Loose ends

This week's excitement was playing with Amber's kids and listening to Michelle practice her dissertation presentation. She did a beautiful job in the real presentation on Friday. She kept her cool with some tough questions, and as usual made everyone laugh a few times.

I noticed a while back that I had two video clips from Guatemala that never got posted. Click on the pictures on the side here and you'll link to the videos. In the first you'll see a Mayan lady making chocolate pretty much the way her family has for generations. In the second you'll see another Mayan lady from Lake Atitlan wrapping her head in her traditional headress. Enjoy!

The Great Midwest Adventure

This week we drove out to Omaha to find ourselves a place to rent for the next three years while Ryan is doing his family medicine residency. It was good to get reaquainted with the Midwest, but I have to be honest, this is not the most picturesque time of year. Luckily my sister Emily and her family live about half way there so we got to stop and play with them twice. Zach and Quinn are a lot of fun to play with, even when they are upside-down.

The place we decided to rent in Omaha is right behind the clinic that Ryan will be working at for a good portion of our time there. He says the Air Force generally frowns upon jumping barbed-wire fences, so he will have to walk around the block to the front gate. We saw a lot of really great places with a lot of charactor during our search (i.e. dark orange carpet, purple bedrooms, orange varigated carpeting on stairs, metallic wallpaper). Unfortunately they were all to big for us and we settled for this cute little duplex. If you want a little tour, you can view some video footage at http://youtube.com/watch?v=jPSkY0ljllk .

The Finch family came to Columbus to visit us for the Easter weekend. We started off strong by visiting the ice cream factory and giant ice cream playground. We have since played with all the toys in the toy box, read books from the library and played fruit stand. I got a great apron in Guatemala that all the vendors use, and now the kids can use to sell their fake produce. We also have leftover Colombian pesos that the kids can use for buying and selling. It has turned out to be a lot of fun.

It is good to be back in Columbus, I hope that we can stay put for at least a month.

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And if you haven't had enough yet, here is the video from Lidia's ice cream shop in Medellin where Ryan learned to make a Colombian-style fruit salad. The version below has English captions. For Spanish, use this link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_0qB6MqPn9Y .

Whirlwind week in Colombia

Our week in Colombia was wrought with adventure and intrigue. Well, we took care of the adventure and the South American governments took care of the intrigue. I took Ryan around town to see all of my haunts in Medellin. He was really impressed with the size, organization and cleanliness of Colombia and has taken it upon himself to tell everyone about it. I think that he is ruining my image of being a brave world travelor taking my very life into my own hands every time I go to Colombia. I have to admit with the world events surrounding this trip, we were probably the closest to real danger that I have ever been in.

Ryan tried the Bandeja Paisa, the traditional lunch dish of this region which features a 1" thick 10" long piece of bacon aka chorizo. He really enjoyed this high calorie density treat. We also went out to the Pueblito Paisa, a recreated traditional Colombian village, with my friend and her husband and he bought us some nice ponchos to keep us warm. I think that they are going to make great shepard costumes for the Christmas Nativity this year.

Ryan is working on a couple more videos for the blog. 1. Making hogao to go on arepas and 2. Creating a Colombian fruit salad. Stay tuned...

Last days in Cuilapa

Our last two weeks in Guatemala really flew by, and we did our best to enjoy every last minute of it. On our last Saturday the Perez family drove us to a famous local bridge known as “Los Esclavos” or “The Slaves” because it was built by slaves under Spanish rule a few hundred years ago. It’s an incredibly thick and sturdy construction of solid stone that’s lasted centuries of hurricane-induced flooding. The locals told us that when Hurricane Mitch hit ten years back, all the other modern steel bridges for miles and miles around were destroyed by the force of the boulders and trees carried in the raging river. This bridge withstood the beating though and is still around to face the next disaster.

If you look closely you’ll see a chunk of stones that’s fallen from the bridge support in one spot. The local legend is that the Spaniard in charge of building the bridge centuries ago made a deal with the devil in order to get it done on time. They say the Spaniard went back on the promise though and refused to hand over his soul when he died. That sure made the devil mad and he subsequently gave the bridge a big kick to try and destroy it. They say his kick knocked those few rocks off, but even the devil couldn’t topple the sturdy bridge.

Here’s a picture of Michelle honing her pupusa making skills with Marisol and Haley. Pupusas are like soft thick corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and/or beans and they’re the typical meal of El Salvador. Marisol served her mission in El Salvador, and Michelle had been itching to make pupusas with her since we arrived. What better time to do it than a mere 2 hours before we left Cuilapa to catch our plane in the capital?

Here’s a peak into the valley of Guatemala City that includes the temple. From Cuilapa we drove down the mountainside to enter the valley and stopped halfway down to take some pictures.

This last weekend we touched US soil in Miami for a few hours and then made our flight to Medellin, Colombia, without any problems. I will tell you that Michelle’s biggest concern during the flight wasn’t the threat of losing oxygen in the cabin or a devastating crash into the ocean. Her panic was about her jump drive and the dissertation file it contained. Rest assured that we dug it out of her backpack and safely secured it in a well-zipped plastic sandwich bag deep in her pocket until we landed. Michelle did an excellent job with her presentation at the University of Antioquia on Monday and now she’s finishing up some work with her papers to be published. With the rest of our time we’re visiting all of Michelle’s friends and seeing all of Medellin’s interesting sights.