Back to nature and interesting weather patterns

Friday night, I spent the night at a little nature retreat called the Earth Lodge. As the name suggests, it is a hippy outdoorsy place with lots of foreigners, escaping various stressors of their everyday lives. However, it had an impact on me because it was in a tiny village called Aldea El Hato. This place is WAY smaller than my usual village, Parramos, and hardly even has real roads. Also, the natural landscape in El Hato is amazing. It was really beautiful and hilly. I slept in a cabin and went hiking through the hills in the morning. I got lost in the woods, until two helpful dogs who lived at the Earth Lodge showed up in the forest to guide me back home. Phew...lucky!

Guatemala has an incredible natural beauty, varied with volcanoes, mountains, beaches, forests, lakes, and everything else you could possibly think of. However, the people who live in small villages like El Hato dont have the resources to maintain it, and many times a beautiful lake will be littered with diapers and plastic bags and cigarette butts. Maybe when you live in a place so gorgeous your whole life you stop appreciating its beauty. At any rate, the government here has programs it is implementing to clean up Guatemala and encourage more tourism.

Unfortuantely, we have hit the rainy season yet again. The rains last year lasted from June (when I got here) to October. Since then, we have had about 4 months straight of sunshine and dust. But, alas, two days ago it became obvious that the rains had returned. So, from here on out, I will be getting up earlier to finish errands in the morning, because 2pm will bring an inevitable rain shower every single day, on schedule, like a clock.
Here are picts of the Earth Lodge and El Hato.

Semana Santa (the holy week)

April 6-13 was the most important week for the Catholics here in Guatemala. It was the holy week, or the days leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The people here make big ¨carpets¨ out of a special type of dyed sand. These carpets of sand are all over the streets in intricate designs, and almost every day procesions pass through them. The carpets represent different events that happened in the walk to the cross. The processions represent this sacred journey as well, and some people actually carry large crosses and coffins of Jesus. The idea is that people participating in the procession will experience some of the hardship that Jesus felt when he was about to be crucified. I was told by some local people in Parramos that other villages actually choose a live volunteer to be "Jesus" and tie him up to a cross, but the processions I saw werent quite so intense. The processions I saw included people dressed up as Romans with weapons, followers of Jesus (in purple), huge elaborate coffins of Jesus with Mary following close behind, and many random people. There was a special mass on Easter, which everyone in the village attended.

At the orphanage, the caregivers were given vacations during this week. So, guess who was in charge of all the special needs kids! Actually, I was put in charge of coordinating the other volunteers and high schoolers that were put in charge of directly caring for them, which was no picnic. But, it was a great week, and we got out to see the processions and participate in the carpet-making. It was very important to me that my kids, with all their needs, were not left out of these very important cultural and religious ceremonies.

Another Job Change (and the ten-month mark)

So here's what happened... there was a local Guatemalan teacher working in a different classroom in the school, and she wasn't getting along so well with her class. Therefore, she was switched to my class to see if this would work out better. Not the greatest of circumstances, of course, but I am honestly happy that there is a local teacher in my classroom. It guarantees that changes will stick, and she can hopefully continue some of the programs that I have started after I am gone. One challenge of this place is that when volunteers come and go, the things they worked on don't last. I have been training her, but now have begun supporting the special needs kids in more indirect ways. I have been doing all of their annual goals and plans, so that there are decisive plans when I leave that the new teacher can follow. I have also been working on more administrative/social work tasks, such as their living placements within the orphanage and outside, their work opportunities, coordinating their caregivers, etc. It has been kind of neat, and I think this type of work makes a big difference in their lives.

It is weird being a 10-month volunteer. The mentality of many of the directors has changed towards me...they respect my ideas now, but at the same time understand that I cant carry them out all the way since I am leaving. Also, my mentality has changed a little. It is like that theory of "senioritis" that we all say we have the last semester of school. I am still working, but I am thinking alot about what is going to happen next, and losing some motivation. I am getting pretty tired in general, so I will be taking fair amount of trips in the next few weeks to distract myself.

P.S. I threw a pool party for my special needs kids last week!!!

Things I´m learning...

So I´ve been making a point lately to learn more cultural things about Guatemala, since living in the orphanage sometimes hinders my connection with the outside world. I definately learn alot of new things innately just by living here, but I have wanted to pick up a few classes just to make sure I don´t miss out on anything. I´ve been learning to make the designs that the Mayan women wear on their clothes using a type of crosstitch and special patterns. I took a (very) introductory salsa class. Now that my Spanish is better, I´ve been attempting to read the local newspaper a couple times a week. I´ve been collecting more Latin music on my IPod from various sources. I´ve been trying to cook new dishes when the money isn´t too low to buy ingredients.

Last weekend, a Guatemalan friend who works with me invited me and another volunteer, Lauren, to her house to make tamales. I had no idea it was such an involved process. The ingredient list: Tomatoes, two types of dried chiles, red bell peppers, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, cloves, whole pimentos, oil, corn flour, water, chicken, leaves from banana trees. It took about 8 hours to do the whole thing, in which time we hung out with her family- all four generations of it, in fact. It was probably the best day Ive had here yet!

More of my kids with special needs!

Pictures of my class and students

Courtesy of Mom and Dad and their Snapfish site haha!

Mon and Dad in Guatemala

When my parents came to visit, we visitied the market in Chichi, Lake Atitlan, and Monterrico. Afterwards, we visited the house and they got to meet all of my kids. It was really nice having them here!!