From London Concrete Jungle to Nueva Mercedes

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 6^th 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.

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 6^th Grade Primary school students achievement of their grade. We left at 3 o´clock in the morning on the 14^th 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’. 

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.  

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. 

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.

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.

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!  

Greetings from Nueva Mercedes and the new volunteer team!

Ma zala chol?

(How is your heart doing? in Q’eqchi)

I would like to present myself, a new member of Lichutam’s volunteer team. My name is Anna and I come from Finland. My heart burns for climate change, sustainable development issues and of course, Latin America.  Last spring, I spent two months in Peru where I conducted a field study for my master’s thesis that handled impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations. After finishing my studies, I wanted to further explore Latin America, do something that matters and achieve some professional experience. To have been welcomed to join Li Ch’utam’s team seemed like a perfect opportunity to do all these things. So for the next three months I will be on board! :) 

  

I would like to apologize for the radio silence of the blog despite already five weeks have passed since I arrived to Nueva Mercedes. We have lately had regular power cutsand the Wi-Fi has barely worked at home. In addition, the user account of the blog was on the lost ways for a while. However, in the future, Daniel (a coordinator of Li Ch’utam’s project since September, Daniel will present himself in no time) and I will aim to update the blog in a regular basis. In Li Ch'utam’s Facebook group one can also follow what we have been up to here in Nueva Mercedes.

At the moment, the children have their vacation from school. Despite that we have continued to organize different kind of extracurricular activities on a daily basis. During the holiday,it has sometimes been challenging to attract children to participate in the activities. However, we have managed to have a bunch of 6-16 children appearing to the school every afternoon.

The focus of the activities has been kept in computer classes since it has been observed to be the most preferred activity. We have tried to use “a carrot system” in the computer classes, i.e. focusing on educative games for 1-1,5 hours and then letting the children choose themselves what they want to play. This method has shown its effectiveness since often the kids would rather just play something entertaining. We are also happy that through computing games we have managed to provide some more personal support for children that obviously struggle with basics of Math and reading.

In addition to the computer classes we have also organized other extracurricular activities such as “nature&recycling”, reading traditional Q’eqchi stories translated to Spanish and practicing writing. All the activities have been well perceived by children. In our nature&recycling class, for instance, we prepared our own bowling game made of the abandoned plastic bottles that we gathered from the village. The idea of the activity was to explain children why we should and how we can take care of the nature. In couple of afternoons we had tough and emotional bowling tournaments between teams of “Barcelona” and “Zuluk”!

 

I thought that it would have taken a long time before the children would build trust in a new person. Therefore, I am a happy how fast they have accepted me. Now it is impossible to pass through the village without hearing a young eager voice shouting: Anaaaaaa!! Cómo estas???

 Otherwise the time here in Nueva Mercedes has flown with the “garden project”, taking care of the scholarship applications of the secondary and college students, getting to know people of the village as well as planning new activities and projects.

Shortly after I arrived, we began to saw seeds of new nutrition rich vegetables and fruits that are suitable for the tropical climate together with the families committed to the garden projects. So far, spinach,for instance has been a great success. The families seem to be at the same time curious and enthusiastic of the new seeds (and especially that the spinach has grown so nicely and fast!). Many of them have begun to organize more space to saw more seeds and constructed new beautiful huertos (home gardens). We have had in mind to shortly organize a cooking workshop and teach the families different manners how the new vegetables and fruits can be cooked.

There is also a new interesting project getting started with a local agricultural institution “ITACASAN”.  The institution is a secondary school level school that with is simultaneously with schooling, teaching practical skills for the pupils. For instance, the youngsters are responsible to take care of the cultivations of the institution and cook food for themselves. The pupils are also involved in the preparing process of the institution’s own organic product “Pinol” (a powder made of corn, cacao and amaranto consumed as a drink here in Guatemala) that is currently sold in a local scale. The aim of the collaboration project is that the students of ITASACAN would be involved in the garden project of Li Ch’utam as their internship, ITASACAN would introduce new seeds for the garden project (for example the seeds of spinaches we received from the institution) and reciprocally, Li Ch’utam would facilitate in marketing products of ITASACAN. We are eager for the project since these kinds of steps are like seeds for establishing sustainable development in practice.

As my personal project during my stay in Nueva Mercedes I will conduct an evaluation assessing what have been the impacts of the activities and aid Li Ch’utam has provided in Nueva Mercedes in terms of strengthening schooling skills and encouraging children to continue studying.The goal of the evaluation is to find out which activities and services of Li Ch’utam have been successful so far and what could be done better in the future.

I am happy and curious to investigate the relation between sustainable development and education on local level. Hopefully, the results of the evaluation will also later serve for the best of the project and providing even better basis for children for their studies!

From the next week Daniel and I will have a Christmas break for couple of weeks. People here in Nueva Mercedes have already starting to get ready for Christmas and we will also load our batteries to come back with even more energy in January. In January, our team will also get strengthened as a new volunteer, Julia from Germany will join us. For now, we want to wish Happy Holidays for all the followers of the blog!

Hasta pronto y che numsi chi us li xamaan ut wulaj chik! :)        

Saray's first weeks

When I first looked for Nueva Mercedes in Maps I ended up with a big interrogation sign on my screen. But Nueva Mercedes exists, and it exists since long. One arrives to the village without rush, slowly but surely, like the women making corn tortillas. It was like a back through trip, where every mean of transportation was smaller and slower than the previous one. A plane which flies at I don’t know how many feet and almost thousand kilometres per hour brought me to City of Guatemala's airport, Guate as the locals call it.

 

From there, the thunderous engine roar of an old US school bus brought me to San Julián. After some hours we dropped off and took a smaller bus which droved us to Telemán through a pretty bad conditions road for which the money to asphalt never comess. The driver tells us he is from La Tinta, a village nearby connected with the same road, and that he’s asking for subsidies and grants for sport equipment for the school, computers and other stuff. He said he does it for free, because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s for the community. For a moment I saw my own effort growing smaller, when comparing it to the willingness of a man who spends the time he is not driving a bus through dusty roads under a cracking stones sun, helping others. Chatting about this and that we arrived to Telemán. No more pick-ups on Sunday afternoon, so the last stretch was finally done on a tuc-tuc, which engine moaned at every slope of the road to Nueva Mercedes. With my backpack on my shoulders I arrived to the house feeling like climbing a Maya pyramid, mainly because of the tiredness. There was Hugo waiting, the one that together with Filipa was going to be my partner during my stay in Nueva Mercedes.

Through the window of our room the day lean out reddish every sunrise. Little by little the darkness of the night and its sounds fade and the birds' trill welcomes us to a new day. On the way to the school we comment about this and that; sometimes simply engrossed, silently, each one in our morning thoughts.

One by one the pupils arrive, clean and tidy with their satchels, shoulder carried and the impish or shy smiles they bring with them. They put their head out the door, asking for permission to come in:

-              Good morning miss, good morning schoolmates!

Miss Marta is tidy, because she likes what she does, one can notice it in the reflected in her satisfied face when a student answer a question properly. Miss Marta is the third grade teacher, the grade I support, most of times, in the morning. To teach those kids is sort of an art, maybe not understood by everyone, but if one gets from a piece of mud something beautiful by patiently moulding with patient and determination, I can’t imagine a greater contentment.

It is however not an easy task, as the concept of education does not at all resemble the one we are used to. It’s hot. It’s very hot, and that the classes begin early in the morning is only partly helpful. It won’t be long until the sun collapses upon the sheet metal roof and the air becomes thick as the heat seizes the classrooms. This doesn’t make it any easier for the kids to keep properly sit and pay attention. Often they stand up, they may be visited by schoolmates from other grades, or become self-absorbed on their wooden desks and scream, they scream a lot. Generally kids like to scream and make noise, all over the world. In Nueva Mercedes they are not different; they are enthusiastic about sharing their feeling very loudly, whether is joy or sorrow. So after some days, I got used to hear the quiet voice of Miss Marta sneaking among the shouts, onomatopoeias and thuds on the tables of the kids. When I first meet that scenario I thought that chaos was ruling and nothing is working. But I realised later that it’s not exactly like this. The kids, as any other worldwide, they have in their inside the blaze of the curiosity, burning within them much more than any other. So when I stopped and started observing more thoroughly that apparent chaos, I realised that in between whistles they all shut up to listen what the teacher brought new today.

No one wants to be left behind; competition is a tenet here. So even the most unconcerned wants to understand what his or her schoolmate already did. Because what we understand is best learned and once you start enjoying learning is almost impossible to stop wanting to learn more. This is at least what encourages me on my way to school.

The same concept comes to my mind when we go across the gardens, delivering seeds, listening to Edwin explaining how and how not to plant radish and at what distance in the earth. Some women get discouraged, as productive gardens require time and care. But many other don’t; they keep the enthusiasm despite some failures, and this also can be seen in their faces when we praise their well done work, they reflect pride and this satisfaction is contagious. Well, those women welcome the sunrise already working, they take care of the children, the food, the house and they do tortillas for all the family surrounded by wood smoke. That’s why when I see a clean garden or when they ask for more seeds and advices to plant them, when they are not embarrassed to ask for help, then I think that something it’s going well and it is worth to keep on fighting for what I believe in. Maybe sometimes I am even too thrilled, but I confess in my head I imagine huge gardens occupying the surrounding of the houses, full of vegetables to feed the families… dreaming is for free.

There is much to be done in Nueva Mercedes, and it will still be when I will leave. But Li Chu'tam will be here to remember.....above all, everything that has been learned, what they learned and what I will learn, that will also stay. Because knowledge is nothing but that, a seed, which is almost nothing without some help, but if someone sows it and take care of it, it will grow and even put roots down, roots that will remain. We are working on it…