The end is near...

Making a rainbow with Janelle.
My 3 personal favorites. All dressed up for graduation. 

Sweet Dominique. 

Kites!

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I'm coming to the end of my third to last week in Guatemala. And although 2 1/2 more weeks seems like a long time to go...this week has already gone by at the speed of light. The volunteer I have been both rooming with and teaching with for the past 6 weeks leaves on Friday for home, so i'll be here alone for a week. It will definitely be a challenge managing our class alone, but I'm a little excited to experience this placement completely on my own, since all the time I have spent there has been with atleast one other volunteer. also I must say I am looking forward to standing around my room naked for as long as I want. A group of 3 women arrive on the 12th, two of them are just staying for the week and the other is another 6 weeker. So they will all be here for my final week. It's been very interesting to be here and watch people come and go...i'm getting a little excited to be on the leaving side of things, instead of being the one always left:)

Things have been going great at the school where Janelle and I are teaching. We have been able to do more and more as the teachers get more used to having us in their schedule and as we learn more about the capabilities of our classes. Last week we made coil pots (out of clay leftover from a pottery demo at a museum Janelle and I visited) with our oldest class, 7-12 year olds. The kids did an absolutely incredible job, I get so proud every time I look at them. I think they were psyched to be finally given a challenging project with real materials. A bunch of parents dropped off garbage bags of recycling materials for us to use in crafts...so we've been trying to use them when we can. We made cereal box masks, and egg carton caterpillars with the little crew- also a big hit. This week were doing pinatas in an effort to use up the everest sized mountain of newspaper taking up unavailable space in our 12'x12' classroom.  Things have been going equally as well and are improving just as quickly at my other placement (where I go tues&thurs), though the experience is 100% different. Because the kids are so handicapped and all, save one, are unable to verbally communicate, it challenges a whole other part of my brain. The more I learn about the kids, the more I fall in love with it. 

My sister, dad, and grandma were here for a week for Thanksgiving. Best thing ever. I met them in Lake Atitlan on Thursday night for a weekend of pure bliss. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen - that, combined with my family- I couldn't have been happier. Sophie and I did a canopy tour of the jungle on sunday morning and did 8 zip lines over the tree tops, yeah baby!  This weekend i'm heading to Coban solo to do a jungle hiking limestone cave exploring water of some sort swimming sort of combination exravanganza so, that will definitely be an adventure. 

Missing everyone and the white Methow winter. Hope you're all doing well.