Fri. Feb.18, 2011

Today is a free day for everyone. Gene went across the lake with Jim and Louise to help with the house they are building for a family in Santiago Atitlan. He found out how strong the Mayan women are. I have heard more than one strong man tell me how these women can put them to shame. In spite of this Gene had a wonderful day working with Jim.
Bill and Chas went back again today to Mayan Families work shop to help out there and do some work with Michael.
Debbie and Bill got to spend the afternoon meeting with the three students they have been sponsoring through Mayan Families for some time now. As a result of their visit Debbie got her hair wrapped in the tradition of San Antonio Polopo and I have to say she wears it quite well. They both said what a wonderful time they had with them. Meeting your students face to face is so rewarding and makes this relationship more personal.
Denise decided to go to the Reserva which is a beautiful park where you can see wonderful plant life, monkeys and zip line if you like. Denise decided against the zip line this trip.
Before we got our day started we had coffee at El Dorado and watched a parade of the Pana preschool kids. Little Tomas was in the parade dressed in his traditional Chichicastanengo traje. Tomas is the son of Lucia who is a street vendor that some of you will have met.
After the parade the rest of the ladies and I headed to the used quipil market searching for hidden treasures. And some were found. We then headed down Santander to shop for jewels.
Four of us had lunch at my house since I had lots of leftovers from the party.
And then we all gathered at Sharon and Dwight's for a dinner and a wonderful slide presentation of our trip.


Susie does such a nice job of putting together a CD of group trips and makes sure we have the opportunity to purchase extra copies.