Before departing, the children offered us an unexpected snack of fresh tortillas filled with beef, guacamole, pico de gallo, and cheese. It was delicious and many people went back for seconds and even thirds. We soon departed for Antigua to have lunch with our host families.
For today's language class, we toured the macadamia farm about ten minutes out of Antigua to see a one hundred per cent organic method of farming and selling macadamia nuts. This was started by an American who moved to Guatemala and eventually created an enterprise making him millions of dollars -- all without genetic engineering, pesticides, or other chemicals. While there, we were given a tour of the facility and some of the machines, several samples of the products, and the option to receive an exfoliation with macadamia cream and oil. Many students took up this offer and immediately appeared fifteen years younger due to the copious health benefits of the macadamia nut and its subsequent products! As a final experience, we tried the local macadamia nut pancakes, covered in macadamia nut butter, honey, and blueberry marmalade -- absolutely delicious. A wonderful way to end another day.
We look forward to debriefing and discussing our presentations tomorrow in order to tweak them for Monday. From the childrens' enthusiasm, we could certainly conclude that the importance of drinking clean water is well planted in their minds. We hope that their enthusiasm and understanding will carry to more and more kids as we visit communities on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. See you tomorrow!
Kyle
I'm so proud of you all! What wonderful role models and a positive influence you all are to the children!! Carol Lozier (Aaron's mom)
ReplyDeleteI love reading the blog! Ross, I know you can do more push ups! Great skit to demonstrate your point. Glad you are getting lots of opportunities to be with the children.
ReplyDeleteAnnie O'Leary
Ross...wait till Liza finds out!! :) Very proud of your hard work!!!
ReplyDeleteYesterday was amazing. It was so exciting meet with the children in the rural vilages of Guatemala. The little girl were beyong excited to meet with there first "gingas". Natania and I haso much fun talking with the little girls and boys and finding out how old they are and their names. After lunch at the mcadamia nut farm we got to try the pancakes there which were really good and i got my first free facial!
ReplyDeleteVisiting the school for our presentation yesterday was probably one of my favorite parts if th trip so far. We expected thr kids to be excited to meet us, but I was not at all prepared for how enthusiastic they would be. The minute we arrived, we saw a complex of buildings with a fence around them and ten little boys started running down alongside the school, filling the small space between the building and fence and screaming "hola!" repeatedly as we approached them. It was fun to interact with the kids during our presentation, but playing with them afterwards was such a blast. Most of the boys played soccer and basketball with all the guys in our group, but all of the girls clobbered Amy and me. Tons of them surrounded us, grabbing our hands and arms and legs and leading us to their classroom where everyone wanted us to sit in their chair. They were just si amazed by our existence and it made me realize how sheltered these children probably are to be so infatuated with the diversity that they're not usually exposed to. It was really cool to be treated like a celebrity but it was even cooler to see how the littlest things can make them so happy. I'm really thankful that we can make such an impact on the people here.
ReplyDeleteGoing the school was San Martin, just made my day! From the time I walked through the gate and greeted the children to the time I left and learned a handshake from one of the children, I was amazed. The children were so happy to see us that as we were walking along the street to get to the entrance of the school, some of the children ran up to the fence and were yelling, "Hola! Hola!" Never in my life have I seen people so eager to see me! They also surprised me with their enthusiasm during our presentation. At first, most of them were a little hesitant to speak but after they saw that we were giving out silly bands, a lot more children wanted to talk. After our presentation, we played basketball and soccer with the kids. During the basketball game, I could clearly see that the kids had never heard of a foul because they were all over each other when someone had the ball. Also, I was told that some of kids looked really amazed when I tried to dunk (made me feel really good about myself). Then, during the soccer game, the kids showed off their skills by maneuvering the ball in a way that I could not understand. I quickly found out that soccer was definitely not my calling when I was trying to defend our goal and accidentally hit the ball into our goal thus scoring for the other team. I was a little embarassed but I didn't let that stop me. Then after we ate lunch, I went back out to play with the kids. This time the girls were playing as well and I saw that they were just as rough or even rougher than the boys. They might had been a little rougher because when I had the basketball ball and was trying to pass it to someone, a little girl jumped up and slapped me in the face, completely missing the ball and nearly knocking my glasses off. Other than that little incident, the time a spent with the kids was completely extraordinary. It was sad to leave them but at least I know that I was able to teach them something that is going to help them in the future.
ReplyDeleteYesterday was without a doubt one of the coolest things I have ever been a part of, and cannot wait to get to do it three more times. I thought the kids would be shy, but as we walked up to the school they came screaming outside and began to hug all of us. Playing basketball was very fun, and they didnt seem to understand the concept of traveling or a foul. If anyone had the ball they would sprint with it until they got tackled. A quieter boy asked to wear my hat, so I said sure. Before we left I noticed that he wasnt wearing it anymore, and I asked him where it was. He had hidden it in hopes that I would forget, so I told him he could keep it, and he promptly put it on backwards and gave me a hug. Leaving took about 10 minutes, as every kid wanted to shake our hand.
ReplyDeleteToday we visited the macadamian farm for about three hours. It's was a lot of fun because I learned many facts about the farm and what those types of nuts were made of and how they affected the environment in a positive manner. My favorite part of the day was getting a free facial with 100% pure nut oil and oil cream which made me look ten years younger! I also learned that one tree at the farm can produce up to 30 pounds of oxygen each year and there is more than 350000 trees planted!
ReplyDeleteYesterday I was acquainted with one of the best experiences that I have had on this trip. I as well as the rest of my Collegiate crew got to go to a school and present our projects to a bunch of little kids which turned out to be a whole school. Imagine the excitement on the little kids faces and then multiply that by a 100. As soon as we got off the bus, there were about sixty kids just screaming as loud as they could saying hola because they were so pumped to spend the day with us. After we got the projects recited to the kids, we had the privilege of getting to play some footy with the kid and some basketball which of course I dominated in......... not really. I recall numerous times when a 3 foot kid stripped the ball from my hands
ReplyDeleteI had a ton of fun this day seeing all of those cute little kids! They were so cool and nice to all of fun. I had never seen any kids that excited to see some older kids before. I had a ton of fun playing with the kids right at the beginning. The way they were interacting with us all was like they had known us for years and that we were long time friends. Our presentations were awesome! We did a great job talking about the significance of clean water and drinking eight cups a day from a clean cup. After our presentations, we played basketball and soccer with the kids for about forty-five minutes and then we went to have a little snack. The food was delicious! We ate steak tortillas with salsa and guacamole. There has not been one place where I thought the food wasn't good. It was a great day and I'm ready to see more kids!
ReplyDeleteYesterday we were greeted by a bunch of children lined up by the fence to saying "hola hola hola hola!" Obviously they were really excited to see us. But they were extremely excited to see Evan. They kept on touching his red hair, since there are few red heads in Guatemala. We played basketball and futbol with the kids to get to know them better. After the sports we gave the our message about clean water. Being able to play with the kids before hand made it a lot easier for the kids to engage with us. We then departed to go back to Antigua. The trip up to the village made me realize how lucky I am.
ReplyDeleteEven before we got out of the cars, the kids were extremely excited to see us. A lot of the kids were waiting at the fence line when we arrived. They were all smiling from ear to ear, but were very timid to say anything to us. Playing basketball and soccer with them made them much more comfortable around us, thus easier to give them a presentation. Yet, after giving the presentations about having water and that sodas aren't good for you, we were immediately served Pepsis when we ate at the school.
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