Piñatas with 90 kids is not a good idea

# of bugs I have squished this week that crawl out of the little holes in my table and have now learned to fly and jump- 11

# of pounds of flour used in the first two days of piñatas in class- 9

# of balloons used- 116

# of earthquakes last week- 2

# of hours traveled to go to English speaking church- 5

# of days left in Guatemala- 135

# of days have been in Guatemala- 675

# of days till my Aunt and Uncle come to visit- 5

Price of really nice hair cut- $6.75 (expensive for where I am)

Aw Man! Not sure if I already mentioned this, but where I throw my trash, the hill, they closed it by putting a fence in front of it. Imagine you got no more trash service and you gotta figure out what to do with all your trash. Tough huh! Thankfully I can burn anything that is safe to burn, which actually is very little of my trash. Organic stuff I just toss into my bushes. Need to find a trash option because we got some trash piling up on the patio waiting to be “taken out”.

I made some brownies for the cooks at work because the guys weren’t being very nice to them. Well, I don’t think they have ever had brownies. They told me to stir more and to add an extra egg and baking soda and then my “cake” won’t be so flat.

(Tamara, Marsha and I at her going away party)

Old Guatemalan Proverb- When seatbelts aren’t not available (basically always), by putting your heavy backpack on your lap, not only does it keep you from sliding as much, but it can also help keep ya warm.

Sometimes Bringing US Culture to Guatemala Just Does Not Work- I was in the office last week and my coworker said “I am stressed, my back is tense and hurts” and I told him he should do yoga, jokingly. Well, he went to the internet and looked up yoga under google images and it pulled up some very typical and complicated yoga positions. So he gets on the floor and tries to do them and it was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time.

Art Class This Week- I had class twice this week since I missed the week before and so we spent both days making piñatas. You know where you blow up a balloon and wrap it in newspaper dipped in a flour and water mixture. Well, easier said than done. Tuesday was an aboslute disaster! The teachers wanted to do it as a school together and so that meant all 90kids together. First blowing up the balloons, of course, some popped cause they played around with them. Then I gave them an explanation on how to do it. We had three stations with newspaper and paste (milk as the kids called it) set up. Well, the activity lasted about 7min. There was paste everywhere. So I told the kids to go stand by their balloons and I started out saying ¨I am going to be honest, I am frustrated with you guys¨ and some little kid yelled ¨What?!¨in a shocked voice. I couldn´t help but smile. I told them they were wearing more paste on their clothes than what was on their balloons and that I thought they were more mature and could handle this project but maybe we will just spend the rest of the year coloring if thats what they want. I must admit, I have never heard all those kids be so quiet. I told them they had one more chance. I came back Thursday, the teacher and I regulated the paper and paste station and the project went much better since we did it by class instead of the whole school. This coming week we have one more layer to put on, white paper, and then the following week we have to decorate the balloons.

English Church- I got up at 445am on Sunday morning to travel 5hrs to the capital, from Coban, to go to an English church someone told me about. This was the first time I had ever gone into a church where I did not know a single person by myself. It actually was not that bad. I can´t even tell you how good of a feeling it was to go to that service. Sing songs I know (kinda), listen to a sermon I can relate to in English. It was worth the trip.

So..We Had an Earthquake- About a week and half ago there was an earthquake that I have heard anywhere from 5.8 to 6.8 here in Guatemala. I was on my patio and I heard noise like someone was banging on a metal drum, then it got louder and closer and I started looking around and I could see my house shaking and water was splashing out of the bucket and I could hear everything moving.. But I couldn´t feel it. So I stepped about 2ft to the right ¨ahh yea, I can feel it here¨ It was somewhat small where we are. Thing is, I guess it got International CNN attention which we found funny becuase I don´t think anyone even died. However, the hurricane in Oct of 2005, during training, something like 1700 people died and it was basically completely overlooked because there had been an earthquake in Pakistan that same week.

Funniest Moment of the Week- I was on a bus on my way to visit another volunteer´s site. This lady was walking her horse who was carrying a load of grass. Well the horse got spooked by the bus and she had to let go of the rope and it began to run in front of the bus. Then the bus accidently drove over the rope of the horse and the horse nearly tripped and started to run even faster. So the bus helper jumped off the bus and began to chase the horse trying to grab the rope. So it was confused horse, then little Guatemalan man, then the concerned bus. Then out comes this dog who starts chasing the man that is running after the horse. We are going down the hill and so now the order is... freaked out horse, out of breath bus helper, scary dog out to get the bus helper and then bus full of people now laughing at all that is happening in front of us. Eventually the dog went back home, the bus helper got back on the bus and the horse was on his way running to the Kentucky Derby. About 2km. later we passed the horse who of course had found his way home (all animals here know where they live ironically) and he was eating the grass on his back.

You know your baking has gone wrong when your cookie is titled ¨Peanut Butter Nugget¨ but thye come out flatter than pancakes.

Carrot Chips- One of my women´s groups was taught how to make carrot chips. You slice the carrot into strips, then let it sit in sugar for about 10min to extract the water. Then you cook for about 20min in that same mixture to extract more water. Then you fry it for about 10min to make it into a chip. Put the fried carrots in a towel, tie a string around the towel to close it and then swing the towel around in circle to get the grease out of the chips and onto the towel. Then let them cool, package them and wah’la! You got ¨Carotinas¨. However, the whole time they were giving the kids the carrot chips because they were told that its a healthy snack and great since kids don´t like carrots, but they will eat these. I am no scientist and could easily be wrong. But something that is boiled in sugar and then fried, can that really still have any nutritional value left in it?