So, sometime in the last 12 hours, I became the resident translator for my team.Â
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Not that I’m complaining, it has been hilarious and fun, and a good challenge to try to remember conjugations and vocabulary words that I hadn’t used in quite some time.Â
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This morning we arrived in Guatemala City about 6:30 am, and we took three 18-passenger vans to Antigua, which was about a half hour ride through the winding mountain roads of Guatemala. I wish I could say the ride was uneventful… but the combination of hunger + carsickness caused me to have a little bit of an upset tummy, and let’s just say, I lost my lunch in the van. Yep, I’m that girl. Don’t worry I mostly made it to the window…
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Once we set our feet on solid ground again, I was feeling much better. We arrived at our hostel in Antigua, where our team leaders were there to greet us with a breakfast of bananas, oranges and yogurt. We then marched our whole squad of 50 people through the town and met in the city square to go over our schedule for the next couple of days. We’ll be in Antigua until Tuesday doing a bit of training before we disperse to our ministry locations.
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After that, we broke off into our teams to explore the city and find lunch. Somehow, the little Spanish that I know has become quite an asset. I laugh because I was so proud of myself for asking “Donde esta el bano?” to an airport worker when we arrived in Guatemala City, and now I’m having to ask for prices on fresh tortillas and queso, ask for directions, and decipher what our luggage-carrying friends at the airport are trying to tell us (They wanted to be tipped!) But the funnest part was chatting with a new friend, Nora, in the market, who owns a stall with her husband Emanuel selling freshly-made hamburgers and quesadillas. They made us the best lunch, it only cost about 11 quetzals per person (7 American dollars = 1 Quetzal). So we ate lunch for less than $1.50!
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So, all of that to say, I’m safe in Guatemala! I apologize for the odd formatting on the blog, it doesn’t quite work correctly with my iPad, but I’m working out the kinks! I can’t currently post photos directly to my blog, but I’ll upload them to a photo album so everyone can see 🙂 Â I’m already having the time of my life already in this beautiful city! More updates soon!!
