The Wrap-Up

Friday evening, after our last classes, was our wrap-up party. Hunter sang one song in Spanish, then Chris B., Ethan, and Kelly sang along with Shakira, and then we had the Salsa competition. It took awhile for people to get the nerve to do this, but the winners of the final five couples were Matthew and Sadie, and Max and Becca. The school served us Mole (I don't know how to put the accent on the e...) and tamales, rice with vegetables, and some kids made short speeches in Spanish. Two kids had found that you can buy awesome fireworks in Guatemala, and, well - it was the Fourth of July - so I went out to the courtyard with them as they lit the fuse on fireworks that lit up at least all of Zona 1 in brilliant colors.


Saturday morning we left for Antigua - finally it wasn't raining there - at least not initially - so we had a little time to explore. Sunday we all had our own chicken bus (In Spanish, you pronounce this "Chicken Bus") to get to the airport. To Atlanta, fine... with plenty of time left for customs....oh wait.... even more time. A two hour delay because of bad weather someplace else... and we finally boarded around midnight, and found the parents in Richmond after two A.M.
There were lots of things people were looking forward to on return to the U.S. - long hot showers, Bodo's Bagels, seeing friends - but then we found a lot of friends in Guatemala, and there are a lot of things we will miss. Congratulations to the whole group for embracing the experience. Good luck with tests this week, and happy travels for the future - it's a big world out there...