We had a great visit to the U.S. for 5 weeks in May and June. We enjoyed visiting Carolyn and Andrew, Elena, and Andrea, as well as Heather's parents, Richard and Karen, and Michael's dad, Charlie.
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| Michael with his dad Charlie in his assisted living facility |
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| With Elena, Andrew, and Carolyn |
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| Picnic with our daughters and Heather's parents, Richard and Karen |
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| Michael speaking at Central Presbyterian Church in Tellico Plains, Tennessee |
I was asked about our growing season here, and I'm happy to report that it is basically year-round since Guatemala is in the tropics! I have grown flowers throughout my life in the different places we have lived, and I have gotten back into flower gardening this past year.
We don't have four seasons, but we do have a rainy season and a dry season. This means the plants almost drown in the daily rain showers for half of the year, then face a drought the other half! During the rainy season, I am learning which plants can't take that much water: for example, geraniums, which I replanted into pots and placed under roofs where they get the sun part of the day, but I can regulate their water. During the dry season, I spend time watering everything once a week, including the St. Augustine grass, which is a thick vine.
We had many rocks remaining from our builder's over-estimated purchase for using in our retaining walls, so I've been placing them around our yard to make garden areas around the grass. I've recently planted different colors of hibiscus, hydrangeas, rose of Sharon, poinsettias, bouganvillea, and tropical azaleas, all of which bloom year-round here. I've also tried planting spider plants outside, as well as mother-in-law tongues, which are doing well. I'm enjoying it!
Plants at our local nursery are cheap, but they don't always live long, so I have to baby them and hope for the best! I'm always fighting insects and fungus, but we recently found some products in town to treat them. I even accidentally brought home some snails on my last purchase of plants! Here are some pictures I took in our yard recently.
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| If you zoom in, you can see the hummingbird. |
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| Geraniums hiding from the rain |
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| Hibiscus on a young bush. I have planted 7 varieties/colors and am waiting to see how they do. |
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| Rock garden on steep hillside |
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| Training bougainvillea to grow up an old swing set as an arch (Our dog Lucy is in her favorite spot on the bridge over our sand filter for kitchen sink and shower drainage water.) |
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| Another bougainvillea arch made of PVC pipes (The small building houses our water pump for drawing water out of the cistern which is under the arch.) |
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| Experimenting with color |
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| Between carport and house |
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| This anthurium was small when it was first gifted to me by our builder, and now it's several feet tall. |
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| Discovering that some bougainvillea prefer to be bushes instead of climbers |
In Chichicastenango, Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a very big deal. Throughout the week, they close and decorate roads with "rugs" made of flower petals, and there are many processions carrying statues of saints through town at various times. We mostly try to stay home that week, since getting anywhere in town is so complicated! There is also a tradition here of all the bakeries making "Easter bread," which are large sweet rolls to be eaten with honey. Our neighbors from the house you can see behind us in the video, William and Mercedes (probably in their upper 20s), brought us a gift of this bread! It was indeed delicious!
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| Our dog Lucy followed me around, smelling the sweet bread! |
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| They are the size of my hand! |
Our neighborhood road is currently blocked due to the installation of paving bricks on a 60-meter stretch of road. At that rate they will have to block it repeatedly about six times before arriving at our driveway! They only do road improvements once a year when the municipality gives them money, so we are hoping they will do more at a time when they re-block the road in the future.
Here is a map of our current "back way" detour in yellow. It takes about 15 extra minutes of slow driving to navigate with some tricky maneuvering to pass oncoming vehicles. It is mostly a single-car-width dirt road with various cornfields, steep dropoffs, and concrete walls lining the edges. The blue line shows our normal drive out of our neighborhood, which is the part currently blocked.
When we moved here 14 years ago, we thought the December festivities in our town were in celebration of Christmas. However, over the years we finally figured out that they were actually in celebration of the town's patron saint, Saint Thomas. In fact, there is so much traffic and hullabaloo in Chichi during the entire month of December, with main roads closing unexpectedly and twice the normal number of people in town, that we try to stay home as much as possible.
Here is a video posted by a local tourist hotel in early December showing a sampling of what goes on.
Translation: Did you know that the Fair of Chichicastenango in honor of Apostle Saint Thomas is about to begin? From December 4th to 22nd, its streets fill with color, with music, and with tradition. Different celebrations and ancestral dances are in honor of its patron Saint Thomas. The carnival rides, food, parties, and all of the magic make this fair one of the most special celebrations of Guatemala. We invite you to live it with us, to feel its energy, and to enjoy an unforgettable December in Chichicastenango. In Santo Tomás Hotel, it will be a pleasure to receive and accompany you during these festivities.
I (Michael) am getting tired of "logging in," ha-ha-ha. This is because lately I have been logging in to web site after web site to change my home address. My parents' house has been our U.S. address for 23 years, but they have recently moved into an assisted living facility, and their home is now being rented out. So we are moving our home base to Carolyn and Andrew's house, requiring me to change our address with at least 30 different institutions (banking, insurance, etc.), several of which have a separate login for each family member. We will also have to change our driver licenses, voter registration, and other things like that in person when we go for our next visit to the U.S.
And speaking of address changes, our home church, Christian Life Fellowship, is ending, so all of our supporters who have been mailing checks to CLF will also need to change the address to which they mail donations. Now, CEED Funds will be receiving all of our donations, for which we are very grateful.
Here is the updated information that can be found on our blog page entitled "Support the Montgomery Family":
You can securely give a tax-deductible donation to us online using a credit card, debit card, or Paypal by going to ceedfunds.org. Select the Donate link, and then click on the Donate button next to Michael & Heather Montgomery.
You can also donate with Zelle using Give@CEEDFunds.org, or Venmo using @CEED-Funds. Please indicate Montgomery in the description.
If you want to write a check, it may be sent to:
CEED Funds
25520 Upper Clubhouse Drive
South Riding, VA 20152
with the check made payable to CEED Funds. Please write Montgomery in the memo line.
Donations
via credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Venmo do incur a 2% transaction
fee, while Zelle and checks are no fee options. Recurring donations
can be set up with PayPal, Zelle, or bill pay (automatic) checks.
If
you wish to send a direct gift (our preferred method), and you don't
need a tax-deductible receipt, please make your check payable to Michael Montgomery and mail it to 1176 Rocky Springs Road, Madisonville, TN 37354. It will be deposited directly into our bank account.
Thank you! We appreciate you!
As we reported in an earlier post, workers recently concreted a section of the main road past our street, which didn't affect us. That section has now been closed for several months, although we aren't sure why they haven't opened it yet to the people that live there. However, they have now begun putting paving bricks on the part of the main road that does block our street. Our neighborhood has two access roads: one main street that is now blocked and one back road that is virtually impassable due to parts of it being too narrow and other parts being too muddy.
So someone had an idea to put in a new, short "detour" bypassing the roadwork directly. It is basically a wide dirt path with one very tight switchback down the side of a hill (so tight a vehicle requires a 3-point turn to make it), then around the edge of someone's cornfield, and exiting through the middle of the community soccer field. We ventured out this week for groceries, but our tires spun on the hill and we slid while going around the cornfield. Heather used the word "treacherous," and Michael's term of choice was "dicey."
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| View looking down at the switchback. |
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| View looking up. Here I gooooo... (The black marks are from spinning tires.) |
Our driveway is "shared," which we don't really like, but we have found ourselves in this situation. We have four neighbors that have a key to our driveway gate at the street. Two of those have houses behind ours that have no driveway, so they can only access their houses by walking. So we gave them permission to use our driveway temporarily if they have deliveries or visitors, which allows them to get about halfway to their houses. The other two neighbors actually have property bordering the road, but they don't want to put in their own driveways. They prefer to use ours, which we think is weird. But we wanted to be friendly, so we gave them a key, too.
The current driveway trouble actually has to do with one of these road-access-owning neighbors. He has frequently blocked our driveway, or has left the gate open, or has taken our padlock into his house repeatedly over the past six years. Heather (Erica) finally solved the missing padlock problem by wiring a chain from the padlock to the gate! We also recently reminded this neighbor that he only has permission to pass through our driveway and must leave the gate closed and locked, or we will change the lock and not give him a key. Since then he has been much better. Fortunately, the other three neighbors use the gate appropriately and usually even ask our permission first.
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| Padlock chained to gate |
Heather (Erica) has one English student, Ana, who meets with her on WhatsApp video chat for English conversation class once a week. Ana has studied with our family on and off through the years: first with Carolyn, then with Elena, and now with Heather.
Ana is about 35 years old and is very dedicated to improving her English. She occasionally does some translating for medical teams that come to Guatemala, so she and Heather are currently studying our 7th grade homeschooling Life Science curriculum together.
The town of Chichicastenango posted drone footage on their Facebook page of the roadwork being done near our house. (This is not the road our house is on.) This area is what we call "downtown Chulumal II."
The main road through our community, which actually connects our town with another, is a dirt road, with only about 500 meters at the entrance paved with paving bricks, and another 500 meters or so paved with concrete. This year the community decided to pave another 500-meter portion with concrete, but it is past where our road connects and hasn't affected us. However, there remains a portion between the already-paved portion and the upcoming concrete installation which is still dirt. Our road is connected to this portion. When they eventually pave that portion, we will be blocked in for at least 3 months. (There is a small back road, but it has dangerous edges and tight spots.)
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| Preparing the road |
Our most reliable informant in the community, Sebastián, told us last week that he heard a rumor that plans had changed and they were about to block us in immediately. So we headed to the grocery store to stock up on non-perishables, planning to hire someone with a motorcycle to bring us fruits and vegetables during the blockade.
But then our informant decided the rumor was baseless and our road wouldn't actually be blocked for a while, and the start date is yet to be determined. At least we are stocked and ready when the time comes!
After waiting 4 months for our 17 windows to be made, we had the sum total of 1 working window and 6 partial windows. They don't sell "factory-made" windows here, so the windows had to be cut and pieced together by a worker. We had only been occasionally texting the contractor to ask about progress, and we decided it was time to get more serious. So starting in January, we began texting the contractor daily! It still took another month of constant text-badgering (politely of course) and stopping by the workshop once a week, but we finally received delivery of the remaining parts of the partial windows and the other 10 windows and frames.
In fact, we were so disappointed with the shoddy job of installation that the workers had done so far, we told them we would install the remaining windows ourselves! The original windows were also variously wrongly-sized, so we gave the contractor a list of our own measurements for the remaining windows, frames, and screens. Fortunately, he only made a few mistakes in following our measurements, and we will be able to make do with what he did produce.
On Valentine's Day, we gave each other the gift of working together to install our first window! Michael held things and measured, and Heather used the drill and tools. The window is still lacking sealant and a screen, but at least it's a start! We had to make modifications to the improperly-sized latch openings the worker had cut, which slowed us down a bit and will have to be fixed on the remaining windows, too. But, a little progress is better than no progress!!!
We had a wonderful visit with our oldest daughter Carolyn and her husband Andrew. They came for a week and a half, and it was fun to have them here!
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| Following Michael through Chichi |
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| Choosing Mayan fabric to purchase |
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| Buying vegetables in the market |
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| Laughing about bulls in a pickup |
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| Noticing the parking lot attendant's big gun |
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| Shopping in our small grocery store |
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| Attending church together |
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| Stopping by a plant nursery |
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| Enjoying ice cream from a neighborhood snack store |
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| Visiting the neighborhood sports court |
Andrew was intrigued by the men calling, "Dale! Dale! Dale!" (which means, "Come on!") whenever any vehicle needed help in getting through some tight situation. It was fun seeing Guatemala through the eyes of the uninitiated! Fortunately our cable TV was working, so Andrew and Michael were able to get in some football games while they were together!
And during the visit, we recorded a video for all of our supporters, thanking you and giving you some information about our ministry:
We had a special Christmas service at church a few days ago, and my two dance teams did a dance together called "Jesus is Christmas."
I have been teaching both of my dance teams a "tutting" dance (hand motions). They presented it at church last week and will do it again this coming week. This photo was taken right after the performance... I think they had fun!
We donated toward a local public school's efforts to paint their old desks. The school didn't have the funds, and the parents weren't able to donate enough to cover the project. One of our church's elders, whose daughter Laiha is in my dance group and attends preschool at that school, came to us for help. We were glad to be able to share with the community!
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| Cleaning desks |
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| Painting desks |
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| Happy kids |
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| Two classes of 31 children were blessed. |
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| Laiha is in the front on the left. |
Our church in Chichicastenango recently started a youth group which meets every other Saturday. I arranged my dance practice to start one hour before it, and we have had a couple of practices so far. After dance practice, Veronica and I stay for youth group.
Clockwise around the circle: Gerónimo and Alicia (church elders), Heber, Abdi, Byron, Axel, Tomás (youth group leader), William, Dasha, Ani, Mayli, Naya, Veronica, and me.
We finally got to use our "new" generator! We bought it four years ago in case of a sudden, long electric outage, and the occasion finally arrived. Our electricity is generally turned off all day about once a month by the electric company for servicing, and it occasionally goes off for several hours during the day for what we assume to be some type of local connection being installed, whether legal or illegal. But these outages aren't long enough to worry about losing the food in our refrigerators.
On Monday night, however, there was a big, windy thunderstorm, and the lights went out. We scurried around to find flashlights and candles. By morning, still nothing. In fact, our cell phones also had no success making any calls, probably because the system was overwhelmed by people trying to call and use the cell phone company's internet service. So we had no communication about what was happening. Michael brought our generator up to the patio outside the kitchen, plugging in our refrigerators for several hours, as well as charging our cell phones and flashlights.
In the afternoon, we drove to a gas station to refill our two gas cans. In the evening, Michael started up the generator again to run the refrigerators, as well as run some lights in the kitchen and use the microwave. But finally, at 10:30 p.m., the electricity came back on after being off for 27 hours!
Once our internet came back, we discovered that a tree had fallen in a nearby ravine and had taken out the power line to the entire town of Chichicastenango and its surrounding communities. We are so thankful for our generator!
We have seen some interesting "critters" over the many years we have lived in Chichicastenango, but this last sighting has really left us stumped! First, a few weeks after arriving here 13 years ago, we caught a rat behind our apartment. Since then, on our new property, we have encountered 2 snakes, 3 mice, 4 scorpions, at least 10 frogs, a tarantula, multiple black widow spiders, and several other varieties of spiders, moths, and other creepy leggy things.
But last night we actually found a crab (yes, a crab) scurrying sideways along the sidewalk right outside our living room door! We are at 7000-ft. elevation in the mountains! Upon googling it, we discovered that there is indeed a species of freshwater crab in the rivers of Guatemala. How this crab arrived on our sidewalk is a mystery, since the nearest river is about a mile away, down at the bottom of the huge ravine behind our house. Maybe it was caught by someone and carried up the ravine into our neighborhood, where it made its getaway and crawled under our gate... or maybe it made the mile-long trek up a steep mountainside ravine? Your guess is as good as ours!
We heard that climate change is confusing the animals, but this one was a surprise to us!