Guatemala Blog (Eagle's Nest Orphanage) January 1, 2014

A new day, a new year, a new adventure. Today was our third full day teaching the kids at the orphanage. We are now in the groove of things, and our classes are all going a lot smoother and the kids are a lot more comfortable with us. Because the kids were all up late last night watching fireworks, we had a different schedule than normal. We normally spend all morning teaching the kids and work on refurbishing desks in the afternoon, but today the flip flopped the order of activities. 
 

After breakfast, we started our day with a quick meeting, and then we worked on giving the desks at the school a second coat of varnish and painting the metal legs. Then, after lunch, we did our activities with the kids.  In outdoor activities, our group was the kids aged 2-5. Kyle and I played a few games of duck, duck, goose with them, but it proved a bit harder than expected since neither of us knows much Spanish. But the kids were familiar with the game and picked up what we were trying to do. We then attempted to play red light, green light, but couldn't really explain it, nor hold their attention, so we just decided to get the balls out and just play with them. Our next age group was the 12 to 15-year-olds. Jonathan, Evelin, and Judy came to join us for outdoor activities at this point and were able to translate for us as we taught the kids speedaway. Speedaway is a game that is a mixture of football and soccer, and the kids really enjoyed learning, and it was quite fun to get in and play with the kids. Our last group were the 6-11-year-olds. With them, we started off playing Simon Says -- one round in Spanish and one round in English. I found it really fun to play it in Spanish because more often than not I didn't know what it was that Simon told us to do. After that, we just got out the balls and jump ropes and let the kids play various things. The kids here really enjoy playing jump rope and love it when we tie two together to have a giant rope.  
 

We then had a bit of free time, so several of us had a dance party in the main hall, and one of the Guatemalan boys joined us, and we got to teach him some line dances. It was a really fun day, and it’s so nice to see the kids connecting with us. My Spanish improves each day, and I am understanding a bit more. Well, that’s it for tonight!