el mirador

Hello everyone....so here's the update...

Thursday: At work we worked on this worksheet I brought for the kids but only the older ones could do it and I'm not really sure they enjoyed it so I probably wont be doing that again. But at recess the kids tried to use the beach ball again and I kept having to blow it up like every 2 minutes cuz it would deflate from all the holes and I couldnt even begin to find them all to tape them us sooo I'm going to have to find a new ball.

After work we went on a field trip!! yay! So at first we all piled into the car (all 12 of us) and went for an hour long drive...that part was rough. But definitely worth it. Our first stop was at a mirrador (lookout) on the way which over-looked the city of Antigua and it was absolutely beautiful.

view from the top

After this we continued our drive and stopped at an old monastery at the edge of Antigua. It used to be a huge Cathedral with a Monastery attached but it was destroyed in an earthquake. After the earthquake no one cleaned up the ruins and it was just abandoned. Which is actually lucky for us because it was pretty awesome. We all got to wander around the ruins and then we got to this one part with a locked door....well Virginia did some sweet talking got a guard to unlock it for us and we all got to go into this secret blocked off room, it was so cool! I felt like a badass. Here's some pictures of this place, but there are a ton more on facebook.

Abbey and Virginia, our director

Secret door

So after the monastery we got back in the car and drove to this small Mayan town outside of Antigua called San Antonio Aguas Calientes. Some of the women in this town were working to preserve their culture and so they put on presentations of Mayan culture and they put one on for our group. The first part of the presentation was showing us how they wove all the clothing and rugs and blankets. They told us that by the time the girls are 8 years old they have already just about mastered the process, and let me tell you, it is insanely complicated. They dont use looms or anything, everything is done by hand. They showed us a small shirt they had woven and said it would take about 6 months to make if they worked 8 hours a day. It kind of makes you feel bad for trying to haggle with them about the price, because its so obvious about how much work went into it.

After that they showed us typical dress for Mayan men and women in their community and showed us a mock Mayan wedding! Clark and Jill are now happily married, big congratulations to them. They told us that in Mayan culture the groom's family pays for everything, and that there are all kinds of hand-woven gifts that the bride must make for all the members of the groom's family. All these gifts take about a year to finish and actually the bride for the mother of the groom is something that the bride already made when she was 14 years old as a sort of rite of passage. Also the typical wedding is about 12 hours with the ceremony and reception and everything and after all this the bride has to go over to the groom's parents house that night and show the mother in law that she can make tortillas and coffee before she can go home with their son. Its actually pretty funny. At the ceremony there is also a part where they put incense over the bride and groom and the lady leading the presentation (her name was Liliana) told us they make sure to purify the groom really well. 

the wedding party

Clark getting purified

So after the wedding they let everyone shop because alot of the women had little shops set up in the area where the presentation was. I didnt end up getting anything because I didnt bring enough money since I didnt know we were shopping. But after that we got to make corn tortillas!! This Mayan woman showed us how they made a typical tortilla and let us do it! Mine turned out pretty bad and I actually dropped the first one so its probably a good thing I'm not Mayan cuz I would never get married.

After the tortillas we got to grind our own coffee, but I didnt buy any of it, I definitely should have though, it was awesome.

Then we had to go home...but as soon as we got home we basically jumped back in the car because I guess someone had made dinner reservations at this place in zone 10. Zone 10 is where all the big hotels are so its really Americanized and everything is a bit more expensive. But the restaurant was really nice, all the waiters were dressed in traditional Mayan outfits and the food was amazing. Im glad we went, but it was more expensive than I wanted it to be so we probably wont be going back. 

Friday: I BROUGHT MY CAMERA TO WORK!!! YAY! so I took a bunch of pictures of my 2 year old and 4 year old classes. Most of the kids were there in my older class, but there were only 4 in my 2 yr old class so i'll have to bring my camera back when more come. Here are a few pictures of them but there are a bunch more on facebook.

my 4 yr olds

Ian, one of the 2 yr olds :)

Jose, mi amor

Estefany

After work we actually didnt have anything to do, so we got to take naps!! yay! After that me Abbey and Clark decided to go out and we found this really cool place where there was some live music! They played a good mix of stuff in English and Spanish and I think we'll definitely be going back there.

TODAY: today we have pretty much been useless. We've been really taking advantage of having nothing we have to do and pretty much we've been laying around the house all day. Everyone else left today so its just gonna be me abbey and clark for this week, good crowd. Me and Abbey tried to do laundry today, so we lugged our huge laundry bags 3 blocks down the road only to realize when we got there that it was closed...blah. So now we're trying to figure out how to see a movie in English here, wish us luck!

Check out my facebook for tons more pictures!