Vacation!

I would call this week, definitely, for the first time in a considerable time, a vacation. Literally, all I have to do is set my alarm on time for breakfast to have conversation with the family and then I can retreat back to my room for reading and more sleeping. I sleep on average 12 hours a day....which is much more than I can say for the amount I get back home. My diet here is much better as I eat fresh, homemade food, without meat. My exercise here is better as I´m walking constantly up and down hills and streets without a car and in a higher altitude. I would LOVE to keep up the regime in AZ, but find that my weeks are slowly becomming numbered here and I am learning to take advantage of them.

I went to EDLAC yesterday with Corinne and we had a hell of a time (in my opinion) getting there. Against our better judgement we used a microbus that was stuffed to the gills...literally 25 people in a minivan. Because we were the last to jump on, my ass and back were hanging out of this minivan as it coasted down the road to where we needed to go. Behind me, a young Guatemalan gentlemen who collected our money rubbed all up and down my ass as we went down the road no matter how hard I tried to stuff myself into the car. From then on, I told Corinne we are taking another bus route, one where I can eithe sit cramped or stand cramped...no more minivans for me. Because of the chaos of finding and riding the microbus, we ended up arriving a few minutes late. The kids were everywhere!! It was not their regularly scheduled classes as it was a time for celebrating all the birthdays of the kids. Caras Alegres (Happy Faces) is a Dutch organization that was started 2 years ago at the school and they are the ones I¨ll be helping in the afternoon. They had 4 rooms filled with 4 different games for the kids. Corinne helped out in the musical chairs room and it was INSANE from what I could tell. They loved it! I worked with Anneloes, a girl from Holland who has been volunteering at EDLAC and Caras Alegres for 7 months now. She was surprised that I was there to help out as she said it took her at least 6 weeks in Guatemala before she felt comfortable volunteering anywhere. Which brings me to the near panic attacks I was feeling at the school yesterday. It was a lot like learning to teach--having this feeling that I´m not good at speaking Spanish yet (or as good as the others), and these kids are in such a great need that i want to help in any way I can. It´s a feeling of kind of wanting to hide away and forget the opportunity exists because you´re too scared to take on 120 children. Oh yeah....there are just about a million of them at the after-school program. I´m so looking forward to helping and hanging out with them. I begin teaching next week on Monday and find this week to be a good starter for me. As it turns out, this week they are doing a series of workshops that Corinne and I were recruited to help with. We are heading up the handicraft area and have to design 4 different projects for each day for the kids. On Friday, they will present their final projects to the whole school and there are 4 different areas: handicrafts (presented by yours truly), sewing and making clothes, woodshop and cooking. Each day, the classes will go on for about 2 hours or so until Friday, which is only an hour, due to presentations. *Hopefully, my Spanish will improve as the days go on this week. I need to brush up on my vocabulary so the kids know what the hell I´m saying.

After time at the school, Corinne and I grabbed a drink at Tecun (gin and tonic were on special...mmmm) and went to our respective homes to eat dinner. I had a delicious (and my favorite) dinner of friend platanos, frijoles and some sort of queso de vaca. I found that I have a new housemate, who is also a teacher in the Bronx. She is not with TfA, but she said all of her colleagues are affliated. She seems awesome (her name is Rachel) and she´ll be here for the exact amount of time I will (she leaves 2 days before I do). I´m actually really really excited about having another person to talk to and hang out with in the evenings. She has been travelling for the last 48 hours and seemed really overwhelmed, but nonetheless excited about her opportunity to come!

Ummm....today...nada to talk about. I (think) I´m parasite free, but am not sure my pooping (honestly) will ever return to normalcy after the attack last week. It´s like forever altered my abilities. Nonetheless...I am now capable. As far as news...that´s it for today! I¨ll blog tomorrow about the ¨mask adventure.¨ yikes.