Christmas is all around

Today is my final push before I peace out of San Vicente tomorrow - One of my woman's groups is throwing me a going away party (even though I'm only going to be gone for about 3 weeks), so I've been busily baking cookies and cakes all day, as none of them have ovens (the last batch are in the oven right now!). The ladies however are providing sandwiches and drinks.

I had a crazy weekend, on Saturday we had our final camp fiesta, I had to make all the food - except for the bread and butter and sprinkles which I delegated to Ferney - and at the same time, the house was FULL FULL FULL of indigenous women preparing for a huge lunch they were having on Sunday. They were preparing for a welcome home party for the brother of the two girls I live with, as he's returning from the States.... So cooking was a little difficult. I was also on a tight budget (mine - and we really get paid nothing) to prepare bastante food for (what turned out to be) 90 kids. I did all the crowd pleasers, cake, cookies and cream pudding, jello, rice krispie treats and of course bread and butter with sprinkles (a favorite of Fiona's for our birthday parties growing up!). This was of course baked with the most campo of ingredients, but it turned out well, the only thing we didn't have enough of was plates as we only bough 75, thinking only about 50 kids would turn up. Our mistake as free food in Guatemala always draws an enormous crowd.

It was a full day of camp as we had food, an activity which included glitter and glue - we were sweeping up glitter for hours afterward - games on the basketball court, the pinata and giving out diplomas for the kids that had good attendance. The Pinata however was quite nearly a disaster, if you think about it, 90 kids, one pinata...yeah, we should have seen that one coming. I had crying babies on my lap who had been hit or pushed, the kids literally ripped the pinata apart with their hands and Ferney was in the center picking up children by the collars and belt hooks and tossing them out of the center, trying to find all the babies that were buried underneath...Luckily there were no lasting injuries and after a few minutes of chaos we got them under control again...as best as we could.

Anyway, that was done, we had the huge family party here at the house yesterday where about 100 people came (Estella had to buy 100lbs of corn flour for the tomales...it was insane). There were videos of the family that live in the States, fireworks (I hid inside for this portion) tons of food and soda. Today is my final event, this going away party in Centro Sur, I'm sure it will be fun and then I'm back tonight and I'm going to clean and pack in preparation for leaving tomorrow morning for Guatemala! PHEW....

Really?! I'm in charge of like 50 kids?! who's idea was this?

OK - so Thanksgiving has come and gone - and there's already a Santa hanging out in the mall in Xela (he looks almost albino and super freaky - I really hope it's makeup, but I don't have the nerve to get close enough to check it out).. You know what that means - Christmas is almost here-

With two weeks before I'm in England, I have one major goal: - survival....

I told Ferney I'd "help out" with his summer camp, which is every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until the 19th of Dec. I figured there'd be about 20 kids, about 7 or 8 years old, and we'd sort of make up activities for them to do which we would make up on the spot.

INCORRECT...

There are about 50 kids that come every week (more some weeks but never fewer than 50) and they range from the age of 2-13....

what the heck are we supposed to do with that?!

Not to mention Ferney's already left me alone with all of the kids once, and is planning on doing it again this saturday so he can go into Antigua and get a tattoo- seriously that's his plan... Luckily I've convinced my friend Anna to come from her site to help me out (bless her heart), so I won't be alone alone, but still - me + 50 kids = me with even more gray hairs.

The strange part is, the kids seem to LOVE the camp - they get their EARLY (unheard of in Guatemalan culture) and hang out way after we're done (until I say, if you want to stay you have to help us clean the room...they usually disappear quite quickly after that) - and I have no idea why.

I wouldn't say that Ferney and I are at all what you would call "enthusiastic" teachers - we usually just have them paint something, or I give a charla, or they play football and/or basketball - and the girls usually get into little fights with one another - I've stopped listening to the reasons and just tell them to figure it out - and the guys usually cuss at each other, but I use my bad spanish to explain I have no idea what that word means so I don't know if it's bad or not...

Anyway, it's enough to drive a saint to drink, and I'm no saint.

PUES....

The next two weeks are going to make me earn my trip home for a nice relaxing (Alex...) Christmas and New Years -