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Halted foreign adoptions leave would-be parents in limboThe crib in Ellen Darcy's Boston home has sat empty for more than a year. And in suburban Washington, Laura Teresinski has prepared a nursery for a baby that may never arrive. They and thousands of prospective parents, eager to adopt children from abroad, have found themselves in an emotional legal limbo since two of the most popular countries for international adoptions -- Guatemala and Vietnam -- recently halted their programs. Now would-be mothers and fathers around the United States wonder what will become of their quest to adopt a child -- a pursuit that can fray nerves, cost up to $30,000 and span several years.
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Guatemala CoffeeToday, I want to write a little bit about coffee production and about the mission at San Lucas. Both are fascinating to me! The Mission at San Lucas has made such a HUGE impact on that community, it is hard to know where to start. In large part it is because of God using Father Greg, an american preist who came there 44 years ago. Father Greg has been the driving force behind helping the communitie's poor find a new way of life. He has established medical clinics, affordable housing, farming projects like the coffee coop, rabbit project, chicken/duck project, and the re-forrestation project.
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A Charming Colonial TownMy biggest challenge was to come when I decided to leave Copan and attempt to hitch all the way to Antigua, Guatemala which was around 270 Kilometers. It was a five minute walk from the centre of Copan to the butterfly farm which sits beside the highway and from where I would attempt to hitch. I wrote a plaque for Guatemala but had no joy for twenty minutes as the only passing traffic were people pointing as if to say that they were staying within the Copan vicinity. Eventually a nice 4x4 open back land cruiser stopped to offer me a ride all the way to Chiquimula which took just over an hour.
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Guatemala & BelizeWell the time ratio between the 2 countries was originally going to be split 25% in Guatemala and 75% in Belize, but this was not to be the case. I typed up my last journal report in Chetmual near the Mexican border, where I had to wait for 4 hours until the bus left for Flores in Guatemala. I headed up to the cafeteria for some food and I ran into a Sydney girl by the name of Talia. She had been waiting at the bus station since 9pm that night (nuts).
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Unraveling the Traveler in GuatemalaThis is a story about a lesson, and the lessons it taught me, which were not the ones I expected. It's a story about weaving, though no real weaving takes place. And at the end, I'm going to assert it's not about anything at all. I met Francesca in 2005 in San Juan La Laguna, a Guatemalan village we'd chosen because the guidebook passed it over. I had arrived with my husband and our two-year-old by boat from across Lake Atitlan, fingers crossed that a little hotel we'd heard mentioned truly existed. It did, and it cost $4 a night. San Juan was a town of steep cobblestoned streets, wood smoke, traditional dress, teenagers on cell phones, and a pristine new library. Few vehicles rode through town, other than the occasional taxi truck. Women and children stopped to touch our daughter's gold-blond hair.
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Across-Dressing GuatemalaI can tell this is going to be a different sort of trip already. For starters, the trip from San Francisco to Guatemala City required only eight hours and I could read most of the signage. Moreover, my stays in places may be shorter as I keep moving down the Cebtral American Isthmus. This combined with a lot of places not allowing the uploading of photographs due to Internet bandwidth limitations, may cause me to combine multiple stops into one post, like this one, which covers all three of my stops in Guatemala.
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