Checking out the neighborhood

We went on a walk to check out the neighborhood in Chulumal II.  There are only a couple of roads and many footpaths.

Near our house.

On the way to the meeting house.

Cornfields are everywhere.

Independence Day parades

We went to watch one of the Independence Day parades in town.  This was the day of the elementary school students' parade.  The parades on the next two days were the high schoolers and then the middle schoolers.

Waiting...

The costumes were extravagant.

And the kids were all so cute!

Little Lambs parade

September 15 is the day Guatemala celebrates its Independence Day with parades.  Actually there are 3 days of parades in town.  This year there was also a small parade in our neighborhood beforehand for the special needs students at ASELSI's Little Lambs School.  They gathered in front of our house.

Elena has been helping teach at the school on Tuesdays for a couple of months, so they invited her to participate in the parade.

We all went along, with Veronica waving her Guatemalan flag (that she made with another missionary).

Clearing the land

They have started to work on our land!

First they used big hoes to clear the weeds.

Then they started scraping off the too-soft mounds of dirt left by the cornfield.

We asked around to see if any of our neighbors wanted dirt, and a few of them said yes, so the workers are taking the dirt by wheelbarrow and dumping it into three different neighbors' fields.  They said they will use it to make adobe bricks.

Praying over the land

Before we started work on our land, we first went to pray over it with our builder, our pastors, and a couple of ladies from our church.  (We didn't take a photo of that prayer meeting.)

The following week, we went out with our daughters and had a family prayer meeting at the same spot.  (Heather took the photo.)

Lord, we thank You for this land that You have given us.  Please use it to glorify Your name and to bring Your Word to the people here!

Carrie's English class

These are some students that come to Carrie's intermediate English class at our house.  Usually only a couple of them come, but this was a full day.

Yosseline, Ana, Amy, Carolina, Haydee, Estefany

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."