The rains are in their final throes here at the lake, and so too our first full year at Escuela Caracol is winding down. I am amazed at how much we have accomplished this year, and how much the children have grown with us – and us with them. I’ll do my best to sum up the second half of the school year in this short space.

The Seeds of Peace benefit puppet performance at Chesterbrook Elementary in McLean, Virginia was quite a success. We raised $8000 which greatly helped us to meet our budget for the second half of our year. We are excited about our relationship with Chesterbrook Elementary and we look forward to seeing it blossom in the years to come.

The month of July was a special highlight at Escuela Caracol, during which three recent Waldorf graduates volunteered with

us: Camille, Becky and Andrea. They came to us from the Washington Waldorf School in Bethesda, Maryland and also brought their moms – two of whom actually work at Washington Waldorf and graciously offered their wealth of advice. The volunteers taught specialty classes for the first grade in drawing, painting, sculpture and music, and also created a story that they shared with the kindergarten through puppets. It was amazing to see with what ease they settled into this work, preparing lesson plans, coming up with crafts, sewing puppets and inventing stories. Their abilities and their character were a powerful confirmation of what Waldorf education can produce.

July brought a host of other volunteers to the school. Kristin, our expert gardener who is now working on a master’s degree in landscape architecture, devoted herself lovingly to our garden and the children. My parents, Allen and Suzanne, made wooden toys with the children and assisted the first graders with reading lessons. One parent and three teachers from the Chesterbrook community visited the school and spent time learning how to make tamalitos with the kindergartners. It was quite a month for visitors.

Many of the other highlights of the past months can be summed up in two

things that children love: animals and birthdays. It is such a joy to teach in an environment where interruptions made by animals can become the source of your best lessons. Once I was preparing to start a science lesson underneath some of our jocote trees when

we realized a young bird was watching us. We spent several moments in   silence with the tiny fledgling before my students stalked up close to it to observe its body and characteristics before seeing it off into the woods.

We also found a baby snake in the garden that at first resembled a rattlesnake. It was actually a harmless and quite docile bull snake, and it provided an excellent opportunity to teach the children how beneficial snakes are to a garden and that they are not all dangerous and deadly creatures. Seeing the kids connect with this beautiful animal and put their faces right up to the snake’s mouth was a real treat. Before we released it into the garden, the children named it jaguar besitos (“little jaguar kisses”).

Birthdays have been festive occasions for celebrating the children and their unique personalities. We developed a sort of birthday ceremony that included games with a parachute and a unique birthday story. One of our mothers also made it her mission to give each child their own birthday cake to share with the class. We celebrated birthdays for Chloe (6), Marley (5), Mayra (6), Sofia (4), Wendy (5) and Magdaluna (8) – not to mention all the teachers: Josefa, Courtney and myself.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention our celebrations for the Guatemalan Independence Day, 15 September. This is a big holiday here that is celebrated with lots of fireworks (surprise!), parades and all sorts of shows. This year we decided to have a small party at the school for the students and their families. As is the custom, the students all dressed in traditional clothes and performed a popular local dance that is accompanied by the marimba, the national instrument of Guatemala.

Our next school year will begin in January 2009, and we plan to nearly double our current enrollment. Our first grade class will expand to a blended first and second grade class with 13 children. Our desire is that all of our classes are an even mixture of indigenous and non-indigenous children, but we cannot accomplish this without additional sponsors for local Mayan children. As we approach the enrollment season for next year’s classes at Escuela Caracol, we are seeking 6 sponsorships for the first grade class and 6 for the kindergarten. Individuals, families, groups and institutions can provide these sponsorships. For individuals who want to help but cannot afford a complete sponsorship or find a group to work with, we encourage partial sponsorships that we can then combine with others. Your support is so important to these children and their families, and provides them with the educational opportunities to rise above the economic, social and cultural difficulties that confront them. Our school is establishing itself as a model for other schools in the region, serving as a beacon for education that promotes peace, nurtures creativity and honors the individual, the community and the natural environment. Your generosity makes our work possible.

Update on our short-term goals:

1. -Kindergarten Teacher: We are very excited to announce that we have hired a new teacher for KinderCaracol! Her name is Angélica Martínez and she is coming to us from Mexico for the 2009 school year. She received her Waldorf training in Germany, and she has taught at Waldorf schools in both Mexico and Ireland. She has a wonderful heart for children and will make an outstanding addition to our faculty. Courtney has grown quite close to her class this year and is sad to be leaving them, but as her pregnancy has progressed she has felt increasingly secure about this decision. Now we are crossing our fingers that this baby will hold out until the end of classes!
   

2. -Accreditation: We have been extremely busy for the past two months working on our accreditation with the Guatemalan Ministry of Education. It has been an arduous mountain of paperwork, bureaucratic headaches and late nights, but the 200-page document is now in the hands of the Ministry, and we hope to receive the green light this month.
   

3. -Classroom building: we have drawn up our preliminary plans for our next classroom space -- a second floor to what is currently our office -- but as we are still seeking funding for it, we have decided to put off the construction until 2009.
   

4. -Non-Governmental Organization (NGO): we plan to submit our paperwork for a Guatemalan NGO (non-profit) before the close of 2008. We are still talking with our neighbors, La Camabalacha, about forming this association together.