Busy Weekends

Kelsey and I decided we wanted to be more proactive about what we were doing here Ecuador, and proactive we were this weekend. It started on Wednesday evening when we went out for beers after work at the La Compania Cerveceria, the only microbrewery in Cuenca. As Oregon girls, Kels and I were both craving a real, good beer, and luckily the Cerveceria delivered. Friday was a national holiday, meaning we had the day off and a little extra time to play and explore. We started the morning with a trip to Cajas, a national park about 30 minutes from Cuenca. Although the weather was kind of gray, it was beautiful nonetheless, and nice to get out in nature again. We went with our friends Oliver and Sarah, Oliver being another CEDEI teacher and Sarah his Ecuadorian girlfriend. The elevation at Cajas is about 9000 feet, around 1000 feet higher than Cuenca, which we could definitely feel at different points. We went on one of the smaller “hikes” (walks) around two of the lakes, and spent a lot of time stopping, taking pictures. We even spotted a llama within our first 30 minutes, which was on Kelsey’s Cajas bucket list. She was pretty excited. After our hike we went into the lodge and had a canelazo drink, a warm alcoholic beverage made with herbs, cinnamon, and the local Ecuadorian liquor, Zhumir. The idea behind the drink (a shot essentially) is to warm you up with the alcohol, and to help you adjust to the elevation with the herbs. Kels and I weren’t super enamored with the drink, but it was worth trying once. We had taken a taxi to Cajas after showing up at the bus station to find out no tickets remained for the buses to Cajas. So after spending $15 on a taxi there, we planned to take the bus back into Cuenca. We were waiting in the bus stop beside Cajas, when I remembered many people had told me that a successful way to get back from Cajas to Cuenca was hitchhiking. So I decided to try it… I was a goofy gringa, smiling and passing cars with my thumb stuck in the air. After about 10 minutes and a lot of cars passing me, I thought maybe I was just too weird looking and wouldn’t get anyone to stop when… I couple pulling out of the Cajas parking lot stopped for us! Unknown bucket list item accomplished: successfully hitchhike in Latin American. The man was from Colombia and his girlfriend was an Ecuadorian, and they were on vacation from Guayaquil, heading to Cuenca for the first time. Although I was excited about successfully hitchhiking, and it was a really pleasant ride, I was pretty excited when we piled out of the car near Parque San Sebastián, where we had been four in the backseat. Returning home from Cajas was great too, because it was the first time I had left Cuenca and had that returning home feeling for coming back to Cuenca. After our hike it was nap time, shower time, and off to our next event. We ended up going to a friend’s house that afternoon to watch the Ecuador versus Chile fútbol match, one of many World Cup qualification games. It was definitely more exciting watching the game with a group of Ecuadorians than it would have been had I watched the game by myself; but, I still must say, soccer isn’t my sport. After the game we devoured some pizza, and hung around for karaoke/dancing time. It was unlike any get together I had been to before, and something must be said for how well Ecuadorians move, and how much they like to move, that they end a fútbol get together with living room salsa/meringue dancing, a few trying desperately to teach the gringas how to move their hips. Hilarious.

Saturday morning I had class for four hours yet again, although the four hours goes by surprisingly fast; I only managed to get through three-fourths of the material I had planning for the day, which I count as a win, because I would rather be over-prepared than under-prepared. After class, Kelsey and I were in a productive mood again, going grocery shopping at both the mercado and Supermaxi. Post shopping it was naptime, and a quick dinner before attending the Saturday night church service at Verbo. I went again with my friend Isabel, and we were blessed to sit by a 50-something-year-old woman named Dora. In the greeting “God be with you” part of the service, she gave us a big, warm, motherly hug. And then when it was time to break off into smaller groups for the sermons, we just asked her, “Where are you going?”, and she took us under her wing to her sermon of choice. It ended up being a great selection, the sermon being given on the different steps of prayer (ask, look, call), and by the son of an American missionary with impeccable Spanish. Although his Spanish was flawless, I think his being a second language learner (and the fact that he was super animated) helped me to understand the whole sermon, something I can’t always boast. After chatting with Dora at coffee hour after church (and exchanging numbers), Isabel and I took a taxi back to the city center, and I was off to my next event. We had planned our housewarming party for this weekend, inviting all the teachers at CEDEI and any Ecuadorian friends/boyfriends/friend-boyfriends, knowing fully well that things might get a little crazy. And crazy they were; we probably had close to 50 people in our house, with different bubbles of conversation, guitar sing-along, and dancing. Also, it was a dip party, and oh my the dips that people brought; they were delicious. Although the party was really fun, cleaning up the next day makes me want to never have a party again. We spent hours cleaning up the kitchen and mopping, with the water turning black every few strokes. Needless to say, Sunday was spent cleaning and recuperating, with a little bit of lesson planning and grading in the evening. All in all, a successful weekend in Ecuador, and hopefully only a first of many adventure-filled weekends.   

Update: Week 3

Well, I unfortunately have not been as diligent about blogging as I was in Guatemala, so here’s my attempt to catch up from the last week and a half. Teaching is still going well. Definitely a challenge, but in a good way. I love (most of) my students, and figuring out how to explain something and make the lessons fun is good. Also, lesson planning is taking less and less time, and I’m able to enjoy the city and not freak out every moment about school. Balance is coming.

On Sunday, my friend Isabel and I went to a new church, Verbo. It was a large church (close to mega church – 1400 members), and it had a great worship and message. Near the beginning of the service, they asked anyone that was new to raise their hand and let them know they were new. At first, Isabel and I weren’t going to raise our hands because we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. But once we saw the ushers walking around with roses for the new visitors… Well, what girl isn’t a sucker for flowers? After they handed us our rose and some pens and information, they told us to get up and walk over to the cafeteria for some more information. We ended up getting a welcome by one of the pastors, a goody bag with chocolates, pens, and more information, coconut cake, and coffee. After the welcome an American missionary came over to our table, talking to us about the church and answering any of our questions. He informed us that the church had its own orphanage, and by coincidence a woman that works at the orphanage was standing behind us and gave us her number. Hopefully, once teaching becomes less time-consuming, we will be able to go over there and volunteer a couple days a week. I definitely miss being around children, and although they aren’t my kids at Fundación, it will be a great outlet to have here.

Yesterday was an interesting day, a very “This is Latin America” sort of day. In the morning, Kelsey, Mark, Kat and I got a taxi to the Cuenca consulate to pick up our passports and visas that were being registered. We arrived around 11:30am, got our passports from one window, left to get photocopies at a store next door, came back in, waited in another area, entered a room with a woman typing stuff into a computer, left to pay $4 at a banco window within the building, went back to the room, got a paper, left again to take photocopies, and finally went back into the room to get our “empadronamiento” paper and BE DONE WITH THE PROCESS! We had gone there the week before to give them our passport, and that was a two-hour, three-stop (not including the stops at separate copy stores) process, plus this day… Yeah. Such an inefficient, Latin America experience. And we were the lucky ones; our roommate Kat had gone the week before to Guayaquil (a 3 hour van ride away) to get her entrance stamp fixed because they had swamped two numbers on accident. And our roommate Emily flew to Quito yesterday, to be there for about seven hours, to get more pages in her passport because they didn’t have enough space to add yet another stamp. Kind of ridiculous. To add to our super Latin American day, Kelsey and I went to San Sebastián park (which is less than a block from our house) last night for a free, outdoor dance/exercise class. It… Was… Amazing. First of all, Ecuadorians can MOVE. They were moving in ways Kelsey and I couldn’t, and this is including the old grandmas and grandpas that were taking the class too. There we were, gringas, dancing in the back row, looking up at San Sebastián church, with grandma and grandpa getting down, and kids running in and out of the rows and playing soccer on the side. It was beautiful.

This morning I went for a walk to enjoy the sunshine, followed by gringa lunch in the sun at a café near our house. Annie, Kelsey and I decided to splurge on some good food, and were rewarded with incredible black bean burgers and seasoned fries. And by splurge, I mean lunch cost $5 instead of $1-$2. It was delicious, and yes, I still love Ecuador.  

Teaching For Days...

Wednesday marks two weeks that Kels and I have been here in Cuenca, but it already feels like it’s been months. We are in our second week of teaching, and I must say, it is a lot more work than either of us was expecting… We are the only teachers in our room, planning our own lessons based off of a curriculum, coming up with our own activities, and grading our own assignments and student participation. It’s a great introduction to the world of teaching, but yes, it is still much more than we were expecting. As I said, earlier, I have three 101 classes during the week, which are both easy and extremely challenging at the same time. They’re easy because the grammar points are easy, but difficult because my students know very little English, so I find myself pointing in the book and making a lot of gestures. I have caved a couple of times and clarified in Spanish, but I’m trying to do that less and less. It is nice knowing Spanish though, because I can anticipate the kind of sentence structure and pronunciation errors my students will make. Teaching takes up quite a bit of our time, and I feel like we have been doing little else besides teaching and living. We have successfully gone to the American grocery store, twice, have returned to the mercado multiple times, found bread stores, notebook stores, pizza, and even yoga mats. Slowly, we are learning our surroundings and figuring out life in Cuenca. We have not, however, had time to be tourists yet. I have not taken a single picture here in Cuenca, and I hope to remediate that soon, but for now, photo posting will have to wait. Our weekends are cut short by four-hour Saturday classes as well, meaning our “free time” is limited to Saturday afternoon and evening, and Sunday afternoon (before it’s time to start planning on Sunday again). Summary: Teaching is hard, but great to learn now, and I am still happy to find myself in Ecuador. :) 

Ecuador Arrival

Where to even begin… Well, ECUADOR IS AWESOME! Kelsey and I left Portland early at 8:45am on Tuesday, September 18^th, flew into Houston, and then onto Quito. We were exhausted of course, but our Quito flight was incredible. The plane was mostly empty so we had three seats to ourselves, and even got a full meal! Once in Quito we passed through customs, got our bags (both had arrived!), and got in a taxi to head over to our hostel. The nice hostel attendant helped us drag our heavy bags to our back room (the elevation was killing us already), and we brushed our teeth and got in bed, knowing the alarm would be going off at 4:30am the next morning. We had scheduled our flight to Cuenca for 7am the next morning, which, at the time, seemed like a good idea… In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t the best plan. At 5am we met the hostel attendant in the lobby, got into our taxi, and were shuttled right back to the airport. Our flight to Cuenca went off without a hitch (except for having to pay $10 extra to check my backpack because it was too heavy… Oh well), and we arrived in Cuenca around 8am to find all of our bags had arrived there too. Though exhausted, we had planned to meet with other teachers at 10am at CEDEI (where we will be teaching English) to look for housing. So, faithfully, Kels and I showered and headed out at 9:30am. At CEDEI we met Emily, who ended up having appointments to look at two apartments that day. We went with Emily on her visits (only one landlord showed up though), and looked at a third place as well. After that it was lunch, nap, and then meeting up with other teachers that night for a beer and get-to-know-you. The next morning we met up with Emily again to check out the second place from the day before, and then saw an eight-bedroom house. After seeing the eight-bedroom house twice (we had visit the day before too), we decided it was what we wanted. So Emily, Kels, Mark (a friend from Ireland and the only boy in the house), and I said, “yes we’ll take it” without any formal documentation or deposits paid. We went out for a beer to celebrate, and went back to our hostel to collect our stuff and move in that day. Kels and I decided to share a room to save rent (okay, $80/month versus $110/month… Every penny counts here I guess!), with Emily and Mark on our floor, and three other girls on the upstairs floor. By 4pm we were all moving in, and went out to dinner that night to celebrate again. The next morning we had our first CEDEI orientation at 9am, where we met ALL the new teachers (there’s about 30 new teachers, 50 English teachers total at CEDEI) and got our first English teaching run-down and building tour. OVERWHELMED is pretty much all we were feeling, but little by little I think we will understand what we’re supposed to be doing here. After our long meeting, it was more beers, naptime, and then grocery shopping. We went to the mercado for the first time, a large covered building with stacks and stacks of fresh fruit and veggies, potatoes, and a really smelly meat section. We bought some veggies, some potatoes, got overwhelmed again but left satisfied after spending less than $5 on a whole bunch of good stuff. From there it was… Friday night! We ended up going out with our roommate Kat’s boyfriend and his friends, all locals and all Spanish-speaking. The next morning, Saturday, we made an adventure to the “real grocery store”, Supermaxi, where we could find packaged goods and more American-style products. Again, kind of overwhelming (and a half hour walk away), but once we were done and paid only $30 for a bunch of stuff, we were glad we had gone. The rest of Saturday was spent relaxing, shopping for random necessities, and then finished with a movie night interrupted several times by car alarms going off outside. Sunday we had another meeting for CEDEI, where we actually received our class assignments. It all became real, and at that point, OVERWHELMING again. I know teaching will make more sense once I’ve done it for a bit, but at this point I’m a little terrified. Plus I have all 101 classes except one long 301 class, so figuring out how to do ice breakers in English for people that have no previous English knowledge… Kind of difficult. Kels and I began lesson planning Sunday afternoon, and while it felt construed and time consuming, I know with more practice it will become easier and easier. After lesson planning and some dinner, I joined Isabela and Hannah, two other English teachers, at an evening church service. It was great to be in church in Spanish again, and was a very well planned and delivered sermon.

         On Monday, CLASSES STARTED! So I live in a house with five other new teachers, and Sunday evening we were all FREAKING OUT, and Monday evening we were all FREAKING OUT. Because most of us have never taught before, and because we were given little time to plan and little structure, this will definitely be a very foreign and stretching experience. 

ECUADOR!

I’m going to make this very short because I have to be at the airport at 6:45am tomorrow, but I LEAVE FOR ECUADOR TOMORROW!! I have gone through a roller coaster and a half of emotions about this trip, but right now the strongest emotion I am feeling is excitement; excitement to have another adventure, to travel with one of my best friends, Kelsey, to be immersed in another culture again, and to learn how to be a teacher. I have been so blessed in this life, and am so thankful for my parents and the wonderful people in my life that support me so much. Life is good and God is good, and while this was originally my blog spot for Guatemala, I am continuing on it because las puertas continuamente están abriendo (the doors are continually opening). I have wondered many times if this was what I was supposed to be doing with my life now, but with all the doors God has opened for me, and all the support I have received, I am going to let doubt go, and march forward with an optimistic attitude and a big smile on my face. Until Ecuador… Hasta luego. 

Short and Sweet: Home in Amerca

Well, I have been home from Guatemala for a week now, and I must admit, America is very nice; I miss my sweet children at Fundación Salvación so much, and my dear friend, Brooks, but central heating, carpet, and hot showers are all very enjoyable luxuries. My parents and I left Huehuetenango the day after Christmas, and after hugging and crying with my host family, Cony, and our sweet Tienda Family, we began a week and a half travel experience where we got to see many diverse and beautiful places in Guatemala; we traveled to Xela, the Fuentes Georginas natural hot springs, picturesque Lake Atitlán, European-like Antigua, lake-front Flores, and the mystic Mayan ruins of Tikal. It was a perfect vacation with little to no snags and amazing weather; it was difficult, though, to still being in Guatemala and not be with my children at Fundación. I have been dragging my feet on writing this blog, mostly because I don’t like writing, but I realized my experience would be incomplete without a reflection of returning home. So here is goes…

            First of all, we are SO blessed in America. I know everyone that goes away to a third world country realizes that, but I think the crucial step to having made a realization like that is to continue to remember that lesson as you become more and more integrated back into American culture. We really have it all here, and while I definitely realize there is still poverty in the Sates, from where I am sitting right now in middle class America, things look pretty good. I’ve realized how important it is to live each day with the kids of Fundación on my mind and in my heart, and to think, “Would the kids be proud to see and hear that this is how I am living?” Easier said than done with the constant barrage of consumerism and narcissism we have here, but a lesson I will not give up on.

            Another lesson learned from my time at Fundación is to just enjoy each day of life even more. It’s hard to spend time with such wonderful children and not love life, but coming back to the States I’m realizing there is a culture of one-ups-manship and pressure to constantly prove oneself, which creates a people far too stressed and far too inwardly focused. While I was on vacation with my parents, on New Years Eve to be exact, I received news that Sandra, the founder and director of the orphanage, had been killed in a car accident. Two days later, I also learned that a close friend of my roommates Lizzy and Lydia had been killed in a car accident. Life is too short and God wants too much joy for us to be so concerned with our outward appearances and reputations. Sandra was an incredible – albeit sometimes stern – person that lived her life in a way that would have made Jesus proud, and through her life and death myself and others that knew her have been taught so much.

            One other lesson that I was reminded of in Guatemala is to look for Jesus in everyone around us. In the kids at Fundación I saw Jesus every day, and I have been challenging myself now that I am back to see Jesus in everyone – in the homeless man on the street, in the rude cashier clerk, and in the drunk sorority girl. God intentionally created every last one of us, meaning that if we look hard enough, we really can see a little piece of God gleaming out of every person.

            So while it’s nice to be back to trashless streets and toilets that are guaranteed to flush daily (toilets that you CAN flush the toilet paper in, something that has proven to be my hardest reverse culture shock difficulty still), I still dearly miss Fundación Salvación and Guatemala. I have realized I met some of the most inspirational and kind people I have ever known in Guatemala, and enjoyed the best six months of my life hugging and kissing the children of Fundación, in an environment that signified they had been abandoned or abused in order to arrive there. Life is beautiful and blessed, and even through the toughest trials of our lives, the light will always push out the darkness better than more darkness (tribute to MLK Jr., since I did begin writing this on MLK Jr. Day). I will forever remember my time at Fundación, and I pray that it might inspire you all as well. God bless.     

My Last Week in Huehuetenango

            My last week in Huehue, and it certainly has been a bittersweet experience. We had a very full and wonderful week, with the last sad goodbye looming in the distance on Sunday. Monday we started out our week as usual with a morning at home and an afternoon at the orphanage. But instead of writing pen pal letters or playing with kids, we ended up spending three hours separating out gifts for the kids. Let me explain: Brooks and I received a very generous donation from the mother of one of the girls coming on the Pepperdine mission team this Spring Break. Although she had never met us, had never been to the orphanage, and her daughter had not even been to the orphanage yet, she was still touched when she heard about the orphanage through our Pen Pal Program, and donated three giant boxes chalk full of gifts for the kids. The gifts ranged from candy and bracelets to kites and soccer balls; it was incredible. So Monday afternoon, Mom, Brooks and I spent three hours going through the boxes and separating out gifts into bags for each child at the orphanage. Although it was a lot of work, it was actually pretty fun; it was fun to think about each individual child, realizing how well we know these 100 kids and that we could pick out what we thought each of them would like.

            Tuesday afternoon we had our second to last yoga class, attended by my mom, and our friends’ Emily and Marveli. Wednesday Brooks and I started our day by heading over to the orphanage to help the kids write some letters to their pen pals. Because it’s the holiday season, many pen pals have been sending Christmas gifts to the kids. It’s so wonderful to see their excitement, and Brooks and I had been taking videos and photos of them opening their presents to share that joy with their pen pals. It was actually one of my favorite, and last, pen pal writing sessions. That afternoon, after lunch, my mom and I headed over to the Halcones bus station to meet up with my dad, who had just finished his red eye flight and six-hour bus ride to meet us in Huehue. Needless to say, he was exhausted, but it was still great to see him. It was kind of my final signal that the end of my time in Huehue was coming. We all headed home, introduced him to the family, and had a relaxing afternoon while he napped away his sleepless hours. That evening my dad had an exciting welcome dinner with two of Otto’s cousins there (and drunk), and a power outage. Welcome to Guatemala, Dad.

            The next morning my mom had her last Spanish class, Brooks and I ran some errands for our party on Sunday, and around 12:30pm we all headed out to have lunch with Cony at Casa Blanca. Because Cony wasn’t going to be spending Christmas with us, we wanted to have a quasi-Christmas to spend some quality time with her. Cony is an incredible person with a beautiful spirit, and I am so lucky to have met her. Our lunch was good, with all of us sharing various breakfast dishes, and getting to chat with Cony and enjoy her bright spirit. After lunch we wandered to the city center and showed my dad the central park and the church, which took all of half an hour. That afternoon we went to the orphanage, the first time for my dad, of which my dad obviously took a liking to instantly. It has been great seeing the orphanage through my parents’ eyes, getting confirmation from them of how special Fundación is and why they understand how it captured my heart so quickly. After the orphanage (where dad met his pen pal, Meme, for the first time, and bonded with a little girl named Claudia who he said he was going to take home) we all headed over to yoga. I was hoping to have a well-attended yoga class, or at least to have our three good friends from the gym, Gina, Emily, and Marveli, there. Unfortunately, none of the above happened; we showed up, and had no one else attend our class. We had a quick yoga class just to show my dad what the classes were like, and then luckily had enough time to stop by the frame shop that was finishing up a project for us. Brooks and I had made three large collages with pictures of all of the kids at the orphanage and their pen pals, and had them framed for a great price of Q420 total (about $55). Thursday evening we picked them up, and they looked spectacular. We were so excited to hang them at the orphanage, and to have them available for the kids to constantly be reminded that there is someone out there that cares about each one of them individually. After picking up the frames we had dinner with our family, and then got to participate in a Catholic Christmas tradition with our family: A posada. A posada a procession of friends and family that is meant to be a representation of Joseph and Mary asking around for lodging before the birth of Christ, a very cool and fun tradition. We started at the house of one family, attended by neighbors as well as Cony, Otto, Yesi, Fancis (the French student), and Lucia, and after a short prayer our whole group left the house to create the procession. We carried a manger scene, various candle torches, and sang Christmas carols along the way. We were progressively joined by other people, and after walking through the neighborhood for about ten minutes, we ended up at the house of another family. Once outside, we began a sort of back and forth calling, where the people outside of the door would say something (asking for lodging like Mary and Joseph) and the people inside would say no for a while and then finally say yes. Once we were accepted, we all filed into the house, which had pine needles spread out on the living room and dining room floors, and many chairs and stools set out. The pastor said a few words, and then the good part began: the food. They passed out tamales and hot punch to everyone, the traditional Christmas foods in Guatemala. Unfortunately, we were all still full from dinner, but enjoyed splitting one tamale between the four of us. We were all tired and ready for bed by 9:30pm, but I can only imagine that the party continued late into the night.

            Friday morning we ran some more errands and finished a craft project for the orphanage, and then headed over to Fundación in the afternoon. Because my mom’s last bead party wasn’t exactly what she thought (it was fun, but highly populated by boys), we decided to have another bead party, this time with only girls. We headed over to the niñas room, set out the beads, and started calling the girls in. By the end we had about 20 girls beading with us, as well as some that let me paint their nails (surprisingly not as popular as I thought). After the beading party we had plans to have dinner with the orphanage staff, but were afraid our plans might have been forgotten since Sandra had not been in the orphanage all afternoon. After resolving that dinner wasn’t going to happen, and making our own plans to go out to dinner, we got a call from Sandra that she was on her way back to Huehue from Xela, and would be meeting us at the restaurant for dinner. Phew. We called a taxi, rounded together Migdalia, Cristi, and Juanita, the other orphanage employees, and headed out by 7pm. We ordered pizza for everyone, and enjoyed the great company and a much needed opportunity to say thank you to the wonderful ladies of Fundación Salvación. They all work so hard, and deserve so many thank-yous for what they do.

            The next morning, Christmas Eve, mom, dad and I headed over to the orphanage to try to cash in on every possible orphanage opportunity. We spent the morning playing with the kids, and then last minute decided to make macramé bracelets with some of the kids. Well, when you offer something to one kid at Fundación, eventually they are all going to be interested; we came up with a good system though, where kids would line up to get string from me, mom would teach them how to make the bracelets, and dad would hold the end for them as they worked. After a good hour of bracelet making, we headed home in a rush to have lunch with our family. That afternoon I took a nap, learned how to make tamales, and made a cheesecake. By 7pm we all had first dinner together, a combination of leftovers and a prepared potato puree, because the big dinner for Guatemalan Christmas comes at midnight. After dinner, we all put on our warm coats and walked together to the city center to see the main church decorated for Christmas; it was very crowded as a mass was letting out, and I imagine the church and city center were pretty full most of the evening. It was nice just strolling through the park though, feeling like you were sharing Christmas with more than just your family. After returning from the church, we started presents time. Lucia, my almost four-year-old host sister, was the Vana White of presents, passing them out to everyone with a Christmas hug, and obviously getting most excited when she found one of her own presents. We started opening presents at 11pm, and were still sitting around the tree and nativity opening presents at midnight, the official Christmas moment in Guatemala. Fireworks were being set off outside in all directions, some small and noisy, some giant and sparkling, all set off in probably an unsafe manner. We watched the fireworks for a few minutes, and then all headed back in for our midnight Christmas hug. We all hugged, and sat down to finish opening presents and eat grapes and candy-filled marshmallows. After that snack we all headed downstairs, and had second dinner of tamales and hot fruit punch, a dinner all of Guatemala was enjoying at that exact same time. It was certainly one of the most unique Christmases I have ever had, and definitely a memorable one.

            The next morning, Sunday, we all slept in after having been up until 1am the night before. We slowly wandered downstairs, and had a breakfast of leftover tamales. The rest of the morning passed by with packing and finishing touches to our Christmas party, and after a quick lunch at home, Brooks and I headed over to Fundación Salvación for my last time. Because it was my last day, Brooks and I were planning an elaborate Christmas party for the kids, complete with individualized crown awards, pizza, videos, presents, and hot chocolate with marshmallows and candy canes. We arrived around 2pm at the orphanage, and began getting everything ready for the party, with myself sneaking away to the baby room and playing with other kids periodically. By 4pm it was time for the despedida to start, which began with the portion organized by the orphanage. It began with a song by the Kinders, a rock band of some Parvulós and Escolares, and a dance by the Escolares and Pequeñas. It was all so sweet, and got my tears started early. After these performances my parents and I went to the front for a gift presentation and parting Bible verse reading, followed by a few tearful words from myself. After our moment up front, Estela, one of the older girls I was close with, sang a beautiful song, which was followed by a closing prayer. After this portion, Brooks and I started up our Christmas party. We began with crown awards for each of the children, which consisted of Pollo Campero crowns turned over, decorated with a specific award written for each kid, such as “best smile” or “the most likely to fall asleep while writing a pen pal letter” (which actually happened… Three times with Cente). Some were funny, some were sweet, but I think most of the kids really enjoyed the laugh and the personal recognition. After the crowns, our pizza miraculous arrived on time (our friend who was picking up the pizza and making our hot chocolate thought the party was the following day… So that presented a problem), and it was stuff-your-face time. Luckily, all of the kids were separated into tables by their groups, meaning we could just pass soda and pizza to the leaders of the group and have them distribute to their groups; this made what could have been a very chaotic moment much less stressful. After pizza (accompanied by American Christmas music, of course), Brooks and I presented our Pen Pal frames, and then passed out the boxes of gifts to every group leader. I think we were intending to give some sort of signal to start opening, but after waiting a couple of minutes without any signal, a beautiful moment of chaos ensued with kids unwrapping presents and stuffing their faces with the candy they found in their bags. After the kids had a chance to check out their presents, we found some of them over at the Pen Pal pictures, finding themselves and pointing out themselves and their pen pals to everyone. It was wonderful. I slipped away for a minute to the baby room to give Nila and Lesly their gifts, and watched Galilea play with the new blocks the baby room has received. After this small, chaotic break, Brooks and I started up the videos portion by showing the Xela trip and Thanksgiving videos we had made. The kids loved seeing themselves on screen, and I teared up again remembering all of the amazing things I have been able to do and the beautiful kids I have shared them with. Right after those videos ended, in perfect timing, Marveli showed up the hot chocolate, ready to serve. We poured out pitchers full for each table, and ran around sticking two marshmallows and a candy cane in each cup. Interestingly enough, Brooks and I had known a while back we wanted to do hot chocolate with candy canes, but didn’t have any luck finding them in the local grocery store, Paiz; miraculously, when we opened up the boxes of gifts on Monday, we found 125 large candy canes. Perfect. The kids loved the candy cane/marshmallow/hot chocolate combo, and again we did this all while blasting Christmas music; it just felt like the perfect Christmas to me. After handing out the hot chocolate we showed another video, a compilation of videos from various pen pals our friend Laura had put together. Each pen pal greeted their kid on screen, done in various levels of Spanish (some really funny, some really good). Again, I think the kids loved seeing their pen pals on screen and loved hearing their name and knowing that someone was thinking about them. After that video I was surprised by a fourth video; Brooks had made a video for my going away, a compilation of still photos and videos he had taken of the kids saying nice things about me. It was incredible, and reminded me again that I am so blessed to have a friend like Brooks, and an amazing place to have shared with him. When the video ended, Brooks called all the kids forward to mob me with hugs, and for a good five minutes I was surrounded, giving hugs left and right.

The night was perfect; it was the perfect way to say goodbye to Fundación, and although it was still painful, I know I will not soon forget the kids of Fundación Salvación; they will forever positively affect me. After the hug mob and clean up, I began my goodbye rounds, giving hugs and kisses in every room. Some kids began crying along with me, reminded me that my time at Fundación was not in vain. After the hundreds of sad goodbyes, Marveli and her mom, Teresa, gave us rides home, and one last hug and goodbye.