The Difference Between Guatemala and the U.S.

Ok, there are about a thousand differences, but here's today's.

This coming Tuesday (yiiiiikes) I am having my despedida (going-away party) with my section of girls. There will be more to come on my despedida, and despedidas in general, but for this post just know that I am planning on making this no-sew fleece pillow with the niñas. It's gonna be cute.

BUT...

..the preparation has not been so cute.

Now if I were in the States, the purchasing of the two simple materials needed for this project (fleece and pillow filling) would go something like this:

Get in car. Drive to Hancock Fabrics. Find fleece there. Find filling there. If for some reason something couldn't be found, walk four doors down to Wal-Mart and solve the crisis there. Return to car. Dump everything in large trunk. Return home in time for lunch and to continue watching season 4 of Felicity.

Ohhhh but I'm not in the States. Here is how this goes in Guatemala. Are you ready for this?

Take crowded chicken bus to Chimal. Enter claustrophobic Chimal market. Find fabric stalls. Start looking for fleece. Find no fleece. Ask people if they have fleece. Learn that there is no word for fleece in this country; they just call it "blanket material" or "flannel" (um, but it's not flannel?). Be told to try the other end of the fabric stalls. Get there, be told to go back the direction I just came from. Still no fleece. An hour has passed. Leave the market and go to the other part of the market. Hope for better luck there. Walk the streets for a while. FINALLY find a man selling fleece blankets! He seems slightly intoxicated, but it works in my favor because he gives me a great deal. Buy nearly his entire supply of fleece blankets.

NEXT, on to something to fill these pillows. Ask the fleece blanket man where I can buy some kind of pillow stuffing/filling. Learn he has no idea but can at least tell me the name of what I should ask for. Walk the entire market and have every person tell me there is no way on earth I am finding pillow filling in Chimal. Awesome. Decide to buy pillows and just rip the stuffing out. Search the market for pillows and learn there are none. Another hour has passed. Disheartened, go back to my fleece blanket man and ask him where the heck I can find just regular old pillows. Bless his heart, he leaves his stall and escorts me to a shop that sells pillows! Gaze at wall of pillows. Barter and argue and buy 12 pillows. Allow owners to stuff all 12 pillows, plus 27 yards of fleece, into one huge garbage bag (seriously impressive), tape it up, tie it up with string, walk me to the chicken bus, and throw the huge bag on top of the bus.

Thirty minutes later, back in Parramos, carry massive bag back to NPH, finally reach home, collapse.

HO-LY COW. These pillows better turn out freaking adorable!