These last two weeks have been even busier than the others. We are still working in schools and have started relationships with two other ones. We have given presentations about the environment to 2 grades so far at the new school Alvarez.This school has 800 kids! It is the largest one in Guatemala.

Sarah is amazing and has created props and costumes for us to wear. I am the tree and these presentations are also all in Spanish so it has been very fun! The kids totally are into it and are excited about us being at their school. They still can´t remember my or kelsey´s name but Sarah is definately a famous girl here! ha ha

I have also met with a group of local guys to create a sign for them and our Parque Chimiya for the highway.I have started experimenting with color schemes and ideas of the layout. I am doing one design on the computer and one by hand so we can see how much the printed one will cost and if it is too much I will paint the sign myself. This is really exciting because I was able to understand a lot of the meeting which was all in Spanish and some Quechikel, the native language.

I went into Guatemala City on Wednesday the 22nd to give a presentation about the Parque Chimiya, Long Way Home and the environment.Rebecca and I took the bus into the city and a taxi to the school.It is one of the American schools in Guatemala City so they speak in English for all their classes.It was definitely a change to give a presentation in English since we have given all of our other ones in Spanish so far.

Monya Lemery from IE3 Global Internships came and visited us also.I got to go into Guatemala City to pick her up with a friend of our organization, Feliciano.He drove me in and we got her from her hotel.It was fun to speak Spanish and be forced to do so for two hours in the car.On our way back to Comapala the car broke down.It would go for about 5 minutes at 20mph and it then would die and we would wait and try again.We finally got to a place with a fuel filter and Feliciano changed it on the side of the road.WOW!!It took us a good 3 hours to get back.It definitely was a little scary and yet amazing to see him do that!I showed Monya around Comalapa and took her to the Parque where we got to do a video for her introducing our projects and Long Way Home.It was fun!

This week we had a crazy filled week.I worked 40 hours pretty much in 4 days.We worked a lot on Monday and my day on Wednesday was filled as well.Wednesday night the boys showed up back home after dark with a huge truck filled with tires.Also that night we got notice that the husband of the director of Technico Maya school, the one we are building a new building for, passed away.The guys were asked to come into town at 10 at night and help build the grave.Adam our head of construction went into Guatemala City that night with the widow and picked up the body from one of the hospitals.Yesterday was the funeral and burial.The boys said that it was amazing to see the set up in the cemetery.It was more of a social thing than work, women brought tortillas and food for them and they sat around talking.

Yesterday we also had a couple meetings at Alvarez school after we got up at 5am and moved tires out of the big truck.We unloaded over 200 tires and sorted and stacked them.It was great! At the school we met with the director to check back in with him about how he liked what we were doing and also with the English teacher to set up times to start teaching English. I think I will mostly be doing contruction and not teaching but we´ll see how that goes.

Last weekend we went to Antigua. We shopped a bunch and walked around the town. It was fun to take the bus and switch in a different town. The views were beautiful on Sunday but Saturday was pretty hazy. I think we are going again this weekend leaving after we do a row on the kitchen in the morning. It will be nice to have a hot shower again!!

Love you guys!

Lissa