Making balloons

We were in Tierra Linda today for a Carnaval Fiesta at the school (to celebrate Mardi Gras, called Carnaval here). We stopped by the Community Center and got to see a sewing class in action. These are the ladies' children, and I played with them while Dave checked a few things out such as the internet connection potential. This is the place we would like to use to teach classes once we can set it up.

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The little boy from the previous picture was so intent on learning to tie balloons. You can see him in front of me wanting to pump the air into them. So cute.

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Carnaval!

Craziness! Here we are celebrating Carnaval (Mardi Gras) at the school in Tierra Linda. There were no computer classes today because of the Fiesta, so we were invited to celebrate with the school instead. They have a crazy tradition of throwing confetti (called pica pica), and smashing hollow eggs filled with pica pica (called cascarones) on people's heads. Often when kids run out of cascarones, they find real eggs to smash on each other. Thankfully there was none of that.

After a lovely program of costume parades, this was the crazy dance party and egg smashing time! The kids went crazy, and thought it was hilarious to smash eggs and throw confetti on our wigs.

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El Baile Muy Bien! (He dances very well!)

You can take a lot of pictures of the "carnaval", or you can watch and listen to the sounds.

Dance Party

Many of the little girls were too shy to dance in the big group. Danaya had fun going to the girls and twirling them around.

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They were so cute when they were dancing.

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Chaos!

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Pre-primary (kindergarden)

This is Yolanda, the kindergarden teacher. Her little student won the costume competition -- she was a nest of cascarones. Yolanda is a saint -- she has 51 students in her class. Yes, you read that right. 51!

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Here is a wide angle view of the kindergarden class. They are having their mid morning snack (generously funded by people in Canada through Conexiones) of black beans, a boiled egg, tortillas, and some sort of nutritious milk drink.

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Here is a cute little boy eating his tortilla and beans.

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Lineup for mid morning snack

Here is the lineup for kids to get their mid morning snack of black beans and a boiled egg. This food program was started by the Hallmark Conexions team and supporters a few years ago. Without this provided meal, many of these children would often only eat corn tortillas and salt in a day.

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The Grand Winner!

This kindergartner was the overall winner of the costume competition. She is wearing a dress with chicken feathers, adorned with "cascarones" (empty eggshells filled with confetti). We had many cascarones cracked on our heads today (that's tradition).

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The Chicken and the Egg

We're not sure which came first originally, but today both of them came first!

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The Best Costumes

It's amazing how attentive the audience was, especially for a long time.

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The Best Costumes

This girl is one of our computer students.

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Risk Management and Insurance

Guatemala is often more about pioneering, exploration, and taking risks. It's often less about safety!

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Center of Attention

Zane was having a blast with the kids today. At one point, Mario (the boy in front of Zane) was helping Zane up the steps - then carried him all the way up! When he started coming back down the steps, still carrying Zane, surrounded by another twenty kids, I jumped up, but he made it just fine.

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Clothes from around the lake

These girls are dressed in distinctive designs, representing different towns around the lake.

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A Grand Display

Again, these are traditional clothes from a village. Many of the local adults wear these clothes, and the designs are distinctive (i.e. people would know from a man's clothes that he is from the town of Solola).

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Traditional Costumes

This girl is dressed in the attire of a local town too. The children each gave little speeches to the crowd, talking about how they enjoy carnaval. The teachers (all in costume) are seated behind her.

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Carnaval (carnival) at Tierra Linda

Today was a very special "fiesta" (party) at Tierra Linda. The school celebrated "carnaval" (Mardi Gras) with an exhibition of local costumes and a contest, followed by a grand dance and confetti-throwing chaos.

These two kids are dressed in the traditional attire of one of the lake towns (we can't remember which one).

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Our house is in a calendar!

While shopping in a bookstore in Antigua last weekend, Ursula found this calendar, and right in the middle is a full layout (seen here), of Lake Atitlan and Panajachel. Lo and behold, our house is seen on the calendar. Look directly below the flash reflection for a red roof, just left of the little house with the green roof. That's us! It gives you all a good perspective of where we live.

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50% Off! Discount Calendars!

While this sign might not attract you, it's like a carrot for Dave and Mom. Most of the rest of us ignore 2009 calendars by the time that February rolls around, but they still notice. Fortunately in this case, the calendars were of Lake Atitlan, and the 2-page centre spread is a vertical panoramic of the volcano and the lake.

The amazing part of the picture, however, is that it is taken from directly above our house, and you can clearly see our house and the road that we walk in the mornings! We couldn't have planned it better if we'd told the photographer where to stand.

Onions and Neighbours

As we walked down the road from our house to the market this morning, we took a detour into the onion fields to show Mom and Dad. A farmer was watering the onions and beans by hand, splashing bowls of water from the irrigation channel onto the plants. We introduced ourselves, and learned that he was from Tierra Linda, and that one of his kids is in our computer class.

We walked back to the road, and met a couple and their children at the gate. They were from Tierra Linda too, and we learned that their son Edgar is in our grade five class. The father was carrying a massive load of onions on his back, delivering them to a market.

Imagine that you are a father who is working his hardest to provide for his family, packing onions down a mountain, and you know that your kids don't have the opportunities that you would wish. And then "neighbours" from another country are willing to share their abundance to open the world to your kids. I think that pack of onions might feel just a little bit lighter.

Thanks for helping make this possible. You were "there" this morning too.

Helado (ice cream)

Mango ice cream. Zane and Dave enjoy eating ice cream cones together, since Zane prefers it if Dave eats all the ice cream, then gives him the cone to chew on.

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La Biblioteca (the library)

This is one of Zane's favourite places to come, and we'll stop in for a break as often as we can.

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La Biblioteca (the library)

Panajachel has an amazing library, which was a project of some American ladies. It's entirely funded by donations. There are lots of books in Spanish, and some in English. It costs 1 quetzal (20 cents) for a membership card, and you can take out 3 books at a time. The library has eight computers, but doesn't have the money for internet access right now (about $80/month). We are now members.

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