Between this crazy thunder storm we're having right now and the team from church coming home from Guatemala last week, I've been thinking a lot about my last trip to Guatemala. I was there during the rainy season so it rained most days which gave me some pretty good memories of rainy days. Here are my top three favorites :)
1. During my last week at language school, I volunteered at a children's home in Xela for a few days. I had told one of my friends that I met at the school about it and she said she wanted to go check it out, so I brought her along with me one day to show her the way. It was pouring so hard that our umbrellas were pretty much useless. We got to parque central and had to cross the street. Since the roads in this area of town are super old so it their draining system, so the street was basically flooded. My friend, Sonal, was wearing flip flops so when we ran across the street, through the "river", her shoe fell off and went right down into this big drainage thing that was on the side of the road. She was fishing through the dirty water to try to find it, but we both knew it was gone forever. Luckily, we were close to the market in parque central so she didn't have to walk too far shoeless (although I don't think I'd want to walk anywhere in Guatemala shoeless haha). We went and bought her some new sandals. She had to get a guy's pair because she's tall so she has bigger feet than most Guatemalan women, which I thought was pretty funny :) By the time we got to the home we were soaked all the way through and when we were working with the kids in the doctor's office we left puddles behind us where we had stood. It was pretty laughable :)
2. One of the first weeks that I was at school there was a pretty big storm and the electricity went out, which really isn't all that uncommon in Guatemala. Me and Tim got home from school and no one was around. There were a few pots sitting on the kitchen table to collect rain that was dripping from the ceiling, but other than that, it seemed like no one was home. So Tim and I had nothing to do but be there, in the dark. We decided to use his flash light and play pictionary in the dark kitchen with water dripping all around us until the electricity came back on. It was a fun time.
3. One night at the home, it started raining on our way home from church and of course I was sitting in the back of the pick up truck with a bunch of the kids and a couple girls from the team. Luckily, the church isn't far from the home at all so we didn't get too wet. When we got back, me and the girls were hanging out with the kids and Benny kept trying to push one of them out from underneath the roof and into the rain. Emily won and pushed Benny out into the rain before he could get her. So, he ran back into his room and changed into a different, dry sweater. Then she pushed him out into the rain again and he got soaked again. So, he went in and changed into another dry sweater. And this happened several more times. It was pretty funny. Benny is such a goof ball.
So there's my three memories :) I can't wait to go back to Hogar de Vida. I think about it almost every day. I miss that place so much! I just have to wait for God's timing.
