Today was the big Independence Day party at the local school, so I decided to dress up in typical "traje" that I borrowed from Olga, my friend who owns the store below my house. People really loved it…I got compliments all day on how lovely I looked. Honestly I couldn't wait to get the thing off at the end of the day…wearing a skirt made out of about 10 yards of heavy fabric that is wrapped a million times tightly around your waist (to prevent it from falling off) is not as easy as these local women make it seem. But it was fun, and the festivities at the school went well…there was dancing, lots of food--tamales, elote (corn-on-the-cob), banana empanadas, churrasco), a raffle, a parade, and the crowning of the "princess." The party went until late, and classes were cancelled for Thursday and Friday.
So in all, that's 12 straight days of class cancelled because of Independence Day. 12 days. Classes will resume this coming week, but exams start first thing in October, and school is out for the year by week 2. If I have one major complaint about the school system here in Guatemala, it's that the kids are hardy ever in class. I understand that it's important to celebrate national holidays, but often classes are cancelled just because…because of the rain, because the lights went out, because the teacher didn't show… And with 35-minute class periods (often they have each subject only once per week), I can't imagine how much material actually gets covered. It will be interesting to see how much of the youth development curriculum we'll be able to get through next academic year.
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