sunshine, sherbert, and santa semana.

Today i've had a pretty nice day. I did a few hours of spanish school this morning. Which turned out to be great. Most of the time by the end of my class i am so drained. it's really hard to concentrate on translating and learning new things for 4+ hours straight. Today was a little different though. Because today is the first day of Lent, i asked my spanish teacher about how guatemalans celebrate easter (because i've heard it is quite a big celebration). From there, my teacher ( Estela ) and i talked for just over an hour about God, beliefs and "semana santa" (aka Easter) which they call it here.

It's quite interesting how different they celebrate here in guatemala other then canada. On semana santa there are men who wear purple robes with all the extras. about 80 men carry this huge platform thing all throughout the town ( and city i believe ) To the right is a picture of a part of the festival of semana santa. Although in the photo it doesn't look very big, in my opinion this platform is massive! Also, after this there is live music being played. I guess you could say its sort of like a parade!

It's crazy, because already there is celebration. Yesterday there was fiestas where people take confetti, put it in broken eggs and smash it on other people. needless to say, there is confetti on the streets everywhere here in Antigua.

Everybody says that this is the big festival here because both Catholics and the Christians celebrate it = a lot of people. Also, tonnes of people file into the streets and vacation here. Estela told me that every hotel is full and it's occupied everywhere. I have to confess, i'm pretty excited to be here for easter, just to see what it's like!

My teacher is Catholic and we were talking about God, and how he is the ultimate God. She told me about this analogy about believers in God. It was about a tree, and on this tree there is a base which is God, the branches of the tree are all the believers, they all branch out in different ways and on different branches, equaling different congregations: christian, catholic, protestant, reformed, baptist, the list goes on and on, but the TRUTH of the matter is, there is only ONE GOD, and we are all brothers and sisters in HIM.

Reminds me of this verse a little :
       ⁵ “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5


anyways, overall it was a pretty decent day. After school i ate lunch at the guest house i'm staying, then afterwards i headed to the gorgeous Hotel Antigua. I then sat beside the pool, read, did homework and relaxed. Did i mention that i ate delicious orange sherbert and possibly got a little too "tanned" aka: red.

It's almost been three weeks since i left home, they've gone by incredibly fast. It's now weird that i'll be leaving Antigua on saturday to adventure some more.

Lots of Love
Katie