These are in no particular order—
1. Lunch on San Pedro's, Lake Atitlan- pizza for the first time since I had been out of the US and a Gallo. So yummy, and spent with an awesome friend and teammate, Darcie!
2. Spending time with Macario when he is in a good mood. So much better than when he is feeling feisty. Watching his smile light up his face and just loving getting to pour love onto him.
3. Waxing the hospital floors with Darcie and Ross. An absolute adventure. The wax machine had a full mind if its own and it took us all day to get just a couple corridors done. Apparently, however, the wax machine obeys the hands of Guatemalans. While we struggled, an older woman (I give her the age of 80) came up, took the wax machine, and guided it one handed, showing us all up. We still don't understand their ease, but by the end of the day we got the hang of it. Then the machine came unplugged and we left it to go plug it back in. But, Ross had forgotten to turn the switch off so while no one was around it, it went crazy and knocked over a big trash can and scared the daylights out of the people in the waiting room. We laughed until we cried. It was a good day.
4. Coffee in a small cafe in the middle of the enchanted forest on San Marcos, Lake Atitlan. Danielle, Darcie, Jordan and I sat on a little couch upstairs where there was a big open wall to outside. The roof was made of palms and when it rained it was so soothing. We drank our coffee and spent some quiet time. It was blissful.
5. Getting ice cream with Darcie and Natalie. On this particular outting for ice cream, Natalie and I were apparently both very clumsy. So we get our ice creams (shout out to the brand Sarita), and start walking back to our home grounds. This ice cream is fantastic! I had queso y fresas which is like strawberry cheesecake and Natalie had coffee flavored. Both of us had our cones dipped in chocolate and covered in nuts. It was divine. As we start walking, I trip. But, by the grace of God, my cone only cracked a little and it was safe. As Natalie was laughing at my gracefulness, she also tripped. It was the weirdest fall I have ever seen. She just like, fell. Plopped down. Obviously, our main concern was for the ice cream. Her cone did not fair the same fortune as mine. The chocolate covered ice cream came away from the shattered cone. Thankfully, as it was still intact, Natalie was able to call 5 second rule. She picked up the top part of her ice cream and ate it all the way home. She inspires me.
6. Any time we cook meals together as a team. Since we are all living together as a squad here in Quiche, we cook as a squad. Each team has a breakfast and dinner every week. We cook for 60 people! And we are dang good at it too. Don't tell the other teams, but I think Rhizoo takes the cake on cooking the best food. We are like a well- oiled machine when we work together in the kitchen.
7. Washing the windows of the hospital. Seriously, it was great. We just hooked up the water hose and brought it right into the middle of the hallway and sprayed the windows down and washed them with brooms and soap. Give a few Americans a water hose in the middle of a hospital and watch them work. We loved it. And the windows looked perfect when we were finished. We just swept the water out when we were finished. Love the use of resources.
8. Shopping at the market in Chichicastenango. Another awesome adventure with my team (minus Markelle who we missed dearly). We shopped til we dropped and had the most fantastic lunch at a place called Cafe San Jose. We were full to the brim, but we didn't let it hinder our shopping. 4 of us came away with awesome patterned pants. I got an awesome jacket, its fabulous. Darcie and I got these super cute rings. We also both bought these little stuffed animals, mine is Chichi and hers is Castenango. Mine might be a giraffe, I'm honestly not sure. Hers is a brontasaurous. And we both also bought placemats and made them into awesome Bible covers. They look really cool.
9. That one time I was painting the numbers on the curbs and I painted my 3's backwards. So instead of 32 it looked like E2. In my defense I wasn't painting them from the normal angle I was doing them upside down. It was a long day in the sun. I fixed it the next day. We got a good laugh out of it.
10. Hanging out with Rito. He has the best job ever, and I don't know what he will do when we are gone. He just chills with us all day and makes jokes with us and the language barrier seems so much less than it is. He's awesome.
11. Team time in a tent. We stuff all seven of us in one tent and we do feedback and devotion. I have a feeling not everyone likes it as much as me. But, it keeps us really warm and it makes our group hugs so easy. That's a whole lot of woman. I love my team so much.
