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| Waiting for a new ONIL stove - and perhaps a block house. |
Belated
greetings. Time flies! Needless to say there has not been a dull
moment. First of all, the ever changing Canadian characters: Jacqueline
Mealing arrived on the 5th of February and jumped right into the fray
helping with the dental team, engaging weavers in making scarves for us, and
growing an initiative that includes stoves, in La Cruz, which is a very poor
part of San Lucas Toliman (see Jacqueline’s blog below). Then new University
graduate Robin Lattimer arrived. She is writing up a report on all our
activities here on behalf of ICO. She followed us around for a few days and
took lots of notes before continuing her 2-year adventure in Latin
America.
On the
10th, Margaret Gray and Suzanne Hamilton arrived. They are also
visiting 2 other ongoing (and separate from San Antonio) ICO scholarship
programs in San Pedro and Solola. In San Antonio they are using their
expertise in teaching English as a foreign language to work with some of our
high school scholarship students. Best of all, they are here for a month and
are involving themselves wherever needed.
Dianne
Perry (above), our adventure coordinator, who pitched in and made herself
indispensable, left last Sunday after 3 weeks of full-on activity. The
First Aid `course´ for teachers was a hit and the school now has a well stocked
First Aid Kit as does the Centro Qawinaq. Dianne will be especially
remembered for the Ancianas´ Beauty Salon. All the wonderful elders who come
for lunch and social time on Mondays were offered a shampoo and massage of the
scalp. They jumped at the offer and a great time was had by all. [Below: two of the lucky recipients of Dianne's beauty treatment.]
Maria
Consalvo (below), our very entertaining, extremely dedicated, professional dental
assistant departed on the 14th after donating 6 weeks of her time and much
needed skills to the dental initiative. She held her own admirably in
this sea of aging volunteers!!
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| Maria and Ursula provide piezo cleaning service, using the Rotary donated Mobile Dental Unit |
Tricia
Timmermans just left yesterday, after 6 weeks of being an
integral part of the dental team, teaching English twice a week, attending
Board meetings (below) and giving invaluable advice on that subject and much
more. And John Snively, el dentista, without whom none of that
program would have happened, has now retired to his home across the Lake for
some well-earned vacation time (see his blog entry below).
In the
meantime our local 'staff' has been going full tilt organizing the ONIL stove
deliveries in 4 different locations. We've hired Beatriz (below, interviewing a possible stove recipient), a young high
school graduate, to head up the project here in San Antonio and she is doing an
amazing job of organizing this. The others are old hands at it,
thankfully. A couple of weeks ago we went to a village above Santa
Catarina where we will place 25 stoves. I love the trips to these places
where the population is small, there is much more land and lots of it is fairly
flat and the village is more spread out. Each family has room for chickens,
pigs and can grow vegetables. However the families are large and poor so this
may not last very long as they divide the property up among the children.
Another
amazing thing that is happening for us here is the donation of a lovely
piece of property with a small stone and wood house and beautiful garden on
it. It was purchased and built 24 years ago by 3 men from the U.S. who
have recently come to realize that their infrequent visits to San Antonio (the
last one nearly 10 years ago) don’t justify keeping a house here. Having formed
heartfelt connections in the community here they didn’t want to merely sell the
property. When they heard about our program the donation process started (with
negotiations being handled by Owen, a delightful young nephew of one of the
owners) and the house is to be used for our Centro Qawinaq. In order to do this
I had to be given power of attorney on behalf of ICO and we are in the process
of finalizing this. Owen and I met in the lawyer’s office in Guatemala City on
the 29th of February (photo below) and did a preliminary signing. I will have to go back
again to sign one more thing but it is basically done. In the meantime the keys
have been handed over and we have taken possession. One of the Directiva
members, Cristobal, has leapt into action using all his skills to
organize the purchase and installation of a pump and water pipes so we can get
water from the lake for the garden (a major production), install ‘balcones’ or
gates on the doors and windows, pull up the old tile floor and replace it with
cement, and treat the wood in the building for bugs that are eating it! Francisco
is talking to the municipality to see about getting hooked up to drinking
water, and before that happens we need to clean out the never-used water tank
and the taquacin that are living in the structure surrounding the tank.
These are animals that look like a cross between a rat and a possum and make a
lot of noise on a corrugated metal roof.
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| Owen and Kathy signing the legal papers. |
Before
we started digging things up the Friday morning, pre-school children came for a
visit to inspect the house and then sit on the grass and draw pictures of
flowers and trees. The scene was perfect and they were awfully
cute. All the Maya involved with the Centro are thrilled about this gift
and eager to help do whatever is needed. It has been very rewarding to work on
it together. Francisco commented at a meeting that many times in the past
groups have formed to try to do something in San Antonio for the benefit of the
village in whatever form BUT they hardly ever get anywhere for lack of funds.
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| Gate to the property |
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| Outside deck of the casita |
The
tutoring program seems to be a great success. Our scholarship students who go to high school in another town are
working hard for their transportation money. Each one tutors a small group of
students from the primary school, who, according to their teachers, are not
doing very well and could use some extra help. Often in the homes there are too
many children, or the parents can neither read nor write, so doing homework
gets completely neglected and the children suffer in school. Felipa (below, entertaining the kids in the new centre), our Centro Qawinak coordinator,
has met with all the parents to explain the program and they are
thrilled.
It is
amazing to be a part of all this thanks to your amazing support. We are
growing a program and hope you will grow with us and know you are a huge part
of it and that without you it wouldn’t happen. Thank you and know that you
have been blessed many times by those who are benefiting from your generosity.
Kathy Coster, March 3, 2012
