Casa Guatemala - part two

Casa Guatemala is so cool. I´m orientador for the Ninas Grandes ie from 13 up to 15 - they are very independent girls who know what tasks they have to do and do it without complaining, they are also hard to strike up conversations with. This is compared to the Ninas Pequenas and the Ninos Peqs who are constantly coming up wanting a hug and asking for my name! The smaller ones have accepted me very very quickly! I´ve also become a big of an experiment for them as they´ve discovered my piggy toe so often when I´m walking around I´ll be stopped by a group of kids wanting to have a look. They also want to look through my glasses!

At the moment I´m not bored of the food but rice and beans are in every meal - breakfast, lunch and dinner. The houses the children are in are full of colourful bunk beds, showers, toilets and electricity. The volunteers house has rats, no electricity, water only between 10am and 8pm and we´ve been warned of snakes and scorpions possibly trying to nest in the house. We are right by the pig sty, have mad cows & chickens going past and a hungry horse trying to come in. The 2nd day there I came out of the shower to find a pig hiding in the kitchen:)

The first two nights I wasn´t disturbed by the rats but last night something ran past my head (I wasn´t sure if it was inside or outside the mosquito net) and the beams connecting all the rooms have rats scuttling past. There are some mini lockers (with padlocks) so my freshly purchased bread from an indigenous family has been locked in there and is so far untouched by rats!

Next week I´m going to be doing a trial run as the needlework and dress making teacher as they´ve seen I´ve got an interest in that so I´m desperately trying to find information on making teddy bears, dress making and scrunchies! Who´d have thought it. I´m also going to making a fabric Twister game for the English teachers can use in teaching body parts and colours at the same time.