Manifestation

One day I left to go shopping and drove past a long line of cars waiting to head north on the highway.  As I got further along, I had to skirt around rocks in the road and then a smoldering pile of tires.  By this point, I had figured out that it was probably a manifestation in process, and I didn't want to turn around and drive back home.

So I called Michael to let him know something was up, and I did my regular shopping in town.  By the time I finished, not even any tuk-tuks were driving through town, which was odd, so Veronica and I stayed and waited in the grocery store parking lot.  A few other missionaries from another mission walked by and invited me to wait at their place on the other side of town.  That sounded like a safer idea, so we waited there until about 5:30 p.m., when the roads finally had cleared.

This "manifestation" turned out to be a protest by the bus drivers against the unpaved section of highway where a detour was put in around a landslide last year.  It was full of potholes and caused very slow driving through that section.  Apparently, money had been given to the town to pave it, but there was suspicion that the leaders had taken the money for themselves.

The unpaved detour was full of potholes.

Results of the day's protest.  This is a
sign by the detour that says
"We are working."

More land offers

Now that people know we bought land, we are getting more offers.

A man knocked on our door one evening, saying he lived in Chulumal II (where we own property) and that he had a piece of property to sell.  His story was that the school his daughter attends in town is requesting that the students buy laptops, and he needs to raise money for that purchase.  He drives a tuk-tuk, and his story seems probable.

Out of curiosity, we went to see the property he has for sale.  It is down the road from our land, but it is a very small triangular-shaped piece (about 3400 sq. ft.). That is the size people are receiving as inheritances these days since the land is so divided up.

We told him we would spread the word... so does anyone want to buy a tiny piece of Guatemala?  (Just kidding.)

Rat visitor

We had a rat visitor, whom we discovered by finding droppings on our car battery.  So we put some rat poison out, and it was gone the next morning.  Several days later, we found a dead rat under the car, but that seems to have been the only or last one!

Fire = electricity upgrade

Recently our electricity went off, and we found out the outage was caused by a fire in the apartment behind ours.  Their maid had wanted to wash the windows, but due to faulty wiring, there was a wire sticking out in her way.  She pulled on the wire, which short-circuited the system all the way to the electrical cables in the street.

Thankfully the maid wasn't hurt, but a small fire started and the cables down the street started sparking and melted in two!  Our landlord's wife ran with buckets of water to put the fire out (not a good idea with an electrical fire), but thankfully she wasn't hurt either.  We called the electric company and they sent out workers to remove the burned cables from the street that day, and then they replaced the cables with larger ones the next day.  We were impressed with their fast work.

The worker right outside our house.

The worker down the street.

Now, as an unexpected benefit, our electricity works with more power than ever!  We always had trouble with our microwave not working very well because the power was weak.  However, ever since they replaced the cables in the street, it's like we have a new microwave!

No electricity

Whenever the electricty goes off, our water pump doesn't work to carry water from our cistern.  We have learned how to deal with it so life can go on without much of a bother.  I go into bucket-toting mode:

We flush the toilet by pouring water
into the tank.

I fill the bucket on the left with
  water to wash hands and dishes.
(The container on the right, which is
always there, has clean water.)

English class homework

There are two girls that come over to our house regularly for help from Carrie with their English class homework.  Their names are Guisela and Mirella, and they are granddaughters of the pastors of our church.  They are 14-year-old twins that attend a junior high school here in Chichicastenango.

They often have to memorize and sing English songs or present skits in English in front of their class of 40 students.  With Carrie's help, their pronunciation is improving!

Construction site

We went to check out one of Diego's other current building sites.  In the photo you can see the type of confined masonry that they build with here in Guatemala, and which we will use in our buildings.

Spiral staircase... Hang on tight, Veronica!