¨Paraiso para el crimen¨
Interesting - prensalibre.com, Guatemala´s main site, had a story today saying that according to the International Crisis Group, Guatemala has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world and is a paradise for crime/criminals. It´s funny how my parents were probably more apprehensive about me spending the summer in Bosnia, where it´s now relatively safe, than in Guatemala. The US has a significant lack of information about what´s going on in the rest of the world unless it directly affects us. A few weeks ago when the tropical storm hit, I actually had to look for information on it. People only saw the sinkhole because it was crazy and perfectly round, not because our country reports on anything that has to do with anyone else.
Things here are so different. It has been raining this afternoon and Irma, my Spanish teacher, was telling me that she may not be able to get home tonight. She lives a little bit outside Antigua and when it rains, the only street to her house floods and the bus can´t make it there. She has to wait for the water to go down before she can return home at the end of the day. I was telling her about Colorado and she didn´t quite understand that yes, it snows, but it usually melts immediately, and no, the melting snow does NOT cause flooding and tons of problems like the rain does. We decided that tropical storms cause more problems than blizzards/winter storms. There´s a chance of another tropical storm hitting Guatemala (though I just looked for info on it and found nothing) and people are still homeless from the last one. My roommate Jessica was telling me that when the last one hit, they didn´t have school for a week - Guatemala had cancelled school for a week because kids could die in the process of getting there. When we cancel school in the States, it´s more so there aren´t accidents rather than a real chance of death, though admittedly car accidents can definitely cause death. Here, kids could legitimately drown trying to get to school.
Jessica was also telling me that she and a friend were wandering around a couple days ago and she saw a girl that looked familiar selling bracelets, and it turned out to be the sister of one of her students. She found it difficult to connect all these Mayan women and children walking around selling scarves, bracelets, etc. with her students. It has to be a really hard life for them, depending on people buying their stuff. It´s all handmade, too - you can usually see them in the central plaza making things. Bracelets tend to be 10 for 50 quetzales, which is less than $1/bracelet. I think the average household income in this country is slightly over $2000/year, DEFINITELY below the worldwide poverty line (which is think is somewhere around $12K/year). There are also a fair amount of issues between the indigenous people (the Mayans) and the ladinos. Ladinos are the people who also live here but who don´t wear the Mayan clothes and don´t speak indigenous languages - they hold the other jobs and are generally more Central American than indigenous Mayan. Indigenous people tend to defer to them and the ladinos don´t treat the Mayans very well. There´s a huge gap between the haves and the have nots here, more than in the States.
When I got here I was a little afraid of coming into a situation where the Westerners came in and decided what was best for the Mayans, but I´m happy to report that Dom, the guy who started this project for GVI, talked to the indigenous communities we work with and asked them what they most needed. They told him they wanted their kids to go to school. At the time, the national school cost money and they couldn´t afford it. Now, the school is technically free so the government can say they provide free education, but the families have to provide supplies, uniforms, fees, books, etc. and most still can´t afford to send their kids. GVI sponsors the kids who come to our schools since we can´t give certifications. Usually kids go to national school in either the morning or afternoon and spend the other part of the day at school with GVI, reinforcing what they´ve learned. School here kinda sucks - they have to just copy stuff off the board and it´s too bad if they don´t understand. They fall behind and that´s it. I´m glad I´m here - it´s definitely a worthwhile project to be involved with, and I´m glad the people we´re serving were involved in developing the project.
Things here are so different. It has been raining this afternoon and Irma, my Spanish teacher, was telling me that she may not be able to get home tonight. She lives a little bit outside Antigua and when it rains, the only street to her house floods and the bus can´t make it there. She has to wait for the water to go down before she can return home at the end of the day. I was telling her about Colorado and she didn´t quite understand that yes, it snows, but it usually melts immediately, and no, the melting snow does NOT cause flooding and tons of problems like the rain does. We decided that tropical storms cause more problems than blizzards/winter storms. There´s a chance of another tropical storm hitting Guatemala (though I just looked for info on it and found nothing) and people are still homeless from the last one. My roommate Jessica was telling me that when the last one hit, they didn´t have school for a week - Guatemala had cancelled school for a week because kids could die in the process of getting there. When we cancel school in the States, it´s more so there aren´t accidents rather than a real chance of death, though admittedly car accidents can definitely cause death. Here, kids could legitimately drown trying to get to school.
Jessica was also telling me that she and a friend were wandering around a couple days ago and she saw a girl that looked familiar selling bracelets, and it turned out to be the sister of one of her students. She found it difficult to connect all these Mayan women and children walking around selling scarves, bracelets, etc. with her students. It has to be a really hard life for them, depending on people buying their stuff. It´s all handmade, too - you can usually see them in the central plaza making things. Bracelets tend to be 10 for 50 quetzales, which is less than $1/bracelet. I think the average household income in this country is slightly over $2000/year, DEFINITELY below the worldwide poverty line (which is think is somewhere around $12K/year). There are also a fair amount of issues between the indigenous people (the Mayans) and the ladinos. Ladinos are the people who also live here but who don´t wear the Mayan clothes and don´t speak indigenous languages - they hold the other jobs and are generally more Central American than indigenous Mayan. Indigenous people tend to defer to them and the ladinos don´t treat the Mayans very well. There´s a huge gap between the haves and the have nots here, more than in the States.
When I got here I was a little afraid of coming into a situation where the Westerners came in and decided what was best for the Mayans, but I´m happy to report that Dom, the guy who started this project for GVI, talked to the indigenous communities we work with and asked them what they most needed. They told him they wanted their kids to go to school. At the time, the national school cost money and they couldn´t afford it. Now, the school is technically free so the government can say they provide free education, but the families have to provide supplies, uniforms, fees, books, etc. and most still can´t afford to send their kids. GVI sponsors the kids who come to our schools since we can´t give certifications. Usually kids go to national school in either the morning or afternoon and spend the other part of the day at school with GVI, reinforcing what they´ve learned. School here kinda sucks - they have to just copy stuff off the board and it´s too bad if they don´t understand. They fall behind and that´s it. I´m glad I´m here - it´s definitely a worthwhile project to be involved with, and I´m glad the people we´re serving were involved in developing the project.