Friendly Friends

While we have only been back in the States for roughly two weeks, we have thus far managed to pack in some great time with great friends! We saw James' parents and attended our friend Emily's wedding our first day back (a hearty congrats to Emily and Scott Smith!) but we'll post pics of that later when they're available.

We've been enjoying catching up with people we have missed dearly, friends and family alike.

Our friend Cara came to Neosho from Lawrence to visit.

We went to visit our friends in Lawrence for a fun evening. We played Bocci ball and had a BBQ. Thanks for hosting, Kim and Chad!

Our friends Jake and Amber ('The Jamber') visited from D.C.

If only they were moving back, too!

More from the BBQ...

We were actually here in person for Dad's birthday!

We celebrated by playing pool and playing music

Mom with her dog, Mitzi

We hosted a Pyper Party in West Plains, MO

Stan, Genevieve, and Will Pyper came to visit us.

Thanks to all for the warm welcome back to the States!

Spoiled

Now that James and I are officially living in the U.S. again (though we have no official living residence), we are feeling pretty spoiled by the normalities and banalities of life. I feel a bit like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when she sings her song "I Want it Now" because it all seems so--possible! You can ask for--and find--just about anything you want in America. The availability of choices is staggering.

There are luxuries that we never really appreciated until having lived a developing country, and we both still have the feeling that everything is so temporary, like it has been over the last two short Christmas breaks. We are trying to break ourselves of the mentality that we have to "stock up" on things, or that "this is the last time" we eat certain foods, etc.

Happy to be Home!

Some of the small stuff we've been loving:

• Air Conditioning
  
• Healthy food options at the supermarket
• Using a dishwasher (this one is short-lived. We won't have one in Lawrence come August...)
• Watching English-only TV with muchos channels
• Walking around outdoors and feeling 100% safe (and hot -- it's humid in Missouri!)
• Quickly filling up the coffee pot from the sink
• Going to a gym where people are polite and clean, with cold water from the water fountains
• Driving on wide roads with other rule-abiding citizens. No window-tint needed! No locked doors!
• The long, sunny summer days. No sunset until after 8pm! (instead of 6 pm year-round in Guate)
• Wearing our wedding bands and my engagement ring. We've missed our nice jewelery that means so much to us.
• Understanding every interaction we partake in (in English) and understanding what others around us are saying, too!
• The predictability and orderliness of life in America. People stand in a line. They wait their turn. They drive in one lane. Imagine!
• Having the family cats to help us grieve giving away Rafa: Gabby, Dooley, and our cat, Mia
  
• Making phone calls to friends and family that are domestic (read: cheap) instead of international.
• Going shopping without wondering how much everything is going to weigh in a suitcase!!
  

For now, it still seems like this is "vacation" instead of just what life will be like from now on...Either way, we will take it!

If you are wondering, the blog will go on, but it will likely take the form of our friend Kim's LuceChatter, a blog more about daily life and State-side observations and MUCH less about Guatemala.

Congratulations to Scott and Emily Smith!
We attended their beautiful wedding the day we flew in.

Picture Perfect Prom 2009

As some of you may recall, CAG's community of teachers likes to have a good time! Unfortunately, we live in a city that tends to make that difficult, so we have to entertain ourselves by throwing theme parties.

Recently, we attended the second annual CAG Prom event.

While James and I were nominated but not elected prom king and queen, we certainly felt like royalty in this year's outfits! James and I were wearing hand-me-downs from last year's teachers. Most people this year (including James and I) went for an 80's theme, including color coordination.

Lots of our friends also had great looks.

Charlotte, having pilfered the Queen's crown

Cara and Sam

James and our friend, Reid. Who looks more rad?

This year's Prom King and Queen, the Olsens!

Catie, donning Spanish flair

3 hot hair-dos, coming your way!

That's how we get our hair to hold it's fabulous form!

James and last year's Prom Queen, Kelly

All the single (and not single) ladies!

Fastest Gams in the West

This may seem impossible to believe, but I won a running race last week! It has never happened before, nor will it ever happen again, but the fact it could even happen ONCE is amazing and exciting!

While I have been running since 2003, I am not what you could ever qualify as fast. I'm not that into distance running like my friends Linden and Jake, or distance walking like my friend Kim, but I do enjoy a good run for the physical and mental benefits of vigorous exercise. Since the Chicago Marathon over 5 years ago, I haven't really gone back to long distance running, never really running more than 3-5 miles at a time.

Recently I started training for a half-marathon (13.1 miles) in Coban, Guatemala, that would have been May 17. Unbelieveably, the half-marathon was CANCELLED due to SWINE FLU. It is still totally beyond my how a runner with the illness would show up to run 13.1 miles with serious influenza. Not only that, but it's an OPEN AIR race! Where are people in close quarters?! They would be running! Furthermore, there's only been like 1 documented case in the whole country, a little Mexican girl. I still cannot believe it. Oh well, the point is, I have been training for long distance runs lately, which apparently helped me.

So I was at the gym on a Friday afternoon, and a female personal trainer at the gym approached me to ask if I would be interested in running in a race for mujeres fuertes (strong women) in honor of Mother's Day, but on Saturday. It is important to note that this entire conversation occurred in Spanish, not English, so I thought I was getting myself into a little race for ladies, so of course, I said yes, and signed up.

Later, I talked to a girlfriend who was told about the race -- in English. It turns out the race was a "Last Woman Running" kind of competition, in which women would run until they couldn't any more, and the last woman still running would be the winner. A bit different from the friendly, small competition I had understood this to be!

Remember, we're in Guatemala, and women running outside in a small race is not recommended for safety reasons. So, the race was on treadmills at the gym, which was good news to me, because I frankly find outdoors long-distance running to be hard on my knees (hills, concrete), and a little boring, too. So, I was still excited to do the race because I wasn't going to get to compete in the long-distance race I was planning on in Coban, and this seemed like a great substitute to put that training to use! Plus, it didn't involve traveling 4 hours away, just for a race...

"Animo, Beth!"
("Go Beth!")

Rules: You couldn't drop your speed below 5.0 mph (7.0 kph on Guate treadmills b/c they're on the metric system here :), and there was a judge watching you to make sure you were running. You could take one 1-minute stretch break in the two hours. The race would be stopped at 2 hours if there was more than one woman still running (still not sure why they stopped it at 2 hours). At the end of 2 hours, if there was more than one woman running, the race would be judged by each woman's total distance.

James made me a cute little sign that said "I'm running for my mom, Jackie" in Spanish, to put on the treadmill, since the race was in honor of Mothers' Day.

So, Saturday morning, I ran against 7 other women for the title. I brought James' little video player and watched episodes of a guilty pleasure HBO series of mine, Big Love. I got lost in the shows, and time went by really fast! There were still 4 of us running at the end of the 2 hours, and I had run the farthest, 20 km! I started a little early, and did a 1.5 mile warm-up before the race, bringing my grand total to 13.4 miles, a half-marathon! So there was a little ceremony and I got a certificate and a free month's membership for June.

Since I will never be in a race with only 7 participants who all have shorter legs than me ever again, I will go ahead and count this as a stroke of good luck, and I am nonetheless proud of winning. But we all know what they say about being in the land of blind men... ;)

The Gatorade sponsor guy, and those of us who ran the full 2 hours
I got Primer Lugar! (first place) and defended my Mom's honor

Let Me Entertain You

While we haven't been up to anything of importance lately, we have been doing and seeing lots of fun little things with our spare time! Such as....

Competitions...

Dance Off

Leg Off

Beer Off
(don't worry - just a blind beer tasting of Brahva, Gallo, and Dorada Ice...James was only sipping on these! He won, by the way!)

Game Night


Being Active...

Zip Lining

Measuring the height of volcanoes


Being Lazy

Stop! Hammock Time!

U Can't Touch This

Nap time

Central American Celebrations

Cuban music with Franco!

Cuban Contraband

Antigua Religious Processional

Watching Rafa Grow!

He's getting so big!

Three Days at the Beach

Last year Beth and I fell in love with Sunzal, a beach and little surfing community in El Salvador. I think we went four times between January and June. But when we came back from summer break in 2008, for some reason we never got around to going again before Christmas. We finally made it back this past long weekend and immediately fell in love with the place all over again.

Friday morning we caravanned with a group of teachers (12 at the time, though 3 more met us at the beach later) to the beach. One of the reasons we like going so much is that it's the easiest drive to make of any of our usual destinations. The road out of the city is much better, and the highways in El Salvador are leaps and bounds better than Guatemala's, not to mention it's quite scenic.

Of course, there really isn't much to report of our time at the beach. We did a whole lot of swimming, reading, eating ceviche (like a shrimp salad) and pupusas (stuffed tortillas), drinking fruit smoothies, and just hanging out with our friends. We spent our mornings over at a nearby small hotel/restauarant overlooking the ocean, our afternoons boogie boarding, watching the surfers (in absolute amazement -- it looks so hard and intimidating!), and the evenings playing pool and playing music.

Breakfast at Miramar -- the greatest view in Sunzal

Gimme a B-E-A-C-H!

Playing pool on the beach

Don't worry - I cleared the table, then sunk the 8-ball in the wrong pocket -- and scratched!

Beth, Jean Ah, and Wendy

James and Mike

Wishing sunset wasn't over

We had several musicians with us: Mike, Andy, (guitarists) David (guitarist/keyboardist) and Reid (banjo-ist). And we struck gold by inviting a nice surfer fellow to join us. Stephen was a Talent. He could pick up the guitar or banjo and pull sound out of it that you didn't think was previously possible. He also knew tons of Beatles' songs, and Beth was in her element, singing along to every song he played. She said it reminded her of being at home around her Dad and her dad's musical friends.

Mike on the guitar and Reid strumming the banjo

Stephen! Surfer and Guitarist Virtuoso -- we all wondered what he was doing on a beach and not in a band

My favorite song he played and sung:
Something in the Way She Moves by James Taylor

The bad news? It looks as if many of us got food poisoning/bacterial infection on some level. James and I had rumbly tummies for a few days, but some of our friends were much sicker, and one friend ended up going to the doctor and finding out she had e-Coli bacterial poisoning.

Warning: Pupusas may be hazardous to your health! But don't let that stop you. :)

.....but wasn't it all worth it in the end, to spend three days at the beach?