Guatemala 2011: Nearing the End

I cannot believe that today is already Thursday! I knew going into this last week here in Guatemala that it would fly by but I cannot believe how quickly it flew. A few minutes ago I finished putting together the gifts I will give my kids and organizing all the of the school supplies that will go to my homeroom teacher. It was a little bitter sweet getting everything wrapped up. I must admit though I will be glad to hand off my supplies to someone else because lugging them around for the past 2 1/2 weeks was getting old. As I was going through my supplies and looking over some of the first lessons I did with my class I began to think about how it all started. Teaching here in Guatemala has been one of those experiences where you just have to jump right in and don't have much time to think about everything that is occuring. Today, though, as I taught my last lesson I began to realize what an experience it has been. I have learned so much not only professionally but also personally. Tomorrow is our last day at the school and I know it will be a rough one for all of us. It is a tough situation knowing that you will probably never see your students again. Also knowing the tough places your students come from you worry about what will happen to them. They are at a place where they have the opportunity to succeed so your hope is is that they will take that path. Tomorrow will also be rough because after school we will go to an AIDS orphanage in a town just outside of Guatemala City. Giuseppi (the schools founder) wants to take us there so we can play with the kids, talk with them and just brighten their day a little. It will be another humbling experience.

On a lighter note on Tuesday night our host mom Astrid took us to see the Harry Potter movie. She assured us that it would be in English with Spanish subtitles so two of my roommates and I agreed to go. When we got to the movies and Astrid was buying our tickets she double checked to make sure the movie would be in English, the man assured her that it would be so we went on our way. The opening clip starts and the characters are speaking in....Spanish. We couldn't all help but laugh. There were no English subtitles so the only parts that were easy to understand were the action scenes. Since it was a 9 o'clock movie and we didn't understand most of it, my roommate Amanda and I ended up falling asleep. Astrid apologized many times after we got out of the movie. We assured her it was fine, after all we are in Guatemala!

This last weekend here is looking like it will be a pretty busy one. On Saturday our host brother Pablo is suppose to take us the Mayan ruins that are about 2 hours outside of the city. Saturday night our host mom and dad want to take us on a tour of the city since we have really only seen the parts that are not really historic. Then on Sunday we are going to go to the black sand beaches! Our family has a house near the beach so we plan on spending most of the day there Sunday. After that it will be A LOT of packing and then leaving Monday morning. Still so crazy that we are at that point.