Teaching Memories

Last week Toby and I completed our last English classes here at Enlace Quiché. Our final grades and exams are all finished, so we thought it was appropriate to reflect on our time spent teaching English to the Guatemalan people.


Prior to coming to Guatemala Toby and I didn't have experience teaching English as a foreign language. We had previous experience teaching lifeguards, swimming, and 1st graders (Brittany) and Search and Rescue courses (Toby), but this was new territory for us. At times this was a very frustrating process due to our brand new English program and lack of established organization and standards. Many times we started courses without the class texts or teacher's manuals because our coordinators weren't on the ball yet or simply forgot. We also had a shortage of English resources to use in our classes since those items can't be found in Quiché. One of our tasks while volunteering with Ajb'atz' Enlace Quiché was to organize and solidify the English program throughout the past year.


Our involvement in this program included teaching a variety of classes from fundamentals to level 4 for adults and levels 1 and 2 for children. Teaching each separate class involved extensive class preparation with lesson planning and creating materials and exams, grading homework and exams, and providing additional help and make-up exams for students outside of class time. The were no initial grading standards, so we created an evaluation standard for the English classes and wrote a syllabus for classroom standards. We also administered English placement tests (over 20) so that students could skip levels to save time and money. In order to amplify our supply of materials we coordinated the donation and purchase of English language materials including books, magazines, videos, and other resources (thanks to LeAnn Piering for some of these!). Fortunately we were also able to attend three different English teacher training workshops/conferences (March, July, and November 2007) where we learned strategies for evaluating, pronunciation, games, classroom management, and more.


Teaching English has been a challenging but very rewarding experience for us both since we learned a lot and saw such great improvement in our students throughout the last year. Some of our greatest memories teaching English include co-teaching an intensive vacation class for 5 weeks that included about 15 high school bilingual secretaries (Toby loved the attention) and 1 older male teacher, and my class giving me a surprise birthday celebration where they locked the door during our break and only let me in when the candles were lit! We are also very grateful to have met some neat English instructors and experts along the way like Cris Elder, Dr. Bailey, Dr. Oprandy and Jessica (and Joel) Schumacher.


In conjunction with this English Program, we have also created a Volunteer Program at Enlace Quiché, with hopes that these English speaking volunteers can keep our classes rolling. We hope that our partnerships and stable program will maintain these courses for many years into the future. We'd also love for our past students to continue studying as well since they've put so much effort out already. If you'd like to make a donation to provide a scholarship for the under privileged Mayans and public school teachers please click here. Anything can help continue to make this a successful learning experience!

Brittany's Goodbye Party

On Tuesday night this week, my English Level 2 class took Toby and I out to dinner for a goodbye party. I have been teaching some of these students for a year now and I've seen them progress from knowing nothing to writing paragraphs. All of them passed this class, so I really hope that they continue to study in the future. Maybe one day one of them will visit us in the United States! From left to right above is Juan, Fermina, me, Mike, Claudia, and Pedro.


To celebrate, my class organized a special dinner at Café Martita. Knowing that we are vegetarians, they specifically ordered a special meal for us to eat. We feasted on bread, salad, spinach lasagna, naranjada con soda, and dessert. It was a very special time to talk and laugh with all of my students in a relaxed environment. And of course, all of them were happy when I passed out their exams and grades, and they learned they had passed the class.


As if the dinner wasn't enough...my students also collaborated and got a gift for me. It's a handmade textile and then hand embroidered with the geometric animal designs. In the Mayan culture these animals represent some of the nahuales. A nahual is an animal companion that is spiritually linked to all persons throughout their lives. It could be a horse, lizard, rooster, etc., however, your nahual is determined by the day you are born. I'll have to look into my personal nahual and see if its on the tapestry. A very big thank you to my students for giving me such a beautiful gift and for giving Toby and I such a nice despedida.

Quiché Cemetery

Although it seems somewhat morbid, we had heard for a long time that the Quiché cemetery was a very beautiful place. So on Monday, we decided to check things out for ourselves and see what it was like.

Cemeteries are very interesting here because they are quite different than the ones at home. They are almost like little towns or something, because instead of having underground placement with a tombstone or plaque, they actually have huge crypts to house the corpses. Generally these structures are very large so they can hold all the family members and sometimes have an enclosed altar space to place flowers, photos, etc.

The crypt houses are also very brightly colored with a variety of pastel shades making this a very beautiful and pleasant space, unlike the dark and dreary images we often associate with death in the United States. The Quiché cemetery has a very joyful and pleasant setting helped by the lack of garbage and noise. Definitely gets two thumbs up!

Holy Week 2008

As you already know, two weeks ago we were off celebrating the national holiday week of Semana Santa. It was a welcome break from work and provided us the opportunity to enjoy the summer weather here in Guatemala. Here's a little recap of what we did during the week.

For the first part of the week we relaxed a bit at our house and took advantage of lying out in the sun on our rooftop terrace. On Monday we had dinner with our friends Dr. Heidi and Matt, and their volunteer Dr. Charlie. Although Matt doesn't like games too much, we were able to invite Charlie and Heidi into the wonderful world of Pounce. As expected, it was a hit with them!

It also happened that we were able to meet up with Matt, Heidi, and Charlie once again during the week, but in Antigua. Charlie was only volunteering for a month and wanted to get down to Antigua to experience the festivities. So, we all met up on Wednesday of Holy Week after Toby and I checked in with our host family and got Toby registered for carrying in the procession. Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon our activities entailed eating at Café Flor for dinner, hanging out at their hotel, eating breakfast at Fernando's Kaffee, and helping Charlie shop in the artisan market for a gift for his fiancée.

On Thursday evening we were invited to eat tamales with our old host family from when Toby studied Spanish in Antigua. We got to fill up on delicious vegetarian tamales, and homemade banana bread while visiting with other Spanish students and the family. One couple in particular was really great to chat with that evening. We met Patty and Doug from Alberta, Canada, a retired couple traveling and studying in Central America. During the next few days we had the pleasure of telling stories and sharing wisdom about places in Central America as we built an alfombra and ate dinner at Kafka with them.

Since carpet making at PROBIGUA (the Spanish school) was set to begin around 10 pm Thursday and go through the night, Toby and I decided to take a little nap. We slept from around 9pm-midnight before heading over to the school and diving into the creative process. This year the alfombra was mainly made with colored saw dust and not flowers, so this was a much more time consuming process. We had a very committed team of about 10 that consisted of the Canadian couple, a couple Norwegian guys, a German, some PROBIGUA staff, and us. Diligently, we smoothed, patted, and filled stencils with sawdust and then cleaned up our mistakes. What started off as a bit questionable and disorderly soon became a very beautiful piece of artwork in the street. It was all complete and ready by around 4:45am, just in time for us to watch the La Merced procession.

Before walking around to view all the carpets, Toby and I stopped into the YWAM coffee shop Higher Grounds (which had been open all night long) to get a few latte pick-me-ups. Then, we proceeded to walk along the procession route, but just ahead of it, so we could see all of the beautiful carpets that had been constructed. Some of our favorites included one block long alfombra on Alameda Santa Lucía, a butterfly made of flower petals, and the family team alfombra that marked 50 years making carpets in 2007. Halfway through our touring and before the sun fully rose we stopped into Bagel Barn to get a quick breakfast and rest our bodies. Afterwards, we meandered around a bit more to look at carpets before settling back by ours to watch the procession pass over our hard earned work. Unfortunately, while we were waiting for the anda two different dogs went running through our carpet making footprints and messing up the sawdust pattern details.

At this point we were pretty exhausted from 3 hours of sleep so we went back to the house to have another nap from around 10am-noon. When we awoke we were completely disoriented and confused as to what day it was and the time since we were keeping such and odd schedule. Nevertheless, we continued on our marathon Good Friday by eating lunch at an Indian restaurant and hiking back up to the San Felipe church and Jocotenango in search of Toby’s procession turn badge. Along the way we admired quite a few more carpets made for Toby’s procession (starting at 3pm), then got ready for his turn. They base the groups on height, and since Toby is quite tall compared to most Guatemalan me, he was in turno 6.

For the majority of the rest of the day we tried to sit down and rest because we had done SO much walking all around the city. In the evening we did enjoy watching the Escuela de Cristo procession pass around the central park and the cathedral. Usually the crowds of people are enormous and involve a candle vigil as the floats pass by.

Afterwards we really needed some caffeine and energy to keep going through the night. Toby still had one more turn to carry, and our prediction was that it would occur around midnight on the far side of town from where we were staying. We managed to find the procession route around 11 or 11:30, but during all the walking my flip flops gave out and the strap totally broke. Being on the other side of town, I opted to use masking tape to secure the sandal to my foot so that I could continue walking around. (Luckily, I happened to have tape in my purse since we had been hanging “volunteers needed” posters around the city.) We were so far away from the house and our legs were aching, so I didn’t want to make an extra lap to get a new pair of shoes.

After mending my sandals, Toby joined the fila, the line of float carriers that walk on the sides of the road ahead of the procession. At around 12:30 or so he finally had his turn to carry; it turned out to be a tricky one. The anda that he carries needs 100 men to keep it afloat, bearing around 80-100lbs each man. The small colonial streets barely can accommodate the size of the floats, often involving some maneuvering to turn corners. And, that’s exactly what Toby’s group had to do. Upon turning the block the anda couldn’t make it through and was bumping up against the buildings. Toby said that they even hit the eaves of the roof at one point and everyone felt the vibrations. In order to make it through the men had to lower the structure onto their forearms (standing parallel instead of perpendicular to the float) and then further onto their hands and shuffle around the corner. Then, at once, all 100 men hoist the structure back onto their shoulders. I must say that as a bystander, it is very nerve racking to see the men move it around in this way, wondering if they may drop it. But alas, this did not happen and we were able to finally retire around 1ish in the morning after running on so little steam.

We did stay in Antigua until Sunday afternoon to enjoy the restaurants and beauty of the city. However, a lot of the festivities had died down and the streets were much clearer since all the Guatemalans had fled to the beach. Even though we attended the celebrations in 2007, it was just as enjoyable this year for different reasons than the last. Antigua, Guatemala during Semana Santa is a MUST SEE.

Skin Dog

Well, the title is pretty self-explanatory. We have been wanting to get a blog up about our little neighborhood mascot for some time now and just the other day as we were walking home from work with the camera, he decided to pose for us. Skin Dog roams around a few specific blocks in our colonia or neighborhood and can be often seen basking in the sun, eating scraps of food, and looking all around skinful. He is a dog with a gentle demeanor and without a lot of fur. Here's to you Skin Dog!

Time for a Fiesta

This past weekend, ourselves and many of our coworkers took a little time to relax and unwind while celebrating the birthday of one volunteer Katie, and the upcoming departure of another, Sonja. We weren't really celebrating her "departure"... but you know what I mean. The party was a tranquil affair with many of the men standing around the grill cooking steak and the women talking in the casita (little house) or around the tables. Isn't it funny how that happens here in Guatemala too? Together we cooked up some steak, had some delicious potato salad and snacked on some hummus that we personally made that turned out out to be quite the hit. Our hosts made the party even better with some semi-warm Gallo beer and a bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider. The cider alone was a treat as we haven't tasted any in over a year. DELICIOUS! After plenty of eating we brought out a big cake for what is at least the Guatemalan tradition of smashing the birthday boy or girl's face into a cake. The time spent with everyone was a blast and we are really trying to enjoy our last few weeks here in Guatemala.

Development Happens

Well folks, after a week off for Holy Week and a vacation to the tourist capitol of Guatemala, the colonial city of Antigua, we have some good things to report. After living here for over a year and through a change of a president, it would appear that some positive change is happening. For those of you that don't already know, Holy Week here in Guatemala, as in much of Central America, is the most important and eventful holiday of the year. Antigua, the catholic center of Central America is inundated with THOUSANDS of tourists for the week while processions and other honorary events occur to celebrate the death and subsequent rising of Jesus. Although the crazy amount of tourists from both Guatemala and around the world were a little annoying, there were many positive things about the experience. One new element that was very noticeable was the increased levels of security throughout the city. On every corner of every block stood pairs of private security guards hired by what we imagine were the local or national officials. We are not exaggerating when we say every corner either. There were hundreds of these guards on the streets during all hours of the day, 24/7. Like the National Police they were quite militaristic but at least they weren't toting Uzis or AK-47s like many of the other police officials. On the subject of the PNC or National Police force, there were many police officers on patrol as well as the private security. Additionally they had a police and fire substation in the central park with paramedics and ambulances standing by in case of emergency. The police were also making announcements to families to keep track of their children, hold their hands, etc. One last observation was the absence of the military. Typically in the past, Antigua has had regular patrols of Military Police officers walking in groups of four, packing around Israeli made assault rifles (note the reference to another Israeli made firearm ealier(Uzi), one can see quite a few here in the arms of government employees as it seems a good way to make friends in the developing world). Overall we saw some significant improvement in the tourism department versus Semana Santa last year and view this as a positive step for Guatemala has a whole and potentially a sign of things to come. We encourage everyone to think of Guatemala when they think about their next vacation. Guatemala offers rich culture, beautiful natural and Mayan-made wonders, all at a very inexpensive price.