no more teachers, no more books . . .

I am back safe and sound in ipala. Note much to report. Just that . . .
I found an iguana waiting for me in my pila. I put a stick in there so he could climb out, but in the end mirna and i had to rescue him. Appearently iguana eggs are thought to be delicious around here . . . i wouldn´t know. I´m off eggs.
Tuesday morning i woke up with horrible menstral cramps. This is the fourth time that i´ve experienced cramps of this magnitude. One time i lost consciousness. (kate i´m sure you remember that, when we were in botswana) and another time i had andrés call an ambulance. anyway i could tell that i was headed for trouble. I got a fever, and started sweating and shaking, all the blood rushed from my hands and feet. There´s a private hospital not a 30 second walk from my house, but i hadn´t the physical or mental ability to get myself there. So i called sindy and asked her to come over. Then i continued calling her like every 30 seconds until she arrived 5 or 10 minutes later because i was delirious with pain and there wasn´t anything else i could do. She arrived with a doctor from the hospital. He did a quick examine and could see that i was in a lot of pain. I asked for an injection or something that would make me go to sleep. He returned to the hospital to retrieve something, but upon his return to my house the pain subsided. He gave me one injection in the butt instead of two and told me to rest. Luckily for me (but unforntunately for her) sindy has horrible cramps as well. Her mom is a nurse and gives her injections like every month. She´s had to go to the hospital twice (when her mom wasn´t around) so she understands what i went through. I´m so lucky to have a friend like her here. Anyway i´ve decided that peace corps´s response of ¨try taking some advil¨ when it happened to me durning training, even though i had taken a prescription pain killer and it hadn´t done any good, it not satisfactrory and i´m going to office on Monday to talk to the nurses again.

Today and yesterday were the 6th grade graduations in the school were i teach. Yesterday afternoon for the boys and this morning for the girls. Of course yesterday´s ceremony started more than an hour late. All the 6th graders were dressed up in there mint green dress shirts and gray slacks and ties. After the opening speeches from the principal and superintendent, the 6th graders marched in with their parents and sat to the side. Then each was called up to recieve his diploma, all while cheesey synth piano music swelled in the background. After all that, a few kids from 6th grade ¨A¨,my favorite classroom, had some recuerdos and nice words for their teacher. Keep in mind she´s been their teacher since 1st grade (i still haven´t figured out exactly why ipala does it like that) so she was understandbly choked up. The 6th ¨B¨ teacher hadn´t been with her kids all the way through (sometimes it happens) but she was teary as well to see her muchachos go on to jr high. Hell, i was choking back the tears too; but you all know i´m such a llorona. Then some of the kids had songs to sing. They mostly went something like ¨teacher, you taught me to fly . . .¨ more tears all around. And then each classroom left a recuerdo for the school, 15 plastic chairs and a microphone respectively. After everything official finished, i took some photos with some of the kids and then a photo with 6th ¨A¨. All in all it was a really nice, sad, happy, typical 6th grade graduation.
I just got back from the 6th grade girls´ graduation. It also started about an hour late, but began with a catholic mass. Interesting given the number of evangelicals in the town. So i stood up, i sat down, i watched the catholics students recieve rings and the body of christ. Then we started with the diplomas. This time each student, dressed in her pink blouse and gray jacket and skirt, walked up to the stage with her parents. Again, lots of tears, lots of swelling music. (the mc in the afternoon was my landlady, also a teacher. And the mc in the morning, her husband, also a teacher. Go figure.) Then select students had some nice words for their teachers. More tears. Then a final song from all the girls, ¨today we are leaving¨ or something like that. I took a few more photos, and then found some of my 6th grade patojos who graduated yesterday sitting in the back. I sat down with them and showed them some of the photos i´d taken at their graduation the previous afternoon and a few that were still on the camera from my trip home. They were pretty excited. Then i took them to the office so they know where to find me during vacation because i´d like to do some activities and excursions with them during the break. They were really unsure of themselves and shy, the way kids are when they suddenly find themselves being invited into the adult world. I told them to come in and introduced them to sindy. I hope the come by and visit me.

After the boys left, sindy told me that she might be going to quetzaltepeque this afternoon because a coworker´s brother died. He was sixteen and working illegally in the states in construction. It took him 2 months to get so the the states, and he´d been there about 6 months. It sounds like he fell from a roof. i don´t think i´m going to be able to make it.

Tomorrow i´m heading to the capital to dine at the director of pc guate´s house with a few other friends. sarah won the dinner in the 4th of july raffle. Then i´m going to stick around the capital/antigua to do a few errands and go to santiago Tuesday for dia de los santos. There´s a big festival of kites there every year and i really want to check it out. People fly kites in graveyards to remember loved ones on nov 1st. I´m a little sad about missing dia de los santos here for the second year in a row and i´m going to be missing some high school graduation parties as well. But some times you have to make tough choices. Like my friend right now who is debating whether to go to the juanes concert the capital with us on the 12th or to a wedding. I vote for juanes.

Before i left for the states, i finished up with giving classes at school with an exam. Three of my seven classrooms threw me surprise despedidas or going away parties. Highlights included a dance routine, ice cream cake, tampico juice, cinammon milk, more cake, crepe paper decorations, a sign with my name spelled linsday, a matching necklace and bracelet, a clock, a wall decoration, more cake, and a rain storm. The last party had to happen in the rainy dark because it turned stormy, and the windows don´t have glass and this classroom doesn´t have electricity. I was really touched by all of it. But that wasn´t my real despedida. The following Monday the school celebrated día del niño. There was a parade with a fancy marching band from chiquimula. Mirna and i had planned to do a little lip synch to our new favorite jam ¨Volveré¨ by K-Paz. Mirna had planned a trip to visit bob, about 10 hours away and couldn´t force herself to leave until Monday morning. She took the 4 am bus and arrived in ipala about 10 hours later, right on time. The school hooked up all the sound equipment just for our show and mirna and i spent about 5 minutes rehearsing for the first time. I lent her my cowboy hat and put on a really fancy western shirt. And we really sang, or tried to anyway and danced. It was a huge hit. The teachers loved it and the kids were pretty happy too. They kept telling me what a good dancer and singer i am. Dancer, sure that i can see. But, singer? Obviously their standards aren´t that high. Mirna and i were really happy with the performance. It was a great way to close the school year before my trip to the states. Volveré.