Thanksgiving

We were blessed this Thanksgiving with the presence of Dan's parents, Mark and Jenny, and his sister, Allie. They were able to get the whole Thanksgiving week off and come for 9 days. It was a really fun week and we stayed pretty busy - we even put Mark to work doing some physical therapy in some of the rural communities!



We also found time to do some coffee picking, visit Leticia, a woman in town who weaves, visit Cristantos, a friend of ours who does carving, go hiking, have some really fun meals with friends, and of course play with Clara a whole bunch. The kitchen ladies made us a really wonderful Thanksgiving lunch with turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatos, which we ate after celebrating a really nice Mass with Fr. John Francis.


Jenny learning to weave with Leticia.


Picking coffee! The 6 of us picked about 40 pounds in 2 hours. A pound of coffee berries yields about 2 cups of actual coffee. The coffee harvest was just beginning, so there were still a lot of green berries to pick around. Our guide Martin has been working on the Parish farm projects for 35 years. He was a great source of history and perspective for our many questions.


Hiking up one of the mountains on the East side of San Lucas. The volcano in the background is Mt. Atitlan.


We went to the hospital party in the back of the ambulance! We were celebrating the successful completion of the surgical jornada from the month before. It was a night of music, games, and really, really good food.


Playing with Clara Maria

If Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, I don't think we could think of anything we were more thankful for than to spend time with family, sharing our lives and hearing their stories. Some of our favorite memories of San Lucas will be of the things we did this week. It was really hard to say goodbye on Saturday morning, especially since it was at 5am! But we were glad to have had the time together, to have Clara see the faces that go with the voices she is so used to hearing over the phone.