‘Twas a marvellous Christmas. We spent it at my mother’s home in Red Deer, AB. Also technically our home while we are in Guatemala as all of our stuff is there too. Present with me on Christmas Day were my wife, my son, my mother, my sister, my other sister, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my … [Read more…]
I was hiking up a beautiful mountainside burrough of Tactic yesterday afternoon with Walter. Every fifth house was raising its roof with Mexican “yip-yip” cowboy music thus sharing their advanced sound system with the neighbours (vecinos). Walter explained that it was more important to many Guatemalans to have big speakers (vozinos) than to have pretty … [Read more…]
I saw my first murdered person the day before we flew to Canada. We are applying for residency in Guatemala and so I was obliged to go to the official’s office to sign some papers. I took a taxi. The driver had to redirect himself several times because of impromptu traffic barriers put up by … [Read more…]
Yowsers! There’s a fair bit to catch up on, so I’m not going to bother. GUATEMALA: I finished the sponsorship promotional video, subtitling and all. We left on a Tuesday morning for Guatemala City and spent a day there getting some of our residency papers done. While on my way to sign some paper downtown … [Read more…]
I was listening to a podcast of Dispatches, from CBC Radio 1 and heard my name! Check it out (the Dec 5 show) … I’m at 18:21. You can get the episode free from the iTunes Music Store aswell – search for Dispatches in the podcasting section.
We were invited to see Santa Claus when he briefly swung into Tactic on the weekend at our neighbours’ store. As you can see, the weather was ideal and Santa was seen by a host of people. Blaise was one of the lucky ones to be held by Santa. Not sure why there’s bad blood … [Read more…]
I’ve been spending a lot of time at the bank. We have a cash float which we use to buy gifts that are sent from Canada for sponsor children and then submit our receipts to balance our float. Lately, the gifts have been huge – building a house for example. So our float is always … [Read more…]
Blaise’s Current Vocabulary: (he’s 16.5 months old) mama mama no no papa papa hm-hm yes moah more wuhzis what’s this? caca cracker whoo whoo dog tcheez cheese puppy puppy papa papaya cah car wawa water baboo balloon buckbuck chicken ha-ee hi dehdoo thank you no-o nose bye bye bye bye ee-ee ear tahtahtah hot hot … [Read more…]
A woman knocked on our door this late afternoon. She was selling bean tamales with a nice hot salsa. How could I resist at a mere $0.16 each! Her husband was at the end of our driveway waiting with the vehicle (a bicycle) in the rain with the food goods. Since we’ve lived here, the … [Read more…]
Over the past year, I’ve run into or been referred to some remarkable pieces of interesting art. 6 are here linked for your pleasure. -The Helsinki Complaints Choir with a song by Esko Grundström, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. (thanks Carl for sending this to me) –Billboard Top Song Timelapse by R. Luke DuBois. Dubois … [Read more…]