Toto, I don't think we're in Upstate NY anymore

After a rousing afternoon of soccer games, in which the whole school participated, the Fantastic Foundation Five are preparing for the forthcoming week of rest and relaxation during which we will all be taking off for parts unknown. After weeks of deep thought and discussion, the destination decisions were finally arrived it: Brian, Fernando and I will be spending the week at the mystical and marvelous Atitlan, while Angie and Chat are making a break for the border and heading into Mexico. As I will be again out of internet contact for some time, I thought it would be good to update before leaving and share with you the April goals that have been set forth by our merry band. We have made group goals every month so far and been fairly successful in achieving them and I feel certain that April will be no exception. So here they are, in no particular order, except that in which they spilled forth from our motivated little brains:

1) Throw a HUGE birthday party for Chat, Jess and Fer.- We are all April babies and have thus decided that an enormous fiesta to celebrate us is in order. Some students have even suggested that we hire the marimba band to play. I can’t imagine anything more exciting.

2) Continue work on the pool.- This is the brain child of Brian and Fer who concocted a plan to build a pool on the roof of our house. The cinder blocks and cement have already been purchased and construction is waiting to commence. I’m not particularly invested in this project, but I did contribute money for the building supplies in order to secure my pool membership and not have to pay the required fee for use of the facility.

3) Close 2 of the 3 deals and have “anti-person-who-didn’t-close-the-deal-night”. – This refers to the attempted wooing of Mateanos that is taking place by some of the teachers and their efforts to secure a kiss from their conquests. I am unfortunately not taking part in this exciting event, but on the positive side, this also means I am exempted from danger of being ostracized for an entire night for failing to obtain lip-to-lip contact.

4) Invite 3 new people over.- We would like to make new friends and invite them over for pleasant conversation and/or subject them to our (mostly successful) culinary attempts.

5) Doll up the Foundation.- We recently renovated what was a guest room into a communal living room and we enjoy lazing about and spending quality family time together. Our first decorating effort was huge charcoal self-portraits that we hung up to celebrate how great we are. They are pretty fabulous, but this is only the beginning of our efforts to really put a personal touch on these dreary cement walls.

6) Learn 3 romantic phrases in Chuj.- Further efforts towards progressing the relationships with Matellanos, by whispering sweet nothings in their native language. We may not know how to say, “How much are those mangos?” or “I really enjoy learning about Guatemalan culture” or “Stop doing that immediately students”, but I think it’s really crucial that we can say “I like your eyes.”

7) Go to a cantina. – Usually we get plenty of interaction with local drunks as they stumble up to us as we’re sitting on the stoop eating peanuts and engage us in scintillating conversation about….????various unintelligible topics, but we thought it might be nice for a change to go to them and spare them the long walk. That’s what friends do.

Have and not eat a chocolate centerpiece.- Real chocolate is a luxury here in San Mateo and keeping it around to enjoy has been an issue for us here. In April, we plan to exert self-control and keep a glorious presentation of chocolate sitting in the middle of our kitchen table for at least a week.

9) Have a fun trip! A distinct possibility for fulfilling this goal may be a group excursion to Xela to attend the Potato Festival. We’ll keep you posted.

10) New drink night! – In a stroke of genius, we came up with an idea for a tasty cocktail called cuxagria. This will be probably be a tasty mixture of fresh fruit, cuxa, and artificially-flavored grape drink mix, because wine is too difficult to obtain. This and other fantastic concoctions will be sampled one balmy evening in April when we are all relaxing together in the living room. Dance party will almost certainly ensue afterwards.

That’s it folks. Please feel free to offer your words of encouragement and support in these lofty goals we have set for ourselves.