El Dia de Arbol

Planting some trees at the Guarderia for El Dia del Arbol 

She is pumped about El Dia del Arbol

That one on the left going to give birth any day now!

The Foolishness of Volunteerism

Hola y gracias por visitar mi blog.

A series of small events started to wear on me little bit by the end of the week (a day-long fever, a mouse infestation, broken shower, power outage).

On a more significant note, I had a couple unwelcomed moments of feeling overwhelmed with the great need around me. While there are countless moments of joy here, there are other times when the complex social and economic issues of this country leave me feeling disenchanted.   I have noticed that there is a difference between traveling to the developing world and staying here long enough to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. My modest 3 month stay so far puts me somewhere between a traveling-gringa-tourist and a long-termer. I have been here long enough to see how foolish volunteer work can be. That quote I posted early on during my trip by Lila Watson has never been so relevant:

“If you have come here to help, you are wasting your time; but if you are here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

For me, I think real change come from relationships. As I look back on the past 90 days, the relationships I have built with the kids at the Guarderia have had quite an impact on me. I can assure you that after all of my “public health talks,” field trips around town, tutoring sessions, safe stove projects, gringa-sounding ideas for change,  etc., the only impactful thing that I may have done is tried to entered in to their world and love them. Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, poet, and social activist wrote “A Letter to a Young Activist.”  His wise words give me hope.

“Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the truth of the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.”

-adios

Carrie

Something Different

Hola a todos,

Life has been a whirlwind of wonderful things.

This past week I decided to change things up a bit by going to Antigua for a week to volunteer at Casa Jackson (casajackson.org/). Before getting there, I enjoyed another weekend with good friends and good food at Lake Atitlan. Apparently, I wasn’t in the picture-taking mood, so I have no photos to share. We passed our time in the typical Atitlan manner: blissful boat rides, tasty lake-side eats, and a leisurely afternoon of kayaking along the pueblo of San Pedro.

Before we knew it was time for some of us to head onward to Antigua while the rest headed back to Xela. Four chicken bus transfers later, Brittany and I (and our backpacks which were carelessly flung on the roof) successfully made it to our destination. We stayed with a friendly Guatemalan couple, Esperanza and Jose, in their beautiful home, complete with a patio filled with tropical plants, a great rooftop view of the city, and real shower (love those). Esperanza’s cooking was top notch and I even got some recipes for my future life as “a person that may actually cook some.” Antigua is a remarkable little town. Very historic. Very beautiful. Very Gringo. We did a little sight-seeing and indulged in some of our favorite American-tastes-like-home snacks like bagels and cheesecake.

                 During our week, Brittany, who is a friend I met at Pop Wuj, and I volunteered at Casa Jackson, a recovery center for malnourished children. There were 13 cuties there, all with their own personality quirks. Their ages ranged from 2 months to 4 years. Malnutrition is a major issue in Guatemala, and especially for infants, it can have irreversible consequences. All of the toddlers are developmentally delayed in terms of motor skills, language, and cognitive skills as a direct result of malnutrition. As heartbreaking as their reason for being at Casa Jackson is, it is a sunshiny-kind-of-place staffed with nurses, a nutritionist, and doctor, with volunteers as well. The kids stay until they are100% healthy again. Also, Casa Jackson focuses a lot of time and energy on prevention, through providing mobile clinics to communities with limited access to health care, educating families on ways to attain a nutritional diet with modest resources, and working with the families to combat the underlying problems of malnourishment. My shift work consisted of changing diapers, feeding the babies, changing their clothes, playing with them, giggling a lot, doing laundry, disinfecting and cleaning the floors, etc.  I walked away from the experience with a lot of thoughts and questions. The worldwide issue of hunger became much more real when you are holding a 12 pound 3-year-old girl. People (in this case little people) can grab hold of your heart in a much more transformative way than statistics ever could.

I said my farewells, with hopes of returning soon and hopped on a chicken bus for Xela. I learned firsthand why they are called chicken buses that day. It is not because there are actual chickens on the bus (which there actually were), it is because it can get so packed inside that you feel a chicken smashed together with tons of other chicken. Fortunately I have no issues with claustrophobia because sitting four to a seat with another kid asleep on my lap, zipping around sharp mountain turns on a school bus older than me is no task for the fainted-hearted.

The end of my weekend was spent remembering how much of love Xela weather (comfortable dry Xela > hot humid Antigua), playing soccer with my host brother and his friends, playing (and losing) at Scrabble with Jenny, and countless humorous talked with my 85 year old abuelito.

It is back to work this week with all sorts of activities going on at the Guarderia.

Stay tuned!

Carrie

Antigua

Antigua Host fam's house

Inside a church ruin (Earthquakes were not very nice to Antigua)

Brittany and Aneesh

uh...

Casa Jackson

Alberto!

Alison

Little Jonaton