Coming to Austin was the culmination of the business end of our trip. If you don’t know me from a previous life, two years ago I co-founded Kinship Market with my friend and business partner Tom Curcio. We did the majority of our business at farmer’s and craft markets prior to Covid-19 and with the pandemic in full swing we each made significant life changes – Tom and his girlfriend Laura moved to the Austin area, my family and I took our lives on the road. Tom and Laura took most of Kinship Market’s inventory with them to Tx, but I had kept aside one suitcase worth to show as samples to any potential retail stores I thought might be a good fit for our goods. The heartbreaking part of that dream was that upon visiting small town after small town, shop after shop I realized that my sample sharing plan was conceived from a good heart place but not one that made much sense in real life/real time application. Small shops and entire towns have been completely decimated this past year, I don’t know how long it will take to recover, or if we ever will collectively, especially as a huge contingency of the population continues to heavily rely on Amazon and Walmart to get their needs and wants met. So take it from a small business owner who has seen a lot of places this year, support your entrepreneur friends, shop local and independently owned stores and restaurants that you want to see survive. They are literally depending on you – their communities, to keep their lights on and employees paid.

As for Kinship Market, we are continuing to assess the long term sustainability of our business model. Fortunately, neither Tom nor I are depending on consistent income from the business and it can be in hibernation mode for awhile longer while we get our bearings adjusted. I brought my suitcase of samples back to them so the products are all in one place and I don’t have to send the random order out from the road. Laura cooked us a delicious brisket comfort food dinner, theirs was the first house we’d been in since last August, and their golden retriever Maya gave us all the sweet dog cuddles we could want. I’m glad we spent our time together just enjoying our company and being friends rather than fretting over business matters. (I do enough fretting in my head and don’t need it spilling out all over the people that I love.)

The Guate love continued when we met some social media friends in Austin too. Angelica is the owner of Tesoro’s Maya and lives within easy driving distance of where we were staying. We decided to grab lunch together and meet for the first time in person at The Saltlick BBQ. Angelica’s business is much like ours, we know a lot of the same people at Lake Atitlan in rural Guatemala. Talking shot about similar struggles this year has brought was somewhat a relief because it means we aren’t weathering this storm alone. We shaped another day of our visit close to her again so we could see her land and cute little pigs/chickens/homestead situation. I just love finding our people when we’re traveling.

Our final Guatemalan connection was meeting a woman whom I greatly admire in person for brunch. Ronne Rock has been an online friend for a long time, once again because of our mutual love for serving friends in Guatemala. Last year she published a book, “One Woman Can Change the World” and it was such an encouraging read about women doing their part in a lot of small ways to make big changes in their corner of the world. It was such an honor to share a meal with Ronne and talk about ministry and the world and how all of it is shifting since the pandemic. Something that keeps haunting my mind from our conversation is that many countries may not want us back doing “ministry”in their territory after they’ve seen our collective response to how we’ve treated the least of these among us on our own soil. Ouch! #hardtruth

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Along with all of our Guate-related escapades we made plenty of time for eating our way through the entire city, a visit to the Texas Capitol which was in session so we could tour inside, a luxury grocery shop at Central Market, strolling up and down South Congress and all the funky shops, a nature hike at Hamilton Pool, relaxing on a dock while the kids kayaked down the Lower Colorado (boats courtesy of our hipcamp host whose property backed up to the river), and one last meal out with Tom and Laura on our final night in the city. This was by far the most socially active we had been since last March, we did it all safely with masks, physical distancing, frequent hand washing, and being outdoors whenever possible. Nobody we had seen had been around other people since everyone is working from home, we hadn’t been around other people minus one outdoor and physically spaced gathering the previous week. I said it before and I’ll say it again, you can travel safely if you’re willing to implement protocol that has everyone’s well being and health in mind and are transparent about your plans, who you’ll be seeing, and adjusting expectations around what you’ll do together to stay safe.

Now here are the rest of the photos and all the links!

Our sweet little biz:

http://www.kinshipmarket.org

The Salt Lick BBQ worth the drive out of town

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Walk along South Congress for all the funky shops my favorite was Tesoro’s (not to be confused w/ Angelica’s biz listed below) http://www.tesoros.com/homepage.html

Visit the state Capitol building

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Grocery shopping experience that’s more posh than Whole Foods at The Central Market https://centralmarket.com

Eat dinner at The Cosmic Cafe: 3 food trucks and great drinks under tents (we had tacos and posole! Tom had BBQ, Laura had wings, it ALL looked amazing!) https://www.cosmiccoffeebeer.com

https://www.tesorosmaya.com is Angelica’s business. We carry similar but different items and support many of the same families and communities in Guatemala. #collaborationovercompetition

Ronne’s website with links of all the places to buy her book https://ronnerock.com Sign up for her emails too! She’ll literally pray for you!