Needless to say, people are having a heyday with this. These are photos from an email that Irving recently received, making fun of the laws in Guatemala.

Just two on a bike? Not so much!

Oh, wait, here’s someone who would fit our rules . . .

Does it count if there are only 2 people on the actual bike?

No money for a helmet? Just flip a washbasin upside down . . . don’t forget the registration number though.

Just how many school kids can you fit on an old beater, anyway?

It’s really important to be balanced when riding, hence the two person law.

Again, totally in compliance with the two person law and a good workout to boot.

Here we have a three way distribution of weight, so it’s all good, right? Did I mention that you can’t have two people on a bicycle here anymore either?

Market days are particularly difficult. These people would have received a $50 fine for overloading their bike around here.

And last, but not least, a very handy way to carry small children in places where you aren’t limited to just one person per bicycle.

I suppose I should mention that these are not my photos, I have no clue who took them, so if credit is wanted, let me know in the comments.

Reasons Why Chapines Can’t Be Terrorists

1. 8:45? WTH? WAY too early to be up!

2. We’re always late for appointments, we would have missed all four 9-11 flights.

3. Since we talk so much with our hands, we would have to put the guns on the ground.

4. The pretty ladies on the plane would totally distract us.

5. Since we tend to talk loudly, everyone would hear our plans and rat us out.

6. With good food and beer, we completely forget what we were going to do.

7. All of us would want to fly the plane and we’d fight too much over who got to be the pilot.

8. Since we can’t keep secrets, everyone would have known about the attack plan a month in advance!

So, Dorian got his tests back and he didn´t have anything like rotovirus, etc. but he did have . . . a bacterial infection of the intestines, parasites, and something I can’t remember the name of but it distills down to flagellated protozoa (remember those suckers from high school biology?). Now, apparently, the protozoa wouldn’t normally cause problems, something like 10% of people have them. However . . . it looks like the combination of bacterial infection and parasites caused his intestines to just stop moving stuff through, though he didn’t have much buildup, oddly enough.

When we gave him the enema, we stirred up all those nasty critters, who got mad and promptly made him sick. So that was definitely not good, though a necessary step. I´m thinking next time we’ll do the tests first, kill everything and THEN flush them all out. Or just stay on top of it with monthly tests for everyone in the family.

He was horribly ill that night, puking over and over, he couldn´t even keep his medicine down. We put him on the couch to sleep and I settled in to work in the living room while he slept. At 11 pm, he popped up all chipper, with his color back and asked to watch Transformers. Pretty soon he was sipping ginger ale, eating crackers and exclaiming over how late it was and how dark it was outside and how cool that he was still up! And that was the end of that.

At any rate, the little guy is zipping around like nothing ever happened. Today he jumped off the couch in a fit of overexcitement and twisted his ankle for the first time in his life. As I examined it, he looked up at me with tears in his eyes and asked, “Is it broken?” in a very sad, small voice. You see, broken things around here get tossed in the garbage, so I think he thought we might throw his cute little foot out! But he was off running around pretty quick after that.

Dante, on the other hand, is having fits of jealousy. He was quite upset that his brother got to go to the doctor while he was left with the maid. And now, Dorian gets medicine . . . there is just no END to the misery. Poor kid. We’re trying to compensate by giving him extra stories and hugs.

Sometimes, when children who have had intestinal surgery grow, they have problems and Dorian has been growing like a weed lately. Unfortunately, that has affected him negatively in that he hasn’t had a proper bowel movement in nearly 9 days. He often goes several days without, becomes exceedingly grumpy and then gets rid of everything at once. We try hard to ensure that he eats mostly fruit and veggies and keep refined sugar to a minimum . . . not an easy task with the in-laws who think the base food group is candy and that I am terribly cruel for not wanting my children to eat it.

So, today, we had to do the first enema in 9 months. This for a little boy who was supposed to have one a day! Still, he was NOT happy to see that bottle again. Unfortunately, we are still waiting to see if it will take effect and he will have to go see the doctor today. I´m really hoping that this is going to work, because if he ends up with an impacted bowel, the option is more intestinal surgery.

Update: Dorian started vomiting shortly after the enema and we took him to the doctor who checked him over and sent us for tests saying that Dorian has two separate issues, one of which is being dealt with by the enema. The other? We’re waiting for the results, but it could be rotovirus, another type of virus or a parasite.

For the Day of St. John, all the towns in Guatemala (and I assume Latin America in general) with the name San Juan celebrate. There are traveling fairs that go to each town festival (for example, this weekend is the San Pedro (St. Peter) festival in the town just below us. These include food stalls, games and rides.

While the fair was here in San Juan, we took the boys out for a short afternoon to check it out. Unfortunately, we had to head home fast because of the rain, but it was fun anyway.

The boys were very excited to head out. They didn’t even get out the door before they got to see a couple of escaped chickens.

Here`s our upper park, where the fair was set up.

The kids wanted to go on the merry-go-rounds, of which there were three to choose from, two manual and one electric (run by a generator).

They wanted the electric one because it was full of cool cars like this jeep.

Sadly, the generator wouldn’t start, so they had to relocate to a turtle and car, respectively, on one of the manual rides.

Of course, once the first ride was over, they asked for another. We`d planned on doing two rounds, so everyone was moved around and off we went again.

This being a fair that moves around a lot, I guess someone didn`t tighten the bolts on Dorian`s horse and it swiveled so he nearly fell off. He was NOT happy.

Luckily, Papa rescued him . . .

And promptly tossed him into a safe turtle for the rest of the ride.

And that`s it for this installment. My computer is very, very slow today, so I`m going to leave the rest for another day.

The other day when we were at the Pollo Campero playground, I pulled a paparazzi and used my zoom to capture the little guy doing some of his breakdancing moves.

Running along, minding his own business.

“Hey, this grate would be the perfect location for my breakdancing rap video!”

“Check out my moves!”

Dante is not the only dancer in the family. Apparently, Dorian finds the playground the perfect place to release his newest dance moves, as well!!

For the most part though, our blunders are simply mistakes that are probably very common between the two genders. A few examples:

She says: “I can´t WAIT to take the kids to the fair! Let´s go tomorrow if it´s not raining!”

He hears: “Please, take the kids to the fair without me while I nap.”

She says: “Kids, please calm down, you’re irritating me with all that screaming.” (this might possibly be said in a rather angry tone)

He hears: “Get these creatures out of here before I kill someone.”

She says: “I´m fat.”

He hears: “Bring me chocolate.”

She says: “I´m stressed out with work.”

He hears: “You suck as a husband because you don’t earn millions of dollars, I want someone new.”

She says: “We should get out more as a couple.”

He hears: static, crickets chirping

Before you think this post is just putting guys down, I KNOW that I don´t say things the way I should. I mean, it´s not like I haven´t learned yet that I need to be specific in how I word things, as in “Please don´t take the kids to the fair until we can go as a family.” It´s not that Irving (or, I suspect, men in general) is going out of his way to misunderstand me, he simply doesn´t think the way I do and doesn´t get that a comment I make early in the day means I want or don´t want something later in the day. But I often forget that he´s not a sister or something and so we run into these problems.

Also, I´m sure that things go the other way, as well, but since I´m kinda stuck on the female end, I can´t give many examples!

There have been something like 125 new cases in the past week and cases are rising. While no one seems terribly worried about it just yet, I´ve heard that there are health workers going around and vaccinating against it. Given past history of this type of emergency vaccination and my wariness of all things needlelike and aimed at my children that appear on my doorstep, we won´t be taking part in this vaccination.

If there is a ban, that means Irving´s gigs next week will be cancelled. Also, there are two HUGE parties brewing at the moment, one for St. John´s day, here in San Juan and one for Santiago in Antigua (which is truly named Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, when the capital was moved from here, everyone started calling it the “old capital” or Antigua). These are big. REALLY big, with vendors coming in weeks ahead of time to set up on the fairgrounds. Though the festival of Santiago is not until July 25, they are already setting up for it. You also have to wonder about the market if this ban goes into effect properly!

Overheard:

Dorian, hacking up a lung.

Dante: “Dowian? Ok?”

Dorian: “Yeah, Dante, I´m ok. I think I just have some food stuck in here.” Thumps his chest.

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I was brushing Dorian´s hair and used a lot of anti-tangle spray.

Me: “There, that didn´t hurt much this time, did it?”

Dorian: “Not too much. There´s no blood this time.”

Me: “?!?!?!”

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Dante: “Leave me! LEAVE ME!” slams door in mother´s face . . . could this be a sign of things to come?

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The other day, we were out and about and walked past a hardware store. Dorian insisted there were cars inside, so we walked in and looked around and he peered into the back room, even, certain they were hiding the cars! Finally, we walked out, past a long display of multicolored toilets. He sighed and said:

“huh, there´s no cars in here. Just lots and LOTS of toilets.”