Less is More.: Friends

Time to tell you about the people I met in Guatemala. I already told you more or less about Lily. First, my teachers. Edwin, who I had the first week, happened to be an architecture student, and he's 27, and he loves Switchfoot. So he and I were friends (or so I thought, cause he still hasn't found me on Facebook like I told him too- and he's on there all the time!)

Gabriel, my second teacher, was like 34, and had proposed to an American girl from Vermont who used to be a student at another school he used to teach at. He's been there and met her family and all, and would move to Vermont :/, but he's waiting to get his Visa. Her answer was basically yes if you can get your Visa. That's rough. He was in a military school so he told me all about his scars, stitches, broken bones, screwing around in school, and lots of marching and drills. He also is a semi-pro soccer player, but there are a bunch of levels of leagues in Guatemala, and he basically is in a league I think within the state (there are 11 states). He plays goalie, and told me how he messed up his shoulder diving into the goal post. He did uh, less teaching and more story telling than Edwin. I also helped him (just by being the "my student who is sick needs to go to the pharmacy" to get let out of and back in to the soccer game we went to so he could sneak in some booze. They don't have beer at the games because people were throwing bottles on the field. They would.

Gabriel giving a short speech about me before he gave me my diploma. I forgot to say thanks to Edwin also- maybe thats why he didn't Facebook me. Sorry dude.

Here's some of the group of people we hung out with:

Frank (real name something unpronounceable, Chinese), me, Brie (Brianna), Kelsey, Anne, the man of honor, and two sisters uh Michelle and I forget already. Nuts. The two sisters were from Michigan, one goes to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, the other was in med school somewhere. Oh and down at the bottom, Paul, the danish guy, who speaks a couple languages, and was gonna stay in Guatemala until December. His friend visited, who dad and I had dinner with, and he said I could stay with him in Copenhagen if I come visit. I'm there.

Me and Margaret. She is an M.Div student at ND, did ACE (two year graduate program in education, that Josh did) knows Rachel Wack (Tigue) somehow, both Father Wacks, and Beth Cassin who was her RA in Lewis. Oh and Josh's girlfriend. I found this all out within two minutes of meeting her. Crazy. Apparently last weekend she got robbed at knife point and had her money and passport taken. That SUCKS.

Kelsey, who is 19, finished her freshman year at Emory (so we talked a bit about Atlanta, a fun a place) and she is from California, plays volleyball, won the like DIII national championships last year. Went running and other sorts of working out often while in Guatemala. She was really nice, pretty fun, and no one thought she seemed 19!

Anne, on summer break from grad school, a Master's in Appalachian Studies. Interesting. She goes to Appalachian State, and was happy to know I had heard of it, though of course thats just cause they beat Michigan in football a couple years ago. She's really interested in weaving, SUPER ridiculous nice, and completely powerless to NOT buy things from people in markets and in the street when they ask, even when she doesn't even have enough money for her next meal and already has more stuff than she knows how to get home :) She's attended all three schools in the research triangle for some period of time- NC State, Duke, UNC.

Brie, a music therapist who's classically trained in piano. So I started wishing we were friends so she'd play me stuff. She plays guitar and sings in a band. I kinda felt like those were all things I could be doing now if I had taken a somewhat different course in life. She went to Loyola New Orleans and was there for Katrina. Lives in California working at a max security prison for people with clinical disorders, doing music therapy for basically schizophrenic murderers and the like. Pretty heavy stuff. I guess thats why she takes martial arts on the side.