1/17-1/18/15 - Ryan Segura

Phrases of the day:

"Hey, my friend.  For you 75 Quetzales."

"WE ARE GUNNA DIE" 

As our day started we did not know the adventure in store throughout the day. It started off well. Father Kirk celebrated mass at the Mission San Lucas at 7:30 am for both the Guatemalan community and missionaries. After we left the church and traveled just next door to the library/ dinning hall to enjoy a breakfast of fried eggs and pancakes. Once we finished the dishes we gathered in front of the parish office to wait for our boat "outing". The Jessica  set out from San Lucas to our first stop Santiago.

 Santiago Tolìman was home to Fr. Stan "Francisco" Rother during the Guatemala Civil War. Father Francisco worked with the native Maya people building public service buildings and translating the New Testament into  Tzu Tu Jil ( the native language of Santiago). During the hight of the fighting in the mid 1980s Fr. Francisco was martyred  in his library at the church by the Guatemalan Army.

Once we took the 25 minute boat ride across   Lake Atìtlàn to Santiago we were shocked by the amount of vendors and stalls that were selling small trinkets and woven products. This is when the first of the two phases came up. Every vendor you walked up to you were their best friend or mi amigo, and they always started at a high prices (eg 300 Quetzales) most of the time you could get a person down at least 150 Quetzales. After we walked through the vendors and the open air markets we came to the church where Fr. Francisco was murdered. We spent a few minutes in the room and looked at a small museum of his life and work. Most of us walked around the town and shopped till around noon when we got back on our boat and started our journey to Panechelle. 

This is where the story gets good.

Our "boat" which held up perfectly fine on our first leg of the journey was going head on into waves that had just began after the wind picked up. This is where the second phrase comes into play. "WE ARE GUNNA DIE". As the waves grew larger and larger and the boat felt like it was getting tossed around like a child's toy. At first it was like a bad Seaworld ride... You feel some mist and some water comes in the boat nothing major.  But it kept getting worse and worse. The mist turned into full waves and many of us  began to get totally soaked. Our boat began to fill up at a point, having around a foot of water in it. Kevin came to our rescue and began taking buckets of water at a time and tossing them over the side of the boat slowly dropping the level of water. This continued for over an hour. We finally docked in Panechelle. 

Since we arrived a little late we only had time to have lunch at a restaurant that had a beautiful view of Lake Atìtlàn. After enjoying either chicken, beef, or fish we walked down to our boat and took the short 20 minute boat trip back to San Lucas.

Once we arrived back home we had the rest of the day to our selves. Some of us went shopping whiles others played fútbol (soccer) with some other groups at the local school.