Boots on the Ground

We arrived at 9:30 last night in Guatemala from Portland after a brief stop in Houston. Three of us made it easily through customs, while Bob got stopped and had to explain why he had 3 female pelvises in his luggage. He then got the pelvises out and demonstrated to the guards how to deliver a baby, just in case they ever had an airport emergency. We were met at the airport by Estela, who lives in the city of Antigua, and hosted Suzy when she came 20+ years ago to learn Spanish. Estela had arranged to bring us to Antigua.

Our host, Estela

Antigua is the oldest Spanish City in Guatemala, founded in 1541 after the prior capital was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Since the eruption triggered a flood, the volcano was ironically called ""Volcán de Agua" (Water Volcano) to distinguish it from the nearby "Volcán de Fuego" (Fire Volcano). A fellow Providence employee was recently asked whether Mount Rainier was made of fire or water, a perplexing question. Sitting at 5,000 feet, the Antigua is much cooler than a lot of Central America, especially in the late fall and winter. It is the perfect place to spend a transition day coming from the US.

This morning we paid a visit to Suzy's Spanish teacher, Amalia, who lives a few doors down from Estela. She has been teaching Spanish for over 20 years and shared with us that she now works 100% by Skype instead of her students traveling to Guatemala. She is currently working with students from England, Australia, Canada, and the US.

Timbers fan joining the Panzas Verdes

Our main enjoyment of the day was watching a fútbol game between Antigua GFC and Zacapa. Antigua plays in the second league of Guatemalan football, and are known as "Las Panzas Verdes" (green bellies) because of all the avocados in the region. Also watching the game were 20 machine gun toting policia, primarily to control fans like the one in the Timbers jersey. Antigua won the game, scoring one goal in the first half, and the refs were walked off the field by 10 or so bodyguards.

Our afternoon was spent in an extended paseo (evening walk) through Antigua, then we headed back to Guatemala City for some meetings prior to heading to Huehuetenango (way-way-ten-ongo) on Monday.







Spanish Joke of the day: A mom and papa pato (duck) had 5 patitos (ducklings). They picked names of "Pata", "Peta", "Pita", "Pota", and....."Margarita".