So yesterday during class I felt my first earthquake ever! Well, I don't know if it really counts as an earthquake because it was really mild. I was taking notes and my teacher stopped and said do you feel that? And at first I was like what are you talking about, but then I felt the room shaking a little. They just call it a "tremble", but I guess its kind of common here because we're right near two volcanoes.

Joaquin was also telling me about how after he finished high school, he did a lot of volunteer work and he volunteered in a children's home for a little while. He told me how there was this cute little boy and he asked the boy if he knew why he was in the home. The kid said he didn't know why, but one night the police showed up and took him away and then next thing he knew, he was at the home. He didn't know where his mother was and he had never met his father. Joaquin later found out that the boy's mother was a prostitute and the police arrested her and brought the boy there. How traumatic for that kid to not even know what happened to his family and to just end somewhere else the next day. He told me another story about this guy that was walking over to a garbage can to throw out his trash from his lunch at McDonald's. A little kid walked over to him and asked him "Did you just eat McDonald's?" and the guy said yeah. The kid asked "How does it taste? Is it delicious?" and then the guy said "You've never eaten McDonald's?" and the boy said no. He lived in one of the children's homes too and he had never tried McDonald's. The guy decided that he was going to get enough money to buy all of the kids (over a 100) a happy meal, which in Spanish is a cajita feliz or a happy box haha. It's kind of sad when you think that something that is so common and cheap to us, these kids had never even eaten before.

Last night we all watched this old movie called El Norte. It about this brother and sister who lose their parents in the civil war in Guatemala and decide to travel to the United States to try to escape the danger in their village. It was sad because they thought that by going north, all their problems would be solved and they thought that the US was perfect and life would be so good for them there, but they slowly realize that it's really hard to be an illegal immigrant in the states. It was a pretty sad movie.

Yesterday for lunch we had these tiny little green pumpkins. They were stuffed with a mix of rice, vegetables, and meat. They were pretty delicious, it was a little bit like a stuffed pepper, but the pumpkins tasted like squash. We've also been having a ton of beans lately. Tim decided that he wanted to learn how to make them so he asked Ana to teach him. Well, apparently there's like a million different kinds and she's teaching him how to make all of them. I think I've had enough beans for a life time.

Joaquin and I were talking about some Guatemalan politics the other day and he was telling me that the current president and his wife recently got divorced. There's a law in Guatemala that once somebody becomes the president, no one else in his family can ever be president. Well, now the president's ex-wife is running for president for the upcoming election. So obviously they just got divorced because she wants to be president, which is a little sketchy. He was telling me about all these bad political decisions she's made. But, there's never been a female president before in Guatemala, so that makes it a little more interesting too. Also, Joaquin doesn't believe that Osama bin Laden is really dead. We had an interesting conversation about that too.

Later today, we're going to Trama which is a fair trade place where Guatemalan war widows work together making all kinds of different things with Guatemalan fabrics- wallets, bags, blankets, clothes, etc. I think they're going to give us a tour of the factory or do a demonstration or something and then we'll have some time to shop.