Roberto, the volunteer coordinator, picks me up in a pick up truck at 7am and tells me to hop in the back with Jaysa and Aaron. Later, I meet Jesse. All three are my fellow volunteer cohorts for the week. I trump all of them by about 20 years which I find annoying, yet comforting and endearing. We take a curvy, bumpy dirt road further up la “montana” to the top where Centro Educativo Tecnico Chixot sits with an amazing view of the village, the valley, miles and miles of more maiz, and the smoking volcanoes beyond. Robin, the outreach coordinator, greets us and begins the tour of la escuela, where we will be spending our time on construction work. The school is built entirely out of sustainable materials and it is completely amazing. Most of the structures are made of earth rammed tires, “organic bricks” which are plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash, and large old sugar bags filled with a combination of dirt and manure. The structures are then covered in a smooth finish of “cob” made of dirt, manure and hay and then painted. Waterproof roofs are made of plastic bottle “shingles.” Everywhere there are beautiful decorative carvings in the “cob” walls completed by various volunteers and local laborers who are extremely artistically skilled. Glass bottles are strategically located in the roof to serve as skylights. Every roof is designed to maximize run-off which is stored in an underground cistern underneath the library and then sent through an elaborate filter system donated by an American company. This system collects and stores enough water during the six month “wet” season to provide clean drinking water for the school throughout the entire year. Literally no piece of trash is left behind. It’s all used functionally, creatively, and/or placed inside the rammed-earth tires. Even human waste and urine is composted and then distributed via drip irrigation to their vegetable gardens. As stated on their website, the school along with traditional academics “offers coursework in carpentry, masonry, mechanics, electrical, welding and horticulture . . . business and technology aspects of radically sustainable construction. The project aims to foster a new group of Guatemalan students, environmentalists and entrepreneurs.” Already, I am completely in awe, but then the cutest, happiest little kids begin arriving to school and now I am in love. Our task for today included working on the teacher’s lounge under construction. Ramming tires and sugar bags with dirt. Shovelling manure. Glamorous stuff. I don’t remember reading anything about “caca” on the website. Either way, tough exhausting manual labor. But empowering. At some point during the day, a delivery of new shoes for every single student donated by a friend of a former volunteer arrived. That’s roughly 130 pairs of brand spanking new Nikes. It was like Christmas watching all these little kids run around proudly sporting their new kicks. The highlight of my day hands down was when a group of smiley little girls came to watch me while I was working and sat down to have a conversation with me. I managed to learn their names, their ages, what they like to study. They all started giggling when I told them how old I was. I’m pretty sure the other volunteers did too for that matter but I am unfazed. I am owning 40. The students go home at 12:30 so later in town, after our lunch break, we were walking back up to the school and I hear this little voice call out, “Adios Sarah!!” I looked over and saw one of the little girls from the school. Only one day here and I’m passing locals I know in the street. Totally made my day.
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I have arrived. A three hour and forty five minute “red eye” flight brought me to Houston and then I’m guessing a 2-3 hour jaunt down to Guatemala City from there but I can’t say for sure since my face was plastered against the window in sleep until the very end when I caught view of the volcano rimmed capital as we landed. Either way, not a bad trip but I am sleep deprived. Donal, the taxi driver and owner of the casa where I am staying picks me up and we embark upon the 2 hour drive to the town of Comalapa where I will be volunteering with an organization called Long Way Home (a nonprofit started by a former peace corps volunteer, “that uses sustainable design and materials to construct self-sufficient schools that promote education, empoloyment, and environmental stewardship.” www.lwhome.com) Apparently Donal is in a hurry because he is going double the speed limit and honking at everyone. I can’t seem to wipe the deer in the headlights look off my face. Visual stimulus everywhere. I keep waiting for the five years of Spanish I took in high school to kick in but still it escapes me. We cover the basics though. And I mean, bare bone basics. Where I live, how many kids I have, what I do for work and vice versa. Donal finally gets me to comprende that it’s best we stop at one of the many American fast food chains along the way since they will be easier on my tummy. Taco Bell? Wendy’s? McDonalds? Carl’s Jr.? Right. We settle for Burger King with 2 armed guards manning the drive thru. Thankful to have an excuse not to painfully extract one more word from my Spanish 101 vocabulary, I quietly chomp on my King de Pollo and watch the sites fly by. Stray dogs everywhere. Hombres with cowboy hats on horses. Whole families of four or five dressed in traditional “trajes” speed by on motorcycles. Not one motorcycle per family member, mind you. One full family per motorcycle. Helmetless. Up “la montana” we climb, headed 7,000 feet above sea level surrounded by fields and fields of “maiz.” “Mucho maiz!” is all I can muster, and then I add, “Es muy bonita.” The chicken buses, as they call the public buses here, which are old converted US school buses, are in more of a rush than Donal as they throw caution to the wind and rumble around the mountain passes, darting in and out of our lane, and for the first time I have arrived in Guatemala, I start to fear for my life. Chicken bus indeed. Donal launches into a conversation about something that clearly excites him, but I am hanging by a thread. Finally, he says something about “Europa” and “bicycleta” and I get that he’s trying to tell me he likes to bike these mountains like the Tour de France. When I consider his driving, I am not surprised. We pull into his casa and I spend the rest of the day unpacking and exploring the streets. I am responsible for all my meals unless I pay Donal’s family to provide me with a dinner plate which I was so looking forward to this evening specifically until he told me, much to my growling tummy’s dismay, only Monday-Saturday so I’m on my own tonight. Leary of the cleanliness of the restaurants in town per Long Way Home’s advice, I dig up a small can of refried black beans, a strawberry yogurt and a few apples from the market where I’m pretty sure my deer in the headlights look cost me some bargaining points. Thankful to learn there is indeed hot water at Donal’s casa, (not at the volunteer house) I am now clean, literally full of beans and crawling into bed. 6:20am is breakfast and at 6:45 I will head over to the school to meet a few other volunteers who arrived today, get a proper tour of the school and town, and then get my marching orders for the week. Buenas Noches.
Sitting in an airport bar with a lager waiting for my plane to depart. A weird mixture of feelings but mostly I want to vomit. I’m about to go live with a family of five in Guatemala for two weeks and the only Spanish that ever seems to come to the tip of my tongue is “Como estas?” Great, that should get us to minute two. Then what? Should I bring them gifts? An Oregon Ducks football? A Portland Timbers hat? What do they even want? What do they even need? I’m guessing a Sasquatch bumper sticker isn’t it. I decide on nothing, though I’m also guessing my charm alone isn’t it either.
Cheers to adventure. Cheers to the unknown. Cheers to the growth that comes only from this kind of unmistakable and excruciating discomfort. Here goes nothing. |
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