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Published: February 22nd 2008
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teachers singing at graduation
yup, there was an elvis look alike now, i'm convinced that i'm not going to remember everything that happened in the past week, but i'm going to do my best here:
so wrapped up my studies at the language school here in Xela which was great. There was a graduation ceremony and all the other students and teachers showed up. The students were in charge of bringing the food while the staff would bring the drinks. Well, since I don't know how to cook anything, and luckily another friend of mine doesn't either, we went in on a massive pizza together which was a huge hit. After that i said goodbye to Boris and Guisela, my "parents" here along with the abuela, Yumpy, and Balto. After that we went to a finca called Santa Anita were we spent the night there. it was in a really rural area outside Xela were the workers are organized and sell their coffee on the fair trade market. We also went on a little excursion to a pretty great waterfall here and learned some more about the coffee industry. The next day our group went our seperate ways: one group went to another school in Cantel (10) while I went to
a rural mountain school in Colomba (5)...not Columbia
So we arrived at the mountain school on sunday and had an orientation about the school and everything. There are three rural communities that the school works with: Nuevo San Jose, Fatima, and Santo Domingo. And when i say rural, i mean rural. I completely forgot to take pictures of the area or of the people there, but trust me, it was rural. The just received running water and electicity 8 months ago for the first time. So because this was such a poor area, the other students and i would sleep in the school like a hostel or something but we would eat with families. So on monday, the day started at around 7 am to have breakfast with families in their homes at 7:30. it was an incredibly humbling experience to be invited in the families' homes for meals. So i would eat with Leticia who had two sons, Eddie (8) and Willia (6). Eddie for some reason was slightly afraid of me. i think he was just shy by nature, but Willia was off the walls. so monday i had meals with them and classes with my teacher
Eunice. I'm not sure if anybody outside the nuclear Tierney family would understand the "what's up, doc" references, so i'll keep those to a minimum. After lunch with Leticia and attempting to read to Willia, i went on another waterfall excursion with some people at the school. There were 7 other students while my group and i were there. Two people were from Canada, one guy from Ireland, and the rest were from the states. But the ages varied, this one guy Kevin was 49 while there were people in there mid-20s, and then the college kids. The coordinator of the school was this woman Rebecca who totally rocked.
Tuesday we visited another coffee finca that sells it's coffee to Starbucks. the amount of increased development and equipment at that finca compared to the one at Santa Anita was incredibly visible. While Starbucks doesn't require fair trade certification, it does have it's own standards and requirements for finca's to abide by. i suppose at this point i should mention that a finca is essentially a farm. so although there are production, environmental, and socio-economic demands that starbucks of it's fincas, i heard from their finca that they don't make
as much money as a finca from a fair trade finca. For 100 pounds of coffee, the starbucks finca pays 200 dollars, which apparently isn't a lot at all. But all in all, i walked away feeling relatively pleased with the work of starbucks. but if the opportunity arises, i would still highly recommend to purchase fair trade coffee over corporate coffee. it does more good work for communities. For breakfast that day i had eaten plantains and beans. the plantains were broiled and cut with the shell still on it, so i just assumed that you eat the shell of a plantain. well, apparently you don't, but Leticia never said anything to me. So i went back to school and asked a teacher if that's normal and he started to laugh really hard. i guess it's a good source of fiber, but really really abnormal.
wednesday there was noche cultural at the school which is when kids in the community come to the school and play games and hang out and be kids. for some people, it was slightly overwhelming, but luckily i have a lot of experience working with crazy spanish children. For them, i was this
my diploma from school
they added the extra n in Tierney free of charge big goofy gringo who could hang them upside down. it was great to spend some time with the kids of the rural communities. things like the noche cultural are really needed in the area where i was because there is a gang presence here. there was a catholic church with x3 MS scratched into it which stands for MS-13 -> Mara Salvatrucha 13 -> really really violent gang that started in El Salvador and has spread across Cental and North America. There was one little boy who took my hat and started saying "soy dieciocho, soy dieciocho" no, that didn't mean he was 18 years old, he was pretending to be a member of another rival gang. yea, i know they're just kids and were probably just playing around, but a stern talk about the danger of gangs couldn't have hurt, right?
thursday a friend of mine and i ventured into town with our teachers for some ice cream and then made it back for another little graduation ceremony for our group because we were leaving today (friday the 22nd). Later that day, a friend of mine and i were walking around the neighborhood and all these kids came
running around banging pots and pans and playing the kazoo? it was really bizarre because they were playing something like "the passion of jesus" or something. yea, it was really really strange. there was one boy who was Jesus while the other kids had a rope around his waste and pulling him, and there were other kids who were supposed to be the two other criminals crucified with jesus. it was a little freakish. Apparently it's a tradition for Semana Santa which i just assume means Lent. Later that night there was a cooking class where we all learned to cook empanadas. afterwards, the other students and my group all hung out and just had a really fun night telling stories and playing card games. it was an experience like that where i walk away being really excited for communal life, which is what life will be like in El Salvador. But all in all, the mountain school was a really amazing experience. if you feel like going to a language school in guatemala, i would recommend the mountain school of PLQ in Xela.
so i'm back here in Xela for tonight, then leave early tomorrow for Antigua then
El Salvador on Sunday.
i'm still healthy and staying strong being ameba-free. So in El Salvador i'll be starting my Liberation Theology class at the UCA and living in a group house with everybody else. I'm pretty excited for the birthday, i doubt there are too many other thing's like turning 21 in central america.
hope everybody else is doing well and next time i'll be in El Salvador!
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your dad
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Great story of your week. Your pictures are great - those dog close-ups may put you in line to join the Animal Planet's coverage of the Westminster Dog show - the beagle won this year, by the way.