Rocking that *International* Paradise

When my parents flew home from Guatemala last week, my mom’s facebook status upon arriving home told a tale of long lines, delayed flights, near misses, and luggage that arrived home a day later than its owners.  When Liz and I left Wednesday  morning, I sincerely hoped our luck would be different. Our taxi arrived (10 minutes early) at 4:12am.  I was determined to beat the lines that Mom and Dad had experienced being on the “first flight out” in the morning.  We were successful in that.  We sped through check-in, breezed our way through customs, were shuffled through security, and found ourselves with over an hour to wait at our gate before boarding.  Sunrise over Guatemala, from our gate waiting to board. In Miami, too, everything went smoothly.  Though the customs process seemed to take an eternity, it was effective in cutting our 90 minute layover down to less than half an hour to wait at the gate.  And then we were in the sky, soaring towards Chicago and our last layo

I dropped my parents off at the airport this morning.  With a quick, fierce hug and a slamming of the trunk, I pulled away and left them on the curb, scurrying to check in for their 7:30am flight.  It feels like they were here for so much less than five full days.  We had a great time while they were in Guatemala, of course, but the time flew by much too quickly. Mom and Dad and my sister Liz arrived around 8pm on Thursday night.  On Friday, the accompanied me to school and were able to see where I work (and meet a few colleagues) as I rushed around cleaning my classroom, going to the last meetings of the year, and getting the signatures I needed in order to check out for the summer.  By 1:00pm, I was ready to go, and with my pack horses in tow (parents and sisters are always best when put to work—especially when one dislocated her shoulder a week previously and really shouldn’t have been carrying much with her left arm) we headed home briefly, then went to lunch in Cayala with A

Looking back on it, I think there were signs something was going to happen.  Between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon, at least three people noticed and asked about the scar on my right shoulder which is the mark of the surgery I had seven years ago.  I should have known it was a sign.  After seven years, the scar has faded and few people notice it anymore.  (Case in point, one of the people who asked about it this weekend has known me since September and seen me in a bathing suit numerous times).  I should have been knocking on wood as I explained the surgery had been to tighten up the tendons around my shoulder and make sure I didn’t dislocate it again, and that I hadn’t had a problem since then.  But I didn’t. Let’s back up a bit.  On Friday, Amanda (of “Amanda and Josh and adventures in Puerto Rico” fame) arrived in Guatemala to visit, volunteer, and take in Latin culture.  She’ll spend a full month here, with Josh coming down to meet her two weeks from now.  We had plans

I’ve kind of fallen off the blogging wagon over the past month.  The reason is simply that life has gotten in the way—lesson planning and grading and spending more hours than I would care to admit at school supervising DI (Destination Imagination—see what I’m talking about in separate post).  But that’s not to say that my life has stopped, or that I’ve had nothing to blog about.  We had a four day weekend for Guatemalan Labor Day on May 1-4, and several of us took the opportunity to finally go on a 3 day trek I’ve been wanting to do all year.  The trek leaves from the city of Quetzaltenango (more commonly called Xela) and winds over ridges and through forests to emerge on the morning of day 3 over the shores of Lake Atitlan.  Friends who had done the trek had given it rave reviews, and the six people who decided to go on the hike are among my favorite to travel with here in Guatemala.  Going, quite simply, seemed like a good life choice. We left the city early on Thursday morn