Guatemala

Friday 12/30/2011 - Eddy Gets a Haircut, Visiting the Market, Lago Atitlan

We woke up at around 8:30 a.m. At 9 o'clock the kids came in to say good morning, and we all headed next door to the dining room for breakfast. We had coffee, scrambled eggs, and beans "on parade" served with cream. The kids played on the computer and watched TV. Paulina asked us if we'd like to run errands with them this morning. Eddy needed a haircut. That sounded like fun to us, so at around 10:30 we headed out with Yasmin, Yoselin, Aracely, Eddy, and Paulina.

We walked down Santander Street. We said good morning to Paulina's sister Olga, who was operating her late father's juice stand. She was serving a customer so we waved and continued on our way. Paulina needed to stop in at the bank. While she was conducting her business, the kids ran into Sarita, the ice cream parlor next door, and played for a few frenzied minutes on the plastic jungle gym and slide. On the wall outside was hung a Bimbo Bread advertisement. As if this wasn't funny enough in English, it was flanked by posters of women in bikinis selling aguardiente liquor. Bimbo indeed!

We walked further up the street and were shocked to see a Pollo Campero restaurant. This hadn't been here last July. The closest one had been in Solola, and th kids always viewed going to one in Guatemala City as a big treat reserved for special occasions. But seeing the chain infiltrate Panajachel was a bit sad. Over the past few years the town had been getting more franchises, and the local market now has competition from the Wal-Mart owned supermarket. We hope that this development will not change the local character of Panajachel.

We continued down the bustling main street and took a right at the Tienda Heidy, passing stands selling fireworks and holiday foods. We arrived at a small barber shop. There was one very old-fashioned antique barber chair, and the second was a replica made of wood. The girls sat in plastic chairs in the waiting area just behind the barber chairs. They looked at newspaper ads. There were red and green streamers festooning the walls, and collage photos of men's and boy's '80's hairstyles. Eddy was very patient.

After they finished up the customer before him, they had Eddy sit in the wooden barber chair. He was too short for the barber to reach, so the barber ran outside and returned with a plank of wood which he laid across the arms of the chair as a booster seat. The barber placed a gray cloth around Eddy's shoulders. Eddy sat stone-still while the barber cut his hair with clippers, scissors, and even a straight razor (!) to clean up the edges. Yoselin and I took pictures of the process. Eddy was incredibly patient and well behaved. Paulina joked that we should have seen him the first time he got his haircut; he hadn't been this well behaved. When the barber was done, Eddy looked even more like a handsome little gentlemen.

We stopped in at the pet store to look at fluffy yellow baby chicks and tiny turtles. The kids loved animals of all types. Then we went to the market. There were even more vendors than usual due to the holiday season. There was an abundance of fruit: huge stack of pineapples, piles of bananas, plantains, etc. Paulina bought some vegetables from the sellers. Then we went to the enclosed portion of the market, to one of the permanent stalls around the perimeter. It was called Pollo Rey (Chicken King), and Paulina bought some fresh chicken. Nothing is refrigerated here. It sits on the counter, ready to be placed into a plastic bag when it is sold.

The kids usually get a treat of some kind when we go to the market, and this time Paulina bought them Shaka Laka drink boxes (flavored milkshakes). We piled too many people and purchases into a tuk-tuk and headed home.

We played with the kids in our room until lunch time. Josue showed up to play. There was a lot of rough-housing, as usual. Yasmin held Eddy upside-down. Craig gave horsie rides on his knees. I gave Aracely a ride on my shoulders. It was a lot of high-energy play. I called Eddy "Eddy Spaghetti" He smiled and called me "Estephanie Spaghetti" which made me laugh. He wasn't picking up on the rhyming thing.

When called to lunch, we headed next door to the dining room. Lunch was mashed potatoes, broccoli, and chicken in mushroom gravy. We had fresh cantaloupe juice to drink. The fresh food that Paulina prepares is always delicious.

After lunch, the kids were eager to go to the lake again. Paulina told the girls that they were not allowed to swim today; they could only put their feet in the water. Josue wanted to join us today, too. Once he got his mother's permission, we all gathered together some towels. We set off with our largest group yet (Yoselin, Yasmin, Aracely, Eddy, and Josue).

We walked the couple of blocks to the lake. Craig suddenly wasn't feeling very well, so he sat in the shade and took it easy. I took Eddy's hand and we followed Josue and the girls to the water's edge. The lake was very rough again from the daily afternoon xocomil wind. I made sure to keep ahold of Eddy's hand the entire time. The kids sat on a stone wall and dunked their feet in the water. Not content with that, Yoselin and Yasmin led Aracely and Josue over to a broken cement jetty that had become detached from the shore after years of being battered by these waves. It stretched between several docks, and the waves broke over it. Eddy wanted to go over there too, so we joined them.

It was tiring keeping watch over all 5 kids and keeping ahold of Eddy. Although the scenery was breathtaking (we wondered if the kids really understand and appreciate just how gorgeous their home town is and how lucky they are to have this treasure in their back yard), the lake area is not up to US safety standards. Kids need to be aware of their surroundings. There are no safety railings. We felt a heightened sense of responsibility for the kids' well-being.

At first all of the kids lined up on the jetty, letting the waves break over their feet, which would splash their bodies. Yoseliln and Yasmin decided to bend the rules. Though they didn't technically swim, they laid down on the jetty and let the waves break over them, getting them just as drenched as swimming would have. But at least we had remembered to bring towels this time.

When the kids were done in the water, we handed out towels and the kids dried themselves off. Aracely and Yoselin wrapped themselves in towels and laid on top of one of the stone walls trying to absorb any heat they could. After we dried off a bit we went to the same Sarita stand where we had bought ice cream the other day. We looked in Craig's wallet to see how much local currency we had on us. We told them they could each buy something which cost up to 3 quetzales. Eddy and Aracely chose popsicles, and the rest of us chose creamsicles. We sat on the wall eating them in the late afternoon light as the sun crept down over the lake.

As we walked back home, the kids were already asking if we'd take them again tomorrow or the next day. "We'll see," I said in English. I didn't know the Spanish word for "Maybe." The wet kids tried to stay in the waning sun. As we approached the house, they pressed themselves against a metal door in the sun, trying to extract any bit of warmth they could. As we walked down the driveway, Paola gave Yoselin and Yasmin each a towel, and gave them a look that said that they should get changed before Paulina saw them in their soaking wet clothes.

We also took this opportunity to clean ourselves up and take showers. When we were done, the kids came into the room. Aracely started singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" which she had learned at school. I sang it with her while Craig took a video. We are so proud of how much she has learned! We still hadn't gotten over hearing her speak to us in English. It seemed surreal. Eddy snuggled with me for a while. I sang "Rock-a-Bye Baby" to him, he would pretend to fall asleep and then say "Boo!" and try to scare me. Aracely had also been doing this little routine on this trip. It was cute how they imitate one another.

We went into the dining room and the kids watched Nickelodeon on TV. We had the traditional afternoon bread and tea. Craig's stomach wasn't feeling the best since we had been at the lake. Paulina, always taking care of us, prepared manzanilla (camomile) tea for him. Josue and Eddy were playing with Eddy's Tonka garage. Eddy, who always appears to be eating one thing or another, had a banana and a mandarina.

Aracely was watching the videos we had made of the kids in past visits on the computer. In one of the slideshows there is a picture of what she calls "my hamster". It wasn't actually hers at all, but a man at the lake had let her hold it on the day of her baptism. It had crawled up her arm and I got a photo of her looking terrified as it nuzzled her neck. To her, that was her hamster which she apparently had as a pet when she was little. She scoured the house until she found her hard copy of that photo. She said that she wants to get "another" hamster.

One of the girls had been sent down the street to buy the fresh tortillas which accompany every meal. Tortillerias open and go out of business quickly. I think they were on their third one since we have started visiting. But they never have to go far; all three locations were about a block from their house. Humberto came home in time for dinner. We had black bean soup with riceand a spinch-like green vegetable, along with the fresh tortillas. We enjoyed more tea to drink. Eddy got a black bean mustache when eating his soup and we joked that he had a "bigote" like Craig. Once again it was wonderful to have the whole family around the dining table.

After dinner Eddy and Aracely had a ton of energy and were dancing on the beds in the girls' rooms. Yoselin joined them and they migrated to the kitchen and into Humberto and Paulina's rooms.They were playing music on Humberto's phone I took some videos of their antics. Before we knew it, it was 10:30, and time to call it a night. We headed back to our room, and I wrote in the journal until 11 o'clock.