A Relaxing Sunday

We arrived safely last night and I enjoyed a wonderful sleep! We share bunk beds and have our own closet with drawers and shelves and an upper shelf for our luggage. The house is absolutely amazing. It is gated in, so the house is completely secure. They have a guard here at all times in case of emergency. Everything is extremely well organized and structured. It has been a fun adventure so far. The people are at all different stages in life, I'm in the middle of the crowd, but am enjoying my time with some of the older volunteers.

We woke up today and had a simple breakfast of cereal, scrambled eggs, and fruit, and got ready for our language lessons. We had an hour Spanish lesson, going over basics and reviewing verbs and conjugation. The two women who run the program are coming back tomorrow for another hour long lesson. I'll have Spanish lessons every Monday. They are also offering one on one tutoring sessions on Wednesday for $20 for 2 hours. I'm think that I'm going to sign up for that, and just get some more conversational practice.

After Spanish lessons, we had orientation where we were introduced to the staff and the different positions that we'll be in. This was quite a wonderful shock for me, because as the director, Angelica, was talking, she started explaining my position as an orphanage for children ages 0-14, some with special needs, that are in a really hard place and need attention, and want a lot of physical contact. She said it is a beautiful place on the outside and the inside, but it is a very difficult placement, and that there is a lot of need for volunteers there. She said that there are also volunteers from other organizations as well, but I am the only one from CCS (cross cultural solutions). So what an amazing surprise. I had prepared myself to work with the elderly, and in the end i get to do what I have been hoping to do all along, work with children! I start tomorrow at 7:30 am. It should be an exciting first day.

The rest of our afternoon was filled with traveling to a mountain close by that had a beautiful look at the whole city. There was the biggest slide that I've ever been on. The kids were so funny going down the slide and running to the top to go down again. I have some pictures of my going down the slide! :) We stopped in on a local soccer game between the Xela team and the Guatemala City team. We stopped and got local ice cream that was amazing, I got strawberry.

We checked out a local gym and walked around some of the streets in the city. I'm looking forward to tomorrow! After our placement we're having Spanish lessons and then heading to a local village and market.