Pana!

If you´re on a hunt for the most beautiful place in the world, look no more! This weekend we went to Panahachel, which is a town on the edge of Lake Atitlan. I´m sure you´ve seen pictures of it, it´s super famous. Surrounded by mountains. Clear. Beautiful.



Molly and Hannah and I swam in in it and I can´t explain how wonderful it was. It was cold (but so hot outside...unlike your 8 inches of snow there!) and it felt smooth when you swam in it...so clean and clear (and under control...). We swam with these 2 adorable boys (Marco was 10 and Daniel was 11). They taught us to dive off this wooden thing and we flipped them and raced and had so much fun! The creepy part is that there were like 8 nasty men on the shore taking pictures of us NOT EVEN SNEAKILY! Seriously if you´re gonna be a perv, be sneaky about it right? Sometimes I feel like such a jerk cuz I straight up ignore guys on the street here cuz they´re so freaking aggressive! Oh well if you respond to them they just keep going! We also went to this little village on the edge and saw this sweet church that overlooked the lake, but the vendors there are super aggressive.

I got a ton of gifts while I was there, although I like some of them so much I´m not sure if they´ll make it home! For instance these pants. I know, they´re the man. This pic is me spreading my pants like a tent so Molly could change behind them.

Molly and Hannah and I stayed in this sweet little honeymoon cottage (the other girls were in little cottages around us) with a fireplace and a cute front porch! Although we started off in 2 beds, when we woke up we (somehow) were all in the king sized bed...funny, how´d that happen? Oh yes maybe it´s because I´m a cuddle monster! Kala woke up this morning with me in her bed too, that happens. I GET LONELY OK?

Know how I have a thing for nerdy boys? Well I´m in love. His name is Ricardo...and he´s 6. He goes to school at the convent (where I work in the clinic) and he has these huge thick glasses and always trails behind these 2 other kids and talks really funny and has a suitcase on wheels! It´s true. He´s the one in back of those three boys. How precious are they? One of the other one`s name is Anderson, but I don´t know the 3rd. Today we played ball for like an hour (when I was supposed to be counting drugs in the pharmacy...gag me) and I had no mercy on this kid. I was sweating and chucking the ball as hard as I could at him (which, as my softball team knows, isn´t very hard). But still when his dad came he told him that I had hit him in the face 3 times...whoops! Let´s see, what else have I to report? I saw a patient today who's 2 months pregnant...and 15 years old. It´s so common here it breaks my heart. She´s such a baby herself. People are just so uneducated about family planning and birth control and because of the Catholic church there´s virtually no birth control. I´ve been communicating with my friends back home trying to figure out housing for next year and thanks to God I think we´ve finally got it figured out and I'm really excited. I really love the girls I'll be living with! Well that seems to be all the exciting news from down here. Love and kisses and cuddles from Guatemokie!