Recap!

Alright, I don't know if anyone checks this anymore. As most of you are well aware, Jen and I have been home now for a little over a month. I'm sorry we didn't update for our last few weeks. A lot of crazy things happened, and sadly our attention was refocused and our blog became neglected. Nevertheless, I've been feeling like this whole thing is incomplete. In an effort to give myself and whoever faithfully is reading about our adventures some closure, I'd like to share some of my reflections on this entire experience.

From the beginning, I felt a very strong pull to go to Guatemala. I don't know why. While there, I often wondered when I was going to have that one experience that made me go, "Oh, so THAT'S why I'm here!" Looking back, I can't pinpoint a single experience. However, I have absolutely no doubt that going to Guatemala was what I should have done with my summer. I can't imagine not going, because this trip has become so much a part of me.

One thing I'm always afraid of is that everything that has gone on in the last few months will be nothing more than a blur or a memory. It really deserves so much more attention than that. I want to be able to remember every single detail. I realize that's not very likely, and it kind of makes me want to cry. So, in order to make this experience last a little longer, here are some of the main things I will take away from this summer.

First, the importance of families. It's one of those things I've been taught since I was little. You know, families are the building block of society, one of the most important things you can do is raise a good family, etc. So many problems we saw in Guatemala could really be reduced if more people raised good families. Not to say Guatemalans are the only people that could benefit from that. It just gave me more of a visual of why strong families are important.

Another thing I learned is the importance of hope. The concept of hope has never made that much sense to me. I think when all of us left for Guate, we had this hope that we would be able to change people's lives and make the world a better place, and although we were warned many times, I don't think any of us fully anticipated the real struggles we would fave in attempting this. It seems like one of those monsters that grows two heads every time you cut off one. And eventually, when you start seeing how deep and complicated so many problems are, it becomes pretty easy to get discouraged and lose that hope you started with. As someone in our group once said, "I've suddenly become much less enthusiastic about saving the world." We all laughed, because we all knew exactly what she meant. A few weeks before we left, we had a pretty major safety incident that kind of threw everyone off. I'd rather leave out the details, but I would like to talk about the way this incident affected me. I started to realize what we were actually dealing with. I think it made me reevaluate what hope really is. It's not being naive to the evils or struggles that we face. I think you can fully recognize the difficulty of these things and still have hope. I think that hope comes when you don't let these things discourage you from your fight for good. It's caring about the little things you can do, even if you can't change everything. It's realizing that the moment you let those things stop you is when they win. It's loving humanity and trusting people's ultimate ability to be good, even they seem to choose otherwise.

Which brings me to another things I learned: the importance of agency. Once again, this epiphany came as a result of this incident. We were talking to this man once that told us that as soon as you just give people things without letting them work for it, you're sending the message that you don't believe in them. Which, for me, put our ability to make choices in a completely different light. We have the ability to choose, because we are capable of choosing right, even if we choose not to exercise that ability. But it's just so necessary that we are given the chance, or else no one would actually become what they could, or what they were meant to.

On the topic of service and giving things, I'd just like to comment on the importance of serving your own people. while in Guatemala, there were so many instances where I would just think to myself about how much more effective our jobs would be if we had even more Guatemalans serving Guatemalans. There are so many advantages to this. They understand and can empathize with their people better than anyone, and they can communicate with them on a much deeper level. After thinking about his, I realized that the times my service will be most effective is probably when I'm serving my own people. Not that people should only serve their own communities, but I think I could definitely do more of it.

I think the last thing I learned that I want to talk about is how wonderful and open the culture is there. They are so individual focused. I love the way they greet you with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. They greet everyone individually, and they seriously give the best hugs that make you feel like you've been friends forever, even if you just met them. I hope I can adopt some of this and become more open and loving.

In the end, it was a great experience. Definitely a lot of surprises and adventures along the way, but it was so worth it.

Pictures from the Weekend

Last weekend the group took the long drive north to Tikal and Semuc Champey. It was incredible! Semuc Champey was beautiful. We spent the Friday night in a small town near the park. We left at 3am on Friday morning and arrived around 10am to our hotel. We put our bathing suits on and crammed all 18 of us in the back of a rickety old pickup truck and drove to the park. Some consider Semuc Champey to be the prettiest place in all of Guatemala, and I would have a hard time arguing against that. It consists of these beautiful waterfalls and pools of green water that you can swim in. The pools are in the valley between huge green mountains. Here is a picture of the pools looking down from a lookout point on one of the mountains we climbed up:

Here is a picture of the mountains around the pools from the same lookout point. It was stunning!

Here is Stephanie floating in one of the pools.

The next day we drove most of the day until we came to a zip line in the jungle. I don´t really know where it was, but it was awesome, and it helped break up the drive to Tikal which was far away. We flew through the canopies of the jungle for about an hour. There were about 12 different platforms to zip line to. I didn´t see much wildlife, just some pretty birds with really long tails. The best part about the zip line was doing The Monkey. The Monkey is going on the zip line upside down. It looked really scary at first, but then we all did it and loved it. Here is a picture of Steph doing the Monkey. She loved doing it and did it every single time.


Here is a picture of our group walking up the ladder to get to the first platform of the zip line:

The next day we woke up at 4:30am to get to Tikal by 6am. Tikal was amazing! After taking my Mayan art class last Fall semester, this place was so interesting to go to. Tikal is huge! There are ruins everywhere, and many mounds in the park that haven´t even been uncovered yet. We climbed two of the largest temples which took us above the canopy of the forest where we could see for miles. We could also hear howler monkeys in the forest all around us for most of the morning. We saw a few Spider Monkeys, Tucans, and we even ran into a giant family of Coatis (these are kind of like raccoon/lemur looking things). Here is a picture of me with Temple 1 (this was the king´s temple - I´m standing on Temple 2, the one he dedicated to his wife):

Here is a picture of Stephanie on Temple 4 overlooking Temples 1 and 2 and the forest around us. They use this shot in Return of the Jedi, except it has a fighter jet flying through it and is supposed to be the planet Endor. Seriously.

We had a great weekend!
We wish we could post more pictures of us in the communities we work in and with the people we work with, but it is not very culturally appropriate here to take pictures. Just know we´re having a great time and are hard at work every day trying to contribute what we can to the developing world. To end, here are some pictures I took outside our van, just so you get a feel for what Guatemala is like. The last one is of me and Steph when we hiked the volcano Pacaya one of the first days I was here.

No pictures today, sorry

Hey everyone! So as always, this past week has been a little crazy. Unfortunately a kid in the orphanage we were doing art and english classes at got swine flu, so the place shut down for a week. Then the next day we found out that they decided to shut down all of the schools in the entire country for 16 days, which has dramatically affected our projects. So, in addition to trying to accomodate the new volunteers we have all been trying to rearrange our schedules, start new projects, and hop on other people´s projects in order to get our hours of work in each week.

Like Jen already described, our house is totally insane. It´s fun having all the new energy and ideas of the new volunteers, but it´s not so fun dealing with the many issues that come with living in a house of 16 girls and 2 guys.

As far as my projects go, I think I´m going to start teaching business classes. Maybe. On Friday me and Vic have to give a presentation to an organization we found yesterday and if they like us, they´ll work with HELP. If we completely butcher it (as I am very likely to do) then we´re cut and they won´t work with HELP again. So we´ll see how that goes.

I decided to start a list of things I will miss about Guatemala, that perhaps I will share on here. Here´s what I got right now:

1. Chocobananos (frozen bananas dipped in chocolate and peanuts...you should try it, they´re delicious!)
2. Chocofresas
3. Burritos at Elmer´s
4. 3 Mangoes for 5 quetz from Pablo (5 quetz=about 60 cents)
5. Squishing 13 people into the back of a truck and driving to villages at the top of mountains in the middle of nowhere on the bumpiest roads anyone could imagine
6. The crazy bum that lives in Chimal and laughs really loudly and creepily every time we walk by
7. Working with the indigenous women
8. Lencho´s!
9. Hearing ´80´s music that wasn´t even popular in the 80´s everywhere
10. Mimo cookies and empanadas!

Anyway, that´s all I´ve got for now. I love this place! Next time I´ll try to remember the cardreader so I can post pictures.

The first three days...

Hola!
I have arrived in Guatemala, and what a whirlwind it has already been. I live in a house with 16 girls, 2 boys, and 3 bathrooms. As much as our living conditions stink (literally and figuratively), us new volunteers have been informed we are living quite luxuriously. A few weeks ago they didn´t have mattresses or warm water, and the toilets were plugged and leaking. It has been a little bit difficult for everyone to adjust to living and being with each other. After all, the people who came in May are the pioneers and have started the projects here and now we are jumping in trying to see where we fit and taking over what they started. But things are getting better. It was really good to see Steph. She´s picked up a lot of Spanish already which gives me hope at my own abilities!
The first day Sean and Melissa (our Country Directors) gave us a tour of Chimaltenango, the town we live in. We went to the bank, grabbed some food, went grocery shopping at Maxi Bodega, and took a chicken bus home (a chicken bus is simply a school bus painted in crazy colors, decorated with as many Religious symbols as possible, and plays extremely loud spanish music (the polka or circus sounding kind). We came back to our house and then had the chance to decide between several projects to attend. I went with Amber and Leah to a small school 10 minutes away where they teach Sex Ed to grades 4-6. We only needed to introduce ourselves to the children, which was quite the struggle considering the only spanish words I know are ¨comidas¨ and ¨baños¨. I wrote down a couple sentences in a notebook with Leah´s help and said them to the classes, except that for the first class I read them. I basically just said ¨Hello my name is Jennifer. I am from Canada. Today is my first day in Guatemala!¨The kids didn´t really care. They clapped hard for all of us, smiles and joked around. Most of them were just fascinated by our presence.
Yesterday was Friday, and on Fridays we try to do projects together as a group. Our group project yesterday was helping build a house through Habitat for Humanity in a tiny town called Santa Cruz. I spent the day mixing cement, pouring it into holes, tying rebar together, and cementing cinderblocks together. Oh and playing with a little boy named Atel who came out of no where and decided to help us. He was 5 and could probably mix the cement better than me. The villagers were very kind and would make conversation with us as they walked by.
Today was our free day. About 9 of us hiked a volcano called Pacaya. It was incredible! I felt like I was walking the path to Mordor half the time. We walked until there was no grass to walk on anymore, just volcanic rock which had been formed in only 2006. The best part was the gigantic hill which probably stretched about 4 blocks in length just covered in small volcanic rocks (they were very light and soft). We ran and jumped and rolled down the entire hill for about 5 minutes. It was like unto playing in sand dunes but cooler because it was huge and a volcano. Without our tour guide we never would have done it, nor eaten the delicious plants along the way. We didn´t actually make it to the top of the volcano because it emits poisonous gas and would have been impossible to climb anyway, but there was a hot pocket to its side which we climbed and saw a river of molten lava. It was very hot. Some people were even cooking tortillas, meat, and marshmallows on the rocks because they were so hot! It was a great day.
I love the people here. Everyone I have met is so very kind and generous. HELP has several partner organizations we work with, and several other contacts in the city which we trust with our lives. I am amazed by how kind and helpful they are and feel so blessed to know them now. I love how comfortable I feel saying hola to strangers walking down the street. Everyone smiles and are really easy going. I have yet to see someone get upset, which is surprising because if you saw the traffic here and the many times I´ve seen people almost get run over, you would think people would be really angry. But no, both the drivers and pedestrians just laugh with each other at the silly yet deathly traffic mistakes.
Tomorrow is church, and then hopefully some down time where I can finally sit down and soak in this Guatemala thing. I go to bed every night thinking What on earth am I doing here? I hope to find out soon. In the meantime, I miss you all and wish you well!

Love, Jen

Jen has arrived!

I have arrived safely to Guatemala! More to come later....

Picture Update

So, turns out uploading pictures takes forever so here are just a few of what´s been going on the last couple of weeks. The first picture is of me at the top of the 3rd highest volcano in central america! It was really windy and cold and completely surrounded by clouds so the view wasn´t all that great, but it was still really cool! Especially because it was the hardest hike ever so getting to the top felt really awesome. The next two are of the first day we made stoves, also my birthday!The next one is of Lake Atitlan, which as you can see is absolutely beautiful! The next two are of the ruins at Ix Im Che, and the last is a small group picture after we went horseback riding! Enjoy!

I´m 20!

Life is so crazy! I feel like I haven´t updated everyone in forever. Days feel like years, but the time still seems so go by fast. I don´t know how that works. Anyway, the past week has been so good! Last friday we went out to San Martin with the mayor and this lady named Adalilah. In the past they´ve worked a lot with Adalilah for doing adobe stoves because she has a lot of contacts and stuff. I don´t really know what her actual job is, she´s like a full-time socialite. The mayor has perfect teeth (no one here does) and a lot of bling. Anyway, we went to San Martin and met a lot of the women there, who seemed wonderful. The mayor started talking though and promised them 6 sewing machines and that we would come and teach them how to sew, which we never talked about. I don´t really know what that´s about, but whatever. Anyway, after they took us to this hot springs place that´s owned by the government. It´s kind of sad actually. there´s so much potential for beauty here, but I feel like a lot of it is just trashed. It really could be such a tropical paradise, and some parts are, but the river and the ravines are seriously covered with garbage, and a lot of the hillsides are completely bare because all of the trees have been cut down. It makes me kind of sad.

Anyway, on saturday we went to Lake Atitlan, which is gorgeous! It´s the place where the Mayans believe the universe was created. It´s surrounded by three huge volcanoes and a ton of little towns that all have their own character. We were going to hike one of the volcanoes but got there too late, so instead we went by boat around to a few different towns and bought some cool souvenirs.

Monday was our first day working on our art classes project! It´s really nice having most of our projects smoothed out. As of right now, I´m going to be teaching art classes and the Madre Hogar orphanage and playing soccer with the girls, working on adobe stoves, and possibly teaching ex ed. I´m not so sure how the teaching is going to go down at the moment with my lack of spanish skills, but I guess that´s the fun of Guatemala, right? Anyway, on monday we started the art classes. Just for background, the Madre Hogar orphanage is an catholic owned orphanage for kids born with HIV. There are 13 nuns that run everything, including teaching school, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc, so as it is they are pretty understaffed. Two girls from our group teach english classes while we teach art, and then in the afternoons a bunch of us get together to play soccer with the kids. During school, some other kids from the community come so the classes are a good mix or orphans and not orphans. It´s a lot of fun hanging out there, although still sad. The kids are wonderful, and pretty patient with me as I butcher their language. Hopefully it improves, but I´m excited about it!

So that brings me to Tuesday, which was my birthday! I have to say, it´s pretty close to the top for most favorite birthdays so far. It was our first day working on the stove project, so we headed out to San Martin to meet Adalilah. Except then she didn´t show up, which ended up being ok. There´s a BYU study abroad group that was supposed to go to mexico but instead came here because of the swine flu and the drug war that we´re taking around with us to some of our projects. 6 of them came to help out with the stoves, which was lots of fun! It was pretty funny though, because it made us all realize how used to this place we´ve become. On the way back from the stoves we got a ride all the way back in a truck. The entire ride is through the mountains and in the middle of the jungle. It´s awesome, it´s kind of like a real life Indiana Jones ride. Anyway, there was one point where we were squeezing through a semi-tight spot and everyone started freaking out about it, but we didn´t even think twice. You just have to learn to go along with it. So yeah, the villages were awesome and the women and kids were totally hilarious. Basically I spent the entire day squishing around mud with my feet and playing. When we got home there was a sign on the door that said I wasn´t allowed to come in until they told me I was allowed to. Sean came out and put a blindfold on me and then placed me in the middle of the patio and told me not to move. I could hear that everyone else was around me laughing, and I was a little scared. Suddenly a bunch of firecrackers went off about 3 feet away from me! It was awesome. Guatemalans really love their firecrackers. Every once in a while we´ll wake up at about 5 am to a bunch of gunshotlike sounds, but it´s just one of the neighbors´ birthdays they´re celebrating with firecrackers. After the wonderful firecracker surprise Veronica brought dinner and we had cake! But not before Melissa shoved some of it in my face. So yeah, good birthday!

Tonight one of the board members for Guillermo´s orphanage, who apparently was an orphan for 4 years of her life but somehow ended up graduating from BYU, is going to talk to us and share her story! I´m super excited about it. So anyway, life is good! I wish I had more time to tell more specific stories, but I guess that´ll have to wait unti I come home. I´ll try to post some pictures soon though. Anyway, hope everything´s going well at home!