Written by: Makynzi Sprague
01/22/25
Today, I made it to Violetta’s for breakfast at 0700. We had pancakes, watermelon, and bananas. We split up to go to our work sites when everybody finished eating. Everybody in my group was feeling healthy again, so we had our full team along with Professor Cadwalader who was joining us for the morning. Our first short bus ride from Violetta’s to the central bus location was full, as always, so some of us had to stand. Our next bus to San Antonio was not nearly as busy so we had plenty of room to sit.
When we made it to our work site at Asociation Creando Oportunidades, we had many tasks to complete so we all focused on our respective jobs. I finished building the rest of the bookshelves, Morgan and Prof C started painting, Yorlan varnished the wood for the shelves, and Sean helped put plaster on one of the walls. After most of us finished, we helped out mentor, Hele, with painting in the kitchen. To entertain ourselves, we had a discussion about our favorite movies.
We finished up early, so we had time to go into the town square and see a traditional textile market. We went upstairs to an exhibition on the traditional dress for each of the 22 departments (regions) of Guatemala. We also had a very nice local woman show us the process to make these garments. This is a very tedious job that requires over a month to finish each piece. She explained how each color thread was carefully placed to represent different aspects of the Mayan culture.
We made it back for lunch at 1230 where we had chicken with rice and beans. The other groups told us about their work painting in the other two schools and how one group gave a CPR lesson to the teachers at Santa Maria de Jesus. After lunch, I started my Spanish homework that I had procrastinated the night before and finished just in time to go to class.
For the first half of class, we continued our lesson on irregular verbs. After a short break, I got to play some games with Morgan and our teachers. We played hangman, a fruit guessing game, and question hot potato. We had a short team meeting to end the day and then all split up to get dinner or do anything else in the city. I’m currently writing this from Mr. Taco, waiting on my quesadilla so I can have my draft done by Prof C’s bedtime. We also plan to go to another market to look for souvenirs and gifts for our families later.