Good people, good times

Sometimes people surprise me with their goodness.

I dropped a Q50 note in the gym the other day, and one of the guys who works there picked it up and brought it to me. He did that even though I consistently try to give off a ¨Don´t mess with me!¨ vibe.

I was walking to work yesterday, and a construction worker looked down at me from his ladder. I brace myself for a whistle or an, ¨Hola, Princesa!¨ but instead he just nods and says, ¨Have a good day!¨

I went into the field yesterday with Haroldo, to a town called San Martin Jilotepeque about two hours from Antigua. We talked to men who had attended our reproductive health workshops. Men actually talked to me about their perspectives on contraceptives and STIs. I was really struck by one man who visibly lit up talking about his wife and his son and how he wants to be a responsible father.

When I was riding the bus back by myself, there was this older man sitting in front of me with a corduroy vest and a suit jacket. We didn´t exchange words or even glances, but when he got up to leave, he got this big, sincere, gold-toothed grin on his face, grabbed my hand like he was going to thumb-wrestle me, and wished me well.

Recommended reading:

If you want a good book about Guatemala, I am completely enthralled by Silence on the Mountain. I´m reading it a second time. It´s even better the second time. It taught me a lot about the world, including my own country.

The house I´m in has an impressive book collection. I picked one up I´d heard of in school but not read. It´s an old classic about relationships. Because I am a therapy nerd, I got sucked in and read the whole thing! It is HANDS DOWN the most helpful book I´ve ever seen about relationships (though it´s definitely biased toward opposite-sex couples), once you get past the title: Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples.