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Post date: Oct 16, 2016 5:28:49 PM
3000 miles later and I've made it too my destination in Guatemala [well I made it back on the 6th, but this is my first post since then, sorry for the delay :)].
My travels through Mexico and Guatemala were mostly without complication. And by 'mostly' I mean that nothing went wrong...until I was on a steep, narrow, winding road with no shoulder and my brake tube snapped.
Talk about a gut wrenching moment. I was around 5 hours from my destination of Jocotenango, Guatemala. As I was coming around a bend, I noticed a line of deep potholes--all lined up perfectly with my driver side wheel. It was too late to swerve by the time I noticed them and I guess the impact was a little too much for el carro. And my brake pedal began bottoming out.
Thankfully, within 0.5 a kilometer there was a turn in the road with a large enough area that I could pull off the road safely. The 10 or so kilometers before that had nothing.
Other than the overwhelming feeling of needing to vomit, I was ok and el carro was otherwise ok.
Incredibly, all this took place near the community that one of the teachers at Paso a Paso, Sonia, was raised. We were able to get ahold of her father and he and Sonia's nephew came to my rescue. We moved my car to a more secure location further up the road near houses (how that happened is a story for another day) and they dropped me off at Sonia's sister's house to stay the night.
The next day we were able to get the car towed and tube replaced and I was on my way.
The rest of the trip was otherwise pleasant. I made a couple detours as I was driving through Mexico to do some sight seeing. First I stopped in Mineral de Pozos. Pozos is a twice abandoned mining community that features ruins of 100s of abandoned mine shafts. It's also been designated a Pueblo Mágico "Magic Town" for its historical significance.
I also stopped at Zona Arqueológica de Teotihuacán near Mexico City. I visited the religious and ceremonial center of this 1st century AD Meso-American city. And climbed the world's 3rd tallest pyramid: La Pirámide del Sol (the Pyramid of the Sun)!!
Friday marked my first full week in Guate. It's good to be back at Paso a Paso and see the teachers and kids. The school year in Guate runs from January to October so classes are wrapping up. To help with the extra stresses this time of the year, the afternoon sessions have been a little more light and relaxing to give the kids a break from classes and blowing off steam.
I've been helping the teachers with whatever I can as I'm working on reacclimating to Guate and listening to/speaking Spanish. My brain has been exhausted at the end of most days, so that must be a good sign that I've been absorbing Spanish during the day...right.
One Tuesday, I spent the day with Annalisa, a friend that was originally introduced through the Now is the Time Missions and has been in Guatemala for the past 6 years, and learned more about her project. She is running Educacion con Esperanza, a project working to encourage children to work hard in school by 'paying' them for good grades with points and giving them the opportunity to buy necessities with their points. Check out her program here: https://www.facebook.com/EducacionConEsperanza/. She is looking to expand her program to 2 new villages in 2017 and was performing interviews with potential families for the program. She wrote a pretty great summary of how that day went on here personal blog, so I encourage you to check that out: http://gringaontheground.blogspot.com/2016/10/visiting-new-families-day-2187.html.
Many exciting things are on the horizon for Paso a Paso as we approach graduation for many of the children enrolled in our Pasito a Pasito program (our preschool), relocating to new (to us) facilities, and getting all prepared for vacation school to begin in November.
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