My weekdays usually start when my alarm goes off between 6:00 and 6:10 a.m. (For those of you who know me well, you'll recognize that this is entirely new territory for me, since I am NOT accustomed to being an early riser.) After Mark and/or I get the girls up, they get started on breakfast (cereal most day) and I face the shower. <Insert dramatic music here.>
For the first several weeks that we lived here, the shower was kind of okayish, and put out intermittent pulses of warmish and ice cold water. For some reason, the shower head got more and more temperamental the longer we lived here, and became increasingly obstinate and cold, before finally giving up entirely last week. I'm pleased to say that our new shower head works like a charm, and even has honest-to-goodness hot water, though only at very low water pressure. This forces us to decide each day if we want to shower under a hot dribble, or a warmish gush. Hey - at this point we're just happy to have the option.
After making sure we've got all of our homework, packed lunches, and (often) our dirty clothes and empty, 5 gallon water bottles, we pack into the Jeep and head off to school. Mark was our family's fearless driver for the first 6 weeks here (and still drives most often), but I've been getting braver, and have actually driven a few times. Our commute to school takes between 10 and 25 minutes, depending on traffic, holidays, and protests. (The latter has not yet been a problem for us, but there have been several teachers and students who literally couldn't make it to school because protests closed the only road from their town to Xela)
We generally arrive at school between 7:10 and 7:25. On days when we have laundry to do, we have to stop at the middle school building, which is down a steep hill from the high school building. It has been SUCH a blessing to have access to the school's two washers and dryers. Of course, all of the other staff have access, too. It is somewhat strange to know that your colleagues are probably touching your underwear when they switch loads. But, such is life here.
My day starts with 10th grade Grammar and Composition. Then it's 11th grade American Literature (we just finished reading The Scarlet Letter), 9th grade Grammar and Composition, a prep period, and 12th grade British Literature (we just started reading Hamlet). After lunch, I have an elective that focuses on creative problem solving (except on Wednesdays, when we have high school chapel), and my final hour of the day is either a prep period (T, Th and F) or a class I co-teach for the juniors and seniors to assit them in getting ready for college.
Our day officially ends at 3:00, but I usually stick around the school to finish planning, grading, etc. until 4:00. It is a very rare day indeed when we don't have somewhere we need to go after school - either the store, the money changer, the market, or an a wild goose chace to find school supplies or something we need for our house.
I must admit - our travels out and about often lead us to fast-food restaurants - especially during the week that our refrigerater was broken, and before we got gas for the stove or pots and pans. We will be moving into our new house soon, where (hopefully) everything will work reliably, and we REALLY hope that the frequency of these fast-food feasts will dramatically decrease.
After supper (fast-food or home-cooked) we hurry to finish all of our homework (usually an hour to an hour-and-a-half) and then jockey for position in the shower so we don't all have to get in there in the morning. After everyone has finished their work and packed their lunches for the next day, we brush teeth (careful not to use tap water) and hop into bed. We aim for having the girls tucked in by 8:30, but it's usually more like 9:00 or 9:30. Mark and I are generally able to turn the lights off by 10:00 or so, and are serenaded to sleep by the traffic noise and the barking dogs.
The next morning, the alarm goes off, and we start another blessed day in Quetzaltenango.
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