Kyle and Lizzy: Farewell Chiva!

Before we left our village, Chivarreto, we had a farewell party in our host family's home. We invited all our friends and neighbors and made tons of banana bread for everyone and then only half of the invitees showed up. We had our party on Sunday and were planning on leaving early Wednesday morning, which we told all of our friends. Tuesday night I awoke in the middle of the night to thunder and heavy rain and by Wednesday morning the roads were impassable. We made reservations with a bus and went out to the highway to wait for it and bus after bus kept leaving and then coming right back. Apparently there had been a massive landslide just down the road from our village and then there were multiple landslides on the main highway that were blocking all lanes leaving us stuck in our village. We were very distraught since we had a lot of work to do in the Peace Corps offices before we could leave. That day the usual Wednesday morning market didn't happen due to the impassable roads, so this meant that we wouldn't have access to fruits or vegetables that week. The rains continued and we literally felt trapped. On Friday two of our friends made it through to Guatemala City from very near us, but they said that they had to get out of their bus and hike up a huge mountain carrying their luggage and using guide ropes to help them up. They could see the landslides and there were still rescue crews working to find people and get cars out of the debris (that's basically what you told me right Megan and Dirk?). Friday morning my sister and brother-in-law and my 3 nephews arrived in the capital so we were especially anxious to get out of town and pick them up but it just wasn't in the cards. By Saturday we were going nuts and had talked to our friend Ballardo in town and he offered to drive us in his truck. He had heard that there was a way to get through on some back road through other mountain passes and that all the buses were going this way. We loaded all of our belongings in his truck unsure if we would ever be able to make it back to our village again. As we were nearing our turn off to go through this sketchy mountain pass we were able to call the road hotline and they had just opened up one of the four lanes on the highway and we would be able to go that way. Finally we were able to get out and meet up with our family. Unfortunately we were never able to go back to our town to show our family where we lived and worked and have them meet our new Guatemalan family. The day after we left more rains came and more landslides slid and by Monday the President had declared a state of calamity and closed the major highways and we wouldn't have been able to leave our village until the following Friday. We counted ourselves very lucky to have gotten out when we did. The storm was one of the worst to hit Guatemala in 15 years and did untold damage to infrastructure, crops on the verge of being harvested, homes and lives. We feel fortunate that none of our close friends were severely affected and will miss all of the people in our towns and at our jobs. It was a wild ride and we are very grateful for the experience that we had. Adios Chivarreto.

Brian at the farewell party. He was pretty sugared up at this point.

Liz with her Director in Rancho de Teja.

Saying goodbye to all the teachers in Chivarreto.

Our neighbor Francisca and her younger sister. This is one of the blouses that they will wear when they finally finish it. Francisca runs the only place to eat in town that isn't fried chicken. She has always been very friendly to us.

Goodbye to Adela, Julia and their cousin. Adela and her family run the internet cafe in town as well as a preschool. Very good friends of ours.

One of our favorite families in town. The woman on the end cooked with Lizzy in her women's group. Her husband drives the mototaxi in town and their family founded a private middle school in town to help provide a better educational option for students.

Lis with Esperanza (yellow top) and her daughter and mother. Esperanza had more personality than almost our entire town combined.

My friends Lorenzo and Antonio. They were my soccer buddies.

One of our other favorite families. We will miss each and everyone of you Landon, Ashley, Andy, Marta, Miriam, Micaela, Jason, Marlon, Celida and Marta.