Thats what the kids call me here in San Juan, Guatemala– Hannah (la) Montaña translates to ‘Hannah the Mountain’… Im not sure if that’s a compliment, a mean-kid insult joke thing, or maybe they think Im really the actual Disney teenie-pop-bopper… I might try to run with that… (winks.) Yea maybe not.
The little lady to my right (your left) is named Hilda. She has snatched up my heart. I dont know her story yet, but she has latched onto me ever since our first day working at the school. My heart bursts with love for her, so I’m assuming that God wants this one special little girl to know His love. So I’ll just keep lifting her off the ground with my gigantic hugs and scores of kisses on the forehead… She finds me every day before and after school, no matter where I am. Yesterday she found me in this Internet Cafe as I was uploading this picture of her. This morning she caught me with my glasses morning face before the school bell rang, she brought her friends along: ‘Miss Rebecca’ — ‘Miss Hannah Montaña’ they yelled out from outside our hotel gates. Lots of hugs ensued : ) So, for now this is a ministry of hugs and repetitive ‘sweet nothings’ in whatever Spanish we know… ‘hello beautiful’… ‘very precious girl’… ‘you have the face of a doll’ (I picked up that one from a gentleman at Cafe Yara in Palinque Mexico ; )… and all those other things that girls love and i dare say NEEd to hear. Smiles.
Above is our ‘home’ for the month of February. Hot pink and canary yellow. When I first saw our hotel, I was right then able to settle in my heart that God did in fact love me!! (winks) Our rooms overlook the lake.
And then there was Valentines Day. (dun dun DUUUN… run for your lives!!!) Five fabulously foxy but feisty damsels fighting over one fine Valentine. ‘He’s mine.’ ‘No! he’s mine, MINE all MINE!!’ Well, some mild catting and clawing went on like such for a time until Jimmy at last announced that we were ALL his Sweet Hearts for the evening. There was great rejoicing in this news! And then our benevolent and dashing Valentine treated us all to a dinner filled with all sorts of wonders and amazements. : ) Jimmy! Jmmy! He’s our man!! (wink) — (that’s sort of how the tale goes, maybe some very slight embelishments — except for the ‘foxy’ part — we ladies looked mmm mmm goooood, honey!! No apologies for saying so.) Winks.
So, Tribe 61’s Valentines Day in Guatemala was special. We exchanged hand-crafted,purposely and awkwardly mushy Valentines with each other and our new friends from San Juan, including: our hotel manager (Don Nicolas — who we even made a very loving, smoochie little pouch for (drawing lips is one of my special talents) — see pic), some of the other hotel guests, and our two German friends (Lena and Julian, not yet pictured) whom Becca, Eric Retterbush, and I met at a dinner theatre in Antigua a couple weeks earlier. Lena and Julian met up with our team in San Juan, and we are even now planning how we can meet up again with Julian who will be in Johannesburg, South Africa when the Racers are there! Wild huh. He lent our team his ‘Little Prince’ book (a witty, intelligent childrens book that’s fun really more for adults), that’s to ensure we meet again in Africa. Anyways, I thought a lot about a lot of you… I dearly hope each of you had a smashing Love Day…. or at least one that will be tragically or awkwardly funny in years to come. You all know what I mean. Bad memories, in retrospect, can actually be some of the funniest memories. Grin.
Hearts and Smiles from Hannah, who always wishes she could write more.
PS Check out my pictures. There are a few more than last time. Some are duplicates from this blog, but the ‘comments’ might be fun and a bit more informative. Until next time.
