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last days

nick and i have said goodbye to concepcion huista now. we traveled through jacal to say goodbye to our redmond friend and peace corps volunteer there, then through san antonio huista to say bye our bud eric. who killed a chicken for us. actually it wouldn't die so nick cut its head off. there's pictures; we'll put those up soon. we've got a bunch of reports and things to write. flying home on the 17th.

by the by...

i forgot to mention, although we thought about it greatly, that may 4th was exactly 2 years in guatemala. we left home on the 2nd for miami but touched down on our tierra suegra on the 4th. feels like a lot of time, no? but went by very, very, very fast.

norma went home today. she was boarded as continental airlines cargo and shipped home to seattle. thanks to the embassy family we stayed with we didn't let guatemala get us this time. you would just not believe the ridiculousness of shipping a dog home and navigating a system that employs people who haven't graduated from sixth grade. SERIOUSLY. it was nuts.

ruby is staying in guatemala. another pcv fell in love with her and so we gave her up. she'll be happy and snuggled.

medically fit to leave

nick and i finished up our last medical exams this morning. pretty much exactly what we did last year for our "mid service medicals." so far so good, no calls from peace corps saying they found we have some rare tropical disease...

also for these last few days nick and i stayed with an embassy family. they live in a HUGE house in zone 15. zone 15 is the new zone 14 which was the new zone 10. it was a lot like california. in the nearby grocery store i found organic peanut butter puff cereal made in blaine, wa. that's a unique only-in-zone 15 find i believe. anyway the house was HUGE, how else can i say this? enormous? gigantic? hujingus? nick and i occupied "the tower" of the house and entertained tammy the dog and feasted on cold (cold mind you! refrigerated!) soy milk, homemade cookies (thanks nick!) and grapes. grapes are a luxury. it was a nice few days.

yay for kids

just wanted to let folks know we've officially received the Friends of Guatemala donations here in guatemala from roseanne, uncle kev, lana and grandma blanche, aunt mary, tony, ann and lisa. mil gracias!

this one time...

i know we haven't put much here lately but i thought i'd share a little story that reminded me it's not over til it's over and just so everyone knows after two years you never really get the hang of guatemala.

yesterday i was on a bus to the lake and as we were barreling down the highway a tire started screaming. the bus driver pulled over and the ayudante quickly inspected the tire. i think this was the dialogue:
driver: tire's messed i think
ayudante: yeah i'll check it out
later..
ayudante: nah, we can keep going
driver: ok... it's making a funny noise...
driver & ayudante: OH WELL!

so we keep going and the tire is making lots of noise and it feels like there is no tire. after about 10 minutes the bus pulls sharply to the side of the road, the ayudante looks out the door and screams, "it's burning! everyone out!" then begins a puro chapin stampede. forget women and children first, it was survival of the fittest in a sea of elbows. i made it out pretty quick tossing my own elbows (it's nice to be tall).

everyone jumps out and practically huddles around the burning tire. the ayudante and the driver frantically put out the fire with dirt on the road and take the tires off. after a few minutes it was discovered another bus from the same line would come and take people to the direct destination and all those going to points before that (like me) could get 10 of the 15 quetzales back of our already paid fare and catch another bus off the highway.

fine. i get my Q10 back and join a group flagging buses. i was feeling pretty adventurous and chill i think from having been reflecting lately on my time here that i can handle a lot of nonsense now. a bus to take me to los encuentros came up and passed me and my group so we all had to run like mad up the highway to jump on the bus. i ran up to the back but it was full; people hanging out with the door unable to shut. the ayudante came up and said, "go up front!" so i ran to the front door and as i grabbed bars to help jump onto the bus i fell. i looked up and the bus driver said, "careful." thanks.

as i was tending to my bloody elbow a guy got up so i took his seat. but he came back because it wasn't his stop. he was waaay to drunk to know where to get off. so he fell into the aisle and leaned on me. very, very, very drunk. some indigenous ladies next to me giggled but i just kept on keeping on. not much else one can do.

tortilla at the bottom of the basket

the rains have started more or less although they say it's not supposed to yet. true, technically may starts the rainy season but due to the earth being ticked off about global warming and all that it's raining earlier.

nick and i are officially closing our service on june 15th. so june 16th or 17th party at hillside quickies.