Things here have been pretty tranquil�we�ve been busy working out at the project and have had lots of new responsibilities coming our way. Pat volunteered to start the new tutor position, as well as taking over teaching English to the 1st graders. The tutoring position hasn�t started yet, but it will entail scheduling kids that need extra help to work one-on-one with him a couple times a week on whatever it is they need academically. He had his first English class on Monday where he taught father, mother, brother, sister, baby, and house to the kids. He�s looking forward to it because it involves a lot of games and coloring, and the kids really want to learn English.
Alyssa is doing well with her girls and has started her girls� group for 14 and older girls in 4-6 grades. The original goal was to mix girls from the morning and afternoon classes but since most girls in the afternoon can�t come in the morning, the group has stayed at a mere 4 girls. It feels a little strange after girls� groups of 10-20 but these girls get so little one on one attention, it�s sort of a blessing. We have lots of fun topics planned for the next 6 weeks and the group has thus far been really good and we�re battling through trust issues�. Also, Thursday was the first day of cooking class. It was CHAOS. 14 kids showed and with 4 teachers you�d think it�d be easy, but it was 2 hours of directing traffic and shouting instructions over the chess club and piano lessons happening in the same room (we�re sort of crunched for space). We made banana bread and the kids were soooo excited and were SILENT when they copied down the recipe�.something that never happens so we think they like the class. We had a bit of a scare as we don�t know what temperature the oven cooks at and it was baked in half the time it was supposed to -actually burning- but it was a blessing in disguise because we finished right on time with the kids eating their finished product and wrapping pieces to take home. Also, Alyssa will be starting English classes for the 6th graders going into Basicos (middle school). Our kids have been playing lots of soccer in a tournament this week and Pat�s 3rd graders killed Alyssa�s girls twice so far.
We�ve been keeping an active social life this week and played a crazy nighttime soccer game in neighboring Jocotenango. The �field� was actually the size of a basketball court and concrete as well, the ball was hard as a rock, and the lights were less than bright, but it was blast. We were spectacularly crushed by the teachers� team, 15-4, but it was fun and especially Alyssa is learning lots about soccer. The Guatemalans are all impressed by Pat�s soccer skills (side note from Alyssa: it�s sickening. He doesn�t even LIKE soccer that much but he is incredible!) We spend our lunches socializing with the teachers at the school, and the weekends hanging out with other volunteers.
Saturday we volunteered in the nearby town of Pastores that had major flooding a few weeks ago. We spent the day painting a school nearly destroyed by Hurricane Rita � other volunteers had told us about the rooms filled with mud and the disaster left so we went expecting to shovel out and instead found things cleaner and got to paint.
Pat painted himself a corner
Most of the mud has been cleaned out of people�s houses, but there is still a lot work going on getting rid of the piles of mud on the sides of streets and along the river. You can�t tell from the picture of the river goes right through the middle of the town::
A tractor cleaning up the river
That night we went to another volunteer, Teresa�s house for a big barbeque with the other volunteers. Sunday we went to church and then attended an all you can eat buffet with 3 of our crazy German friends, who ate approximately their weight in fruit salad, crepes, omelets, French toast and pancakes. One of our girls actually went and threw up, came back and ate 4 more servings! We were there 3 hours eating and chatting, then went to the market and dawdled around Antigua for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up spending a bit of time at the market trying our skill at negotiating with the different vendors. Afterwards, we went for our first (!!) run this evening around town�it didn�t seem like the safest idea with all the cobblestones and since we go to a gym here we hadn�t bothered trying, but it was a lot of fun and a good way to end the weekend. When we got back there was a rosary procession walking by our house. They were celebrating the month of the rosary, and they say the rosary while carrying a float through the streets of Antigua. Our host family got to carry it in front of our house (they switch people every block) and we got this picture from our balcony:
The Procession
Monday was Halloween, but they don�t really celebrate it here in Guatemala. We didn�t celebrate it at Camino Seguro and that night we only saw one group of trick or treaters. We had a social event for all the volunteers and teachers, and about half of the people dressed up. We played pool and darts, sung karaoke, and just had a good time hanging out with our friends here. Pat chickened out, but Alyssa decided to go as Supergirl:
Yes, Alyssa is wearing her underwear OUTSIDE her pants
Karaoke
Today, Tuesday, was a national holiday. It is �Dia de los Muertos� or �Day of the Dead�. They celebrate their dead by going to cemeteries and flying kites, decorating graves with flowers, and having picnics. We went to the town of Santiago because they are known for their HUGE kites. Now when we say �kites�, we really mean �flying kites of death.� Basically it is a chance for teenage and 20-something boys to build flying contraptions out of bamboo and paper as big as they can. Then they get about 10 of them holding the ropes and they try to launch them in the air, often unsuccessfully. Sometimes the kites would get 100 feet in the air and then take a nose dive into the crowd below. Other times the kites would pull so hard that they are lifting 1 or 2 of the rope holders off the ground, and the rest end up trampling over the nicely decorated graves holding on for their lives. Each time that the kites appear to be falling, the crowd below screams and disperses while 1 or 2 of the boys are running the opposite direction trying the catch the kite. This happens over and over again until the kite decides to stay up in the air. Did we mention that often times they add a flag which we decided was nothing more than a 5 foot sword as it comes crashing down to the ground? Needless to say, we kept a close eye on the kites overhead. Here�s a whole bunch of pictures we took:
The little kids getting in on the action
Getting one of the smaller kites in the air
Kites in the air
Lifting the huge kite
Amazing, isn�t it?
The artwork in the center
A big kite string, plus the graves in the background
A view of the kites and the crowd in the cemetery
The pilgrimage out of the cemetery
This week we�ve got two Guatemalan tidbits to describe. The first is the interesting way that our shower works. They use shower heads that have electric heaters built in because almost no one has a water heater. Sure, this may sound like a good idea at first, but there are some definite design flaws. First of all, it uses a pressure switch to know when to turn on, and there is nothing to adjust the heat. Once it turns on, if you turn up the water it gets colder and turning down the water makes it hotter. . .unless you turn it down just a little too much and it turns off! Also, if you think you have it just right and someone flushes a toilet elsewhere and the pressure drops, you have to be ready for a shock of cold water. The other design flaw is mixing electricity and water. Not a good idea. Once you get wet and you touch the handle to adjust the water, you get a little shock. It is usually not too bad, but you definitely notice it. But the pain intensifies greatly if you have hang nails . . . to the point where you are jerking your hand back when you touch the handle and seriously considering just dealing with the heater turned off. . . but then you touch the cold water and decide you definitely need the heater so you try to turn the water up again . . . quite the vicious cycle.
The Shocker
The other Guatemalan tidbit is fireworks. They use fireworks to celebrate EVERYTHING. We hear them almost everyday. Sometimes at 7:00AM, sometimes in the middle of the day, and sometimes at 10:00 at night. And generally the point is to make lots of noise as opposed to lots of sparks. We were especially surprised when someone lit a DEAFENING one about 20 feet from us last Sunday. There were lots of people around when he lit the match, and all of a sudden everyone just bolted in the opposite direction. We thought we were safe at 20 feet, but we underestimated the power of the fireworks here.
Since you�ve had the patience to read this far, a bonus picture
