EST. 2011

I took this photo at the school of Xepon Chiquito. In Malacas, Xepon Chiquito is a part of the village of Xepon. Xepon is a 2-3 hour car ride away from where Megan and I live, so when we go out there to do school visits we end up staying the week and sleeping in classrooms. Xepon is one of the biggest villages of Malacas and many of the parents speak K'iche, which is an indigenous mayan language. This photo was taking during recess at Xepon Chiquito and like every other corner of Latin America these kids love playing f útbol. The ball is green and is to the right of the basketball hoop. It blends in with the background.

This is a student on his way to one of my schools. The school name is Plan Grande. It's one of my larger schools with only 3 teachers and about 33 students. This photo was taken in the area of Plan Grande,which is part of the village Quiaquizuyal. Quiaquizuyal is one of the 17 villages of the municipality of Malacatancito. Malacatancito or Malacas , as it's known to the locals, is one of the 31 municipalities of Huehuetenango. Huehuetenango or Huehue is one of the 22 departments or states of Guatemala. In conclusion, Plan Grande is in the middle of nowhere. The main photo of my blog is from Quiaquizuyal. Plan Grande is over the left shoulder of the motorist.

This is a photo of my site-mate Megan and I with some TIGO promoters. TIGO(This Is Guatemala Obviously) is a major phone company in Guatemala and all volunteers have their phones. We thought it would be funny to get a photo of us wearing the sandwich boards which are advertising for a free call to the US. Megan is my healthy schools partner and together we work in 20 rural schools in our peace corps site Malacatancito, Huehuetenango.

After my last entry I thought I’d take a step down from my soapbox. In the moment that I took one foot off my preachy podium, my host brother decides to abandon his studies at the local private catholic high school. About a month ago, Andy, my 21-year-old host brother who is married with one son, decided that he wanted to return to his schooling after a short 6-year hiatus. He wanted to return to his schooling at our local private catholic grade, middle, and high school, but had some problems with his inscription due to some rule that doesn’t allow married students to study. To make a long story short, he eventually, after a 2 week on going conversation, was given the opportunity to be a student again and finish out his last 3 years of high school. I can’t tell you how happy I was that he had consciously made the decision to return to his studies. His decision was, for me, a sign that not everyone in Guatemala has the same feeling towards education as was conveyed in my last ent

In this entry, I’ll be speaking strictly from my own personal experiences in the Guatemalan western highlands where the importance of education is often lost in the realities of the lives the people live. I don’t want this to be read as a blanketing statement about all of the country. In Guatemala City, Xela, Huehuetenango (the city), and other larger urban centers there are great educational opportunities for those who can afford it. In my opinion, education is one of the most important aspects of a child’s development. With that said, it is very hard for the average rural child to get more than a 6 th grade education and harder still for a girl. Last week, in a far out village while waiting for our dinner, Megan(my site-mate) and I we’re asking a local girl, daughter of the woman who was preparing us dinner, in what month she was in her pregnancy and whether she ever planned on returning to her studies. She said she was in her fifth month of pregnancy and didn’t seem to have a f

Where do I begin? I’ve now been in country for almost 13 months and only now have I found the time and adequate Internet speed to start a blog. I hope that it serves as a way for me to share my experiences with the outside world i.e. friends and family. I work, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, in a program called healthy schools. I live and work in Huehuetenango. Huehuetenango is a department, or state, of Guatemala and is located in the Northwestern part of the country along the Mexican border. My job, in the healthy schools program, is to improve health habits within the ten rural schools where I work. The Guatemalan school year is from January to the middle of October and unfortunately out of those nine months, I’d say that the kids attend about 5 months of actual classes after adding in teachers’ reunions, strikes, natural disasters, the rainy season, the harvest season, sickness, national holidays and whatever else may come up. With that said, there are a lot of hurdles and obstacles