til now, including yesterday's visit to the lake, and this morning's craft session. Luckily the old camera had been in circulation during those activities, so maybe we had some keepers from them.

I took my leave from the kids and ducked into the room, where Craig was taking his shower. I told him what had happened. He was obviously disappointed too, but he saw how upset I was and comforted me. He said to put the memory card aside, that maybe we would be able to find some software to recover the lost pictures if we didn't overwrite them. He got dressed and then encouraged me to walk around the property and take some replacement photos of the construction. I needed to be away from the kids for a few minutes to get myself back together, and they sensed it. They knew that I was very unhappy about the loss of the photos.

Paulina called us to lunch. She apologized about the photos which we thought was very sweet. We had spaghetti in a white sauce with ham in it and fresh pineapple juice. After we finished eating, Yoselin and Yasmin challenged us to impromptu arm wrestling matches.

The girls wanted to go back to the lake. We had enjoyed it a lot yesterday, so we readily agreed. They all wore shorts this time, since their pants had gotten so soaked yesterday. Eddy wanted to go too. Paulina told him he had to hold my hand and stay away from cars. So we headed off with Yasmin, Yoselin, Aracely, and Eddy. Even Terry the dog followed us. The girls swam in the water, and I stayed with Eddy in the shallow parts. The lake water was rough from the xocomil winds again, and both Eddy and I got wet from being splashed. Terry sat with Craig and watched the kids in the water. I walked with Eddy and Aracely on the dock. It was swaying in the waves and boats moored to it were hitting against it with some force. I held on to Eddy's hands tightly. Oblivious to the dangers, he just enjoyed throwing rocks into the water.

Soon after Aracely got out of the water, she felt cold and wanted to go back home. We hadn't remembered to bring towels, not knowing that the girls would go full-on swimming. We let Yoselin and Yasmin swim a while longer and then they got out of the water. They were immediately cold as well. There were no requests for ice cream today! I carried Eddy as we walked back home. The girls were already trying to get us to agree to take them back to the lake tomorrow. They enjoyed it so much, and it seemed to be something that they didn't really get to do a lot during this season. With the slightly cooler temperatures and rough afternoon waters, it is not the ideal season for swimming.

When we got home I took the opportunity to get out of my wet clothes and took a shower. Josue wanted to play Jenga with Craig outside. Once he got it set up, Eddy wanted to play too. Josue was very patient and helped Eddy learn how to play. Josue is really growing up. Paola had made herself scarce after the camera incident, but she broke the ice with us by giving us a piece of the cookie she was eating. Eddy brought his Tonka garage outside and he and Yasmin played with it. Eddy hadn't gone down for his nap after lunch, and he was starting to get tired. We stayed outside since the weather was so nice, and he wandered into the bedroom for a nap.

When it started to get dark, we headed inside. We sat at the dining room table and the girls watched "High School Musical" on TV. Yasmin took out the alphabet beads. Since they had been picked over already this morning, it was more difficult to find the letters in the colors that she wanted. Josue helped her. Yoselin played with Eddy's cars and garage. Aracely laid on my lap and had me sing "Rock-a-Bye Baby" to her. The kids took turns playing on the computer.

Humberto arrived home, and changed the TV to English lessons. It is the universal parent/child struggle that exists across cultures: education vs. popular culture. Humberto is definitely moe strict with the TV, and tries to make sure that the kids watch educational programs when the TV is on. Vanesa got the charcoal lit on the outdoor grill and she and Paulina grilled steak for dinner. It was seasoned with a spicy rub and served with peapods and carrots. It was a very tasty meal. We had tea to drink.

After dinner, Humberto went out and Paulina put a melodramatic soap opera on TV. The kids played with the computer. They got out the wooden building blocks we had brought last time and built structures on the dining room table. Eddy had slept through suppoer, but woke up for block play. We had some apples for dessert.

Humberto returned with a piece of paper that he handed to Craig. He asked Craig to read aloud in English an informational article about tourism in Solola, so that Humberto could study the correct pronunciations of the more difficult words. That's Humberto for you, taking every opportunity to learn every nuance of English. His ENglish is superb, and yet he is always keeping up on idioms and expressions, trying to make sure his language is as precise as possible. We admired him for this, as we can never seem to get our Spanish to progress beyond the absolute basics.

Humberto told us that he needs to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow to hike Volcan Atitlan with clients tomorrow, so we let the family get to bed and headed off to our room shortly before 11 o'clock. I wrote in my journal untiil 11:30, and downloaded today's pictures, having learned from today's earlier on-camera deletions.