La alegria de la lavanderia.

I'd like to begin this post by paying tribute to one of my favorite Guatemalans. Her name is Miriam and she runs the BEST lavanderia in all of Guatemala. She washes and dries your clothes in 3 hours and keeps the sweaters out of the dryer even if you forget to tell her. She folds everything and ties it up with ribbons and makes it smell extremely similar to what I'd imagine heaven smells like.

Before I regale you all with the details of my weekend, I'd like to tell you all about one of our team's favorite places in Guatemala. It's called Yummy Donas, el postre de cada dia. Guatemalans make a lot of delicious things, pastries not being one of them. Apparently an ex-pat realized the available niche in the market and capitalized on it, spawning Yummy Donas. They create delicious donuts, cinnamon rolls, fritters, and turnovers, much to the delight of tourists and natives alike. To add to the splendor of this establishment, they have a rainy day oferta: buy one donut, get a sencilla (simple donut) free. It seems like every time we go, it starts raining right after we make our puchases. But yesterday--yesterday I was determined to get my free donut. When we got back from Xela, it was pouring rain. I was starving, having eaten breakfast at 9:30 and nothing since. I was in the mood for a yummy donut so, after dropping off my stuff, I made the trek to the promised land. In the pouring rain. I was also enlisted to make a stop at Despensa, our local grocery store, located on the same street as Yummy Donas. I walked all the way there and found the store closed. Yes, Yummy Donas is closed on Sundays. It was devastating. I had to settle for gummy worms and some of my favorite Mexican cookies from Despensa. It was tragic. As I walked home, my obviously drenched pants earned me lots of "stupid gringa, walking around in the rain" stares. Thankfully, today it was raining a little less hard and the rest of the volunteers wanted to walk to Yummy Donas in Pana after dropped off our laundry. This time I got my free donut. It only kind of redeemed what happened yesterday. After I got donuts, I had to run to Crossroads Cafe to give Mike's wife my email address. By that time it was pouring and I soaked another pair of pants. But the preceding donuts made it a little more bearable.

On the subject of Mike and his family, I have an update on the teaching Biology thing. Sadly, Mike's kids will be finishing their school year in the next week or so. His youngest won't be starting Biology until September when I'll be back in Nashville. But now I've given them my email address so hopefully I'll be getting a few emails from them this year with some Biology questions. Keep your fingers crossed.

So this weekend I had a delightful time in Xela with a smaller subset of our team. Half the group hiked Tajamulco and a couple PDs went to Monterrico while Dana, Katy, Dave, and I spent the weekend in Xela. Our first stop was The Black Cat, the phenomenal hostel we stayed in. We chose dorm-style rooms for the experience and the cheaper price. After we checked in and dropped off our stuff, we went to the oldest bar in Xela for lunch which is located in the oldest building in Xela. Dana and I split two different sandwiches, both of which were delicious. The sandwich I ordered had eggplant on it. I've eaten more eggplant here than I've ever eaten in my life. Actually, I don't think I'd ever eaten eggplant before coming to Guatemala. Never thought this would the place I'd add that to my eating resume.

After lunch, we hiked up a hill to a church that overlooked the city. It was an incredible view. The city stretched way farther than we all thought it would. And the hill seemed way shorter than it looked from the ground.

We spent the afternoon walking around and exploring the city, making a stop at Baviera Cafe, per Mike's recommendation. I enjoyed a strawberry licuado, the Guatemalan equivalent of a smoothie, and a slice of their tres leches cake. It was a rather enjoyable afternoon.

After our snack, we wandered around for a bit, trying to figure out where to get dinner. We had heard you could watch movies at the Blue Angel cafe so we stopped in to see what was showing. After some investigation, we found out that we could eat while we watched the movie AND bring in outside snacks. We ran to Xelapan to get some baked goods before the movie started and headed back to Blue Angel to order and get ready for the movie. It turns out that we were the only ones who showed up to watch the movie so they offered us the smaller of the two viewing rooms. We walked inside and were shocked to find that it looked remarkably like...a living room. It was just a TV with normal Guatemalan cable and two couches. It was crazy. Definitely felt more like we were at a friend's house than at a restaurant. The food was great and the movie, Meet the Parents, was hilarious and uncomfortable as usual. The movie finished around 10pm, by which time the restaurant had closed and the only other person in the place was a woman who had fallen asleep at the table waiting for the movie to be over. Once it finished, she came in and said she needed to go to bed so we paid and left. Hilariously awkward evening.

We went back to the hostel and the rest of the crew decided to go out for a while. I opted to stay in since I'm still trying to kick this cold. At the end of the day, I think we both had the best nights we could have. I got to spend a good bit of time chatting with one of our roommates, a Norwegian guy in his third year of university studying chemistry. We talked about our respective areas of study and he told about the work he does in his lab, trying to make a three-peptide antibiotic stable in the human stomach. He explained to me the Norwegian college system and I reciprocated with the US system. I loved the opportunity to talk about science and travel and language. Best night in ever.

The next morning, I was greeted with the fantastic news that breakfast was included in the price of the hostel. I enjoyed a big bowl of yogurt with granola and fruit. Incredibly satisfying. After breakfast we packed up and checked out. The cleanest room I've slept in since I got here, the cleanest bathroom I've used since I got here, and the best breakfast I've had since I got here cost me a total of 60Q. That's about $8.50. Awesome.

We made our way to the bus stop which was right next to Megapaca, the best thrift store I've ever been to. We spent at least an hour browsing this warehouse-sized cornucopia of 100% imported, second-hand clothes. When it was all said and done, I ended up with a hooded sweatshirt that says "traveling across the sea", a crewneck sweatshirt with a hand-painted giant santa head on it (for use at all of those tacky holiday sweater parties), a polo shirt-dress with tiny white seahorses embroidered all over it, and an extra large button-down pajama top with lawn gnomes in various poses all over it. All for 47Q ($6.75). It was a good day.

All in all, I'd say Xela was probably my favorite weekend spent traveling here. Everything about it was just comfortable and enjoyable. If I come back to Guatemala, I'll definitely make a stop in Xela.

This is our last full week here. It feels like it's gone by so quickly. But this will be our busiest week here by far. Since we hadn't had a whole lot of time in the community, Katy had the great idea to ask the PDs if we could shadow some of their doctor friends who are working in clinics in rural communities to fulfill a requirement for their graduation. They agreed to let us follow them around for the day so I'll be meeting one of them tomorrow at 7:30am to see what a day in the life of a Guatemalan med student in their final year is like. I'm way excited.

Tomorrow is also the big prep day for the mini campamientos we'll be having on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'll be making lots of posters and examples for our class on pinata-making. I'm so excited for the chance to spend more time in the community with the kids. Since this is an extracurricular activity, we'll be unaffected if school is cancelled so we're guaranteed that time with our students. I'm looking forward to some uninterrupted contact

As we head into our last week, I'm glad to say that our group is getting more and more cohesive. We spent the afternoon together in Pana and really enjoyed each other's company. I'm glad we get a little more time to enjoy each other before we go our separate ways. And our line up of activities is pretty awesome.

Tuesday: Salsa lessons
Wednesday: Family dinner and discussion
Thursday: Soccer with the Guatemalans
Weekend: Santa Cruz

Can't wait to keep diving into life here and soaking up as much of this country, the people, and our team as I can.

Although we had a rather humorous discussion with Dana this weekend about things she has to look forward to when she's back in the States. She's leaving tomorrow to visit home and meet the new PDs who will taking over for the next year. Some highlights of our list:
Drinking water from the tap.
The certainty that fellow passengers entering a bus will sit as far away from you as possible as opposed to on top of you.
Peanut butter that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
Fewer stray dogs.
Hot water for the entirety of a shower.
Dishwashers.

There are a lot of awesome things about living in a developing country. But I think if I did this all the time, there are a lot of things I'd miss. I think a month is the perfect amount of time for a taste of living abroad long-term. So far, I think I could do it. And I've also picked up a lot of tips for doing it well.

For example, check a bag full of peanut butter.