Oy! de guatemala!!!

So, things are never exactly as one expects them to be, and so it is for Maestra Pan Comido.

Travel to guatemala and volunteer in an art classroom, pan comido! Meet cool and friendly companeros, pan comido!

Well, maybe not so much.

Spent a week traveling around a bit with friend, checking out guatemalan crafts and thinking about how one could use a painting to teach tone and mood. Pan comido, verdad! Analyze a Mayan Calendar for symbolic value, pan comido! Use a huipile from Cantel to teach motif, pan comido! Bought some books on bringing art into the content area classroom, but OF COURSE did not bring them with me to Guatemala.

Put myself in a class full of SEVEN YEAR OLDS and expect to be able to speak with them and understand their rapid-fire spanish.. Here, el pan comido comes to a screeching halt.

I cannot understand kid spanish. I can, however, make a puppet out of a sock, a plastic bottle, tissue paper and felt. This is cooler than it sounds. My puppet has one eye, a green mouth, a skully, and made the kids glance at me suspiciously. Well, except for that thuggish eight year old with a three-eyed puppet. He and I bonded over our mutual weirdness. This project does not seem like it will translate well into a class of twenty-year old juvenile delinquents.

So, rapid change of plans. Am going to OBSERVE the art teacher--assuming he lets me. In the meantime, am planning a class using these puppets to teach the kids words for color, emotion, and action.

Also, am going to take a class on weaving with a backstrap loom, which appears to be simulataneously cool and boring. Sort of like yoga, I guess. I bought a half-finished weaving, on its loom. Totally cool thing to use in the classroom, if I can just think of HOW.