Kermes in Choni!

One of my schools just held their Kermes (not sure of the spelling on this one) and hosted a basketball and soccer tournament while offering such useful services as a beauty salon, smoothies and not one but two different dance clubs. Here are two of the girls practicing their craft.

These two are sisters, one is my student the other will be next year.

The Basketball tournament. I was ref for one game until someone realized I had no idea what I was doing and that I don't like to blow whistles so I wasn't calling any fouls.

Here is the enchilada stand. Guatemalan style enchiladas consist of a very fired tortilla with some type of meat in mayonnaise and in this case a ketchup topping.

Here is the smoothie shop. You could chose between papaya, something else and peanut.

This was the chip store, these girls hid when I got out the camera.

Welcome to dance club #1.

And now dance club #2.

One room was a spook alley. Here are the girls before...

and after.

This was the wedding room where you could come and put on a veil. This one didn't go over too well since the kids are afflicted with an especially potent form of teenage embarrassment here. Still not sure who thought this one would be a moneymaker.

Carnival!!! Or however you spell it.

The day started out like any other, with the exception that today the students put on a pageant to elect Miss Carneval 2011. Here is how it went down in one of Lizzy's schools. Here they are performing traditional dances in traditional dress.

The Winner!!

And of course, after the winner was picked a costume dance party ensued...in the rain.

In my school the kids had a competition to create things out of the eggs filled with glitter and confetti that would later be thrown and crushed into the hair of all students.

Here are two of the contestants of our pageant with their entourage.

Just a sample of one of the three categories the girls competed it. The first was the school uniform, then traditional dress and then their own creations.

This girl was strapped with eggs and was ready to throw them at anyone who crossed her. Unfortunately the majority were crushed the first time she sat down.

I was pretty certain that this stunt could only end in tears, but much to my surprise....

...she made it practically unscathed.

Every grade had their share of dance numbers.

Here are the three contestants awaiting the results.

One of the many lipsyncs as well.

We also had our costume dance party.

And then the party got started with eggs being crushed on heads....

and glitter being smeared in faces.

I was not immune...

But it could have been worse. This is our neighbor who had at least 4 raw eggs smashed in her hair and in her blouse. How the town likes to party. Next Carneval I am calling in sick...it took almost a week to get the glitter out of my eye and eyelashes.

Tour of a School built with Bottles

This past week Lizzy and I attended a workshop to learn how to turn ordinary plastic garbage and bottles into buildings. The above picture is of a school on the other side of the mountain from where we live and the top left floor was a classroom addition constructed using these "ecoladrillos" or plastic bottle bricks. The community came together to collect the trash, stuff the bottles and then place them in the walls. We are trying to organize our own bottle structure project in our community. Stay tuned!

Here you can see the bottles that make up the walls minus the cement and plaster.