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Meet the Loarca family
One of the greatest experiences of 2 Go Global has been our stay with the Loarca family in Xela.
Here is Don Carlos and Doña Marie standing in their kitchen with Don Carlos' mother. Marie spent a great deal of time cooking us delicious typical Guatemalan meals at her traditional wood burning stove. Marie manages to keep the meals coming while managing the home and taking on a great deal of volunteer work for the community. Carlos is an automobile mechanic.
Meal time was always great fun. Sometimes we would all sit around the table for over an hour discussing family, sports, cultural differences among other crazy topics like child birth. Of course, all conversations would be in Spanish, as they did not speak English. Here at the table is: Pedro, Marie, little Melanie, Carlos and Willy. Pedro and Willy are Marie and Carlos' sons (hijos) while Melanie is their grandaughter (nieta).
We were not the only students living with the Loarca family. Renato (middle) from Switzerland and Melanie (right) from Germany also lived with us. We had a great time together. On this occasion, Renato had cooked a special meal for the family and his girlfriend, Yaneth. It was Yeneth's birthday. Yaneth is from Guatemala. In fact, she and Renato are coordinators of the Juan Sisay Spanish School.
There was always a young energetic feeling in the house brought about by Melanie and Roberto. They were always asking us, ¿Quieres Jugar? (Do you want to play?) It was difficult to say no to these adorable faces. We would have a great time playing soccer or catch in the driveway. Both are great athletes.
Another highlight of our stay in Xela was the Xela Ju futbol (soccer) game that we attended with Carlos and his son, Giovanni. it was a big game: Xela vs. Guatemala City. Tickets would be hard to come by, but Carlos managed to scrape some up for the four of us. When we arrived outside of the stadium, we were amused and impressed with the fans who had managed to acquire seats up in the tree branches just outside and above the stadium. Inside the stadium, we found standing room only. That was just fine with us, as the seating area was pretty insane. Red and blue flares were flying, the stadium quickly became decorated with toilet paper, and firecrackers were being thrown out onto the field directly at the opposing team's players. While the players seemed immune to this apparently common display of opposition, we kept expecting someone to catch on fire. Luckily no one was carried off the field with firecracker burns. Unfortunately, however, many were carried off the field with injuries from the game. It was like a hockey game on grass. We loved it.
Another special experience that Kelly was able to share with the family is a Guatemalan style baby shower. Actually, it was very much like an American baby shower, except everyone spoke in Spanish. Everyone even played games! Here is Marie with her two daughters-in-law: Lilian (left) and Monica (right). Lilian and Marie hosted the shower for Monica. Since then, Monica and her husband, Willy, have been blessed with their new baby girl, Naomi-Michelle.
We spent the last 5 days of our stay in Guatemala traveling with our friend Jodi who had come to see Guatemala with us during the end of our journey. Jodi spent two days with us at the Loarca family casa and we then headed out into Guatemala to see life outside of the fabulous Western Highland region. |
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Roberto
is six years old. He is the son of Betty, the housekeeper for the Loarca
home. We spent a lot of time with this special young man. When we
first met Roberto, we would ask him what he had learned at school that
day. For several days in a row, he would respond with a simple,
"Mama". We figured that either we were not communicating well
with him in our broken Spanish or that he was being a smart-aleck. Finally
one evening, when we asked, little Roberto ran and got his notebook. He
opened it up and there were dozens of pages with "mama" copied over
and over again in careful six year old penmanship. These pages were
followed by pages filled with Meme, Mimi, Momo, Mumu. Roberto was learning
to write and work with his vowels. He was very proud of his work. We
were relieved to know that he was not just a mama's boy. We will
miss Roberto dearly.
