Un día en la vida

We arrived in Guatemala one month ago. Looking at the blog I realize, dear readers, that we've not been doing a very thorough job of updating you on our daily adventures.  Where are the pictures of the market brimming with baskets of papayas and avocados? The jaunty three-wheeled tuc tucs that take us to and from school everyday? The ladies in exquisitely embroidered traditional traje, balancing impossibly heavy loads on their heads? The endless plates of beans, with impossibly fresh and teeny tiny tortillas? 

Well...it turns out that while the pace of life here is more relaxed for us than at home, certainly, figuring out our new daily routines and navigating it all in Spanish leaves less time (and energy) than we’d expected for documenting and sharing with you all.  For those of you who’ve asked what our days are like, here’s a quick glimpse of an average weekday: 

Up at 6, breakfast of champions, not much different than in the U.S., though with more tropical fruit (!) and groggier parents: yogurt with granola, egg samich, cereal (cornflakes is pretty much our only non-sugary option), and oatmeal all continue to be tried and true staples. 

Backpacks on and out the door by 7:05, single-line down our dusty path to catch a tuc tuc by 7:10 with plenty of "Buenos Dias" to all the folks we pass on the way:

We jiggle and jostle our way to the other side of town, zooming through the streets where most everything is closed, but folks are up and sweeping their storefront sidewalks. 

Zadi starts class at 7:30 (adios amiga!) and since Bo doesn’t start until 8:30, he and Iago often go next door to La Posada hotel for the best cup of coffee in town and a few rounds of Flactures. It’s a game they invented combining the best of phonemes, flash cards, and Pictionary…. See pics below for a better idea:

Once the kids are in class, we’ve got a few hours before the 12:15 pickup. We’ll head to the Mercado in town for the daily shop, sometimes grabbing a desayuno tipico at our favorite comedor Brendy in town (black beans, fried plantains, tortillas, eggs with tomato and onion, and some fresh cheese).  More on the Mercado later – suffice it to say that because people don’t have cars here to carry big loads (or much money), most everything is bought the day it’s needed. Fruit is deliciously ripe and needs to be eaten that day – avocados, ~30 cents each, are ready NOW, tiny bananas and golden pineapples the same.  Some stuff (I learned the hard way) are bought by the Quetzal (the local currency), as in “I’ll have 2Q of tortillas” or "1Q of greens." The first time I bought tortillas I thought I’d asked for 10 and the lady looked at me wide-eyed and started filling an entire bag with the steaming silver-dollar sized morsels.  Turns out you get about 5 tortillas per Q, and she assumed I wanted 10 Q worth, so you can imagine how many I almost came home with… (spoiler alert: it was way too many)

Mornings are otherwise occupied with finishing up papers (for Iago), helping Zadi and Bo’s school with their school garden and curriculum, washing dishes, baking bread, and washing clothes.  Friendly greetings and conversations with neighbors are always a part of our day, including Annelise, our lovely landlady from Denmark, Aclax, the guardian (caretaker) of our property, the myriad of guests that come and go in the other dos casitas in our small compound, Pizza Pablo next door who always has cinnamon rolls and coffee at the ready, and Magdalena who sells eggs at the end of the path. 

Tuc tuc #3 of the morning then happens as one or both of us head back to the school to pick up the kids and then turn around again (Tuc tuc #4) to bring them home for lunch (some combination of beans, tortillas, egg, avocado, fruit, followed by still more dish washing), decompression, and downtime after a long morning at school.  Reading, crafting (Zadi knit the backpack pictured below!), invisible superheroes, card and dice games, Spanish practice, and visiting with neighbor cats, puppies and friends fill our afternoons.  

Sometimes we walk to our neighbor Stanley’s house to play in his lakeside sandbox or use his professional tournament approved tetherball court (or play with his large collection of circus arts equipment!), other afternoons we do a quick 20 minute workout and jump in our brisk pool for a cool down.

Dinner is similar to what we do at home: pastas, rice and beans, quesadillas, fried fish, eggs, veggies and fruits, pizza on Fridays. The former vegetarian and in me still has a hard time with all of the VERY fresh meat (as in it was breathing that morning) hanging in the butcher stalls surrounding the market, so we are eating a mostly plant-based diet along with A LOT of eggs. It's crazy how many eggs we are eating, but they are always delicious and come from chickens scratching on the ground just up our path. And beans. You know that song about beans the musical fruit? That's us - with practically every meal. On Wednesdays there's all you can eat spaghetti at the neighborhood pop-up restaurant just steps from our house and a good time to visit with folks who live nearby.

After dinner there are more dishes (can you tell I’m missing my beloved Kenmore Elite?), reading, a quick check for spiders and scorpions under the sheets (none found there so far and up until now we've met only the teeniest tiniest scorpion in the kitchen sink) and it’s time for kid bed at 7:30.  Adults are not far behind… 

We are missing our friends, family, and fuzzy critters back home, but as you can see, we're settling into our own rhythm here too. Days can be bumpy, but there are new people, sights, sounds, and tastes around every corner and we are doing our best to soak it all in.