AMOR

The day before Valentines' Day we just made crafts & set up for: "Dia del cariño."

I hope you will notice the foto on the left of the girl who was in "time out" and just happened to be trapped by the ladder. 























The next day, as almost everyday I didn't know quite what to expect.... 

The children had breakfast as usual. Instead of going back to our classrooms for a lesson, they divided up the whole school with Catholic children and then non catholic. The Catholic children went to mass and the rest were in a classroom watching a movie. 

The Catholic children walking to receive their ashes for Ash Wednesday.

Every week in Antigua during lent a church is picked to offer a scene or "wake" for Jesus' life. The Cathedral close to our school happened to be the first church selected this year. They will also have processions on Sunday throughout all of Antigua. 

Here is a selfie of (L-R) Emilse & Sophia who are student teachers & Salem the lead teacher.   

After church, we marched back to school and collected the rest of our class and had treats. Some parents dropped off snacks and all the teachers brought in a little something to enjoy. We had a great dance party and all the children shared their personal hand made cards from their parents. (They did not pass out individual valentines). It looked like some of the older children around Antigua did pass out Valentines, but hard to tell what is truly practiced. 

One thing I do know is that the love at this school is tangible. What I love in the Latina culture is that they use the word amor very often. Teachers often say "si mi amor." Mother's often also refer to their children as mi hija/ mi hijo. (My son or my daughter). They combine the two words very quickly to just be mija or mijo. 

Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second one is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22: 37-39)

“Ama al Señor tu Dios con todo tu corazón, con todo tu ser y con toda tu mente” le respondió Jesús. Este es el primero y el más importante de los mandamientos. El segundo se parece a este: “Ama a tu prójimo como a ti mismo” Mateos 22: 37-39

Time Traveling Teacher

Sometimes when I travel, I feel as if I am really time traveling. Unfortunately I don't have Al from Quantum leap  to help guide me. The reason why I feel this way is you see machinery or practices being used that are obsolete in the U.S.

I have hit the 1.5 year on my sabbatical and something recently snapped and I miss teaching and am eager to return back to the classroom with students. Luckily, as a teacher, it is pretty easy to go to schools to volunteer. For my last semester away, I am spending 6 weeks in Guatemala and then 3 months in Colombia. I am taking language school and helping out at a place called Nuestros Ahijados.

Their schedule is 7:30-3. Which is a really long day in Guatemala. Most public schools run from either 7:30-12:30, or 1-6. The children are fed both breakfast and lunch.

Here is a picture of my kindergarten/ preschool class

For breakfast, they usual have ATOL (or a porridge drink) with bread, pancakes, or something carb based. 

We usually do one lesson in the morning, and the children have a lot of free time to play. This is a perfect example of having to adjust any expectation I may have had. Although the children seem to have too much unstructured play time, they also seem to get along better.                             
                                 

                                                 


When I come to school everyday, it reminds me of my time in Africa. The children always run to grab and kiss you with such sweet affection. 

Here is the teacher: Salem. She is only 23. In Guatemala teachers can start as early as 19. They go straight out from high school to a 1 year internship. They technically could be teaching the next year. It is crazy to think this is her 5th year teaching when at 23 I was just starting my first year. She also taught in a school for the deaf so she teaches her students sign language. 

  

Salem with 2 student teachers.

There is no copy machine and never seems to be much urgency in Guatemala (or many Latin American countries). On my first day, when she handed me an activity to copy, my first response was sure, where is the copy machine? There are 20 students in our class she just wanted me to make 20 copies of the activity in their journals. Which is what they are doing in this picture. 

I love the way the teachers still sit at their desk. This is part of the time traveling concept. When I teach in the U.S, I never seem to have time to sit at my desk. In fact, a lot of teachers (including me) ended up removing their desk from their room because it was a waste of space. 

I don't think I will ever be able to capture this beautiful campus. They have a preschool through 6 grade and a clinic that helps service all the malnourished children in the community. 

The view from our classroom 

Every Friday the school passes out food to local families. 

La Semana Santa

Of my whole trip, La Semana Santa was one of the events I was looking forward to celebrating the most. I arrived to Antigua on a Monday basically 2 weeks before Easter. Ever since I have met my Family de Momma Sandra, I usually book it to Lake Atitlan to be with them. But this time I really wanted to experience some of the processions in Antigua as well. Every Sunday during lent, I learned that there are processions in Antigua with their famous carpets or "alfombras". 

When I first arrived just seeing the way all the doors, windows, and street corners were adorned with flowers and purple was exciting. 

I absolutely love this sign too! As far as I could tell, these signs were up throughout all of Lent.

I love how the carpets really are constructed by a whole community of people helping.

Notice the rope in this picture to the left. After the procession there were hordes of people coming to collect the leftover flowers.

Look at the huge bouquets of flowers in the bottom picture. 

From start to finish it was like a well oiled machine as far as the clean up process was concerned. As I walked home, there were plenty of other streets that were still decorating as the procession started around 11:30 and finished at sunset around 6:30. 

Back in San Pedro de La Laguna 

There were basically 2 processions a day starting Wednesday morning through Saturday night. In San Pedro they only built alfombras on Friday morning. (I think they did alfombras Wed - Thursday of Holy Week in Antigua.)

This is my teacher, Vicenta and her daughter Wendy to the left. 

Johanna the last girl is one of my sisters I am living with. 

I loved these noisemakers that were at the beginning of every procession. 

The flower (above) is primarily made up of old corn on the cobs

There were lots of alter stations set up throughout the center of town where they would stop and recite various scripture readings and prayers.  

The picture to the left is of most of the girls in my family walking arm & arm which is very common & I adore. The bottom is one of  "Papa Luch" who has a major role volunteering with the church so he was in almost every procession.  

Here are 3 shots from my favorite carpet

There was a cute Australian couple also staying with my family and they had the great idea to have a hunt for candy. So, on Easter morning we woke up early and went to a 6 am church service. We hid the candy for the family which was really entertaining to watch them scavenge. And then traditionally families all go to the beach for a big picnic. 

John 8:12 "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."