We had four hours to put the final touches on our school today as we had to head to the market by noon.
With lots of painting to do, I was assigned to the mural. My vision included a tree with lots of leaves and an owl, plus rainbows, flowers and butterflies. My teammate thought it would be great to have words on the wall as well. Because of yesterday’s quetzal and country flower adventure, I was designated as the main painter — I have never painted anything this big before, but I cared too much about the end product to let someone else take it over.
Starting with the tree, I was quite nervous as I was drawing branches. Not knowing how this thing was going to go down, I kept jumping down off the ladder to check symmetry. If I had more time, I could have completed it on my own, but with only four hours, I knew I’d need help! I enlisted two people to help – one in my group and one from another group.
The best part of the mural was being able to include the kids in the art. They loved choosing their favorite color, squishing the paint on their hands and placing their print on the wall. It is such a great way to recognise their part, because let’s be honest, they are the reason we are here.
While the mural did not turn out exactly as I was expecting, I think for my first one, it is a success. I can’t wait for the kids to see it!
The rest of the day was spent at the Chichi market about an hour drive from the community. Very large market with anything and everything you can imagine. However par for the course of this trip, first stop was food! One of our group travels to Latin America all the time and is obsessed with the fried chicken here, and since our van dropped us off right in front of Pollo Compero, we beelined. Man was she right, that was some of the best fried chicken I’d ever had – especially with the green hot sauce. Ah mah gah.
Back to shopping, I found a number of gifts and a couple things for me…I suppose that’s what happens when I travel alone. Kevin isn’t there to stop me 🙂
We had a nice dinner out where the founder of School the World joined us. She doesn’t typically attend dinner on site, but she happened to be in Guatemala the same week. It was lovely to meet her and here her speak about her passion.
Back home to pack since tomorrow is our last day at the community 🙁 I’m certainly not ready to say goodbye to this beautiful Quiche family – such a welcoming community where we felt like home instantly. And the kids.. I can’t think about it right now 😭😭.
Tomorrow is the school dedication ceremony which is really a fancy way to say party!
Off to pack.
