Written by: Morgan Mendonca
01/23/25
Today started like our other work days with breakfast at Violetta’s at 7:00 a.m. where we enjoyed bananas, bean paste with some chips, chicken patty, and eggs. After breakfast, it was about a 45-minute bus ride and a short five-minute walk to the community center in San Antonio. We made sure to greet the dogs before heading up to the second floor, where we have been spending most of our time this week. Today, Makynzi, Helen (our guide), and I finished painting most of the walls blue in the kitchen and the stairwell. It was like playing 3D chess, working around each other on the stairs. We also cleaned up and organized the space a bit.
Meanwhile, the boys were working down in the courtyard area. Sean and Yorlan cleaned up foliage and got to work digging like Steve from Minecraft. They dug about half of the ditch. Once the ditch is complete, pipes will be laid down to help water drain better during the rainy season. We finished our day’s work around 11:20, so we went to the central park area of San Antonio where there is a famous textile shop. I got two wallets with Mayan pattern accents while Makynzi got a scrunchy, a bag, and some earrings before we got on the chicken bus back to Antigua.
For lunch at Violetta’s, we had pepian with some tortillas and horchata, before heading off to Spanish class from 1:30-4:30. At around 2:30, Makynzi and I went to the Parque Central in Antigua with our teachers. We walked through some of the textile markets before heading to the National Museum of Art of Guatemala, which showcased unique art from the modern era back to the first century AD. We learned that the museum used to be a palace for the royal family until it was destroyed. It had been used for many other purposes before finally becoming the art museum it is today. My favorite piece from the museum was a golden McDonald’s cup created by Dario Escubar in 1998. It is available for $9000. I am not sure I would pay that much for a drink at McDonald’s unless it’s all made out of gold. To finish my day off, I had ham and cheese empanadas from San Martin bakery which were muy delicioso.
The group at Santa Maria De Jesus finished up the classroom they had been painting all week and gave a short presentation on CPR to the teachers using Tanner as the practice dummy. The Jocotenango group continued painting the courtyard walls and gave a presentation in Spanish on earthquake preparedness to all of the school children.
This was the last workday of our second workweek. Tomorrow morning, we head by bus to Lake Atitlan for a three-day weekend.
