Sofia Somewhere

For this year's Holy Week break, Chris and I chose to spend it in Antigua. It was a relaxing staycation having a week off from school, and getting to spend the week together. We didn't have much on our agenda (aside from eating and watching TV), so we decided to be on tourist mode and explore. While I'm somewhat familiar with the city, I don't know it as well as Chris does, so it was a nice mini adventure. Plus, it's always nice to get to know a city a little bit more. The ultimate tourist picture: a selfie with the Santa Catalina arch The week started off a bit crazy with the crowd coming in for Palm Sunday, and then became relatively calm the Monday after. While it does get quite packed during the week, I enjoy the festive atmosphere the people bring to the city. The calm before the storm As expected, Antigua got busier and busier in the days leading up to Easter Sunday, and we saw the colorful alfombras in different parts of the town, and in diff...

As I write, we have just about started the second quarter at school. Work continues to be a mix of fun, challenge, exasperation, and triumph, but when it all boils down to it, I continue enjoying the work I do. We have many things constantly changing and coming up, and here are a bit of teaching (and life) reflections on this school year, thus far. With the new program we’ve put in place, I mostly teach Language Arts to Kinder, First, Second, and Third. Kinder in particular, I really enjoy. We’ve been working on phonics, and I use the Jolly Phonics approach where they sing a song associated with each letter. The kids love singing the songs, and it’s really cute when we’re together outside of class time and they’ll see one of the letters we’ve learned and randomly burst into song. Class with First grade is challenging for me. This year's class has 26 students, which is only 2 students more than my class last year, but this year's class is much more difficult to handle...

It's been a little over two months back in Guatemala and back to waking up to this view: This view never gets old Thanks to a generous donation, our living quarters got a lovely renovation. We now have concrete walls all over and tiling on the floor. We have a new sink big enough to wash dishes, but strangely, I'm missing washing with the pila . We also got a new roof crew! From last year, only Natalie and I stayed on. This year we have Heidi, another English teacher, and Stephanie a visiting Montessori teacher. Community dinner with the new crew I had my first weekend getaway on the second weekend of February. It was my boyfriend Chris' birthday so we took a quick trip to the lake with some of his friends.  Weekend at Santa Cruz School has been going, with its ups and downs. We aren't allowed to bring our phones in the classroom anymore, which means I have less pictures from class. The kids continue to be (mostly) enjoyable (haha). At the end of...

It's a new year, and I'm back in Guatemala for another stint of teaching and enjoying this beautiful country. The first month has been extremely busy with all the new changes being made in school (we rewrote the curriculum of the English program), and on the roof (we got a renovation!). Last year's vacation was also relaxing; I spent a week in Mexico plus a few days in Florida followed by a night in New York before flying back to the Philippines and staying home for one and a half months. Needless to say, not much blogging was done. So before I start up again, here are a few pictures of the last couple of months in Guatemala last year. :) Before we had our mid-year break in June, we decided to take a roof trip to Monterrico, a nearby beach. We were able to leave a little early on a Friday after work, and several buses and shuttle van rides later, we arrived in Monterrico. One of our van rides to Monterrico Situated along the Pacific cost, Monterrico is one of the ...