Corn

So, on sunday I saw the "Jesus parade" in Antigua. It was wild: lots of people dressed in purple robes and carrying great big statues of jesus, mary, and some disciples. There were also people who made patterns with flowers and grasses on the street that the jesus statue walked through. They do this every sunday during Lent, and then it gets really crazy for Semana Santa. I'd kind of like to go, but getting there will be rediculous. EVERYBODY and their mother goes to Antigua for Semana Santa.

So this week I have been working more at Cedescri. I spent a day or so taking the kernels off of corncobs. And this may be proof I should be an engineer or proof caltech has corrupted my mind but I spent half my time trying to design a machine to do it for me. A machine that required zero electricity, and no materials except wood and concrete. Yeah, so I'm a big dork. Other things I've done involve collecting beeswax, raking leaves, and one day this week I got sick and spent the day reading. I'm okay now.

It has actually been fun, doing real physical work again. Not terribly brain-interesting, but that's okay. The people here are pretty cool--volunteers and the Guatemalans. I've had some fun discussions with people.

Hmm. I'm going to climb a volcano on Saturday. It should be fun. It´s called Acatenango, and it's almost 4000 meters. I'm going with a big group from Cedescri. We'll leave early (3 or 4 am) and hopefully get up and back before dark. A couple of the guys we go with have done it before, and it's supposed to be quite awesome.