It is important to craft a life!: March 2009

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Hasta Próximo Tiempo

I won't add much to our final days as Chris did a nice summary already. However, what I will add is goodbyes are hard so Maxxe and I stuck with the phrase, until next time. I found Thursday our final day to be filled with a lot of emotion, which started at the house blessing. The woman's tears of gratitude struck a chord that left a lump in my throat and raw emotions at the surface. At the staff goodbye I wanted to say something to the staff and my team members, but did not trust my emotions and also did not believe there were words that could possibly capture what I felt. This was an amazing experience and the people and families I met touched and opened my heart. I feel so fortunate to have shared this experience with a wonderful group of people who I mostly found through flier and internet postings. I truly believe people come into your lives for a purpose. Each person contributed something meaningful and wonderful to my experience and the larger shared experience.

Friday we said goodbye one by one as we boarded planes back home. Thank you all. I hope we cross paths again!

Hasta Próximo Tiempo

Debbie

Nueva Esperanza

It feels a little odd to be sitting on my couch with my dog asleep at my feet finishing this blog. Absent are the sounds of Antigua traffic and teammates fixing breakfast and coffee. Reentry has definitely felt strange.

As Chris noted, we left Tuesday afternoon for the New Hope site. We drove through the typical city traffic and hustle and bustle. It wasn't until we reached the fringes of the city that the poverty was painfully obvious. Squatter-homes made of lamina (tin sheets) were dangerously perched on the sides of steep ravines. It was evident that a large rain storm would create a mudslide of homes. This of course foreshadowed the history of New Hope, which came to be after Hurricane Mitch (see Chris's post).

Abigail provided a history of New Hope on the balcony, which provided us with the most spectacular view! The next day after class observations we received additional information about the education being provided by the New Hope school from Mynor Lemus, the New Hope Program Director. Mynor who is Guatemalan is responsible for the oversight of the New Hope School, secondary education scholarship program and other programs for the affiliates and surrounding communities.

The next day we headed for the school for class observations. Eduardo and I sat in on the first graders. Class was in session no longer than 15 minutes before we headed outside to burn off some energy. We started with the game duck, duck, goose. I learned the Spanish words for duck and goose because it was not long before I was tapped as the goose and Eduardo learned the game. It was highly entertaining! Overall, it was truly a special day. I believe my highlight was at recess when I was led to the slide by the sweetest little girl. Slides are fun! New Hope is an amazing place doing amazing things with education for Guatemalan children! The trek into New Hope is not an easy one so it was inspiring to see such devotion from the Guatemalan teachers who teach in the morning and attend University in Guatemala City in the afternoon.

Upon return to Antigua we played a game of soccer as I mentioned in another post and later that evening Eduardo attempted to teach us the card game bullshit. Well, we were maybe five minutes into the game when it was apparent Eduardo did not remember the rules and was making them up as we went along. We quickly abandoned the game for Uno. :-)

Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Last Day

Our last full day in Guatemala began with a talk by Tamalyn Spring Jackson Gutierrez, the Common Hope Country Director for Guatemala. The topics covered included her personal history (she was largely raised in Guatemala) and the problems with the education system in Guatemala. One of the most striking take-aways for me was the fact that the public school teachers are essentially unable to be fired - a policy that is actually a part of the country's constitution. Obviously the threat of job loss is not an appropriate incentive to encourage these teachers to show up to class. Such job security is quite provocative in a country in which from where the next meal will come is not at all clear to a family, most of the time. So, while highly sought, these positions are often staffed by those that just want a steady paycheck, not those that actually wish to make a difference. In addition, many of these teachers have a notion that the bleak educational situation is untenable. Thus, they put in the bare minimum - or less than that (teacher attendance is an ongoing problem).

In all, Tamalyn delivered an excellent talk, despite being challenged by singing children in the neighboring courtyard, and visitors busying about in the adjacent kitchen.

We then assembled at the construction area to journey back to the house we completed last week, to bless it. We were treated to cake and fruit punch, and witnessed an honest expression of appreciation by the mother of the family, who, together with her two daughters, worked almost 300 sweat-equity hours to pay for the structure. It was an emotional scene for everyone.

After the blessing, we returned to the Common Hope compound, where we listened to a talk by Renato Westby, Programming Director. He discussed the the New Hope project, which he spearheaded, in detail. It was valuable to get this additional background, and we were all very appreciative of him taking his time to meet with us.

Next we had a bit of a goodbye ceremony, with many of the Common Hope staff gathering to share their appreciation for our help, and just for coming down to see what tremendous work they are doing. Carolyn conveyed our appreciation for their hospitality in words that I would have had to work very hard to match in sincerity.

Last, but not least, we all helped with a cooking workshop that was conducted by Carolyn and two of the Common Hope staff. The audience consisted of grandmothers who work out together, and a grandfather who we later learned was trying to take over the tasks that his wife could no longer do, having suffered a stroke. Given that Carolyn is a nutritionist, the focus of this workshop was the incorporation of necessary vitamins and minerals in daily meals. The event was expertly conducted by Carolyn, and the rest of us mainly tried to stay out of the way of women that clearly knew what they were doing!

We ended the day in Guatemala City, at a hotel we had reserved some weeks beforehand, so that the next day of travel wouldn't be as exhausting. It was a good time had between people who have become good friends.

I plan to publish a personal retrospective soon, but we'll see how quickly I get wrapped up into the daily grind!

Hasta Luego!

The Desperate, the Breathtaking, and the Inspiring

Our journey to New Hope this past Tuesday was sobering. The location of New Hope is just outside of Guatemala City - the capital - and we had to travel through the city to reach it. For those who have seen Slumdog Millionaire, the parallels were striking. There were corrogated-tin roofs covering entire city blocks; little protection against the torrential rains that are imminent - the rainy season is just about to begin, and lasts through October.

On our way up an incredibly steep hill that challenged the torque of our vehicle's transmission, we even glimpsed shacks assembled on revines, which we learned were government-owned land, making the inhabitants squatters. Abigail - our Common Hope Vision Team coordinator - later explained that New Hope residents were formerly squatters in a revine similar to the one we had seen, before Hurricane Mitch washed many of their homes away.

Originally planned to house 350 families, the New Hope relocation project now is home to forty-two families, a discrepancy which Renato Westby - the Program Director for Common Hope - explained was due to a miscalculation of the scale of the endeavor. Even the best organizations cannot predict the future, and the fact that even forty-two families were successfully rellocated in this joint venture between Common Hope and Habitat for Humanity is quite remarkable. You can read more about the history of this project here.

The site itself was quite dramatic: seated atop a mountain, we were blessed with one of the most amazing views of Guatemala available. The combination of cloud cover with holes of sunlight produced an awe-inspiring contrast of dark blues and simmering browns, greens, and yellows. Sadly, such a sight was impossible to capture, but I hope to keep that memory with me as long as possible. It is important to recognize the beautiful scenes, expecially after seeing such desperate ones.

We ended the day with a movie entitled Precarious Peace: God and Guatemala, which details the civil war that ravaged the country for nearly four decades. It was worth watching, as it gave details from the Mayan perspective, including the fact that genocide had occurred during this war: a chilling thought, which no doubt contributes to the distrust of outsiders amongst this constituency. Renato also pointed out to us later that the civil war has left (at least) mental scars on the entire population, and described the smiling face that typifies the average Guatemalan as a mask, covering a great deal of pain.

Wednesday, we were granted the opportunity to observe classes at the New Hope school: an elementary school operated by Common Hope, educating New Hope residents' children, as well as children from neighboring villages. Originally the idea was to have the New Hope children attend the local public school, as that notion fell in line with the Common Hope practice of not duplicating services. However, the public school was quickly overburdened, and the administration decided that constructing a school was the only viable option. Neither public (i.e., government funded) nor private (i.e., everyone is allowed to enroll), the school hosts grades pre-K through sixth grade, and looks remarkably similar to a typical US school. (Another tidbit I learned while in Guatemala: it isn't appropriate to refer to the US as America, especially in Central and South American countries, as each of these countries is in America.)

Carolyn and I were allowed to o observe one of the three preschool classes; Debbie and Eduardo looked in on the first grade; and Maxxe observed the fifth grade, if I remember correctly.

Carolyn noted that the class was extraordinarily well-behaved, with the exception of some squirmy boys. I agreed, and was impressed with how smoothly the class was conducted. They were very cute kids, and they seemed to be getting a lot of love.

After class observation, we spent the rest of the day playing with the children in each of the grades. The games of soccer in which I participated grew increasingly more intense as the participants advanced in age. However, it was a joyful experience.

Our last activity at the school was a reading of Where the Wild Things Are, which Carolyn orated expertly in Spanish, as well as mask-making. She describes this activity in her earlier post.

We ended the day with a drive back to the Antigua site, largely exhausted, but inspired by what we saw could be achieved with respect to education in Guatemala.