Preparations for the 15th and a 15era.

A random dog in the pila. An old guy looking over the valley and two of my students.

The view from my school. The girls making meat patties over a wood fire stove. The school director with students and my big head.
Below is a picture of what awaits most of my students...a life working in the fields and hauling firewood.

The kids at my school had to prepare a meal fit for a quincenera the other day. They also were practicing for the 15th of september which is the big day of independence day celebrations. They lifted each other all over the place and did things that made me worry they would land on their heads. It made me feel very old and overly cautious.

The Lake...Atitawesome.

We recently got to go to Lake Atitlan for the first time. We went for the weekend and celebrated all the august birthdays in our group of friends. It was the first time I have felt warm in a long time and I got to wear shorts and flip flops, which was awesome. We stayed in little bungalows overlooking the lake and hung out all weekend. Not much more to say, the pictures tell the story.

Some of the group in front of the hotel and a water taxi.

The view from our balcony. Pete finding his balance. Sunrise.

Another sunrise and a guy fishing. Maggie, Liz and Kevin.

Tony is the nearly undisputed connect 4 master.

The balcony and the lake. I really like to take my own picture.

From bed bugs to weekend hikes...

Our newly covered bed. The view from the top. Me and my kids.

Liz and her girls.

The view from the top and ensuing soccer game. The white pine forest.

Its been quite a couple of weeks and I am falling further and further behind with this blog. We recently discovered that we had bed bugs and spent most of the weekend covering our matress with plastic, washing all our clothes and spraying way too much bug spray around the house. The only break we had from all this was sunday morning when we met up with some of the kids from our schools and hiked up to the letters on the hill of our town. Its pretty funny because there is absolutely no tourist draw to our town or any other reason to draw attention to it, but for some reason we have a hollywood style sign on the hillside that lets everyone driving by on the highway that we are in fact here and that they should want to be here too. The hike was beautiful and my favorite part was the white pine forest at the top. The girls all hiked in their traditional dresses as well as their dress sandals and high heels and we sported our hiking shoes and technical outer wear. After the hike we had a game on the top of the mountain and then returned for lunch and a nap. It was a great day.

Anniversario in Chonimacorral

One of my schools and their team.

Kids being kids. The shootout and one of the most intense goalies I have seen.

These are some of my students who wanted liz to take their photo with them. They wanted me to hug them for the picture and when I declined I was the only one left smiling. Here is the winner of the pageant.

Setting up the pk´s. Me and the men. Liz and the ladies.

Some of the many spectators. Dog in the field...its a typical sight. My other school and their team.

Me and the queen before the game. The constructed catwalk without decorations. Diego and Cruz setting up the field.

Its been quite a week here in town and it was the first full week that we have been able to be here. I have been visiting my different schools and trying to get to know all the kids at each school. I feel very lucky to be working in the schools here and everyone from the students to the teachers to the parent groups have been very supportive and welcoming. This past Friday one of my schools was celebrating their anniversary of 5 years and to mark the occasion it’s typical to have a few days of festivities. I was there Thursday and Friday and Thursday we worked on setting up the soccer field that normally has livestock grazing on it during the week. We built goals and then hiked down to the creek to gather white sand to mark the sidelines and goal boxes. It was quite the production. At the same time the field was being put together, the town hall was being prepared for the Anniversary Pageant. They constructed an entire catwalk out of logs and planks in a matter of hours and decorated everything with handmade crafts and pine needles. I only stayed for a few hours and was exhausted, but after I left the students also did a 10K for their torch run in which they ran with a torch all the way to the bigger town of San Francisco el Alto…in the pouring rain.
Friday morning was the big soccer day. Before I left on Thursday one of the teachers asked me if I could be the referee for their game the next day. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the game was not one game, but a tournament consisting of 8 games. For the tournament my school had invited three other surrounding schools, one of which I work in and the other Liz works in. As the festivities began I again got to make a speech and stood in the middle of the field with the pageant winner from the night before. Then the games began. The boys games were very intense with students leaving it all on the field. A few of their games ended in pk’s with my school ending up with the 1st place trophy. Then came the girls games. It was pretty weird to see the girls in sports gear since every other time I had seen them they were in their traditional clothing. It was clear that none of them had ever played in organized sports but they ran as hard as they could and a few of them had legitimate skills. I did see some of the hardest hits during the girls games and all of the girls games ended with pk’s since not one team managed to make a goal during regulation time. We were there from 8-7 and were sunburnt and exhausted. After the games there was a school dance but we just didn’t have the energy to attend. We went home and crashed. The day was a lot of fun but I will seriously consider agreeing to be the referee next time.

Changes and settling into a new home...

So I should start this by saying that kids love me, which you can see in the picture below. Before I left my host family we went to Antigua for dinner. It was my first time in the city at night and it was amazing, it was also my first time at Pollo Campero, which is the super popular fried chicken chain here.

Below are pictures of the local soccer field that is just around the corner from our house, my preffered method of transit on dirt roads and the view from our bedroom window of the local women in their trajes carrying tons of stuff on their heads.

Lizzy and I had breakfast on the roof this morning and were able for the first time to see the volcano that looms in the distance. I’m not entirely sure of its name, but it was nice to see the top of it this morning. We just got back to our town this past week and are in the process of putting our home together. We still don’t have any furniture aside from our bed, so we have been using it as our dining table, breakfast nook and couch. We are hoping to change that this week and will be shopping for chairs, shelves, pots and pans. We did buy knives the other day and were fortunate to buy some of the sharpest ones available. I say this because as we were taking them home one cut through the newsprint it was wrapped in, through my back pack, my sweatshirt and poked me in the arm through my shirt.
Saturday we went on an exploratory walk of our village, which is made up of a large valley with some 18,000 people spread over 10-15 square miles. We ended up going about 10 km roundtrip and ended up in another village on the other side of the valley. We are a bit of a rarity here and we would watch men and women hard at work tending to their corn, stacking wood or gathering feed just stop and stare at us. The men stacking wood were a little more subtle and acted like they weren’t staring until we passed and then couldn’t hear the sounds of wood stacking until we were out of earshot. Along the way took in the amazing views of our new home; rolling hills covered in corn, wheat, oats and occasionally some trees. We did encounter a number of unfriendly dogs that were much less subtle with the attention they paid us, but were easily warded off with a swing of my umbrella or a rock tossed in their direction. (I guess it would be wise to explain the dog situation here before anyone thinks of me as unfriendly to our furry friends. Dogs here are basically large scavenging animals that roam the streets day and night in search of anything edible, though it is not uncommon to see them swallowing plastic bags. Though timid for the most part, some can become quite aggressive and rabies is quite common throughout the country, hence the additional rabies shots and boosters we are required to have.) I did buy a slingshot here, which is the preferred method of locals for dealing with the unfriendly animals.
Saturdays and Sundays are the days for soccer in our town and we watched two games on Saturday. Originally I had considered joining a team in our town as a means of integration into the community but after watching how hard the men play and also learning that no outsiders are allowed to play in the local league, I have changed my mind. We watched in amazement as the men in town would run full speed into each other creating some of the worst contact sounds I’ve ever heard. I think I will enjoy being a spectator instead of a player.