So... it has been more than a month since I've updated this. Sorry to all of you who thought I had fallen off the face of the earth. I'm still alive, although a bit on the busy side. I'll do my very best to try and fill you in on the last month, but I give no guarantees...

We have indeed entered the rainy season. The wetness is usually pretty predictable, coming between 4 pm and 5 pm every day, but on the occasional day when it decides to mix things up a bit, it's a little disconcerting and can cause some issues for drying clothes.

In the past month my health has been on a bit of a rollercoaster. A few weeks ago I went to the doctor after having felt pretty bad for fall too long. Even with my limited medical vocabulary in Spanish, I was quick to pick out the "Se observan parasitos" followed by a bunch of other stuff which I later found out was the description of the particular parasite I had. I was put on three days of medication to kill the little buggers and told to be retested at the end to see if they were actually dead or whether I would have to go on 20 more days of pills. Thankfully, my second test came back clean. The only bad part was that I still didn't feel well. I knew that there was still something amiss when I came uncomfortably close to passing out after lunch one afternoon. So I made another trip to the doctor where I was told that although my little "friends" were gone, they had left things out of wack in my insides. I went on three more days of a different medication and I'm not really sure how much good it did, but I got tired of paying for drugs. As of now, I usually have anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours of slight discomfort/occasional pain after I eat, but it's definitely livable at this point. As long as it stays this way for the next month, everything will be a-okay.

For the past three weeks we've been in class for most of every day. Our typical schedule included an hour and a half of Spanish in the morning followed by two hours of Missions. We then got a couple hours off for lunch and regaining our sanity before another 3 hours (!) of Spanish. The classes are interesting and the profs are amazing, its just a heck of a lot of school for someone who hasn't done much in that department recently.

Speaking of profs, Joanne and Slava have been here for almost a month and it has been such a blessing. Joanne taught our Missions course and is pretty much an amazing person (not to mention has an amazing name- Dr. [Joanne] Pepper) Her husband, Slava, has been teaching our Spanish class and he too is pretty much amazing. One of my favorite parts of having him here has been getting to work out with him and Dave. I get to hear stories of life in the Soviet army while we run... how much cooler does it get?

A couple weeks ago our group made a trip to Lake Atitlan for a couple days. It was a nice little break in the midst of all the studies and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. This lake is a spiritual center for the Mayans who call it the "naval of the earth".

We arrived Saturday morning and, after getting settled into our motel, took a boat ride across the lake to Santiago.


The most memorable part of this stop was definitely our visit to the community which was completely destroyed by a mudslide last November during Hurricane Stan. Guatemala alone had a death toll of over 2,000 and this town was declared a mass grave site after being buried in more than 20 feet of mud.





Sunday, we took a ride over to another little town on the lake and went for a hike up and over to the next dock. Dave, Kyle, and I decided to explore the little town straight up the hill from us. It's crazy how high you can get so quickly when the roads are steep enough.

After our hike we did some swimming and then headed home, pretty thoroughly worn out.


We got back Sunday night and went directly back for the second of our last two weeks living with our Guatemalan families. This was an incredibly awesome time for me in that I finally felt really at home there. Although we were scheduled to stay through the weekend, my family was going on vacation for a couple of days and I wasn't invited to join them, so instead I became a nomad. I stayed with three different families, each for a night, and it was absolutely wonderful. It was really hard to say goodbye to my family, though. I never thought I'd be able to get so attached in the short amount of time I've known them.

(In case you were wondering, I'm not about to eat the grandchild. I realize I may look like a crazy murderer of some sort, but I like the kid... I really do.)