I hate asking for money, but this project is just so great that I am going to solicit some funds. Briefly, the director of one of the schools I am working with decided to plan a water project. His school is in the municipality that only has running water one day out of every week or two. So the school hardly ever has running water. Anyway, he talked with an engineer and an architect and planned an underground cistern to hold 10,000 liters of water (enough to last the school two weeks) and eight new sinks where the kids can wash hands and brush teeth. He solicited most of the funds himself, getting the municipality to give 12,000 Quetzales of materials and the parents to give 5,850 Quetzales toward labor costs. However, my partner and I need to find around 6,000 Quetzales more and this great organization, Appropriate Projects, which works with Peace Corps volunteers around the world, has agreed to give 4,000 Quetzales ($500). They are wiring the money to me so that we can get the project underway-I mean, water is just so important, it will be good to have it as soon as possible-and they rely on donations to fund the project after it has already been funded. So, any little bit anyone can give would be fantastic.
Also, I will keep this website updated with the progress of the project. With the money the parents have already paid (and they paid it really quickly too-they really do understand why water is so important), they have already dug the hole and started arranging the iron pieces to support the cistern. The director and teachers are all really excited (as are the kids, but probably more because of the giant hole in the ground at their school) and I feel really fortunate to have widespread support (teachers, director, parents, mayor, and other community members) for this project because in most communities, it's really difficult to find such widespread support.
End of water project snippet.
In other news, it has been another couple of busy weeks.
I was in Antigua for a week for Reconnect, a time for my training group to get together and discuss the first three and a half months. It’s already been almost seven months here in country, over four months in site, which is crazy. Time is flying. And only about two more months of school until break.
Anyway, Reconnect was ok. A week in Antigua gets pretty boring and expensive, but I tried some new restaurants, stayed in a new hotel (only Q20 ($2.50) a night) that was fine, and even saw a movie. The first two days were general sessions, the first with fellow Healthy Schoolers and the second with everyone. We got to have a pizza lunch with the ambassador from the U.S. and he talked about the current state of Guatemala and gave us pretty frank answers to our questions. The Safety and Security Coordinator also gave us a country update, which wasn’t entirely positive, but at least where my site is has been pretty safe. Then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning were language workshops and I started to learn K’iche’, the Mayan language spoken in my site. There were three others in the class and we got pretty far, learning a good mixture of vocabulary and grammar. Now I just have to find a good teacher in my site and really start studying. Hopefully I’ll be able to dedicate a lot of time to this during break. The Friday right after class was over, I hopped on a micro and headed back to my site.
The next week was more school visits, most of which were really positive. I’m lucky because a lot of my schools are supportive of the program and have started working on things right away. One requirement, Rincones de Salud (Healthy Corners) where the students have their toothbrushes, toothpaste, and towels, are one quick sign whether a school is willing to work or not. Some schools have rincones in all of their classrooms with creative themes. Some teachers have put a lot of work into their rincones and have made them really beautiful, with themes like ocean, ducks, chicks, etc. We’ve even got a lot of them using recycled materials (bottles, cans, etc) to construct the rincones. Then there are other schools where maybe half of the teachers have rincones because some teachers just don’t care. And then there are schools where no one is really invested in the program and nothing much has been done in the two months since the first training. But in general, most schools have started out well and some have even been pleasant surprises since the first visit. We’ll see how things continue to go once my partner and I split schools and start working one-on-one with them.
A few things have been changing. I’ve been more into cooking lately, so I made a lot of different stuff last week, like pita bread, chilaquiles, red pepper sauce, pancakes, a cheese and tomato soup. I made some peanut butter and banana bread yesterday which turned out pretty well. I was surprised that I could make pretty much whatever I want here-it helps to have Hiper Paiz, the Wal-Mart of Guatemala (it’s actually owned by Wal-Mart). I can get smoked gouda cheese, American-imported frosting, or Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup (all pretty expensive). However, what I really love doing is going to the market and bargaining for all of my veggies. It’s so much cheaper to buy veggies from the market than from the grocery stores-I’m not sure why anyone buys fruit or vegetables at the grocery stores. Vegetables are so cheap here that I eat a ton of them. Tomatoes are only 36 cents a pound, bananas a dollar a dozen. I haven’t been eating any meat lately which is nice-it’s good to go back to my veggie ways. I still eat meat occasionally in restaurants, but I really don’t like cooking meat.
I also have a kitten now. I think it’s a girl, but I’m not really sure because it’s still pretty small. The kitten is really cute-white with multi-colored spots and a tail that is striped gray and black. It cries a lot when I’m not petting it, but I think it’s slowly getting used to my house. It had fleas but I gave it a flea bath today that I think killed most of them. However, I now have fleas again so I’ll have to wash everything and take some B1.
That’s all for now. I have a pretty busy month-two trainings (one of which I’m helping give), a rincones contest (we’re picking the best healthy corners, so we’ll have to visit every classroom between the two of us and then judge them all), school visits, maybe a trip up north. I’ll keep on cooking. I just bought some curry so I’m going to make some Indian dishes in the coming week. Hope the last month of summer goes well!
-Christie
