learning ...

The longer we are here, the more we learn. For instance, we now know that there IS another secondary school in town, run by the government. It’s been here for 1 ½ years and is a free option for those who can’t pay the inscription at the Colegio. Only problem is that it is what is called a “tele-secondaria,” with two teachers for all of the students, and classes given by video. Not the best option. What we hear about the differences between the schools is of course about the quality, the number of teachers, the homework, etc. Sometimes I wonder how much is true and how much is learned recital, as in “Of course the Colegio is better; it’s a private school…” (Reality is that the students that leave Colegio Bethel continue to do very well in the Guatemalan system if they choose to pursue schooling beyond 9th grade.) However, the most engaging classrooms we have yet seen here in Guatemala belonged to a government school on a remote dangerous road rarely traveled.

Right: the road going down to La Costa.

We had decided to bike down the mountains to “La Costa,” the flat plain that extends to the Pacific Coast. The road splits into two at the top of the highest ridge and we took what we soon discovered to be the awful road down. Dust 6 to 8 inches deep on the steepest corners covering rocks forced at least me to do a bit more walking. Houses perched at intervals along the way bespoke a deep poverty. And there, on a widened little patch beside the road sat a two-room schoolhouse. We rode into the yard and peered into the rooms,

expecting nothing. But these were the tidiest of little rooms, decorated with cheerful colorful greetings in Spanish and Quiche, all of the little chairs neatly stacked on the desks, a corner with towels hung on little hooks beneath children’s names. Clean, cheerful, welcoming rooms that revealed a care apparently seldom seen in rural Guatemalan schools. One of my thoughts was that Colegio Bethel, Panyebar could learn from those isolated classrooms and take more pride in caring for its space.

The first town at the bottom of the mountains was destroyed by Hurricane Stan and is still incredibly poor. This woman is drying coffee.

From the road we took back up into the mountains, you can see the road we came down. The school was right wherethe road hit the ridge on top...

Right now, somewhere outside our little house there is a marching band exuberantly practicing away. Another learning curve that I might not ever master: acceptance of boomeranging noise! We all know how sound echoes and in a place where most of the houses are build of cinder block and concrete, sound bounces seemingly forever. This would be fine if there was only one set of sounds bouncing around. However, we seem to be located at the nexus of the sound waves that burst forth from at least four churches within 5 minutes walking distance that all seem to hold their services at the same time during the evenings. Every church service is marked by the most off-key lead singer ever backed by the loudest band ever consisting of a bass guitar oompa-oompaing along, a drum set banging away and a keyboard repeating the endless chords. Not that we mind people worshiping God, but, Lord, the noise of it all! Earphones can be a glad refuge but only if you turn up the volume enough to cover over the oompa-oompaing…

Another thing I have learned is that it doesn’t always pay to accept invitations to lunch. Kent and I have been eating healthily with Rebecca and Juan here and have had no digestive issues at all. (The town’s water comes directly from the spring we visited in the mountains several weeks ago and is clean.) However, the teachers were invited to lunch at the house of one of the students. the house of pain...

Two of us have gotten pretty ill. The ickiest ill you want. So after three days of not being able to eat, I have started on tetracycline to kill it off. You know you’re supposed to have a prescription for this kind of thing but Kent just bought a bunch of powders mixed with chocolate (yum) that I will take over the next week. (Hope it’s really an antibiotic!) If things aren’t better soon, though, I’ll have to make sure it’s not some other sort of parasite. At least my body has started absorbing fluids again after a couple of days of dehydration worries, but I am weak and ready to get better.

A few shots from San Pedro...

Routine in Panyebar

Above is the town of Panyebar. Below you see the two story building. Our "house" is the little one at the corner of that building facing us.

You never know what you might find outside your door when you walk out in the morning… the other day, it was a big pile of corn cobs; yesterday, a cow’s jawbone with teeth intact; everyday, plastic bags that have blown into the little dirt yard. Regardless of what arrives, it is usually a surprise.

But Panyebar is small enough that there aren’t usually too many surprises. We have settled into a routine that works pretty well so far. A shower followed by a cup of coffee while we sit in the sun…a nice start, esp. since the coffee is what we call “local-grown, plancha-roasted, stone-ground by hand, Guatemalan best” which we found at a local house where an ancient woman prepares the coffee as needed. This, as opposed to what everyone drinks (a couple of tablespoons of instant and a bunch of sugar in a couple quarts of water), wakes us up!

Routine includes school for me, where I now remember why teaching was so hard! My plans of using science to teach English have pretty much disappeared, as the level of kids’ English is at the learning-colors level. So, in addition to the actual preparation of 3 classes of science materials, I translate words into Spanish, even simple words like “pour,” “container,” “magnet,” etc. You get the drift! And we all have to suffer through my massacre of the Spanish language. I tell the kids that we are all learning together and they correct me as needed, which is often! I do give them English names as well as Spanish names for materials, so we’re working on it, but I realized that English is a foreign language for them and it is not like kids in the States learning English as a second language.

The other day we dissected a cow’s eye in one class, explored magnetism in another and 2 days ago (Monday the 9^th) I started chemistry with the youngest class of 7^th graders. The latter was a disaster. If I were teaching at home, I would call it the “class from Hell!” You know, kids aren’t trained yet in how to behave in class, they can’t sit still (especially since the class is from 5:35 pm – 6:15 pm), and of the 27 students, 75% are boys, immature ones at that. You can imagine… One of those classes that makes you feel like a failure. So yesterday I shut down the materials introduction and we took notes instead. Makes a teacher’s heart cry. One more shot at it today and perhaps I will choose not to do hands-on with them. As a visiting teacher who is not 100% conversant in either language or culture, it might just not be worth it and the kids just might not be ready. (UPDATE: kids

moved easily if noisily into groups and we are proceeding apace! Yes!

Kent has quickly endeared himself to many, including the family we are living with, the local carpenters and

contractors, and the school staff. He fixed the broken shower water-heater and fixed other water leaks at home. At the Colegio, he has fixed broken lights (one class had no working lights, so when the fog rolled in around 5, it was hard to see your hand in front of your face, let alone try to write!), is replacing broken windows and fixed the school bell which now rings out through the entire town.

The bano is now making serious progress. As one who had to use the “provisional bathroom” (read “pit toilet surrounded by cardboard blown apart by the wind”) in a moment of desperate need, I can hardly wait!

Wading through various misunderstandings and miscommunications has been challenging, but Kent’s Spanish

ability is up to it and already he has gained the trust of the local contractors.

For me, I would wish for a little more freedom. A teacher’s day is a scheduled day and I have to be at the

Colegio. But last weekend, we accepted the invitation from the dad of 2 of my students and we hiked to the spring that is the source of all of Panyebar’s water. This was, may I say, a killer hike.

The kids never complained and were spirited fun the entire 9 hours. Crossing into the nature reserve called Panan, the forest, now only a shadow of what it used to be, still had the power to amaze. Flowers, trees, bromeliads, even freshwater crabs at the spring made the hike memorable. Those and the aching knees and quads!

We made it home in time to eat dinner with the family where we are staying, as is the routine every night before

going to bed.As long as the neighbors aren’t playing their music super loud, or the wind isn’t trying to blow the corrugated roof off, or the dogs aren’t having extensive conversations, it is a blissful drop into sleep.

The girl above in the black is the daughter in the family we are staying with. The two playing are friends and the three below are the brother and sisters of the kids we walked into the forest reserve with.