COMMUNITY.

(Weekend)
FINALLY made it to Antigua this weekend! But before that, Friday night we had all the volunteers over to our new home for dinner with our host family. We made fajitas for them and they were DELICIOUS. Blanca, my host mother, loves carne so much so she was definitely in heaven, and with the guacamole and drinks abound, everyone was having a good time. By the end of the night Blanca had everyone dancing to Los Conejos, and even though she had to get up the next morning at 4:00AM to head to the markets, we were all in good spirits by the end of the night.

We arose around 6:00AM to catch the camioneta (which is now conveniently outside my front door) and headed to Antigua. Once we arrived, we found a great place to have breakfast and of course watch the Germany vs. Argentina match. What a depressing and embarrassing loss for Argentina! I was really rooting for them, but that was just ugly. Then we went off to the pacas for some clothing shopping. To no avail, I was unable to find a real raincoat (the one I brought is only acting as a windbreaker – LAME in the middle of the RAINY SEASON, thanks jacket). But while Rebecca was shopping, at one moment she put her bag between her feet and in a second it was gone! It contained her ATM card, wallet and flash drive, and she was devastated by the loss. But it just shows that it only takes one single moment to slip up and have everything disappear. We lent her some more money for the day, grabbed some papusas for lunch, watched some of the next game, bargained for some gifts, and then spontaneously decided to stay the night instead of heading home. We stayed in Hostel Holistico for 60Q, took some HOT showers AND got free breakfast in the morning! It was my first hot shower since the night I left home over 4 weeks ago! Incredible. Rose the next morning to a beautiful sight of the Volcan Agua, got a bagel and had an interesting conversation with a Jewish man from Cleveland who sells Passover “Hagatas” (obviously at the bagel shop, haha), then headed back to Comalapa. Antigua was such a fascinating city because it has such rich architecture but a calm atmosphere for being a city. There were sooo many tourists there! I was talking with someone from Comalapa, and he said that they refer to Antigua as “Gringo-landia” because there are very few Guatemaltecas and sooooo many gringos! I did miss the inexpensive and conservative lifestyle of Comalapa and was definitely ready to return. It was funny though because most places we went, people automatically assumed that I was not from the states and didn’t speak English. They were often surprised when I responded in English, but I would explain where my families are from to ease any confusion.

(Tuesday)
Today I went to Guate with Donal to retrieve Karen from the airport! I was nervous at first because I hadn’t been to Guate since I arrived over a month ago and I was simply going by myself, well kind of, with Donal and would be speaking Spanish the entire time with him. We had great conversation though on our drive! I told him about school, work, family and my time in Comalapa so far, and we talked about fast-food favorites and Michael Jackson (obviously…he had the CD playing!), and he told me about his family and what it’s like working in Guatemala. He told me about the minimum wage here, and how it’s so hard to find work outside of being a campesino where you only make 40Q a week (approx $5), and part of the reason that he bought a car was so that he could do work in areas outside of Comalapa to make money for wife and two young children. He made the comparison to US minimum wages because he read an article in the paper here about how minimum wage in the US $7.50/hr, whereas you don’t even make the equivalent of that much one week here! He said it’s no wonder so many people want to leave to work in the states. I told him conditions are barely any better there but the money IS so good, comparatively speaking. I told him that most kids leave home when they head off to college, and he said that barely anyone attends university here because it is too difficult to work and study at the same time. Needless to say, it was definitely an enlightening conversation and so interesting based on all that happened last week with the workers on my thoughts on their pay situation.

Since last week, I’ve had many thought-provoking conservations about what it means to live in a community and be considered a community-based organization. The work that we are doing here is incredible in the sense that it is highlighting the needs of the community and providing specific resources (the park, building the school, building the water tanks, environmental awareness programs in the schools). But I’ve been struggling with this idea of whether or not we are truly integrated into this community. Most of the volunteers and staff all live at the park, and aside from coming into town for food or the market, there is not a whole lot of regular interaction with the community. Rebecca lives in town, and does a truly incredible job of reaching out and making connections and friends and honestly breathing the same air and life of the people in this community. But I feel like there is a serious disconnect with the rest of the organization in a way. Spending all day at the park building a rock bench for the soccer field is a useful task, but not necessarily the best way to connect with the community on any level. Abi and I were having a discussion last week about really playing to the emotions of the volunteers that pass through here and making them truly question how they could change their life to help the people of this community and the many others that have similar needs. But I feel as though it is so easy to come here for a week and simply feel like an extra pair of hands. Hell, I’ve been here for 5 weeks now, and there are many times where I often just feel like an extra pair of hands. It’s a difficult balance, and I wonder if this is a feeling that resonates through volunteers with most development organizations, or if there is just something about the way day-to-day operations around here are done that creates that feeling. While I have learned a lot in my time here so far (through learning new skills and asking a LOT of questions) and came with very few expectations, I do often wonder about what more potential this experience could be or could have been for me. I am also becoming curious about operations of other development and non-profit organization functioning in Central America, and what their approaches and true underlying motivations are. It certainly seems to me that these underlying motivations are far deeper and more abstract than they initially appear to be.

(Thursday)
I finally had the opportunity to volunteer in one of the local schools, Cojol Huyu, and it was quite the experience. We had prepared the lesson plan several weeks ago, but with the fair one week and just simply not having school another week, we started our Environmental Awareness/continued English Lessons Wednesday. We worked with two fourth grade classes, one 5th grade class, and two 6th grade classes. For the 4th and 5th grade classes, we taught them about the Food Chain (producers, consumers, herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, etc) and then had them begin making their own food chain mobiles. With the 6th grade classes we had them do a survey around their school to find out how environmentally conscience their practices are. After we had them discuss projects that we could implement in the community of Comalapa to make people more environmentally aware. The students we sooo disciplined and respectful and were even receptive to my broken, but steadily improving Spanish. I was so nervous about working with them because my Spanish is not nearly as good as Rebecca or Abi, but I was still able to be helpful. A little more about what school is like here: it seems chaotic, but what elementary school doesn’t when you are first there. There are about 25 students in each class, and they have class for only 5 hours a day. While this school in Cojol only has morning classes, some schools in the area are so large that half the students come in the morning for 5 hours, and half the students come in the afternoon. Some of the instructors looked SO young, but they were eager to learn English phrases as well. Students in Cojol have been stuffing the trash bottles for AGES, and this past month one of the classes brought 300 trash bottles to the park! Incredible. Today we went to the largest school in the area, Rafael Alvarez, to talk to the Director about starting a bottling stuffing contest among the 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes there. Between those grades, there are 300 hundred students and 12 classes. He seemed eager for us to start the project, so next week Rebecca will return to speak in more detail with the instructors to explain the process and the competition. We will be making posters to hang in each classroom to make everything as simple as possible for the students. Hopefully they will be receptive to the challenge, because it would be great to have that many more people in Comalapa stuffing trash bottles instead of throwing it on the ground or burning it!

In other news, I finally got in touch with Sam in Honduras, and we have mostly confirmed our plans to meet up at the end of July! He’s been working with OYE, Organization for Youth Empowerment, in Progreso, Honduras, since mid-May. Sam will hopefully be coming to check out LWH for a few days, and then I plan to travel back to Honduras with him to spend a couple of days there learning about his organization before heading back to the states! It will most certainly be nice to see some familiar faces (Morgan is there too!), share our experiences, and just hang out in Central America with a great friend for a few days at the end of my journey! I now just need to talk to the LWH about leaving roughly a week earlier than anticipated. I figure it shouldn’t make too much a difference because there are a ton of new volunteers coming in at the end of July, and since I’m not an intern and have no real commitment to anyone but myself, I should be able to leave as I please. The only thing I feel weird about but entitled to is asking to get my money back for the two weeks that was/will not be here for. I came a week late at the beginning of the summer because of unforeseen circumstances (you know, tropical storms, volcanoes, the usual), and if I leave a week early that’s another week I shouldn’t necessarily be paying for. While I know that this experience is not about the money, $150 US dollars can definitely get me a long way when I get home and have NOTHING, especially since I literally gave everything to be here to work for them this summer. Not to mention, I feel that will have definitely put in a lot of time and energy into the organization…needless to say, I just hope they don’t get all awkward about the money situation.

(Friday)
After thinking long and hard, I think I've decided that I am only going to request money back for the one week that I wasn't here at the beginning of the summer. However, I am going to specifically request that the remaining $75 go to Rebecca's education projects. There is so much potential there and the students are SO receptive to her passion and what she is trying to do for them. I was talking to her yesterday about her funding, and she got $50 total for this Environmental Awareness month-long project with the schools. While $50 can get you way farther here than in the states, it's still not much. Anyway, I will talk to her today and see what she says.

I'm sooo glad it's Friday! I haven't been feeling %100 this week, so our trip to Lake Atitlan this weekend should be amazing!