It's raining.

(Cameron Writing)

So Hurricane Alex made a pass near Guatemala and it is dumping a lot of rain here. It poured all last night and it has continued a steady rain all through the day as well. We had a change in schedule this week and we're now taking classes from 1-5 in the afternoon. We just finished a few minutes ago and thought we should probably write now because we might not brave the elements later this evening.

Class went very well for me today. I surprised my teacher with my knowledge of nearly all the "new" verbs she was teaching me. At one point she stopped and looked at me with this funny look and said, "You know all of these verbs... why do you never use them?" All I could say is, "I don't know." I guess some of those spanish classes did stick up there in my brain but I just need some more tools to make it usable. I'm getting those tools here.

My teacher, Lilly, also told me a very interesting story today. She lives in a small village near Antigua named San Pedro (meaning Saint Peter). Tomorrow, June 29th, is San Pedro day and her town has a huge party. She was describing the party and she told me that her dad makes a special drink for which he is famous. (So famous, in fact, that a Guatemala City TV station came and did a story on him about a month ago) The drink that he makes features several different fruits which are combined in a large vase of sorts and left to "age" for 2 to 3 weeks. When it is ready it is served very cold. Lilly said that it was delicious and contained just a little bit of alcohol. She also said that she thinks it might actually be illegal. (Kind of sounds like a type of moonshine operation to me) In fact, the mayor of Antigua put up signs in her town warning people not to make the drink for the festival. (It was a little late considering it has to be made 2 weeks prior) She said the drink has a bad name and hesitated to tell me but she finally did... it's called "ChiCha". I haven't a clue what that means so if somebody out there knows then please let me know.

(Jessie Writing)

I don't have anything exciting to write about like Cameron did so let me just say... Que te vaya bien!

This is a picture of a shop along the street we walk everyday. It's a neat sight with the many colors. Cameron wants the coffee bag (although I tell him I'm not sure it's very masculine..) and I have my eye on a few as well. We haven't done too much shopping yet, but it's always fun to look!