El Proyecto de Reforestacion (The reforestation project)

I know I said our school has a lot of projects and here is another one. Deforestation is a huge problem in Guatemala partly because most people outside the city still use firewood to cook and heat their homes. Most people in Xela have electricity and gas stoves. Pop Wuj started this project a few years ago and it works in conjunction with the stove project which builds more efficient stoves so families can use less firewood.

One of the best parts of the stove project is that it takes you to places that you would never visit otherwise. This location is near Llanos del Pinal, kind of. The picture below is trying to show the worst road I have ever seen, but it does not do it justice. We had to get out of the van that we were in because it got stuck. Not in mud or anything, just because water had put such huge ruts in the road that basically only pick-ups could pass and even then top speed is probably 5 mph. It was crazy.


So then we unload the trees and are carrying them to the site because the van could not get us there. We ended up putting them down by the river and we thought we would plant there and it would be fun and sunny and nice by the river.



However, when we asked where we needed to plant Carmencita pointed to this hill... across the river. And we kept asking her to clarify thinking that we had misheard or misunderstood the Spanish because there was no bridge or log or anything near by, but we had met up with some of the local villagers and this guy put a crate of trees on his shoulder and just walked across the river. It wasn't hard for him because the river was only about a foot deep at maximum, but he was wearing huge rainboots. The other students and I asked, "okay that's great that he can just walk, but how are we supposed to get across?". The answer was remove your socks and shoes, put them in the crate with the trees and carry it across.



You can see the in the far side of the picture the local man carrying the trees on his shoulder. He just took a box from one of the other students as Melanie waded in with her box of trees, which is pretty heavy.



We ended up forming a line and passing the crates of trees along. Melanie is smiling in the picture because she can still feel her toes. 5 crates of trees later we were all freezing because it gets really cold in the hills at night and the water was frigid. Luckily there were only 8 crates total. We found a bunch of "rocks", really pieces of cement blocks, on the other side of the river that we put in water to form a little path across for the way back.



After we got across we had to put our socks and shoes on over our wet, cold feet and we still had to carry 125 trees up the mountain and plant them. It was pretty chilly, but I was dripping with sweat because those tree crates are heavy and you have to spread them out so you end up carrying the huge crate all over the mountain (okay it was a hill, but it felt like a mountain).

Here is a picture of Melanie lovingly planting a little tree in the ground (I promise there is a tree behind that tall grass). I don't have a lot of pictures because my hands (and whole body) were covered with dirt and sweat all day.



At the end of the day a local woman who organizes the project in the local community fed us snacks of watermelon chunks and horchata which is a sweet drink made from arroz (rice). The watermelon was refreshing, but the horchata was served a little warm so it wasn't quite as refreshing as we were hoping, but it was good to talk to her about the history of the tree project. The other people we worked with did not speak Spanish so we really could not communicate well. There are many languages spoken throughout Guatemala and many of them sound similar so it is really hard for us to know what people are saying. I think these people spoke Kachiquel.

It was a tough day, but it actually felt really great after we were done planting. That night we sold a bunch of drinks to raise more money for the arbolitos and even went dancing after dinner. Yay trees!

La Guardia (the daycare

One of Pop Wuj's (my schools) longest running projects is the Guardaria. The Guardaria is a daycare and after school program in Llenos de Pinal (which roughly translates to full of pines) for kids that live in the area. The school says that the kids are the Guardaria are usually kids that are a little neglected in their homes either becuase their are so many kids or both the parents work or a combination of factors. The kids are so cute and many of them are starving for attention. My school provides scholarships for many of the kids. Every day the kids receive a snack and help with homework. A lot of students also volunteer just playing with the kids. It is a really fun place, but also a little sad.

This is the main Pop Wuj logo. The small symbols around the outside are symbols from the Mayan calendar.



This is the main room with the kids sitting waiting for their snack and there is a volunteer (Carie) helping them wash their hands. As you can see there is a lot of stuff around some of which looks like junk, but it is hard to tell. There is a motorcycle in the back that is missing a motor I think. Maybe it is supposed to be a toy, but it just looks like it needs to be discarded. There is quite a bit of hoarding all over Guatemala, but I don't know who is doing the hoarding at the Guardaria and taking up much needed floor space.

You can also see laundry hanging. It rains almost every day in Xela this time of year, but it is especially bad in Llenos de Pinal so if you want anything to dry you have to hang it inside. As you can see they have electricity and they have running water and western-style toilets so it is not that rustic, but there are no real roads just kind of dirt paths that often have car-sized puddles of water or giant holes where the rain runs off. You really can not travel in Guatemala without having a bumpy ride.



This is one of the more uncomfortable areas to see. This little girl is holding the door for the toilet (there is no sink by the toilet, kids just use the water bucket inside, or probably more likely they do not wash their hands :/). As you can see the toilet is right next to the calf and the cows dirt and grime and flies and ...patties. Not exactly sanitary.



This is the area to the right of the toilet showing the chickens at the guardaria and another bathroom there on the left. Many families in Guatemala live very close to their animals which as you can imagine (or know) increases the spread of disease. Education is something on which we are constantly working, but it is hard to change the way that people live.



This is the Guardaria's back field. There is a small soccer field with goals which is very popular and some play ground equipment that was broken when we first visited, but was fixed during the summer. It is a nice place to play (when it is not raining).



This is Melanie playing "frisbee" with one of our favorite kids, Andres. All the kids are great, but he is a favorite becuase he will come up and hug you immediately. Since he is still too young to attend school he is seemingly always at the Guardaria. Such a cutie.

That structure behind Melanie was once covering a garden, but had not been used for a while. Last week a bunch of volunteers (not me) dug up all the ground and sifted the dirt to prepare it for planting. They were sore for days.



This is a picture of one of the other volunteers coloring with some of the younger kids. The older kids also do homework here in the afternoons. Aren't these kids adorable? One of the best parts of our school was getting to visit the Guardaria and hang out with the kids. We also did a lot of projects there, which I will discuss later (hopefully).