As a High Schooler, all of the other students and I get to decide on a place in which we can go do community service for a week. As my first year in High School, we all decided to go to a place called Los Patojos. This is a small community center located in the outer areas of Antigua Guatemala. It is a highly recognized place for its great impact and contribution. The school has a fantastic story as from where it is currently and the person who started it all.
Guatemala is one of the worlds most violent and scare countries in the world. About 60% of Guatemalans live in poverty and it is significantly higher in the indigenous communities. The violence is major due to so much abuse in the woman and small kids. Another problem is the gangs, drugs, and crime. Because of the major problems that the communities were facing, a man named Juan Pablo Romero Fuentes decided to take action. At age 23 he turned his family home into a community center. At first, he started with a small number of children and then more and more started to come. The school currently provides over 1,000 children with tutoring, free classes, and meals.
As High schoolers, our purpose for making this trip was to give something in return. Whether it was to the environment, organization, school, etc. We wanted to give something back by using what we know. It is amazing to realize what situations many of these children go through. A school like this is heaven for many of the children. Due to some of the harsh situations in which they go through, this is a place in which they can learn and make new friends. As I mentioned before, each kid comes from a different family and this makes each one have a unique background. When we were discussing our options for the trip, we were struck by Los Patojo’s mission.
The trip would last five days and we would be teaching from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM each day. Each person in the class had a different task. Because of this, we were able to get all of our tasks and deliverables done. For example, I was the point person and my job consisting of managing the schedule and making sure that everybody was doing their deliverables on time. Caterina and Giu was budgeting committee, Joshua was lodging, Krista was transportation, Katina was food, Maria was activities, etc. Having all these tasks made it possible to plan out the whole trip. During the week we would have one to two meetings to do a checkup on where we were.
In my job, I think that one of the most important things I learned was communication and constant checkup’s. Because my job consisting of coordinating the agenda and doing follow-ups on other people jobs, I constantly had to be checking my to-do list and communicating to others what it was that I needed from them. On my job I met, the school’s coordinator Melissa. With her, I had a great experience because as a point person, I had to communicate everything such as our schedule, planned activities, the number of kids we were going to teach, the classes we were going to give, where we would give the classes, etc. Many things that weren’t in my list showed up and that was even better because it saved us many risks.
Many times I had to go back and call her to tell her about some changes that we made and all, but overall I was thankful that I got the most out of this job because it was a bit challenging due to all the coordination. As for the schedule, we were planning on teaching the kids in the morning entrepreneurship classes and after that, in the afternoon we would give extracurricular classes such as gymnastics, Shaolin, cooking, and art. Part of this was for us to show them what we have learned so that they could get a deeper understanding of different classes. To have all this organized, it was essential to have a schedule and to let everyone know what was going on from beginning to end.
PLAN:
6:00-7:00: Wake up
7:00-7:40: Breakfast
8:30- 12:30: Entrepreneurship
1:00-200: Lunch
3:00-5:00: Extracurricular classes
5:30-6:30: Afternoon Activities
7:00-8:30: Dinner
9:00-10:00: Get ready for sleep
This plan was obviously made more in detail, but this is just a brief idea of what a day looked like on the trip. Entrepreneurship was lead by Andre and Caterina and the rest of us were also teachers, but we divided ourselves amongst 5 different groups. That way everything would be better organized, and not just for us but for the kids. Having different groups gave us an opportunity to be more present with each student. For each group, there were around 13-15 students. These kids were aged 10-13 and had to spend their whole morning with us.
To be honest, I have never been the best person being around small kids and for this whole week, I was responsible for teaching them the material for entrepreneurship. I thought it was going to go really, really bad, but it wasn’t. Instead, I would say that it was challenging in a good way. In some moments when we were teaching, the kids would sometimes get distracted or with low energy. To avoid this we learned so much about the plan we had made and how it should have been more adapted into a “fur-child” plan. One of the things I think could have been a lot better was in the planning for the entrepreneurship classes.
One of the reasons why I’m saying this is because the class plans weren’t correctly planned so at the moment, many things changed and it was harder for others because we didn’t exactly know what was going on. The good thing is that we knew the concepts so we just needed to know what we were going to give in order to teach it. When kids started to get bored Joshua and I would get them to play a 10-15 minute game. This would be of so much efficiency because they would get some energy out and distract themselves for a while. It was amazing to see how then they would pay much more attention. I also noticed how important it is to go one-on-one with all of the students because some of them might not have some things clear. By doing this, we were all able to stay on the same page.
\In the afternoon I did my gymnastics class which was really fun and challenging because it was with older kids. The problem with this is that older kids are more shy to work amongst others. This put me in my challenge zone because I had to lead by example. That meant being extroverted, doing the exercises as best I could and also encouraging others to try. One of the best things I got in return was seeing kids ask me after their classes for more tricks. They were also laughing and having fun which made me feel satisfied because they were also having fun and challenging themselves.
I was left in awe by the strong relationship all of the students at the school have. Some of them might be shy than others, but there was never a moment in which I saw someone else bothering another. They were all kind and helpful in all ways. Whether it was in class, recess or lunch, they all treated each other with respect. In just these five days, I was able to connect so much to the children, many of them would come hug and talk to me. They even asked for my autograph! Things like this make me so happy because it means that I’ve left something meaningful in them. Each kid is different from one another. They all have a different story and this is were one of the most shocking things came to me.
One day I realized that one of the kids from my group was absent for three days. I was really concerned because I didn’t know anything about him, nor the reason why he was absent. On Friday our last day at the school, he came but I was told that his father had died. Another shocking thing that happened was with a sweet girl named Angelica. Angelica was the quietest girl in my group. She wasn’t much around others, but she was always hugging me. She went and sat down with me during recess and it was on one of these times that she told me that she had once had a sister. She also told me that she was then gone because her mother had sold her. When she said this, my heart dropped. I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible to process it because I personally couldn’t imagine my own mothering selling one of my sisters. Imagine the situation in which the mother might have been in order to get to a point in which she sold her own daughter.
Hearing both of these stories wasn’t a coincidence. It made me think clearly into what these kids go through. Here at school, they may seem like happy kids, but their life outside is a completely different world. This is the school is just one of the many others around Guatemala and the world who face difficult circumstances from their home. It is up to us to keep raising awareness and to use what we know to help them.
Victoria Morales 