These past few weeks have been all about planning. Any free moments we had as a staff team, we were seated around a table discussing lessons, crafts, games, decorations, and schedules for one of the biggest programs put on by the foundation–SuperVacas!

It’s been a great experience getting to be on the other side of the action for once. Though this will be my third SuperVacas with the foundation, it’s the only one that I’ve actually helped plan. I’ve always seemed to arrive in Colombia just in time to participate as a volunteer but never to be part of the planning process.

I definitely appreciate all that goes into designing a week of structured activities and lessons–completely from scratch. Down to the very last detail (like how many toilet paper rolls we would need for the kids to make telescopes or drawing and coloring over 50 paper fish for decoration), we did it all.

The theme for the week is the ocean. God is the captain and we are the sailors–the teachings will revolve around what qualities make a good sailor (a clear mind for thinking and making decisions, an open heart, and hands for serving others).

Needless to say, we had a blast decorating the room. Our team clocked about 15 hours this past weekend making a huge boat to go on the stage, blowing up balloons to look like bubbles, cutting out life-size waves to put on the wall...and I could go on. What I love about the foundation and Jorge’s leadership is that he always wants to make the programs the best they can be. While this often requires extra work on our parts–revising plans, changing ideas at the last minute, late nights of planning–I also have no doubt in my mind that this week’s SuperVacas will be the best we’ve ever had.

We also had fun passing out flyers to literally the entire neighborhood. It was great getting to know more kids in the area and such a fun time seeing familiar faces in the street and realizing that I’ve become a part of this neighborhood. There are few things more rewarding than walking to work and having one of your kids from tutoring run up to you, yelling “profe!” and giving you a big hug.

One this is for sure...it’s going to be so incredibly hard leaving this neighborhood and these beautiful kids and families I’ve come to know and love so dearly. Community is truly a special thing and I’m so excited to get to know more of these kids during SuperVacas week!!

Experimenting with a boat craft

Getting creative with balloons

The beginnings of the boat

Finishing touches

Finished!

Each morning, Guatemala sets ablaze with color.  The sun fights its way through the fog to wake up the budding gardens and relieve the dew from its duty.  The city shops open their doors, all festively adorned, as the buses crank their engines, mobile museums of art unto themselves.  Women return to their looms, masterfully crafting traditional huipil dresses for their growing daughters while young men rifle through their drawers to select their soccer jersey for the day.  Each morning, as I wake up at my painstaking pace, drink my tea and dust off my jeans, I anticipate seeing my favorite color of Guatemala: The Grey.

On the weekends, I live with the Matriarch of Monte Cristo and her husband, Miky and Mario.  They are both astoundingly beautiful, so much so that I am sometimes convinced they are a King and Queen of a different Mayan era.  They both speak with soul-startling beauty, Miky with assured power and Mario with discerning wisdom.  Last Sunday, during breakfast with them, I asked Mario when he started his farming cooperative, the place he still works now.  Two hours later, I left the table a man more humble than when I had started my empanada.

He told me the story of how it started in the 70’s, an initiative to enable poor farmers to pool resources and get approved for credit so they could buy land to support their families.  It grew, rapidly, and soon was convicted, along with the rest of its kind, as a communist plot to disrupt national peace.  In 1980, the Cooperative became a clandestine operation, always working with the mission to help farmers rise out of poverty.  In the same year, a friend contacted Mario to let him know the government had put him on the Black List, and soon would be kidnapped, tortured, and killed like many others if he didn’t somehow intervene.

A priest offered to move Mario to Oklahoma, where he could work under asylum and send money back to his family.  Mario agreed and asked how the priest would finance his wife and three children to get to the states as well; with solemn eyes the priest confessed that the church could only afford a single one-way ticket, the only assured path for Mario to escape his certain fate.  Mario declined, unwilling to leave his family in danger.  He bought a new plot of land on the edge of town, a tall cornfield that he could hide a house in.  The family buried their Bible and anything else that the government could use to convict them of subversion, and lived out of sight for 2 years, always working to help others out of poverty.  Mario told me of others that weren’t as lucky, including American citizens, that weren’t able to hide from those looking and most of whom were last seen being thrown in the back of a military vehicle- no body, no record, no admittance of guilt in years to come.

When Mario told me of his American friends that lost their lives because they worked in economic development, he gave Hilary and I a look- not of worry for our safety, for those times have passed.  I think he was looking at a new generation, one that has the freedom to make the difference that was forbidden to generations past.  I think he was hoping to see the work of his friends vindicated.  Hilary and I are so far underqualified to meet the expectations of our gracious hosts, but we are here to try, and if possible, fulfill some of the work started by braver generations before.

Guatemala’s history is marred by armed conflict, bankrolled by an America trying to save a country from communism that was ultimately devoid of communists.  The atrocities committed by the government were horrific and extensive, kept mostly hidden from the world as it burned itself to the ground.  Indigenous Mayans, once the overwhelming majority of the population, were considered collateral damage as guerrilla revolutionaries challenged their dictators and army generals, who remained unphased by the desecration of human dignity.  A peace agreement was signed in 1996, but still kidnappings continue and the impunity rate remains of the highest in the world.  When I leave my door in the morning, timid about facing my challenges of the day, and I see the grandmothers and grandfathers of Guatemala marching, adorned in wrinkles and crowned with locks of flowing grey, I am witnessing the survival of a strangled nation, parading triumphant to see the earth turn their country towards the sun once more.

One Quetzal Coin, about 15 Cents, with the date of the 1996 Peace Agreement proudly stamped on the bottom.

The past month, we have learned an exponential amount about how Centro Educativo Monte Cristo (or CEMOC) operates.

(The courtyard of CEMOC).

In order to share this with you all, I feel that I must first explain the context in which they are operating, and then, what the center is doing to alleviate chronic poverty, and lastly, how Eric and I are attempting to contribute to their mission.  In order to do this, I can’t fit all the information into one blog post… So here’s part one:

To start, I want to mention the complex recent history Guatemala experienced starting with the armed conflict that rattled all of Guatemala beginning in the 1950’s through the late 1990’s. It is a deeply complicated situation that I will try to sum up quickly and fairly. Essentially, during the Cold War era, the United States backed a coup of the Guatemalan government out of fear that the agrarian policies of the President Arbenz were the signs of a pro-communist government.

From a hindsight perspective, the agrarian policies of the 1950’s were not really communist at all, but instead a democratic government trying to allow poor Mayan subsistence farmers to have access to capital in order to own their own land. In the past, these farmers worked within a feudalistic system, which did not support the growth of the overall Guatemalan economy.

After the government coup in 1954, the Guatemalan military came to power for decades, and waged a “civil war against communist guerillas” in the highlands of Guatemala, the home of many indigenous Mayan communities. The army entered these communities and raped, pillaged, and massacred many Indian villages without cause.

Currently, I am reading “I, Rigoberta Menchu,” an autobiographical account of a young Mayan women and her struggle with poverty, land rights, and oppression during the height of the armed conflict. Her story is influential because most Mayans grow up knowing only their local language and are unable to communicate with other Mayans or Spanish-speakers. There is tremendous beauty in these languages that have been passed down for hundreds of years, but it is limiting for communication with the outside world.

In her book, Rigoberta discusses working on plantations for less than a penny a day, watching her little brother die of malnutrition, as well as the rich traditions of Mayan culture. Centuries of oppression for the Mayans of Guatemala have created deep distrust of outsiders, plus skepticism towards new ways of thinking.

The village of Monte Cristo is similar in many respects to the village Rigobeta grew up in. There are about 100 people that live here, and the majority of adults only speak their native language, Kaqchikel. This is the context in which CEMOC is working.

Disturbance

When the earth is disturbed
The bees will know it
And so will the hornets
The trees will know it.

When peace is disturbed
The doves will cry damned
And so will the lambs
Cry out.

When beauty is disturbed
The mountains will roar
The valleys torn asunder
Will send the rivers to shore.

When innocence is disturbed
The children will listen
Mother locks the door and Father kills the engine
Then stop the pistons.

When the wolf descends the crag
And snaps the branches
Lightfooted, swift, hungry, commanding
Everything goes underground, unless found

When justice is disturbed
The soul comes awake
And starts the fire
And causes the quake
And causes the tremble of the wolf
And causes the fear of the disturber
And causes the doors to fling open
And causes the pistons to turnover
The rivers rush back
The bees and hornets attack
The doves uncry
The branches unsnap
Mother and Father yell
And so do the children
Until peace, beauty, innocence, and justice
Return triumphant, indamnable, ungilded

Nest, 10 feet from my house

Volcano & Clouds, 20 feet from my house

Girl from Village Chel, 8 hours from my house

          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 🙂

I can’t believe I’ve already been here for more than 9 weeks! Time has truly flown by. It’s hard to even find a time to sit down and write. The work here is definitely keeping me on my toes!

This past week, we began a new initiative and I am so excited about it. The foundation is trying to have more of a presence in Pacho with a particular focus on the youth. Jorge basically handed this task over to me. What a learning experience this has been! After deciding that a cine foro (movie discussion night) would be the best way to start to get to know the youth here, I began planning. Finally last Saturday we had our first cine foro...and with about 20 teenagers! After a few weeks of coming to Pacho and just walking around the town getting to know the youth, I felt so blessed to see these familiar faces coming to an event so important to me. We had a great discussion (in Spanish, of course) some snacks, and went out for a bite to eat afterwards. We watched the movie in the garage of one of the families living in Pacho. What a beautiful night. This next Saturday, we will begin our first English class to take place right before the cine foro with the same group of kids. I’m so thankful for this opportunity to spend time with the youth of Pacho every single week.

Sometimes on the way to Pacho, the car doesn’t make it up the mountain–thankfully we had the brute strength of Sofi to push us up 🙂

Can’t get over this view

Just to prove I was there

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

Another great moment from this week was when a group of us took the Transmilenio an hour to the very southern part of the city to visit a woman close to the foundation who had fallen on hard times. She lives in a part of Bogotá that is extremely poor but at the same time breathtakingly beautiful. Little shacks with roofs held on by rocks litter the mountains as far as the eye can see. The roads are treacherous and it’s a miracle how the garbage trucks can even climb to the top of the mountain. It’s hard enough on foot. Yet the view from this neighborhood is absolutely gorgeous. We spent the day with Josefita, bought her groceries, and shared lunch. A beautiful time in community.

With Josefita outside her house

Never miss a photo-op

Breathtaking

While this past week was a blur of English classes, tutoring, meetings, and traveling, life does have a way of giving you a break right when you need it. Last Monday was festivo (holiday–there are a lot of these here and most people don’t even know what they’re celebrating). After a wonderful morning of sleeping in until 8:00, one of the women from the foundation came over to teach us how to make ajiaco (an absolutely delicious Colombian soup with chicken, potatoes, whole corn cobs, and more potatoes). It took half the day but was well worth it as we all sat down at the table together and enjoyed this authentic Colombian meal.

A family meal

I will definitely be bringing this recipe back to the States!

I’m also happy to say that in the little free time I’ve had, I managed to start going to a salsa class. I feel like it would be a travesty to leave Colombia without having learned the salsa, so here I am, trying to learn how to move my hips after 22 years without rhythm. Updates on my progress to follow.