Sunday Snapshot: Family Reunion!

I think all of us would agree that visiting my host-family was one of the funner things we did this week.

We shucked corn,

Julie and Sarah excited to be shucking corn!

...But Jess and I were even more excited!

Played with cute kids,

Ja and Mae-Te reading a children's Encyclopedia

Jess and Mae-Te playing outside.

Chippy holding sweet baby Edy.

Then it was my turn with Edy!

And stayed over for some yummy lunch! Tita prepared a chicken soup called pepian that is a typical dish from her region. Julie and I didn't have the soup since we're vegetarians, but we enjoyed the delicious salad and rice... and of course tamalitos. We tried a new sweet fruit for dessert!

I had such a wonderful time seeing them again... and everyone else was able to see why I am so obsessed with this family :) They are so sweet and fun!

-Nicole

Sunday Snapshot: A Very Manna Thanksgiving!

Guatemala doesn't normally observe Thanksgiving, but we made sure we did!

Of course, we still had to go to work. So we just brought Thanksgiving to camp!

Our Thursdays at camp usually involve 2 special activities. I was left alone for my special activity this week, so I seized the opportunity to do some fun Thanksgiving things.

First, I made a brief presentation of the typical foods we eat (who doesn't love learning about food?).

Then, we made HAND TURKEYS! It's one of my favorite Thanksgiving activities. Even in college, we made hand turkeys in our sorority. I had each kid make their turkey and write something they were thankful for in each of the fingers.

Finally, we made a Thanksgiving Tree! This was perfect because it also tied in our environment theme. I made a very rudimentary tree out of brown construction paper and taped it to the wall. Then I gave each of the kids some construction paper leaves and asked them to write something they were thankful for specifically from the environment. They taped their leaves to the tree.

I think they got a little confused because they taped the leaves on the entire tree trunk, but that's okay. It's still cute :)

Here's a close-up of some of the leaves:

We also observed Thanksgiving at the house that evening. Sarah did a great job cooking and making our table look nice:

At our feast, we had fried chicken (okay, so not turkey), mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, toasted rolls with butter, cranberry sauce, apple cider, and pumpkin pie! It was delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving from MPI-Guatemala!

Sunday Snapshot: Central Camp

One thing I realized through the past two weeks of camp is that our camp is so much more than the classes we lead. Sure, it's important (and awesome) that the kids learned some English and how to take care of their environment. But camp also provides a time for the kids to just... be kids. Many of these kids would have been working if they weren't attending our camp. May I remind you that we held camp for grades 1-6... In the States, it's illegal for kids at this age to work. But in Guate, they don't have such restrictions.

As the sports leader, I had a jillion activities on hand for each day. But most of the time, the kids would rather play soccer. And why not?! As long as the kids have the opportunity to run around, get some exercise, I think it's perfectly fine for them to play soccer every day.

So, here are some pictures of Guatemalan kids just being kids. It fills my heart with joy to see these pictures, and I hope you'll feel the same way :)

The kiddos laughing in English class,

Playing tag,

Posing for the camera,

And modeling their animal masks from art class.

All of us doing the "Hokey Pokey" for the parents on Thursday.

 All of this could not have been possibly without our volunteers. Emilia and Ana (pictured below) were both native to Central, and it was so amazing to get to know them as they helped us out. On Wednesday and Thursday, they each had us to their houses for lunch. In this way, we were able to eat some traditional Guatemalan food and see more of Central, beyond just the school. It was such a wonderful experience!

All of us with Emilia (left) and Ana (right).

Here's to two weeks in Cooperativa!

-Nicole

Sunday Snapshot: More Bottle School Photos!

Thanks to the lovely Jessica, you've already seen some snapshots of camp this week. So instead of more camp photos, I've got some fun new Bottle School photos to share with you! Since we are working our camp at Central through Thursday, we have been able to watch the construction efforts every day. It is especially exciting because our camp is environment-themed, and this project exemplifies one of the biggest environmental projects Manna has done here in Guatemala!

In order to keep things interesting, we have some photos from a new angle. Ja and I were administering some surveys in Central after camp one day, and we were able to marvel at the construction from a new view point... behind the school.

We're exciting to continue watching the construction over the next couple of months! Thanks again for everyone who's helped make this happen!

-Nicole

(Tuesday) Snapshot: Retreat in Monterrico!

So... sorry for the huge delay in the Snapshot for this week. We spent a lovely weekend in Monterrico, a town on Guatemala's Pacific Coast, and we got back much later than expected. There are worse places to be stuck for a few hours... ;)

Here are some pics of the fun things we did this weekend!

Sunrise tour of a Mangrove Nature Reserve.

Our tired selves post-tour, with the flower necklaces our guide made us!

We also got to witness a "turtle liberation." I find the whole logistics of it rather confusing, but basically people could pay to free a baby turtle. You bought your turtle, held it for a little while, and then released it to the ocean. It was probably one of the cutest things I've ever witnessed.

Baby turtles making their way to the ocean!

SO. CUTE.

Aside from the beauty and excitement of our trip, we got a lot of work done as well. We did a few cultural awareness activities, brainstormed programs for next year, planned for our upcoming camp, and much more.

Hard at work!

All in all, it was a relaxing, productive, and DELICIOUS weekend. The place we stayed at (Johnny's Place) had some of the best smoothie concoctions of all time, with only the freshest ingredients. Mmm. I already miss them.

We are looking forward to enjoying some vacation days this week (somehow around finishing planning camp) for Day of the Dead. Esteban, the principal of Central Primaria, invited us to participate in a Day of the Dead activity with him on Friday, and we are very excited about getting to see how people celebrate this holiday first hand! And then we dive straight into four weeks of camp! Crazy!

Well, TTFN!
-Nicole

Sunday Snapshot: Our First Visitor!

After almost exactly 3 months of living here, we finally have our first visitor from the States! On Friday, Ja's boyfriend Justin arrived, and they headed straight to exciting Antigua.

Check out their awesome photos:

Ja and Justin at The Cross in Antigua.

The Cross. So Beautiful!

They came home to Sololá earlier this afternoon. I'm a big fan mainly because he used to be a line cook at a restaurant... so we'll be eating well this week! :)

Anyway, we're excited to have someone new staying with us the next couple of days. We hope you enjoy Guatemala, Justin!

Sunday Snapshot: We Want YOU!

Except instead of the US Army, we want you to join our non-governmental organization that serves Latin American communities. 

...Close enough?

In all seriousness, Program Director applications are currently being accepted for the 2013-2014 year! If you are looking for the opportunity of a lifetime, you should definitely consider becoming a PD in Guatemala (the best site...), Ecuador, or Nicaragua. When else can you adopt a completely new culture, play with the cutest kids in the world, learn a new language (or two, if you come to Guate!), and gain non-profit experience, all while making a real impact in a Latin American community?

Let me let you in a little secret, this experience is hard to find anywhere else. Sure, there are a cornucopia of different orgs that will allow you to teach English in some far away country. (And yeah, they may even pay you.) But the experience I've had here in less than 3 months is worth so much more than any amount of money I could gain by teaching a language I already know.

While I do teach English here, that's not where my work ends. We are encouraged to build relationships with people in the community, attend extremely interesting cultural events like parades and celebrations, and make new programs/modify existing ones.

To me, that last part is the most exciting. I came here in July with the intention of creating new programs. While that is definitely in the process, it has also been very rewarding to be asked to assess the work that has already been done here. At training we discussed a little bit about what it means to be in international development/community development, and since then I have been observing how our work here fits in with that definition. We are all continually discussing what we can do better, what can change, what should remain the same. We are excited to create our own community survey to ask Chaquijyá what they see as their biggest needs we can/should address. We are talking with other local organizations about how we can partner with them and therefore make a bigger impact in the area.

This experience has certainly been challenging, but in a truly beautiful way. I am being challenged and in turn challenging our approach to the way we do things. I feel empowered to make a difference, and therefore I will be empowering others in various ways-- whether through teaching them how to better take care of their children, filter their water, how to respect the environment, how to start or run a business, etc. I can't think of anything more beautiful :) And I cannot wait to see where we all stand when my time here is through in August 2013.

Won't you help us continue the great work we're doing?

I hope you do. :)

-Nicole

Sunday Snapshot: Cooperativa Community Visit

On Wednesday, we finally got to see Cooperativa beyond the school. The principal of the school, Celso, was kind enough to walk around with us, showing us his house, people we should know, and just the general environment of where the people we work with every day live. Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous, so we were able to enjoy a beautiful little hike around Cooperativa:

The beautiful mountainside :)

Lots of farms.

Unfortunately, there are many unpaved roads in Coop, which basically get ruined during the rainy season.

At one home, the man living there offered Jess some radishes! Here she is, posing with Celso.

Walking back down toward the school with Celso after a beautiful day!

Snappy Sunday,
Nicole

Sunday Snapshot: Teachers' Basketball!

Just when we thought all of the fun activities were over for a while, we learned that Thursday classes were canceled for Primaria because Central and Cooperativa were playing soccer against each other. The Central teachers enthusiastically asked us to join them in the teachers' match... which Jess eagerly agreed to. On Thursday, we arrived in our desfile clothes (good thing we had the same uniform as the other teachers!) unsure what to expect. We learned that the teachers were actually playing basketball instead of soccer.

While I had been dreading this activity (I'm not the athletic type), it turned out to be a lot of fun! I was relieved to learn that all of the female teachers would be playing basketball while the male teachers would play soccer after us. Here's some pics from the event! :)

Sarah providing an intense defense.

Jess getting ready to pass the ball.

Look, I actually have the ball!

Some of the teachers playing hard! (Central is red; Cooperativa is orange) Check out all the students sitting on the future home of 4 new bottle school classrooms! 

One of my favorite teachers, Esther, wasn't messing around.

Who says Guatemalans can't be ballers?

-Nicole

Sunday Snapshot: Día de Patria

Well, I have to say that choosing photos for this Sunday Snapshot may be one of the most difficult tasks I've faced since arriving here... ;) We have so many photos from the weekends' festivities!

Even though Independence Day is the 15th, the real celebrations began the afternoon of the 14th. We spent Friday afternoon/evening with Central. We spent Saturday morning with Cooperativa, and then returned to Central for lunch and more festivities! I'll do my best to weave together a fairly concise story of Friday & Saturday.

First, the stage we helped decorate at Central Friday afternoon. They actually built the whole thing Thursday. Super impressive!

So. Much. Glue.

 Throughout Friday (and Saturday), there was a steady stream of Marimba:

The Marimba is a typical Mayan instrument

The evening began with the Básico (middle school) students running in with torches. Similar occurrences happened all evening... We never figured out the story behind it, but nonetheless it is an Independence Day tradition.

The school selects a few "niñas" (girl) or "señoritas" to represent them. The classes of the selected candidates put together a dance, usually Mayan-based, to present the niña to the community. Below is an example of such a presentation. The niña was in the middle placing the apples in the shape of a cross.

After the presentation of the niñas, groups of students do additional presentations. These include dances or fake singing/playing instruments. However, one group of the oh-so-cool 8th grade boys actually had their lead man sing for real. I won't forget that moment... and I'll make sure they won't forget it either ;)

Fast forward to Saturday morning. We participated in a parade with Cooperativa, which began up in the mountains.

We paraded to the school, where each class did a short presentation. The ranged from typical Mayan to intense modern choreography:

The 2nd graders each held the Mayan numerals while wearing traje tipico.

Meanwhile, the 9th graders wowed us all with their many stunts!

 After watching the presentations and enjoying a delicious snack, we headed back to Central. Only minutes after arriving, Bayron the PE teacher at both schools put Jess on the spot and asked her to say a few words.

She was a good sport :)

 We arrived in time to see the last two performances from the 7th graders. Fortunately, our básico kids did a few stunts of their own.

We enjoyed a nice lunch with the Padres de Familia (PTA) and spent the rest of the afternoon sweating and watching lots of soccer games. 

All in all, it was an amazing experience! We are thankful to both Central and Cooperativa for being so welcoming and inviting!

Happy Independence Day from the MPI-G team!