feliz dìa de gracias

Happy thanksgiving! I am thankful for . . .

Online graduate school applications

Scarves

Intermural basketball games

Volcanoes with crater lakes

Cell phones

My house (with full water service)

(Holy) frijoles

Q6.50 stamps

My living allowence raise

The Chapelle Show (I´m Rick James #*@%!!)

Krispins (my new favorite cookie)

Hammocks

Quiché weddings

My new counterpart at ADISO

Visitors

Sweatpants

Fresh produce

Hot tea (and the cooler weather to drink it in)

Care packages/mail in general

Your friendship

So this is the 4th thanksgiving i´ve spent in a foreign country (botswana, thailand, and 2 in guatemala) but the first i´ve spent by myself, well without celebrating with other americans. Some friends are having a dinner on Friday up near coban, but i decided that i didn´t really feel like traveling and i should stay home and work on these grad school apps. So that´s what i did. And i´m happy with my decision.

A couple weekends ago a bunch of us went to the juanes concert in guate. tickets cost Q195 and it was at the estadio del ejército (army stadium). It actually reminded me of the soccer stadium near the seattle science center for those of you who have been there. Dave thought so too. The concert was supposed to start at 7, but from 7 until about 10 we were bombarded with pepsi, movistar, rum, and i don´t remember what all else promotions. oh and there were some reggaeton videos in there somewhere too. Somehow dave or bob or someone finagled vip bracelets and we got up into the first few rows. When juanes finally got on stage he put on a good show – camisa negra, fotográfia, a dios le pido, you know, all the hits. But honestly i had been working all weekend in the pc office doing application stuff and then he kept me waiting in the cold for 3 hours, plus the normal drama of going to an event like this in a huge group when drinking has been involved, so needless to say i was not as animated as i could have been. But all in all it was a good show.

I´ve started going to intermural b-ball games in the evenings. Well i´ve gone to 2 so far. My neighbor is on a team and so is my boss. Last nite the two teams played each other. I´m acutally pretty impressed with the quality of play. Think West Valley freshman boys´ team, or maybe JV depending on the team. Anyway it´s pretty fun. I sat with Ema(nuel), my neighbor, at the first game and tried to learn how to trash talk in spanish, you know the equivolant to ¨stuffed¨, ¨schooled¨, ¨coast to coast¨, etc. I don´t think it sounds nearly as good in spanish, at least the stuff he we was telling me just didn´t sound quite right. He´s got a game on Friday and i think i´m going to go.

It´s getting cold here in ipala. I mean relatively speaking. My thermometer says 72 and it´s 9 at nite. That´s cold. Last nite i froze, so i think i´m going to drag out the sleeping bag tonite. It´s like camping, but indoors, in my own bed. The best of both worlds.

Hope you had a great thanksgiving. And happy weekend.