Water in neighbor's house

After the installation of our fence, one neighbor called me and said that when it rained, water ran down the fence line and into their house!  So we had our builder make a concrete "gutter" to detour the water around our fence and down the hill.  Fortunately, we received no more complaints!

The neighbor's house is to the right.

VBS

Our church hosted a Vacation Bible School for local children, much like VBS in the United States.  It lasted all morning for six days.  We started the event with a parade through town, and Elena helped with face painting.  The parade ended with an activity with a clown to advertise the week-long VBS.

They asked me (Heather / Erica) to be an astronaut and perform a skit every day with another lady that played the part of a robot.  It was fun!

Elena was one of the assistant teachers, and Veronica participated as a student in the little-kid class.

The children presented several dances throughout the week, some of which they had learned with me earlier.

There was a separate "closing ceremony" afterwards, which is normal for activities here, and the older class and youth presented the dance from the "Fiesta Navideña" to our entire group of attendees and church members.  It was an exhausting but rewarding week!

Christmas gifts

Many businesses here in Chichicastenango give a Christmas gift each year to their regular customers.

Usually we receive calendars.  This one
was from the cable company.  We
also received calendars from the propane gas
company and the construction materials store.

This was the first year Heather / Erica received
plastic bowls in the market: one from Micaela's fruit
stand, one from Julia's vegetable stand,
and one from Eva's fruit stand.

Christmas program

I (Heather / Erica) am continuing to teach worship dance to two Sunday school classes at our local church each week.  This year, I was again asked to participate in ASELSI's Christmas program, called the "Fiesta Navideña," so I invited the oldest class of 8 to 10-year-olds.  We presented a dance to a song called "Jesús Es Navidad," which means "Jesus Is Christmas."  There were 10 children that participated, as well as 4 youth, including Elena.   Unfortunately, Carrie was sick that day, so I took her place in the dance.

Carrie and Elena at rehearsal the day before
the program.

Ready to dance!

We presented the dance three times for three
different groups.  There were several hundred
people in attendance in each group.

The children dressed up as dolls from various
parts of the world to share about Jesus.

Driveway and entry gate

We have a paving stone driveway inside our fence now and a new entry gate at the road.  They use paving stones a lot here because they are cheaper than pouring concrete and repairs are easier.  The gate at the road doesn't go all the way across our driveway because when we bought the land, we had to give verbal agreement to the community that we would always allow access to a community footpath that runs up our driveway.

Laying paving stones.

Our builder, Diego, is on the left.
A worker, José, is spreading sand on the
driveway that fills up the gaps between
the bricks.

This new gate is much easier to use than
the chain we had before.  We added the "spikes"
later after finding the neighbors' kids
climbing on the gate.

Christmas dinner

We had a very nice Christmas dinner this year, and we invited Carrie's boyfriend, José Luis, to join us.

Outhouse and pump house

We have an outhouse (except for the doors) and a pump house (except for the walls, water pump, and water filters).

The two-seater outhouse.

This photo shows how short
the pump house is.

The walls will be added after the
equipment is installed.

The 5,280-gallon cistern is painted
with waterproof paint in a beautiful
shade of blue.