Day 6

Today we had a little more excitement. I gave Lucy some piano lessons and taught her how to play her scales. She practiced for hours. Meanwhile, Zachary was in his jumper, jumping and laughing like crazy. Then we got ready and went to the Cemetary to put flowers on the graves of Lucy's grandfathers. We left there and went to Pizza Hut! YIPPEE YAHOO!!! I love American food. I order a large double pepperoni pizza and only ate two pieces. I can live off of that for the next two days. ;-)) They we went shopping and I bought more stuff to eat and some stuff for Zachary. I also bought two kinds of medicine for him...for his congestion and cough. He is getting better. Bless his little heart. He has been smiling and laughing most of the day. He has his moments of course....when he cries but for the most part he is just a happy boy. He is getting where he is really attached to me. He reaches for me and cries when I go out of the room. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Ok, so several of you have asked about the differences in Guatemala as compared to the US. Well, first off, there are no speed limits here. They can drive as fast or slow as they want. They LOVE horns here too. I think James blew the horn about 50 times tonight in a 10 mile radius. He drives crazy like me so I was loving it. And he doesn't just beep once, he holds the horn down.

Next, some of the communities here are gated. I pictured a black rought iron fence where you would use an access card. NOT! There is an attendant at the gate (if you call it a gate....one single, raising board (like at a RR Xing) and there is someone there manually raising it as people come in. They really need access cards. It would be SO much easier but hey, then lots of people would be out of a job.

For those of you coming here...if you don't stay in a hotel, you should know that you do not flush paper down the toilets here. That is very different. I had never heard of that. I told my mom about it and being the world traveller that she is, said that she had heard of it and explained the reason. So anyway, I learned the hard way about this. Maybe more info. than you wanted to know.

Another interesting thing, you can get antibiotics here without a prescription. How strange is that?! BUT , you can't get Robitussin without a prescription. I have never heard of such. Oh well, I'll just wait and call Zachary's doctor tomorrow and get him to call some in for me.

Here there are MANY MANY flies and mosquitos. The houses are very open here. It is very drafty. The house that I am staying in is nice..it is small but nice and very clean. They are very clean people. The houses are connected like condos. I have not seen any stand alone houses. Therefore, you can hear a lot going on next door. The houses are made out of concrete blocks...and painted. Like I said, they are nice and very safe. Yesterday when they left for Easter festivities, I started worrying about if something happened how I would get out. We were locked in here because they lock their doors from the outside. Luckily, we didn't have to deal with that.

I know there are more differences, I just can't think of them right now. I guess I am just past exhaustion at this point. I haven't slept much at all this week. I hope tonight that will change but I'm not holding my breath.

Ok, it's off to bed for me. I will take more pictures tomorrow and send some over. Hopefully I will get some pics of Zachary and me together. ;0)

Love and hugs,
Rebecca and Zachary