Saturday and Sunday -- July 2-3

(Composed by Heather)

Saturday:

This past Saturday, after breakfast with our respective host families, we met at the church for morning devotionals, as usual. Instead of splitting off and working at our sites, though, all the volunteers went on a hike to the ecological park. The hike was about an hour and a half, gaining 1200 ft of elevation, putting us at 8200 ft above sea level. The view was the spectacular insides of a cloud. Sometimes the clouds would clear, showing fields and distant cities.

After playing on some structures made from branches and taking pictures we had lunch, catered by Cafe Cito. During our lunch we noticed some distant rain clouds coming for us, and by the end of our meal it began raining where we were. Everyone huddled together under a structure for a while until we got too cold and decided to hike back.

The hike back took about 40 minutes. After returning to the church we each went to our host family homes and rested. We met again for dinner, followed by movie night. We watched the documentary, Reparando, which touched on some of the history of how Guatemala got to be in the state it is currently in, concerning poverty and gang life. The movie brought up a lot of emotions. There was a short discussion after the movie, after which we all went home and slept.

Sunday, July 3rd:

Sunday morning we met at 8:30am before going to church together. Church involved a lot of singing and was all in Spanish. Each of the volunteer teams were invited to the front of the church to sing a couple songs. We sang in Spanish, which was a struggle. The rest of church was translated for us. At the end of church people with birthdays were invited to the front and everyone sang for them and gave them hugs.

After church we had lunch at Cafe Cito and then left for the city of Antigua. We had a chance to go shopping and eat dinner where ever we wanted to. We were in Antigua for about 5 hours. Shopping was an interesting/exhausting experience - trying to barter with people. We left Antigua around 7pm and went home to our host families.

Health:

Heather is feeling much better. Katy is still a little sick feeling, but able to work. Otherwise, everyone is doing well.

Thanks for checking in! Pictures coming soon.