Mother Earth....and keeping balance in life....

Another day of hard labor. Well, until the sky opened up and gave San Lucas Toliman a good scrubbing. Within an hour of the sunny pictures you see here, torrential downpours occupied the balance of the afternoon. Quite ok with me and Tim since we had run out of gas by noon. We swear that this rich Guatemalan soil is much heavier than USA dirt. Seriously.

So much of this local economy, and many, many families, depend on the ability for small parcels of land to abundantly yield crops, especially coffee. The richness of this special land is exemplified by just how easily everything grows. One has to be careful where a seed is dropped because in short order, a plant is growing. Amazingly fertile.

No one seems to be in a hurry. The attitude seems to be that the work will get done, it will still be there tomorrow, but it will get done. Productivity is steady, but not fast. Truthfully, we struggled a bit with this concept as we wanted to keep moving...let´s get this project done so we can start another.....but our attitude seemed oddly out of place. But this is probably why there seemed to be a natural, palpable balance between work and leisure here in this small village. Work shifted easily to play, and then back again. And, I suppose we should confess, it was hard to not jump in a game of Futbol as we passed by......especially if it was with small school girls since my futbol skills were barely competitive even at that level.

I don´t know if I could ever really be comfortable slowing down to this pace. Tim thinks he might, but couldn't be sure. Brother Pat has already adapted to this life of leisure....we just wish he would wait until the job was done before he shifted into relax mode... :)

Tomorrow its off to the city of Antigua.....should be a different adventure....