Full Immersion

As many of you may know, there is a Guatemalan family that Jenny and I have been connected to for several years now that has been of special interest to ours.  In the past year, especially, given the nature of their year-old daughter who suffers from severe dietary restraints and is now considered a 'miracle' surviver.  Anyway, we don't live close in proximity to the family, but we visited with them last weekend in their hometown and stayed the night at their parent's home...meaning we finally fully immersed!

It was great to visit with the family and see the baby:

We brought some games and played Phase 10, dice-style:

I got to practice my Spanish.  The visiting turned out to be quite the family reunion because most all of their  relatives live in the same area.  It was very comforting to be around multiple generations...there will never be any replacement of our own family, but it was very nice to be welcomed in and treated so nicely by this family:

Jenny learned how to make tortillas from scratch, which is the custom here for all the women:

And notice how we simply put a chair in front of the open flame oven to prevent the baby from approaching it!

This is a picture of the group gathered around the table in the kitchen.  It was fun to teach some of the adults some English words. The moms particularly asked us how to say "she is sleeping", because the daughter was sleeping on her mother's lap.  The food was filling, but not provided with the typical table manners as what would be expected in the States.  For instance, there was a jar of salt in the middle of the table and people would lick their fingers and dip them into the jar to consume the salt with their food (fyi keep in mind that for many impoverished families living in this part of the world, a typical meal is made up of only tortillas and salt).

The homes are most commonly built with cement blocks, so no insulation, etc.  Here's an image from above the homes.

The terrain is very mountainous and beautiful.  We went for a walk with the family to their old house.  Along the way we got to play with the younger kids and listen to the stories of the adults when they were kids.  When the family left their old home they abandoned it (didn't try to sell it or anything).  So when we stopped by it, they went in and, much to our surprise, there was still a lot of stuff inside!  The family actually took out some clothes to take to their current home.

The girls were just so cute!

  

We miss you all very much, and hope all is well with your current endeavors.  The first few months so far have been full of many great experiences and humble challenges.  We are thankful for the interactions we have here and are so glad we're able to stay connected to you all even when we're not close in proximity.