Wow Nena

So my english classes have reached the tipping point. The current enrollment now stands at 253 students. This has officially moved past the point of being a small secondary project. Its all good though. It is a great way to integrate myself into the community, and I can always sneak little life lessons into the English classes. They will never know what hit ´em. I am definitely having fun with it, I keep rewarding the classes by teaching them a song at the end of class. They love it. I have the whole town singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Too funny.

Here are some pictures, just because I feel like showing off the incredible natural beauty I´m surrounded by daily

El rio Chilascó.

The National Bird. The Quetzal.

Big local beatle.

Our jungle cabins.

Never can have enough pictures of "El Salto de Chilascó"

Our other water fall. "Lome del Macho"

This is what we mean when we say "cloud forest"

Ditto.

This is what we mean when we say "broccoli"

Just a couple quick thoughts

I am currently killing some time in an internet cafe waiting for my guitar lessons to download; thats right I bought my first real six string and I am learning to rock with the help of a 12 year old boy from my town and downloaded video lessons. The only problem is I think I might be tone deaf. Anyway, I wanted to share a couple funny/interesting occurences.

I have been receiving many requests for English lessons from the people of my community, so I decided to start a secondary project and start having some classes. Yesterday I had a sign up day, and I was expecting around 20 people, maybe 30 at the most. By the time the day was over I had well over 100 people signed up, and the requests are still pouring in today. Everyone from 10 year old school children to 54 year old farmers. Now I have 5 different classes, 4 days a week, and mind you I have no english teaching experience. So I guess I am just going to have to wing it. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew with this one, but it will most definitely be an interesting adventure with plenty of comic relief.

Also, I want to comment on how funny the ropa americana down here can be. There are stores everywhere that are basically salvation army's selling old American clothing, and the people love it. However, they very rarely know what their shirts say. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

I have seen a grandma wearing a t-shirt that said "Are you free tonight or will it cost me?"

I have seen a little boy wearing a t-shirt that said "Bootylicious"

And my favorite, I huge, mean looking Guatemalan man, with a pistol tucked into his jeans, wearing a salmon colored hat that read " I LOVE JESUS"

This is a never-ending source of humor as you can imagine. My goal is to get a few pictures with some of these unknowing souls in their inappropriate casual wear.

Hanging out with "fat-man" and Kaeli

I talked Selvin into painting a mural of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too on my wall.

I was able to squeeze in a white water rafting trip at my buddy Oliver's site.

More rafting. Yep, tough life.