Guatemala, Day 2 (Sunday 10/22/17)

Day 2 started so early, I thought at the time. In retrospect, I realize being ready to go at 6:30am made Sunday one of our “lazier” days.

Before we left the Living Water compound, we took turns standing on the patio railing to get a glimpse of the nearby active volcano as it spewed smoke and ash – a pretty cool way to start our first morning in Guatemala.

We piled in the van, driving to the city center of Antigua.

Photo by Derek McCutcheon

Arriving early on a Sunday morning gave us some beautiful views. 

Nestor parked our van and we headed to breakfast at Café Condesa.

It was an incredibly wonderful meal, with all kinds of new flavors (Turmeric in the coffee? Semi-sweet syrup?) and I enjoyed my gluten free pancakes (cornmeal pancakes). We all giggled like 10-year-old boys about the fountain in the room where we ate, and sampled each other’s dishes.

Before leaving Café Condesa, we found a map on the wall that gave us a visual of where we’d be drilling in Guatemala.

After breakfast, we stopped at a bakery in Antigua to get bread for our upcoming daily breakfasts and then explored the town center for a few minutes.

Katie and Hannah did a mini photo session with me in front of some of the beautiful government buildings.

Our team met up and walked to a nearby church for Sunday services.

The church services are in Spanish and English. The worship leaders sang a song I’ve never heard, then we sang One Thing Remains in both languages. That was a new experience for me. Our sermon was on the book of James (aka Santiago), and halfway through Katie felt a little woozy so we stepped outside to get some air. She put her head in my lap and a cool breeze helped her feel a little better so we could go back into church for the last worship song, King of Heaven.

After church, we headed back to our house to pack our bags, eat lunch, connect to wifi one last time, and play with the local dog named Negro.

We also met our translator, Blanca. To call her simply “our translator” feels dishonest because that woman did so much for our team all week. Not only did she help us bridge the language barrier, but she played the roles of a nurse and tour guide and manual laborer and teacher and pastor and actress and historian and mama bear. But when we met her, we didn’t know all those roles yet so we greeted her and the time came to load the van and head out for our drive to Retalhuleu.

I lucked out and got to ride in the work truck with Jaime for the four hour drive. We talked the entire time. He pointed out interesting scenery like this mountain that’s being farmed in a way that makes it look like a crop quilt.

Jaime and I talked about Guatemalan customs such as Halloween and Day of the Dead, and the differences in how our cultures celebrate them. We talked about above-ground cemeteries, the way Jesus found both of us, and how Jaime met his wife. We discussed Living Water and the boundaries they have in place for selecting where to dig wells and their strict focus on the gospel and providing clean water. We talked about photography, other teams he’s led, snow in Michigan when he worked stateside, and crime in Guatemala versus the United States. He told me how his countrymen reacted to the recent news of the shooting in Las Vegas, then we talked about gun violence and how Guatemalans think about gun ownership. He told me their main news stories right now are focused on extortionists who hijack “chicken buses” and threaten to kill the drivers if the bus company owners don’t pay them off. Drivers are scared to drive buses so owners have to hire police to ride the buses and protect their employees, otherwise the drivers will strike and refuse to work. That led us to a discussion on protests in St. Louis, and what life is like for us back home.

Halfway through the road trip, we stopped to stretch our legs and eat ice cream at a gas station while it rained.

We arrived at our hotel in Retalhuleu in time to unload and rest for a bit. Dan took a nap, while I sat poolside with some of the adults while Katie and Hannah swam.

Photo by Lisa McCutcheon

Derek noticed a gorgeous sunset over the pool wall, and I scrambled to a balcony to capture it.

We had dinner at the hotel, followed by a fight between Blanca and Sonja. We’d been talking about the next day’s agenda when Blanca asked us to decide which team we’d be working on: hygiene or drilling. Sonja spoke up and said we weren’t deciding that until tomorrow morning. Blanca said she needed to meet with the hygiene team tonight to go over the lessons. Sonja countered with some measly reason about why we didn’t want to split the team just yet, then Tami and Mary jumped in and tried to smooth the ruffled feathers. That’s when Sonja threw up her hands, put her forehead to the table, and started chuckling. Blanca smiled too, and the rest of us stared in confusion.

Sonja and Blanca told us we’d been punked and the disagreement was planned as part of our evening devotion time. The fake argument set us up for a discussion on how each of us handles conflict and frustrations. We learned a little more about each other’s personalities so we could be better equipped to lovingly care for each other (or lovingly avoid each other!) at the job site when things got discouraging or exhausting. After we each described our typical behavior when we are challenged or tired, Jaime gave us the agenda for the next day – which included breakfast at the ungodly hour of 5:15am. Ugh!

We then organized our supplies for the hygiene lessons we’d be teaching in Caballo Blanco.

As much as I wanted to stay up and socialize, I think we were all still wiped out from our 3am airport arrival the day before so we headed to bed. (And did I mention this perfect little hotel offered air conditioning in our rooms, along with hot showers? It was pure bliss!)

Click here to read about day 3 of our trip to Guatemala.