helaas, our spanish is not good enough to write a nice story in spanish!

De eerste week werken zit er op, straks weer 4 uur spaanse les. The first week of working behind us, and yes, we survived! This afternoon 4 hours of spanish lessons, and that means also one week spanish behind us. Well, I can count now in spanish! And know the days of the week, and the months of the year.....and some verbs....and can get along with the few words I do remember! Jessica is much better and knows far more words, but than, I comfort myself, she has a young brain! And mine is just 'blanco' after the whole morning with the small kids brabbling all along............

Yesterday one little girl had her 3rd birthday. It was such a big party for her at the school, which her parents organised, looked more like a wedding!! The big game was hitting the pinata's with sweets inside. Each child got his/her turn to hit it untill the sweets fell out. This is the only child in this school that I have not seen smiling........Her parents seem to spoil her a lot as she is their only child. Jessica will add some pictures of this whole happening! All the teachers were tyred too, luckily. I thought it is just me who cannot handle small kids birthdayparty anymore!

3x a week an elderly canadian couple come to school and dish out food to the kids. Their daugther is running an orphanage (casa Angelina) for sexually abused children, their son building houses in Equador. Jessica talked a long time to them this morning during playtime outside, so the full story I do not know. Except that they do really good work. The school is sponsored by the Rotary, and every kid is welcome. Mostly kids from single moms. Some come to school really hungry and ask for food straigth away, others seems to carry on sleeping......but mostly they have fun and fight and scream like healthy, naughty kids!!!

This weekend we will stay in Antigue, hardly seen anything of this lovely town It is dangerous to go out after dark (6) and anyway we are totally exhausted and can just manage to walk home! Luckily our food is cooked for us, dishes washed, that really helps a lot!

Our trip to the lake last weekend was quite an experience starting with driving for a few hours in a minivan on bed roads. The mountains along the road are really beautifull with little houses scattered all along and little businesses along the road. It reminds me a lot of time in Maputo 2 years ago.

The lake was really beautifull (pictures follows) the little towns very picqtures. The markets really, really colourfull as you couls see on the pictures.

To catch a ,chickenbus, to work is also quite an experience and only cost 2 quetzal, 2 eorocents per trip! This morning the bus stopped a kilometer from our school and we had to walk the rest. Luckily a teacher saw us walking and gave us a lift.

Next week jessica will go to the small kids, because she is so bored with the big ones, and I will start with the big ones to teach to write their own names. They still cannot do this. Have a nice weekend, the school is closed, we have deserved a good rest, and the foto's are on the way! lineke en jessica