Last weekend Andres went to his village for a few days to help his sister with some stuff. She just started the community's very first and only internet cafe. So Andres brought back some good pictures. And some pretty cool news that we're on our way to acquiring a bit of land in the community to someday build a little casita. It's all pretty exciting because we want to build a permaculture-ish house so it's awesome to now have a spot in which to visualize!

I wasn't able to make the trip up to Xalbal because I'm too preg-tastic. It's like a 12 hour trip with much of it unpaved. No, gracias. Too much time sans bathroom and plus it's super hot up there right now. I'm just fine dealing with the 80 degrees "hot" of Antigua, can't imagine these days any warmer.

Andres brought back pineapples from his community. They are huge! In Andres' town these huge piñas go for 5 quetzales a pop or like 80 cents. But here in Antigua a pineapple half the size and less delicious will run ya nearly $2. I like to call this picture "Mita y sus piñas."

This is a picture of the land we will build our permaculture house on (to the left of the fence). The land was owned by Andres' brother-in-law. He's pretty much our only neighbor as he owns more land around the area.
This is where Andres' community is located, in the Ixcan region, a lil place called Xalbal about an hour from the region's capital Playa Grande.

Was pretty jealous of Andres because he was able to go up the La Victoria, where my Dragons group went last fall to meet some really amazing dudes. One of them was Don Chilo - this picture - who showed us his notebook where he had written his memoir of life in the war all by hand. It was something like 80 pages hand-scrawled front and back, all weathered and kept in his back pocket. He said he wrote it for his kids. Meeting Don Chilo was one of the biggest highlights of that trip for me. I found him totally inspiring, and completely humble and sweet.

This is his wife Maria. They are Mam-speakers.

Look at my adorable mother-in-law! She's wearing the corte (the traditional skirt) that I gave her, which was made for her in Pachaj (where we lived last year near Xela) with hearts and palm trees on it. This is a rare picture because Andres caught her on film smiling. Typically Guatemalans don't smile in pictures. Aside from this smiley picture there are about 10 of her totally straight-faced.

Back in Antigua, here's a picture of Norma getting a bath in the pila. There's a bath in store for her today... little does she know...