Cinco De Mayo in Guatemala...Yeah, Who else can say that?

May 5: What? This week CAN NOT be half over!

We woke up again at 6:30 ugh. This whole week I woke up at 6:30ish…brushed my teeth out of the shower (which I hated!), crawled into the shower (made sure not to expose my mouth to the water), put minimal make up on (eye linear and powder), and made it to breakfast at 7:00 so we could get to the Dreamer Center by 8:00.

This morning we went to Casa Jackson, the home for malnourished babies. These are not orphans but instead product of neglect or uneducated circumstances. The mothers are encouraged to come and visit the babies and are taught what malnourishment is and how to avoid it in the future. That’s a pattern we kept seeing was that education was a problem solver, but one line we heard was “If you want to talk to them about deodorant, you might as well explain to them where Neptune is.”

So the volunteers at Casa Jackson hold and care for the babies. I thought of Kim the entire time I was there as it was hard for me. I’m not a good baby person and she would love to hold all these little ones. The one I held was named Marvin. He was an aggressive eater, hard to imagine at one time he was unable to reach for the bottle or smile, laugh, or cry. These are all actions/emotions that they cannot perform when they first arrive at Casa Jackson. He loved playing with the soccer ball…I was amazed how tough this little guy was.

When we got back to the Dreamer Center, Patrick was there to make a dream come true. He told Stacy and I that he would take us to the gun range, which is one of the things on my wishlist. We first had drive through at Pollo Campero (chicken strips, fries, and a bun—this place is not for people thinking about no carbs, between the bread and the tortillas, FORGET IT!), went to his house (which is in a double gated community, amazing place!), and headed out to the gun range!

I shot a 9mm rocksmasher. I was so nervous but at one time I thought I might actually cry. I got to thinking about Patrick actually taking the time to take me, because he knew that I wanted to do this. It is really a simplistic thought but the feeling overwhelmed me. This man is the CEO of a 7 nation nonprofit and he took the afternoon off to make me feel special. So there I was shooting an automatic handgun….and actually not doing too bad. The first round I got 8 out of 15 on the target. The second round I got 12 out of 15 on the target. Patrick said that both my and Stacy’s shot would “get the point across”. I did think it was interesting once when a couple guys walked by us and said (in spanish), “Look at the Gringitas shooting.” They wouldn’t be so smug if they saw how well I shot! HA!

As we were heading back into town Patrick and I must have been thinking the same thing, I didn’t want the afternoon to end. He took us to the Welden, a restaurant which opened up into a patio with a pool filled with rose petals and ordered Spanish wine, salmon and crackers, and bread with a butter cheese spread. WOW…are you serious! When we finished off that bottle to some great discussion and then Patrick ordered Lemmon Frappes for us. Right now I can still feel the sun and taste how wonderful they were! This was one of the best afternoons that I’ve had in a long time…amazing.

That night we went to a Cuban club and listened to salsa dancing. I was maybe getting too ambitious because I tried to knock “play tambourine with a band” off my list, well when I was called up to play with the band, we looked at each other and said, “where’s your tambourine.” They thought I was a professional and obviously carried one in my purse. OH my! I did a little salsa dancing, good thing I had gone to a class only the Friday night before—my partner wasn’t as good as my Friday night partner but you get what you get!

I don’t know if any other Cinco de Mayo can hold a candle to this one!