January-07-2003

Our first couple of days in Antigua! Life is quite an adventure here. Our bus drive from the airport went nice and smooth. As promised, a guy holding a piece of paper with our name on it was waiting for us. He led us to a nice touring bus, and we, plus two other girls, took off to Antigua. It was quite strange being in a luxurious touring bus, with only four people while there was room for 20, while we were passing the old "chicken busses" left and right. Chicken busses are local transportation, old (American?) school busses with no limit to the number of passengers. I have no doubt they will even strap people to the roof if need came to be. Picture follows later.

We got dropped off at our host family's house. A nice house, with Guatemalan door heights. Not made for 6'2" (184cm) gringos like Nathan. Our family is absolutely great. They have two kids, Ana and Stefani.  We have a great Guatemalan lady take care of us, she cooks us three meals a day. And good meals, too! When we arrived, they had two other guests in the house. Bill, an American, has left by now, but Yunco, a Japanese girl, is still here. Our host eats with us, so we have three all-Spanish meals a day. Great exposure! 

The house is set up like a bed and breakfast  type setting. Four rooms, two bathrooms. We  learned all kinds of things, including that flushing toilet paper isn't always a given thing... Not all the old drainage systems can handle it, so you actually put the paper in a separate trash can. (And surprise: it doesn't even smell too bad!)

This goes together with the fact that hot showers aren't as normal as we always thought they were. No electric boilers, gas water heaters or anything like that. Water is heated on the spot by a little heater attached to the actual water pipe itself. Stories go that you have a chance of getting electrocuted if you try to adjust anything on it while showering. I have not given it a try yet.

We have met Mike already, and even worked with him for a day. It is quite overwhelming to just have been here for 3 days and already be introduced as new owners of a clinic... But it is an awesome experience. We will start adjusting this Wednesday!!!!

Nathan is taking Spanish lessons at the moment, this afternoon it is my turn. I'm so excited!

Stay tuned!

This is our update till Monday, but I have a hard time posting the websites because my floppy drive is not working. So everything will be delayed just a little.