Posts Tagged: Spanish immersion

And you think nothing can top machetes? Think again.

October 25, 2012

Concrete, machetes, what ever could be left to top this trip of wonder and awe—only 4 days in? That would have to be driving into a non-tourist part of Guatemala City, watching Juan Carlos navigate the streets, and arriving at our final destination: a legit market that Andres didn’t even know existed. I bet you’re asking though, why exactly did Juan Carlos take us to the market for an unscheduled stop, after a long day of work?

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Concrete(ly) in my body

August 15, 2012

*Disclaimer: This is MUCH longer than most of my other posts.  It will take a while to read through.  If you were to print it out, it would be about 2 pages double-spaced. I’m going to post part two separately.  Almost three weeks after the fact, about to reconstruct the day of concrete and cement, I looked in my journal today to see what I’d noted, in the hopes that it might jog my memory of the day.  What I …

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And our first day finishes…

August 13, 2012

To finish up our first day, let me tell you about our visit to Santa Clara and Paso a Paso . Santa Clara is the nursery that International Samaritan runs in cooperation with the city of Guatemala.  There we met Sonia La Roche, a small but strong woman, who runs the nursery; she has worked at Santa Clara for years, since she met Fr. Vettesse. She shared with us that the people in the area told her she had to talk with “the crazy gringo …

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Welcoming the Stranger

August 08, 2012

Somersaults , music, and hula hoops later, our group of 14 set out into the neighborhood, to visit several homes. Our route led down a narrow lane; accompanied by several children from the Coll, numerous mangy dogs, and our police escort, we followed our Pied Piper, Andres. Most noticeable was the smell– which I had last noticed in Nicaragua– of burning trash.  It permeates everything and eventually is unremarkable, but that first walk, I thought, “Oh! I remember this.”  Once past the smell, I …

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