Today was the science fair and we still hadn't gotten Cole's experiment done. We packed up all the equipment, took it to school, and put it on the top level balcony and prayed for some sun!! Our prayers were answered and we got just enough sun to cook the hot dog before the rain started!! We would run upstairs and go through the middle of a class to check it every 45 minutes or so. Luckily it was Teacher Deanna's classroom and she was very supportive of Cole doing his own experiment. As we later found out at the fair, it was mostly the parents projects instead of the kids. (Chris' coworkers told him that the maids are the smartest people in Guatemala because they are the ones that do all of the kids homework!!) Call me a lazy parent if you want, but I think the kids need to do their own work so that they can learn!! Oh, well. The kids did really well on their presentations. Morgan even did hers in Spanish!
(Morgan, Andres, Mindy, and Rudy)
(Cole and his Spanish teacher, Teacher Mariela, giving his presentation)
At recess today, Cole got hit in the face with the soccer ball. Luckily he didn't break his glasses...or his nose. He was pretty shaken up though. After a few minutes he headed back down and was back in the action. He is really enjoying playing soccer now and has lots of friends.
After recess there was a chaotic practice for the parade on Thursday. It is going to be interesting!!
During the dismissal time, Teacher Michelle approached me about teaching again next year. I've kind of been waiting to be asked. I haven't decided if I am going to teach or not. There are a lot of pro's and also some con's. I think the pro's of being with the kids and having interaction out of the house will probably beat out the cons.
Wednesday 8/9/09
A little while back, we were informed that you don't flush toilet paper down the toilets here. I was wondering why there were garbage cans in every bathroom stall!! Apparently the toilet system isn't strong enough to take care of the toilet paper. I wonder how many toilets I have clogged. It's really hard to break a habit that you've been doing for your entire life!!
We had our Club Fair today. Everyone seemed to like the quilts. The kids tied one of my crazy quilts and then finished their "Beehive" quilt. We gave the beehive one to the owners to display in the school.
I am done teaching for over a week! YEAH!! We have the parade tomorrow morning and then no school again until the 21st!! Chris even gets two days off of work next week so we might have to go do something fun.
Thursday 8/10/09
We had the parade today. It was so fun/funny. We didn't know if anybody was going to have any of the boys traditional clothes (the boys don't usually wear the traditional clothes except in some of the smaller towns) so Chris took Cole to a little tourist shop and got him an outfit to wear. I think he was pretty excited to wear it. Morgan was able to borrow a dress from one of the cleaning ladies at the school. It was so nice of her. She had two different outfits but they are so heavy that she had to bring them on separate days since she had to carry them to the school! I was able to borrow a dress from Cole's Spanish teacher. She is pretty tall (for here!) so we thought the dress would fit but it was a little on the short side. Everybody got to see some really white legs!! Laina had to dress up as the national bird, the quetzal, and Alysa had to be the national tree. We had to get a little creative on the costumes. I've had to come up with more costumes here in the past 5 months than I have in my entire life!!
(My little quetzal....definitely not as extravagant as the other parents! Check out the kids behind Laina!!)
We had to go to the school early so that we could have some help getting dressed. We went up to the very top room of the school. There were about 4 other women dressing me and Teacher Deana. I asked her if she felt like she was getting ready for a wedding. Especially since we had to walk down a tiny spiral staircase to show everybody our outfits. It was probably as much fun just trying to get dressed as it was wearing the outfits. One of the ladies told us that when she has to get dressed by herself that she ties the string of her skirt onto a nail in the wall and pulls backwards to get it tight enough. She's the one that let Morgan borrow a dress and that is in the video trying to get me dressed. I need to make her some cookies or something!
We definitely got quite a reaction in the traditional dress. I don't know how many pictures we were asked to be in! Complete strangers were coming up and asking if they could take our pictures.
(Kristina with some of the 4th and 5th graders)
(Cole con sus amigos, Angel y Luis)
(Alysa with her English teacher/my friend, Lily. Lily got to wear some traditional clothes as well.)
The parade was about a block long and they stopped traffic in both directions. I'm sure the cars weren't too happy about that!! There was even an ambulance that had to go off of the road to get through! We started at a gas station and walked to a big convention center called the Gran Karmel. They even had a band come to play. Once we got to the Gran Karmel, they did a few presentations and then we were done. I think that getting the chance to wear the traditional dress was more exciting than the actual parade!
Morgan went to her friends house again after the parade and the other kids and I went home. It was so exciting to go home and have Chris be there along with a couple of guys installing our internet!! YEAH!! It only took them 7 months to get it done!! Chris is happy that he can finally watch (hopefully) football!
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