One Way United

From August 18th to August 28th we plan on joining members of our church, Westminster Chapel, in a mission trip to the tiny village of Cajixay in the Guatemalan highlands…We have a new page describing this upcoming trip HERE.  There are also pictures of past trips on the picture page.

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Back in Quito, I sit at this high tech internet cafe trying to think of words to describe this experience.  It seems like there is so much to say but no words come to mind.  In a nutshell, I loved my time in that tiny village.  At the end, I felt like I was a part of the community and it was hard leaving.  But, it was time to move on.  Our main goal was to teach the guides English and we did not accomplish what we set out to do, but somehow it didn’t matter.  The guides were in the middle of the busy tourist season and they did not want to spend their free time learning English.  So we only had one teaching session with them lasting an hour and no more.

Our main activity turned out to be teaching English at the small school in the village.  We taught two classes for a half hour each day.  In one class there were younger children between 4 - 8 years of age.  In the other class there were children aged from around 9 - 12 years.  None of these kids have ever had exposure to English before so we had to start completely from scratch.  By the end we had taught the bigger kids common words and phrases, the alphabet, numbers to one hundred, subject pronouns, the present tense of the verb to be and 4 other common verbs.  There was no way we were going to attempt to teach the younger kids verbs (keeping their attention for any amount of time over a minute was a real challenge).  We taught them the alphabet, numbers to 20, colors, a few animals, and a few body parts.  While this might not seem like much, believe me, this was plenty of material for them.  When a lot of the younger kids began being able to count from 11 to 20 without help from us, I felt like superman. 

When I was in high school, I thought there was no way I would ever be a teacher.  I feared public speaking and maybe did not want to think about that kind of responsibility.  However, after teaching these children in Agua Blanca in Spanish, I discovered I could actually picture myself as a teacher.  I’m not saying I want to become a teacher, I am only saying I can picture it now.  It is so fun when children actually get what you are teaching them.  In the bigger kid class, we had several competitions to review material that we taught.  When kids came up with the right answer it was very rewarding.  While it was very hard to keep the attention of the littler kids, I enjoyed teaching them as well.  I liked the challenge in finding ways to keep their attention and when they come up with a right answer, their faces really light up.

Besides teaching the children, we spent a lot of time in the fields helping out with agriculture.  The main crop are bananas.  It was a great way to start out the morning.  We would rise to the roosters at around 7:00 but refuse to get out of bed for another hour (for me anyway).  We would eat breakfast that a family prepared for us and then walk to the banana fields with a machete or a knife in hand.  The activity we did most often was cutting dead branches off trees but it was more fun than it sounds.  There is just something fulfilling and peaceful about working outdoors.  One time we were clearing out an area with Camilo (we stayed at his house) and I got to hack up a good sized tree (ok it wasn’t that big) with a machete.  It was so fun!  We generally worked until 10:00 when classes began at the school.  After we were done teaching for the day we sometimes went back out to the fields and worked for another hour and a half. 

The rest of the time was spent either swimming at this peaceful thermal lagun (when big groups of tourists weren’t coming through), chatting it up with tourists, reading, playing with kids, and just being a part of the community.  By the end, I knew many people’s names (especially the kids) and when people saw us, they would light up and try to make conversation.  During our second week there people didn’t look at us like another tourist.  We began to be a part of the community.  That being said, I’m going to miss the people of that village, especially the kids.  Now, it’s back to the regular life of a traveler, which isn’t so bad.  Amanda (my sister for the uninformed) will join us in a couple days here in Quito and then we will most likely be moving north again.  We have to make it to Guatemala in 5 weeks after she arrives (yikes!)  In Guatemala, Adam and I will join our church’s mission trip to the small village of Cajixay on the 18th of August, while Amanda will have to fly back.  Soon, there will be a page up about the upcoming church trip to Guatemala.  For now, love to all, and for all those lost in the busyness of the real world…hang in there!  : )

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