para informarles de mi viaje hasta ahora.

hola, amigos!

i finally have a definitive answer as to what i'll be doing while i'm here: i am now an english teacher. the permanent team here teaches english classes at the elementary school in chaquiyla, a rural community about 20 minutes outside solola where we live. in addition to english, there are monthly health/personal hygiene classes that i'm also involved with as well as a bottle stuffing competition that began today. stuffing bottles with inorganic trash produces ecoblocks which can be used to build the foundations of buildings. it's an awesome alternative to the other two options (burning or burying trash) and gives us an opportunity to teach the kids about the importance of caring for the environment. once the school has about 13,000 stuffed bottles, they'll be able to use them to build an addition to the school. the class that produces the most bottles during our three-week competition gets to design and paint a mural that will hang in the new classrooms.

today was my first full day of teaching--i observed on tuesday and classes were cancelled on wednesday (something that happens a lot...for no obvious reason). i taught two sections of health and the 6th grade english class i'll work with wednesdays and thursdays. in health, we explained hiene (personal hygiene) to the kids, specifically dental hygiene and hand-washing. to demonstrate the spread of germs, we passed around pens covered in glitter then asked the kids to look at their hands. everyone's hands had glitter on them just like everyone's hands have germs on them when we all touch the same things without washing our hands. it seemed to be an effective exercise and offered a visual representation of what's really happening at the microscopic level.

we teach at two schools here: central y cooperativa. there are four total in the community and mpi has interest in expanding eventually but they really want to establish their existing programs and figure out how sustainable they are first. all the english classes are taught at central (except for teacher's english) and health is taught in both schools. i started my day at central and finished with a health class at cooperativa. there's a marked difference in the behavior of the kids at both schools. the children at central seem to care much less about their education and will often talk or walk around during class. at cooperativa they're remarkably well behaved and get really excited about learning. i asked one of the long-term team members what she would attribute the difference to and she feels the teachers at cooperativa have struck a good balance between being authoritative and being too strict, allowing them to earn the respect of their students and to encourage enthusiasm in the classroom. since the students from both schools live in the same community, it really is surprising how different they are. the hope is that as mpi continues to work with central, interest will improve but it's impossible to say what exactly needs to happen for that to be the case.

my time here so far has been absolutely phenomenal. since classes go from 8am to noon, we have plenty of time to spend making friends and immersing ourselves in guatemalan culture. we live in solola, the capital of the state/province/larger entity that's also called solola. the community we work in is also in solola proper and the city we relax in, panajachel (affectionately known as pana), is also included in solola. pana is much more touristy than the other cities we've seen and is a hotspot for backpackers especially. that's where you'll find the best souvenirs and lots of awesome restaurants and coffee shops. on our first full day here, we did a scavenger hunt through pana to get the lay of the land. the finish line was a coffee shop owned by an ex-pat named mike, an awesome christian guy who loves Lord and has been selling coffee in pana for 11 years, raising money and slowly building the youth hostel of his dreams. his goal is to create a space where backpackers and other travelers can go to feel at home while away from home. on monday, some of us went out to mike's house and helped him install a cover over an exposed pipe. his passion was intoxicating and extremely inspiring. i'll be posting pictures of his place once i get back to the states.

our scavenger hunt ended in a tie, and to break the tie, we did a brainteaser. my team had a gross advantage. =P we won a loaf of banana bread which was obviously shared with everyone. but the everlasting pride of being the official winners is ours forever.

at mike's cafe, crossroads cafe, katy and i met neal, an american who felt led by God to do volunteer work in guatemala. he's about a year to a year and a half into a three year contract and he travels around a bit doing construction work. he's another really passionate guy who's totally sold out for God. we chatted with him about our role as believers in the US and the service we're called to do both domestically and abroad. pretty heavy chitchat. =P but awesome to meet so many english-speaking christians in our first day and a half in guate.

that night, we went out on the town in pana and spent the night in a hostel. stop thinking of that horrible movie immediately. this hostel was phenomenal. each room had two full beds and cost 35Q (the currency is quetzales, abbreviated Q) per night per person. the exchange rate is a little over 7Q to every dollar so our night in the hostel cost us about $5 per person. this will be a much bigger deal after i post pictures of the hostel itself. =P

on sunday morning we got some coffee (which tastes a million times better here) and headed back to solola to recouperate. that evening, katy and i went to church with one of the long-term volunteers. the church meets in a coffeehouse in pana called soloman's porch and services are done in english/spanish with a translator. it's a very small community but they did a fairly in-depth bible study and were all really passionate about their faith--especially our guatemalan counterparts.

monday is the day the team uses to get everything in order for the week. the long-term team has a meeting then there's another meeting with the volunteers and all the shopping for the week happens in the late morning/afternoon. tuesday was our first day in the community during which i just observed health classes and then we went into pana for the evening to take a salsa class. it's taught by two americans who are also here with other ngos. our group had a ton of fun and i especially loved picking up another cultural skill. for dinner we had papusas, a typical el salvadorian dish but they're good bar food so they sell them in pana as well. =P it's essentially an uncrustable. except the bread is tortillas and the peanut butter and jelly are any variety of beans, garlic, cheese, spinach, or meat.

wednesday is the day we'll have our weekly discussion. these differ from the meetings in that we talk about larger issues that relate to our community instead of just the logistics of our work for the week. our first discussion was on development theories and how manna thinks about the future development of the communities in which they implement their programs. it was awesome to hear about the experience of the long-term team and how they think about/how their time here has influenced their thinking on community development. i'd love to explain some of the theories we discussed in a post when i have less general catching-up to do. =P way interesting and extremely relevant as we think about how to invest in communities with both time and money.

after our meeting, we visited a ngo based out of pana called mayan traditions. mayan traditions organizes a co-op of weavers and ensures that they get a fair wage and their products are sold at a fair price. we watched yolanda, one of their weavers, give a weaving demonstration. she showed us an example of back-strap weaving, an incredibly intricate and time-intensive form of weaving which i'm assuming is called "back-strap" because they connect themselves to their looms using a strap. which goes around their backs. the piece she was creating would take her about 6 months and would be used as the centerpiece of a weepil, the traditional blouse that mayan women wear.

to the right is a generic picture of back-strap weaving that i absconded from the internet.

last night, some of us went to the weekly soccer game that the friends of the long-term volunteers have every week. a group of our team members played and actually did quite well. i didn't play partly because i stupidly wore sandals and partly because i've been sick the last couple days. mostly a weird stomach thing accompanied by a sore throat, both of which thankfully seem to be on the way out. katy's been sick too so we both ask for prayers that we'll be healthy for the remainder of our trip.

thanks for bearing with me as i try to keep you all informed. i may or may not give as detailed a post in the future but it seemed relevant today since we're still laying the groundwork for our time here. =) i'm so thrilled to be here and can't believe it's almost been a week already. i feel so at home here (besides the weird bug i acquired from the water. or maybe those mangoes i bought off the street...) and can already tell that i'd love to spend a long period of time living in latin america. i so appreciate all your support and prayers that got me here and will carry me through the rest of my time here. =)

we're able to use the internet pretty regularly here, so if anyone has any questions about my trip or wants me to post more about anything specifically, just shoot me and email or leave me a comment. this is partly a journal for me but mostly a way for you guys to stay informed about my life here so i'd love to tailor it towards your interests. =)

hm. the house cat (oliver) is licking my foot. time to relocate.

mucho amor.