another day in the jungle: March 2009

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Bathrooms for the NUFED School

Last week we began the construction project at the NUFED School. The project in its entirety will be quite a bit more extensive, but we are beginning with the student bathrooms. Here are Henri (Nufed teacher), Sebastian (contractor), Julian Mayen (President Parents Committee) and another teacher from the school, in front of the present bathrooms. As can be noted, there are only two bathrooms with doors (those two have toilets inside) and although those two toilets are drained to a septic tank, there is no running water so water for flushing has to be carried by bucket from the water source several meters away. There are also no sinks for hand washing. The plan is to construct a cement wall in front of the present structure and a dividing wall in the middle between the 4 bathrooms (creating a boys side and a girls side), with doors on either end that can be locked. The building will be properly plumbed (water in and waste out) and 4 toilets and 2 sinks installed.

By last Monday morning, the basic materials ... cement block, sand and gravel (and cement that is not pictured) had been delivered and the project was ready to begin.

Since this is a technical school, the plan is to teach a mini-course in several aspects of construction ... primarily plumbing, block/cement work and painting. About 35 students from all 3 grades (7, 8 and 9) have opted to take this mini-course. The construction project began with a class given by Don Sebastian in how to do an estimate for a job.

It was decided that 7 students would participate each day in the actual construction. Immediately the young men were directed to the smashing digging door removal type jobs ...

and the young women to cleaning the old toilets.

I pointed out to those in charge that this might be a bit of gendrification ... they agreed, calling it "machismo" ... and before I knew it, the labor jobs were more equally dispersed.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Gardening Again

Our new volunteer, Allison Hayes, has been having a wonderful time helping the women to get their square foot gardens back up and running. Aleta Leigh, who has been working on a variety of projects since her arrival, has volunteered to help with the garden building and to translate when necessary. Here are the two women with Gloria Mejia, whose garden they have just finished planting.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Volunteer Teacher at the NUFED School

Aleta Leigh, our first Alaskan volunteer, (shown here with some of her students), has been working as an Ix-canaan volunteer for over a month now teaching English at the NUFED School. The NUFED School is a technical institute here in the village that teaches grades 7, 8 and 9 to students who have little chance of furthering their educations. English is a very important subject for them, since many of the jobs locally are in the tourism industry, and their services will be much more in demand if they are bilingual.

The NUFED School meets for full day classes every second week (most Guatemalan schools are in session either in the morning or in the afternoon) so that the students do not have to pay for transportation or rooming fees for the entire month. During the weeks when the school has been out of session, Aleta has found time to act as the interpreter for the group of dentists that were here for a week, she helped out with the unpacking and organizing of medicines that the pre-med group brought down, and now she is working with the Women's Group to reinstate their garden initiative.

Here she is with her Grade 7 class. (Note that the school building has no doors or windows, unfinished walls and a dirt floor).

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Breakfast in the Jungle

Dusk, Dawn and Brother (I'm not sure who's who in this shot) eagerly munch up their breakfast up on their shelf, while Tzolkin, the chou chou, crunches his up outside on the patio.

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Angel in Her Element

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The Sun Oven

Dana Machovec visited El Remate for 10 days and while here, was able to demonstrate the use of this Sun Oven that she then donated to Project Ix-canaan to use as a model for building others here in the community.

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Mirror Image

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Entertainment in the New Mall

Who needs the fair when one has a new escalator to ride for free?? Few residents of Peten have ever seen an escalator in motion and when the new mall turned on their new escalator, the kids went crazy going up and down, up and down for the entire afternoon!!

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Scholarship Students

Elsa (top) and Aracely have returned to school as "adult students" with a scholarship from Project Ix-canaan. These two young ladies were forced to leave school when they finished grade 6, and they both have now registered for the Adult Upgrading classes in Santa Elena, with the desire to become secretaries.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

A Fourth Student

Delmi Estair Sinto is the most recent addition to our scholarship program. Delmi is 15 years old, and, like many girls from poor families, was forced to leave school 3 years ago, at the end of Grade 6, for lack of funds. She and her mother came to me shortly after school started this year to ask for the funding help to enroll her in Grade 7 of the NUFED School (a technical institute here in the village for grades 7, 8 and 9). Thanks to the ongoing support of Laura Bunting (Alberta), Dina Hanson (B. C.), Linda Kiernan (Alberta), Artane Woodwork (Calgary) and Play with Perspective (Calgary), I was able to include Delmi as our fourth scholarship student.

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The People

People came in droves to wait for a turn to be seen by a dentist. These few you see here are the ones that made it up to THE SEATS ... the place for those who were next on THE LIST. To get on the list, they had to get here first in the day. Hence, the early mornings for all of us involved in making up The List.

There were families present from all of the villages in the area. Many would start arriving with the early morning bus and plan to spend the whole day standing, waiting.

There were usually a couple of neighborhood entrepeneurs selling munchies of some kind for the dental crew, as well as the long lines of patients who declined to leave to look for food.

This young woman impressed everyone with her patience and bravery throughout her extended time in the chair.

I heard several kids in line discussing the fact that they felt they could endure just about anything to get a pair of those Crocs!!

A Practical Gift

It is important on a limited budget here in the jungle to make every penny count ... so when a husband is buying a gift for his wife for Valentines Day, what better gift than a fluffy pink one that keeps right on growing until it creates breakfast (eggs, I mean eggs!).

A New Laptop

Thanks to Chris and John Guilbeault of Alberta,Canada for their donation of a used laptop computer. This laptop is much appreciated and will be used to increase our computer class size from 6 to 7 students per hour.

Thanks also go to Brad Krusky of Dentistry for All, who provided the pickup and transportation of the laptop, from Alberta to Peten.

Preparing for the Group Shot

Friday, March 06, 2009

Dental Journey 2009

A team of 11 (mostly) Albertans from the Canadian group "Dentistry For All" arrived last weekend to begin a full 5-day Dental Journey here at Project Ix-canaan.

The potential patients began lining up at 4 a.m. on the first day, and by the final day, we were awakened at 1 a.m. by the sounds of people waiting in line outside the clinic with their towels or blankets over their shoulders to be sure they would be one of the 50 - 60 people that the dentists would be able to work with that day ...

The team set up four stations for cleanings and fillings ...

as well as one station for extractions ...

and another for sterilization of equipment and giving away of toys and gifts to the patients.

And here are a couple of satisfied patients exiting with their frozen mouths and arms full of toys and ... best of all ... Crocs!!

Monday, March 02, 2009

A Three-Month Volunteer

For the last three months, Margo Van der Sluys, from Holland, has been here volunteering with Project Ix-canaan. Margo loves weaving, and while here, she did a lot of experimenting with various materials and she taught several young people the tecnique.

She also spent many hours involved in various types of educational activities with a group of children through the Ix-canaan Library.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

A New Butcher Shop

El Remate's first Meat Market (Carniceria) sells only the freshest beef!

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Lunch at the Women's Center

After spending the morning unpacking and organizing medicines and medical supplies, we continued on our tour of Project Ix-canaan, ending at the Centro Femenino where the Ix-canaan Women's Group was prepared to serve an excellent lunch of tamales and black bean salad.

After lunch, we went to visit and talk with the nurse's aid at the local Puesto de Salud to get a rounded view of the medical services offered in a small village.

The nurse was joined by the technician who is running the new Malaria Prevention Program, also through the Puesto de Salud, who explained the new program and showed how it has lowered the cases of malaria in our area from thousands per year to just 75 cases in 2008.

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