Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016! Continuing Our Work in Guatemala

    As you know, for more than a month now the group has been working at the school in Vuelta Grande, Guatemala getting it ready for the kids to come back from their vacation and see a nice, vibrant and lively school. I can tell you, it looks great. Just this last week two other groups came for a week or two to help volunteer. The gap year group had actually gone home for the holidays so we still had volunteering while they were gone and it was great. We’ve advanced a lot in painting especially. Almost the whole school has a fresh coat of paint and in most places brand new murals. The soccer field area has new murals of different sports all around it and the two classrooms we were working on are all painted with a bright green color and each have a mural inside. The playground area also had a major remodel. There was super long grass all over the area that we cleared with hoes, pickaxes and machetes. I used the machete and it was awesome! We also painted more murals. This time of animals, One of the girls from the week long trip even painted some beautiful quetzales. We also now have filtered drinking water for the kids in school. Another girl in the week-long program fundraised enough money to buy eco filters for every classroom. One of the biggest projects of all is to build a classroom! A group of engineering students from a community college in California called Cabrillo College came for about two weeks. They built the foundation and started building the walls. We’re going to continue working on the classroom (with a professional guiding us of course) and hopefully have it done when the kids come. The same engineering group also installed five new water tanks, adding to the three they installed last year, with 2500 L each (two of them with 1000 L.) They put these in two different spots, above the school and in the middle of town so that people could collect water from there instead of walking an hour to a natural spring. Trucks from Antigua come once or twice a month to fill them up. This last month has been full of great volunteering and one thing that I found really cool was that three groups of volunteers were here at the same time. That means a lot of people gave their time to fix up a school and in doing so, to help kids have a better time while learning. To top it all off, we have added 10 new Young Dreamers (all girls) to the scholarship group in Guatemala. There are now 33 in Guatemala.

    I can’t believe it’s already 2016! For me at least, 2015 went by very fast. It was a great year with a lot of amazing things, and I’m really looking forward to what this year has to bring. Last year I graduated from elementary school (5th grade), which was huge because it was the first part of my school career. Fifth grade was an awesome year where I learned a lot and had some really cool experiences. Looking back I want to thank my teachers from last year for making the effort to make school fun and also teaching so much to me. I also started this trip in 2015. This trip has taught me so much about different parts of the world, different cultures, different customs and traditions, different people, so many things that I wouldn’t ever have known without going to those countries. I definitely wouldn’t have learned all that in school (sorry teachers). Last year was an incredible year where I grew a lot.

    Now I’m just thinking forward to this year. We’re going to finish our work here in Guatemala, not to mention going to some pretty cool places like Semuc Champey (some beautiful rivers running through caves) and Tikal (the pyramids and ancient ruins of the Mayan capital.) I’m also excited to keep learning about the Mayan culture. Then we’ll head off to Costa Rica for the third leg of our journey, where I’ll learn about their history and their customs. Even though I’m excited to continue this awesome adventure I can’t wait to go home and see all my family and friends. I’ll also officially start going to Middle School in 2016! I’m looking forward to starting seventh grade and actually going to a school, sitting in a class with other kids, I’ve missed that. This year I have a whole lot of things to look forward to and I really am eager to meet them head on. I hope everybody had a great 2015 and I wish you a great 2016!
          This weekend we’re going to Semuc Champey and I’ve never been but I’ve heard it’s really beautiful so I’m excited to go.