Y las lluvias siguen....

The girls at my middle school competing for the Miss Independence Day title.

The students and teachers at the Pino Dulce middle school.

A contestant in the primary school competition.

And the rain continues. Peace Corps sent out a warning late last week that Hurricane Matthew was going to be hitting Guatemala over the weekend, and that we should stock up on food, water and cell phone minutes. However, when Saturday dawned with only a light drizzle, I thought we were safe. I was wrong. It started raining for real on Sunday, so we've had three days of solid wind, rain, fog, and cold. Ugh. Well the rainy season should be over by November...just a little over a month left. November through February tend to be cold, but at least it doesn't rain. There's nothing worse than being cold AND wet.

And good things do happen during the rainy season. For one, Guatemalan Independence Day on the 15th of September. Man are these people patriotic. In schools they put SO much time and effort into preparing. For me it meant very little work in my schools for the better part of two weeks. First I was invited to a beauty pageant in my local primary school to elect the Nina de Independencia, or basically Independence Day Princess. Despite starting 2 hours late, it was a lot of fun- lots of singing and dancing along with the little girls competing. The next day I was invited to basically the same thing in the local middle school. Two days later I was invited to a parade in Pino Dulce, which included my primary and middle school kids, plus another neighboring school. That was a lot of fun, despite the mud. The next week I was invited to a Indep. day celebration, again at the local primary school. It started a whopping 3 hours late. Oh Guatemala. I really enjoyed myself at all of these events, they were really entertaining, and its fun to see the kids perform. (Although I got a little bit sick of hearing the Guatemalan national anthem- it's five and a half minutes long!) The major downside, however, was being asked, begged, and demanded to take pictures of everybody's children. I ended up taking over 300 pictures in the two weeks. I really need to stop being such a push over and just tell people no. While I like taking pictures, getting them all printed, handed in to the right people, and payed for...that's something else all together!

I swear to God, I'm never taking this many pictures again...

Last week was field based training, where the new trainees, who arrived in August came to visit Jalapa. It was exciting for me be able to meet these soon-to-be trainees, and get to show off my site a little. It was also kind of crazy to think that a year ago I was in their shoes! Nervous, overwhelmed, and with no idea where I was going to end up! We spent one day in my site touring family gardens, then a day in Pino Dulce cooking with my women's group, then two days in the eco park in Pino Dulce learning about and putting into practice soil conservation.