So after a hectic month of travelling and Semana Santa in Antigua, things have finally started to settle down. The school has finally returned to a bit of normality after all of the Easter processions and celebrations. Spending Semana Santa in Antigua was great. There were daily processions and carpet making almost everyday. I helped out my host famiy with the carpet making, which includes making various complicated shapes out of flower petals, and detailed patterns out of sand (or some other substance like it). It was an incredible time to be in and around Antigua, as carpet making usually went on way into the night, so there was a real communtiy feel.

The procession in Itzapa was also incredible. I finally managed to see quite alot of the community that I am working in, rather than just being stuck in the school all day. The processions were incredible and also the volunteers were able to carry the procession for part of the journey around Itzapa. It must have looked really weird for the people who live in Itzapa, I can imagine. Then the week after the volunteers were able again to walk around Itzapa. It was great but also quite saddening to see where the children live, and how far they have to walk just to get to school. I think that the GVI project here really does loads of good for this community.

This past weekend I went to Monterrico, which is a beach that has sand that is made completely out of volcanic ash. It was very cool to look at, but unfortuantely I couldnt walk on the sand as it was too hot and the sea was too strong to swim in! But I still had a great time, it was nice to get some sand and sea for a bit! Apart from this I havent been out of Antigua much recently. I have been going up into the mountains as there is a great kind of hotel there which is good fior live music. Hopefully I will be getting out of Antigua soon, I would very much like to go to Nicaragua. But I shall see I guess. GVI dont really seem to know what they are doing, and I do have a slight feeling of being messed around.
But apart from that life is great here. The school is great even though its alot of hard work it is very rewarding.

Ill blog soon!

Hello everyone! First of all I am very sorry that I have not posted on here for so long. I have been very busy, but also a little bit lazy. It takes so much time to write on here so I hope that you can understand!

At the moment, I am in Belize in a place called Placencia. It's really amazing here. Today I went snorkelling and swam past a Nurse Shark and various other marine life.. (think Finding Nemo). I really enjoyed it and definitely want to do it again before I go.

For this past week I have been travelling through Guatemala and have now eventually landed in Belize. Me and my friend Lucy firstly went to a place called Semuc Champey in Guatemala. It's a beautiful place. It is a huge river which over time has eroded in to huge pristine blue large almost lakes. There is a massive limestone cave system underneath these lakes, so we decided to do the caving aswell. This was also very cool, a little bit scary as out guide just seemed to disappear into the darkeness, leaving us with just (very short and fast burning) candles in the middle of a wet cave. Wonderful. We stayed at a place called El Ritiro which was again a lovely hotel next to a river.

After we stayed at El ritiro for 2 nights, we then travelled onto the Rio Dulce which is closer to the Caribbean side of Guatemala. We stayed on the river and kayaked round it. Had an interesting experience at the hotel, and then after that we then travelled by boat to the Caribbean port of Livingston. From there we got the smallest most un seaworthy boat possible to Belize. It was a little scary and the captain of our 'boat' looked exactly like the sailor guy off the Simpsons. When we got to Belize we had no idea where we were going. We knew that we wanted to get to Placencia but we had no idea how or when. Luckily we met this crazy american guy who didnt wear any shoes and had what seemed like a 20 year old girlfriend when he was about 60. But anyway, we had to get a Chicken bus (public bus) from here to a place called Independence. Again when we got to Independence we had no idea where we were going, but there was also a group of lost looking american tourists in the same situation as us, so we followed them, got another boat and eventually wound up our way here.

It's nice to have a break here. I am really enjoying working at the school but from three months of constantly working with the kids (excluding the bike challenge) I needed the break! Working with the kids has been great though and a few of them have managed to move up to the next class. Unfortunately though my Spanish doesnt seem to be improving, I seem to be at a wall and Im sure that being here in English speaking Belize isnt helping matters.

I also just wanted to say thankyou so much to everyone who sponsored me on the bike challenge. I dont know how I managed to do it, it was an absolutely amazing trip but it was very hard. We cycled through places that had never seen any tourist before, through a desert with dead cows littered along the road, through rivers and jungles and basically everything really. I got chased by dogs a few times and overall I think that there was 89 flat tyres between 15 of us... (I got 2). hehe.

Im now going back to school next week, and will see from thereon whether I am going to go to Nicaragua or Honduras or just stay in Guatemala. We shall see.
I hope that everything is alright with everyone, and I will try and post more regularly from now on!
Sophie

Hello everyone. Had a busy few weeks and havent seemed to manage to find the time to write on here... sorry Uncle Keith. Ive been working at the school alot and now that I have my own class I have to do everything for them. Im really enjoying working with the kids but then again they are little shits. Thankfully so far I have managed to keep my temper with them, and hopefully wont lose it in the near future! But for 99% of the time its really good. On the weekend I went up to the largest market in Central America, its called Chichichastenango or something like that. It was an amazing market and it was huge. I had to haggle but I was really bad at it, and cant help but think that I could have gotten things for alot cheaper. I bought a bag but accidently said the number wrong in spanish so I think that I made that womans day. I had to pay 30 more quetzals than she originally asked for!

This weekend I am going to climb Acatenango volcano which is the third highest volcano in Guatemala.. cant really figure out if i am looking forward to it yet or not! But I suppose that it will be good training for my bike challenge in a few weeks time. Speaking of a bike challenge if anyone would like to sponser me, I would be eternally grateful. Im cycling 205km in 5 days from Antigua Guatemala to Copan Honduras. All of the information is here:

www.justgiving.com/Sophie-Standen

I will update after the weekend and let you know if I am still alive after acatenango.

P.s Dad I sent you an email on skype, but I dont know if you got it... Let me know what you are doing for your birthday so that hopefully I can speak to you xx

Hello all. Had a really busy few weeks. Been teaching and lesson planning constantly and havent had much time to get on the computer. Last weekend I went to lake Atitlan for an adventure trip with other gvi volunteers. I had an absolutely amazing time. We left Antigua early on saturday morning and the drove to roughly 35km away from lake atitlan. We then mountain biked all the way down to lake atitlan with views of stunning mountain and lake scenery. The roads were incredibly bad, my bike was incredibly awful, the roads were very steep and I was going way too fast. Therefore, I almost had a few near death experiences with some very large holes. Got down to Lake Atitlan after cycling through a few villages and a market place and the we caught a boat across the lake to our hotel. The lake is incredibly huge and incredibly beautiful as it is surrounded by volcanoes and mountains and the water is incredibly blue. We swam in the water for a while, and then went back to the hotel to have some food. The next morning we kayaked for 3 hours across the lake, jumped off a few cliffs and then hiked back to the hotel. It was an amazing trip however i did get incredibly sunburnt. All this week I have been teaching and it has been good fun but it has been a long week. Feeling a bit messed around by gvi again as now i am teaching a different class on monday. This is really annoying as over the past 3 weeks I have spent alot of effort trying to get to know each child´s individual strengths and weakneses and now on monday i feel like i have to start over again. Gvi as a whole is an amazing programme i just feel that some individuals let it down slightly, but that is only to be expected.


Last week I went to my first Salsa class which was fun and comical. I am going to try and go again this week and maybe improve! haha. Last night I went to the gvi bbq which was cool, as 11 volunteers left yesterday so it was a bit emotional at school. One intern had been here for 2 years and another volunteer has been here for 6 months so it was quite tough for them. But anyway, I am off the Cerra de la cruz to go and chill out for a bit. Its boiling hot here at the moment, so might do a bit of sunbathing or something. Hehe. Sorry I purely said that to make all of you guys at home jealous. heheheh.

P.s Happy Birthday Auntie Diane for Wednesday I hope that you had a brilliant day. xxxx

Hello everyone. Sorry I havent posted for a while! Been very busy recently lesson planning and teaching aswell as going out! Ive been up at the school every day this week teaching roughly about 30-40 kids a day. Its been pretty manic and incredibly testing on my spanish but luckily im teaching with another girl so its not too much pressure. I havent really felt like i have been supported by the gvi staff though, feel like i have really been thrown in the deep end. I have no curriculum to work from and am competely making up my own lessons to cater for many different ages and abilities. But the kids are absolutely amazing. They are so lovely and loving and very very cute. Its very hard to tell them off! The project is incredible and does so much for the indigenous community. Ive also never met so many friendly people all in one place. The community leader does so much for everyone especially the children and its incredibly amazing especially that we are able to work with her. You can see the admiration a mile off with everyone in the community especially the kids in the school. Last night I went out but was so tired after a week of teaching that came home almost straight away. Cant believe how much hard work teaching is! Tomorrow I am going to a place called Earth Lodge with a few of the other volunteers. Dont really know what it is but I have heard that it is an amazing place. Going to go back to my home now and do a bit more lesson planning and then maybe go out later. Ill try and update the blog again soon, however its hard to find the time to get to the internet cafe! Hope all is well with everyone at home.

Hello! Just got back from climbing the Pacaya volcano which is a couple of hours drive from Antigua. It was really hard work, but the views were absolutely amazing. We ate marshmellows which had been toasted on a kind of lava pit... very tasty! Just been having Spanish lessons all week really, but my spanish is still really awful! Kind of understand a little bit more, but not very good at speaking! Going to start teaching on Monday with my own class and Im also teaching with another english girl. Im very excited however there is alot of work to be done! Tomorrow im probably going to be lesson planning all day and just probably walking around antigua. I will try and get as much sleep as possible tonight, didnt get much sleep last night as there was a spider in my room! haha.

Ive been in Antigua for three days now, but it feels like ive been here for a very long time! Not because im not enjoying it, but because im doing so much in a day. Been having 6 hours of spanish lessons today and yesterday, and been trying to practice as much as possible, but im living with another guy who is very good at spanish so im not really talking very much to my host family. My host family are lovely. Im living with a woman called theresa, her 70 year old mother and her son, as well as a dog called chopper and some other random family members who pop in and out of the house. The house is also amazing, it doesnt have a roof in the hall which gives you a wonderful view of one a of the volcanoes (which sometimes emits smoke, bit scary haha). Im now going to go to the market with some of the other volunteers then back to the house to practice a bit more of my spanish, and hopefully relax. Last night I went out for drinks in a local restaurant and the night before, and ive been having to get up at 20 to 6 every morning so i am very tired!