Guatemala service trip march 2017
- Carina Thomae
- Mar 21, 2017
- 7 min read
Welcome to the probably biggest adventure this year (let´s let the fact out that the year itself is an adventure): The Guatemala service trip in march!
In a third world developing country with a jobless rate above 40% (dark number is probably higher), barely running water and a bad infrastructure, it can be hard to get a daily income or even go to school as a kid. We got taught a lot about Guatemala and their problems in little class room sessions. For example, the government is paying the public schools until grade 6 and not above that. Many families cannot afford to send their kids to school after grade 6 and need them to work to get a bit more income.
The hosting family
We were staying at the Doppenberg´s house, a family with three sons from Canada, which moves to Guatemala for three months a year to take care of their fundraised schools and projects.
In their house was one big sleeping room for the girls, and one for the boys. You could never compare this to a hotel or anything. All the beds are in the same room and you can hear the cars honking and the roosters yelling as you slept on the street. The last three days, something started to smell terribly like shit in our room and we didn´t know where it came from, so we sprayed around all the deodorant and perfume we had with us. One girl, crystal, dressed up like a mummy to cover her mouth from the smell. In the video, you can find her!
For breakfast and lunch, there was just toast and turkey. Cheese is really hard to find here and the price is even higher than in western countries, even though seven Quetzal, the currency here, is 7 Dollars. For everyone who likes buying stuff though – we ate ice cream every day and payed 2 Dollars for 2 balls and shirt you can buy for not even 3 dollars.
Anyways, the Doppenbergs are hosting one school for kids with special needs, three normal primary schools with provided, nutritious food and a farm. We were mostly helping in the school for kids with special needs and helped digging a whole and build a wall, as well as taking care of all the therapy animals and the kids.
the work at school
It is a lot about playing with those kids, not learning letters like we use to. Physical therapy and touch is very important to improve their abilities. We got to know Jessica and Nicole, two mentally and physically disabled girls who we played with. Honestly, it is a hard job, because they need so much care and you cannot handle them like normal children. But we played with Lego and made them paint pictures, and it was so cute when they started to laugh about such easy and small things.
We got up at 6:30am every day to be at work by 7:30 and worked until noon at the school. It could be pretty exhausting, even though the temperature was quite constant at 25 degrees and not too heavy. The sun is strong there, what we didn´t really noticed, and almost all of us have had a big sunburn by the first three days.
at the resort
After a few days of work at the school, we had our Sunday off and drove to the probably single resort near el progreso, the village we stayed in. It was called Isla de la fantasia and offered a pool, a garden area, beach bar and hammocks, which we really loved. The pools here are never deeper than your hip, because it is rare to find a person in Guatemala who can swim. We had a lot of fun on that day and tried green little mangos from a tree. They are sour and when you bite the pit, your whole mouth is turning dry and gross, but I found them not too bad. They´re good for your digestion, to be honest.
Everywhere we go, we drive there by pick-up truck. Not in the truck, but in the back! They don´t seem to care about any traffic rules, but it is the best feeling ever, as long as you are in the first truck so it doesn´t blow street dust in your face. You can widen your arms like on titanic and feel the wind in your hair – it´s just great!
El salatrio the mountain village
One of my favorite days was the day we went to el salatrio, a little mountain village where we painted the school there the Doppenbergs are hosting. The drive was really rocky and shaky, I´m sure I have a few bruises from there. In the village, I saw the biggest contrast between the country I´m growing up in and a third world of poverty I´ve ever seen.
The kids are going to the Doppenbergs school there. But all the parents have no education, they cannot read or write. Everyone is living in small shelters out of stones without running water or electricity. They are getting their water downhills from a river, where the women go down every day to provide their family with cooking, washing and drinking water. The main meal of those people are simple tortillas out of corn, which actually have zero nutrition. This is why many people there suffer from deficiency signs. We went down the hill to the river for them and did the water walk, which the Ridley people do every year for them. Everyone was carrying water up the mountain, which was not easy I can admit.
In the village, they showed us how to make tortilla and we tried it ourselves in an original Mayan kitchen. They say, when girls are 10, they need to make a perfectly round tortilla to count as a real woman, and this is getting celebrated. We tried our best, but I don´t think anyone of us can reach the status of a real woman.
After that, we painted the school in blue, which is the mail national color of Guatemala and represented in the flag. The flag looks like the French flag, but blue left and right and white in the middle.
Painting was fun, and after 2 hours we finished painting the whole outer walls of the school with 20 people by hand. This is, how small the school is. It had two class rooms. It was so nice to see though, how the kids where just normal and so playful like at home. We played soccer with them and I was chasing them, they are really friendly and open minded, as well as the adults in their condition. In this little, poor village in the mountains, you´ll find the most generous people you ever saw. One time, Rita (Doppenberg) told us, they were invited to a wedding in the village. The people made food for the family and refused to eat while watching the western people eating their hard earned food, because the guest comes always before the host.
And as we made tortillas with them, the village people even wanted to offer them the flour as Geoff (Doppenbergs) asked them to make tortillas with us. They refused to take the money, but at the end Geoff really forced them to take it. Another time, when the Doppenbergs visited the village, they even offered to kill chicken and turkey for them to make a guest meal. This is how generous they are. They live in poverty but would give anything just to make their guests and friends happy. We can learn so much from them and it broke but warmed by heart at the same time to hear from that.
at the farm
One day, we went to the Doppenberg´s farm. They explained us a lot about the agriculture and the situation in Guatemala. They are planting gene modified food from Monsanto there, because the soil is already poisoned for every organic seed with Monsanto pesticides from before. They would love to plant organic, but it´s impossible to stop Monsanto in a country where you need every fertile piece of land you can get to keep the population alive. It was full of Mango and Lime trees there, they also planted Quinoa and Amaranth, a very protein rich plant. They want to make sure the population is getting the right diet and don´t suffer from nutrition poor plants anymore.
After work, we usually just went home to the Doppenbergs house and enjoyed our free time with a ping pong table and card games. Yes, we had Wi-Fi there, and some running water. Their living room is half open, so half living room, half balcony and you have a view over the landscape and the houses of el progreso. For dinner, they made really cool food like burgers, teriyaki Turkey, stake or rice.
After dinner, we were all presenting the highlights and lows of our day. We took like 20 minutes to get 17 students through it, and another 25 minutes for the teachers and the family, because they just seem to love talking. I always had a lot of highlights, like the pet Laguna, swimming, the water walk, painting the school or playing with the kids.
Guatemala city
At the last day, we drove to Guatemala City to a hotel near the airport to depart the next day. It was extremely plea to use a warm shower with water pressure and sleep in a big bed in a silent room. We went to town to see the palace there and to eat lunch. In the hotel, we went swimming in the pool. It was really great. My friend told me that last year, they didn´t go to the hotel and I felt slightly privileged. We had a lot of fun there too and I could finally drink my Pina Colada for 6 bugs.
At night, we needed to say good bye to the Doppenbergs. It was a really great time with them and some of us started to cry. Rita left us a little gift – it’s a tiny handmade sack and when you tell a wish in it and put it under your pillow, it may come true. We also handed them a self-made thank you card and hugged everyone, Rita, Geoff, and their sons Gabe and Luke.
It is so hard to put the whole trip in words, there is four times more stuff I want to write down. But please guys look at the video, there are all the impressions and adventures in those 10 days collected I explained or didn´t explain. If I could, I would go back. It was eye opening.
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