Latin America Trip 2011-12: Spanish/Volunteering

Wow time is really flying by down here! I did not think that it was 2.5 weeks since the last post! Sorry!!!

So what have we been up to? Well…we are currently in our 4^th week of Spanish classes and we have certainly come a long ways in our comprehension of Spanish! It’s exciting to be able to understand what people are trying to say to us but we need a lot of practice! We are undecided at this point how much longer we will continue to take Spanish classes as we are very realistic about the fact that we won’t be fluent by the time we have to return home and we would like to have the opportunity to spend more of our time volunteering where we will be using and stretching our knowledge of Spanish! Currently having 4 hours of Spanish class in the afternoon and having to do homework after supper takes not only a lot of time, but energy as well.

We have started to be more involved with Luis Carlos as the school year starts. It is definitely a different world here! For the first two weeks of classes, most schools didn’t have a full schedule together yet and didn’t know when Luis would be teaching his class! So that is why we’ve had a bit of a delayed start with being involved in the schools. But Luis took us to some of the schools last week as he went around looking and asking for schedules. Monday morning was the first time we stepped foot into actual classrooms with students. There is a bigger group of individuals here who are taking part in the ‘World Race’ which is doing missions work in 11 countries in 11 months and Guatemala is their first location. So we ventured with them to this school Monday morning, which was located in a very poor village roughly 1.5 hours west of Antigua. We were in two classes – a junior high and a high school class. The World Race team consisted of 13 people, so after we all introduced ourselves to the class and said a few words, we played a game with them and the actual teaching will start in the next visit. It was sad to see that the stats are true in that the high school class had far less students than the junior high…but that I’ll get into at some other point. But one comment I’ll make is that we heard a presentation done in a coffee shop by an organization called Familia Esperanza which works in educating the children of Guatemala and it was an eye opening presentation to the difficulties the kids face in obtaining education.

I started to realize just how isolated these kids really were when some of the world participants talked about going to the beach and the one guy sings some opera and the kids had no idea what they were talking about. Not only had the kids never seen a beach or heard opera, they had no idea what a beach was or what opera is. The only reason these kids had the opportunity to be in school was that an American organization had funded and built the school.

Yesterday we visited a family who we may have the opportunity to help by building them a new home they very desperately need. The family consists of a single mother and 6 children ranging in age from 7 months to 15 years old. The 7 month old had a very high fever and they had no money for a doctor or any type of medicine, and the 15 year old is in Guatemala City trying to earn some money for the family. They live on dirt floors with metal sheeting walls and roof that leak and that community has no running water as the mayor stole all the tax money used to pay the municipality for water so the municipality has shut the water off. This family like many others, are forced to buy water which they can’t afford. This family hasn’t had fresh water in 2 months, and the only water they had was in a small wash basin which was completely black from overuse. It was a very different experience to actually walk through their house and meet the kids than to simply observe from the street and acknowledge the poverty. It was exciting to know that we may have an opportunity to actually help this family!

I am being more heavily challenged every day in how I am spending my time and resources back home in the knowledge that poverty isn’t just some tourist attraction or result of a natural disaster that strikes. The reality and complexity of poverty is definitely sinking in! Examples like this community where the mayor stole the tax money so now they have no water are more common than I would like to believe! Guatemala just elected a new president who took office a few weeks ago. Some are worried about him since he is an ex-military leader and the first ex-military president since the civil war, which ended 15-20 years ago. But most agree that a change was necessary as there was a lot of corruption in the last government. And what is odd is that most people don’t seem to think that will change, but this new president has committed to combating violence and drug cartels.

On Saturday we took part in Subida La Vida; which was an event to raise awareness about the problem of violence in Guatemala! Chris and I joined 10,000 Guatemalans on a hike up Volcan Agua just south of Antigua! It was a very early morning as we got up at 3:30 am since events starting happening around 4:00, and buses were set to leave at 4:30 for the town of Santa Maria de Jesus; which was the starting point for the hike! Well…when we got to the line for the buses, we realized that everyone had already registered for the event! We knew the event would cost us 50Q (roughly $6.50) but found nowhere to pay or register. We asked a few people who didn’t know before coming across a group of individuals who landed up having 2 extra tickets they couldn’t use! Everyone was organized into one of six groups and the idea was that the people in Group 1 would hike all the way to the top, Group 2 almost to the top and so forth. Well it landed up that we were stuck in Group 4. That also meant that we were the 4^th group to board the buses for Santa Maria de Jesus which was a painfully slow process! We stood in line till almost 8:30am when we finally managed to board a bus! Anyways, the idea was that a human chain would be formed from the top of the volcano! But others from our group continued on past the point that we were supposed to stop so we ventured on as well! There were a few times when we were told to stop because it was too full with people above but we kept going anyways! Well we didn’t make it quite to the top – we were finally turned around but we got really close! We turned around at 1:00 pm and decided we should head back down and by the time we got back down and waited for another 1.5 hours to board a bus for the return trip getting back to the apartment shortly before 7 pm! It was a long day but definitely rewarding! Especially since it was likely our only chance to hike Volcan Agua since no agency will bring people up there anymore because at other times it is a 100% chance that you will be robbed on the way up! We’ve heard stories of groups that have gone up with armed security and they have still been robbed! So we were glad to have the chance!

It’s again time to have some lunch before the next Spanish class so I’ll end here. Sorry again for the long delay in an update! I will try to be more conscious of how much time is actually passing in the future!