More Volcanoes

Our big excitement this week was the weaving class that I took. While I was weaving Ryan would work on homework and play with the kids that live at the cooperative. They all loved it. In fact, Kevin (age 6?) has adopted Ryan as his compañero and insists that they do their homework en serio. As if that were not fun enough, Ryan got to create a music video of all the weaving steps for your enjoyment. (Ryan: Yes - be sure to check out the video at the bottom of the post here. It should give you an idea what it’s like to make a scarf here. Enjoy!)

This Saturday we got up nice and early to go to the Laguna Chicabal . It was a hike up to the top of an old volcano that has since been filled by the lagoon. From the top we could see 5 different volcanoes. We had breakfast up there in hopes that Volcano Santiaguito would erupt for us. Ryan told everyone that if they would just think hard enough that it would happen. He was rewarded for his efforts with three eruptions and became known as el hombre del pensamiento poderoso- the man with the powerful thought. After the eruptions we descended over 600 stairs to the Laguna to find Hannah and Craig had come in to visit us.

We tried some street food this week! For only 5 Quetzales ($0.75) you can enjoy a hotdog with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and green hot sauce. If that weren’t enough, you get a free 3 ounce cup of orange soda to go with it. I have to admit that they aren’t nearly as exciting as Brazilian hot dogs, (or that nasty pani puri in India) but I think the fact that they’re street food adds an edge.

We went to the movies this week. We considered it a part of our Spanish training as it was the movie “Game Plan” dubbed into Spanish. We arrived 3 minutes before it started and we were the only people there. By the end it was half full, and it was the back half. I think they fill up the seats from the back. The theatre was really nice and everything was going fine, until halfway through when all the lights suddenly came on and the movie slowed to a stop. Ryan and I looked around to see if there was some kind of emergency and we needed to evacuate, but only a few people were leaving quickly with wads of money. That was when we realized it was intermission and time to buy nachos.