Today after class Sonia, our host mother, and her grandson Andres, took us all to the "country" which turned out to be a municipal park up in the mountains. It was a large park with walking paths and some old, rusty playground equipment. The highlight was the 3-story-high slide. It was made completely out of cement, even the bottom onto which one falls. We slid down it sitting on cardboard. Then we found a plastic 2-liter bottle which someone had obviously used before for the same purpose. Chase tried it first. He sat on the flattened bottle and flew down the slide and off the bottom, catching himself against the cement guard wall (designed either to keep one from falling down the mountain or hit one's head against). For some reason, I guess the way Daniel was sitting on the bottle, he came down the slide with GREAT velocity. Thank God I happen to be in his way at the bottom and was paying enough attention to catch him as he came crashing into me. It was one of those situations where we know an angel was watching over Daniel. If I had not been standing exactly where I was, he would have been severely hurt. Yikes. Our skin crawls at the thought. Thank you God!

Early tomorrow morning we are headed to Lake Atitlan for an overnight stay. The trip is a touristy splurge as Casa Xelaju does not have any planned events of their own. We will spend the night in a fancy hotel (by Guatemalan standards, which means it usually has hot water). We are going with two women we met from school. We were planning to take a chicken bus there and as we were discussing all the details, a staff member from the school overheard us and said he was taking a private group there at the same time and we could ride with him! Hooray. The chicken bus experience will have to be saved for the return trip.