Bowdoin Service Trip

The week-long service trip with alums from my college has just come to an end. I haven't had so much fun or laughed so hard in months and months (no offense to those I've seen in the last few months, but this was seven days of banter and laughing and being with nine other really smart people). The point of the trip wasn't necessarily to connect with alums (we ranged from class of '76 to '07) but rather to work with an organization in Guatemala City called Safe Passage, which works with families who are garbage pickers in the city dump.

While I was pretty overwhelmed by our trip to see the dump, and in disbelief that there were people whose job it was to chase down the garbage trucks and sort through their loads as soon as they dumped them in search of recyclables (hoping not to get buried, run over, or fall over the edge), I was not as moved by the school or kids as the others were. I'm not sure why exactly. Perhaps school is school to me, and I couldn't get over the bedlam that ensued in the classrooms. (Apparently the ship I run is tighter than I thought.) I had to keep reminding myself that, for the primary and highschool kids, this was more of an after school program, as they already go to school for half a day. And, as many of us know, after school programs tend to be a bit manic.

Our group worked with a bunch of 14 year olds to make plaster masks one morning. I don't speak any spanish (yet... I start a week of Spanish school tomorrow at 8 am), so I was not in charge of anything educational. Even though I spoke no Spanish, I could tell that the entire introduction to the lesson and directions consisted of "We're going to make masks," and then the 10 volunteers descended upon the faces of these kids. In the afternoon, when we were going to lead a first grade class in making birdhouses, Spanish or no, I just took over. I could envision that madness that was about to ensue, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stand it. So I showed them how to make the house, reminded them, of course, to put their name on it, and viola, they all could pretty much do it without any adult interaction, and the activity that was planned to take an hour took all of 20 minutes. (Oops!) So then I dragged the kids over and taught them one of my favorite songs, Waddlyacha, while the others got the paints and glitter (o-rama!) out for decorating. It all went pretty well, and it felt good to be bossing kids around again. My fellow alums went on and on for days about how well I did, and how apparently I was born to be a first grade teacher. (Tom, are you reading this?) It was nice to hear, and reassuring as I think about what my plans are for next year.

We were supposed to go into the program on Wednesday and Thursday as well, but we had what I am calling Guatemalan Snow Days. On Tuesday afternoon, three bus drivers in the city were killed (gang violence, I believe), and another two on Wednesday, so school was shut while things calmed down so it would be safe for the workers and volunteers to come in. (Don't worry, all was totally fine where we were staying, and where I will be this next week. We are about 45 minutes outside of Guatemala City in a lovely old colonial touristy town called La Antigua. I won't be going into the city except to the airport, and I assume that's not actually in the city at all.)

Instead of working those two days, we had time to explore the area we were in. We went to a Mayan textile cooperative on morning, and hiked up an active volcano in the afternoon. Yes, I saw lava rolling down a hill. It was hot and very, very neat. We were all absolutely filthy (and lots of us had cuts on various appendages) after four hours of walking around in lava dust, but everyone adored it. On our other free day we had a walking tour around Antigua, which was neat. It's funny to me that this area was colonized so much before the States. Life was trucking along here about 200 years before we got our act together up there. I guess it was easier to colonize the warm spots first. Or else the Spanish were just a lot more active than the Brits back then.

On Saturday we took the first graders on a outing to a zoo/pool/amusement park. The kids were all well-behaved, but having 13 kids in an olympic sized pool with 200 others, as well as running over to a kiddie pool, and only five of us had bathing suits (no bathing suit, no entry into the pool area at all) was pretty much one of my levels of hell. While the others got in and played with the kids, I stood guard and watched them run between the two areas and I counted, counted, counted them again. We managed to lose only one kid on the field trip, and that was as we were leaving and his aunt was there so he just stayed with her.

As I said, working at the project wasn't actually all that moving to me. However, getting the chance to spend a week with an amazing group of people moved me greatly. I know that my group of friends from Bowdoin is awesome, but this reinforced that they pretty much all are. From the cutie 24 year old guy to the dryly sarcastic 54 year old guy, every single one of them made me think, smile, laugh, and generally feel good about myself and life in general. On more than one occasion we had a Bowdoin Love-fest, where we all talked about how amazing it was to be with such a fantastic group of people (only a couple of them knew each other before, and not necessarily well).

Now that they are gone and I am here for another week, I think I will be sad and will really miss them. But I'll be busy taking Spanish classes, so at least I'll be able to send them emails in Spanish saying that I miss them.

I'll put up pictures tomorrow, hopefully, and post a blog about all the ridiculous things that we did, said, and saw. As night is falling, I need to head out to dinner!