FIVE. WEEKS. LEFT. Excuse me while I subdue the multitude of mixed emotions flying around my head right now… Ok that’s better.

Two big updates from the last few weeks or so, starting with Amy celebrating World Health Day. The focus this year was mental health but Amy decided to tackle the much more pressing issue we face here of dental health. Back towards the start of the year Amy emailed out to a number of dental health charities, asking for a donation so that we could buy enough toothbrushes and toothpaste to give one to every pupil in kindergarten and the primary school. Luckily enough Dentaid emailed back and have given us enough to do this for six months, so two lots of toothbrushes. 

To celebrate the day itself we gave each class a lesson explaining how to brush your teeth properly, what is good and bad for your teeth and how we can look after them better. We also set up an interesting experiment using three eggs and three cups, two of Coca Cola and one of water. You leave the egg in water alone and one of the ones in the coke alone but brush the other egg in the coke. The shell of an egg is very like the enamel on your teeth making it a great way to demonstrate the damage that sugary drinks can do. 

The plan now is for the kids to keep their toothbrushes in school and use them every day after merienda, their lunchtime. We’re aware that this one extra brushing session will not change everything but hopefully we’ve made more of a change to their attitude towards sugar and their teeth.

Next up was our last visa run to Belize that we just got back from. There was supposed to be 10 of us travelling together but after an incident involving (or rather lacking) a passport and another one where a bus stop was missed by five hours, our number dropped to 8 as Norome and Eva ended up doing their own thing. 

We were staying in a beautiful Air B&B house just outside of Spanish Lookout, a Mennonite town 45 minutes away from the more touristy San Ignacio. We spent one day just lounging around the house and ventured into San Ignacio for another, coming back with a few spontaneous tattoos (not me this time!). We were also invited to spend one evening with some of the owners of the house at a church youth group which was an interesting experience. 

On leaving Spanish Lookout, the plan was to get down to Livingston in Guatemala in one day of travelling but a missed bus and a slow start to hitchhiking meant we had to stop halfway, in Hopkins, where we went for our last visa run. We stayed a night there and eventually made it to Livingston. 

We’re now back in Candelaria, dealing with our last ever set of exams (one thing I’m not going to miss!) while I count down the agonisingly slow seconds until Saturday morning when twin Amy and my mum arrive! I’ve decided to focus on that at the minute rather than the fact we’ve only got FIVE WEEKS LEFT!