Guatemala otra vez – el dia trece

I started the day off with the news that my daughter, Jennifer, was on her way to Haiti. She was flying in and then traveling by car to a hospital/orphanage that was six hours away. I am praying that she arrived safely, since I probably won’t hear from her because she may not have any access to internet service or phone service while there. Needless to say, the rest of the day was a piece of cake compared to my concern for her safety.
My teacher informed me at the start of class that today would be a lot of work and she was right. I know that I have been coasting a little bit by encouraging conversation rather than conjugating verbs, but I really need to be able to follow a conversation. We covered conditional verbs in the presente, pasado, and futuro. What a pleasure that was! I’m not sure that I will ever be able to speak Spanish with any reasonable amount of intelligent thought or comprehensible sentence structure. At least this will keep my mind occupied. The four hours in class did not seem as long as I thought they would considering the way we started out today. Tomorrow is the final day, so I better do my homework tonight.
This afternoon we went to a coffee plantation for a tour. The tour was conducted by Manuel, one of the staff at La Union that has been planning all of our activities. He conducted the tour totally in Spanish. It was good to see that everyone in our group was able to follow the presentation. It was very fascinating, but the most interesting part was watching the children. The children go with their parents to pick coffee beans. The younger ones play and the older ones pick beans. The younger ones were very anxious for us to take their pictures. One little boy came up to Kerry at the end of the tour and whispered in his ear that he wanted his picture taken. The kids have a wonderful spirit, along with the rest of the people we have encountered.
Tonight, Rosa Maria was at a women’s meeting so her daughter prepared our dinner. I felt really bad that she had to cook for us, but it was a good chance to talk with her for a little while. I have a lot of homework to complete before it gets too late, so I guess I better get started.
Tomorrow the rest of our group arrives. I will be going to the airport in the afternoon to meet them and ride with them back to La Union. Hopefully we will have an opportunity for a brief meeting before our farewell dinner at 7:00 p.m. All of our families will be there to celebrate our time here at La Union. I am definitely ready to start the second phase of our experience. I am also ready to give up on the team leader thing! Some challenges I really would rather not have to deal with, such is life.