Thanksgiving, Graduation

I usually just base my posts on what I have pictures of, for that reason this post is about Thanksgiving and graduation. As everyone knows, last Thursday was Thanksgiving, so since there are so many American volunteers we decided to have a big Thanksgiving dinner. It was a pot luck, so everyone had to make one dish. I made the mashed potatoes. Everyone spent all of Thursday cooking, but for me it was a little difficult because I had to work in the afternoon. I spent all morning peeling and chopping potatoes and then left them in water in the fridge. Then I rushed back a little before the dinner to mash them. It was pretty rushed, but in the end the dinner was really really yummy. Here are some pictures:
Here is Natalie with the Turkey that she worked really hard on all day.

Here is some of the food, including my mashed potatoes.

Soraya, Loes and Jen.
Here I am with my huge plate of food.



Another event that happened this past week was graduation. A bunch of kids from Casa Suyapa graduated from Prepa to first grade. It was a pretty exciting time. I have a million pictures, but they would probably be pretty boring to anyone who doesn't know all of the kids. Here is a picture of me and the majority of the other tias that I work with:



Here is a picture of all of the kids that graduated:

Mi Grupo

I just finished my working weekend, which was really really long, but it went by really quickly and even though I'm exhausted I had a lot of fun. This weekend Wendy, the año familiar who I work with, finished her year of service in Casa Suyapa. Me, Wendy and tia Isabel share a group of kids. We eat at the same table in the comedor and then sometimes we do activities with our group in the afternoon. Since Wendy was leaving on Thursday me and Isabel decided to do a small going away party with our group. We got to leave Casa Suyapa and we brought our 9 kids over to Casa Personal (where the volunteers live). We just sat around listening to my iPod with chips, cake and soda. Also, I helped all of the kids write cards thanking Wendy for her time with them. It was a surprise for Wendy and it was a nice chance for us all to get away from Casa Suyapa. Here are some pictures of my kids.
Here is my whole group, minuse me because I took the photo.


Here are (from left to right) Ruth Belinda, Angel and Ruth Noemi. The two Ruths. I love them both, but I have a special relationship with Ruth Belinda, the one on the left. She is really sweet and funny.
Jesus.
Wendy, Carmelina and Daniela.
Cesar and Wendy.
Jesus and Wendy.
Daniela, Beto and Cesar.
Angel and Alexi with Ruth Noemi in the background.

Carmelina and Isabel.

Volunteer Retreat, etc.

I've decided it's time for me to write another post. Last weekend was the volunteer retreat, which all of the volunteers were supposed to go on. It happened to fall on my working weekend, so I got to go to the retreat instead of work. All of the week before the retreat I was really sick, but luckily I started feeling better on Friday so I was able to enjoy the weekend. Unforunately, I think I passed my sickness to Soraya because she was sick all weekend during the retreat. Either way the retreat was really fun and relaxing. We stayed at a really nice place in La Esperanza, around 4 hours away. It was a little resort type place with cabins and a nice, expensive restaurant. It was also really really cold there, so we were all wearing coats all weekend long. We spent the weekend doing group activities and lots of reflecting. This past week has been a good working week and now it is the Friday of my free weekend. Yeah! After so many free weekends it's going to be hard to have to work two weeks straight starting Monday, but that's life. Here are some pictures from the volunteer retreat.
Here are Natalie and Brittany in our jalón to La Esperanza. It was really cold for the last part of the ride.

Here I am with Kristen and Jen at the hotel.

The hotel was around ten minutes outside of the town, so on Saturday night a group of us went into the town for dinner. Here we are on a bus from the hotel that drove us there.

Here we are at the Mexican restaurant we got dinner at.

This is Soraya and Kristen in front of the hotel.

Here is a live action shot of some volunteers getting a jalón.