Learning to Live

I have a feeling I could use that title repeatedly over this next year of my life. Because life, for our family, will constantly evolve as we learn to live in a foreign country.

We are adjusting to our new way of life. Here is proof! Ha.

A list of "if I wrote out the things swirling in my head" after living in Guatemala for 3 weeks:

Greet people with customary greeting

Wear tennis shoes; the cobble stone streets are uneven & a bit tricky.( I am a white girl. I don't need to be tripping down the streets and drawing even more attention to myself)

Don't brush your teeth with the water

Eat more pan dulce, "sweet bread". Yum. It's a good thing we don't have a car and I have to walk everywhere.

Never pay full price at the market, there's ALWAYS a Gringo tax (a.k.a white person tax)

Buy more tortillas, chance are good someone will be hungry and you'll need them

Use the bathroom at home before you leave, because there aren't any free bathrooms in town. (Unless you are sly enough to coordinate walking by McDonald's, which is not on the way to the market. Therefore, it is hard to be sly about it)

Don't brush your teeth with the water (This one is highly important!)

Walk with purpose, like you know exactly where you're going even when you don't

Don't freak out at the loud street noises, it only sounds like the outside is INside because there is no roof on the middle of your house!

*This one requires some more explanation. I really have a love/hate relationship with our open courtyard. I love it for the fact that there is open air and sunshine literally in the house. It affords the kids a fun & safe place to play "outside" anytime. However; it also allows mosquitos into the house, as well as random dust from the outdoors. Largely, debri from all of the fires, which is how people get rid of their trash here - they burn it. Which leads me to my last thought.......

Get your freshly laundered clothes off the clothes line by lunch time, or they'll be haunted by surrounding neighbor's plumes of smoke from their burning trash.