Wilfredo (left) and Olga Maria (Right)
Wilfredo is in my class, and every morning he is super excited to see me. He asks everyday if I will be back the next school day, just to make sure I’ll be there. When I was sick this past week, he was always asking my teammates when I would return. He is super eager to learn, especially when I try to teach him English. Olga Maria wasn’t in my class, so I didn’t spend as much time with her as I have with Wilfredo, but she is also eager to know us. Just giving her a smile makes her super happy, and when she sees us outside of class, she follows us around everywhere we go.
This is little Gavin. He’s five years old and has down syndrome. He never talks, and it can be hard to get him to trust us. The first day, everytime I would say “hola” to him, he would pull up his jacket and hide his face under it.
Yenny, Maria, Carlos and Carlito. The girls love to get girl time and talk about their lives with us and the boys are just plain pranksters (so of course, I love them)
Santana (left) is one of my favorites! She was the first student I tried to talk to the first time we were at the school. She is super shy, but incredibly smart. She longs to be a part of the group, so I’ve been trying to get her out of her shell a bit more. She is perfectly content to just be quiet and observe what’s going on around her (much like me!)
Another one of my favorites is Fernando! (I don’t have a goo dpic of him yet, so stay tuned for it to come!) He is seriously the smartest person I have met in Guatemala. I’m pretty sure he has slight autism, but he obsorbs information like no other! On the day that I taught the class how to count to 16 in English, he wrote the English words for each number before i even said them (he even spelled eight correctly!) I have no idea where he learns all of the stuff he knows, but it blows me away every time!
These kids love attacking us with love
These two are Joel and Magdelina. They are brother and sister and suffered from malnutrition at a very young age. Because of this, they are wheelchair bound due to lack of muscle development. Both always a=have smiles on their faces and Magdelina loves to sing. Last week, we had the privelege of witnessing Joel get a new tricycle wheelchair that has hand pedels (kinda like foot pedals on a bike). Now he can wheel himself around everywhere instead of depending upon the help of his little brother and parents!
