Nice week!

Hola!

I was planning on writing later, but I had a nice week, and I do want to share that with you! So here goes…

Monday started of sad because I had to say goodbye to my American friend Jennifer. We spent the morning together enjoying our last coffee, and walking around town. When I waved her off I started realizing that my days left here are also numbered – at that point only a small 3 weeks!
Luckily the rest of the day was nice. The kids at my project had exam week, so I was able to cheer them on bye saying ‘SI SE PUEDE!!’ (You can do it!) but their responds would be ‘NO SE PUEDE!!’ (No we can’t!!) I still think they did a good job though haha! I got asked to help a kid who had a broken arm with writing his exam. It was quite funny. But the kid didn’t know a lot of answers, so I really had to retain myself from helping him with the answers though! Tuesday I got to help out the kid again, and luckily this time he did know more answers to his math exam. However, this time I did help him out just a little bit ;) I also had to help a little girl on crutches with going to the bathroom. I had to be with her in their. Funny though, the girl had no shame at all, as she started a long ‘bathroom’ conversation with me while pooping!

Wednesday I went on a church project in Santa Maria de Jesus – a town nearby. We went with a group of 8 Americans from North Carolina. Lovely people! We were going to distribute water filters to the people who needed them. We teamed up in groups of 4 or 5. My group consisted of 2 Americans, a church guy (Omar) and the pastor of the church of that town. The Americans would do all the talking and Omar and I would do the translating. Omar would translate the part where they would explain how to use and clean the water filter and I would translate the message and the prayer after that. I was quite nervous actually (more than last time) because now there were people with me who spoke way better Spanish than I did. But it went okay luckily! I was shocked to see the houses the people lived in – metal plates, some wooden beams and plastic bags, one bed for the whole family… I was ‘happy’ to be able to see and experience this because it makes you realize how good we have it and that we should not complain about anything! The people were so thankful for the water filter and so happy for our prayers. The feeling I receive from that was so satisfying! After distributing 3 filters we went back to the town church to eat. In the afternoon, the children of the town would come to eat as well. After the meal the Americans had prepared some activities for the children. That was a lot of fun! One little girl had found me and decided to be glued to my side the rest of the afternoon! All in all it was a satisfying day.

The next day I went on another church project in San Antonio. Here as well we would distribute water filters. We started off in a school called Paso a Paso (step by step), the school I had already been before. Jennifer (my American friend who went home) left me a lot of school supplies to donate to people/projects who needed it. So I decided to donate it to them. They were very happy with it! We grouped up in the same teams as the day before, and again I did a lot of translating. After, the group of Americans invited me to go to dinner with them in the evening. I was loads of fun! So much fun they also invited me to go to the beach with them the next day. We went to the beach in Puerto San Jose. The beach wasn’t white or yellow/brown, but it was black! I’m taking some sand home with me to show you.

The next day the group of Americans would leave to go home. I did meet up with two of the group in the morning to take them to some last places they needed to buy things. After, I went with them to the hotel to say goodbye to the rest of the group. Even though I have only been with them for a short period of time, I will miss them because they were lovely people! They also asked me if I would visit them, and if God is willing, I will!

Two of the group left me their Guatemalan money to spend. I did say I wanted to spend it on something good. So today I decided I will spend the money on buying a water filter for the people who need it. And people do need it to better there health, because the water they drink now, and use for cooking and cleaning is really filthy and therefore they get ill! And the people who receive one are so thankful! So I also decided that I myself will buy 2 water filters. In case you are interested in maybe also buying a water filter, do let me know. You will be helping out and blessing the people here a lot!

Coming week is Semana Santa. The kids at my project are off this week, and Antigua will be packed with people, so I decided to skip town for a couple of days. Tomorrow I will be going to Lago Atitlan. I booked a boat tour, and will get to visit 3 lake towns. They Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I will go with 3 other people to Semuc Champey. So I will get to see some other places.

So that was it! Talk again soon…