After the Rain

It’s been almost a week since Agatha hit and Guatemala’s still cleaning up. Fortunately here in my site we did not have too many problems caused by the storm. The river didn’t overflow its banks thanks in part to the firemen who reinforced the banks with dirt. Some areas were a little flooded and there were some mini landslides, but nothing very serious close to my site. Further away near the coast and in other parts of the country there were big landslides, intense flooding, and even a giant sinkhole in Guatemala City. Some roads and bridges were destroyed, which continues to make travelling across the country more difficult. Soils are still saturated and roads are unstable, according to our safety and security officer, so we are for the most part avoiding the Interamerican Highway. The airport was closed for a little while so flights are still catching up. As I rode through Xela yesterday I saw people still cleaning mud out of their houses. A lot of people are either facing property damage or have been entirely displaced from their homes. Something surprising has been initiative undertaken by some teachers in my site to collect clothing, food, toilet paper, other supplies for those who have suffered most in the areas around us.

In work news, we had our workshops for teachers this week, starting a day ahead of schedule. Things got a little mixed up with the storm because classes were cancelled throughout the country for this week, so it was good to even have the training at all. Our supervisor had a meeting with all of the directors of the schools and pretty much just told them that the training would start Wednesday (it was supposed to start Thursday) and would go through Friday. So all of our teachers had to ‘work’ despite not having any classes, but I hope that the training was a little fun. We worked with preschool, kindgergarten and first grade teachers the first day, then second and third grade, and finally fourth, fifth and sixth grade on the final day. For the most part, people showed up and participated. We had a few games and a song and people seemed to enjoy these the most. We also had a part where they made their own dice, wheel or box to use in checking to see if kids have clean hands, nails, teeth, clothes, etc. and they really enjoyed coloring the pictures and then making the things. We also had a problem solving session and some teachers came up with some really great ideas about keeping their “Healthy Corners” clean from dust and flies. I am more and more impressed with the teachers we’re working with, especially after hearing other volunteers’ stories and warnings that it is difficult working with teachers here. Of course there are some people who are not very interested in the program, but in general people arrive on time ready to work. Only a few schools had to cancel visits and they called us beforehand and rescheduled (we heard stories of cancelled visits, such as with volunteers walking an hour through rain up a mountain to get to a school only to find it closed because no one had called to say there wasn’t any school). I’m going to do what I can to maintain a positive attitude so people stay positive about the program. It really motivated me to walk home from the second day to find a teacher in my host mom’s shop getting a big copy of the sheet we gave them to make their dice and asking about finding a big box to make the dice with.
We’ve also begun working more closely with the health center. There is a man at our health center in charge of education and he has his own project with schools, such as deparisitization and vaccine campaigns and lectures. He wants to coordinate with us so we don’t both do the same things with the schools and so we can share materials, so we’ll see how things go. It’s a little difficult to plan because they don’t really plan ahead and we do, so by the time it is the start of the month, we already like to have an idea of what we’re doing for the next six weeks, but they work only a few weeks ahead of time. We’re meeting with him next week for the fourth time in a few weeks to plan with a little more detail. We’re also getting in touch with an organization working in my site that deals with deforestation and environmental education, so it will be great to work with them because contamination of water and air and just general lack of knowledge of how to protect the environment are huge here. So this past week has been super busy and next week should be a little less busy, but still full of things-we’re starting to do a survey with every school to see where they are in respect to the program. Feria is also approaching very quickly so we’ll have some time off then to participate in the parades and activities surrounding the town’s fair.
So things are all right here in my site. Work is going well and I'll have some down time this weekend to attend another beauty pageant thing my host sister is participating in. I hope things are going well wherever you all are! Take care,

Christie