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Today was a very, very slow day at the orphanage. My friends Nikki, Diana, Tae and I started off the morning by hanging up a ridiculous amount of laundry to dry. Because it's not the rainy season, which is generally April through November (I think at least), it's sunny in Guatemala every day so the kid's laundry is always outside on the lines drying.  After we finished, Nikki and I went to go see the younger kids ages 2, 3, and 4. They are by far the cutest kids, but they fight with each other constantly. Almost as soon as we walked into the room 3 kids began to wrestle over a small toy, which obviously resulted in the 3 of them yelling and crying. We walked with the little kids to a room across the orphanage where they were going to get their diapers changed, but as soon as we got their the nun that takes care of them suggested that we go and hang out with the older kids.

   Some of the nuns at the orphanage are more friendly than others, but it's hard to tell because of the language barrier. I think with this nun particularly, she doesn't enjoy having volunteers with the younger kids because it can do more harm than good. When we're around the younger kids, they're constantly fighting each other for our attention or they're trying to pull us away somewhere else. Having us around probably causes a bigger disruption to their day, although they are fun to hang around with.

   After that, we pretty much just wandered the orphanage not really doing anything in particular. We helped out in the kitchen for a while, played soccer with a few of the boys, and just walked around. This weekend is the last weekend of the summer vacation for all of the kids in the orphanage and the village, so a lot of them were helping to clean out the 3 classrooms that occupy one half of Hogar Madre Anna Vitello's complex.  The orphange hosts the local village's school, and students are split up from 1st to 5th grade, and then 6th, 7th and 8th. Somewhere around 6th grade, public school stops and if the kids want to continue their education they must pay to go to a private school.  

   Tomorrow is the last day at the orphange, which is insane. We're hopefully going to take the kids for a walk to a little store down the street from the complex, and just spend the morning saying our goodbyes. Hopefully update soon, I'll be stateside again in only 3 days! Once I'm back in the state's I'm hopefully going to add pictures to this blog and continue writing. I only have so much time to write while I'm here, but I really want to try and describe this experience, because I have yet to do it justice. 

:)