buses, sailboat and lanchas!

Our first long weekend has come and gone (this is just the beginning folks…we are blesses with a load of long weekends this year!).

Brian, Maggie and I decided to go to Rio Dulce this weekend, as it was Maggie's last weekend in Guatemala and she hadn't been and neither had I! We were all to take the bus Friday afternoon and arrive late on Friday...around noon, Maggie messages me: see you in Rio...my friend is going by helicopter...and invited me. haha, so we were down to 2 for our bus adventure.

After some phone calls and lots of help from Hilda, Brian and I were on the world's oldest Greyhound type bus, bound for Rio Dulce. We were both open to this being our final hours of life... but made it through alive and well!

Once there we got to our hotel for the night, a cute little floating hotel called Backpackers. It's actually quite a neat place and sponsors something called Casa Guatemala. From what I gather, it is an orphanage of sorts.

Saturday morning we called our parent's to let them know that we were indeed still alive and then set out on our Sailboat adventure. Maggie had decided she wanted to sleep on a sailboat…so we did. Mike..our best friend for the following 36hours, picked us up at the grocery store and took us to his boat...we sailed around, swam, went to Livingston- a Caribbean style town, played cards read etc. Mike's secret: he LOVES romantic comedies! haha so we settled in to watch Ever After (I made it about 20 minutes in).

The next day we went to some hot springs and to visit some nearby caves.

Then we stopped at Texan Bay...a marina owned by this Texan man...hilarious! His accent... his everything was just so out of the blue...he was perfectly crude yet charming...not really. Anyway, we had lunch and waited out a storm. From there we went to a hotel called Hacienda Tijax where we had a little cabana dna said goodbye to our friend Mike (after we ordered pizza and ate it by the pool, of course). We also met this mother/daughter duo. Amber, who is nine, was born in Zimbabwe, lived in England and is now travelling... she was glad to whisk Brian away and be entertained. Finally I joined them in the pool and saved Polly pocket from an untimely death!

Monday morning we hung around the hotel then boated into town to buy our bus tickets home...we took a much better, less sketchy bus and had air-conditioning and a movie for our 6hour ride... yet still only paid 60Q- about 7.50$. Oh Guatemala, how I love thee!

Anyway, back at school now, must go plan some stuff and, you know...do my job. Enjoy the pictures!

Beach Weekend!!!

photos of my class!

Surf house, games and sunshine

So we made it triumphantly through our first week of classes! the kids were great,I was EXHAUSTED come Friday night, but in good spirits. We had a calm night with some chinese take out and a movie.

On Saturday morning, my alarm went off at 645...(which is an hour and 15minutes later than it goes off Mon-Fri.) and I dressed for the beach!!!! My favourite thing in the world to do! So we (Brian, Amy, Ryan, tom and I) drove up to the surf house- i have posted pictures of this place before). We arrived slightly past nine... the other 2 car loads of people werent too far behind.

It was a great time! We hung out in the pool and hamaks. Did some school work (we really did...it's shocking really). The owners of the place are awesome people and also surfers. We watched them and Tom and Ryan (teachers at Inter) surf. One of the owners lives in the UK most of the time now, he and his daughter and ex-wife were there (the still work together and vacation with Casey but are not together... they are AMAZING is what they are-- Becky, the mom is English and she moved back so James went to be close to his baby). Anyway... they were all there as well so we had a full house. Dinner is served family style there and it was BBQ, a big hit with all of these North Americans! we were pretty happy! We played the celebrity game at night and it was loads of fun...some pretty random stuff got put in the basket but we made a go of it!

We came back on Sunday afternoon and went to Pricemart to get some supplies. Brian and I tried to plug in our new stove but to no avail..we were pretty bumed that we couldn
We also have no hot water...and I am quite annoyed with that...cause cold showerd SUCK and if I am getting up at 530am and plan on showering it WILL NOT BE COLD! It just wouldn
I know I promised pictures..but again, I do not have my camera here at school and so can not upload them. I will try to remember tomorrow...if not whenever we get the internet at home it will be much easier!

Anyway. my kids are in spanish class and I have some copies etc. to do to get ready for my afternoon.

Hope all is well oxox

Day one of year two...done!

Well the first day of school has come and gone again... it was very busy but not too chaotic. Only 17 of my 22 kids showed up, so that was nice to ease them in and manage ALL of the stuff they brought. They have all these supplies which need to be given to the art teacher to me and to the spanish teacher...makes for ALOT of bags of kids stuff. The kids who don't put their name on it make me mad! but that only happened to 2 kids...and I caught them coming out of their school bags...phew!

Other than that the day went well. The new principle wasn't aware of how LONG the Guatemalan national anthem...so his 20 minutes assembly went a little long as the anthem itself is close to 8. But it worked out!

My kiddos from last year were thrilled to see me on yard duty and told me all about their summers. THey were happy that I did not stay in Canada for ever! They also say hello to my parents- say hello to your fathers Miss. (in spanish the word for parents is the same as for father...padres... so yes.)

After school Brian and I went to the grocery store, I developed some pictures for my Star of the Week poster...when i told the kids that I was start of the week this week they were NOT happy and felt very robbed of the experience. But I need to show them how it's done...no? Silly children!

After the grocery store we went to (re)join the gym.

All in all it was a good day! I have some pictures of my class- it's pretty!!! but they aren't uploaded yet so I will try to post them another day.

Hope all is well! xo