Well world, I´m 22 years old! Honestly, I was a little bit nervous about what yesterday would look like- because I´ve only been with my host family for a week, and I´ve only known these YAVs for like 3 weeks (which blows my mind in itself), but it was seriously a wonderful day! And for those of you who didn´t know, yesterday was also Mary, Mother of Jesus´s birthday, too- according to Guatemalan Catholics. Happy belated birthday, Mary!
So the day started with a little jog, and then a legitmately hot shower! This probably needs some explanation. SO there´s an electric water heater attached to the shower head (safe??)- so it has to be on the correct setting (hot is represented by a black dot, cold by a half black dot. Obviously.) Then, one has to turn the water (with the valve, nothing more) all the way on, then turn the pressure down little by little. The more pressure, the less hot the water will be. So I´m not saying I´m Einstein, but I´m pretty proud that it finally all came together for me. Then I went upstairs and had a typical birthday tamale for breakfast! Yum!
Then, I went up the street to school, where I was greeted by balloons, a ¨surprise¨ piñata (hard to have surprises when we´re all together all the time...), a bday sign, and many coca lights (which are somehow far superior to Diet Cokes). At our 10oclock break, we broke the piñata (which seriously took like 20 mins, it was the strongest piñata in the world) and had lots of candy-- then my teacher brought out a big cake for all of us! And after like 10 birthday songs, we finally could enjoy it. Qué rico!
At lunch, my host sisters presented me with my gift and many hugs, so sweet! They gave me a woven cloth that they use here to wrap up tortillas or line bread baskets-- So I´m not 100% sure what I´ll use it for, but still so thoughtful! Then they came downstairs and I gave them a bunch of dulces from the piñata- I am so not above bribing them to like me. Then after lunch Brodie called! Yay!
Soo in the afternoon we bussed to Antigua (Tina with the 2nd ¨secret¨cake), and met up with Marcia and another mission worker who´s been here for over 40 years, Dennis Smith. He talked to us about Guatemala, politics, his experiences, our hopes, etc... Very cool! Then we went to Marcia´s house and hung out until dinner and I got to talk to my parents, too! So what did the birthday princess want for dinner? Chinese food! Haha, we had it delivered, and it wasn´t really anything to brag about, but it was yummy and different from the (delicious) Guatemalan food we´ve been getting. Afterwards, we ate like half of the world´s largest cake that Tina´s host mom made. Yep- I probably gained like 10 birthday pounds yesterday, but it was totally worth it.
All in all, a wonderful day full of friends and food when I felt very loved.
bendiciones, juli
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