Aventuras con mi hermano...

So, I have this host brother.  Porfi. 

He's pretty cool. 

We have a whole lot of fun together, but sadly, our time is usually limited because of our conflict of work schedules and his ridiculously busy church schedule (sounds familiar?  yes). 

However, this weekend, we decided to have some fun together!  

We are both pretty active people and since appendicitis, I've been pretty stinkin' lame, so it was fun to get moving again.  

Friday, after work, I came home and we got packed up to go to the pool.  Yes, it was pouring down rain.  Yes, the abuela was convinced that we were going to die.  Yes, it was a bit cold, but the pool is heated by HOT SPRINGS!  And, since everyone else in the world was hiding from the rain, we had it all to ourselves.  So, anyways, we went to the pool and swam around.  I introduced Porfi to the concept of goggles... I think it changed his world (but it did take him a while to get the courage up to try them on).  After he finally put them on, he barely spent anytime above water!  

Saturday, we went on an adventure to two nearby cities.  We walked through the mountain pass to the agricultural town of Almolonga.  This town has a ton of different crops and is gorgeous.  It was crazy how different it is from Cantel considering it is only an hour walk away.  The crops are different (we only do corn here), there are a lot more people who own cars there (probably because, as Porfi said, they diversify their crops so they actually make money), it was sunny on that side of the mountain and not ours, and there were pools!!!  (but Cantellians are still nicer in my opinion so I'll stick with my pueblo :) )  After Almolonga and going through the markets where they prepare food to sell for export, we jumped on a bus for Zunil.  Zunil is also very agricultural, but it was super cold, has a really old church, and the people there dress incredibly colorfully.  Yet again, very different and only a 15 minute bus ride away.  After Zunil, we returned home in time for lunch with the abuelos and for Porfi to go to work at our internet cafe.  

Sadly, I didn't have my camera for either day =(  Sorry!

Sunday, however, Porfi brought his phone with a camera, so I have some evidence.  We spent the morning watching the world's most beautiful sunrise at 5:30

At 6, we were walking down our hill to meet up with all of Porfi's friends from church to plant 250 little trees for the Municipality to help landslide control

The trees in the back of a pick up

We brought Machetes and ground whackers (official term) and about 20 of us just hacked away planting up a storm

Carlos and I working up on the hill... we planted 30 trees up there!

You clear away the ground like this with the ground whacker and then use the machete to make a hole and then goes in the tree!7

Yep!  The gringa got the ground whacker!

We all worked on the hillside

One of these people is not like the others...

  It was a really fun morning.  Afterwards, we went and they played for their team in the Catholic Jovenes soccer tournament.  Both the men's and women's teams won, 5-1.  All in all, a really fun morning (you don't do stuff in the afternoon here... it just rains) and we got home before the super ridiculously strong storm! 

I'm fairly certain that if I could speak their language and culture, these guys would be some of my best friends, especially if I lived here.  We have so much in common.

and now, my challenge to myself is to figure out how to bring these examples of community they have taught me and make them a part of my life in Walla Walla...