Day #8, Chichicastenango

Today, our last day in Guatemala, we went to Chichicastenango, an indigenous area in the Guatemala Highlands. Students bargained and bought souvenirs for family, friends and themselves. Chichicastenango is a explosion of sounds, colors, people, crowds, smells, hawkers, tourists, and more. It's the largest indigenous open-air market in Central America.

Day #7, Saturday afternoon in Antigua

After the bowling excursion, we spent the afternoon in Antigua. Students went to the local open-air market, hung out at the hotel, or visited some of the city's cultural sites.

Before our Safe Passage Good-bye Dinner, the students wrote lots of thank-you letters and post cards to the numerous relatives, friends, neighbors, and civic organizations that supported our trip. We'll mail them from the U.S. to be sure that they arrive.

After dinner the team posed for a group photo in the hotel courtyard at about 10:30 p.m.

Day # 7, Bowling Excursion with Safe Passage students on Saturday

On Saturday morning we left the hotel at 8 a.m. to walk to a rented chicken bus that would take us to Guatemala City. Buses are only allowed on the perimeter roads of Antigua, hence our morning walk.

  

We picked up the students at Safe Passage in Guatemala City and then headed to the bowling alley. It was a wonderful time because it was fun to teach the children how to bowl and we were able to fully integrate the two groups. There were two Safe Passage students and two CE students at each lane.

The majority of the children had never bowled so they had no idea how to roll the ball, keep score, take two turns at a time, or score the game. In some lanes, students just took turns rolling the ball down the lane while others played real games.

We heard balls clunking everywhere, music blaring, lots of laughter, and students excitedly waiting in line for free popcorn. After an hour of bowling, we shared pizza, soda, ice cream together and just hung out chatting for a while. The Safe Passage children clung to the CE students and really engaged with us. A very successful morning.

There are more photos on our team Flickr site. Many of these are from Team A, the Spelling Bee group, because I'm part of that team. 

Some of the first attempts at bowling while waiting

for the lanes to be set up. Not quite sure how it works...

 Inputting the names to prepare for play.

Lunch time after bowling.

Popsicles after lunch.

This student and a few others at the table loved  playing games on Parker's iPhone.











Ben received one of our team's "Kid magnet" award
because he seemed to attract lots of friends.
Here we are on the way back to Safe Passage from bowling and this little boy said, "This was the best day of my life!"

A successful excursion all around.

Day # 6, Friday, Pacaya Volcano hike

Today we hiked Pacaya Volcano, one of three active volcanoes in Guatemala. It took about two hours to hike up and about an hour to hike back down. This excursion was an unplanned activity, arranged by Safe Passage because there were no classes today so we couldn't complete our projects.

Pacaya's elevation is 2,522 meters (8,373 ft) and the top is now closed by the officials due to current volcanic activity. I'm not sure of the elevation at our starting point but the guide said we our hike entailed a 600 meter elevation change or almost 2,000 ft.

It was more steep and strenuous than we anticipated but we patiently worked our way up. The guides had frequent breaks along the way and they explained the history, flora, and geological history.

The locals have walking sticks you can rent (five quetzales each, about 60 cents) and there are horses available for a ride up the volcano. The horse handlers are very persistent and they follow you up the trail for the first thirty minutes or so. Good psychology because after those first thirty minutes, we were huffing and puffing.

At the top we posed for photos and explored a bit. The landscape is very barren and covered with tiny hardened lava stones.

The guides brought a bag of marshmallows and cut us marshmallow sticks along the way. While at the top, the students crowded around a steam vent to
 roast them.

We stopped at a rustic picnic area for lunch and then
 hiked back down to the vans. Many of us slept on the vans
on the return trip to Antigua and we were back to the hotel
at about 4:15 p.m.

Some groups went to the market but others hung out at the
hotel due to a major rainstorm.We had dinner at 7 p.m. in Las Palmas restaurant and
returned to Hotel Casa Antigua at about 8:30.

Tomorrow can sleep in because we don't leave until 8:30 a.m.
for our bowling excursion with the two Safe Passage classes.

Day # 5, Camino Seguro, 2nd day of CE team projects

Thursday, June  27, Second day of the CE Team projects 

Today our projects were reversed and the Spelling Bee group started out at the Escuelita (younger children) followed by doing their project at the Reinforcement Center (older students) in the afternoon. The Olympics group did their project in the morning and then went to the Escuelita in the afternoon to help with yard maintenance.

Our volunteering involved helping out in the kitchen and with maintenance. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes, such as preparing food for about 600 students/ staff daily, washing dishes, cleaning classrooms, yard work and more. Our team helped out with yard work, raking, sweeping, weeding, and picking up pieces of glass from the playground, chopping fifteen heads of lettuce, washing pots and pans, cutting meat into bite-size pieces for about one hundred pre-schoolers and more.

Day # 4, Safe Passage projects, Wednesday in Guatemala

Today we started our team projects. Team A spent the morning at the main building and the afternoon in the Escuelita and Team B did the opposite. Our projects are a Mini-Olympics competition, including academic content, and a bilingual Spelling Bee competition.

There have been changes to our schedule so today each team completed their project with only one class. We also helped to clean up the playground at the Escuelita and work in the kitchen.

Here are some photos from the team projects.

Spelling Bee project - Team A

Olympics Project - Team B

 Three-legged race