Wednesday Update

Wednesday was a great day! We started the day by heading to the Market Day in Punta. Farmers from the rural villages take their products on the bus into town and there are all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables for sale.
In Silver Creek today Conde and Steph taugh geopgraphy to the Standard 5 & 6 classes (about our 7th and 8th graders). They used atlases to measure distances and had the children identify city and countries on a globe. The children had NEVER used a globe before. Joan really enjoyed cutting out a paper model of teeth for the younger children to use. At lunch Joan and Steph got to visit the newly born puppies again and the puppies have been named Joan and Stephanie by the Grandma in the house.
In one of the pen pal letters that a student was reading a child in the USA had written that their chores include mowing the lawn. When the Silver Creek student wrote back they mentioned that they also mow the lawn, of course he mows the lawn with a machete!
Father Don spent the day with our friend, Dorla. He traveled all over the Toledo District meeting some of the people who may qualify for the Microloans program sponsored by All Saints. The possible projects include rice production, making bracelets, copying and label printing, cacao/chocolate production and basket making.
In San Miguel when Shannon, Ann and Tim walked into a classroom with brand new boxes of crayons for all of the children the kids actually cheered and clapped! Wow, how many boxes of old crayons do we all have in our houses??
It was Art Day in San Miguel and the pipe cleaner people were a big hit-especially when they turned into pipe cleaner monkeys! Tim might have a new career in teaching!
The construction crew got a lot done on the library in San Marcos. Jay, Bob, Mike, Jen, Leslie, Carol, Chris, Cathy and Peggy worked to lay and mortar several more levels of blocks. Vernon spent another day getting the bathrooms back in working order. This was a top priority of the principal and she keeps telling us that we are angels for answering all of her prayers for the school.
In classes at San Marcos we worked on the pen pal letters most of the day. The children were excited to get a photo of themeslf to keep, most of them had never had their own photo taken before.
Anita participated in a PE class with the Standard 2 class (about 4th grade). They were jump roping and it was great fun. We broke out the frisbees at lunch and the children had a blast.
The end of the day was a special mass in the retreat center. Father Dick came for dinner and presented each team member with a solidarity ring made from the Cohune nut. This ring is a special bond that all team members share. The personal mass after dinner was a lovely way to wrap up the day!
It was raining this morning (Thursday) and chilly, but the forecast for the next few days is great! right now some of our group is off visiting the ruins while the other half is hanging out in Punta Gorda.
All is well, all are safe!

-Posted by Anita Dutrow