Guatemala (Part 1)

Greeting from temperate and plesant Xela (Quetzaltenango) all,

I wake up to this every morning, so it can't be all bad.

 Estoy bien, pero yo estuve enfermo con un fiebre. Me recuperando ahora. Yo todovia tengo mucho aprender, pero ojala sabre mucho en cinco mas semanas.
(I'm well, but I was sick with a fever. I'm recovering at the moment. I still have much to learn but I'm hopeful that I'll know a lot in 5 more weeks)

This cross-eyed little fellow is named Spike. He is the monk's dog who sleeps outside and loves his blanket. He also doesn't eat dog food (I guess it makes him sick) but the leftovers from every meal. Because he's so preoccupied, though, the birds often eat a lot of what's in his bowl.

 Bascially it rains a lot, it's cold in the morning, and pretty hot during the day. My journey began being stranded at an airport for 2 hours because of an error in my ride's itinerary. With little to no Spanish I, with the help of some incredibly kind strangers, found my ride and concluded an 18 hour day very stressed out.

It's been hard to write, respond, etc. because I really want to commit myself to studying. I haven't had much time to read and my brain is usually fried of about 4-5 straight hours of classes. Nevertheless living in a benedictine Monastery is very nice. We have a large, but sparse, room, kind priests, brothers, and others, and a beautiful campus.

I'll try and post some pictures but the internet is on-again off-again and I'm not sure how it'll take to larger files.

I will comment about how the people are here, the Catholicism, and the type of spirituality/culture that exists here. It is much different, but much like our own familes who have many different personalities, I believe I can easily come to love (and do love) my fellow Catholics down here.

How could I not add St. Matthew. This is from the Catedral in the center of town. Pictures of that to come!