This Christmas was my first time away from family.  I decided that I was not going to be sad about it.  Instead, I made plans with my new family and friends here. 












The day after Christmas, my town was crazy busy!  We were celebrating 13 years of peace.  We had a great ceremony!  Our town is very proud of this accomplishment.  To keep the festivities going, I had a mini-partyat my house with my friends.  We had an SMJ-PC party.  It was great!  I cooked steak with onions & peppers, mashed potatoes, homemade mac & cheese, 2 cakes, and Candy made a cheese ball.  It was perfect! 






I must say, this holiday was better than I expected it to be.  For my first Christmas outide of the U.S., I had a blast!  Thanks to all my friends, family, and new family in Guate!  I hope you had a good holiday as well.

This past weekend, the crew of SMJ went to the beach!  Of course, we had to take the buses.  I must say, it was hot as the equator!  We took several buses to get there, and I was dripping with sweat by the time we arrived.  It was all worth it when we were almost to the beach.  We had to ride a long canal boat to get to the beach.  It was beautiful!  The water was filled with cranes!  I felt like such a tourist snapping pictures left and right.  When we arrivd at the beach, I was taken back by such a magnificent view.  The Pacific Ocean as a back drop for beautiful black sand.  It was amazing!

The house we stayed in was great.  It reminded me of one of the "Real World" houses.  It was so open, and large.  It had a salt-water swimming pool, 6 hammocks, and 3 roms with a lot of beds (20, I think) with a beautiful view of the ocean.  If I lived there, I would never go back to the U.S.  It was awesome!

The only thing that sucked were the mosquito bites.  We were covered in them!  I'm still itching!  Thank God for hydrocortisone.

At the end of our trip, we were allowed to visit a turtle hatchery.  They repopulate the ocean wih turtles.  The hatch, and then they take them to the beach and let them go.  All of the turtles make a mad dash for the ocean.  It is a breath-taking experience. 



You hope and pray that they all survive, but you know they all won't make back each year.

In the States, times have changed somuch.  It has increased in danger ten fold.  No more are the days of trusting a stranger to help you out and give you a ride off the side of the road.  If you think that's bad, you can thank all of the crime-solving shows that give you every detail of just how dangerous a "stranger" can be.  All those years of embedded training that "strangers" can't be trusted.

Now, I find myself in a world that's similar, but still quite different.  Here, in a country where at least 75% of the population is barely making it day to day, public transportation is the only option for many.  Yet, if you live in a small village "aldea", you may not have public transportation at all.  Because these aldeas don't have paved roads, the tricked-out school buses many people depend on are unavailable.  These people have to depend on the kindness of strangers.

As I rode in the pick-up with one of my co-workers going to an aldea, we stopped a couple of times and picked up people along the way.  There's very little conversation between them, and, sometimes, there is none at all.  It's an understood way of doing things here.  To them, it's just another day, there way of life, but to me, it's a simple act of kindness that I think the world is missing.  My coworker could have let those people walk the 2 to 3 hours to their village up and down the mountain side, but he didn't. 

It meant a lot to me to watch. This crazy world does not allow for too many of these events to take place, but in this corner of the world, I have found a simple act of kindess.