category: Guatemala

Our Guides

August 12, 2012

Before I proceed further into the adventure, I want to show you (and share with you about) our guides for the week: Juan Carlos and Andres. Juan Carlos, our driver, and Andres, our translator/guide extraordinaire, were a team–like Batman and Robin, or Ozzie and Harriet–and they expertly walked our group through the week. Here are some visuals, so you can see them. I love this picture of Andres laughing. He laughed the whole week. Especially at dinner where the teens …

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Garbage Dump Communities

August 11, 2012

To clarify, for the readers, when I use the term “garbage dump communities” I speak specifically about the people who live in and near gigantic garbage dumps.  “Garbage dump dwellers,” as International Samaritan   refers to them, spend much of their time foraging for recyclable items from the garbage.  Many of them eat food that they find there, or take it home for their families to eat. Homes in the garbage dump communities tend to be crafted from aluminum, tin, cardboard, and other …

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Photos tell this story best

August 09, 2012

Before we ate lunch, we drove to the cemetery.  Why the cemetery? Because from the cemetery we could walk to an overlook and see the garbage dump from above– it was inside a crater-esque area.  For our bus to enter the cemetery, Juan Carlos had to pay as we drove through a gate.  We navigated to a spot far back, and he parked the bus.  All of us hustled out and followed Andres and Juan Carlos, police officer in front …

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Some excerpts!

August 09, 2012

Here are some excerpts of impressions from my journal (mostly about things you’ve already read about here) “There’s Jorge–My friend from St. Francis Coll, who sat next to me at the assembly and loved looking at the pics as I them them on my camera. He’s very talented: he played recorder, offered a greeting/welcome to us, and he played drums for another act.” “The generosity: these people live hospitality, abundance, welcoming.  The light in eyes–and yet also, in some, the …

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Welcoming the Stranger

August 08, 2012

Somersaults , music, and hula hoops later, our group of 14 set out into the neighborhood, to visit several homes. Our route led down a narrow lane; accompanied by several children from the Coll, numerous mangy dogs, and our police escort, we followed our Pied Piper, Andres. Most noticeable was the smell– which I had last noticed in Nicaragua– of burning trash.  It permeates everything and eventually is unremarkable, but that first walk, I thought, “Oh! I remember this.”  Once past the smell, I …

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