Laundry, mountain roads and Totonicapan

Okay, I didn't mention much about what happened with the laundry yesterday, but it was a bit of a mess. Previously, we did laundry in the city at a laundromat where we payed by the pound, and we were expecting to do something similar again. However, the only place the hotel would recommend to us was more of a "full service" type operation, and therefore more expensive. We did not know this though until they showed up at the hotel to pick up our laundry, and in the lobby of the hotel proceeded to open up our laundry bags and sort the clothes. These were dirty clothes for 8 people for a week... all garments included...
Fighting through the strange embarrassment of this procedure, I watched the two gentlemen itemize and count all of our clothes, wondering exactly what we had gotten into. As they started to fill out invoices and write down prices, I began rapidly converting quetzales to dollars and multiplying quantities and then starting to panic as very large totals were resulting. Of course, they didn't speak English and my Spanish is limited, but I eventually got them to pause and give me a total and some itemized prices, before they started in with draping over their arms our underwear and socks in piles of six. Just our pants and shirts were around $225!!!!! It was going to cost us nearly $3 for each pair of underwear, and who knows what for a pair of socks. I bought all these clothes for cheaper than that!
Anyway, we're out of clean clothes, we need them washed by that evening because we're leaving town tomorrow, and they've already gone through the sorting process. I could just imagine how fun it would be to say- "Hey kids, we're not going to the zoo, we'll spend all day washing clothes that won't dry by the time we leave tomorrow!" I snatched my underwear and socks back and told them we would take care of those, but they could wash the rest of the clothes. It was a mess, and a long process... a big part of why we got to the zoo so late anyway and ended up in the afternoon rain.
This story wasn't really worth recounting yesterday, as it was just plain frustrating, but this morning when we got our clothes back it was just unbelievable. No wonder they charge so much! Delivered to our room was a 2.5 foot thick pile of individually hung and plastic wrapped items, each tagged with an inventory number attached to the garment with a plastic fixer that could only be removed with Aaron's knife. EACH ITEM!!!! It took three men to carry the clothes to our room. EACH ITEM!! My pajama shorts were hung over a wire hanger, then wrapped with the plastic bag, and tagged with a number that matched the written description on the invoice. Apparently, they must have spent the better part of their afternoon writing descriptions of our clothes...
It was crazy... we're packing to leave by 9:30 am, thinking we'll do a quick sort of the clean clothes to get them packed... instead we have an assembly line (forced labor was the word this morning!) to unwrap the plastic, remove the items from their hangers, pass them off to Dad so he can remove the plastic tags, and then fold and sort them. A lot less work on the part of the laundry guys would have been appreciated. :-) Really, all I wanted was for someone to throw them all in the washing machine together, dry them, and bring them back in a bag! It was rather comical to have paid so much money for us to do so much work.
So, that was the start of our morning today. :-)

We were picked up later than expected as our driver encountered lots of traffic on the way to the city. We finally left Guatemala City about 11:15 with all 8 of us, our mounds of luggage, gifts and donations, and our driver, interpreter (Kevin), and project representative (Leticia) all snugged into a van. Once again, not a single seat belt to be seen, so we also had four car seats stacked around us... I'm getting pretty tired of lugging those things around!
The drive was unique. We drove for about an hour and a half to get out of the city and on our way up into the mountains before we stopped for lunch at Hacienda Tecpan.
I took the kids over to watch the woman who was making the fresh tortillas- we have not yet perfected this skill at home... :-) She was so sweet with the kids- she gave them all a ball of dough to make their own tortillas and then cooked the tortillas for the kids. They loved it!After lunch, we headed back on the road. It was raining a bit now as we wound our way up these tight mountain curves, and the road was muddy. Max opened up his window in time for a big truck coming downhill to hit a puddle and splash mud in through the window of our van! Kyler got hit straight in the face:
It was about this time that Alex threw up for the second time- yes, he appears to suffer from car sickness on windy mountain roads... we'd already passed around the Dramamine, but his came back up before it could do him any good. We had three neatly sealed gallon ziploc bags waiting for the garbage by the time we arrived. I was just SO thankful for all those extra ziplocs I packed and the fact that each time he threw up we managed to get it in the bag! I know, too much info, but sometimes, this is just the stuff you're incredibly thankful for! :-) I think this photo is a bit dark to get the full effect, but here we are driving up into the clouds- right here they are just slightly below us on the mountain.

When we arrived at Project San Miguel in Totonicapan about 2.5 hours after lunch, we were ushered into the upstairs meeting room for a special performance they had prepared for us. Many of the children and their families from the project were there, and the children performed many traditional Mayan dances for us. The majority of the families enrolled at this project are indigenous Mayan people. They had decorated the room with balloons and streamers, and a big "BIENVENIDOS."

Below, the girl in the dance is Karina, one of the girls we sponsor. She is so cute and very shy.

After the dance, they presented us with a gift- a beautiful coat made with woven Guatemalan/Mayan fabric. Considering the average size of the givers, the fact that it fits Aaron perfectly is nothing short of miraculous!
After the performance, the kids got to work playing together, giving hugs and taking photos. As you might imagine, the digital camera was a bit hit- both with kids wanting their picture taken so they could see it right away, and those that wanted the honor of taking some photos. Here, Ella stands with Yesica, age 6. Yesica was such a doll- she continued to come and give me hugs and kisses. We got to visit with her and her family most out of all the kids.
Yesica's older sister, Ana, was a delight. She is 11 years old, so she and Elizabeth enjoyed teaching each other Spanish and English. They served a snack as well for the party, along with some great tea, apparently a Mayan tea from Coban. You know I'm going to try to find some more of that to take home! :-)

Elizabeth and Yesica play some games together

I get another hug with Yesica!

We were able to give the families their gifts and take photos with them. We are with Carlos, age 9, and his mother, Benita, in this photo. I'm the huge giant in this photo at 5'4", which I've never had the experience of being! I am standing on the ground along with the kids and Benita; Aaron is sitting.

Karina holds up the shirt the kids painted and signed for her. We also gave Karina her bag of birthday presents from the youth at church- her birthday is tomorrow! She smiled so sweetly when we gave them to her!

Yesica's family gave us this beautiful weaving. Her uncle's family made it.

After our time at the project, we took a walk around Totonicapan to see the town. Up and down steep hills on narrow stone streets our group traipsed. Ana wanted to give Maria a piggy back ride up the hill.

Looking down one of the streets in Totonicapan

We walked to the town center, where we took this photo with Yesica and Ana. They also have an older brother, Juan, who was with us and a lot of fun, but doesn't seem to be in these photos here. Their parents were walking with us, too, and it was a nice evening. It's definitely much cooler here, and as Aaron said, "If we really loved our children we would bundle them up." However, it just feels like home to us and half the kids didn't want their coats on! I think they were glad to be cool again... :-)
After our walk to the park, they drove us out to our hotel in a pickup truck- some inside the cab,some in back tucked into our luggage. Hotel Maya Quiche is charming, and I hope to get some more photos tomorrow. Despite a rocky check in because they didn't have a reservation for us after our online reservation with confirmation and a phone call with verbal confirmation, we were able to get two rooms on the third floor. The hotel is built around a central open staircase, and the third floor has 5 rooms that open into that central area, with a sitting area on the side. It's a cozy little space right outside the doors to our rooms, so it was perfect to put the kids to bed and have the chance for Aaron and I to talk a bit at the end of the day (and blog, of course! If I don't write these things down, I'll forget so much. It seems our brains are about as full as they can be- can we hold any more right now?)
Tomorrow we will be picked up at 9 am- they want to take us to where "some teenagers make bread." I'm looking forward to seeing what exactly that will be!
It sounds like we'll begin our journey to Lake Atitlan about 11 tomorrow morning. Now that we know that Alex really does get car sick, we'll be getting that Dramamine into him for sure!
Other than everyone feeling a bit nauseous on the drive, we're feeling well overall. A few intermittent queasy tummies, but those seem to resolve quickly with a Pepto-Bismol tablet. Several of the kids have coughs which I think is due to the pollution and exhaust that we've been breathing a ton of.
That drive was something else- our driver does not believe that slow and steady wins the race... I think he's operating more on the philosophy that you have to get up some speed to make it up the next hill. Even if the speeding part happens to be tearing around a downhill corner on a windy mountain road in the rain. I saw a small rockslide happen right in front of us at one time- that adds to the excitement! I think the worst part was when we got closer to town though and the roads are so steep and narrow with very tight turns, as well as people walking along the road. We were just whipping around corners... that's when Alex lost it for the third time, and I don't blame him! It was exactly like being on a roller coaster!