Guatemala the three-quel is officially launched. We are currently sitting in the San Salvador airport with a 5-hour layover. Seems like the first time I’ve been able to catch my breath in weeks or months, so not complaining about the forced downtime. We are all feeling a bit weary, even the girls. Transition has a way of doing that. Even though we are getting pro at saying goodbye, it’s still emotionally exhausting for me to oversee all of them (logistically speaking) as well as doing my own (if that makes any sense). This year was different in that Cali didn’t do a huge, public, sobbing goodbye to the snow in the front yard for all the neighbors. Although in all honesty, I missed that one the most.
In some ways it gets easier to transition into these family sabbaticals, the more often we do them. The goodbyes seem less pronounced, since we’ve done this a few times already. Friends and family know that time passes quickly when we are all immersed in our own lives.
That being said, when I picked Cali up from school on Friday, the kids were going out for recess. The woman in the front office made an announcement over the loudspeaker to have Cali come back to her home room. I was standing in the hall when I heard the announcement and girls started running from different directions, I assumed to go outside. But then I saw them running toward Cali calling her name, hugging her en masse to say goodbye, a regular mob scene. So many little girls, so many I love yous, so many I will miss yous. Cali didn’t have time to lift her arms because they were hugging her from the back, the sides. Her arms were straight down and there were lots of other little girl arms wrapping her completely her from neck to waist. She just stood there smiling. Then Cali’s teacher came out and said many nice things about her, how much she will be missed, how kind, mature, and grounded she is, beautiful things. I was melting inside.
They are playing instrumental sacred Christmas music on the tv here in the airport, which is a welcome change from the secular Frosty/Rudoph medleys from back home. Wait, now they are playing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Madi points outside to a hot sunny day and says, “Keep dreaming people, because you live in Central America.”
The only place to get food in this part of the airport was in the bars or Subway. Luckily that’s something Madi will eat, so we ate Subway all day.
We did lots and lots of sorting at home before we left, emptied out lots of drawers for the girls, for me, bags of stuff to give away. In Guatemala we could have started a secondhand clothing store paka with that amount of clothing. Our house-sitter moved into the Canada house. He was shown the ropes, and introduced to the bunny.
We managed to fit the 6 hockey bags and guitar case into the car, which was good, because it rained on the way down to Chicago. Paul and I have determined that we don’t endure all nighter drives the way we did when we were a tad younger. But we made it. We were on the way to the airport on the hotel shuttle and Madi realized that our collection of games, computer games, movies, was in the back seat floor of the car. I went back with the shuttle and the woman at the desk was being particularly difficult trying to tell me there wasn’t a 6am shuttle, that I’d have to wait until 7am. That would have made it very tight for my check in, and I didn’t bring any money with me to get a cab, because I thought I was returning on the free shuttle. The woman was just saying no because she had the power to do so, not because it was an appropriate use of her tiny sliver of power. Not impressed. But the shuttle driver had pity on me, called the other 3 people and asked if they would go early and they complied. Lucky me.
I was in the shuttle with lots of chatty people, I’m more of a silent, surviving type of 5am shuttle person. The word was that a huge storm was coming in a couple of hours. Predictions ended up being correct. The airport was closed a few hours later, we got outta town just in time.
At the airport they weighed a couple of the hockey bags and said, they are all the same size and type of bag, so they must all weigh the same. Seriously? I think she missed they training day where they taught things that are the same size do not necessarily weigh the same. Paul and I breathed a sigh of relief once the hockey bags made their way down the conveyor belt. Sure looked like a hockey team was going to Guatemala, which would make no sense. It wonder if they even have one arena in the entire country. After we checked in, we hung around, soaked up our last North Americaness for a while.
I love flying Taca. Movies, drinks, food, did I mention food? We were so concerned about not going over the weight limit for carry-ons that we didn’t pack as much stuff for the girls to do. But they had their ipods so time passed quickly.
For me it’s easy to return to Pana. It is like a second home, complete with a little community and friends I’m excited to connect with again.
Cali’s frog blog
I, Cali, am back to write more about my travels and life. Today I woke up and got ready for my last day of Seussical. Seussical is a musical about an elephant and a dust speck. And on the dustspeck there are tiny people called Whos. Every animal in the jungle of Nool didn’t believe Horton because he is an elephant. Then at the end of the show I said goodbye to all my friends because it’s my last day. I came home with my grandma and grandpa because my mom and dad didn’t come because they were packing the car. But they came the other two nights and saw me as a Who and as a Wickersham Brother. My grandpa and grandma drove me home so we could leave for Guatemala. We drove about a quarter way to the airport in Chicago and stopped so my mom and dad could rest. We went to a hotel to catch a shuttle and leave our car there. So we waited for a while, then came on the airplane. Now we are in El Salvador which is a country under Guatemala. There was lots of food here, so we got Subway subs because the rest of the places were bars. Yesterday was my last day of school. People started hugging me like crazy from all different directions. I am excited to go back to Guatemala because Kier is there, and also everything else.