Friday!

Today completes our first week of language school. We are enjoying our teachers and the challenge they are putting before us. We are in school every morning from 8-12 and then we have homework that we complete in the afternoon and evenings. We have had moments that we crave to hear some english and other moments that spanish is just fine - something that we had expected to have happen.

We know it's been a while since we've posted a blog, so hopefully this one will catch you up with us for this past week.

Tomorrow is Guatemala's independence day, and do they celebrate. Yesterday there were herds of kids running in groups in the streets all of them with whistles in their mouths practicing for their run with the torch today. Today the same herds of kids are running around the city, blowing cadences with their whistles and some groups are even followed by a truck or even a bus honking the same cadence.

Throughout the day begining at 6am and ending usually at 9pm the church near our house rings a bell every 15 minutes or so. Last night we were trying to finish our homework and the bell rang for 22 minutes, during which at one point someone lite a good 2 minutes work of blackcat fireworks. We laughed and laughed - this morning we asked our host family about it and they said it was normal and probably even slept through it.

Two days a week our school offers an excursion to various places around the city. Generally they last about 2-2.5 hours. On Tuesday we went to a macadamia nut farm, and yesterday we walked up to a cross on a hill that overlooks the city. While walking to the hill a man pulled up his shirt, pooched out his belly and pressed it against a concrete wall - lesson learned - when your belly needs to be cooled off, just press it against a concrete wall :) Also, should you need to use the restroom, no need to search for one, just stop on the sidewalk and take care of business!

We have enjoyed meeting all kinds of people from various countries too. Antigua is known for it's many language schools and attracts people from all over the world. A lady from Sweeden is staying in the same house as us. Also, at the school is a couple from Korea who is studying spanish - they are quite humorious. Also, we have met a guys named Pete who is also studying here at the school. Pete is from Canada and is here because he wanted to "fall off the grid". Would you join us in praying for Pete? We have the opportunity to spend about 20-30 minutes with him each morning.

Emails and comments. We LOVE them. We want to stay as connected as possible to your lives back home. You can leave comments here on the blog of send us emails at leemaroonjarvis@gmail.com, or stacijarvis@gmail.com. Texas Furniture folks, how are Thursday mornings? Single's class how are you? Wesley folks, how's the fall semester?

Tomorrow we are changing host family homes. The home we are currently living in is just fine - the people are nice and the food is good, however, hot water is only available in the early mornings and even then it is often ice cold. Lee deals with it pretty well, but I haven't been. We are moving in with a host family who our friends Daniel & Kara stayed with while they were in language school here.

We'll end here for now - and post more frequently in thet future!