Email journal: July 16, 2005, Guatemala Hello! I will do my best to match you all up on the last weeks, it has been incredibly busy and exciting, and full of adventures! Sabrina and I left the school in Xela last week and have been at the mountain school for a full week. Our time in Xela was great, and we were sad to say goodbye to our groups of kids. The students at the Proyecto Cultural, next to our school, were an incredible group of kids. They showed up diligently threeish days a week to play with us, and we in turn kept their games exciting. We made some great friends in that group, and I hope at some point I will be able to return to that school. The other group in Xela was a more of a challenge. We played at an orphanage which was one of the most humbling and gratifying experiences, also one of the most upsetting. The orphanage, called the Hogar Abierto, was behind a series of large black doors. As one series opened, the others locked shut behind us, making us essentially locked in a HUGE building with 200 kids. The one adult we saw the first day put a kid in charge of us, and he led us through the inside to a large, open, cement patio. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of children there. Every arm, finger, leg, waist was embraced, and kids latched onto my middle, spitting questions of age, name, and whether we wanted to play with them. It was an incredibly intense group, the overwhelming feeling of too many children, not enough hands to hold, not enough anything for them… The game was an event in and of itself. We divided the large group into two teams, and when the leader told a little boy he couldn’t play he found is way to my side and spent the next minutes following me around the field step for step. At times, kids would fall in tears to the cement and lie in a ball waiting for someone to come brush off their knees. It killed me, it still does, to know that no one in that place will have the mom they desire come kiss their bruises away. I struggled a lot to play while trying to give a minutes worth of attention to kids ranging in age from 4 to 12. (this gets a little more interesting, but be disclaimed, that all is well). Two little boys began to brutally fight with each other, throwing punches and uncomfortably being violent with each other. Everything I know about breaking up a fight is not to do it. Yell stop, yell no, do anything but put your body in front of the fight. But really, who watched two 8 year olds hurt each other. Sabrina doesn’t. She ran to the fighting kids and pulled them apart, in turn taking an elbow to her nose. When I finally reached her, her blood was mixed with the tiny hands trying to help her. I had a panicky few moments of holy crap we are in another country, holy crap her nose is really broken, and holy crap how to we get to a hospital. All is well, though! Gratefully, a wonderful doctor checked her out and she has a small fracture, nothing in the greater lesson we all learned. The kids the next day were incredibly well behaved. It was a lesson in healthcare and the things we take for granted. It was a lesson in learned behavior, and the need for social services. The place left a really big impression on me. It left a much bigger one on Sabrina. The school in the mountains is an incredible place. The director, on the first night, asked us to look at it more as a project then as a school. It unites two coffee communities and provides an invaluable economic resource for these two groups. 60% of the people here are illiterate. This part of the country has the worst levels of poverty, mainly because of abandoned fincas which refuse to pay their workers for backed labor. The school, aside from being a great place to learn Spanish, works closely with the families, gives scholarships for kids to go to school, gives families work hosting students, and the school is entirely maintained (aside from lynn and bob) by the community. It truly is a special place. We played with a local group of kids. First I met with one of the wome n leaders in the community and presented her with the final shirts. We visited the school and spent a morning learning the process of a two room school house, then watched a play by the kids. Friday, the school played against the community kids. The field was cut into a patch of the coffee finca, the cloud covered mountains rose out of it, and everyone, the 50 or so that played, left smiling and sweaty. (Mom don’t read) we took a pickup to the small town nearby, and laughed from the back as we held on for our lives among roads, littered with signs saying peligroso curves. (mom don’t look again) I am currently in mexico. It has been a really long and kind of less than smart weekend trip to a beach. Im not at the beach, in fact I cant remember the name of the city, but in case you want to jump boarders, remember to both change money before you get to the remote town that doesn’t accept quetzals, and remember to keep a sense of humor. My friend Rebecca and I will leave at 5 tomorrow morning, and we have some stories to tell. Finally, last weekend we visited my friend Pauls home city. We volunteered in the morning at an art class dedicated to maintaining traditional mayan art, and after we traveled, (again in the back of a pickup) to a group home which singly supports 29 indigenous students for the year, giving room, board, school scholarships, clothing and all the little extras on a budget of $25,000 a year. The man David, is an incredible teacher, surrogate father, and wants to see kids who are otherwise discriminated in school succeed. We played soccer with them as well, and left them with a stack of new shirts and balls. It is hard to describe what its like to experience these places. I am overflowing with new ideas and plans and knowledge. I hit the half way point last week, and I have another week of soccer stuff before Sabrina and I travel, and before my mom comes for ten days as well. We will finish up the official soccer work this week. I think I could write a book about experiences here with a soccer ball. Be well. Peace. Rebecca