Activities

Last Monday children here started holidays that will last until mid January. We have decided to run activities for them. Every day from Monday to Friday in the morning we have activities with different grade on the specific topic. For the first two weeks it’s “travelling around the world” where we talk about countries from different continents, showing photos, talking about differences comparing to Guatemala, food, dancing and doing crafts. The next two topics will be: “nature” with animals, plants and a bit of ecology, and “cultural activities” with art, theatre, sports etc. In the afternoon we have classes for everyone, Monday and Friday computer classes, with educational games, Tuesday and Thursday literature – reading books together with different exercises helping in understanding what is read, Wednesday movie watching. We have started on Monday, for the morning activities sometimes we have 10 kids sometimes no one is coming. 

When they come they are eager to learn and do the activities even though they are rather shy. In the afternoon there are much more kids coming (15-20). They like doing math or writing exercises on computers and the games we do apart. During literature classes we only do activities connected with reading and writing. Every child coming starts reading a book and we try to help if any problems. There are also some exercises like reading small texts and guessing what is described. All of the kids try to read and with those who don’t know reading and writing we seat apart showing them letters writing with them and trying to read simple words/books. There is one child already doing progress in our classes in reading.

To help us in the activities with small children but also to create young leaders in the community, we have asked few young people to help us in activities for kids. We have 3 people (one boy and two girls). They help a lot especially with 5-6 years old kids and first grade translating from Spanish to Q’eqchi everything we say. So the team of volunteers here actually has 5 people now: Astrid, Celia, Deborah, Ewa and Waldemar. All the volunteers are doing great job. :) We will have regular meetings where we plan to discuss past week and plan activities for the coming week. One of them is studying in high school in Telemán but the rest cannot continue studying because of lack of money. Wishing for REAL right to education for all kids…

Apart from work with kids and young people we have started talking with parents. We visit families to ask about what they know and think about Lichutam, what kind of activities they want us to do. We ask them about their kids, if they know Spanish on communicative level, can read, write and count. We also ask about their needs (of adults) and activities they propose for themselves. Families we have visited so far are quite positive about an idea of activities with adults. Some of them just want to join the ideas we have and others propose new once. We already have people interested in: writing, reading, Spanish, computer classes, gardening (vegetables mainly), weave, English, workshops on topics like health, children growing, home budgeting, addictions prevention, family planning. There are people in the village who could run some of these activities. It would be great to start the first of them this year.

New volunteers

Lichutam has 2 new volunteers onsite – Astrid, half French half Finnish, and Ewa, hundred per cent Polish.

After two weeks of travelling through Guatemala and Spanish course in Antigua, we finally arrived with Astrid to Nueva Mercedes two weeks ago. The views during the trip were stunning even though the trip was long and tiring. We both fell in love with pick-up half an hour trip from Telemán to Nueva Mercedes. We arrived in the evening and went straight to our house. It positively surprised us that it’s quite big and comfortable.

On Tuesday morning we went to school for the first time. It was a celebration of Children’s Day. We met teachers and children. Kids were playing instead of having classes. 

There was “piñata”, a big doll made of paper with lots of candies inside. Kids had to destroy it to eat candies. Parents together with teachers prepared lunch for the kids. Of course we were stars there as everyone wanted to know our names, talk to us, play with us etc., especially with Astrid’s blond fair hair. 

In the afternoon we had classes with kids. Only few of them came but were involved in classes, doing math exercises on computers and reading with us.

Andrew was presenting us to everyone we met, trying to explain who is who and whom should we contact in different situations.  People here are very nice and friendly, they are willing to help us in any situation.

A lot happened during the last two weeks:

- we had visits of many pets in the house - few scorpions, many spiders, even one tarantula, small snake – now we are not even surprised when we see them J

- we got used to the hot weather a bit but first days were rather difficult

- things/events here are never on time and for us at the beginning it was difficult to handle it; now we just try to do our stuff while waiting J

- we had professional tortilla lesson by Celia (14 years old) and her sister (8 years old)

- on Sunday we went with kids to swim in the nearby river; cold water and hot weather together with beautiful view made it a great time spent with kids

- we were invited to the Birthday Party of one of the teacher’s son (3) and we had a possibility to try home made food - chicken soup, tamal, tortilla, rise, and a dish made of chicken blood (very interesting taste)

- we’ve met owners of the plantation in Nueva Mercedes, a very nice engineer working here,

people from the nearby village, also international volunteers who stay there working with kids, garden and construction

- last Friday, we went to Telemán for the event prepared by High school students about Maya culture; traditional dances, music (including playing marimba, Guatemalan traditional instrument), clothes, imitations of houses with decorations typical for Maya people, food prepared by the students – perfect end of the first two weeks and the best start to know Maya culture; of course we were taking pictures of the houses and students in their traditional clothes and people were taking pictures of us J
- Q’eqchi – it is very different from Spanish and quite difficult to pronounce; however we try hard to learn some words and we see that people appreciate it when we can at least say words like “bantiox” (thank you) or “masa’la chol” (how are you); so we keep trying. J

Andrew left last Saturday and I think it was a sad day not only for him but for many people in the village. It’s strange to be here without him. Who’s going to play guitar and sing every night, wake us up with breakfast ready, prepare delicious and (very) spicy food, teach us how to make tortillas, explain again and again who is who? It seems that now we have to start building our own female life here. J

Fighting Illiteracy

To this day I recall quite vividly my first day at Nueva Mercedes school back in February. Quite nervous and soft-spoken—uncharacteristic of myself--I decided to spend the day with the second grade, as I find children in this age group to be more often easy-going, compared to hormonal fifth and sixth graders. One of my first simple acts of assistance to Instructor Marta consisted of me passing out chapter books to the children, saying hello, repeating my name endlessly, and then walking around the room and listening to them read, sometimes helping them sound out a long word. Discovering that the majority of the class could sound out most of the words and read out-loud (sometimes to a point of obnoxiously yelling), my first relieving thought was, “Phew, at least they know how to read.” However, this conclusion I would come to discredit in time, as I have discovered the school, the community, and the entire region is plagued by illiteracy.

Upon realizing that almost all of the children-- grades 1 to 6--were reading in the exact same lifeless, monotone voice, even during sentences with question marks, exclamation points, and quotations, I sensed that something was inherently wrong. After examining closely the teaching methods in first and second grade I concluded that the teachers had been successful in implementing the phonics method of teaching reading but have failed in instructing the children to the convert the letters' phonetics into comprehensible written language. Considering the undeniable importance of literacy being at the basis of education, as well as its service as an invaluable tool to many children who will finish school after sixth grade and begin working, I say if a school should give a child anything it must be the ability to decipher text.
 

In a lecture held one day in the third grade, Instructor Elda discussed the problems of illiteracy having negative impacts in the communities of Guatemala. To make her point further clear, she asked the children in the room to raise their hands if their parent's knew how to read and write. In a class of twenty-five students, six raised their hands. Furthermore provoking, and a testament to the results of this exercise, in a study revealed in the national newspaper Presa Libre, the municipality of Panzos, where Mercedes is located, is red-flagged and identified as having the second highest percentage rate of illiteracy in the country (47.38%).

The numbers' are clearly daunting, however, we are going to fight this simply by planting seeds for the future and our solution to this is getting books inside the house for the kids to read. Whether it be due to cultural or financial reasons, currently the families of Nueva Mercedes do not own books therefore the children appear to be estranged to them. With hope of reversing this we have begun to provide books to the children via a small library system where they are given the opportunity to check-out a book for a number of days at a time to bring home or elsewhere. As of now we have forty books, varying in reading level and subject matter, and the plan is to increase this number substantially, diversifying as much as possible, including not only fiction but historical, scientific, and environmental topics. Operating for about three weeks now, it has become popular among a small group of students and I believe that we will see greater participation with the accumulation of more books.

We are currently writing a “Donation Call” similar to that which we made for our laptops to request books from individuals, as well as sharing our small campaign with our friends CampusTech and Empresarios por la Educacion in the city who both have expressed interest in helping promote our cause. With the summer approaching it will be a very straight-forward objective for Li Ch'utam to raise books for the 2014 school year and formally introduce it at the start of the school year to acclimate the children to the process.

 Of course, simply providing books will not improve the situation alone. It is going to take a great amount of joint effort between the volunteers and teachers, and with their evidently being lack of communication between the two parties, a common objective such as increasing literacy could be a means of bringing us closer together.

 “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 

                                                                                         -Dr. Seuss

Two Pivotal Steps

Picking up where I left off in the most recent post, regarding primarily more interaction with the community and searching for what might be desired, I'd like to share two current goals that myself and the Li Ch'utam team have set up for ourselves in the coming weeks. First, we are in the midst of setting up interviews with a dozen or so families that either have children approaching the end of primary school, children already attending basico (the equivalent of middle school in the United States) and/or children eligible to attend basico but currently are not for a number of different reasons which will be shared throughout this posting. Second, we are on a mission to discuss with chauffeurs in Teleman potential price range of developing a round-trip Transportation System accessible to only basico students at a discounted fare.

A note for the readers: in Guatemala, free public education beyond 6th grade is not provided, therefore it becomes the responsibility of the families to incur the costs, which in a large number of cases unfortunately is beyond their means. Once I gain more information about the total costs of education I should be able to elaborate on educational investment hindrance.

The purpose of the first task is for one, to have a formal discussion with the parents about the realities of higher education, to hear what they have to say about the potential opportunity, and express our interests in continuing a dialogue with them to explore choices and possible outcomes. Already having multiple discussions with parents and young adults in Mercedes, Teleman and surrounding communities, the desire to continue studying is ubiquitous. Even a number of teachers I have spoken to passionately expressed their cravings for a university level of education, as they feel it would allow them to perform their jobs better, but like the families of Mercedes the costs are beyond their salaries (Note: Becoming a teacher in Guatemala does not require university level certification which perhaps explains the high number of under-qualified teachers.  Excuse my lack of proper citing and statistics, but I was sometime back informed of a privately funded study that revealed that nearly half of primary level school teachers cannot pass 6th grade level evaluations. Food for thought.) This all being said, there is a lot to sit down and talk about, even if there are no apparent solutions. Secondly, it will provide us with basic data, such as overall costs including uniform, transportation, food, and school supplies (obtained by parents who currently have children attending), and the maximum amount of money families would be willing and able to pay given there was some sort of potential subsidy.

The idea for the second task was proposed by past volunteer Michal Azarkiewicz while we were discussing possible scholarship opportunities for female students considering the ratio of boys to girls that attend basico in Teleman is relatively high, especially among the outside communities such as Mercedes. We have discovered that this disproportionate ratio is in part due to security issues, such as sexual harassment and in extreme situations, rape. One of the underlying problems of the whole issue is that basico school hours are from roughly 2 pm to 7 pm therefore the children must travel back to their communities via bicycle or pick-up truck in extreme darkness, evidently an unsafe atmosphere for a young lady. Upon becoming aware of this reality, Michal suggested that we open up a conversation with chauffeurs in Teleman (there being many) and try to arrange a fair compensation that will likewise become a positive addition to the typical school day of dozens of children trekking multiple kilometers on foot or bicycle in the blazing hot after-noon sun and dangerous pitch-black evenings.

The necessity to set up this proposed Transportation System became even more pressing after a discussion I held with our scholar-student Waldemar when he shared with me his most recent experience of fleeing from men who were trying to lure him into their vehicle while on his way home from school one evening of recent. Aware that there have been instances of “ransom” in the region, Waldemar dropped his bike (perhaps his most valuable possession other than himself) and sprinted into the nearby sugar cane plants and hid for nearly 30 minutes until they passed. Part of me wishes that his story was merely a child's nightmare enhanced by paranoia and embellishment, and at first I was equally surprised as I was horrified to hear of a such story in a place that appears to be so calm and distanced from the crime-infested city, but it is a clear message that something as simple as a couple pick-up trucks dropping exhausted children securely off at or near their homes must be devised and promoted as soon as possible.

Much more to be said  and done.  Stay tuned : )

Planning or Searching?

In the absence of writing in the past month, I have had many discoveries and realizations about Li Ch'utam's efforts in Nueva Mercedes, which was initially provoking and frustrating, but has since become constructive and useful criticism. One can see by looking at the blogs from the past six-months that we have been very involved in the lives of the children in and outside of the school, being a presence in the classroom, hosting an after-school program with computers, arts, crafts, books, movies, physical activities, and initiating weekly river trips. Speaking on behalf of myself and the other volunteers, in our time spent here, there has been many of those beautiful moments of absolute bliss where the children and us young adults, coming from different parts of the world, have lost our sense of differentiation, and to use the cliché, became one. These undoubtedly wonderful and beneficial experiences we have shared with the children, however, is not where my criticism lies.

 What I am most concerned about is our relationship with the adults. Being an organization that is seeking to assist a small rural community in regards to education and well-being, there must be a bridge between the intervening organization (Li Ch'utam) and the recipients (the members and leaders of Nueva Mercedes). I regret to admit that even after six-months of volunteering, this bridge is still inadequate, but to remain positive, it is in the process of construction and I see it as only being a matter of time, full of greater interaction and communication.

These recent criticisms and influences have come from a number of different sources. A month ago we said good-bye, thank you, and hope to see you soon to a wonderful member of our team, Jess Lyga, who was magnificent with the children and likewise very keen about visiting the community in afternoon hours, and interacting with the mothers. Her enthusiasm to embrace the community in the short two-months she was here was admirable and inspiring. Additionally, just today I said farewell to Quentin Veuillet, whose words in conversations I shared with were very eye-opening, even at times aggravating, as he discussed his views that we lacked clear tangible objectives in our work, which he pushed would only become clear through greater dialogue with the adults of Mercedes. Lastly, I am currently reading a book called “The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”, by William Easterly, a former World Bank employee. The book, loaded with anecdotes and powerful controversial ideas, starts off with his comparison between what he calls Planners and Searchers. In summation, planners work from the top-- “trying to remake the poor in image of the West”-- and introduce ideas without much feedback or investigation as to what is truly necessary in the recipients community, and searchers, on the contrary, are more grass-root organizations that attempt to understand the communities they are working with first, initiating a dialogue, forging relationships and trust, and ultimately together introducing and proposing solutions that are contextually relevant to their reality.

Li Chu'tam, a minuscule organization in comparison to the IMF and World Bank efforts however capable of creating both positive and negative externalities, must strive to be a Searcher, which requires a different effort that is beyond fund-raising and brainstorming, which in a sense is seemingly counterintuitive, as the “western” mode of thinking typically assumes that with finances and human capital, anything is possible.  But to our dismay, we are not in the “Western World” therefore we must train ourselves to think differently. There will be a time for accumulation of funding and for proposals, but for right now, I whole-heartedly believe, in accordance with the beliefs of Mr. Easterly, that our efforts must be focused on simply observing, listening, conversing, and digesting our discoveries to paint a clear picture of Guatemala, the Polochic Valley, and Nueva Mercedes.

At first I considered many of these thoughts to be along the lines of “back-tracking” and making our previous efforts seemingly less valuable, however, I now see it all to be apart of my own personal learning experience in this sort of work. I couldn't be more proud of what we have done in my first six months here, as I still feel that the school and children are the perfect means of becoming acquainted and familiarized with the community. This month I will be shorthanded, with only myself to work with until the arrival of two new volunteers, embracing the exhaustion following a day's work with the school and sharing it with the hard-working men, women and children of a community that I look forward to knowing more about day-by-day.  

Cambia, Todo Cambia

Positive energy, rather than mosquitoes, has been currently swarming us here in the Polochic Valley as we are seeing and feeling tremendous development in our impact in the school-day, our after-school class, and our overall presence in the community of Nueva Mercedes. A proposed library system, four fixed computers, greater scheduled computer/reading/art classes, proposed singing classes, and weekly river trips, it's almost overwhelming, yet music to our ears and kudos to our efforts.

The relationships that we are building with the teachers --what I find to be perhaps one of the most important steps--is really beginning to blossom, as there are conversations before, during and after classes about how we want to be more involved in and out of school, and likewise how they can be more involved in what we are doing (This was a problem I  faced and have noted again and again, and perhaps it is just time permitting, but also for future volunteers, I'd like to note that it is imperative to take the initiative to reach out to the teachers and get to know them as best as possible for we must learn to feed off of each other.)  With attendance for our after-school class climbing above thirty children we have proposed a solution for the teachers to help promote and support us by dividing the children into two groups based on grades: first, third, fourth, and second, fifth, sixth. They gladly accepted and now the teachers each have a fixed weekly schedule posted in their classrooms that identifies which group practices on each day and likewise they announce reminders at the end of class. This little effort by the teachers is important as they are the main authoritarian figures on the school grounds, thus it reminds the children that our class is an extension of the school-day, and deserves the same mandatory level of respect. Most importantly, this involvement signifies a bridge between the two teaching bodies, which at times in the past seemed detached from and disharmonious with one another.

School director, Reginaldo, has been of great help lately by lending us school records of student evaluation scores permitting us to begin developing a statistic-based tracking system that will allow us to see our impact in student performance. Also, he has approved of our plan to introduce a library system where children can check out books for certain amounts of time to bring home and read. This idea was inspired by the discovery that very few children in Mercedes have access to books , therefore have zero opportunity to read leisurely outside of school. Our small volunteer operated library would be a means to provide children with books to bring home and practice reading, and hopefully will promote greater reading interests among all ages in the community as well as responsible behavior since the children will be expected to care for the books and return them on time in the same condition when borrowed. Lastly, Reginaldo has spoken to the first grade teacher Anna on behalf of us and received permission to open up her room in the afternoon to be used for our after-school agenda. Our plan is to have the computers in one classroom with only the students practicing, and the other classroom to be a library setting or art class. This idea including the split groups we find to be a potential solution to the on-going problems we have faced in regards to distractions and over-crowding.

 

Since the arrival of our current volunteers over a month ago our after-school class has tremendously improved. Being here for the entire school year, it is an incredible experience to see something step by step grow and mature as new minds and personalities contribute what they can. Beyond the arts which Jess has been largely responsible for (check out last weeks Blog by Jess detailing her efforts) the IT class has really evolved since Quentin's arrival. Possessing technical skills I and others have lacked the past 6 months, Quentin has fixed four malfunctioning computers (we now have 8 functioning machines), and got them all up-to-date with the current Edubuntu software that we use the majority of the lessons. The increased number of laptops allows more children to practice each day and at longer intervals. With our split agenda this means that 15 children get 45 minutes to 1 hour of practice twice a week. A giant leap forward.

Something important we have realized about the math programs we are currently using is they do not not effectively “teach” the children new concepts, but only allow them to practice which they already know, therefore we have begun to give one-on-one lessons on the dry-erase board. For example, my third graders are working on multiplication so I use to board to explain alternative methods of counting to find the product of two numbers. Like most third graders, larger factors such as 8 and 9 are more difficult for them to calculate internally.   We intend to begin creating lesson plans that we could give for 10-15 minutes to five or six students prior to each computer session. This will be specifically helpful for the students who are falling behind in their day classes.

On top of all of this I have constructed an educational board game incorporating day-time material into a race against peers that has become extremely popular among the third grade students (soon to be shared with other grade levels). We have begun weekly river trips to Pueblo Viejo on Sundays, a day to simply cool off, relax, practice swimming, collect flowers, search for flat rocks to paint, and explore the awe of the Polochic Valley walking through the many corn fields which have decorated this region of the world for thousands of years. We are trying to make more frequent trips to the village in the late afternoon to interact with families, for instance, we have begun to visit one of the local churches to support the children's choir. These evening trips have inspired the idea to bring music to our after-school program, which is in the works as I am talking to Reny, a community member and guitarist who is enthusiastic about playing music with Quentin and myself which we will in turn share with the children.

"Cambia, todo cambia" -Mercedes Sosa

Art in the Valley

By Jess-

Today marks the midpoint of my time volunteering with Lichutam with barely four weeks in the Polochic. My short stay has flown by, marked by the methodical smacking of mosquitos. So from my peak here in the valley, I’d like to make a rough analysis of the work I’ve done so far as I also start looking towards an impending departure.

After the first day helping out with the afternoon computer class, the most pressing problem seemed to be the ratio of four working computers for the 30+ students who attended. Many of the children would initially occupy themselves with the approximately 50 books that comprise our mobile library, but after the first half of their two hour class, their attention starts to falter. As the volume in the classroom slowly rises, and the echoes of the voices of 30 restless children bounce off the tin roof, my co-volunteers and I leave each session completely drained. I decided to try and rally the reckless troops behind a loosely organized art project to both diversify the 2 hour session and give the children an interactive, creative outlet that seems to be missing during the school day.

The first day that I brought paints and brushes to class was a complete success. We started with the simple assignment of painting a flower, but based on the enthusiasm and patience of the kids, I have since been able to organize more involved projects such as making beads out of recycled plastic bottles.  The kids’ complete embrace of every activity we have thought of, from paper cranes to bracelets to small writing tasks leaves us excited and challenged to fill this new niche. 

 I’m continuously amazed at the versatility of paint and paper, which leads me to contemplate the connection between the school’s lack of materials and the oftentimes slow and monotonous school day. On the bright side, the lack of first-world school supplies forces us to find unique ways to use the Polochic’s grossly underutilized resource: namely the garbage that can be found lining ever roadside and riverbed. 

  In the coming weeks I hope to further explore and test both the limits of my own and the kids’ creativity while simultaneously spreading the message of the importance of recycling. (This seems to be especially important here because the river that holds thousands of discarded pepsi bottles is the same water many people use at home.)

On a more personal note, I would like to comment on my rather unique situation of being one of the first women volunteers that has visited the valley. I think being female has made my experience distinctly different in some ways than those of my co-volunteers. From the first day at school I noticed a sharp divide between the boys and girls. The most obvious difference being the jeans and western  t-shirts sported by most of the boys, while almost all of the girls wear a traditional skirt and top. While I have had a little bit more difficultly connecting with the boys, my relationship with the girls has been especially easy and open. I’ve already had more than several cooking lessons because to the horror of everyone here I don’t cook and can’t make tortillas. From accidentally sitting on the wrong side during a church service to my strange tendency to ‘dress like a boy,’ it’s been interesting living in a community that’s so divided along gender lines.

As the date on my return flight quickly approaches, I hope I will have time to expand the ‘art-class’ and spread out a little more in the community. If the next half goes as well as the first I think my only problem will be finding the willpower to pack my things.