A Guatemalan Thanksgiving

Guatemala obviously doesn’t celebrate Pilgrims and North American Native Indians. Although I’m enjoying this new culture and all the holidays they do celebrate (which is quite a lot, actually), I have longed for home even more than normal as the holidays have approached. Stephen and I decided to host a Thanksgiving feast for some of our new friends on Saturday. Thursday was out of the question since everyone was working!

While we also have lovely Guatemalan friends, everyone on the guest list was American (or married to one) and we ended up having 15 people (counting babies and children) over to celebrate. It was pot-luck and we ended up having the most delicious feast. Some how or another, I even managed to have someone else bring the turkey and stuffing. At the end of the party, Stephen and I both agreed that it really did feel like Thanksgiving.

Here is the guest like and some pics. Maybe you can try to guess who’s who. J

Melina, Peter, Callie (age 2), and Oliver (6 months) – Friends from Virginia who have lived in our neighborhood while attending Spanish school for the Fall semester

Brittany, Luis, and Ian (age 3) – Another family in our neighborhood. Brittany is from Indiana and her husband is from Honduras. Their son, Ian, is good friends with Sam.

Seth, Leslie, and Natalia (age 18 months) – Friends at our new church. Seth is from Minnesota and Leslie is from Guatemala. Natalia and Ruthie are so sweet together!

Judy and John –A missionary couple that lives across the street from us. Judy prepared the turkey and it was deliiiiiicious.

Judy and Gene – Another couple from our neighborhood. Gene and Judy are retired boaters and have lived here for six years.

Maritza – Maritza lives across the street from me, too, and is my closest friend here in Guatemala.

LIBROS!!!

I love to read. When I lived in California I was so jealous of my mom’s book club that I started one of my own. It was a great group and we read lots of great books. Maybe I’ll start a Guatemalan book club, too.
It’s easy to say that my love of reading came from my mom (she has her book club, she spends entire vacations reading, she was a former librarian, she loves to talk about books), but the truth is my love for reading came from both my parents. I can always remember both my mom and my dad having books by their night stand and our house was full of magazines and newspapers.
Since both of my parents are way more tech savvy than me, they of course both have Kindles. I’m pretty sure my dad was one of the first to ever buy a Kindle. For my birthday I got my own Kindle and have really loved it. It’s the perfect solution - I am still able to read books even though I no longer have access to a library. Since we moved here on August 16th, I have read thirteen books. If you’re curious, here’s a list and a little book talk. (The books are listed in no particular order.)


Blue Like Jazz: Non-religious Thoughts on Christianity – Donald Miller - Please read this book. This book challenged me, encouraged me, and made me laugh. Donald Miller captured and shared his love for Christ in this memoir in a way that I strongly identified with. If anyone asks me what I believe, I think I’ll just say, “Read something by Donald Miller. He says it better.”

Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn - So I saw my best friend’s Facebook status a month or so ago that said she finally caved and read Twilight. I decided to use my Amazon gift certificate she gave me for my birthday and buy the first novel. And then...I read all four books (each book between 500 – 800 printed pages) and watched all three movies in about 3 weeks time. These crazy books are a drug. And yes, I’m addicted. I probably need help.

The Alchemist – Paulo Choelho – This book is deep. Most of it probably went over my head.

Sh*t My Dad Says – Justin Halpern – This book is funny. Like milk coming out of your nose funny.

Rooms – James Rubart – This is a Christian fiction book. I enjoyed it, but wasn’t crazy about it.

Water for Elephants – Sarah Gruan – This is an historical fiction book about the circus. I thought this book had great writing and I learned tons about the circus.

Ford County Stories – John Grisham – Short stories by John Grisham. There’s a reason the guy is a bagazillionaire. He writes well.

Little Bee – Chris Cleave – This book was tragic (also, technically, historical fiction). I learned a lot from this book about present day refugees. There’s so much pain in this word that most of us are simply clueless about. Thank God for books that give me insight.

The Other Daughter – Lisa Gardener – This book was like watching a really long episode of CSI. I read to the end because I had to know who done it, but it wasn’t really my style. I’m a romantic comedy girl.

Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell – This book is fascinating. After reading this book, a lot of my conversations for a while started with, “So I read in this book, Outliers…” Basically, Gladewell argues the reasons for certain people’s success and points out that it’s not always as cut and dry at it seems.

A few weeks...

The end of October and the first half of November have been eventful and wonderful! Here are a few highlights:

• Sam has started a new school – Angel Gabriel. It’s quite the story, but I started becoming too concerned that Sam and his class were being left unattended too frequently (being left unattended at all crosses a line for me, but regardless we decided to search for something new). The school year in Guatemala runs from January – October. November and December are their summer months; so technically, Samuel is currently enrolled in a summer program. We REALLY like the school so far. The summer school is a blast. It includes weekly activities such as: karate class, yoga class, choir class, and swim class. Sam gets to swim once a week with an instructor at a local hotel with a beautiful, heated pool. He’s learning lots and doing so well. His Spanish is more and more spectacular everyday. He never ceases to amaze me.
• Stephen’s parents (Maybelle and Joe) came to visit for one week, starting October 31st. It was a great week and I was so glad to share our beautiful life here with them. We spent mornings letting Mimi and Granddaddy have Ruthie time while Stephen and I worked and Sam went to school. Afternoons were spent sight seeing in our beautiful city. Evenings were relaxed and Stephen and I even got to go on our first dinner date here while grandparents babysat. We were (of course) spoiled by the Doves all week. We decided to exchange Christmas presents while we had the time together. We’ve been enjoying our new patio furniture on our roof, which is where we spend a lot of our time. Thank you, Maybelle and Joe! It was sad to see them go, but we’re hoping Sam’s departing tears let them know we want them back soon.
• Sam calls Saturdays our “days off.” This past day off, we were around the breakfast table talking about what we should do for the day. Sam said, “I know! Let’s build a sandbox!” So we did. By 3:00 that afternoon and $12 later, we had a new sandbox on our roof. (Yes, our roof is quite the spectacular.) The kids have had a blast with it, and so have many of our neighbors. Two of our neighbors, Fatima (5 years) and Haisha (9 years) had never seen a sandbox except for on the “tele.” It’s so fun and Sam is proud to tell anyone that it was his great idea.
• Ruth is changing and growing so much every day. The coolest thing is that she babbles and “talks” more and more. She speaks several words, but what I love the most is that she loves to copy the cadence of what we say. I think it’s another sign of her definite musical abilities. For example we might say, “Hey! Where did it go?” And she’ll copy, “Hey! Blah blah blah blah?” But with the EXACT pitch of the phrase. Sam and Ruthie are becoming better friends as she grows. It’s always my favorite part of the day when I catch them really playing together.
• We continue to enjoy the blessings of our church.
• The kids and I have joined a play group every Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow will be our second time to attend.