¡Hola Amigos!
I am sitting in the retreat house at the monastery and am dry, full and refreshed- all of which are rarities in our lives here. We had our last day at the aldea today and spent most of the day playing with the kids because we didn’t have enough tarps to cover the rooms we were trying to paint (the school doesn’t have a roof yet because they don’t have enough funding for it right now). Jaclyn designed a mural on the side of the school and we started painting it today and hopefully drew enough blue prints for it that the kids can finish it themselves. Truth be told most of us were glad to just have a fun day with the kids. We brought all of the fun crafts, toys and gifts for the kids today. After we made them lunches of PB&J, cookies and soda (They dipped the sandwiches in the soda. Glory.), we threw a pseudo fiesta for them. Temporary tattoos in one room, Heads Up 7 Up in another, and hopscotch and chalk drawing outside. They had an absolute blast- most of them had never seen most of what we offered. We then gave them each a gift bag with candy, crayons, coloring books and all of the other gifts that your families so generously donated. You’ll be able to tell by the pictures how excited they were.
After our fiesta, each child in the school (there are 75 of them) made a card for each of us as well as a tissue paper flower. Some from our group were given an extra card from the kids (CJ or “say-hota” which is the pronunciation for the Spanish letters CJ, Morgan, Nikki and Andy were some of the class favorites). Ana Lucia, the primary teacher, explained to all of us that they wish they could give us more, but cards and flowers were all they could offer us with what they had. We were taken aback, wondering how they could ever understand how much they were changing us with only their presence. We printed them a few pictures, said our sweet goodbyes and waved to them as they made their way home-some of them walking over an hour to their homes.
Yesterday, half of us went to an aldea which was about an hour outside of Rio Palmeros- scratch that- it was supposed to be forty minutes, but turned into an hour and a half ride with twelve of us in the back of a pick-up truck with 100 five-gallon buckets (the water filters) driving through the mountains on a gravel “road” that was really just a bunch of rocks surrounded by low-lying branches. I’m sure the bruises will still be around when you see us. But when we arrived at this aldea in more of a literal “nowhere” than any of us have ever seen, it suddenly seemed so worth the ride. There about 250 (I’m not a good estimator, but 250 felt right. Okay, whatever. There were a lot.) K’iche’ Guatemalans applauding us as we drove up the hill. They greeted us, gifted us with a bushel of bananas and a beautiful vase of fresh flowers, and asked us to sit down at a table set for twelve while all 250 of them sat around us and watched us eat the sweet squash and hot chocolate they made for us. That was followed by a game of fútbol (Johnny Davy took a serious spill in the giant pile of mud where the goal was) and a game of “touch” in which the K’iche’ kids try to touch the Americans and not get touched back. They were mostly afraid of us. We were then called back to the table for lunch. On our way over, we were joking about what lunch might be and someone sarcastically commented that it was going to be an entire fish on a plate. We sat down and what was put in front of us but an entire fish, eyeballs, teeth and everything grilled on a plate with a giant cup of salty soup and a warning to “watch out for fish bones”. We smiled and muttered some PG-13 rated words under our breath. After a half an hour, one of our proudest moments came when every single one of us, with the help of each other, had finished all of our fish and most of our soup.
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Afterward, we were totally humbled when we handed out fifty water filters (donated by St. Pat’s- a program that’s been going on for about ten years) to families in the aldea. Men and women hugged us and shook our hands as we handed over the filters. It was amazing to change their lives with something that seems so simple to those of us in the first world. Perspective sets in once again.
Eventually we piled back into the pick-up- 100 buckets the fewer- and a few extra Guatemalans who needed rides back to the city. Unfortunately it poured the entire way back to Rio Palmeros and we showed up to pick up the rest of the group looking very much like we did the previous day after the “pool” adventure. Our sprits were high and we finished off the evening with a home cooked meal with all of the monks.
Tomorrow we’re hoping to travel around Cobán a bit- a biking tour of a local tea plantation and some adventures that Leonel and Juan Jose- two of the young monks here- are planning for us. I’m hoping to get a chance to sit down tomorrow for a bit longer to get you all some pictures of the trip from the last two days.
As far as the volcano, it’s been in the papers but we’re all well and safe here. We haven’t heard anything about our flights, but we’ll keep you posted if anything changes. As of right now our plan is still to leave for Antigua on Sunday and then to Guatemala City to catch our flight home on Tuesday.
We miss you all and love hearing from you- if you read this post, your kids would love to know that you’re thinking about them.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support!
Paz y amor,
-Megan and the 2010 Guat Team
