Como te va? ( masala chol?)
1. Presentationof the local coordinator
Hello everybody!!!!
Four months have passed since I arrived to
the beautiful Polochic Valley. Let me introduce myself, My name is Daniel Lopez,
and four months ago I accepted the challenge of being Li’Chutam Local Program
Coordinator. I do apologize for taking so long in introducing myself but It has
been busy in this side catching up with activities, getting to know and being
at the service of Nueva Mercedes and La Ceiba..
About me:
Through my life, my interest led me to do
studies on MSc in Anthropology, Environment and Development, which related to
my curiosity about the controversies arise from the impact and implications of
development initiatives or process (from extractive industry, intellectual
property rights, agriculture mechanization vs. Small holders´ production,
bio-piracy.... ) in the environment and
the people who inhabit these ecosystems. I am passionate about topics such as indigenous
rights, environmental justice, the on going Green Revolution, and the relation
between education and sustainable development. During my undergraduate, I did
work in Mexico teaching in an Huichol indigenous Community Inter-cultural
school; placement by which I produced a little article on the reasons and
implications of constituting such a schooling system. For my masters I came
back to the same community as I have got interested, during my undergraduate,
in the relation between Huichol Traditional Knowledge on corn and maize
biodiverisity conservation in two Huichol villages.
2. From London to Nueva Mercedes
So, as I was saying, four months ago I
switched London concrete jungle and its ‘red double deckers’ noises for the
sound and songs of different species of birds, frogs, and other animals
inhabiting Nueva Mercedes surrounding forest where Lichutam Volunteers House is
placed.
3. Supporting the school as away to
introduce myself to the community
As I arrived, my first task was getting to
know the community or better stated: leave the community to get to know me.
After formal introduction with 10 community COCODE (Communal Authorities), I
spent the first month and a half supporting Nueva Mercedes Primary school
pupils and teachers as such during the daily classes and participating in
communal and school events such as Independence Day Parade and activities,
children day and 6th Grade Primary School Graduation. Within a few
weeks children and adults got accustomed somehow to my presence in the village,
and as I was walking by, my name could be listen in the wind: ‘Daniel, Daniel,
Daniel’..... called by the very younger generations in a form of ritualistc way
to say: ‘hello, we are here’.... I passed my little non-working hours visiting
the village and conversing with Jonas at his central village shop - also
meeting point of people.
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| Me with the local children |
By supporting the school in a daily basis
I get to know the community children, teachers and some of the family parents
while learning about specifics of Guatemala educational system in rural areas
and how Lichutam academic support might encourage best practice of teachers and
pupils as such.
4. Educational day out Quirigua and Playa Dorada
As part of Lichutam efforts to improve
access to a wider and more integral educational process, we finance and
organize an educational day out as a prize and incentive for 6th Grade
Primary school students achievement of their grade. We left at 3 o´clock in the
morning on the 14th of October, in the middle of a wet night we
gathered at Nueva Mercedes Primary school tired but with smile faces in order
to wait for Fidel bus, so we could head off and arrive early at the
‘Archaeological Site of Quirigua’.
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| Trip to Quirigua |
We chose
Quirigua as our destination because of being a place with incalculable
cultural and historic value as well as being an attempt to get the children
closer to their ancient Maya culture.
After a few walks over ‘Quirigua Maya park’, we packed into the bus,
this time heading off to Playa Dorada
where we have lunch and time to enjoy the Izabal Lake.
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| Playa Dorada |
5. Extracurricular activities and the new volunteers
Li’chutam has been offering educational
activities in a weekly basis since October. Access to education has been
strengthened through IT-classes for Primary school children based in the
educational games offered by the ‘Edulibre’ operating system version of Linux.
Activity beloved by Primary school students whom twice a week have the
opportunity of reinforcing maths, vocabulary, and logic through games such as:
Maths space invaders, Kanagram, Hangman, memory cards and other games designed
for different grades.
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| IT-class for Primary School students |
Although with some time of silence we also
recovered IT classes offered to Basico students with IT Diversificado graduate
Milton Favian. The classes for Basico are based on learning Microsoft Office
package through useful exercises.
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| IT-class for Secondary School Students |
I also take the opportunity to present the
two new volunteers: Anna Heikken (from who you already can read about in the
last post of our blog) and Julia Odinga whom will introduce herself next week
through this blog. With their help and collaboration new activities, rather
than IT has been also scheduled:
Sports - circus workshop
The idea came across, as our new
volunteer, Julia, brought a slack-line and different juggling material and
other we could built too. Sports and psicomotriz abilities are also important
for the development of children.So we dedicated one day to juggle with Primary
school students. Children seemed to enjoy the activity. Below some pictures.
Games Day
Practising mobility and logic with
‘mikado’ game. Anna and Julia also created a quiz game whose objective was to
expand and enrich knowledge and vocabulary as such.
All of these and more activities we will
continue improving in an attempt to diversify and contribute to a more integral
educational process for the children involve. So keep checking our Blogg and
Facebook page for news from this side.
6. Scholarships
Li’chutam scholarship program has continue
expanding. We are happy to announced that finally Li’C hutam will be sponsoring
18 Basico students and 5 Diversificado, in total 23 students will be supported
by Li’Chutam.
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| Graduation of Milton, one of the students who received the scholarship from Li Chutam |
7. Family Gardens
In terms of the Family Gardens, due to our
interesting partnership with ITSACAN , the gardens are beginning the road
towards sustainability. Six families are successfully growing local ‘criollo’
and organic seed varieties of spinach, ‘camote’, ‘ayote’, ‘yuca’, and local
cherry tomato (kocpish=tomate pequeno). By planting local ‘criollo’ varieties
families will be able to save, and exchange seeds between them, rather than buying it in the
veterinary.
I have been always curious about the
wonders of nature, but I discovered a passion about plants since I do the
Family Gardens visits- so I pulled my sleeves up and began to work also my own
garden while doing the visits. So far, at the volunteer lodge we have:
‘kocpish’ (tomate pequeno, spinach, camote, yuca, sweet chile and lets hope for
the ‘moringa’ germination.
What it became a hobby also turn out in
something useful for the Family gardens project as we have been able to provide
the families with 36 camote guides, kocpish seeds and we will have soon
different kinds of chile seeds, more spinach reserves, yuca and still more
camote. All of our seeds are also local ‘criollo’ and organic varieties obtain
from different families and ITASACAN.
Sustainable development theoretic frame
goes hand with hand with the promotion of ‘local ‘criollo’ organic seed
varieties. In few months, if everything goes well, families will be able to
save more seeds from a determinate crop from their own production. In the
future, ITASACAN will continue to provide us with local organic seeds accustomed to the region
ecological conditions. Moreover, other workshops will be schedule with ITASACAN
‘Basico’ students and coordinator such as: ‘cooking workshops’ so families can
learn how to cook and what to do with new crops introduce such as our Chinese
spinach.
With this I say bye for now but readers
can also follow us regularly on Facebook and more updates will come soon in
Li Chutam´s Blog
Cha Qui la quib!!!! Que les vaya
bien!
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