Mi experiencia de W&M continúa…

Okay, I’m going to be straight with you. I’ve been procrastinating about writing this blog for quite sometime now. Like maybe 3 weeks. It’s not that I’ve been lazy or lounging around and doing nothing, milking my summer for every last, idle minute. The situation’s been quite the contrary actually. I’ve just been avoiding writing this blog because I was afraid I couldn’t, probably for one of the first times in my life, adequately articulate my experiences and thoughts. Well, three weeks in, and I think it’s about time I flaunt what I’ve been doing and where I am for all its worth. Here goes.

I usually write my blog entries in the comfort of a suave coffee shop, with chill lounge music softly playing in the background. Well, not today. Not for the next two months, actually. The earth-toned coffee shop has been replaced with white walls and a tin roof, the lounge music with a symphony of roosters, trucks, and stray dogs. That familiar coffee smell still lingers every now and then, though considering I’m in the heart of one of the world’s best coffee-countries.

Well, I’m writing this entry from Magdalena Milpas Altas, Guatemala, a tiny pueblo in the mountains surrounding Antigua. I was fortunate enough to be given an opportunity by a grant from the new Office of Community Engagement to spend my summer in Guatemala, interning for a social entrepreneur organization and researching the effectiveness of various non-profit models. I’ll be spending two months in Guatemala; and, honestly, it’s already been one of the most eye-opening and rewarding experiences I’ve had yet-and I’m not even halfway done.

Let me tell you a little about Magdalena. The streets are narrow and the houses small. Stray dogs are as common as the squirrels on William & Mary’s campus. I’m currently in a house that has three rooms:  a kitchen, my room, and the bedroom that all five of the family members sleep in. There are businesses in every home. The oldest son just went next door to get a haircut, while the daughters were sent two houses down to get some bread. Water only runs two hours of the day here, from 6:30am to 8:30am, so the entire village fills up these big sinks called pelas, and use that as their water supply for the entire day.

And Magdalena is one of the more developed areas I’ve been able to live in. Just a week ago, I was in Nebaj, Guatemala, which resides in the heart of the Ixil Triangle. The town was absolutely surrounded by huge mountains (the altitude there is 1900m) and, honestly, the culture is as rich as the landscape. This area represents one of the smallest minorities in Central America, and it’s obvious. Walking around, you would immediately notice that all of the women wore the traditional guipiels and cintas still, which were adorned in bright red, green, & yellow prints. The people of Nebaj were proud of their culture– there’s no doubt about that. What’s even more incredible about all of this is what these people went through some 20 years ago. There was a huge effort from the Guatemalan government to wipe out the guerilla armies that presided in these areas. The villages are still spotted with bomb craters– there were literally massacres, where entire villages were wiped out. The government was, in essence, trying to eliminate this culture from the Guatemalan landscape. But it’s pretty empowering to see these people still holding onto their culture with such an incredible amount of pride. It reminded me a little of a phoenix rising from the ashes. Despite all the destruction and horror that literally everyone in the area experiences, they still stand proudly by their culture and heritage, maybe even stronger than before. And on top of that, everyone I’ve worked with in Guatemala so far has this incredible drive to work.

This all ties into what I’m working on while I’m here in Guatemala. The company I’m interning with has already helped set up a couple businesses that have in turn been handed off to locals to own and run. We essentially travel to various villages within Guatemala and set up businesses that sell everything from lenses, to water filters, to solar lamps. All the products address community issues (i.e. blindness, unsanitary e.coli-ridden water, and a lack of electricity, all of which are very common here), and we train individuals within the community to set up businesses to sell these products themselves. And these individuals are probably some of the smartest and most motivated people I’ve ever had the honor of working with. It’s all really incredible to be a part of.

I’m back around Antigua now, but I’ll be traveling around to other parts of Guatemala as well, continuing to do some development work. As expected, I definitely don’t think that I got across how beautiful and, frankly, inspirational this country is. If you’re interested in seeing more, visit my photo-blog at kavehsinguate.shutterfly.com. Aside from
pictures of us climbing a live volcano, visiting Nebaj, and a bunch of other things, I also have a mini-blog going on there accounting for some more specific experiences (some of which I used for this blog). I think the pictures would speak a lot more effectively than I have been able to thus far.

Anyway, I’ll end on this note. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far it’s that, while the people of this country may not be rich in their finances, their wealth in traditions, culture, and sheer drive are amongst the most abundant of any place I’ve ever been.