Sightseeing in Guatemala

I finally got around to uploading the pictures off my camera from the last month.  I'm sure people from home often wonder exactly what it looks like in Central America so here are some pictures to give a bit more of an idea.

Panchita, my Spanish teacher, and I

Here are some pics from Alta Verapaz where I spent last weekend for an MCC team meeting.  We spent our fun day tubing on the river that flows through the caves.  I didn't want to get my camera wet so I don't have pics from inside the cave but I think someone else took some pics with their water-proof camera so if I can get copies of those I'll post them at some point.

Me on the back of our "taxi" driving to the caves

Country-side in Alta Verapaz

House of a campesino

Some of the team making our way down to the caves

Entrance to one of the caves

About a month ago I went along on a sightseeing tour of Guatemala city with a Canadian school group that was here doing a learning and serving tour.  I got some pictures of the dump where some of the poorest people in the city spend their day scavenging for things to possibly sell later.

The dump

The city that has built itself around the dump

 One thing about the dump that I learned is that there used to be a whole squatter town built up right around the dump but the government forced them away.  So now they've built higher up.

And last but not least, I went with a group of American university students on a field trip to the zoo.  Although I'm not a fan of animals living their lives in cages I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the Guatemala City zoo.

I'll be leaving for El Salvador on either monday or tuesday next week (i.e. 4 or 5 days) and am getting very anxious to go.  I'm having a going away supper tomorrow with some of the other MCC'ers here in the city.  One is from a mennonite colony in Paraguay and the other is from the states but grew up eating some "Mennonite" food as well.  We went shopping this morning and bought what we needed (or as close as we could find) to make verenikya.  Our country reps who are from Colombia will be coming as well and claim to be excited to try our creation.

The next time I post I will most likely be somewhere off the beaten tracks in El Salvador.  It's been almost a year now that I've known I'll be living in El Salvador, so you can imagine how ready I am to finally be there.  Deséame suerte (wish me luck)!