Mas que meets the Ojo.

So we saw a foreign film here in Guatemala. It was an edge-of-your-seat thriller with non-stop action, romantic subplots and tales of heroism and humor. Maybe you've heard of it -- it was called "Transformers." Tony and I understood about two percent of the lines in the movie, while Steph boasted of having comprehended about 40 or 50 percent. Luckily, the dialogue isn't "needed" in the movie. Surprisingly, the plot wasn't terribly complicated, and we understood what we needed to, like when Megatron called the main (mortal) character, "muchacho," and threatened him with "Dame el cubo, chico." Bone-chilling. Overall, I loved the movie and we'll be seeing it again in English to see what Socratic undertones or subtleties we may have missed out on in the Spanish version. The theater was crowded, hot and hosted some of the loudest snackers we have ever heard.

Yesterday, we went to "Proyeto de las Niños y Familias," a social project or effort maintained by our school. I'll post those photos next week, when I next upload. Basically, a portion of each of our school's student's tuition is set aside to buy clothes, food and activity materials for a collection of children in families living on the outskirts of Xela, of running water and of electricity. After our lunch break in the afternoon, all the students, some teachers and our school's owners went over to this neighborhood to a cluster of houses that shelters about 10 female caretakers and at least 20 children from ages 1 to 14. We presented each of the caretakers with a bag of groceries (vegetables, etc.) and each of the younger children with at least one "new" article of clothing. In turn, we got to see the houses and hang out with the children. As I am generally terrified of kids, I didn't know how swimmingly this day was going to go, but was amazed at how fun it turned out to be. Thank God for outgoing and aggressive children is all I have to say.

The houses that we saw were of mud brick and corrugated iron, each with two or three beds, each of which slept three or four children or adults. There was a separate building that served as a kitchen and housed a table, two chairs and a mud-brick, open-fire stove in the corner. All of the children were ridiculously outgoing, friendly and patient with our ailing Spanish. We colored with los niños, played games, jumped rope and played soccer with them next to a nearby cornfield, between two cows, which I was praying someone would use as goalpost markers. We stayed for a few hours, and before we left, they thanked us with a song.

It was a great experience that I hope we get to do again before we leave. I had a great conversation with one of the girls:

Roxanna: Do you have a boyfriend or a husband?
Me: Yes, that's my boyfriend over there with the beard. And you? Do you have a husband?
Roxanna: Ay, no!
Me: Why not?!
Roxanna: Because I'm 10!
Me: What about him (pointing to a nearby GENIUS child named Henry)? He's handsome!
Roxanna: No! He's gross. Plus, I like to study.

Two seconds later, I found out that "gross" meant "my cousin," and I was not trying to endorse that marriage.

Poverty is obviously a problem here, as it is to some extent everywhere. It was interesting and jarring to see how within a 20-minute walk, you can stumble into a completely different, perhaps ignored economic bracket. I talked about it with my Spanish tutor today, as she knows her country just a tad bit better than I, and she said that maybe 40 percent of Guatemala was in a similar situation as el proyeto. In Xela, houses are multi-leveled, we have malls and movie theaters, everyone has cars, beggars are few. Yet 20 minutes away, it's such a different story. Food for thought.

Alright, that's about all for now...as you can see, I've posted new photos and there will be more to come next week. Steph flies out tomorrow, so I'll be getting up at 3.30 a.m. to say goodbye and go with her to the bus station. Then, we're set to go on a hike all day and on Sunday we're aiming for Chichicastenango (the market town). This said, I might not be able to post this weekend, but definitely will try!

Take care, all.