Sunday

Packed and ready to go at 6 am. Shuttle to Guatemala City and off to Dallas. All talk centered around what we would eat in Dallas and the luxury of a real hot shower.


TP - Mr. Iron Guts himself, digging into a Big Mac. Never seen anyone move so fast through customs and immigration to get to the food hall. Rich won the prize for eating the most with a fish sandwich, chicken sandwich, cheeseburger, fries and a coffee.

Two smooth flights and back to Boston just in time to beat the storm.

Overall, a great experience and a hearty thanks to everyone who donated in any way to the trip. Stay tuned for next year!

Saturday

Finally in Antigua, ready for the last jump to Guatemala City for the flight back to the States. We had a pretty rough night due to the chickens in the yard crowing all night. The room actullay had Fox Sports so we watched some Premiership soccer but had to leave on the shuttle at 12 noon, which was half-time in the Man Utd - Newcastle game with the game at 0-0 and to Rich's disappointment he saw the worst half with his team scoring 6 in the second half. The journey was hair-raising as we took the short way up and over the mountains which gave some very dramatic views of the precipice 2 feet from the side of the mini-van.

Got to Antigua about 3 pm and had a coffee and pastry (TP had a healthy slice of double chocolate gateau) and then convened to the local hostelry for the NFL play-offs. So we're just back from watching the Patriots kick some again. Erin just beat TP at Pool, in possibly her first ever game. We are all very ready tp catch the plane tomorrow morning. There is zero chance of us sleeping in! We are already dreaming of Dallas/FortWorth Burger King. Seriously! TP wants the quadruple whopper. The breakfast bars have run their course.

Friday

Up early this morning to see the sun come up over the lake. It was really the constant barking of dogs during the night that spurred the early rise but it was worth it. Some of the women were already down that at the water's edge washing clothes. The mist was on the lake and the fishermen were heading out. You could hear hundreds of cockerels crowing all around the lake.

I took a bunch of photos and stitched them together for a 180 degree view of the lake. The sun was rising on the right hand side.


This morning we have our last session over the lake at the school in Chacaya. Then we have a session at Juan Castro's school and that concludes the soccer sessions and we start to make our way back towards Guatemala City vis Panajchel and Antigua. We hope to visit some Mayan ruins on the way back but we will have to see how well everyone is. Rich is a bit better this morning but no-one else is around yet. Update later...

Went to Chacaya. Erin and Rich made it but Jenn was still sick. Erin and Rich probably shouldn't have come either as they were still very queasy. We didn't have much time there but handed out all the gear we had taken for them, along with a load of balls and the kids were elated.
Above you can see out new recruits for the U12B Stars team after scouting for talent

These girls were very photogenic and demanded that we take photos of them!

Came home for lunch and Erin and Rich joined Jenn on the sick list , which was juts as well as we had to walk thrugouh the market and the smell of fish would have provoked a nasty reaction! They though a few ice cubes on the fish but it could have been a marketing ploy. Strawberries next to shrimp .....


We got to Juan Castro's school and handed out the cleats, balls and the rest of the gear. Y0u can see the girls decked out in their Wilmington YS shirts and all the A-B balls we left with them.
Started my missionary work down here - if you look closely you can see Juan Castro with a Glasgow Rangers shirt.

Checked out and headed for Panajchel on a fast boat. Funny incident on the way out when I gave my old Nike trainers to a kid outside the hotel only for Rich to walk back in again with them after taking them away as he thought he had stolen them. Had to go out and give them all over again! Rich is pretty mean....

The only thing we considered safe to eat was pizza and amazingly we found a place and it was pretty good.

Thursday

Usually, we walk the mile or so along to the camp. We pass through the path of the mudslide. Here are Erin and TP ouside one of the houses that was in the way and you can see the level of mud and dirt inside the ruins of the house. This is also near the lake and about a mile from the mountain.

Thursday morning was our last session at Camp Eden. We played world cup with 4 teams (Barcelona, Chelsea, Gallos, Chicharrones) and the excitement level was high, as seen in the video below.


After the session the campers loaded up the bus and headed off to the beach, a not insignificant journey!! Hopefully they will get here without incident! We will meet up with them for a final farewell on Saturday night back in Antigua.


We went up to shelter at lunchtime and Rich and Katharine went looking for the school that was there last year but it is sadly no longer as they have no teachers. The shelter village really is a tough place. Katharine found some friends on the way back.


This was our final visit and to give away a lot of the donated soccer gear and balls. Once the children realized we were doing this it was a bit of a mob scene!! Here you can see Alex Doody's old Puma shirt. Sorry Alex, but it wasn't very popular and we tried to give it to about 10 kids before one was remotely happy with it!! Don't know why...


At the end of our game we belted all the ball up in the air and the kids ran after them. They were delighted with all the gear, even if it was 5 sizes too large.


Walked back to our digs for lunch and have lost 2 (Erin and Jenn) for this afternoon's session at Juan Castro's school in the town. Should have been 3 as Rich was also under the weather. Dodgy stomachs all round so we are hoping for a rapid recovery. Rich actually came along but spent most of his time in the toilet or lying on his back. Not pleasant. So when he gets back all you U13 girls should be very nice to him. We didn't have Rich but we replaced him with the sub shown below who had 3 great advantages over the real thing - better looking, better coach and smiles all day!!


The afternoon at Juan Castro's school was great. We were a bit late and had to take a private "tuk-tuk" to the school. It is shown below. We had 5 huge equipment bags and 4 adults (and one of them was TP!!!) + driver. Unbelievable!


The kids at Juan Castro's school are brilliant. They greeted us today by yelling all our names. Here is my awesome team (Fanta!) of (L-R) Jorge, Domingo, Rebecca, Silvia , Ruth) The kid on the right wasn't actually on my team but just wished she was and snuck in the photo! She must have been on TP's team (Perdedores = Losers)


Afterwards we packed Rich on a Tuk-Tuk and walked back to the rooms, we sat on the side of the hill above the lake to relax. TP, who has been showing a bit of a photographic bent, took some wonderful shots, shown below.



Right now, 5 of 6 of us have been sick at some point with the only TP being immune to all ills, giving proof to the saying that he could eat anything. Mr. cast-iron guts! We were going to have a good dinner and a few drinks tonight, our last night in Santiago Atitlan, but half the team are down and its a bit subdued. We just ate fries and a brownie for dinner as the remaining 3 are very wary of eating meat before we travel to Panajachel tomorrow. By process of elimination we think it was the French onion soup yesterday that may have been the problem yesterday. Ironically, the hostess asked after the sick with an offer to take a bowl of soup for each of them, which we politely declined. Only problem is, TP is hungry again !

rest of wednesday

Well, the rodent problem is hopefully sorted out with the girls being moved to another room. Much more salubrious accommodations which led us to think of planting one of the half-eaten rats in our room to get the same deal.

After last night's exertions the campers slept in this morning and we were only there for a short time before we headed off for Chacaya to a new school headed up by Pasquale, who had invited us over there. Lots of great views on a VERY bumpy ride as shown below on a pure luck photo given the uneven ride.

When we got there we had a tour of the school and met the village committee and below is the classroom with all the kids in it along with a few faces you might recognize.

We walked about half a mile to the field for the session and were like pied pipers followed by about 80 kids from the village. We split them into two groups of younger and older kids and did a lot of soccer games with them. Below is a video of the kids playing a game where they have to run the gauntlet of soccer balls while dodging them all. This has been a big winner with the Guatemalan kids. Some of them took it a bit too far and used rocks instead of soccer balls with Erin getting hit in the neck by a particularly rambunctious youth. Not a particularly amusing day for Erin with little to no sleep from the rat infestation.




Below are pictures from Chacaya. The kids were really attentive and had so much enthusiasm surrounding the game we played. Simply beautiful...


During the days we spent at the shelter and surrounding schools, you would have though we brought along the hairiest individuals from the US. The kids couldn't get enough of the guy's hair (in particular Bobby's leg and arm hair who happens to have a ton of it). Above is a picture of Bobby trying to deter the kids from pulling every last hair from is arms. Rather looks like he's enjoying it.

Above is a picture of the walk back to Santiago from Chacaya (before we broke down and hailed a cab). As you can see, TP is a bit tired as the bag of soccer balls, filled with AIR, is slipping from his grip once again. We are now off for our first visit to the school of Juan Castro, who has been brilliant as our local translator - good soccer player as well.
This is in the center of town and was bigger than the others and even had an assembly hall, shown below. As you can see the volcanoes and lake dominate the local culture.This picture of Santiago was taken from the wall above the cement field we played on today. Rich caught the attention of at least half the kids during the accent and decent from Humpty Dumpty's wall. Rich was put together again.

Ricardo's feet were quite sore today so Tom ran the hour and a half session at Juan Castro's school, it was brilliant. Below is a picture during the game we played between Leche and Agua. It was riveting. Milk (Erin's team) beat water 1-0.

Here we have the "chicas bonitas"

It's pretty dusty out here and you can see the dirt line from TP's chubby ankles below. (definitely not a tan line!)

Kitty

So it's about 9:00 o'clock in the morning and the girls are looking a bit weary. We arrived back to our hotel around 11:30 last night after a full night of dancing, food and fun. Everyone was so excited to settle in for a good night sleep until about half an hour after we shut our eyes .... squeak squeak and rustle rustle. A pack of rats (what we thought were mice until we saw one) had made a nice little nest in our rafters/armoir. Scared, Katharine and I (Erin) huddled on the bed with the covers over the top playing Lilly Allen on the ipod sent Jenn down to the front desk for a solution. Expecting a weapon of some sort, Jenn showed back up with a cat. After two rats down we tried to get some shut-eye until the cat started stalking another. Covers over our head, we slept, lightly. On second thought we should have woken TP up for a midnight snack or the snoring between all the boys should have been enough to take care of the problem. It's going to be a long day ....

On the way to Nino's school this morning. You can see why it's dusty here

This is the classroom for the school. Actually, this is the whole school. They teach 75 kids between 4 and 6 years old here from the pueblo. They were painting when we arrived and varnishing the desks, modeled by Rich below.


It wouldn't be a post without a TP reference. Here is TP with mini-TP.


The young girls all wear very colorful clothes .



Tonight we headed over the lake by boat to Panajachel for dinner with the campers. It was about a 30 minute ride there by a fairly speedy boat with great views of the volcanoes on the way. This town is bigger than Santiago and we saw many stores and stalls selling local clothing and jewelry. The dinner was at he Chapparal restaurant with a disco for the campers and some spectacular dance-floor moves were on show. We all came back together on a larger and slower boat and crossing the lake in darkness was quite an experience. No marker bouys in sight. The stars were magnificent and we just lay on the deck trying to take in the brilliance of the night sky. It doesn’t look like that in Boston!!