Here we are, another week come and come in the land of Guatemala. This week went by very quick, and we got a lot accomplished despite the fact that it has rained everyday without fail. I didn't know it was possible to rain this much. I have been proven wrong.
I'm starting to really get the hang of things here. I've finally found some projects that I really enjoy, and feel like I am starting to make a difference (or at least I'm feeling like I'm not just a burden anymore, which is great). My favorite is when I get to interact and talk with the people here, rather than just at them. I am working on starting up a family gardening program with an organization here, where I will go out to surrounding villages to teach about square foot gardening (a type of gardening that saves time, money, water, and space) and nutrition to the women of the community. It will take a while to get set up, but I think it will be really fun and make a lasting impact. I've also done more work with theater work with the orphans, have done a little with adove stove building, and this week I've started to teach english and art classes in a HIV orphanage and with community children. Fun huh?? I've realized more and more that the solution to the world's problems comes through a good education, and its funny to think that I am the teacher making this change when I feel like I know so little.
As for free time, this week was incredible. We took a vacation day Friday, drove 7 or so hours to a beautiful place called Semuk Champe (sp?), were we played in these crystal, clear blue natural water pools in the middle of the rain forest. The next day we drove a couple more hours and went zip lining through the rainforest for an hour and a half or so. Finally on Sunday we spent the day in Tikal, one of the worlds largest Mayan ruin community. It was AMAZING! I can't even begin to describe how astounding it was. Perhaps when I finally bring my camera in I'll put the pictures up. I really need to get cracking on that one. Until next time!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
The rain in spain may flow mainly in the plains, but in Guate, the rain is just EVERYWHERE
Buenos dias!
Life in Guatemala is continuing onward. This week was productive I'd say. I am still trying to get the hang of things and figure out what my nitch here will be. But I think I am getting a pretty good idea. I don't have much time, so I'll just give a quite day by day run through.
Monday: I worked in the morning with Habitat on the same house (its slowly but surely coming along), and in the afternoon I went with a Japanese lady named Kumi to help a family plant a garden so that they could have an extra source of income and nutrition.
Tuesday: We traveled about an hour away to a small highland village to check out an organization to see if we'd like to work with them. The organization is called SHARE (based out of the US), and they work with nutrition, medical clinics, education, and distribution of food. We sat in on a nutrition lesson about child health being taught to some native women. You wouldn't believe the problem they have. The women start feeding their babies real food when they are about 3 months old, and start giving them bottles of coke and coffee instead of breast milk. So this program teaches what and when to feed your babies to try to change the mindset.
Wednesday: I worked again with Habitat (we got rained out about two hours into it), and then I left with Kumi again to distribute vegetable starts to a farm literally in the middle of nowhere. We drove about a half an hour out to the edge of a mountain, and then hiked an hour in on this tiny trail uphill the entire way to a tiny farm, carrying bags of supplies. Mind you that this was all in the POURING rain. We then spend the next couple of hours planting in the POURING rain, and then walked back in the POURING rain. It was great!! I honestly loved every second of it. The location we were at was probably the most beatiful place I have ever seen, and the people were so wonderful. They tried to teach us their native Mayan language, and we tried to teach them English. It was a blast.
Thursday: I spent all day in the local orphanage (GCP- Guatemala Children's Project) teaching theater for therapuetic treatment. I LOVED it there. The kids are so willing to love, and don't care in the least I don't speak their language. They have been through horrible things, and thrist for a strong foundation of structure and love. The amazing thing about this orphanage is it is LDS run, so the kids all learn the gospel while they are their. It gives new hope and faith, and truly changes lives. The goal of the orphanage is to reunite the children with family (usually aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc), and they have a HUGE success rate. They work to stablize the families, and usually the gospel is brought it. This orphanage does SO much good! Now for the bad news. Their sponsers have decided to stop funding at the end of this month. This means that unless they find someone else to give funding, the orphanage will be shut down. It absolutely breaks my heart! I don't even want to think of what this will do to the kids.
Anyway, that is it for this week! I must head. Thanks again for the support!
Life in Guatemala is continuing onward. This week was productive I'd say. I am still trying to get the hang of things and figure out what my nitch here will be. But I think I am getting a pretty good idea. I don't have much time, so I'll just give a quite day by day run through.
Monday: I worked in the morning with Habitat on the same house (its slowly but surely coming along), and in the afternoon I went with a Japanese lady named Kumi to help a family plant a garden so that they could have an extra source of income and nutrition.
Tuesday: We traveled about an hour away to a small highland village to check out an organization to see if we'd like to work with them. The organization is called SHARE (based out of the US), and they work with nutrition, medical clinics, education, and distribution of food. We sat in on a nutrition lesson about child health being taught to some native women. You wouldn't believe the problem they have. The women start feeding their babies real food when they are about 3 months old, and start giving them bottles of coke and coffee instead of breast milk. So this program teaches what and when to feed your babies to try to change the mindset.
Wednesday: I worked again with Habitat (we got rained out about two hours into it), and then I left with Kumi again to distribute vegetable starts to a farm literally in the middle of nowhere. We drove about a half an hour out to the edge of a mountain, and then hiked an hour in on this tiny trail uphill the entire way to a tiny farm, carrying bags of supplies. Mind you that this was all in the POURING rain. We then spend the next couple of hours planting in the POURING rain, and then walked back in the POURING rain. It was great!! I honestly loved every second of it. The location we were at was probably the most beatiful place I have ever seen, and the people were so wonderful. They tried to teach us their native Mayan language, and we tried to teach them English. It was a blast.
Thursday: I spent all day in the local orphanage (GCP- Guatemala Children's Project) teaching theater for therapuetic treatment. I LOVED it there. The kids are so willing to love, and don't care in the least I don't speak their language. They have been through horrible things, and thrist for a strong foundation of structure and love. The amazing thing about this orphanage is it is LDS run, so the kids all learn the gospel while they are their. It gives new hope and faith, and truly changes lives. The goal of the orphanage is to reunite the children with family (usually aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc), and they have a HUGE success rate. They work to stablize the families, and usually the gospel is brought it. This orphanage does SO much good! Now for the bad news. Their sponsers have decided to stop funding at the end of this month. This means that unless they find someone else to give funding, the orphanage will be shut down. It absolutely breaks my heart! I don't even want to think of what this will do to the kids.
Anyway, that is it for this week! I must head. Thanks again for the support!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Lost and Found
Hola! Here I am yet again, sooner than I expected too! I figure I should start off with the good news. Drum roll please..... I found my camera!! I thought that I left it at the airport, but when I got here and opened my backback I found a pleasant surprise! That made me incredibly happy. My camera has been one of my best friends while I am here so far. There are quite the hilarious things going on. Guatemalans are weird. But I love them! I will eventually put some pictures on. It feels like I have been here forever. I can hardly even imagine that I was an EFY counselor last week. LAST WEEK!? Not even possible. I´ve been here for years. Yet at the same time, it feels I´ve been here only minutes.
The last couple of days have been amazing. Of course. Like I even have to verbalize that. Friday was my first real work day. We joined up with Habitat for Humanity to help build some houses. We traveled to a remote village about an hour out of Chimaltenango called Santa Cruz (I can´t even put into words how beautiful it was). While on site, we mixed cement by hand, tied rebar together, filled in holes, and layed the cinderblock bricks. The house itself was the size of my living room, with 3 or 4 rooms inside. The entire thing was built from cinderblocks, and put together entirely by hand. We ate lunch at a little cafe (rice, beans, and carne), then came back to the site only to find a four year old little latino there to help. His name was Atel, and was absolutely adorable. Really he just saw a bunch of Greengos (that´s what they call us) working, and wanted to see if we bite. Cute little guy. Later in the night we ate dinner at a restaurant in Chimal, and went over to the LDS Church to play soccer with the young single adults. I loved that so much! The church is really strong here, and the members are angels. I felt a definate change the second I left the streets onto the grounds of the gated church. The spirit was very strong. Yay for the truth!
Today was absolutely glorious. We woke up at about 6 to go on a hike up Pakaya, the local volcano. We got there around 8:45, and hiked 2 or so hours through the forest to the top, were we stood at the edge of the lava flow. As in like 20 feet away. It was so hot, there were people roasting marshmallows and even a local tour guide cooking tortillas and meat on the rocks. It was honestly one of the most beautiful places I´ve been.
After the volcano, we went to Antigua, the old Spanish capital of Guatemala. We did some shopping at the little shops run by the natives, were you litterally faught over what the prices should be. I thought that was only something they did in movies. Guess not. I bought 2 purses, 4 bracelets, and 3 head bands. I´m slowly starting to accesarize (sp? I don´t have my phone to help me spell anymore) like the natives, which has been a life time goal.
Sorry this was so rushed near the end, my time is running short. I wish I could write more. I do know that next week is when the real work begins. I am planning on running a theater program at the orphanage as a type of therapy outlet for these kids, which I am thrilled about. Also, I am planning on working with some adobe stove building at some point in time, maybe work with the medicial and square foot gardening, and some other various orphange projects. Thanks so much for everyones´ support, feel free to email me and tell me what is going on at home! Adios!
The last couple of days have been amazing. Of course. Like I even have to verbalize that. Friday was my first real work day. We joined up with Habitat for Humanity to help build some houses. We traveled to a remote village about an hour out of Chimaltenango called Santa Cruz (I can´t even put into words how beautiful it was). While on site, we mixed cement by hand, tied rebar together, filled in holes, and layed the cinderblock bricks. The house itself was the size of my living room, with 3 or 4 rooms inside. The entire thing was built from cinderblocks, and put together entirely by hand. We ate lunch at a little cafe (rice, beans, and carne), then came back to the site only to find a four year old little latino there to help. His name was Atel, and was absolutely adorable. Really he just saw a bunch of Greengos (that´s what they call us) working, and wanted to see if we bite. Cute little guy. Later in the night we ate dinner at a restaurant in Chimal, and went over to the LDS Church to play soccer with the young single adults. I loved that so much! The church is really strong here, and the members are angels. I felt a definate change the second I left the streets onto the grounds of the gated church. The spirit was very strong. Yay for the truth!
Today was absolutely glorious. We woke up at about 6 to go on a hike up Pakaya, the local volcano. We got there around 8:45, and hiked 2 or so hours through the forest to the top, were we stood at the edge of the lava flow. As in like 20 feet away. It was so hot, there were people roasting marshmallows and even a local tour guide cooking tortillas and meat on the rocks. It was honestly one of the most beautiful places I´ve been.
After the volcano, we went to Antigua, the old Spanish capital of Guatemala. We did some shopping at the little shops run by the natives, were you litterally faught over what the prices should be. I thought that was only something they did in movies. Guess not. I bought 2 purses, 4 bracelets, and 3 head bands. I´m slowly starting to accesarize (sp? I don´t have my phone to help me spell anymore) like the natives, which has been a life time goal.
Sorry this was so rushed near the end, my time is running short. I wish I could write more. I do know that next week is when the real work begins. I am planning on running a theater program at the orphanage as a type of therapy outlet for these kids, which I am thrilled about. Also, I am planning on working with some adobe stove building at some point in time, maybe work with the medicial and square foot gardening, and some other various orphange projects. Thanks so much for everyones´ support, feel free to email me and tell me what is going on at home! Adios!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Well, today is my very first day in Guatemala! It is absolutely gorgeous, the temperature is perfect, and I love the people I am with. I left at 12:30 am from Salt Lake (after realizing only hours before that am means midnight, not noon) and arrived here at 10:30 our time. So far I've just gone around the city and bought things that I'll need while I'm here. The money is completely different, and it was all sorts of confusing. For all I know I was spending hundreds of dollars on a pillow case (don't worry mom, I'm exaggerating... kinda). The food rocks, even if we can't eat certain things. Transpertation is exciting. We ride around on "chicken buses", where they try to squeeze as many people as they can onto one bus. Music is playing everywhere, and everyone stares at the white people. I don't know any spanish, at all. No exaggeration. That's exciting. Also, horrible news that I really don't want to write... I lost my camera. I leftit somewhere at the airport, and pretty much want to shoot myself. So I'm going to just pretend this didn't happen. I'm out of time, and have got to head. Sorry my thoughts are all over the place!! Just know that overall, I love it here! Peace.
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