Livin da Vida Loca!

Hey y'all! Still having the most amazing time in the universe...my roommate Kala and I have really bonded recently and we play well off eachother (i.e. she doesn't get annoyed when I'm an attention hog). Today we went to a coffee finca (plantation thing) which was boring but I bought some coffee that looks really good, this Mayan cultural museum which was really cool, and this nunnery...is that the word? Convent? Whatever. It was from like the 1700's and was crazy with it's self-torture chambers and all. I forget that other countries have standing history from back then. K so you know how I love to play with elbow skin? Well I was subconsciously playing with Rusty's elbow skin at dinner the other night and got made fun of. They think I'm so wierd! Now every day I have to tell them two of "Crista's Quirks"...you can imagine it's not too hard to do. So far we've talked about my zit-popping obsession and my tendency to massage loose elbow/hand skin. Stay tuned for tomorrow's. So last night we went to a dance club place that was SO COOL...like Antigua-style but very classy. Everyone was dancing and I was just sitting on the side talking to people cuz they only salsa here and I can't do it. Anyhow I was talking to this guy from Spain named Bruno and he asked me what I like to do. This is where I discovered the depth of my loser-ness. I was like "Well...I like to study biology...and play board games." He was so funny he tried to convince me he was really into board games (although at first he thought I said war games, so we had to clear that up) too and I wasn't a loser, but he was talking about Parchesi and such, which I informed him were old-school board games. Try to imagine me trying to explain Balderdash in Spanish. Let's just say I didn't do it justice (LPA Brent!). We started working in the clinic (2x/wk during classes) but haven't really gotten to do anything yet...just learning how to fill out charts in Spanish and do the preliminary exam stuff. But I do get to wear my coat. You can imagine how pumped I am about that. One of the coolest things that's been happening is I'm realizing that it's not that different here than in the U.S. Everything we have at home they have here, it's just done a little differently. It sounds really dumb but I guess before I thought "oh gross poor Guatemala" but it's really beautiful and people are people right? I know I'm really getting into the swing of it because I haven't accidentally flushed my toilet paper for like a week! *you can't flush it here cuz it'll clog...but my poop won't? Go figure! Hope y'all are livin da vida loca up there in MN and enjoying that snow for me!(or wherever you may currently be). Dios Bendiga (God bless).

TeeTah

P.S. My snail mail address:
Crista Johnson
c/o Fernando Saravia
Apartado postal #155-El Correo
Antigua Guatemala 03001
Guatemala, C.A.

and email is still johcria@bethel.edu