Birthday Week!

My second birthday in Guatemala didn't start out with a bang like last year. But honestly, I wasn't too sad that I wasn't woken up at 4:00am with firecrackers in my front yard like last year. It was a Monday just about like any other day. In the morning I prepared materials for my meetings this week and helped a group of women who make jam to sell, and in the afternoon I taught at the middle school and later attended a meeting with the village's health committee. When I came home, my host mom had prepared a special birthday dinner: chicken with a delicious red sauce (tomatoes, miltomates, red peppers, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds are the secret ingredients) and rice with veggies. I knew she wouldn't have time to make a cake that day, so I took the liberty of making my own cake. Mango cake is definitely one of my new favorites! Probably my favorite part of the day was my host dad singing the Guatemalan version of Happy Birthday to me "Ya queremos pastel...." (We want cake!).

Tuesday morning I got up early with my host mom to go pick peas with her and her brother, sister, brother in law and nieces and nephews. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, though the pea plants were soaked from a rare summer rain the day before. Being my graceful self, I promptly slipped and fell on the slick ground and was soon soaked all the way through my jeans. We picked from 6:30am until 5:30pm with an hour or so break for lunch. Phew! It's funny, I've always loved to pick fruits and veggies: cherries, blackberries, strawberries, sweetcorn, you name it. The one thing I've always hated picking is peas. But somehow I enjoyed myself! It might have something to do with the fact that the peas are staked, so you can actually walk instead of crawl through the pea patch to pick...(just saying Dad!)

The other part of my birthday celebration didn't happen until Friday. I've been helping out the aforementioned group of women that makes jam since I moved here. They went to a workshop to learn how to make and can jam about a year and a half ago, and now there are eight of them who get together once a month or so to make jam and sell it. They're some of my favorite women here in my aldea- always laughing and joking . When I saw them on Monday they said that they had forgotten about my birthday, but that they wanted to make it up to me with a lunch sometime that week. What a nice end to the week!


This coming week promises to be a busy one. A group of college students are coming for an alternative spring break trip, and will be working with me to paint a world map on one of the schools that I work in. Wish us luck!