So, we had a fantastic day of flights that resulted in a few stories, a couple of missing essential components, and a confiscated bottle of hand sanitizer. We had somewhat of a scare right off of the bat when the nice lady from Air Canada announced our plane to Calgary may or may not be landing, which would have forced us to reschedule our entire flight scheme. However, the plane landed 1 second after she announced this. Thank you for not looking out of the window, Air Canada lady. So we made it to Calgary. Then I (Jordan) go through security. I let them zap my ticket and I walk through the metal detector. I get to the other side and the nice man asks for my boarding pass. I fail to find it. Fortunately for me, they found it under the table on the other side of security, so they searched my bag next. Then they took my hand sanitizer. I thought, "how the heck did this thing get through Saskatoon?" It's a pretty big bottle too. So we are about to board our plane from Calgary to Houston when the guy checking our boarding passes notices an incredible amount of Mennonite names. He then asks if we're from Steinbach or something.
Next on the itinerary, we land in Houston. We're all pretty hungry at this point. Almost all of the guys looked into getting some Texas barbeque. We find a joint and I request a BBQ sandwich. A meat slab the size of a football field is produced, accompanied by a word I cannot write on this blog, which was announced by the Texan behind me. If a local was impressed, you know it had to be big. Next we hear the PA system calling for Kate McArthur to go to gate E10. She lost everything. If you thought my boarding pass situation was bad, you should not read the extensive list of things she lost: her passport, all of her money, all of her boarding passes, her baggage claim sticker, her drivers licence, her pride, and a pack of gum. While this was happening, we all watched March Madness. At this point, a friendly Guatemalan man came to talk to us about the nuances of bartering and specific sites we should visit. Also, he highly recommended a chicken place in Quetzeltenango.
Next we boarded our flight to Guatemala City. Matt unnerved a lady sitting close to him. A friendly chap served us a microwaved burger in a plastic bag. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, death by... who knows what's in that thing. Whatever it is, it can't be good for ya. We did end up arriving at our destination relatively unscathed (remember Kate's pride), although Cassandra did somehow manage to get stopped and patted down at every possible security checkpoint, including experiencing the (in)famous FULL BODY SCAN. We were greeted by Adriana and Antony in a new van with a fair bit of headroom. Hillary could stand up in it, but that's not saying much. We spent the night at Semilla. We were all happy to be here. Especially Adam (insert mile wide smile here).
I was rudely awakened by a man mowing his lawn at 5:30 am. We gathered for breakfast in the dining hall and discussed our plan for the day. Adriana picked us up and brought us to the MCC Guatemala El Salvador head office. We were formally introduced to Adriana and our itinerary for the next 12 days. After this review, we were given the long answer of everything that is done by MCC in Guatemala and El Salvador. We were served a delicious lunch made by a very very nice Guatemalan lady. Much better than that burger yesterday. After lunch and a quick soccer match where Adam found a way to get hit in the face multiple times, we travelled to the City Cemetary and did a scavenger hunt to find graves of historical figures in Guatemala's history. We observed the obvious juxtaposition of mausoleums for the rich and a wall grave for the poor, indicating the great disparity between the poor and the rich. We ventured to the edge of the cemetary where we viewed the dump. There was an incredible amount of vultures and an incredible amount of people looking to recycle the garbage that was incessantly being brought in. Afterward, on our way out, Gerry McLellan was approached by a local man who had a little bit too much to drink and was looking to practice his English. Way to be a sport Gerry. I (Jordan) was also gawked at by a number of Guatemalan girls who were perplexed by my height and pale complexion. All of this was followed by a spanish lesson where we were introduced to our new Spanish names. Notables include Gerry being changed to Heraldo, Luc to Lucas, Jordan to Hordan, Kate and Katie to Katerina I & II, and Jim to Diego.
For the next couple of days we will be in El Salvador working with the locals of La Linea. We're looking forward to connecting with the local youth there. We will most likely be out of contact, so check in again on the weekend for our next update.
A special thanks to the spell check feature of hotmail, which only told us that most browsers do this automatically. You're a champ.
Salud!
Jordan, Hillary, and Ryan
