Casa Guatemala - part (I can´t remember)

Well I nearly left the other week but I´ve decided to stay on and give the place another chance. Its more the volunteers and the children that need a chance. I actually love the basic way of living - like camping but actually in a house!

So in the meantime here are a few pictures of the volunteers and the children.....
(View of the Rio Dulce river from the Casa Guatemala quay, two of the volunteers and Lisa (an autistic orphan; some of the volunteers; me and Sabela on the boat on the way back to the hotel for a night partying; the children working on bracelets in my classroom; a very cheeky but good child; after playing a blindfolded game with some of the children; Bruce Lee and Van Damme gang; swimming in Rio Dulce with the small children; volunteers supervising the swimming activity; me and Danielle (can you believe the mum has left her behind at an orphanage whilst she starts a new life in Denmark - she´s left behind 3 kids at the orphanage, for good) .

Casa Guatemala - Part 3

Well its been a good and bad few weeks. Good in that every Wed and Sat night has been a riot and good fun with lots of bum twisting to Reggaton music. The bad is that the fun volunteers have come to the end of their 3 or 6 month period and have left leaving serious control freaks behind. The classes of Manual Art and Sewing are going OK with the children wanting to do bracelets the whole time or drawing (most of the kids even in the upper years are still tracing pictures then colouring them in), and the younger kids are fascinated by playing with balloons rather than trying out anything else different.

The kids are lovely outside of class, but inside a lot of them are little rotters. The Guatemalan teachers use a different punishment cane for each crime so the rascals know that they can get away with murder with the volunteers as we dont punish in the same way.

On the animal side I think I have a pet rat above my bed as in the morning there are lots of droppings and plant pods he has discarded. We came back the other morning from dancing (1am) to find 4 cows on the terrace outside our house complete with 4 gigantic deposits - lovely! The generator has broken down again so until US$1000 is found for the part it is likely we will be without water for 2 weeks, so for the last 2 nights Ive donned my swimming costume and had my shower in the pouring rain.

I am now off for a weeks rest (working from 7am until 6.30 and sometimes from 4am until 8pm 7 days a week, deserves a rest I think)!