October 8

Our second day in Guatemala, we realized that “winter” really did mean rainy season a lot of the time until the middle of October. It rained on and off throughout most of the day, even hard enough a couple times to create a mini flash flood in the cobble stone streets. Needless to say, there were rivers everywhere for the rest of the day. In the morning Sophia, our landlady took us to see another apartment near-by because she doesn't have room in November and we plan to stay through mid-December. She was really nice though and went to look for another place we could stay in. I loved it because it was a little more modern, almost like a little private neighborhood. We'll probably stay there beginning October 29th-December 11th or so.

Other than that, most of the morning was spent indoors because of the rain. It wasn't very hard most of the time, just steady enough to get you wet and be really annoying if you didn't have an umbrella. Most of the locals are smarter than us and carry umbrellas around still, so they stayed dry. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon the rain let-up enough that we decided to go to the market to get food. I really liked most of the market because it was outside with a friendly atmosphere, and not to many people. The rain might have been a factor there, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. We got fresh blackberries, potatoes, tomatoes, a papaya, jalapeños, an onion, garlic, chicken, bananas, and green beans for about 10 dollars. I didn't like the meat section at all because the meat just hung everywhere from the ceiling with the skin and heads off, and that's about it. It also didn't smell very good because the smell was trapped inside.

Larissa and I thought we might be vegetarians while we're down here because we didn't like the site of the meat sitting around with everything else. It must be really dirty too! Even though it took about an hour the boil the water, mom made potatoes and green beans and chicken that all tasted absolutely delicious, like nothing I've ever tasted before. I guess the freshness of the meat really helps because it was so tender. Since there isn't much refrigeration down here, the meat has to be really fresh so it doesn't go bad in the market. On the way home the rain picked up a bunch so nobody wanted to be out in it anymore. We decided to take a tuk-tuk home, and they are only made for two people. We had four people crammed into the back seat, and lucky me got to sit on Larissa's lap and hit my head or knees on metal every two seconds as we rumbled along the cobblestone. Everybody else really enjoyed the ride, but I didn't like it at all. I didn't want to get in in the first place anyway.

Other than that the day was really good. Our stove doesn't always perform to the quality we'd like, and the living room is like a cave since there's not very much light, but overall I'm thoroughly enjoying this experience so far.