casi terminado

Almost finished...

Caroline and I are currently sitting in McDonald's using the McInternet...which is free! I would guess it sits about 250 people and has an outdoor McPatio and a large McGarden. McDonalds in McGuatemala (okay this one was a joke) is super popular and doesn't quite have the stigma that it has in the US.

We have 4 more days of Spanish lessons and then it's back to VA for 2 weeks. It's funny because our Spanish has improved dramatically but I think our English has gotten worse. As we learn Spanish, and are frequently translating, our English has to become as basic as our Spanish. It's funny to look back on my journal entries over the past few weeks because I start to see words like "en" and "yo" showing up. Before long I'm going to start calling myself Brian (for some reason it's impossible for Guatemalans to say Ryan, so I just go by Brian here).

We had the chance last week to visit several of the ministry sites SI has here in Guatemala. One site is located in a small pueblo called El Gorreon. This started as a camp for people who lost their home in a flood in the late 90s. It started with 70 families and the number has almost doubled. SI has several projects in the area and one that was particularly interesting to me. None of the homes have fresh running water, so, an SI site was set up to provide Slow-Sand filtration systems in each home. I took Water Purification as my GSCI 104 course at JMU and it's so fascinating to me how it works. You can pour contaminated water into a barrel filled with sand, and the water that comes out the bottom is pure enough for them to drink. They currently have these systems in 8 homes and their vision is to have one in every home in the pueblo. I attached some pictures from our trip there.

Praise God with us:

• Our Spanish has dramatically improved
• We've met some great people down here and have enjoyed great fellowship with other students at our school
• SI-Guatemala is about to receive 6 new full-time missionaries and they just started the base in their 4th country (Fiji) so it's a really exciting time of growth for the organization.
  

This boy lives in El Gorreon. He really wanted a picture with Caroline for some reason, and was also excited to show her his Pog collection.


This is the main drag of El Gorreon. They're working on digging out places for drainages pipes to go, currently there are none.


This is not a trash can. It's the water filtration system I spoke of earlier. Inside the blue container are 3 types of sand and a tube at the bottom is how they get their water. The cost for one of these is around $80 per home and SI is currently working on getting the funding to by one for every home.


This is a Chicken Coup built by SI summer Interns. The agrobusiness site provides a start-up chicken raising business for women in a small city called Magdalena.

Ojala hablemos perfecto Espanol

Hey everyone,

"We wish we spoke perfect Spanish"

All is going well for Caroline and I. We're currently sitting in Bagel Barn drinking a cup of coffee. As has been the case recently (because of Fantasy Football), I'm on the computer while I should be studying and Caroline is actually studying. It's hard to believe that we only have 2 more weeks here...

Our Spanish is coming along very well. We've covered everything in the School's grammar curriculum and will mostly be reviewing and doing un Monton (a mountain) of writing/reading excerises. On Friday I had a Spanish test and I realized something...this really is the most effective way to learn Spanish. The test I took was a lot like a test you'd see in a very advanced University class...and I did well on it. Caroline had the same experience too. So from an academic standpoint we've progressed un monton but from a fluency standpoint we still have a long way to go. Once we get to the DR and have to speak Spanish every day we'll really begin to move toward fluency. I think we'll plan on taking classes once or twice a week for the first few months we're there to make sure we don't learn things incorrectly.

As for traveling...Last weekend was our new friend Josh's last weekend here. It was awesome to hang out with him the 4 weeks he was here and for the last weekend we all went to Monterrico, which is a very small city on the Pacific Coast. There wasn't much to it really other then beach, cheap hotels and cheap restaurants but we had a blast (we were there Saturday and Sunday morning). Check out the pics below and you'll notice a few interesting things:

• The sand there is Black from the Volcanic soil
• The waves were huge...by VA Beach standards
• The water was extremely rough and no one really swims. Josh and I did though but by swimming I really mean going in the water and not drowning (funny Demetri Martin Sketch about this)

I need to stop typing because the longer the post the less it gets read. I will post again soon with updates about Finances and the last weeks of our trips.

Note: we'll be back in VA from 9/1-9/14

Prayer Requests:

1. Language...Studying is harder now because we're experiencing diminishing returns on our effort (a little econ for everyone)
2. DR Preperation...It's getting very close and it's easy to worry
3. Spiritual Discipline...I'm better about studying the Word/Praying/leading Bible studies with my wife when I have a specific schedule so some days it's easy for me to be undisciplined with my life
4. The people of the Dominican Republic whose lives we will soon be a big part of!

Caroline and I thought it was really funny to take pictures of me shaking my face really fast. It reminds me of that picture of Roy after he got in a drunk driving accident on The Office.


That's Josh watching me get swallowed by a wave. This picture does do justice to how big these waves were...They were 6-8 feet.


I think this shows a little better how big the waves were.


Josh, Caroline, Me, and Helga covered in black sand at the beach. You know how hot white sand is at the beach...Add black.

Thanks

Hey everyone,

It´s good to know we have readers, and thanks for your comments. At some point we´ll post some pictures of our teachers and our school...but they´re not quite as exciting.

Ryan and Caroline

Language school continued

Spanish has been going pretty well. We're getting past the "beginning/intermediate" Spanish material and getting into the harder aspects of the language. This is particularly frustrating because sentences are no longer translating as easy as they were. When you've got to put words in a totally different order it gets much more difficult.

Last weekend we took a trip to Panajachel and Chichicastenago. Panajachel is famous for Lake Atitlan (see the pics below) and Chichicastenago has a huge market. We got a great deal on a package trip that included a bus ride from Antigua to Panajachel, a hotel, a bus ride to Chichicastenago, and a bus ride back to Antiuga. We went with a couple friends we met here in Antigua.

Finance Update:

We had a budget increase to $2675. We have to pay 15% in SS taxes and I accidentally misread this to be 5% and just recently discovered the error. The good news is we're very close to our pre-field goal and will be able to use any extra money we raise upfront towards our monthly budget

	Total Need	Total Raised	%	Remaining Need
Pre-Field Budget	$25,000	$23,500	94%	$1,500
Monthly Budget	$2,670	$2327	87%	$348

Lake Atitlan in Panajachel.....absolutely amazing.


Us with our travel buddies...Helga and Josh.


A street in Santo Domingo....a small very poor city on the other side of the lake.


We tried to take a picture of these fake animals and this man and his son stood in front of the animals and said that we needed to pay cinco quetzales in order to take a picture. We're actually glad they ruined our picture because it makes for a better story and the animals weren't that cool anyways....


The lake at sunset....


The market at Chichicastenago...one of the biggest (and most crowded) in Central America.


A Guatemalan supermarket....pretty different huh?