Mayan Families Panajachel Preschool

The opening of the Panajachel Pre - School was held this past week. It was such a joyous occasion. We have been delayed in opening for sometime due to lots of paperwork but it was worth the wait! Representatives from the Mayor's office in Panajachel, representatives from the Dept. of Education, Directors of local schools, several lawyers who had been involved in helping open the preschool came and representatives of a local organization to help women and children were also there. After the speeches, everyone poured into the classroom and enjoyed looking at all the decorations and wonderful edcuational toys.
In the kitchen, everyone was busy, including my 4 1/2 yr old daughter, Aleeya serving up chuchitos and horchata. Traditional food and drink for a celebration.
Luki, the teacher at the Pana pre-school along with the representative of the Dept. of Education enjoyed looking at the books in the little library.
Lic. Jose Aguilar and his wonderful team who made opening the pre-school possible.!
Mayan Families employees, Carlos and Rodolfo ( who is also a school teacher) enjoyed helping the children with the puzzles.

Lidia, another Mayan Families employee helping this little girl with her drink.
The kids just loved all these wonderful toys and puzzles, many of them supplied by our visitors this summer, Nancy and Merrill Preiss. Thanks to them we have probably the best supply of educational toys in Guatemala!! They collected, shopped and shipped several large boxes of toys and supplies to us this summer before they arrived. They were hoping to be here for the opening but unfortunately due to the delays they were not...but their presence was obvious in all the wonderful posters and supplies! Thank you Nancy , Merrill and family for all that you have done!
I also want to thank all the others who have sent donations for this pre-school and the other two, one in San Jorge and one in Tierra Linda! We so appreciate all these wonderful gifts and I wish that you all could have been here to see the wonder in the children's eyes!