La jungla, polol, chitzen itza, yaxuna, ticul, fiestas, just a quick list of all the places and things we saw this last week...AWESOME! (english word of the week). The bugs and storms have been bigger and better than ever, we (and 13 others) got a bug shower in the back of a sweet pickup truck, as well as playing with locust, praying mantises, furry and deadly catterpillars,stick bugs, gigantic poison-filled jumping spiders, scorpions, and giant ranas (toads...poisonous ones of course). We also made it through tropical strom Dolly which dumped gallons of rain periodically for the last few days.
The week started out with a true American battle royal on the hardwood (a cement sketchy puddle ridden b-ball court in the central plaza). Anna, Josh, Stu, and the shortest worst Mexican baskeball player ever took on a well oiled Mexican team...aka four other terrible Mexican players. The game got intense and tempers flared as we battled for every point of the first to 25 by ones game. Team USA fell behind somehow 15-9 due to some sloppy play, fortunatly we were able to dig deep relying on our superior knoledge and team play, making an epic comeback worthy of a denzel washington sports movie. Nicole provided moral support from the bench...aka she evangalized...aka flirted with the local policia....that is all she does...ever...for real....word.
Our next major adventure was a family trip to the lagoon and cenote where they used to live. After a hour long pickup ride through the dense jungle we arrived at the end of the road, aka the place where the truck couldn´t pass and we had to hike, we knew we were in over our heads when all the others carried machetes and we were packing a rifle. We got to the cenote after a quick bushwacking, the locals didn´t want to swim due to traditional legends. We jumped from 25ish feet into some sweet cool water, but we were a little aprehensive after hearing about the snakes that frequent the water too.
Last weekend we took a quick trip to Yaxuna, a town of 150 people where we helped to build a rock wall between the local presbyterian church and their neighbors. The houses we stayed in there were made of sticks and mud with tin roofs...it was legit and surprisingly not too many bugs. We got up Saturday morning at 5:15 in order to walk to a closeby ruin where we watched the sunrise over the Yucatan, there are next to no hills in the area so we could see for miles. There was another small cenote in the village that we got to swim in, it was more than a little sketchy because it was way below ground and the trees and undergrowth blocked out almost all the light that was left in the sky, during our walk to the cenote a storm came dumping rain, we had to run to find shelter in the water from the lighthing...good idea? After some more work on the wall which was more like doing a jigsaw puzzle with rocks and cement we got in the van and headed out to Chitezen Itza, one of the biggest and most famous Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. Going to a tourist destination was a little bit of a culture shock to us, soo many people speaking english and buying souveniers...not like the little villages we have grown accoustomed to. the ruins were beautiful and full of mysteries, we wandered around the ruins for almost 3 hours before getting some pizza and shaved ice for lunch...a little slice of home was nice.
We are now back to work as usual, VBS classes have been great, lots of kids with lots of energy(today we lead them in a sweet chant of GO HUSKIES!!!!) they loved it even though they didn´t really know what they were chanting about. English classes contiune to be amusing, teaching them important phrases as well as random slang like ¨awesome¨, ¨the bomb¨, and ¨i want to play with your hair¨...it was a request from anna and nicoles mexi-dad. we have also been teaching them about the finer food of the US...aka cake. None of the people here had ever heared about making a cake, they were blown away by the fact that we can make a cake from a box in a half hour, we have already made two, thursday we are going to make a huge spaggetti dinner with marble cake for dessert.
It is crazy to think that we are almost halfway done with our time here, we only have five more days in Chapab before we head off to Merida and then to Machcanu. Our spirits are still high for the most part, everyone is deffintly missing aspects of summer in seattle and everything that that entails...seafair, golden garden and such as well as missing the tour de france and knowing that we will miss the majority of the olympics. we can deffinitly need prayer for energy and good attitudes as we change homes as well as direction for where we can be most usefull and open ears and hearts to see where and how God is leading and teaching us. until next time.
-ojala en cristo
anna, nicole, stu, and josh
The week started out with a true American battle royal on the hardwood (a cement sketchy puddle ridden b-ball court in the central plaza). Anna, Josh, Stu, and the shortest worst Mexican baskeball player ever took on a well oiled Mexican team...aka four other terrible Mexican players. The game got intense and tempers flared as we battled for every point of the first to 25 by ones game. Team USA fell behind somehow 15-9 due to some sloppy play, fortunatly we were able to dig deep relying on our superior knoledge and team play, making an epic comeback worthy of a denzel washington sports movie. Nicole provided moral support from the bench...aka she evangalized...aka flirted with the local policia....that is all she does...ever...for real....word.
Our next major adventure was a family trip to the lagoon and cenote where they used to live. After a hour long pickup ride through the dense jungle we arrived at the end of the road, aka the place where the truck couldn´t pass and we had to hike, we knew we were in over our heads when all the others carried machetes and we were packing a rifle. We got to the cenote after a quick bushwacking, the locals didn´t want to swim due to traditional legends. We jumped from 25ish feet into some sweet cool water, but we were a little aprehensive after hearing about the snakes that frequent the water too.
Last weekend we took a quick trip to Yaxuna, a town of 150 people where we helped to build a rock wall between the local presbyterian church and their neighbors. The houses we stayed in there were made of sticks and mud with tin roofs...it was legit and surprisingly not too many bugs. We got up Saturday morning at 5:15 in order to walk to a closeby ruin where we watched the sunrise over the Yucatan, there are next to no hills in the area so we could see for miles. There was another small cenote in the village that we got to swim in, it was more than a little sketchy because it was way below ground and the trees and undergrowth blocked out almost all the light that was left in the sky, during our walk to the cenote a storm came dumping rain, we had to run to find shelter in the water from the lighthing...good idea? After some more work on the wall which was more like doing a jigsaw puzzle with rocks and cement we got in the van and headed out to Chitezen Itza, one of the biggest and most famous Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. Going to a tourist destination was a little bit of a culture shock to us, soo many people speaking english and buying souveniers...not like the little villages we have grown accoustomed to. the ruins were beautiful and full of mysteries, we wandered around the ruins for almost 3 hours before getting some pizza and shaved ice for lunch...a little slice of home was nice.
We are now back to work as usual, VBS classes have been great, lots of kids with lots of energy(today we lead them in a sweet chant of GO HUSKIES!!!!) they loved it even though they didn´t really know what they were chanting about. English classes contiune to be amusing, teaching them important phrases as well as random slang like ¨awesome¨, ¨the bomb¨, and ¨i want to play with your hair¨...it was a request from anna and nicoles mexi-dad. we have also been teaching them about the finer food of the US...aka cake. None of the people here had ever heared about making a cake, they were blown away by the fact that we can make a cake from a box in a half hour, we have already made two, thursday we are going to make a huge spaggetti dinner with marble cake for dessert.
It is crazy to think that we are almost halfway done with our time here, we only have five more days in Chapab before we head off to Merida and then to Machcanu. Our spirits are still high for the most part, everyone is deffintly missing aspects of summer in seattle and everything that that entails...seafair, golden garden and such as well as missing the tour de france and knowing that we will miss the majority of the olympics. we can deffinitly need prayer for energy and good attitudes as we change homes as well as direction for where we can be most usefull and open ears and hearts to see where and how God is leading and teaching us. until next time.
-ojala en cristo
anna, nicole, stu, and josh
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