At the
beginning of October 2014 coming here I felt like everything is a big question
mark. Will the scorpion bite me? Will snake do? What are local people like? Do
they like volunteers? Will they cooperate with me? Is it a safe place? What is
Li Ch’utam actually doing in the village? Why are mosquitoes around me all the
time? I still don’t know the answers for some of these questions but for sure I
have experienced a lot during the past year. Killing a scorpion with machete,
frying pan, spray to kill scorpions, flip flop, I finally reached a point when
I was too lazy and I was sleeping with a scorpion over my head. No water – buy
some to drink, use the river for other purposes, save it, no electricity – used
electronic devices only in emergency and apart from that - no problem, you can
always find a way to deal with it, creativity and positive thinking – that’s
what living in Polochic needs. I learned that local people are amazing people,
they need a lot of time to understand and trust “gringos” (in q’eqchi means
foreigner), but they also open their houses and hearts for us if we let them do
it.
I learned from local people what does it mean to be human again, to help
someone without any profit, just because she/he needs that, sharing the little
they have with someone who has less, saying “good morning” or “good afternoon”
even if I don’t know the person, smiling to people in the pick up, talking to
people on the way, cry on the funeral and be happy on the wedding. Here I could
count on people, I supported them and they supported me. I learned asking for
help, and many times people were doing for me more than I asked for. Especially
when it comes to nature I could not imagine being alone here.
Life here
is actually big struggle with the nature – no electricity, no water, dirty
water, scorpions, snakes, rats, tarantulas, bats, ants, dust, humid heat, heavy
rain and bridges under water, almost every day you get at least one of those
and you have to deal with it. Carrying things all the time – computers to
school, food from Teleman, gas, bad Internet connection. Even though the house
has very good conditions still there are many issues to deal with. Half of life
here is actually surviving – fighting with nature or preparing food J.
However I
feel like I learned a lot about myself here: what are my barriers, what is it
that I can stand and what is too difficult for me. You know that feeling when
you are in the mountains, so exhausted, that you feel like you cannot do even
one more step? But you also know that you have to so you walk 4 more hours. After
that you feel so happy that next day you walk even more. I was struggling with
many things here, but every battle won made me stronger and willing to fight
more. J
The other
half of time (at least at the beginning) is work done “European style” – you
plan things and you get frustrated because you cannot make it even if you work
very hard – people don’t come to the meetings or are 1,5 hours late, teachers
don’t come to school, so you cannot just talk to them when you need it, if you
tell people to do something for tomorrow you may have it in a week if you’re
lucky. Obsession of planning and ticking tasks can be forgotten here. Then
there is “I know what they need” syndrome. You come here and you just know how
to organize everything, who should do what and how. So you tell people and they
say yes to everything (looking at you like at an alien, that you actually are
for them). And they never do. You are surprised, very surprised. So you think
what went wrong and make a new plan. WRONG!
January
2014. Li Ch’utam organized computer literacy course for secondary school
students and it was supposed to be done in Nueva Mercedes school. The only
condition was that students had to pay half of electricity bill. Investigation:
parents pay every month for electricity of the school even though it should be
paid by the government, checked what is needed so that parents don’t pay it.
Planned meeting with parents committee 2 times – never showed up. Finally
reaching them and giving them information about how to do it with help offered
– never came for help. October 2014 – parents are still paying for school
electricity.
February
2014. Parents of secondary students asked us to help in organizing
transportation for their kids to the other village where they were studying. We
put a lot of effort to talk to parents from few villages, the driver, and
finally we have organized transportation that was on a specific time, safe,
only for the students, and we managed to lower the price. Everyone seemed to be
happy because of that. The transportation worked for one week and after that
the driver or the kids were not coming. At the end of February students were
using again normal transportation, many times waiting for a long time and
paying the normal price.
December
2014. Scholarship programme started. 12 young people started secondary school
in January 2014, 6 of them receiving scholarships (in 2013 only two young
people started secondary school). This month they finish the school year, 10 of
them.
I was
sooooo happy when we started scholarship programme, so as these young people
who applied and received them were. I felt like dreams come true, not only for
European girl coming for volunteering to Guatemalan village, but like dreams
coming true is a universal right J.
Beginning
of April 2014. One of the students receiving scholarship did not come for a
week to receive her money. Her mother told me that she is getting married and
she will stop studying and that’s girl’s decision (her mom wanted her to
study). She was 15. She is one of the brightest girls in the village. Because of
lack of money she could not start studying for the past 2 years.
Her mom
wanted me to talk to her and convince her to continue studying and leaving the
idea of marriage at least for some time. So I did. The girl told me that her
father makes her life impossible and she is thinking since years about living
the house, now when she is studying her life is even more complicated and
marriage is a way to escape from the house and start a better life. She told me
that she was dreaming about education but what she needs more is a normal house
when father is supporting his family and is good for his kids. She wants to
create this kind of family but first of all she wants to escape from her
father. It’s October now. She got married few months ago. Her husband is twice
older than she is. She’s already pregnant. They seem to be happy together. It
also seems that she will never have a chance to continue education.
During
the past year I found out that our work should not be helping community. Our
work should be understanding the community, be with people and whatever we do,
do it with the community, not for them.
2014 was
a year of many activities:
-
cooperation with the teachers in the primary school: support in their
activities, with literacy for the first and second grade kids;
-
afternoon activities about literacy, Spanish, mathematics, art and sport,
computer literacy, but also about expression, questioning, interpreting,
creation
- excursion
to Rio Dulce with 4th-6th grade students
-
scholarship programme for 7 kids
-
encouraging young people to study in the new secondary school (12 started, 10
finished the first year)
- homework support for secondary school students
- support
for secondary school in La Constancia with computer literacy course and English
classes
-
transportation project
-
vegetable and cooking projects for women
-
computer course for men
- we were
participating in many school activities: football championship, Mothers Day,
Children Day, Independence Day - helping preparing decoration, practicing poems
with kids, dances.
Some of
the activities worked, others did not. However there were few big successes: 10
secondary school students will finish their first year this month; we reached
around 70 kids with our afternoon activities; we have started dialog with the
teachers and at some point they wanted us to support them; people from the
village started coming to us to talk to us about what they would like us to do;
kids coming for literacy classes take books and read; it seems that they like
it; women have ideas for more projects; and sometimes when we talk to people
they simply say “thank you”.
Once I
had a dream, it was about giving everyone real access to education. I feel that
it will still need a bit of work J. But I
also feel that a seed of it is already planted in Nueva Mercedes and will grow
during the coming years.
Thanks to
all of you for giving me the opportunity to spend a year of my life in Nueva
Mercedes – I learned and enjoyed it a lot. Thanks to Albert, Anna, Astrid,
Dodo, Kinga, Miguel and Nicoline for sharing this experience with me.
I wish
good luck to the current team and remember that I’m close if you need me J.
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