anyway, here is a a pictoral step back in time ...a mini chronicle of those first couple weeks...
akron, PA, for two days of making sure my paperwork was in order before shipping out of the states. i stayed in this snazzy guesthouse above all decorated like eastern europe. there´s a house decked out on the mcc campus for every continental region
got to guatemala. stayed with a host family for the forst couple months. my most frequent visitors below. both had their adorable methods of begging their way onto the bed while i was pouring over spanish homework.
visited fellow mccers in the rural communities of the ke´kchi people in the department of altaverapaz (true peace), including little ruth cahill, who is showing me her favorite ancient mayan artifact that she found in her backyard.
visited the bezeleel vocational school for indigenous ke´kchi youth. here are boys learning the art of tailoring....
visited indigenous mayan women near coban in altaverapaz who were happy to show the goats they had raised though joint program with mcc and heifer international. to fulfill their agreement with the program, to receive a gift of a goat, they must then give their firstborn healthy goat away to another community member, thereby sustaining the program and bettering the entire community.
visited the new land
redistributinon project in betel, and tried on hats that carlos made. 
visited the guatemalan city cemetary that shows, even in death, the stark contrast between the rich and the poor. ¨niches¨ to the right, are rented burial slots. as opposed to the masouleum of the castillo family, who has been part of guatemala´s oligarcyhy, in power for over 500 yeras, and currently holding the monopoly on beer and purified water in guatemala and the distribution of pepsi- related products.
after having lived 10 years in the dutch capital of the midwest, i didn´t expect my first ever pair of yes, wooden shoes, to come as a gift from my GUATEMALAN boss. note: he had just returned from a tour of europe to promote the seminary, so it sort of makes sense.
wandered around the former central american capital (when all of central america was one, couple hundred years ago), and the colonial guatemala capital of Antigua, snagging some pics of cathedral ruins...
and sadly, the end. . .
