One year

One year ago this weekend I was in a tiny, freezing town in the middle of Iowa, accepting a job to move to Guatemala. Its hard for me to believe that it was really a year ago because life has changed so much since then that I feel like I have learned a lifetime of lessons. Aubrey and I celebrated our one year anniversary of knowing each other by going out to dinner at a very Guatemalan restaurant called KaKao. We laughed about how crazy we felt while we were waiting outside hotel rooms for interviews, walking through feet of snow in business suits, and turning down jobs to the Middle East one year ago. We recalled the conversation we had about possibly being roommates and what grades we might teach and who else would be coming down to Guatemala. We were amazed with how we thought life was going to be like here and what it really is like. And we hoped that the next year of life wouldn't pass us by. Even though we both have no idea where life is taking us next-- whether its back to our home states in the US, a new state in the US, a new country in Latin America, or a new country elsewhere in the world-- at this moment, here is now and life is good.

Happy Anniversary, Miss Aubrey!

This week at Inter we celebrated our 100th day of school. ONE HUNDRED DAYS?! That means only 80 more? Wow. We played a lot of fun games that dealt with the number one hundred such as:

1. Draw a picture of what you look like today and what you will look like in 100 years (a lot of us will be in wheelchairs, walking with canes, wearing glasses, and a few of us, represented with tombstones, will be dead)
2. Write 100 words as quickly as you can
3. Fill out a 100s chart as fast as you can
4. Make a necklace out of 100 cheerios and yarn
5. Complete the following sentence, "On the fist day of school I could not ___________ but on the 100th day, I can!" (most students can now multiply, write in cursive, say all their classmates names, and "do cool science experiments")
6. Grab a handful of rice out of a bowl. The person closest to 100 grains wins (the closest, btw, was 146 grains. Most students grabbed several hundred grains; I guess we'll have to work on estimation again)
7. Bring in 100 items of anything and have a partner count to make sure you brought 100 (one girl brought in 100 rose petals, one boy brought 100 hole punched pieces of paper, and another girl brought in 100 buttons sewed to a hat)

Each time a student won a contest, they got to take a handful of candies from the prize jar. All the kids got to have a handful in the end but it made them work a lot fast when they knew there was crappy Guatemalan gum involved :)

Veggie Burger Success!

Keri and Kurt came back to the city on Friday afternoon and spent Friday and Saturday with us. We went to dinner on Friday night, only to realize that Keri and Kurt were both coming down with some stomach issues. On Saturday we all bummed around in our pajamas until almost 1pm and then started to make veggie burgers from the Earth Lodge cookbook that Keri had purchased the previous week. They. Were. Amazing! The burgers took almost two hours to make but they were so worth it. We took them and some beers to the roof and ate in the sunshine. We then headed to the mall to see a VIP movie called "Red Social" (Social Network in English, you know, the movie about facebook) only to find that it had been sold out in the VIP theater. So we sucked it up and paid the whole $4 to see the movie in a regular theater. It was actually a relatively enjoyable film that surprised most of us and even made me reconsider using facebook in the first place. After that we headed home, watched many a youtube video, and went to bed. Keri and Kurt left for the airport this morning at 7 and are probably mid-flight to Seattle as I type. I'm so happy they were able to come here and see a new region on their quest to see the world. They told me they loved Guatemala so much they plan to come back someday. I'll see if I can get them to write a reflection or something about their time and post it on here *hint, hint! ;)

In the back of a very small, almost clown car-like, cab :)

Now for some exciting, non-school related news.

1. First my friend Tessa who I've gone to school with since we were 11, is coming to Guatemala in two weeks! Having so many visitors not only makes me very happy, it also makes the time flyyyy (which I guess is a good thing because it means you're having fun, right?)
2. I got a new phone! And its a big girl phone! Like one that has a keyboard and music and internet and stuff. Not that many of you can actually call me but in case there was an emergency, my new number is (502) 5633-7602. The best part of this new phone is that its a Blackberry which means if anyone else out there has one, we can BBM for free! I have already been too giddy with amazement when my brother and I can send each other pictures from Paris to Guatemala instantly. The phone itself was free and the plan is a little less than $30 a month; totally worth it.
3. Okay, this next one is something that I am so intensely excited about that I probably mention it to anyone who is willing to listen at least three times a day. SHAKIRA IS COMING TO GUATEMALA! In April! And we are going!!! Aubrey, Katie, Makenzie, Jessica, and I are all planning on going to the Tigo Music Festival on April 9th in the city which is an all day, outdoor concert with other Latin American bands such as this duo where one never takes off his sunglasses and the other wears an entirely too tight of shirt and yet somehow seduce adult women to dance with their hands shaped as a heart, the Latino Sting, and of course these guys who practiced English for weeks to say a few sentence in their video that displays their signature singing tactic of yelling. Mostly, Shakira is coming and that's all that really matters :)

Well, I think that is all I have for you today but if something else exciting happens, like the superbowl or something, I'll consider reposting in the near future.