Kids and Coffee

Hola!  Day 6 here in Guatemala has been exciting for all of us. We were lucky enough to sleep in a tad since we had a slightly later start today! We gathered at our school (Casa Xelaju) before heading off to our first site of the day. We went to Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta de Educacion Especial Xelaju, a elementary school for kids with disabilities in Quetzaltenango. The teachers brought the kids out to the center courtyard where we circled up and intermixed with the kids. We used this time to sing the songs that we learned in Spanish class last week! The kids were so excited to be singing the songs with us, and some of them really got into it and were dancing along as well. They even shared a new song that they knew with us! The joy that these kids had made everyone in our group so happy, and the experience brightened everyone's day.  After singing, we were given a tour of the school. It was a pretty small school with few resources, so it really hit us hard. We all could see that the lack of funding was apparent, so it was difficult to see the conditions of the school. However, we were all happy to hear that the school has really helped these kids to progress in their skills and has some amazing teachers who are really dedicated to their work.

After our tour, we loaded up in the vans to start our drive to Santa Anita. It was about an hour and a half away on windy roads through the mountains. There were lots of beautiful views of the country and little towns that we passed through. Lunch was made for us by community members from Santa Anita, and it was quite delicious! After lunch, we listened to a testimony from Marconi. He explained the history of Santa Anita's formation due to the events in the civil war. Guerilla fighters gathered into a community there and all forty-two families now work on the coffee farm. We received an explanation of how coffee is harvested, dried, ground, and roasted. We had the opportunity to view a museum that contained pictures and clothing of guerrilla soldiers. Sadly, we were unable to take a hike around the coffee farm due to some heavy rain that conveniently started once we showed up. However, we still enjoyed our time and some of us were able to purchase some coffee from Café Santa Anita!

Lastly, we headed back through the mountains to the school for a short reflection. We went home for our final dinner with our host families as tomorrow afternoon we will be departing Quetzaltenango (Xela) for Panajachel.

Adios!
Alayna y Sara