Feliz Día del Cariño

Feliz Día del Cariño a todos. Happy Valentine´s Day!

We´ve had an exciting day experiencing Valentine´s Day here in Quiché. It is not any kind of religious holiday here as some might think, but more of a day of friendship - not just couples.

We were invited to a work party this afternoon at Enlace Quiché (where we are to work). Andy informed us last night that we needed to buy gifts for people for a gift exchange, so we had to do a little shoppping. There was a minimum price of Q50 (quetzales) which is around $6.50. We didn´t know our people except that Toby had a woman, and I had a man. So, we played it pretty safe and bought Toby´s person some earrings and Brittany´s person a leather wallet. At the party we participated in a pretty interesting work activity, sort of like an ice-breaker where we all had to write a poem or love letter to the person we love the most. Then our letters were mixed up and someone´s name was put on it, then we switched them around again and read the letter to the person whose name was written on it. It turned out to be pretty funny because lots of random people were saying things to each other like, we have a crazy love, you are my other half, I love you, you are my best friend, and you are the greatest on Earth. Andy had to read his letter to Toby which was pretty funny. After this we did a pretty formal gift exchange where someone starts by giving a gift to their person and then that person gives theirs and we continued one by one giving hugs and saying thank you, etc. After they were all passed out we opened our gifts. Toby received a bamboo wind chime and a vase. Brittany received a collection of chocolates, suckers, and a mug - funny enough from Andy! To finish off our party we had a catered lunch which consisted of veggies and rice with corn torillas and tamarind juice to drink. It was quite special for us to participate in this gathering and meet many more of the people that we will be working with. They seem like a great group of people, and it made us even more excited to be working here.

More on gift and chocalate exchanges...
We sat in on a couple of the English classes today that started a few weeks ago. One class was a group of kids and another of adults. In both classes the students participated in a chocolate exchange where they traded gifts like we did at the party one by one giving some chocolates to a fellow classmate that was drawn at random. (This is a normal tradition in class at the schools, so we have learned from Stan and Lisa.) In the adult class one boy gave a rose to everybody and another woman bought arroz con leche drink and a snack for the whole class. We´ve certainly learned today about how sweet and generous the Guatemalan people are on this day. Andy and his family were very sweet to us as well. Tomasa and Andy both included us by giving us chocolate bars like they gave their kids!