We wanted to quickly record our last days in Antigua before moving on to Quito. The photo album captures some of the highlights including Zoe attracting a circle of more than 10 kids in Parque Central with the magical pelota (ball) - a great mix of touristas, indigineous, Guatematecos from other parts of the country, and local kids together - while they all played catch, one of the mothers was busy correcting my Spanish homework. We also took a school field trip to a local pueblo, San Antonio, where we visited a traditional indigenous home and learned about weaving and their wedding ceremonies. The best part of the field trip was making (and eating) homemade tortillas on their open wood stove; the worst part was all the smoke in the house from the open stove. Zoe says the funniest part was that all the gringos hated the smoke inside, but once we got outside, the first thing a few of them did was light up cigarettes.

We have not learned as much Spanish as we hoped, in part because we keep speaking English to each other, but I really liked the three teachers I had and ended up in very interesting, personal conversations with each of them about life, love, marriage, divorce, kids, etc. - I even explained the Buddhist concept of the Second Arrow to one of my teachers while she shared her book on Gratitude with me. Even my broken Spanish didn't get in the way of making a personal connection; in fact I comprehended more and spoke better when we had real conversations with personal elements and context than when we were reading Spanish versions of See Jane Run from the workbooks.

Overall, we really enjoyed our stay in Antigua and would definitely consider coming back and exploring more of Guatemala next time. We are leaving with some great souveniers - photos with our host family, Zoe's new cookie monster shirt, and an amazing piece of political art (that is being shipped home). The artist has a series of pictures called games - the most striking was a drawing of a domino with 5 real bullets on one half and one old, broken pencil on the other symbolizing how much more the governement invests in the military than in education. It was a little harsh to look at every day, however, so we settled on a dartboard that represents people's odds of landing on positive (health, love, etc.) vs. negative (disease, violence, etc.) outcomes - I'm not doing it justice via blog, you'll have to come see it in our front room when we return. Now off to Ecuador!

PS As many of you know, Zoe is a great lover of cheese, so she couldn't resist snapping a photo of this new kind that she named "butt cheese" for obvious reasons.