MPIV Spring Breakers Hard at Work in Guatemala

Hola! Greetings from Guat!

Today started off with a bang again, as both Hos and Drew were awoken by their favorite canine companion in each of their beds. We had a great breakfast of curious, potentially vanilla flavored milk with frosted flakes—necessary sugar rush—with toast and our favorite watered down, pre-sweetened, albeit very tasty coffee, bright and early before we headed into the community. We got the privilege of witnessing the last day of the epic Carnival festival, which was highlighted by dancing to a 4-song playlist of Enrique, Pit Bull, and No Speak Americano, getting pelted by countless eggs filled with flour, confetti, and glitter, and the nugget party.

The one and only Lester.

If only y’all could have met Lester, our favorite little nugget of joy who sported sweet shades and rockin’ dance moves most of the day—aka Tyler’s little nug and my new “novio” (boyfriend…see, I’m catching on to this whole Spanish thing). Hudson and Kat judged a dance competition, costume contest, and pageant, in which we were all wildly entertained but mildly disappointed when our favorites, the melon girl and the “terrorist” didn’t take home the gold. The whole school loved the Carnival festivities, especially dousing us with the confetti and glitter, which are still in most of our hair, and chasing John up the basketball hoop.

In addition to the festival, we completed the spray paint work on our trash can project lining the main street, and filmed a video about our project starring our favorite 15-year-old third grader, Ramiro. The trash cans look awesome, and we were thrilled to see members of the community already throwing their trash into our new additions.

Chaquijyá's brand new trashcan

After we left the school, shortly after Hudson almost got run over by a truck while trying to take the group picture in front of one of the trash cans, we came back to the hostel to attempt to clean off the glitter and eat an awesome lunch. A little jam sesh took place on the balcony, and then we were off to town for our uber competitive scavenger hunt in the market. Once we were split into three teams, we were sent out into the market to take pictures of everything from the funniest American t-shirt being sported by a Guatemalan—with no chance that they understood the saying—to the grossest dried fish, to the best failed attempt at an American knock-off brand. Claws came out immediately as we embarked on this serious mission, relying on our groups’ Spanish skills, and often natural born schmoozing skills, to get the pictures we needed from the locals. Highlights of the scavenger hunt include: Yummy Donuts, “Pooo” backpacks, Hos eating a moderately large dried fish, balancing baskets on our heads, “Fist Pumping Politicians”, and the inspiration of Man taming Nature. Also, Amanda and I got attacked by a pack of local boys who pelted us with flour…thanks Hudson.

But in the end, it was my team, the Boisterous Assassins, being Amanda, Hos, Drew and myself that came out victorious as the Program Directors judged our photos. Honorable Mention goes to Tyler for being awkward and tall in each of his group’s pictures. Afterwards, we hung out on the balcony as the sun went down, discussed what we look for in fashion models and great hair, enjoyed a great spaghetti dinner full of nicknames, expertise, TLM’s, great stories and aggression, and then planned our day for tomorrow, including our presentation to the community on our project and our continued nugget party.

Fun fact: Tyler, the ultimate claustrophobe, got stuck in the tiny bathroom for a solid 20 minutes. Good times. Well it’s time for me to learn some traditional Guatemalan card games and continue our A-Team bonding. It’s been real, until tomorrow!

Adios, y’all! Lots of love, Streeter and the rest of the A-Team