the land, the beauty, the pain

So here I am, blogging in less than a week but this has been my first week of work and so much has happened that I feel the need to share. Now that the teachers' strike is over we finally got to start visiting our schools. Our plan that we made a month ago was to visit two schools a day, which we have been doing. Sometimes it makes sense to visit only two schools because they may be far away (I mean farrr away) and there are no other schools nearby. Other times there are more schools nearby, which we realized on Tuesday on our visits, and it could be possible to visit more than two schools. We didn't do that on Tuesday, though, because the schools didn't know we were coming and we didn't want to show up unannounced. We want to try to see if we can do at least 3 schools a day when it is possible though because it would be a lot more efficient. We have 27 schools between the two of us (me and Lohmo that is) and, so far, we have visited 6. At this rate it will take a month, which is fine, but starting in a month late to begin with makes it feel like we are behind. 


So let me tell you about how these school visits have been going. Our first day of visits we had to take a microbus at 6 am that drove an hour through the mountains and forest on a gravel road to the town the school was in. Not bad. The school was right on the side of the road and so it was easy access. Since we didn't know how to get to the second school the director assigned two sixth grade boys to be our "guides" if you will. We were told this school was close. We start walking for 15 minutes on the same gravel/dirt road. All of a sudden the boys stop and say, "Okay we have to go this way," and point up a tiny mud/dirt path going straight up a mountain through the forest. Lohmo and I laughed, obviously thinking it was a joke. No joke. Mind you, I had on a dress with leggings and flats - hiking attire? I think not. We ended up hiking straight up this "path" for an hour in the blazing sun. The muddy patches did not help either as I had on shoes with very little traction and almost slid right down that path several times. We were so hot and bewildered that this was the way to the school - how could it be?! We finally get to the school and are greeted to a tiny school made of sticks that is just one room. There is one teacher, who is also the director, and about 30 kids that span grades one through six. Incredible. We probably stayed a whole ten minutes since it doesn't take long to talk to one teacher and present yourself to essentially one classroom. Probably best since we most likely frightened them with the copious amounts of sweat we were dispelling anyways. Luckily, we didn't have to return by the way we came up. There was a road after all that led to that school but it was just a longer route. Fine by me. I probably woulda slid down that mountain if we tried to go down the way we came up with the shoes I was wearing. Later we found out that that second school was one of our inaccessible schools due to the fact that it is so far away, so completely isolated (there's literally nothing around except mountains, trees, and lots and lots of coffee plants), and so hard to get to. Honestly, though, I would trek it out there because it was so beautiful. The land in Guatemala does not seize to amaze me and bedazzle me. We were literally at the top of a mountain looking out at vast greeness with not even a soul nearby. Just us and Mother Nature. Mmmm.


Two days later we set out for another set of school visits that had a similar unexpected surprise. We were told we had to walk to this school with the teachers because there was no transportation available to the area. There was no warning of about the length of the journey or degree of difficultly. Regardless, I decided not to wear my flats this time. Good thing because it turned out we had a two hour hike straight up a mountain this time. I don't know if you understand when I say straight up a mountain. It is very literally incline 100% of the time. Let's put it this way: I didn't know if I was going to make it at some points. My legs hurt so bad at times that I thought they were going to give out. We were all struggling. It felt like the never ending ascent. We made it though and once again were bewildered by the amount of pain and time taken into getting to those two schools. These teachers walk that everyday, five days a week. Man, if I did that every day I'd be in the best shape of my life. Anyways, it is amazing that they trek that every day. Maybe they do it because they have to or maybe they do it because they want to - either way, it is admirable. These schools were even more isolated than the last one I mentioned. I don't think transportation could get up there if they tried - way too rocky. The children all spoke Q'eqchí, an indigenous Mayan language. Only the older kids could understand Spanish and so we needed a translator for the rest of the kids when we were presenting ourselves. 


Now, I realized something when we were at these schools. It is one thing to tell someone what the Healthy Schools program is and what it is that we are doing and set out to accomplish. It is a whole other thing actually doing it successfully. As a volunteer in a new site that has never heard of the Peace Corps, or Cuerpo de Paz, before and has no idea what Healthy Schools is, it is a very difficult job to come into a community and say, "Alright, we are going to teach you personal hygiene habits and we expect you to do them." Obviously we don't say that exactly but essentially that is what we are doing. Looking at those kids today I saw how dirty they were. I understand that they are extremely isolated with limited resources and barely any money. I felt a moment of despair almost and helplessness. How were we, two young Americans, going to get these kids to come to school clean? It seemed like such a ludicrous and unattainable goal in that minute.  Later, though, when visiting the second school down the street, we were talking with the director. He was so motivated for the program and talking about all the work we could accomplish together and how we could really change these children's lives, whether we see the impact or not. He inspired me and made me realize that all it takes is a leader in the community to work with you and support you and things CAN get done. I'm not saying it is going to be easy and I know there are many struggles and frustrations ahead, but that doesn't mean I am not excited because, if anything, it makes me want to do this even more. 


On our 2 hour hike back down we had some stunning views again of the green mountains that surround our town. It might be a bitch to climb up them but they sure are beautiful. When you're walking down them and pause and look around, you have one of those moments where you can't believe where you are and what you are seeing. It's the intimate feeling of it just being you and Earth; feeling her essence. It's one of those moments you know you just can never explain to people unless they experience it too. That feeling is worth the pain of getting up there, that's for sure.