First day at the market!

Today Mike had his first 2-hour Spanish lesson, and then he met us at the market in Guamani. This is one of my favorite markets, because there is quite a bit of space to play in, and we can also play on a grassy hill. Also, when it's a clear day, you get a great view of the snow-capped Cotopaxi volcano. We'll see if Mike feels up to adding to this blog about his day. From my point-of-view, it looked like he was having a great time with the kids in the market, and they loved him! He was playing frisbee, football, jumprope, etc. with the kiddos. I love singing the songs, playing jumprope, and reading to the kids. They are so precious! There was this one little girl who just wanted to be held all afternoon. I spun her around and taught her the chicken dance, but she really just wanted to be held. The other girls caught on to the dance! Fun times! After eating lunch out near the market with the some of the other volunteers, we headed back to the grassy hill and listened to music and relaxed a bit. There were two kids still hanging out there. Most of them go back to their families who are working in the markets during the lunch hour. I showed the older of the two, Edison, how to make a whistle with a blade of grass. He kind of got the hang of it! The picture below is from this same market last year. Some of the same kids are still coming! Next week school starts, so we'll see how many kids will be attending each day. Oh, and we are not allowed to bring our camera to the markets until the last week of volunteering, so we may not have many pictures with the kids until later.