Monday 11th
BIG DAY!
After another early rise, though it's now 5.40, so we're slowly getting there...
Michele and Sam start school, their fifth different one in 24 months, or in 3 school years!
The settling-in is helped by the fact that their classes (primero - 1st and tercero - 3rd) have English at the start of the day and not only that's obviously easier, but by now they know the teachers, as they are all volunteers.
Mattia starts teaching (still together with Carlin for the transition) in tercero (3rd) in the morning and sexto (6th) in the afternoon, so yes, he's in Michele's class, but the boy is happy with that, so it's fine!
Elena has some time for herself, to continue arranging our new room/house and understanding life on the roof in general and to study Spanish.
Mattia starts worrying Elena, by challenging standards, as, when faced with a long queue for the bus to come back from the shopping centre, he decides to walk the 2.5km though it's already 7.00pm. However, he comes back safe and said it felt like a safe move, as there were still people around; we're encouraged to follow an 8.00pm curfew, so it was an awkward choice but not a reckless one, even more so because there's no sure time at all; moreover, volunteers have never been directly affected by violence and the main road is safer than the secondary ones.
Tuesday 12th
Our standard day starts (apart from the crazy wake-up time) at 7.15, when teacher Mattia must be in class to welcome students, so TheBoys go down with him (yes, school is on the first (second?) floor of the building, so we just go downstairs!).
7.30-8.00 (more likely 8.10) All classes have breakfast with their teacher; food is provided by the school to make sure students from this poor neighbourhood are properly fuelled (more on that on another occasion).
8.00-10.00am First school slot, with English for grades 1-2-3.
10.00-10.30 Morning break - English teachers off for the rest of the morning
10.30-12.30 Second school slot
12.30-1.00pm (1.10...) Lunch: we get it from the kitchen and take it to TheBoys, while the other kids have it delivered in lunch boxes from their families. Mattia has it with 6th class.
1.10-3.30pm Third school slot, with English for grades 4-5-6.
Like the previous night, today we had community dinner with all the volunteers, both those living on the roof and the three living in a house nearby.
Wednesday 13th
Mattia is now teaching by himself and it seems to be going well.
Today, first exposure to the main problem of this area, which is not really poverty (yes, they don't fare well at all, but they survive much better than in Africa), but gang violence. The news is that yesterday a fifth grader's father was shot and killed, so in the afternoon the school closes "in solidarity with the family", to allow the teachers to go to a funeral house for the velorio, a sort of vigil where to meet the family. Most of the English teachers join the Guatemalan ones for this trip to the city centre and Mattia engages in a really touching conversation with the guy, to try and steady him up a bit, given his dreadful situation.
Actually, the exposure was even harsher then this sentimental moment, as when leaving the school, the teachers had to walk to the next bus stop, as buses where not reaching our place at that time, and a few hundred metres away, we found out why: a large group of people were gathered around a yellow-tape fenced area where policemen were standing next to a woman crying her heart out over the covered dead body of a relative (the news we got in the next days was that it was her 15 year old daughter). We quietly moved to the other side of the street.
We knew this was the local reality, but two in two days is a high rate even for the local standards and most of all, as prepared you think you can be, as with many other things in life, once you experience something so close, especially your first violently killed body, it's still quite a shock.
Thursday 14th
Time for Elena to start working: today, first meeting with the nurse and other people involved in the clinic, to introduce herself and lay down a few ideas and proposals on how she can complement or expand their activities. Great response, so the best physio in the world is quite happy, even more so because she could understand everything and managed to speak well too, even outside her prepared speech.
In the evening, farewell party for Lin and Thomas, a couple of nice volunteers from the Netherlands who have been working here for three months in the reforzamiento programme, morning and afternoon school activities for kids of nearby schools, who work only on half-days. They're off for some long travelling through Guatemala and most of the rest of Central America, then back home for an unknown future. It was lucky to come just in time to meet them!
We had some balloons, which delighted the kids, and a good dinner, with delicious fruit and choco-bananas for starters (pictures here/ oops, not yet!).
Friday 15th
The most-awaited day of the school week is finally here: sport morning, when two buses take 2nd and 3rd to a swimming pool and the other classes to a sport park, where Sam enjoys his first skating lesson,. Mattia and Elena follow Michele to the pool, not only for profe Mattia to supervise the boys in the changing room (a first for them), but also to enjoy some swimming (Elena), or turn swimming instructor (Mattia) for our dear colleague Fernanda who wanted to improve her technique. Just like in Rwanda, Michele gave up well before time, as the very basic activities they take the classes through imply too much going in and out of the water, which makes him feel terribly cold; anyway, he enjoyed all the same, partly because before and after the lesson they've got plenty of time to play around the hard-courts outside the pool. Mattia has already told Carlin that from next time he can help introducing some more structured games to involve more students and make it a more proper P.E. morning.
Saturday 16th
Quiet morning at home, apart from a trip to the shopping centre to cash Mattia's first sueldo (salary)., which is paid every fortnight. It's definitely not much, as there's 4 of us to support with that, but hopefully they'll be able to find some funds for Elena too.
Next week M&S will join the gran maratón, a simple run of 1 or 2 km for school kids, so the 3 boys of the family decide to go for a first training session, though the surroundings are not exactly a lovely running spot. Unfortunately the first option, the nearby football pitch (or "field", as otherwise we are not understood by our co-workers...), is already in use (and anyway it's considered off-limits by some), so crazy daddy takes an even more discouraged route: down the main road to the infamously violent next neighbourhood, Búcaro, for a down and up the hill 2km run, which the boys manage to go through quite well, especially considering the steep return journey. Was it that reckless? We were later told it was not a really good move, but they've also acknowledged that a white father with two kids doing training can allow himself much more roaming freedom than locals or women volunteers. However, though it didn't feel dangerous at all (people gave us fleeting glances but mostly didn't mind us much), it wasn't a nice run anyway (all on the road, next to lots of rubbish, which surprised Michele for the horrible smell), so most likely we are not going to do again.
Sunday 17th
What a better way to start Sunday than with Elena's famous pancakes!
After that, first trip outside the city, in the nice company of fellow volunteers Fernanda (American of Mexican origins, definitely our closest friend), Maria (from Spain), Anya (Finnish-American), and Meriem (French), to Lago Amatitlán. It's quite close, though it takes around one hour as we take the bus from the main bus station, and the journey is fine, as there are seats for all of us. Once there, we're all shocked by the colour of the lake: vivid green, really like paint! Some of our friends had already been there, but it was not like that at all; over lunch (pupusas, sort of pancakes, with queso -cheese and/or chicharrón -meat or frijoles - beans) Mattia asks the waiter about it and she explains it's not extreme pollution as we feared (though she confirms the lake's not clean due to some rubbish-contaminated inflow), but just seasonal differences due to temperature and wind, which influence the growth and movement of algae. Despite the uninspiring look, daddy can't leave the boys down, so he keeps the promise of a boat trip and accompanied by the brave Fernanda rows on the lake for half an hour, helped also by Michele, and partly Sam, who enjoy learning and trying themselves at the one-person two-oars sport. We came out of the boat with some green spots on our shirt, but it was great fun! After some hide&seek in a dirty park (and a gorgeous coconut bar), it's already time to go back (we'll keep the tourist-targeted horses for the next time).
In the evening, second training session, this time to the aforementioned football field, which we've heard different, more reassuring, comments on, so we took the risk (no visible signs of anything, and there were a few kids around as well, it's just that it was the site where some shooting happened in the past, but then where hasn't that happened, around here?). The main issue was the surface: nobody expects perfectly trimmed grass, but all that sand still left us quite baffled!
