Kristina (now) in the U.S.A.: Phasing out

Rooftop sunsets

The new Jacal volunteers, Kristin and Damian arrived yesterday and moved into their new homes today. They are two awesome people and it's going to be fun to hang out with them for the next month, but this is getting weird. It's really starting to hit me how very little time I have left here, especially now that most of my training group has finished their service and left the country.

Damian and Kristin

(The photo didn't turn out great, but I'm sure better ones are soon to follow)

A few weeks ago I attended a goodbye dinner and night on the town in Xela with several members of my group. It was a bittersweet evening. I stayed the night at Ashleigh's and had to say goodbye to her the next morning, which was really not fun. Nonetheless, I'm so happy I made so many new friendships with other volunteers during my time here, and I know there's no way I would have survived this experience without them.

Select members Peace Corps Guatemala Winter '08 training group

Miller and me

Karaoke Kyle...

Saying goodbye to Ashleigh = Lame

Last Friday the teachers at my big school took me out for an afternoon and a few cold ones on the river. My professional relationship with these teachers has been strained at times, so it was nice to just hang out and enjoy each others' company for a change. All of these final goodbye activities are starting to make me a little sad, though.

I brought the football along and it was surprisingly somewhat of a hit

Looking ahead
As for Damian and Kristin, they are going to be beginning a new phase of the Peace Corps Guatemala Healthy Schools program in Jacaltenango -- phase II. Instead of working with just two or three schools at a time, they are going to be overseeing the 24 schools of an entire district. Schools will have six years (working with three pairs of volunteers) to certify. The work will be a bit more hands off, focusing more on training school principals, so that in turn the principals take on the responsibility of training the rest of their staff. The hope is that this way the project will become more sustainable. I've posted a link to Kristin's blog in the right hand sidebar under "Blogs I follow." Check it out to stay in touch with all the latest news from Jacal ... after I'm gone. (Sniff)

As for me, I'm running around like mad trying to get things finished up with the two kitchen projects in my schools. We were supposed to start painting the bottle kitchen at my small school today, but inclimate weather forced us to postpone. The weather has been insane lately. We've been going back and forth from blazing hot to damp, foggy and rainy in less than 24 hours for the last month. Climate change in action.

I'm hoping to have all the construction done before I leave. I may not be around for the all-important inaguration ceremonies, but that doesn't concern me so much as long as I have fulfilled my commitment to the two schools. I'm pretty sure my small school will be approved for certification as a Healthy School before I leave. And even though the teachers at my big school got off to a much better start this year, involvement-wise, we just found out that the large rain water catchment tank they built with the previous volunteer is leaking from the bottom. This means the school is again without water for the year and so I don't see how they'll be able to certify until they get the tank fixed and filled with rain water. I'm hoping they'll be able to acheive that this year and then the new volunteers can go in do the certification survey.

Progress

Below, I've posted some photos of the Rincones de Salud (health corners, where they store all their hygiene supplies) that my teachers and students have created this year. I'm really proud of how creative some of them are and of how quickly everyone got them done, especially considering the distraction of the teacher strike.