Well, we are back from an amazing journey into another time and place. Ted, Rosebud, and I spent five days seeing and learning as much as we could about Guatemala and the Kekchi people and their way of living. We are still quite overwhelmed by everything we experienced. I don’t think I can put much into words right now, so I will just give a brief overview of what we did each day. After typing all this up, I decided to split it up into one post per day. Otherwise, it is a VERY long post.
Friday we got up at 3am EST and headed for the airport. Our flight left on time and after a brief layover in Atlanta, we found ourselves in Guatemala 8 hours later, with Rosebud having slept all but one hour of flight time! There we met Galen and Phyllis Groff, a wonderful couple who has been serving as missionaries with the Kekchi people for over 20 years. They drove us on a five hour drive through an amazing countryside that we couldn’t get enough of! We stopped after a bit for an authentic Guatemalan meal at a roadside restaurant. The roads are full of curves and drop-offs and speed bumps (their way of “enforcing” speed limits) and people walking along sometimes carrying huge loads on their heads. We arrived at their house in Carcha in the early evening and crashed shortly after, as we had been up since 1am local time. Their house is located near the edge of town and is surrounded by hills with houses and corn fields. Most families have a small flock of chickens (and a rooster) that wanders around their yard free range, and there are dogs everywhere.