Hasta Luego, Guatemala!

By: Liz Aycock, March 25, 2011


Our group in front of Lake Atitlan.
Surrounded by Volcanoes San Pedro, Santiago, and Toleman.

Saying goodbye to Guatemala was incredibly difficult. I know I’m not the only one who felt so at home there, even though we didn’t really “fit in.” Getting on the plane I couldn’t believe it was the end of such an amazing week. There was laughter, intense discussions, hard work, lots of lacquer, extreme games of catch phrase in which we all bow down to Ginny as the winner, cold showers, delicious street fruit, delicious food in general, beautiful skylines, being enveloped in clouds, kids stealing cameras, kids screaming, kids that were all adorable, too cool for school six graders, girls beating the boys in basketball, a ceremony thanking us for our work that moved me to tears, Daniel being used as a human jungle gym, beautifully woven bags, scarves, and more, and the list goes on. Returning to UGA after such an awesome spring break seems unreal. I’m going to steal a quote from Ian: “I feel like we’ve left the real world by returning to UGA.” But our world is real- we just have to burst the bubble that is college and see what good we can help here. We just have to keep everything in perspective. Start small. Maybe then we can make a lasting impact on the world.

Our trip could not have been as successful as it was without the wonderful guidance of our amazing program directors- Karen and Ginny. Y’all are the bomb.com. I still have “Karen! Karen! Karen!” ringing in my ears from all the third-graders screaming your name. Thank you both so much! Also both of you, Dana, Jared, Hudson, and Cat all need to come to Athens so we can take you guys out Georgia style.

Lots of Love and GO DAWGS!,
Liz


Liz and girls from Cooperativa in front of some of our book cases.

Time For Celebration

By: Jessica, March 17, 2011


Liz and a group of 5th grade girls at Centro.

We all sincerely apologize for the delay in an update! We are just having entirely too much fun and haven’t had the down time.

You’ve read about the painting and the arranging, the teaching and the playing, but today our experience came to full fruition.

We began our day back at Central, this time experiencing the 3rd grade and 6th grade classes. I was particularly impressed with some of the 3rd graders knowing their numbers in English. A nice girl named Lillian attempted to teach me how to make the throaty sound in Kaqchikel. With no time to play with our new friends at recess, we rushed up to Cooperativa for the opening ceremony of the new biblioteca we finished Tuesday.


Our group looking in on our finished project!

The kids were ecstatic when we arrive. The picture frenzy and endless question began once again. The girls were definitely enjoying the “fotos locos” I asked them to take with me. It’s amazing to me how kids everywhere are so similar. The girls still pose the same way and the giggles sounds exactly the same. Boys, too; they would run up to poke a gringa then run away laughing as one of them took pictures on his camera phone…serious, a camera phone.

Our whole group was called up to the stage to begin the ceremony.
WOW.
We all were talking about how difficult it would be to describe the experience, but here’s to my attempt.


From the little Spanish I know, the director of the school made a touching speech of thanks about how invaluable our work had been for them. It was muy emocionada to hear how much they appreciated the project. Next was a series of dances by a lot of the kids. Some traditional, and some…not so much. There were two groups who performed HIP HOP dances in our honor. Snoopdog pumped some jams for their fly moves. I do believe break dancing occurred…

When the director Celso took the stage once again we though it was over. But he announced that the parents had gifts for us. Each of us was given a woven scarf made by the women of the families. It was the parents who bestowed this gift on us individually. I received mine from a woman who was absolutely beaming and once again expressed her thanks. This act of generosity was only countered by the meal of chicken, soup, and tomales they made for our lunch.


Chicken soup and tomales with some refreshing bottles of soda. There was a hilarious debate within our group if we were suppose to eat the leaf wrapping…turns out No, we were not.

The PD’s later explained that everything about that ceremony was not usual. The dancing, the gift, and the meal of meat are all incredible honors. Every aspect of the ceremony evoked indescribable emotions and we are all so grateful.


Chaquiyja is not to be pitied or looked down upon as ‘undeveloped’. They are a community of kindness, selflessness, and hope. Someone in our group put it best when they said, “Things don’t make you happy, so we shouldn’t just be trying to give them things.” To be honest, I didn’t even think about how I was doing them a service. They needed a library and we were here to make it happen. But what they have given us is perspective. The genuine benevolence of the community at Chaquiyja is overwhelming.

With tears in our eyes, we all agreed that there couldn’t have been a better way to say goodbye to Chaquiyja and Cooperativa.

We finished our day relaxing and shopping in Pana and danced the night away. Half way through the week and we can’t imagine leaving this beautiful place.

Talks, Trucks, and Tortillas

By: Liz Thorpe, March 16, 2011


Greetings from Hotamala! (Don’t worry; I really know it’s Guatemala..)
Today was a chill, relaxing day. I woke up to a sunny day and a beautiful view of Lake Atitlan. I am still amazed at how beautiful it is here. We enjoyed a delicious fresh fruit for breakfast. The peaches were my favorite, even though they look so different (here they are a dark, purplish color).

While we waited on two ladies to give us a tortilla-making lesson, I sunned out back with the rest of the group. It was great just basking there, chatting, and attempting to read my boring book for international affairs,A Nation of Enemies. It’s great that even though I’m on a service trip, I can still get some sun on spring break J Formal is next weekend..


While making our tortillas, we came up with a brilliant idea: we are going to start a new tortilla business venture in Athens and sell them on the street! Everyone will help make the corn tortillas except for Jessie; she will tend to the financial aspects of our business, since she dropped 4 or 5 tortillas on the ground!

We spent our afternoon in Pana; the ride down was quite exhilarating and almost like a roller coaster ride: we rode in the back of pickup truck that zoomed down the mountain towards the lake. The view was amazing!


Zooming down a mountain in the back of a pick up truck!

Pana was quite different from Sololá, where we have been for the past few days. It’s much more touristy and liberal but still fun, of course. There were more gringos than us, quite a few hippies actually. I bought a few souvenirs at the market, which I will refrain from describing considering who might be reading this blog..
We had an interesting discussion at a bar about sustainability and development in Guatemala. I enjoyed that I could contribute to the conversation after taking some international affairs classes. It still amazes me how happy and positive people here seem even after the war that only ended 15 years ago.

Now I am freshly showered (the warm water worked finally!) and we are about to play Catch Phrase. I can’t wait for what the rest of the trip brings!

Leaving Our Mark

By: Kelsey, March 15, 2011

“Abi Kelsey”, “Abi Anna”, “Abi Jesse”, “Abi Liz”… This is how we introduced ourselves to the 5th grade class of Central using our only knowledge of Kaqchikel. From there, we separated into four groups to review color, numbers and food all in English. All the while, the rest of the group was working hard to finish up the library at the Primaria Cooperativa down the road.


This is Moses. He is ten years old and is awesome. He’s in second grade, likes soccer and had great hula-hooping skills. He was one of many great kids we got to know today. All were super interactive, energetic and just overall loving towards us. Despite the occasional language barrier we seemed to get into long extensive conversations. Many of the girls could not understand why us 20 year old girls did not have “esposos,” or husbands.

The library looks fantastic. The two creative men of our group designed an artistic logo that will be forever displayed on the wall of this school. Now the children have new tables and chairs as well as new bookshelves to house the books that have been sitting in storage unused. We are looking forward to the big reveal on Thursday morning!


More tomorrow!
-UGA

First Day Wrap-Up

By: Ellie and Daniel. March 14th, 2011


It’s hard to believe that yesterday we were sitting at home, anxiously awaiting our trip, and wondering what we were going to encounter. Flash-forward to today and we can’t even imagine not being here. The past day has opened our eyes to such happiness, culture, poverty, and pride than we could have ever imagined. Last night we spent our time in the beautiful city of Antigua. The cobblestone streets and multicolored buildings are so hard to describe and must be seen first-hand to truly appreciate its beauty. We left Antigua early this morning for our 3-hour microbus ride to Sololá, an amazing lake town populated by indigenous people. We stopped at our hostel and were extremely surprised by the INCREDIBLE view out of our window. The town is situated next to the lake with pristine views of three volcanoes.



A microbus fits around 17 or 18 peoples, so imagine our surprise when we fit 26!!

After eating a fabulous breakfast of fresh fruit and pancakes cooked for us by the hostel, we headed out to town and then off to the Cooperativa school in Chaquijyá. We were greeted with open arms by the community and began lacquering the tables and chairs made especially for the library, cleaning and painting the walls of the library, and interacting with the amazing people that call Cooperativa their home. After a lunch packed by the hostel, we finished up our work for the day and walked around the town of Chaquijyá and had the opportunity to experience the reality of rural Guatemala. It was more than eye opening and truly an experience we will never forget. After climbing the hill back to the highway, we hopped into a crowded microbus- crowded is a complete understatement. In a bus for about 12 people, we piled in 28 people. It was cramped to say the least!

After a short ride, we stopped back in Sololá and walked around the town, grabbed some street food, and finally made it to the Manna house! Kat and Dana surprised us with a DELICIOUS blackberry and mango pie, and we all chatted and got to know each other better. We headed back to the hostel for a dinner of spinach and egg pie, sauced vegetables, and corn tortillas. We all caught up about the day and expressed our each individual views of Guatemala so far. Our journey has just begun, but from the mere day we have spent here, we know it will be life changing.

Peace, Love, and Manna

Ellie and Daniel

Wheels Up, Guate Bound!

(Hi guys! Just wanted to pop in and introduce myself really quickly. I'm Cassie, and I'm the new Director of Communications for Manna UGA! I'm super excited to keep you informed of the great things we have going on, but first I need to update all of you on the fantastic work our people did in Guatemala this spring break. So the next few posts will be recaps of things written by Guatemala spring-breakers during their trip. Peace, love, and Manna!)


Hello families, friends, lovers, Romans, countrymen, and everyone else!

So I’m the first to kick off the blog. Here’s a little pre-trip ramble for your enjoyment:

I think it’s finally sinking in that this time tomorrow, we’ll be in Central America. Craziness! We can’t wait to get to Chaquijyá and get our hands dirty doing some good work, not to mention getting to run around Guatemala experiencing the culture and seeing everything that this beautiful country has to offer! Personally, as the University of Georgia chapter president, I’m really excited to be sending our first team to MPI-G so that we can begin to establish relationships with the community here in the same way that we were able to do in Nicaragua last year.



On our side of things, we’ve all been doing some research on Guatemala and its history, both political and cultural, which we’ll be discussing as a team during our trip down. Throughout the week, we’ll be updating the blog every night with what we’ve seen and done that day. It will of course be rife with ridiculous nicknames, sweet inside jokes, censored accounts of pillow talk, and hopefully some tasty personal epiphanies. Get excited.

Keep our team in your thoughts and prayers as we make our way down tomorrow!

Ecuador Weekend Trip to Mindo!!

Austin Cogswell canyoning a 75m waterfall in Mindo, Ecuador! We started off our weekend excursion with a 5-hour hike/canyoning journey through the wilderness of the Andes.



PD Brock, an expert of canyoning and not wearing a shirt, shows off his flawless repelling techniques.



Natalie Rubel repels the third of the waterfalls which was measured at 80m! After we repelled down all of these waterfall, we had to cross a fierce river lead by our daring guides before climbing straight back up the mountain to head home.



The next day we headed to a zip-lining course which comprised of 10 different zip-lines all differing in length. Jackie Menk shows off her excitement!



While the weather wasn't great, the view was spectacular every time!



Some people decided to be a little adventurous while zip-lining including PD Luke who wanted to try it upside down.



Hannah tries zip-lining Superman!



A view of the Cloud Forest.

Post by Carter Galbraith, Ecuador Spring Break participant

Oh, hey 301 stairs...

View of central hill of Quito from the Basilica bell tower. This hill is the highest point in Quito and is the site of the Virgin of Quito, which looks toward the Basilica. This is also the site of the ancient Inca sacrifice grounds.

This morning we woke up somewhat well rested after being exhausted last night. Don Pablo (the rooster) woke Jackie and me up for the first time this week. Gandalf was up to his usual antics of jumping on Katie. We left the house at 8:30 and took the bus into Quito. The plan was to see two churches and the Plaza Grande.


Quito Basilica


Quito Basilica


Inside the Basilica

The first stop was the Basilica, which was built in the late 1890's and finished in 1906. We all discovered that the altitude was definitely more of an issue when you're attempting to climb 301 stairs to the top of the towers than at other times. We were able to climb both a clock tower and the dome. But we all made it, even PD Luke, who is afraid of heights! On the way out of the Basilica, we had a special tour of the cemetary where four previous presidents of Ecuador are buried. Before leaving the complex, we also grabbed some popsicles for a quick snack. Katie and I highly recommend the orange popsicles with ice cream filling.


Walking on the bridge to the dome over the Basilica


View from the dome


Our group on top of the dome


View of towers from dome

We then went to Plaza Grande, which has the Presidential Palace and the National Cathedral (the oldest church in South America). The Plaza has extra meaning now because it was the site of the September Police Coup that was attempted in response to Correra changing police contracts. He addressed the mob outside the Palace from a window ledge...if you're still interested, check out YouTube videos like we did tonight. It really puts a lot more emphasis and meaning behind the location.


Monument in Plaza Grande


Presidential Palace in Plaza Grande

We stopped by a small church (also beautiful) on the way to lunch. The Cafe had legendary Empanadas. After taking a poll of the guys who ordered both Carne and Pollo, the Carne wins, although the Pollo was excellent as well. After dinner, we stopped back by the Jesuit Church. No postcard pictures could capture the intricate gold leaf throughout the church or the intricate carvings. The tour guide took us around the church, the fallen belltower from the 1800s, and showed us the paintings located around the church. The most interesting thing I found was in the front where there was a real spiral staircase and a painted one because the Baroque style requires symmetry. The painted one is also supposed to symbolize the stairway to heaven.


Jesuit Church in Quito. The interior is entirely gold, but we weren't allowed to take pictures.


After leaving the church we left Quito to head back to Rumiloma to meet up with Christian and Laura from Añamisi. We went to a woman's garden to help her do some of planting, weeding, and bean picking. She works on it with her children and produces lots of vegetables for both consumption and to sell. We split into groups to work on planting onions, picking beans, and pulling weeds out of the beet rows. We had worked for a little while when a huge storm started up and drove us all inside, ending our work for the day. The woman had cooked up corn on the cob from her garden, which was absolutely delicious. We ate it with salt, Ají sauce (Austin's favorite), and cheese (traditional to eat with corn). I loved how the corn came off the cob so clean, unlike the corn in the US, and the kernels were huge. It was great talking to the lady through Christian as a translator about her life and family. She had a great time joking with us about if any of us were single for her sons!


The rows of onions we replanted and the rows of corn and beans.


All of us with the family and Christian and Laura with the impending storm in the background.

We went to Christian's house to hang out, eat some more corn, and talk about different cultural differences between Ecuador and the United States. Then, we came back to the house and convinced Brock and Luke to let us have breakfast for dinner (a collective favorite). I'm wrting this now while Austin and Morgan cook in the kitchen (pancakes, yummm) and Brock shows off his blog to Katie, Katie Beth, and Carter.

Off to dinner, then Mindo tomorrow! Ciao!

Post by Ashley Miles, Vice President Fundraising

Day 3

Our day started out with a nice little wake-up call from Brock, one of our PDs, at 8 o'clock on the dot. Aside from the other mini wake up call we received from the rooster (Don Pablo), and Gandalf the three-month-old kitten, it was a perfect morning for going to the Centro (the library that Manna operates). The wonderful and cheery neighbor of the Manna House, Cesar, gave us a ride to the Centro and kept yelling "Vecino!" at our group. "Vecino" means "neighbor" en espanol. We arrived at the Centro and immediately went upstairs to begin painting the workout room/kitchen/preventive health clinic/english classroom. The colors the PDs chose were a a light green and a deep blue. Painting was fun because we had good jams and great chemistry. Everyone here really gets along well, which is awesome considering we all didn't really know each other before the trip.


Women's exercise room before we painted


Painting the women's exercise room


The finished product!


Yoga mat holder for women's exercise that we made

Anyways, after taping up the room and painting it, a few of us went downstairs to play with the children who arrived at the Centro around 2:30pm. One boy in particular, Estiven, was very sweet as well as mischievous, considering he had to be tickled to death for something he did. All in good fun, of course. After mingling with the children and attempting some broken Spanish, we headed over to a local panaderia (a store that sells baked goods) to get some good eats. After that we hopped on the bus back to the Manna house and got in the showers for our night out in Quito.


The girls all ready for dinner in Quito!


The boys before dinner in Quito!


Some of the group at Vista Hermosa!

After we all got beautified and cleaned up, we were actually a pretty good looking crowd. We hopped on a bus and then a taxi to head to Vista Hermosa. Vista Hermosa (which means Beautiful View) was quite possibly one of the most beautiful (and delicious) things we have yet to experience in Ecuador. The view was insane and seemed to stretch on for miles. The churches were lit up beautifully and we all had a great time, with great food, great music, and a great view. One of the PDs was actually there separately celebrating her birthday. We got to sing to and embarrass her a bit. We got in a taxi, everyone in a food coma, and came home. After a quick little discussion we went to sleep. Overall, another amazing day in Ecuador!

Post by Natalie Rubel, a volunteer for UGA Manna

Day 2

Painting by Guayasamin

Day 2 in Ecuador started out bright and early at 7 in the morning. After a quick breakfast of Zucaritas (Frosted Flakes Hispanic style) the group took two different buses to the city of Quito to go visit the infamous Guayasamin museum, a museum dedicated to the paintings of the famous native Ecuadorian who depicted South America in general through his works. Now, let me be honest here. I get as excited to go to museums as little children do to eat their vegetables. It is just something that does not interest me. So when I got chills after the first few paintings, I gotta say I was impressed. Guayasamin does an impeccably excellent job of capturing true suffering of the indigenous people not only of his country, but around the South Ameican continent. He really draws you into the paintings. So after the tour of the museum, where little replica painting souvenirs were purchased, and a visit to his house, which included us asking little Ecuadorian children to take pictures with us because yes, apparently we are creepy, we left for the city to do a little bit of shopping.


Dome of Guayasamin's Chapel of Man


View of Pichincha volcanoes from the Chapel of Man


Guayasamin's painting of the Pichinchas


Guayasamin's house

Around noon we ate at a delicious little open restaurant in town. Now while many of us got watermelon juice and chicken sandwiches, the rest purchased hot chocolates with grilled mozarella cheese sandwiches to dip them in. Uhm. I am never eating hot chocolate without a cheese sandwich ever again. Delicious. So after that awesome meal we did what all the girls, and probably guys too but they won´t admit it, have been anxiously awaiting. Shopping. We had one hour to go around to all the little shoppes and bargain the heck out of prices until we got a decent price for our item. Super successful. I got about 20 Ecuadorian gifts for 60 dollars for friends and family members back home. After that we were taken to a DVD store where movies were sold for a $1.50. Old and new, even ones that were still in theater. Needless to say the day in Quito was a highly successful bargain hunting spree.

After all that activity we went to the El Centro de Manna to see what we could do. Some played games with the kids, while I helped out Hannah, one of the MPI leaders, teach basic English to a class of about 12 children. They were restless and tired from already having gone to school earlier that day but watching them practice their English and see how excited they got when they got the answer right was probably one of my favorite experiences in Ecuador. They were hilarious but very bright. After class was done they all scattered around, many begging to play UNO games while others asking you to color with them. Playing with the kids was probably the best part of the day.

The hardest part would have to be the exercise class that Natalie Rubel, a fellow UGA Manna volunteer, and I agreed to participate in to help the participants see what they were supposed to do. Let´s just say we could barely keep up, much less raise our arms after the class was over. It was a great class and it´s an awesome way for the local women to have a little time to themselves and also to socialize with each other in their busy schedules. After the exercise class, around 8 at night, we headed back home to a delicious dinner of beans, sausage, and rice and relax and chat around the kitchen table. All in all, an excellent day.

Post written by Ana Lopez, a volunteer for UGA Manna

Ecuador Day Uno!!

Luke and Brock making breakfast

Today started out with a lazy morning at the house. Luke made French toast and Brock made eggs, both of which were delicioso! After breakfast and showers we dragged chairs out into the lawn for an orientation and discussion about Ecuador and Manna Project´s role in the country. An interesting note from our discussion is the difference between the goals of Manna Ecuador and Manna Nicaragua. While Manna Nicaragua works to fill basic needs in the community such as basic health care and vitamins for children living in La Chureca (the city dump), Manna Ecuador is more focused on education and nutrition. The Ecuador group runs a library that serves a community on the outskirts of Quito while also serving as an area for Program Directors to teach English, children´s art, women´s exercise, cooking and nutrition classes.


Manna Ecuador house

After lunch at the house we all hopped on a bus up to Rumiloma where we got a tour of the library Manna Ecuador runs. The library is on the third floor of the building, with a teen room and children´s art area around the corner. Upstairs is the exercise room and where the Program Directors teach women´s exercise and cooking classes (complete with a tiny oven and stove). We headed up to the roof for some incredible views of the surrounding mountains and the nearby plateau that Quito sits upon.


El Centro sign


Our group on top of El Centro


Mural in the teen center


Library


Library

We headed down the street to Fundacion Añamisi to work in their organic garden. A group the week before had cleaned up the front garden, so we headed out back and ripped out weeds, trowled the dirt, and reorganized the rows. We made quite a dent on the work that needed to be done helping out Laura and Christian, the organization´s leaders. Afterwards we headed inside for a discussion of the organization and how they got started in a country that doesn´t practice sustainable agriculture. The organization helps out local farmers by selling their organic produce in Quito and through an internet ordering service. They are quite an impressive pair, and they even showed us a video of Rafael Correra (the president of Ecuador) congratulating them for winning a competition. Check out their website http://delamataalaolla.wordpress.com/ !


Working in the organic garden

After snapping a few pictures and chasing down a bus, we headed back to the house for taco dinner and went on a walk to get some empenadas. We finished out the night with a discussion of our activities and some brainstorming about how we can bring the goals of Manna Ecuador back to Athens. Tomorrow starts bright and early, since we´re headed into Quito for the morning!

Post written by Morgan Ackley, Vice President of Public Relations