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.