How We Struggled to Enjoy the Evenings

Besides the fun of eating and sleeping at Popi´s, a new evening activity surfaced after discovering that Trivial Pursuit was a popular game with our gang of 9 as well as Don. I think there were five evenings in pursuit (pun intended) of trying to outsmart whichever team Don was on. He is a wealth of all kinds of knowledge! There was only one time Don was on a losing team... We even entertained the idea of everyone but Don being on one team against Don.

Don explaining his reasoning for his almost always correct Trivial Pursuit answer.

Other evening pursuits:


Looks like back rubs were appreciated.

Reading was popular too.

Tias and Kai would often fill some free time playing chess, much as they did last year. I heard that with all the two weeks worth of chess games pooled, they were about evenly split on wins and losses

Once games were played by candle lights when the electricity disappeared for awhile.

Another feature of evenings were four family style feasts Don put on for us! So wonderful, so delicious....

Here is a plate of buxbol, our favorite (especially Linda) traditional meal of the Ixil area of Nebaj.






Here is a picture of the first plate finished:

Can you guess whose plate this one is?

The evenings were also a time to talk with some the Peace Corp and non-governmental organization (NGO´s) who would stop in for dinner or desert. The two Corp volunteers we had seen the last two years were both back home, but we were lucky enough to meet one of their replacements, as well as his parents who were visiting him at the time. We also met an American Woman from VA who worked for a water project NGO. She replaced a German woman doing her thesis on water projects. She was there with another friend of hers from Oregon who had spent the last 3.5 years in the Nebaj area working on public health education. We learned alot about details of water projects done well, ones not finished for want of one 2" tee and one 2" elbow to formerly functioning water projects broken for want of a $2 item and perhaps lack of initiative to look into problems. We also learned of public health education challenges. We treasure these conversations for many reasons, including as a way for the kids to see possibilities of things they can themselves do in the future.

One evening we were honored with a visit from our friend Francisco whom we met on our first visit to Guatemala in 2000. At the time he was teaching in Chichicastenago where we helped establish a library. Francisco retired a couple of years ago and moved to his home town about midway between Chichi and Nebaj. He coincidently sent us an email about visiting sometime, and despite lost or unreadable emails, through the able assistance of our friends Bud and Sara Hudson fielding communications through Wisconsin while we were in Nebaj, we were able to contact Francisco via phone and arrange an evening together. That was great fun and wonderful to visit with this dedicated teacher of Guatemala´s youth.

And don´t forget to picture these evenings occurring in the room with a low fire to cast warmth on everyone there. People placed themselves as near or far from the fire that suited their comfort, while others would spend brief times directly in front of the flames accumulating heat fast and then leaving for cooler corners of the room.