Good evening everyone. We have landed safe and sound in Guatemala City. We are staying at the Seminario Anabautista Latinamericano (SEMILLA). Basically we are in a kind of dorm area, but it is comfortable, and once again we have been very well fed. Spaghetti, fried chicken, fresh salad, watermelon, and fresh coffee. The ride to Guatemala City was a long one, with a very important stop along the way...for ice cream! Oh, and to stretch our legs...with ice cream! We took a great group photo, with about half of us hanging out the windows of the van, and the other half on the top of the van. The poor man from the ice cream place volunteered to take our photo. I don´t think he realized just how many cameras were going to come out of the van for photos. The people in the ice cream shop were quite entertained by watching us scramble to the top of the van, get our picture taken, and then scramble down.

We still have so many suitcases that we had left the larger ones in Antigua at the CLM and we only took ¨overnight¨ bags with us to Santiago Atitlan. Eric got us to Guatemala City and then turned around and drove back to Antigua with Karen to get the suitcases. Eric has been an incredible companion on this trip, part driver, part guide, part interpreter, and an entirely good friend to all of us. I think he has been entertained by us, and has certainly learned a few things, like CPR and midwife issues. He has been a real asset to our trip and we will certainly miss him when we leave.

I can´t say that I have very many pithy things to say this evening. Too full from dinner and to tired from the trip. I will say that some of my sisters layed out some of their purchases from the market this evening, and it honestly looked like we could have had our own little market right here. ¨¿Que estas buscando?¨ ¨¿Una bolsa?¨ Lots of beautiful things are coming back to the states with us. Make sure you get your orders in early for the Quetzal bird key chains. They´re going fast. (sometimes I have to add things in that may not make a lot of sense to you, my gentle readers, but for the folks on the trip they are hillarious, at least I hope so). BTW, I am using a keyboard that has some ¨mystery keys¨on it. I don´t always know where everything is. I only just discovered the upsidedown question mark (the equals, plus sign key, I have no idea where those signs are on the keyboard, I hope I don´t need them) and the ñ and Ñ (which is the colon and semicolon key, but I did accidentally find both of those symbols, shift comma and shift period) Everything is a learning experience in Guatemala.

There is a big spoons game going on in the courtyard down below. I promise we will try to keep it down to a dull roar so we don´t wake any of you up tonight. If we do disturb your sleep lo siento mucho.

Hasta mañana.