A Year in Guatemala: Ringing in 25 the Guatemalan Way

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. The day started off with me being woken up by a group of friends with a delicious fruit salad (with candles), a steaming cop of coffee and a birthday song. May I add that I am the only one that gets up that early (6:15) so they all woke up at least an hour earlier to make me breakfast...i was really feeling the love. I had also been laying in bed for the previous ten minutes deciding if I should get up in time to eat breakfast or not....guess this solved that problem.

After my delicious breakfast I headed to work where I was greated by all the children with smiling faces, big hugs and many feliz cumpleaños teacher! Throughout the day I was given many more friendly birthday wishes and a slew of cards from the girls in my section. Each girl in my section made the most elaborate and intricate cards for me.

At lunch time someone must have sent word to the kitchen that it was my birthday because there were not beans for lunch...we had maccoroni and cheeese!!!!!! After lunch a bunch of us went down to Parramos for a birthday ice cream at Sarita, the local ice cream store!

Returned back to school for my afternoon planning period and then off to enjoy the evening! We had planned on making pizzas (the dough and all) for dinner so beforehand I went up to the dinning all to say hi to my section of girls and to thank them for the beautiful birthday cards! I was greeted by my whole section surrounding me and singing happy birthday in both English and Spanish. So sweet! I thought this was the end of the celebration...but little did I know what was going to happen next. I did know that it was a tradition to dump water on people and get them soaking wet on their birthdays, but my girls hadn't mentioned it and it was so late in the day I figured I was going to make it through the day dry! It is never good to make assumptions. As I was walking out of the dinning hall a few girls in my section asked me to come out front with them...I started to get suspicious and as we walked out the door I was drenched with buckets and buckets of water. The next ten minutes or so then turned into a massive water fight and me trying to hug all the girls and get them wet.

I walked back down to my house sopping wet and the evening of pizza, cake, drinks and new friends began. Erika and I made four pizzas with all sorts of toppings, from pineapple and ham to margarita with fresh basil from outside our house. All of the other volunteers came by and we all enjoyed guacamole (thanks to Karla) and chips while the pizzas cooked. Everyone was so thoughtful and I was given even more cards and a beautiful handmade coffee mug from Antigua. Coffee mugs are scarce in the volunteer houses so it is really nice to have your own! Now I have two (thanks mom and dad). We all sat around the big table and enjoyed the pizza and the company. After the pizza had been demolished we moved on to a cake (made by Molly and Jess) and again I was taken a back by another tradition here. I was unaware that is a tradition here to shove some of the birthday cake in the birthday girls/boys face and boy was my face covered in cake and chocolate!