Muerte!

Muerte! Death! Danaya walked into the bedroom to find this on the wall. Dave just killed it with a spinal tap from the Spanish dictionary.

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Computer Plans

We're going up to Tierra Linda on Monday morning to talk with the teachers at the school. It sounds like we'll have 20 sixth-graders each morning, split into 2 back-to-back classes. We feel that's a good start! But really, we don't know for sure what to expect until we get there.

Getting Settled in Panajachel

This is in our front yard. We're renting a house from a friend of a friend, and Zane loves being outside here. It's about 25 C during the day, and down to 12 C at night.

We are in our front yard with our new dog, "Perro". This is a deeply considered name, which means "dog" in Spanish. She adopted us, since she's a stray street dog. We like that she chases other dogs away, but we don't usually pet her, since she has fleas.

As usual, Zane is thrilled to find rocks in a gutter. Who needs toys? We're at Crossroads Cafe, enjoying a "cafe con leche" (coffee with milk).

Danaya is hanging our towels out to dry. You can see coffee bushes behind her. Our place is in the middle of a coffee plantation, and it's harvest time, so we picked a bit with our gardener/guardian Don Miguel. Ripe coffee berries are red, and need to be picked and dried in the sun. The berry is then opened, and the two beans are taken out and then roasted.

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Hiking Into Town

We're walking down the road into Panajachel (about a 25-minute walk from our place). Zane loves the carrier, and mostly stays awake watching all the trucks going by.

We've walked into town for the last two days, picking things up at the market, visiting the language school, getting internet set up at our house, meeting with Sharon who runs the Mayan Families organization that we partner with, figuring out our cellphones, etc.

So far we've managed to buy 10 overpriced and overripe mangoes, one overpriced and underripe papaya, and one perfect pineapple. We've been learning to use our fruit disinfectant, killing noisy crickets in the middle of the night, getting used to barking street dogs, and trying to communicate about our non-functioning hot water in Spanish.

Our flights and travel days went amazingly well, and Zane is transitioning well. He loves all the new sights and sounds, and the Guatemalans like pinching his cheeks. Since there are hundreds of street dogs to point at, Zane is ecstatic.

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