If Doña Lucy doesn't have the food I'm looking for, she will tell me, "I'll have it for you tomorrow!" and she will go buy it in town for me. She only charges a few cents more than what I would pay in town. What a deal!
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| Doña Lucy |
October 25, 2011
Local grocery store
When I need a couple grocery items between my weekly shopping trips into town, we usually walk to one of the nearby local stores in our neighborhood, which is in the front room of a house. I walk up to the window, and if no one is there, I just call out, "¡Buenas tardes!" (Good afternoon!)
If Doña Lucy doesn't have the food I'm looking for, she will tell me, "I'll have it for you tomorrow!" and she will go buy it in town for me. She only charges a few cents more than what I would pay in town. What a deal!
If Doña Lucy doesn't have the food I'm looking for, she will tell me, "I'll have it for you tomorrow!" and she will go buy it in town for me. She only charges a few cents more than what I would pay in town. What a deal!
October 20, 2011
Disinfecting Food and Water
Whenever we bring home fresh fruits and veggies from the store or the market that we plan to eat raw, they have to be disinfected. First, I rinse them off, and then I soak them in water with a couple tablespoons of bleach for 30 minutes.
Since most fruits and veggies float, I press them down completely with a plate and put a weight on it.
If I'm planning to cook the fruits or veggies, however, I only rinse them in tap water. They don't need to be disinfected first because the heat of cooking kills all the bad stuff.
For drinking water, we have to either buy purified water or filter our tap water. We have a 5-gallon jug in a dispenser.
The tap water has bacteria, viruses, parasites, and amoebas, so we are very careful not to get it in our mouths. We have a separate container of water to use for brushing our teeth.
We also have a separate container at the kitchen sink for rinsing the washcloth that I use to clean Veronica's hands and mouth after a meal.
To save money, Michael works diligently at filtering water. First, he puts tap water into the white filter on the left. Then he puts that filtered water into a second filter which is in the dark blue bucket up high on the right. This filter is a siphon, so Michael sucks on the long tube to get it started, and then the water runs down the tube into the 5-gallon jug on the floor.
For washing dishes, we use regular tap water, and our maid dries each dish with a towel. We also check our dishes before using them to be sure they are very dry. For showering, we use tap water but we have a hand towel ready to dry our faces.
In the U.S., we always took clean food and water for granted, but now we have to be more cautious!
Since most fruits and veggies float, I press them down completely with a plate and put a weight on it.
If I'm planning to cook the fruits or veggies, however, I only rinse them in tap water. They don't need to be disinfected first because the heat of cooking kills all the bad stuff.
For drinking water, we have to either buy purified water or filter our tap water. We have a 5-gallon jug in a dispenser.
The tap water has bacteria, viruses, parasites, and amoebas, so we are very careful not to get it in our mouths. We have a separate container of water to use for brushing our teeth.
We also have a separate container at the kitchen sink for rinsing the washcloth that I use to clean Veronica's hands and mouth after a meal.
To save money, Michael works diligently at filtering water. First, he puts tap water into the white filter on the left. Then he puts that filtered water into a second filter which is in the dark blue bucket up high on the right. This filter is a siphon, so Michael sucks on the long tube to get it started, and then the water runs down the tube into the 5-gallon jug on the floor.
For washing dishes, we use regular tap water, and our maid dries each dish with a towel. We also check our dishes before using them to be sure they are very dry. For showering, we use tap water but we have a hand towel ready to dry our faces.
In the U.S., we always took clean food and water for granted, but now we have to be more cautious!
October 11, 2011
Shopping in Chichi
I enjoy shopping in Chichi. It is a totally new experience for me, since I'm used to doing all my shopping in a super-department-houseware-hardware-grocery store, all under one roof (think Walmart). In Chichi I have to walk down street after street to find little stores that sell what I'm looking for.
Often there is a pile of clothes in the road for sale in Chichi. There is also usually someone yelling, in Spanish of course, "¡Un quetzal! ¡Un quetzal!" which translates to "13 cents! 13 cents!"
So sometimes I stop and dig through the pile with the other ladies. The clothes are very good quality used clothes from the United States. Our maid, Micaela, told me that having ladies' American clothes to buy is new in the last five years. Before that, there were only locally-made outfits to wear, like the lady above on the left is wearing. Most of the Mayan ladies still wear this traditional outfit. In fact, they say you can tell which dialect of K'iche' a lady speaks by what her outfit looks like, since each municipality has its own traditional style.
One time, while looking through a pile of clothes, a lady handed me a colorful sweater she had found in the pile and said, "¡Este es para usted!" ("This is for you!") I laughed and said, "¡Tiene razón!" ("You're right!") But in my heart I added, "Thanks God!" because I always pray that if there is something in that huge pile that God knows we could use, He would help me find it!
From there I usually walk over to the fruit and vegetable market. This is the lady who works at the fruit stand I like to go to. There are several stands together that all sell the same produce, so it's just a matter of choosing one. No more Walmart produce section for me! In the States I have never found such delicious, fresh pineapple, papaya, or mango. See my big bags that I have to carry all my produce in. I always take one of my daughters with me, and she ends up loaded down, too.
There are various stands in the market where one can buy chicken. It usually looks very fresh (see the white stand on the right-hand side). I get bone-in chicken breast for $2.00 per pound. I'll include a photo of the butcher shop where I buy beef in a future post.
Another food we buy a lot of is freshly-baked bread. There is a bakery three doors up the street from our house! Talk about good smells coming our way during the day! Pair up some pan dulce (which means "sweet bread"), with a cup of hot Incaparina, a sweet drink made of powdered corn which the poor Guatemalans drink, and you have a delicious breakfast. We eat this every Sunday morning.
The bakery sells about 15 different types of sweet bread, so we are trying to learn all the unusual sounding names, for example, champurrada, corona, sheika, campechana, recado, and simanteca. I have pictures of the bread drawn on a sheet of paper on our refrigerator with the name listed next to it!
Often there is a pile of clothes in the road for sale in Chichi. There is also usually someone yelling, in Spanish of course, "¡Un quetzal! ¡Un quetzal!" which translates to "13 cents! 13 cents!"
One time, while looking through a pile of clothes, a lady handed me a colorful sweater she had found in the pile and said, "¡Este es para usted!" ("This is for you!") I laughed and said, "¡Tiene razón!" ("You're right!") But in my heart I added, "Thanks God!" because I always pray that if there is something in that huge pile that God knows we could use, He would help me find it!
From there I usually walk over to the fruit and vegetable market. This is the lady who works at the fruit stand I like to go to. There are several stands together that all sell the same produce, so it's just a matter of choosing one. No more Walmart produce section for me! In the States I have never found such delicious, fresh pineapple, papaya, or mango. See my big bags that I have to carry all my produce in. I always take one of my daughters with me, and she ends up loaded down, too.
There are various stands in the market where one can buy chicken. It usually looks very fresh (see the white stand on the right-hand side). I get bone-in chicken breast for $2.00 per pound. I'll include a photo of the butcher shop where I buy beef in a future post.
Another food we buy a lot of is freshly-baked bread. There is a bakery three doors up the street from our house! Talk about good smells coming our way during the day! Pair up some pan dulce (which means "sweet bread"), with a cup of hot Incaparina, a sweet drink made of powdered corn which the poor Guatemalans drink, and you have a delicious breakfast. We eat this every Sunday morning.
Exercise Class
Five days a week we do 20 minutes of aerobics with Stormie Omartian's exercise video called Exercise for Life. Veronica takes a nap during our exercise time, but before we start, we stretch for about 15 minutes before she goes to take a nap. However, as you can see from the photos, stretching is a little bit more difficult with Veronica around!
We appreciate the joy and interest in life that Veronica brings to our family!
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| Let me share your mat with you, Andrea! |
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| Let me help you put on your shoes, Carrie! |
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| Watch me touch my toes! |
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| Can I sit in your lap awhile, Elena? I'm ready for a nap! |
October 4, 2011
Carrying loads
We are amazed at how much work the Guatemalans do just to collect food and firewood for their families. These photos were all taken near our house.
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| The mom on the left has a baby wrapped in fabric on her back, and the grandma on the right has a big bundle of something on her back and another bundle on her head. |
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| This corn field near our house is completely tended by hand tools. |
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| Two men and a lady are carrying firewood, and one lady has a large bundle wrapped in fabric. This photo was taken from our balcony. |
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| This man is carrying firewood. He must be in his 60's. |
These are just a few of the photos I could take to show people working hard every day. We see similar sights often. The most common bundles are babies and toddlers! I hope to post some more photos of moms with babies soon.
Children's ministry
I (Heather/Erica) love ministering to children! In Sunday School at the missionary church, we talked about different ways to worship the Lord (singing, shouting, dancing, kneeling, raising hands, clapping, etc.), and I taught the children a worship dance to the song "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Chris Tomlin. We practiced for a few weeks and then presented it to the church with the worship team. The dance was with hand motions, so after the photo was taken we asked the congregation to join in!
Now the class has started learning a second dance to the song "We the Redeemed" by Hillsong. We are working on the dance for the first 15 minutes of each Sunday School class.
Last weekend, we invited our pastor Don and his three children over for a pancake breakfast since his wife Heather was in Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks visiting friends. Then we babysat the kids for a few hours to give Don a break. We had fun going for a walk, picking a wildflower bouquet, playing DS's, and baking sugar cookies.
Veronica is growing and learning all the time. She copies everything we do, like getting water from the "clean water" dispenser.
She likes to climb up on the couch just like Andrea to drink her milk while watching TV in Spanish together.
And she only wanted to ride her push toy after seeing Olivia ride it when she was at our house.
Last weekend, we invited our pastor Don and his three children over for a pancake breakfast since his wife Heather was in Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks visiting friends. Then we babysat the kids for a few hours to give Don a break. We had fun going for a walk, picking a wildflower bouquet, playing DS's, and baking sugar cookies.
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| Michael and Don, with our maid Micaela in the background. |
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| The hot dogs are all gone! There are still some sugar cookies left to bake in the center of the table. Yummy! |
Our maid Micaela commented that all the kids look like they're mine! Aidan and Ali are 7-year-old twins and Olivia is 2 years old. It was a blessing to have them with us.
Veronica is growing and learning all the time. She copies everything we do, like getting water from the "clean water" dispenser.
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| "How come my sisters don't hear 'Don't touch!' whenever they do this?" |
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| "How come they don't keep telling my sisters 'Don't spill your drink!'?" |
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| "Finally, they tell my sisters 'Don't ride it' instead of telling me!" |
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