A Very Feliz Cumpleanos y Navidad

Making tomales!! Everyone in Guate eats tomales for Christmas, New Years, and Birthdays! Its a long process that takes all day so they don´t make them often! But they are worth it cause they are delicious! The leaves that you cook them in my host dad actually owns some trees with these leaves and spent a few days cutting them! We also sold a bunch to buyers because its a hot product this time of year!


Finished product!
Other activities included sitting outside around a fire, grilling, drinking ¨caliente¨, dancing, visiting with neighbors and family and of course fireworks! At midnight everyone sets off fireworks! It sounded like we were in a war! Then we continued to chat around a fire and didnt go to bed till 1:30am!
Great way to spend Navidad! My family and our tree! Definitely different and missed my family in the States, but a great experience.
Birthday cake!! For my Birthday I got some family and friends together on the 27th and we went to San Lucas for the day to hang out! Surprised me with a cake and tried to write my name in English! Only off a letter! My family also learned how to say ¨Happy Birthday Katelyn¨in english and kept saying it the whole day!
Giving Birthday gifts... so thoughtful.
Playing a little soccer. ..

And taking a little swim! I wanted to take advantage of the warm weather in December and do something that I could never do in the States for my Birthday!

Overall a very Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!
_Missing everyone for the Holidays but definitely soaking up some sun and culture here in Guatemala!
Sending my love!

Its Simple

As we enter the Christmas season I´m constantly reminded of how Christmas is supposed to be. There is joy in the little things in life and in spending time with friends and family.

The spirit here is to be constantly giving and sharing. Often I visit one of my good friends here whose family owns a small tienda. I feel like I should buy food and other products from them in order to help support their family. In reality they probably give me more free stuff from their store than I actually buy! How can this be I often wonder? Its just the spirit of giving that´s within them.

The kids here share everything. If they have one cookie theyll split it 6 ways just so everyone can have a piece. I often am reminded just how selfish I am when I want to hog a whole pack of cookies, before giving in and passing them out to whoever is around.

Here they don´t have a lot but what they do have they share. My host dad makes $4 a day. One evening he told me "I am poor, but also I am rich. I have love, happiness, and peace. If you have money but don´t have these things, what life is that?" And because of this they find joy in the little things. I helped decorate our house with paper chains and snowflakes and my dad said to me "never have we seen anything like this here in Atitlan." They were thrilled and for about 10 mins we just stood there looking around talking about how beautiful it looked. They also wanted to contribute to the decorations, but don´t have enough money to buy a tree... so we´re building a tree. Its not done yet, but once we finish I´m sure it will be the best tree Ive ever seen on Christmas. Building our tree


For this I´ve had many thoughts about this Christmas and many more to come. In the US we are consumers. Always wanting the newest and greatest products. But what joy does this bring us and really what do we actually need? Wouldn´t it be more worth while to spend the time with other people. We often say "I´m so thankful for what I have" but really we need an opposite outlook. What we have is abundance and is the problem! We need to stop being thankful and act. Stop consuming so much so that there isn´t a demand for the huge coorporations to keep selling and exploiting countries like Guatemala. Can we try to consume locally!? It is because of our lifestyles that others are suffering and working for $4 a day. So I ask you this Christmas... spend time with family, eat good food, and avoid buying all the crap that you think you want a need. I realize it´s easier to say because I´m here and not being constantly bombarded by the media, I can only hope than when I return I can seek out the local vendors and try and fight the society that says its our right to have everything we want.

On that note... here´s a photo of me and my friends at ANADESA

Thanks for your prayers and support!!