sábado, 27 de octubre de 2012

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -Theodore Roosevelt

The past few months have flown by with work and scheduling my trip back home. I am now home in SC relaxing and having a wonderful weekend watching AMERICAN football and can finally write about the past few months. In order to jog my memory I'll post pictures and write a little bit about each activity.

Regional Hospital Santa Elena - El Quiche
Since May I've been volunteering at the hospital doing arts and crafts with the patients in the pediatric ward which I've mentioned in past posts. It continues to be an inspiring activity that I look forward to each week. Here are a few photos of my experiences with these patients. 






Meeting the US Ambassador 
The US Ambassador to Guatemala, Arnold A. Chacon, visited several Peace Corps Volunteers in their sites to step out into the villages and gain a better idea of what the various PC programs are about. Since our site was the location for In Service Training (IST) where we learned how to build improved wood burning stoves, latrines, and cement floors, he came to observe one of the latrines and meet the family who received the project.

My sitemate Jacob and I with the US Ambassador

The San Pedro Jocopilas team, Peace Corps
Healthy Homes team, and the Ambassador Team :-)

Aaron's site with Pura Vida
Another volunteer, Aaron, who lives about an hour away has been working with an NGO called Pura Vida to construct a bottle school. As part of the inauguration week the NGO and Aaron decided to do some activities to improve the school including painting a world map inside the school, build bottle benches, and make tire gardens. Since Kim and I only live about an hour away we decided to go visit his site and help out as much as we could. Since we both had experience with a world map we decided to help them out with that activity. A group of 6 students from Canada came to help out as well. I had an amazing time getting to know these awesome individuals and learning more about Canada. Despite it being so close, I learned I knew absolutely nothing about their country. 

Tracing the map 
Painting the map


World Map!



Eco-bricks (bottles filled with trash) left over from
 the school. To be used for eco-benches!

What a great little helper!

Filling the benches with extra trash

Improved Water Sanitation Project 
With the help from Water Charity we were able to implement a rain water catchment system allowing water to be stored in a Rotoplas water tank. The Rotoplas was then attached to a Pila where students will be able to wash their hands. This water project eliminated the need for the students to carry 2L bottles filled with river/well water each day to school. To read more about the conclusion of this project, here is the link to the NGO's website with more of the project information. Click here for Chelsea's Water Project Info or http://appropriateprojects.com/node/1343
The Mason working on the stand for the Rotoplas



View from the top of the Rotoplas
Rotoplas is up!
Working on the rain water catchment system
A teacher and some of the students looking at their new project! 



Xocomil - Water Park in Reu, Guatemala
For Kim's birthday (another volunteer) we decided to venture out to Xocomil, a water park about an hour from Xela. It turned out to be an awesome first world water park with slides, a wave pool, lazy river, and many tube rides. Luckily we had great weather despite it being in the middle of rainy season. Overall, it was a great way to spend a birthday!
Adorable little babe just hanging out 
Kim and Chels eating some potato thing
The girls at Xocomil :-)
The end of a wonderful day at Xocomil


Home Visits 
For five days I visited each of my 41 health promoters' homes with the presidents of the group to see the need of each family. I was looking for three important sanitary infrastructures such as improved wood burning stoves, latrines, and cement floors. We discovered that 75% lack stoves, 65% lack latrines, and 95% lack cement floors. The community leaders, health promoter presidents and I are now in the process of trying to implement a sanitary infrastructure project within the community of 16 stoves, 10 latrines, and 5 floors. Here are some pictures of the kitchens where women cook on firewood on their dirt floors within their homes thus causing acute respiratory infections to become a health concern in the community. 

Three cement blocks and firewood as a "stove"
Another family's "stove"


One of the presidents with her family
The amazing presidents who dealt with my North American-ness all day in
the rain of wiping out (up and) down muddy hills and struggling to hike
up the cliffs to the homes (I swear they were cliffs ;-)

Working Together
The community leaders, presidents of the health promoters, and my counterpart all came together to work on their application to USAID in attempt to find funding for their infrastructure projects. My favorite part of doing the project is seeing them work together and seeing sustainability take its place.





Tire Gardens
With an elementary school we made two tire gardens containing seeds for onions, carrots, radishes  broccoli, and beets. Flipping the tire inside out was the hardest part as seen below. We hope to do six more tires once school starts up again in January.
Flipping the tire inside out
Seeds planted!

Painting the tires 

All done! 

Earth Lodge 

 Kim and I had mutual friends in the states who decided to visit for the weekend. Since it was only for a night we decided to stay (semi) close to the airport and spend the night at the Earth Lodge outside of Antigua. The view overlooks the town of Jocotenango and two volcanoes. It was great catching up with old friends as well as meeting new ones from Israel. Overall, although the trip was short, it was definitely a good one!



Human Rights, Drug Dependency, and Sex Ed
In Kim's site of Santa Cruz del Quiche, she, Sara, and I did two workshops on human rights, sexual rights, drug dependency, and sex ed. There were about 100 students and a few teachers. 


Students working on a human rights activity

Sara doing step-by-step condom demonstration

Kim kicking butt talking about the above topics


Perry's Going Away Party at Lake Atitlan
A good friend of ours is heading back to the states so we decided to have a going away party at La Iguana Perdida on Lake Atitlan. I officially found my new favorite place in Guatemala. The view was absolutely stunning as you will see below.

The view from the porch of the hotel.



Taken with an iphone without any Instagram business
Venoni fishing at 6am
Veno and Perry bonding over the sunset, how precious



The Quiche (+3-some) Crew!


ONIL Stove Demonstration - HELPS International
After contacting HELPS to inquire about their improved wood burning stoves they hooked me up with their tecnico who came out to my site to do a demonstration with my health promoters. It was a great way for the women to see the benefits of an improved wood burning stove. 

The tecnico talking to the women
about the stove before the demonstration

ONIL wood burning stove

So the past few months have been entertaining to say the least! Looking back at these pictures and the experiences I've had really makes me appreciate my time in Guatemala. The friends I've made and the lessons I've learned are irreplaceable. Although I'm really enjoying my time here in the US, I look forward to going back "home" to Guatemala and continuing to work with these communities.