It's been 18 days on course now and, yeah, ya basta! Ok, well not that bad but let me explain... For the first time in 4 years of guiding courses we had to send home 3 students for breaking big rules. It was terrible because we've struggled, as an instructor team, to create a positive group vibe and have been fairly unsuccessful... but I think mostly due to the vibe that these 3 students formed on their own. Now that they are gone, it's been a lot more fun.

We spent 8 days in a village on the north shore of Lake Peten Itza, which I mentioned, and it was cool except we felt we did not have particular control of the group. The night before we were going to leave we got the bomb dropped on us about all the rule breaking. So our plans changed, we didn't leave the area and instead separated the group into 2 groups: the good kids and the bad kids. We had 5 good kids, 6 bad kids. A majority. Uuugg. For 3 days we holed up to figure out the problems which resulted in 3 going home. Fine. Then we moved on and spent 2 days outside of Lanquin in Alta Verapaz which is in my top 5 of best Guate places ever. It was cooler than Peten and the tarantulas were smaller. Yay!

Today we finally got off the eastern side of the country and tonight I find myself in ... Antigua, phew. I have bacon and a chocolate banana smoothie at my side. After all these days and all this stress (oh and I got a cold when the "bomb" hit, which was even terribler) I really wanted to have a place to myself, but due to whatever confusion I have to share a room with all my girl students tonight. It's taking all my willpower not to pout out loud. I'm a grown up, I keep saying, I can do this for 1 night. Anyway, tonight we will go to a restaurant and hear my co-instructor Juancho's band play - the students don't know that yet! That will be nice.

Tomorrow I am leading the day taking the students to Guate City to visit the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation and to talk with Jennifer Harbury. Oh heck yeah. I don't know if they are ready to dig deep, but it's now or never. This is the part of Dragons I like, sure the exploring water caves is cool (yesterday) and endless swimming in beautiful lakes is great (last 2 weeks), but teaching the history, hearing the stories of people and understanding this place is the reason why I keep coming back to be a course instructor. The students of mine that go on to volunteer, travel, study these issues are my heroes and each year I always hope I get a Lily, Fiona, Katie, or many of the gals from last summer.

Well, duty calls. My alone time is priceless and rare. The bacon is dwindling.