Field trips, bootleg movie theater, goodbyes

New Pictures in my Photo Album
http://photobucket.com/albums/f172/thinkingman14/

Well it has been an exciting, sad, and funny past few days.

Ill start with friday. On friday I went on two fieldtrips with my teacher. The first one was to Jocatenango (hoe-k-te-nan-go) which is a town to the north of Antigua. We road in a chicken bus there and back. A chicken bus is an old school bus that takes people all over the country. Most of the seats are three people accross. It is quite an expierence to ride on one. At Jocatenango we saw an ornately made Alfombra which is a ceremonial carpet usually made from colored saw dust. This church also had the scene from John 21 with the miraculous catch of fish. It was quite the sight to see.
Then we went back to the school and watched a student and his teacher make a small alfombra on top of a table. I helped them make it for a while. Then my teacher and hiked up to La crus. La crus is a giant stone cross that overlooks the city. It is about a 30 minute walk up steps built into the hillside. But it is well worth the trek. We were so blessed to have e crystal clear day. We could see most of the town. It was amazing.

Friday night I went to go see a movie. We thought we would be goin to see Kingdom of Heaven in a proper movie theater. Nope. It ended up to be a small room with no airconditioning or ventalation and the seats were musty couches. And to top it all of the movie was a boot legged copy! In fact during the movie a banner came accross the TV that said This copy of this movie is for award consideration only, not for sale or public viewing I am not joking about this. So the entire room started busting up laughing. Then about 3/4 of the way through the movie the tape messes up so we ended up leaving. But it was an experience none the less.

Friday was a day of goodbyes. The americans that were here to volunteer for a week in Guatemala City left. I didnt know them that well so it wasnt that hard. But Renata and Katie who I had gotten pretty close to left too. That was a little hard but oh well. We will be keeping in touch throught email though.

All is well. Hope all is well there too. I would love to hear from you guys send me and e-mail jt.friel@gmail.com or leave me a comment.

-Justin