First day of school...

Today was the first day of school and the kids were even cuter than I thought they would be and the village was even busier than I was expecting. Here is a little recap (and lots of cute pictures of kids) of how the day went.

Janet and I left Pana at 6:30 (SO EARLY) to drive to Camanchaj to get there in time for the opening ceremony (yes I thought of the Olympics every time someone called it that). The students and their parents gathered in front of the school and we had a ceremony for about 30 minutes. I was in charge of carrying in the Guatemala flag during the National Anthem (which lasts for about 5 minutes). It was kinda a big deal to carry the flag... Just saying.

The first picture of the ceremony is from the stage (outside step at the school). Check out the very cute little uniforms the kids are wearing. The second is from the back where I was waiting to carry in the flag (again I'm kinda a big deal in Guatemala).

After the ceremony was over school started. Here are the different classrooms in the school. The first one is Ana's class. They are the youngest kids in the school (think preschool) and are adorable.

This is Mary's classroom. Mary is the first grade teacher and is the one who visited my church in the US when she came to visit her dad who moved to Texas 9 years ago. She is the only teacher who speaks English and is amazing. I can talk to her like I can to my friends back home. She asked me the other day if I wanted to "know her house" which I learned means she wants me to visit her home after school one day. She lives about 10 minutes away from the school in Camanchaj. She is a great friend.

This is Paulina's classroom. She is the Kindergarten teacher. All the classrooms usually have Guatemalan fabric hanging from the ceilings, but we didn't have time to get it hung until this afternoon. I'll post pictures of the finished classrooms once we get them all together.

On Mondays and Tuesdays when the clinic is open these ladies set up these tables and sell food to the patients. The rest of the week is much quieter since the clinic is closed.

This is the view of the playground from the 2nd floor of the school. The classes take turns using the playground during recess. While one class is on the playground the other 2 play around their classrooms.

I played dolls with these first grade girls for awhile. They had several Dora the Explorer dolls. Their favorite thing to do was to sit in my lap and play with my hair. I have noticed that they do that to all of the volunteers. Their hair all looks the exact same, so I think they find our hair fascinating because it is different.

I also learned today that most of the preschool kids have never used a toilet or washed their hands in a sink before. These 2 boys played in the water in the sink until they were soaking wet (post picture). Heather caught a boy peeing by our car and on the way home we talked about how you see moms allow their kids to use the restroom in the middle of the street/market/wherever. Since they are allowed to do it up to this age it is hard to teach them not to do it anymore.

When there are teams working at Salud y Paz these women travel to Camanchaj from Pana to sell their stuff to the mission teams. They have such patience to sit out there all week just hoping that someone will buy something from them. The lady on the right is Cecilia who was the one who brought the screaming prayers to our house the other night.

So one of my projects today was to take a picture of every kid to 1. help the mission team make buttons of all the kids faces to put on their backpacks and 2. to print out and put in their student folders. Here was our system. Janet went into the classrooms and sent the kids out to me to take their picture. I would then take it and show the picture to the kids on my camera. I love how much they love seeing their pictures on my camera. They would sit in my lap and hang all over me while I was taking the pictures. Hence the following pictures. I took a lot of pictures with the kids to then show them. It is maybe my favorite thing to do.

I taught this little boy how to take a picture on my camera and he proceeded to take 23 pictures of the wall of the school. We're photographer buds.

These are some of the kids in the first grade class.

Each class takes their turn brushing their teeth after lunch. Here are a few preschool kids brushing. They brush their teeth then just spit it out on the ground. When I saw them doing it today I laughed and thought about our Colorado trip. (If any MDUMCers are reading this they looked exactly how we probably do when we are brushing our teeth and looking at Pagosa Peak).

I can't remember this little girl's name, but she sat in my lap while I was taking pictures of all the other kids. Beyond precious.

Today was a great day, but I'm not feeling the best. I came home and took my temp (or should I say my nurse roommate did because I couldn't figure out how to read my thermometer) and I have 100.4. I have a lot of work things I need to do on the computer (I was also suppose to sharpen 500 pencils, but the sharpener broke... shoot.) before I go to bed, so I better get started.