Not quite there yet...

Chris and I stopped eating meat in January in the hopes that a change in diet would reduce his disabling adventures with cysteinuria. It remains to be seen whether this will help or not, but we are pretty much willing to try anything so in the past six months we've both been searching out protein alternatives and meat-less recipes.

For my birthday, my sister Kristen presented me with a Mennonite cookbook, not because they are universally vegetarian but because they practice moderation and consider carefully the personal and political, local and global implications of the food choices they make and so often do not eat meat. The book is actually quite an education and dense with data between the recipes, so I was glad to find a section of easy menu ideas organized around themes in the middle of the volume. And when these brilliant people explained that there is no reason to add the fat and calories of ice cream to a meal as a dessert when ice cream makes a calcium and protein-rich meal in and of itself I was so delighted I was almost drawn back to organized religion.

Our flight from Chicago to Miami today included a huge group of Mennonites on one leg of their journey from Winnipeg to Chicago to Miami to Sao Paolo and then on to Paraguay; their itinerary included three flights and a bus trip. We chatted with members of the travel party on the ground in Chicago, where they were made to wait in quite a long line at the risk of some members of the group missing the connecting flight, and their attitude was so positive. The men were members of the only choir from North America to perform at an international Mennonite meeting in Paraguay, where there is--according to the man seated next to me on the plane--quite a large contingent, including some members of his family he had never before met and with whom he was eagerly anticipating spending some time. I'm sure it is more than an astoundingly smart philosophy of ice cream that defines these people, but the ones we met today seemed like good people.

We spent four hours in the Miami airport waiting for a connecting flight, and I fell in love with my Kindle. I read most of On Writing by Stephen King and suggest it to anyone, writer or no, because it is as much about him as it is about what he has written, and the man tells a good story.

The flight from Miami to Guatemala City was short and intense. We were in a huge plane--eight seats across and full--and we came through a bit of lightning but landed safely. We were led to believe that our hotel was arranging transfer for us, but such was not the case and we took a taxi. We were stopped by an official of some sort who had a huge gun slung over his shoulder, but apparently it was a routine stop and we were allowed to proceed. Our dinner at the hotel was six quetzales apiece which is about 80 cents, and now Chris and I are just like Lucy and Ricky, lying in twin beds in an 8 X 8 room for which we were given no key and where we will stay here until a shuttle comes for us in the morning to take us to Panajachel.