This is coupled with the fact that everyday I’m living and breathing Guatemalan culture from the most mundane to sacred happenings. At times I’m amused at how readily I’ve adapted certain practices, forgetting what my initial reaction was or how it’s different from American culture. It’s the study abroad experience that I had dreamed of--actually being integrated into the family and everyday life.
I’m excited to be working in my program, Health Schools. Our goals are to 1-get participating students to practice healthy habits, and 2-for each school to have the sanitation conditions to practice healthy habits (oh, another bomba just went off). Instead of me going to schools and teaching kids directly, I will be training and facilitating with teachers, parents, and community organizations so that it is a sustainable effort. The more I learn about Guatemala’s issues with malnutrition, water, and disease, the more excited I get to be part of an effort to give people the resources to deal with these issues themselves. We’ve been doing lots of reading and practice activities to learn about adult learning methods, and it’s all quite fascinating, encouraging, and fun. My site mates and I have already done a few of our first big projects. One of them involved doing several activities with youth in our community. Ultimately, we had them draw and describe their community, explaining what the liked and disliked, and what they wanted. A lot of their ideas involved caring for the environment--don’t throw trash in the river, don’t burn garbage--and also to give more scholarships for kids to go to better schools or have money to pay for books. These answers came from kids ages 8-12. I was pleasantly surprised by the answers and excited to begin to get to know the community better. Though I won’t be working in this community for long, it’s still exciting to see general ideas and the future possibilities.
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