Trying to find a rythm

Midwife update:

We connected with a midwife who runs a birthing center in Guatemala City. She is willing to assist with a home birth in Antigua (this would mean renting a place in Antigua which is 2 hours away from our home) or with me giving birth at the birthing center in Guatemala City (3 hours from our home). We are going to Antigua next Thursday to meet her. I also connected with an American midwife that lives at the lake. She informed me that she is available at the time of my due date. We are waiting to hear back from her regarding a day and time to meet. Everything is going to work out folks!

We are learning many little things about living here already:

1.     Put the dog dishes outside because they bring ants.

2.     Put all meat that we are not going to eat straight away in the freezer to prepare for power outage.

3.     The water filter does use electricity so we should have water in a jug outside of the fridge in case of power outage.

4.     Katie is not afraid of extremely large hornets (we had a house guest that Brandon wanted to experiment with…Katie ended up capturing it).

5.     There is a difference between a slow cooker and a rice cooker but you can use a rice cooker as a slow cooker.

Brandon with the rice cooker that we thought was a crockpot

      

      This morning the Guardian Cruz shared with us that the children in the village were having their school competition in the church square. We walked up to the village to watch what looked to us like a very raw dance competition (Brandon just informed me that it was a rhythmic gymnastic competition). I needed to rest multiple times as the walk up to the village is STRAIGHT up.

View from up in the village of Santa Cruz

     It seemed that most of the mothers (and a few fathers) where watching as the children performed. I      really wanted to clap when each performance was over but no one else did…so I didn’t.

As we were getting ready to leave I spotted Marta, a schoolteacher that I had met on the boat when we were here in January. At that time she had told me that she would like it if I could help her teach the children. I approached her and reminded her of who I was.  She informed me that she works at the government school in the morning and then teaches out of her home in the afternoons. The government pays for children to go to school up through the 6^th grade. After that parents must pay. Marta teaches the children who’s families cannot afford to send them beyond 6^th grade. She invited me to her home to help her teach. I informed her that I speak no Spanish. She told me that she will teach me Spanish and I can help her with her English. Brandon and I will go to her home for the first time this coming Monday.

Adjusting to this life continues to be a work in progress.

XOXO,

Katie and Brandon