After only six easy hours of travel, Hilary and I breezed through the Currency Exchange Stand, Customs, and retrieved all of our undamaged luggage.  We stepped outside the airport to face the moment we had been fearing- finding our ride.  Inside the gated waiting area, Hilary and I stood with all of our earthly belongings, four suitcases and two backpacks, looking like Guatemala´s most un-Guatemalan imports.  We stared at the sea of mocha faces and black hair, unable to distinguish between any except one.  Fredy was scheduled to pick us up, but our correspondence was only one email and the last time I saw him was two years prior.  I began resenting the concept of Latin-American Time and resolved that we might be waiting at least a few hours for our friend.  I started walking to the other end of the waiting area; Hilary asked “Eric, do you see him?” “Nope.” I popped up on the balls of my feet, trying to use my height to my advantage.  “Eric, do you see him?” “Nope.”  I looked at my bags, nervous and consternated, feeling numbingly vulnerable.  “Eric-“ I interrupted “Nope.”  Hilary yelled “Eric, come on!” as she scurried away from me, luggage in tow.  I looked past her hurried shoulder to see the only Guatemalan face I knew; two minutes after exiting the airport doors, we were safe in our new home. 

                Experiencing Guatemala for the first time is overwhelming for an American.  I stepped off the plane for the first time in 2010; I was 17 years old.  Even now, in my 3^rd visit almost four years later, the differences between the two countries are a blend of excruciating and enveloping.  They are point blank and therapy.  I can´t imagine myself anywhere else. 

                Guatemala City welcomes visitors with lungfulls of car exhaust and a system of traffic incomprehensible for a Southeastern native.  After accepting one´s fate to inhaling the city´s toxic air, supplied without discrimination from an open window or the A/C vent, one will without doubt begin to look towards the bustling businesses alongside the road and ask themselves “How many car repair shops can possibly coexist in a square mile?”  The answer to that question, much the same as the subsequent “How many people can fit in one bus?” seems to be without limitation.

                As Fredy drove outside the city limits and up the mountainside, the images of extreme poverty returned.  I was reminded of how much strength and work ethic it requires to be poor.  I remembered the systems of utter destitution required to prop up modern economies.  I was freshly invigorated with a sense of why I came in the first place- to let go of the strength in my possessions and learn the genius of poverty.

The reason this update is coming so late is because my life has been extremely busy. I truly feel like a part of the team here at Fundación Comunidad Viva and I wouldn’t change my hectic schedule for anything. It’s incredible that I’ve been given so much responsibility as a mere (gringa) volunteer. I’m getting to see first-hand how a nonprofit should work. FCV isn’t afraid to change, evolve, take risks, and do something different every now and again.

We took one of those risks a few Sundays ago.

The whole process of starting a nonprofit in the downtown area is complex, to say the least, but the only starting place is to learn the needs of the community first rather than starting to develop programs in a neighborhood without a solid understanding of the people who live there. One of those needs in downtown Bogotá rests in the homeless population. So we made it our goal to get to know as many homeless people as we could–with the help of almost 100 sandwiches, steaming hot agaupanela, and a guitar.

It was a beautiful night full of conversations, singing, and sharing meals with countless people we encountered on the street. Never did I feel in danger (it did help that there were about 12 of us in the group), but rather a deeper understanding of the community here in downtown Bogotá.

Cooking up 2 huge vats of agaupanela

Getting to work on the sandwiches

Aaand having some fun at the same time 🙂

pacho

The work in Pacho continues. So far, we’ve had 4 movie nights (cine foros) and 2 English class! Basically, we get to spend the whole day with the youth of Pacho, which is so cool. This past Saturday after we finished the English class, a few of the youth stuck around to chat and we wound up hanging out and working on their homework for the next hour before the cine foro started. Two years ago, I never would have thought I could lead a discussion in Spanish about a movie, and while it’s never easy facilitating the conversation, I’m always so amazed when people actually understand what I’m saying. And I praise God for my partner in crime, Marina, who is another volunteer serving with the foundation, and makes the the trip to Pacho with me every week. In the last few cine foros, we watched Slumdog Millionaire, Argo, Source Code, and are planning to watch Freedom Writers this Saturday.

Cine Foro! (it’s hard to get a good photo in the dark)

tutoring

Tutoring continues to be some of my favorite parts of the week. We now have a good group of about 15 that come every Tuesday and Thursday. We’ve even started to play more games as a reward for working so hard on homework and we are going to take the kids on a field trip to a science museum later in the month! Here’s a little video from last Tuesday:

monserrate

Maybe one of the reasons this past week tired me out so much is because I climbed 2 miles of stairs to reach the top of Monserrate, one of the highest points in Bogotá. I’ve already been up there twice during the time I’ve spent in Colombia, but I’ve always taken the cable car. Hiking Monserrate was definitely a different experience. And totally worth it. While many people make the hike barefoot as a sort of pilgrimage to the church at the top of the mountain, my friends and I opted to do it with shoes. Two hours of climbing endless steps and we had reached the top. Definitely one of my favorite experiences so far in Bogotá!

Halfway there...

We made it!

The last week has felt like 100 days, 100 days of new words, people, foods, and complexity. The language barrier has been significant, but I can feel myself progressing as I rapidly learn new words each day. The school we´re working at, Centro Educativo Monte Cristo (CEMOC), has been remarkably patient and generous with us.

We are living in a volunteer house with five spacious rooms and bathrooms with hot water. Our backyard literally has a volcano and coffee trees.

Here´s a view of our volunteer house:

See that huge mountain in the background...? Yep, that´s a volcano.

The food has been delicious- tamales, red pepper chicken, and grilled carne have been my favorites so far. Each day I work on learning more Spanish and usually help in the kitchen preparing the meals for the 100 students and teachers here. Eric and I are the first North Americans to stay at CEMOC for any extended period of time, so it´s taking everyone a little while to get used to us. We´ve made lots of friends among the school´s staff and hope to gain the students´trust as the days go by.

We picked a great week to arrive in Guatemala, though! It was the National Holiday of Guatemala, so we got to participate in alot of festivities. The students dressed up in tradional clothing and prepared tradional food for everyone.

We saw the city parade in Chimaltenango last Saturday and celebrated in Antigua on Sunday. All in all, I´m having a blast and can´t believe how much fun the next year is going to be! More updates to come.

This past week was anything but average. It started with the normal schedule: a time of rest Monday morning, meetings with neighborhood girls in the afternoon, English tutoring Tuesday morning, after school tutoring in the afternoon, more meetings Wednesday, my weekly trip downtown. And then I got stuck.

What began as peaceful protests among the campesinos (farmers) grew into more violent protests among university students and others fed up with the injustices facing the agricultural community.

In short, the Colombian president signed a free trade agreement with U.S. which basically prohibits the campesinos from using Colombian seeds and other national products, rather those imported from the U.S. Because of this, Colombia as a country receives tons of money from the U.S. for signing the agreement yet the lives of the individual campesinos are in grave danger as they can no longer compete against foreign prices and as a result, continue to make a living. The whole situation is extremely complicated (especially when explained to me in Spanish) but I tried to make a point to learn as much as I could as everything that was happening was very “close to home.”

With that said, never were we in danger, we just stayed indoors to take precautions as you never knew when a peaceful protest could turn into something else.

Amidst all the turmoil however, we found peace staying inside as we spent every single day working on plans for establishing another Fundación Comunidad Viva in downtown Bogotá (hence, the lack of pictures this week). We worked countless hours on vision statements, values, strategies, target groups, on and on and on. Yet what a rewarding experience to be able to spend so much time immersed in such an important project.

After the protests and riots calmed down, we started up again our Viernes Culturales (cultural Fridays). These have been wonderful get togethers we hold every week by inviting friends, neighbors, and even random strangers we meet on the street, to hang out with us downtown and return to Jorge’s apartment for food and games. This is also a part of starting the new nonprofit here. So many of the people we’ve met are already so excited to get involved in programs we’ve yet to even start! Protests and riots aside, this past week was a blast and an interesting change of pace, though I’ll be looking forward to getting back to my normal, riot-free schedule this week 🙂