Goodbye and thank you to Kinga

This morning at 6 o’clock the second to last member of the current team here in Nueva Mercedes left on a pickup truck. Kinga spend five months here in Mercedes, and during her time participated in and organized, among other things, English lessons for young kids, computer classes for the men, weaving workshops for the women and of course, our every-day lessons with the primary school kids.
The kids are already starting to ask about when she will be back, and the house is very empty to come home to just like the work is a little less fun alone.

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 Thank you Kinga for the time spend together, You will be missed!

 

Bantiox!

New Year Clean Start

The new school year began Monday, and Friday morning volunteers, students and parents met to clean the school to have everything ready for the new year.

A lot of dust had been gathering during the two-month vacation, so the help of everybody was needed. Old or broken things were thrown away and new books and materials given out to the students who were mostly very excited to begin classes.

Monday morning at 8 classes then begun, we spend the first days in kinder garden and will now spend a couple of days in each grade with each teacher to be able to evaluate where our help is most needed.
In the fourth grade classroom the furniture unfortunately did not make it through the vacation and there are no chairs or tables. This is obviously a big problem and Li Ch’utam will together with the teachers try to find a solution to this problem as fast as possible so the fourth graders can have proper lessons along with every-one else.

The school was cleaned thoroughly both inside and outside!

Some of the boys decided to take a break from cleaning and play some music instead

Handing out materials for the new school year

With the beginning of the new school year we have also had to say goodbye to Michell, who has been here with us since September. It is strange to be just the two of us in the house now, and both Kinga and I would like to send a big thank you to Michell for the time spend living and working together!

Here are a couple of pictures from Michell's time in Nueva Mercedes:

Merry Christmas from the Li Ch'utam volunteers!

The final Li Ch’utam project of this year, which has been occupying us during this month, has been the process of finding recipients for the Li Ch’utam scholarships in 2015.

We began in early December with a meeting where all the parents of kids who are studying or about to begin studying were invited. At the meeting we talked about who could apply, how to apply, discussed different questions the parents had and finally handed out the application questionnaires. The following week we received no less than seventeen applications – a very positive development, showing that the number of kids studying beyond primary school is increasing.

Afterwards we visited the families of each applicant to have a talk about their financial situation and to confirm that all had the support of their parents in continuing their studies, and were received very well by all the families.

Visiting the house of one of the scholarship recipients.

Finally, yesterday morning (24^th) we once again visited all the families – accompanied by Henning who is visiting for Christmas, to give the good news, that 15 of the applicants will receive the Li Ch’utam scholarship in 2015.

Delivering the good news to another family

We (Kinga, Miguel and Nicoline) afterwards spend a great Christmas Eve in the house of one of the scholarship recipients, with him and his family, and will now take off for a short Christmas vacation to return with renewed energy in January for the new school year.

Christmas dinner

Relaxation after eating too many tameles

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New-year!

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Back in action!

After a week and a half of experimental teaching in the outdoors we have once again been granted the key to the school of Nueva Mercedes and we are back in the class room!
Now, with the blessing of both the school director and the Parents' Committee, we hope to be able to carry out lessons throughout the rest of the vacation without further interruptions.

Happy to be back in school, the Li Ch'utam volunteers and kids wish everyone a happy day! :)

A bump in the road

This week we had some bad news here in the village. We were informed that due to vacation time we would now have to give back our key to the school since no one is allowed to use it during these two months. This came as quite a surprise since we had already asked permission to use it and since volunteers from Li Ch’utam have used the school during vacation for a number of years.

The reasons we are given for this decision are very vague, just as we have not been able to get a clear answer as two has made it. We have so far contacted the director of the school as well as members of the COCODE, neither of whom can give us clear answers except that we should talk to someone else about it if we absolutely insist to take it further (which, of course, we do). So next step is to take the issue up with the Parents’ Committee and hope they can help us get back the key.

This unfortunate turn of events makes it quite difficult for us to keep up our usual routine. Because while sports activities might be perfectly fine to carry out in open air, reading, mathematics and computer classes are another story. And with 10-30 kids every day we have no other location available.
Determined to keep on with lessons we have therefore had to come up with new ways of teaching, today we learned math by searching for geometrical shapes in nature and then creating the same figures with rope.

In spite of this bump in the road, we are still in good spirits, and hoping that both children and volunteers will learn something new from using alternative teaching methods, while fighting our way back into the class room!

To be continued…

Sad volunteer and sad student outside school

Hexagon made with rope and students

Sports day

Welcome Kinga!

Welcome to our new volunteer Kinga who joined us two weeks ago. She came in the middle of a very busy period of finishing the school year and starting new activities, and has therefore already participated in a lot of things. Read Kinga’s first impressions here:

"It's my second week in Nueva Mercedes and everything has been going so fast so far. The place

is busy like a beehive. I have met so many people that I can hardly retain their exotic names. The

children we are working with are funny, full of energy and open to new learning experience as

much as I am. I 've already gone through Eva's farewell meetings, cooking workshop, computer

classes for men and young ones, loads of extracallicular activities para niños and now have that

funny impression of being here for a very long time. The volunteers' house I moved to is cute and

placed in a very alluring settings among papaya, bannana trees and other flora I am unable to

name yet. The weather is bearable still might be quite surprising sometimes with its heavy rains

that block access to the outside world. There's so much to acquire but feels good, looking forward

to new projects to come."

 - Kinga

Furthermore, the school year in Guatemala is coming to an end and though Li Ch’utam volunteers will keep having classes with the children every day, we have decided to change the schedule a little since it is now vacation time. Every one or two weeks we will introduce a new theme to the students and the activities of each day – whether it is reading, arts, sports, games or others, will be connected to this theme. This week and the following we are learning about different animals.
Here are a couple of pictures of our activities so far:

Learning about animals

Making our own zoo

Preparation of animal crowns

Team Lion against Team Rhinoceros!

Spider walking

Preparation of animal crowns

Cooking Workshop

As a follow up on the vegetable garden-project, we did a cooking workshop where the women could share recipes and learn to use the vegetables they are now growing in new ways.
The workshop took place tuesday (7/10) at the volunteer house, and both volunteers and the local women participated in showing the others how to prepare different dishes.

Some of the food prepared was sweet yucca, vegetable soup and spanish tortilla.

As a delicious end to a good day, we finished off by eating all the different dishes together, and everything was really good!