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).