An Uneventful Monday

Compared the weekend, today was pretty low key. It was back to work as usual. We were up at 6:45am and out the door at 7:30am. I didn't feel so great today. I think it was a combination of traveling and being tired and still trying to regain sleep that I lost from my 24 hour travel to Guatemala a week ago. So, work today was a little difficult to get through. My body ached a little and I was just really tired and I didn't feel like I was needed at all because three different workers were in and out. Although they were in the room they didn't really interact with the kids. I asked if they needed help in the kitchen today, and they said no. Paula wasn't there either, so it was just kind of an off day. I spent the 4 hours in the nursery with the kids, but a lot of the older ones were in there today, and it is hard because they tend to gang up on the little ones. There were 8 kids in the nursery today. It was frustrating because I would take the babies out of the crib and let them crawl on the floor but soon after get told that they needed to go back in the crib so they didn't hurt themselves. Oliver spends most of his time in the crib, and Luis, with his broken foot, is confined to the crib as well. He is starting to walk on the cast and play around in the crib but often gets yelled at to sit back down. It is a pendulum between tears of the kids and laughs. Belkis wasn't herself today, I couldn't figure out if she was sick or not or just sad. She came into the nursery and I asked her if she could sit for awhile, so I just held her, but then she got told she couldn't be in the nursery. Helen remembered the handshake and was proud to show it off and tried to teach some of the others. Jenny wasn't there all day and there was a sign on the door talking about her, but I wasn't able to put all the pieces together. I'm wondering if she is no longer in the home or if she was just gone for the day. We'll see tomorrow.

Guillaume, one of the people that I traveled with, is really sick. They had the doctors come to the house this morning and they ended up quarantining him. He went to the hospital later in the afternoon but we haven't gotten much information on what they think it is or how he's doing. We're all wondering if we're going to get sick/what made him sick, because the four of us ate the same things and we were in all of the same places. I'm really hoping that I manage to skip this round. Each day working with the kids I wonder how I haven't gotten sick already. They all have really deep coughs and runny noses. I'm trying my best and so far so good! The hand sanitizer has been really helpful. Because Guillaume is sick and four people left this last weekend, the house is really quiet.

After lunch I took a power nap and then had spanish lessons. I think that I'm going to my private lessons either on Wednesday or Friday. The hour went really fast and the girl that I had today was extremely fun to talk with. She had good questions that got me talking and practicing my Spanish, so it was really excellent.

We dropped off a load of laundry today (Hannah and I) and picked it up after going to the gym. It cots 25 Q for the entire bag and so divided between 2 people it cost about $1.50 for my clothes to be washed and folded.

The gym was difficult today because Lake Atitlan had a much lower elevation, so it was hard to readjust to the high altitude, but I'm glad I went. Hannah and I are hiking Santa Maria, one of the volcanoes in Xela, on either Saturday or Sunday morning depending on the amount of rain we get, and so it was good to do some cardio and get adjusted again.

Here's a map of where we were this past weekend, and a picture of Santa Maria...this coming weekend's challenge!

We started in Panajachel, too the boat to Santa Cruz, kayaked to San Marcos and back to Santa Cruz and then took a boat back to Pana.

The volcano to the right is Santa Maria and the one to the left is Santiaguito. If you're up there early enough in the morning you can see Santiaguito erupt, because it erupts most every day.