DHS Spanish Club

Today was a really fun day, if a bit exhausting and hectic. In the morning, we took a bus ride with some girls from Safe Passage to the Chuck E Cheese’s in Guatemala City. It was touching to see what a great time they had there, and they were so affectionate and energetic. After we got back, we went shopping some more and had some GREAT Korean food. And ice cream. We had our farewell dinner at a place called Cafe No Se, meaning Cafe I Don’t Know. We went home and packed, which was sad. See you all tomorrow! =¡

–Jean and Jill

All the little girls loved to snuggle on the bus. They were so cute!

We now all have crowns.

Our group was particularly successful at haggling down prices. We even managed to knock about 250 quetzales off the price of 2 different blankets, and made many other good deals.

This is the Guatemalan equivalent of our Buckle Up, It’s The Law signs. It’s a heart wearing a seat belt.

PS: Once we are back in the states videos of our trip will be upload. Come back soon to check.

Hey all!

Today was a “free day”…. that means we got to sleep in (YAY).  Instead of working at Safe Passage, we explored Antigua and its different shops.  At the open market, many of us found unique souveniers such as hammocks and machetes.  Fun!  It was super hot out today and I realized (fortunately not too late) to roll up my sleeves.  Definitely DON’T want a funky tan for Prom.  For lunch we ate at Pollo Campero, a famous fast food chain in Guatemala.  I don’t want to sound like a stereotypical American, but it was awesome having fried food again!

See you all soon!

Loren

Today was our free day but all of us woke up at the normal EARLY time, which was sweet. It was a good day minus having bag troubles with the ink coming off on me which was semi stressful but once we sorted it out with the woman (who sold us the bag) I was able to switch it in for a new one. Loren and I really enjoy the t.v. show ”Arrested Development” and there is this boy who runs a banana stand. Fortunately, we saw a man selling frozen bananas and we had to have one! It was really yummy. Tonight was our last night eating at the restaurant. It was sad because we all had very fond memories of gathering around the table and enjoying eachothers’ company. Ethan, Miguel, Loren, Mr. Miller and I all went salsa dancing after supper which was exhausting but a fun workout. Overall, good day.

love love love,

Mira

   Katie-Today was our last day at Safe Passage. Some of us spent our last day in the kitchen, some in the classrooms, so our final experiences varied, but we all did come together to finish up our group activity which was tie-dying T-shirts. One interesting twist to this time with our morning and afternoon activity groups was that today the KIDS taught US some fun mini-games while we waited for the shirts to set just as we had been teaching them, and these were very fun to do together.

   Also, today at lunch I spent time with my sponsor child, Ana Susana. The last time I saw her was two years ago when I visited Safe Passage with the Deering group. Now she is six years old, and boy has she grown in that time! We took our van to a Pizza Hut in Guatemala City because pizza is her favorite food, and on the top floor there was an indoor playground laden with balloons, in which we got to play and run around in. Very fun! :-D

   When the bell rang at the end of the day, the class lined up to leave the building and many of the students ran from the line to give out final hugs and kisses; some even took rings from their fingers and bracelets from their wrists to give as gifts to us before they left! Once the students had left we left the project and loaded into our van, where we plugged speakers into an iPod and played music while singing and dancing to it for the children still crowding around the Safe Passage doors.

Miguel- Today was a fun day I worked in the kitchen today first and than played with the kids after lunch. Working in the kitchen was fun but hard too. I had fun with the kids when we made the shirts. At the end of it all it was a very sad day because I became close to one of the kids there in the middle school grades because he reminded me of me when I was little. I am really going to miss him even though I had only known him for 3 days. I wish I could stay longer and play more and talk more with him.

Wow what a day,

Today was a very busy day. We started off with a group of students going to the main safe passage building to work in the kitchen. They were a great help to the project and without them it would be very difficult to ge the meals for four hundred kids. The rest of us went back to La Guarderia.

We spent the morning time with an adorable group of three year olds. We played parachute games with them and they got very into it. We started bouncing animals on the chute and the kids tried very hard to keep the animals afloat. We then tried to bounce beach balls on the chute, but the wind blew them away. Their favorite part was throwing the chute in the air and running around under it changing places. When their attention span started to give we switched to duck, duck goose. All of the kids wanted to be the goose and many of them jumped into the laps of the students. Some of them were a little aprehensive of going around so we helped them. After a few more games I had to leave to go to the main building. The kids had a fantastic time and it was hard to let them go back to class. It is hard to imagine that for alot of the kids this will be the most attention get from anyone.

At the main building myself along with three other students met the morning english club to go out to eat. We took a field trip to TGI Fridays (yes they are everywhere). They had been working for two months on the vocab and phrases to order, request items (salt, ketchup) and ask for their remaining food to be boxed. In the beginning they were not up to talking much but when a little time passed they got going. We ended up talking about everything from favorite sports and school classes to horror films and Steven King. It was weird to have this kind of a role reversal. We had been spending this time in a foreign country without complete knowledge of the language, and then we were suddenly put in the position of knowing the language and having to aid others in trying to use their vocab they had learned. 

Once back from the field trip another group went with the afternoon english club and I along with those not taking the afternoon kitchen shift went back to La Guarderia. We repeated the morning activities with a class of five year olds with different results. The parachute entertained them for a little while but they were not nearly amused as the three year olds. They also were entertained only a short while by duck, duck, goose and red light, green light. We decided to change things up and do some races. This was one of the most entertaining activities and led into a kind of healthy splintering of the group. What they wanted to do most was choose their own activities. Some played on the jungle gyms, others kicked the beach balls around and some played with the stuffed animals. Even though it was a little rocky it was still a happy/sad departure.

When we returned to the hotel we had a ”sort of” condensed,  interesting and eye opening history of Guatemala.

After the history lesson we had salsa lessons. Everyone (minus Jiyeon and Sr. Morales) had a great time and learned four steps of salsa (pretty good for an hour). We would go through the steps without music and then go with the music. Near the end we were going back and forth between all four moves which sometimes caused a bit of confusion. But all in all our group was great. The reason why Jiyeon and Sr. Morales were left out was the fact that they had to return to the hotel before we found the salsa place. They could not find the lessons and ended up getting their own walking tour of Antigua. They were finally rescued and brought to the studio five minutes before it ended.

At dinner (which was good as always) we had some fun dancing and then returned to the hotel. While writting this blog some of the kids ran down and said that a volcano was erupting (geez, a tremor and an erupting volcano, we’re not in maine anymore). On the roof you could see the the lava spurting out of the top. It was nothing serious but very cool. It was a good end to the day.
Josh

Today truly was a life-changing experience. We volunteered at the Safe Passage school, our first day helping students ages nine through eleven. Despite one of the teacher´s warning about the kids´high aggression, the children were just like middle school students in America. They were boisterous, energetic, and highly affectionate - hugging us, holding our hands, and constantly seeking our attention. One certain boy stole my heart when he suddenly gave me a hug and said, ¨I love you, baby.¨Comical boys played drums on Mr. Miller´s head during lunch, while a group of girls swarmed and tickled Emily in the school´s small, evergreen courtyard.

Our first volunteer job was to aid English teachers. We broke up into groups of two and three to each be assitants to one teacher. Mr. Morales helped the English teacher Liz act out a book I was reading called Good Friends. The kids wholeheartedly laughed when Mr. Morales acted out a falling scene of the book.

After helping out in the English classes, we made tie-die shirts with two groups, each during different times. Katie explained thoroughly in perfect Spanish instructions while Emily demonstrated scrunching the shirts and tying them up in rubberbands. The children seemed very interested in the activity, determined to make a ¨camisa bonita, ¨one girl said.

Our next activity was the building with marshmallows game, where kids divided into five groups and designed and built a creative, tall, and sturdy structure with marshamallows. Eating the marshmallows after constructing was their favorite part of the game.

The final activity was the human knot game. First, we spread into groups of two or three, extended our hands into the middle of the circle of people, and grabbed two other peoples´hands. We tried to untangle into a circle. The first group to do so, won the competition. Then, we played with one huge group of 20 kids. Surprisingly, we were able to untangle ourselves!

Although we knew we were coming back two days later, we felt sad to leave the loveable children.

We were warmly greeted by everyone a Safe Passage today. It was an intense day of orientation to the program: learning about the extreme poverty here in the capital city, and some of the historic and social factors involved. Despite this heavy dose of ’Guatemalan reality’  we have found opportunities to enjoy ourselves and to begin forming a strong group bond. We seem to be finding great strength in each other, and great joy in the delicious food, fun music, and the warmth of the Guatemalan people.

Miguel: Well I guess I’m the only one writing tonight so here I go. This is the sign that we saw when we got to the main school of safe passage. This was very funny. Also, before we  started to write oday’s journal entry the floor and the hotel started shaking. There seemed to be a minor tremor here in Antigua. Dont worry it was short and we are all safe.

IN our tour of the neighborhood around the project we visited a lookout over the dump. Most of the families here survive by picking through the trash for stuff to sell, or to keep. It’s a toxic mix of waste from homes, businesses and industries. Methane gas is a huge danger. We were told the average earnings from a day is about 25 Quetzales, less than 4 dollars. This is one of very few employment opportunities for people without an education and for the steady stream of migrants coming from the countryside in search of work. Many see this work ashaving more dignity than joining a gang or prostitution.

This was really sad to see we could see all these people running after a truck, which the Safe Passage person told us was that they were calling dibs on the truck. there was alot of sand blowing around and all in our face. There was a smell that was bad but we got used to it.

We also visited the ‘Guarderia’, or pre-school and learned about the needs of children and how they express their needs through agression. It was an impressive primer on Maslow and his theory on heirarchy of needs that should be required for all of us back at home. This also helped provide the context for our interactions with the children of Safe Passage. We had a great time playing with the children in the playground.

This was fun playing with the kids. we all tried to pick a kid to play with which didn’t work out because we got like 5 kids instead of one but it was still fun.

All the kids love to attack Ethan. They were on his back, on his legs and on his head. As you can see, they are trying pick him up lol.

This girl was funny; I was pushing here on the tire and I was just relaxing after pushing her too hard. And the boy taking my camera was fun too; he took my photo and a photo his best friend too.

Katie loved this girl. They sat together and played in the trees around the playground.

These two girls love Jiyeon and Jill. They loved playing with their hair. It was really hard for the children when we had to leave. Some of us will be working in the Guarderia throuhout the week. 

 Traffic was stopped on the main highway by farmers protesting the selling of land an increasing costs of living.

This was a protest in the street on out way back to the hotel. I have a video but am not sure if I can upload it,  but I will try.

 This is a video of us singing in the van and Jill getting mad at us. link below the video is on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwFnaoF-_Ns

So today was our first full day in Antigua. Loren and I are rooming together and it was my job to set the alarm….unfortunately, I didn’t. We were supposed to all meet in the downstairs of the hotel at 5:55am. Fortunately, Loren and I did make it on time but happend to have woken up (luckily) at 5:31am. We all hiked a volcano named Pacayo. Mr. Miller told us it was going to be a “leisurely” hike up the volcano. However, we all interpreted that as “easy”BUT he meant “at a leisurely pace.” SOOO, on that note, we were all quite surprised by the intensity and rigorousness of the path infront us.

It was the first time I had ever been on a horse and it was amazing!! I defintely want to relive this experience. A bunch of us went up to a further peak of the volcano and got to walk on the hard molted rock (dried-up-lava?) and that was interesting to watch. After, we all went shopping and bartering around. I bartered and successfully purchased a necklace and an amarillo (yellow) blanket.  SO, GREAT DAY!! Catch you all lata

-Mira (which also means “look” in Spanish…yes, very confusing day)

The Deering Spanish Club will be taking a trip to Guatemala to work with the Safe Passage (click for more info) program. We will be there from April 12th to April 20th. Check this blog daily to read posts by the students on their daily adventures and experiences, hopefully with pictures and other neat things. Click on the appropriate date on the right hand sidebar of this page. Here is a bit about Safe Passage in its own words:

Safe Passage works with the poorest at-risk children of families working in the Guatemala City garbage dump. Within a safe and caring environment, we provide a comprehensive and integrated program that fosters hope, good health, educational achievement, self-sufficiency, self esteem and confidence.

Our primary focus is on creating opportunities and dignity through the power of education.

Ethan -

Well, when I went to the ATM to get some money, i found out the hard way that my ATM card doesnt work.  So after a few tries, we decided that it wasn’t working and went on with our lives in Antigua, Guatemala.

Jiyeon-

Despite being in a third-world country, Guatemala´s country-side scenery was similar to the atmosphere of my home country Korea, making me feel safe and even at home! The most interesting event of today´s numerous awesome events was getting my shoe shined by a sweet Guatemalan shoe-shiner. Smirking at my unusual black tights, he asked me what my name was (in spanish). Taken back by having my shoes shined for the first time, I couldn´t even respond. My travelling buddy Miguel had to be my personal translator. Since I had taken up to Spanish five, I felt confident about my spanish; Today´s experience made me realize that I have to work on my Spanish a lot.

Justin -

Today was very interesing and quite bumpy. The plane experienced a LOT of turbulence and caused a bit of a headache. Once we arrived we were overwhelmed by interesting sights and humidity. The representative from Safe Passage greeted us and we got on our way to Antigua. The ride continued on the bumpy, curvey theme. The contrast between under developed areas and lots of advertisements was very interesting and was put on a beautiful, tropical backdrop. The entire rhythm of Antigua is different and very cool. Everyone has been kind and the feel here is very humble, but also very smoggy. Despite some bumps and less than delightful smells, this trip is off to a great start! The group dynamic has been very good and everyone has been laughing and playing games, even now as Josh, Jiyeon, Jean, Ethan and Mr. Morales finish up a card game. Guatemala looks like its going to be great.

The Deering Spanish Club will be taking a trip to Guatemala to work with the Safe Passage (click for more info) program.  We will be there from April 12th to April 20th.  Check this blog daily to read posts by the students on their daily adventures  and experiences, hopefully with pictures and other neat things.  Here is a bit about Safe Passage in its own words:

Safe Passage works with the poorest at-risk children of families working in the Guatemala City garbage dump. Within a safe and caring environment, we provide a comprehensive and integrated program that fosters hope, good health, educational achievement, self-sufficiency, self esteem and confidence.

Our primary focus is on creating opportunities and dignity through the power of education.