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.

More of February...

 This month we celebrated our good friend Hannah's birthday with scones and brownies that exploded while baking.

 We also started our weekend basketball games with the girls in our town. We have aspirations of making this a standing league and are looking for people in town who can help to organize games and keep people interested. We are currently looking for reversible jerseys that the girls can wear for games, so if you have any access to such things, please let me know.

 The town fair came to one of my other communities and just like the fair in the center of town, this one came with a live band and cross dressing dancers. This band had ladies in it who danced and sang and caused quite a scandal in town...I imagine.

 Here is one of many booths selling trinkets and candies.

 We also had our monthly photo shoot with the kids, this time they found our Halloween costumes.

 This last week we also had a 3 day HIV/AIDS workshop. We brought teachers and mentors from our communities to the workshop so that they could then work with us to replicate HIV/AIDS lessons in our towns and schools.

 Here is our neighbor Adela presenting one of the ways that HIV/AIDS cannot be transmitted...hugging.

 Here we are at the Peace Corps training center with Adela and Delia.

 Adela with her Diploma certifying her participation in the course.

 Delia with hers.

February Activities

 February was full of sports for Lizzy and myself. On this particular day I went with one of my schools to play against the elementary school teachers and some of the older students. My middle schoolers and I ended up tying in the final minutes 2-2 and then we went into penalty kicks. We barely squeaked by and it was the first time in 5 years that the Middle School defeated the Elementary School teachers. My boys were all very excited and immediately started talking about wanting to go and play against other schools.  Their field afforded excellent views of the area but became a dust bowl whenever there was wind, which was quite often.

 The elementary aged kids were and always are very curious of everything I do. The first few times I went to their school (they share the building with us, they go from 8-12:30, we go from 1-5) the kids just stared at me, completely dumbfounded. Some walked up and touched my hands, others rubbed my arms asking why I had weird dots on my arms and why I had so much arm hair. On this day they were enthralled in the stretches I was doing in preparation of our game. At first they just watched but as soon as I invited them to participate they jumped at the opportunity.

 This last photo is of my students at the middle school. The youngest students ended up beating the 5th and 6th graders and the older students and I beat the teachers team. It was a lot of fun.

Volcanoes!!!

 During December and January we had the opportunity to climb 3 different volcanoes and we have the pictures here to prove it. This first picture is of the hike to Pacaya. For those of you who are current in Guatemalan news, this is the one that erupted in May, killing one reporter, shaking the country and sending ash all over Guatemala City, canceling school and closing roads. The picture above is when we began to cross the lava rock strewn debris fields before coming right up underneath the main cone of the volcano.

 Here we are on top...we got there right at sunset. In the background you can see 3 other Volcanoes; Agua, Acatenango and Fuego. Pacaya, Fuego and Santiaquito are the only 3 active volcanos in Guatemala and we have now seen them all.

 There were some holes where you could look inside and see the fiery core and lava. After looking in this one I thought my face was going to melt off.

 Here Lizzy is standing inside of a "natural sauna" within the volcano. We were only in there for a few seconds, just long enough to take the picture since it was around 140 degrees and very uncomfortable.

 There she is as seen from outside.

 This is the 2nd highest Volcano in Guatemala. It borders Mexico and is named Tacana. This was our view as we started our hike up the tallest volcano in Central America, Tajamulco (4220 meters)

 The top of the volcano can be seen near the top right of the photo. This was just the beginning of the hike.

 Some minor scrambling was required.

 Then the clouds rolled in.

 Here we are nearing the top and exhausted.

 The final stretch was very steap and rocky.

 When we arrived at the top there were some 50 mayan men and women coming down in flip flops and sandals, carrying babies on their backs...just when we were starting to feel like hot stuff we were reminded who the truly hardy people in this country really are.

 We made it to the top and this is a view into the dormant crater.

It was a pretty sweet hike...one we won't be repeating anytime soon.