That said, we were incredibly fortunate to have the support of the teachers from the community center. The second day we divided everyone in teams as we started the competition of who picks up more trash in the streets of the community. Ready with plastics bags and a lot of energy,  my team was named “The Little Rabbits” and we unfortunately lost the competition by only collecting 8 bags of trash against the winning team “The Cliffers,” who collected 14 bags of trash. Tired of picking up trash, we had a delicious lunch while answering the question of what is easiest? To not throw trash on the streets or to pick it up? Everyone said to not throw it on the streets.

Afterwards the comments of the day between the leaders were along the lines of “two girls in my team started to fight over who was going to pick up trash and who was going to hold the bag.” Surprisingly, the response of the kids to our activities were beyond of what we had expected in an awesome way. The third day we wrote our song in a big cloth and they painted it. We will put the cloth at the community center so they can look at it and remember what they did during “Earth Days.”

After we had a closing ceremony where each kid was given a certificate for their participation in “Earth Days.” Afterwards everyone pick 1 or 2 trash bags and waited for a trash truck that took the garbage to the landfill. Fortunately we counted with the support of the authorities of Nebaj that send the truck for the trash without any costs.  As the truck was leaving we would say wait, wait and people from the community would come and put bags of trash in the truck. It was such a wonderful moment to see since La Pista doesn’t have a trash system and people burn their trash. At the end we had 50 bags of trash in total ready to go.  This project is meant for the teachers at the community center to carry on.

I‘ve been in Nebaj for about a month and a couple of days and I have only seen a man picking up trash once. Honestly, sometimes I feel like, why pick up trash when a few minutes later I get on a micro-bus and about 2 to 3 people throw their empty plastic water bottle or the empty bag of Doritos through the window? People in general seem not to realize the harm to the environment they are creating.

Last week as I came from running around the beautiful mountains that surround Nebaj, I saw a plastic car for little kids with clothes and a bunch of other trash being burn in front of a house while little kids and other adults were watching the event as if it was such a common and normal thing to do. Last week in a meeting with all the GCY fellows and Erin we were discussing how through the Guatemalan’s eyes there is not much motivation to try to make a conscious effort to take care of the environment when there is not a system that supports them. In the states is so easy to throw away trash! and recycling is not that hard either.

On Monday we went on a campaign to an aldea about 6 hours from Nebaj call “La Parroquia.”As I was wondering where the trash went I walked outside of the Hospedale (very similar to a Hotel) where we were staying and there was a hole on the ground with a lot of trash inside. This makes me wonder how much the Government is providing Guatemalans with an alternative to throw away their trash. Situations can always go both ways. The more developed a country is, the more it affects the environment in a negative way with pollution from industries. But also the less developed a country is, the greater lack of resources and consciousness for the environment there is. Guatemala is beautiful !!! but the closer one gets to the road sides the clearer it becomes that they face big challenges to keep it that way.

I‘ve been in Nebaj for about a month and a couple of days and I have only seen a man picking up trash once. Honestly, sometimes I feel like, why pick up trash when a few minutes later I get on a micro-bus and about 2 to 3 people throw their empty plastic water bottle or the empty bag of Doritos through the window? People in general seem not to realize the harm to the environment they are creating.

Last week as I came from running around the beautiful mountains that surround Nebaj, I saw a plastic car for little kids with clothes and a bunch of other trash being burn in front of a house while little kids and other adults were watching the event as if it was such a common and normal thing to do. Last week in a meeting with all the GCY fellows and Erin we were discussing how through the Guatemalan’s eyes there is not much motivation to try to make a conscious effort to take care of the environment when there is not a system that supports them. In the states is so easy to throw away trash! and recycling is not that hard either.

On Monday we went on a campaign to an aldea about 6 hours from Nebaj call “La Parroquia.”As I was wondering where the trash went I walked outside of the Hospedale (very similar to a Hotel) where we were staying and there was a hole on the ground with a lot of trash inside. This makes me wonder how much the Government is providing Guatemalans with an alternative to throw away their trash. Situations can always go both ways. The more developed a country is, the more it affects the environment in a negative way with pollution from industries. But also the less developed a country is, the greater lack of resources and consciousness for the environment there is. Guatemala is beautiful !!! but the closer one gets to the road sides the clearer it becomes that they face big challenges to keep it that way.

I‘ve been in Nebaj for about a month and a couple of days and I have only seen a man picking up trash once. Honestly, sometimes I feel like, why pick up trash when a few minutes later I get on a micro-bus and about 2 to 3 people throw their empty plastic water bottle or the empty bag of Doritos through the window? People in general seem not to realize the harm to the environment they are creating.

Last week as I came from running around the beautiful mountains that surround Nebaj, I saw a plastic car for little kids with clothes and a bunch of other trash being burn in front of a house while little kids and other adults were watching the event as if it was such a common and normal thing to do. Last week in a meeting with all the GCY fellows and Erin we were discussing how through the Guatemalan’s eyes there is not much motivation to try to make a conscious effort to take care of the environment when there is not a system that supports them. In the states is so easy to throw away trash! and recycling is not that hard either.

On Monday we went on a campaign to an aldea about 6 hours from Nebaj call “La Parroquia.”As I was wondering where the trash went I walked outside of the Hospedale (very similar to a Hotel) where we were staying and there was a hole on the ground with a lot of trash inside. This makes me wonder how much the Government is providing Guatemalans with an alternative to throw away their trash. Situations can always go both ways. The more developed a country is, the more it affects the environment in a negative way with pollution from industries. But also the less developed a country is, the greater lack of resources and consciousness for the environment there is. Guatemala is beautiful !!! but the closer one gets to the road sides the clearer it becomes that they face big challenges to keep it that way.

For right now our principal customer is the Restaurant “El Descanso” where Shreya (another volunteer at Soluciones Comunitarias) has made veggie Burgers, chow mei and a banana shake with our Peanut butter being the main ingredient. People have been buying all these new plates at the restaurant which is a sign of success for now. Today we had a meeting with our first entrepreneur from the aldea “La Pista” where the Centro Explorativo (our center point) is located. On Saturday we will be giving him a few jars. One of the jars will be a sample for people to try and the other ones are to sell. Our hope is to find other responsible young men (13 to 15 years old) to be entrepreneurs of our project “Más Mani Porfavor”. The entrepreneurs will be enroll at the community center and will be paid 3 quetzales per jar (about 36 U.S cents) which for Guatemalan standards is a fair price. Our final goal is to be able to make these project sustainable. Hopefully everything will work out!

For right now our principal customer is the Restaurant “El Descanso” where Shreya (another volunteer at Soluciones Comunitarias) has made veggie Burgers, chow mei and a banana shake with our Peanut butter being the main ingredient. People have been buying all these new plates at the restaurant which is a sign of success for now. Today we had a meeting with our first entrepreneur from the aldea “La Pista” where the Centro Explorativo (our center point) is located. On Saturday we will be giving him a few jars. One of the jars will be a sample for people to try and the other ones are to sell. Our hope is to find other responsible young men (13 to 15 years old) to be entrepreneurs of our project “Más Mani Porfavor”. The entrepreneurs will be enroll at the community center and will be paid 3 quetzales per jar (about 36 U.S cents) which for Guatemalan standards is a fair price. Our final goal is to be able to make these project sustainable. Hopefully everything will work out!

Hopefully they respond the same way to our projects, which I am so excited about. We are making peanut butter to sell with the youth at the Centro Explorativo (Community Center) we will be working at. We already bought the peanuts and roasted them which to our surprise turned out to taste really good without any burning flavor. This week we will actually make the peanut butter which we’ll see how it turns out. Our desired outcome for the peanut butter project is to create jobs and income for otherwise unemployed local people as well as the introduction of low price and high quality nutritious snack. Hopefully we are successful enough and our project becomes sustainable after doing the walk away test.

We are also building a green vegetable house with little kids at the Centro Explorativo. For right now this idea is not as developed as the peanut butter project but it is approved by the teachers at the Centro. We were thinking of ways to compost and the best thing we thought of is worms and kitchen scrap. We had no idea where to find the worms but turns out that the brother of one of the guys I am staying with grows coffee and he has worms for his compost, so he is going to let us have some. Our desired outcome for the garden project is to introduce vegetables into the Guatemalan’s diet.

Hopefully they respond the same way to our projects, which I am so excited about. We are making peanut butter to sell with the youth at the Centro Explorativo (Community Center) we will be working at. We already bought the peanuts and roasted them which to our surprise turned out to taste really good without any burning flavor. This week we will actually make the peanut butter which we’ll see how it turns out. Our desired outcome for the peanut butter project is to create jobs and income for otherwise unemployed local people as well as the introduction of low price and high quality nutritious snack. Hopefully we are successful enough and our project becomes sustainable after doing the walk away test.

We are also building a green vegetable house with little kids at the Centro Explorativo. For right now this idea is not as developed as the peanut butter project but it is approved by the teachers at the Centro. We were thinking of ways to compost and the best thing we thought of is worms and kitchen scrap. We had no idea where to find the worms but turns out that the brother of one of the guys I am staying with grows coffee and he has worms for his compost, so he is going to let us have some. Our desired outcome for the garden project is to introduce vegetables into the Guatemalan’s diet.

Ana, a 17 year-old women who is in charge of the campaign, and I walked on the streets of Acul for about 2 hours and a half giving flyers about our campaign and talking to people about it. As I walked and looked up the mountains and waterfalls I could not ignore the feeling of peace. But as I also looked down I notice the dirt on my shoes from the moody streets, a Mayan women with a baby in her back while gracefully taking all her strength to carry corn in a pot on her head. People would stare at us questioning every gesture and word that we would say with only an eye stare. Personally, I would not be surprise since the fears and consequences of the Civil War in 1996 (not too long ago) are still not fully overcome. In addition, it says a lot about the lack of basic resources that Guatemalans face in the present due to the short period of time since the war ended.

It was about 8:00pm and I was just done with my dinner of 5 Tortillas, rice and yellow beans before I decided to sit in the kitchen with my Mother Feliciana to make tortillas and practice Ixil. Since she works for the Board of Education here in Nebaj translating books from Spanish to Ixil I thought she would be the best one to learn Ixil with. From the topic of my fat Tortillas which were remarkable different compare to hers the questions of family members came up. She said that her husband was killed due to the conflict during the Civil War between the already adults son and daughters of the Spanish that had for slaves indigenous populations. In other words it was a revolution from the indigenous to the oppression from the Spanish.

Her husband was fighting against the Spanish not physically but he was the one that brought food made by Feliciana to the groups that were fighting against the Spanish. Many people knew what he was doing so the Spanish killed her brother and then putted him in jail. After he came out of jail he started to drink until he died. As Feliciana was talking her eyes were red not only from the smoke of the kitchen but also from tears. She told me that for her the hardest part was raising 5 children by herself. Also she was fully proud to say that all of her sons and daughter were already graduated from a Community College. Since then the few times I have seeing her our eye contact feels deeper than before.

Ana, a 17 year-old women who is in charge of the campaign, and I walked on the streets of Acul for about 2 hours and a half giving flyers about our campaign and talking to people about it. As I walked and looked up the mountains and waterfalls I could not ignore the feeling of peace. But as I also looked down I notice the dirt on my shoes from the moody streets, a Mayan women with a baby in her back while gracefully taking all her strength to carry corn in a pot on her head. People would stare at us questioning every gesture and word that we would say with only an eye stare. Personally, I would not be surprise since the fears and consequences of the Civil War in 1996 (not too long ago) are still not fully overcome. In addition, it says a lot about the lack of basic resources that Guatemalans face in the present due to the short period of time since the war ended.

It was about 8:00pm and I was just done with my dinner of 5 Tortillas, rice and yellow beans before I decided to sit in the kitchen with my Mother Feliciana to make tortillas and practice Ixil. Since she works for the Board of Education here in Nebaj translating books from Spanish to Ixil I thought she would be the best one to learn Ixil with. From the topic of my fat Tortillas which were remarkable different compare to hers the questions of family members came up. She said that her husband was killed due to the conflict during the Civil War between the already adults son and daughters of the Spanish that had for slaves indigenous populations. In other words it was a revolution from the indigenous to the oppression from the Spanish.

Her husband was fighting against the Spanish not physically but he was the one that brought food made by Feliciana to the groups that were fighting against the Spanish. Many people knew what he was doing so the Spanish killed her brother and then putted him in jail. After he came out of jail he started to drink until he died. As Feliciana was talking her eyes were red not only from the smoke of the kitchen but also from tears. She told me that for her the hardest part was raising 5 children by herself. Also she was fully proud to say that all of her sons and daughter were already graduated from a Community College. Since then the few times I have seeing her our eye contact feels deeper than before.

The road to Nebaj was an adventure that added enthusiasm to the headache of the curvy roads. The first main city we went through is called “Chimaltenango” and for about 20 minutes we saw nothing but small businesses that repair cars. Apparently, years ago many people drove to the United States and bought cars damaged in accidents in order to repair and sell them in Guatemala. Nowadays there are more regulations to cross the border into the United States and people don’t do it as much.

Personally, I think having so many small businesses that offer the same service in the same area leaves very little room for development.

As we drove further northwest, we crossed another main city call “Chichicastenango” which is an area were tourism has become big. Then we cross “Quiche” and it seemed very similar to Santo Tomas in terms of development and a lot of little shops where I found the best chips ever called “Tortrix.” The houses, like in Santo Tomas, were mainly made of bricks and iron. In Quiche, everyone had gathered in excited groups waiting for a big bicycle race to pass, in which athletes from many countries in South America and neighbors of Guatemala were competing. My heart started to dance when I saw a Venezuela jersey there since I am Venezuelan.

The last small town we went through was call “Chajul.” Chajul is part of what they call the Ixil Triangle along with Nebaj and Coxal because they all form a triangle. Ixil is a Mayan language spoken in the Ixil Triangle and I would feel a huge sense of accomplishment if I am able to learn it.

I was not surprised to find that the cities we drove through were very similar to Santo Tomas, and simultaneously very different than Antigua. Antigua is a very fancy, heavily touristy, area where most of the buildings are large Spanish colonial homes.

Around 1:30PM we arrived in Nebaj with our homestay families and immediately left to have lunch at a restaurant called “El Descanso.” El Descanso is a restaurant owned by the Nebaj leader of “Soluciones Comunitarias,” our partner in Guatemala.

After a really good lunch we went on a little tour of Nebaj. We went to the Central Park which is considered the center of the city. Then we went to the market which I thought was louder than the market in Antigua. There was Reggae-tone everywhere! Reggae-tone is like hip-pop in the US and usually is listened to by teenagers. One of the differences between Nebaj and Santo Tomas is that the women in Nebaj always wear their traditional traje (dress), which consists of a long red skirt with either high heals and a regular t-shirt or flat sandals and a huipil (their traditional t-shirt with detailed hand stitched designs.

At night when I went back with my homestay family, they were really welcoming and happy to have me there. I love my room, which is very cozy and warm and painted yellow. Even though Nebaj is different in terms of region, the people are still very gentle, welcoming, and very much family oriented. About 12 people live in my house, including wives, husbands, and children. The house is huge and we have about 5 or 6 rooms. Many times I wonder whether or not having so many people living in a house contributes to poverty and lack of development. With this in mind, we also have a little shop in our house where we sell kites, traditional clothes, and jewelry. Besides this, they also have another little shop where they sell American clothes from Guatemala city. This also makes me wonder if having more workers within the family is actually better since they have more input and team effort.

The road to Nebaj was an adventure that added enthusiasm to the headache of the curvy roads. The first main city we went through is called “Chimaltenango” and for about 20 minutes we saw nothing but small businesses that repair cars. Apparently, years ago many people drove to the United States and bought cars damaged in accidents in order to repair and sell them in Guatemala. Nowadays there are more regulations to cross the border into the United States and people don’t do it as much.

Personally, I think having so many small businesses that offer the same service in the same area leaves very little room for development.

As we drove further northwest, we crossed another main city call “Chichicastenango” which is an area were tourism has become big. Then we cross “Quiche” and it seemed very similar to Santo Tomas in terms of development and a lot of little shops where I found the best chips ever called “Tortrix.” The houses, like in Santo Tomas, were mainly made of bricks and iron. In Quiche, everyone had gathered in excited groups waiting for a big bicycle race to pass, in which athletes from many countries in South America and neighbors of Guatemala were competing. My heart started to dance when I saw a Venezuela jersey there since I am Venezuelan.

The last small town we went through was call “Chajul.” Chajul is part of what they call the Ixil Triangle along with Nebaj and Coxal because they all form a triangle. Ixil is a Mayan language spoken in the Ixil Triangle and I would feel a huge sense of accomplishment if I am able to learn it.

I was not surprised to find that the cities we drove through were very similar to Santo Tomas, and simultaneously very different than Antigua. Antigua is a very fancy, heavily touristy, area where most of the buildings are large Spanish colonial homes.

Around 1:30PM we arrived in Nebaj with our homestay families and immediately left to have lunch at a restaurant called “El Descanso.” El Descanso is a restaurant owned by the Nebaj leader of “Soluciones Comunitarias,” our partner in Guatemala.

After a really good lunch we went on a little tour of Nebaj. We went to the Central Park which is considered the center of the city. Then we went to the market which I thought was louder than the market in Antigua. There was Reggae-tone everywhere! Reggae-tone is like hip-pop in the US and usually is listened to by teenagers. One of the differences between Nebaj and Santo Tomas is that the women in Nebaj always wear their traditional traje (dress), which consists of a long red skirt with either high heals and a regular t-shirt or flat sandals and a huipil (their traditional t-shirt with detailed hand stitched designs.

At night when I went back with my homestay family, they were really welcoming and happy to have me there. I love my room, which is very cozy and warm and painted yellow. Even though Nebaj is different in terms of region, the people are still very gentle, welcoming, and very much family oriented. About 12 people live in my house, including wives, husbands, and children. The house is huge and we have about 5 or 6 rooms. Many times I wonder whether or not having so many people living in a house contributes to poverty and lack of development. With this in mind, we also have a little shop in our house where we sell kites, traditional clothes, and jewelry. Besides this, they also have another little shop where they sell American clothes from Guatemala city. This also makes me wonder if having more workers within the family is actually better since they have more input and team effort.