Volcanoes, pandilleros, and chicken buses… oh my!! What is a chicken bus anyway?! If you want to travel, discover, and do something worthwhile, then Guatemala has a lot to offer.

“La Negrita, la negrita” is what I heard as three little Guatemaltecos were pointing and running past the computer lab. It was my second day volunteering at Camino Seguro and I was already getting stares and feeling little hands grab my colocha (curly) hair.

Just last week I came back from Guatemala with new adventures, a newer perspective on culture, and more knowledge about the corruption there. I went with a service group from my school, Barnard College, to volunteer at Camino Seguro or Safe Passage. Camino Seguro is a nonprofit organization that is based in Zone 7 of Guatemala City, headquarters to Guatemala’s ruthless gangs, and neighbor to Zone 3, where the Guatemala City Garbage Dump is located. Camino Seguro provides a safe haven, education, and opportunity to 600 children from ages 3 months to 18 years old. Most of these children have parents who spend their days picking through trash at the city dump, sorting through recyclables, and looking for anything valuable to sell or items that they could use to support their families.

The majority of the children are living in close proximity to the trash dump where from day to day they confront a plethora of health issues, unstable family life, poverty, and violence, only a few among many concerns. In the Guatemalan school system, the academic day is only half a day. The reality for many of the kids in Guatemala City is that they are either working after school to provide for their families or getting involved in gangs. The mission of Camino Seguro is to change this trend for the most impoverished youth in the city. Participants in the project come in for structured learning and activities for the half of day that they are not in school.

Within the first two days, my group and I were taken on a social work tour of the neighborhood where the children live and also of the mirador at a cemetery where we could see the dump. Simple, box-shaped houses made from sheet metal with bags of trash spilling from the doorway characterized the neighborhood. Squatters resided on a plot of land that used to be part of the garbage dump. There were still piles of trash remaining from its garbage dump era accompanied by a stench, a constant presence. From the cemetery, I could see the stretch of land filled with garbage and people, these children's parents. I walked away from these tours stunned and speechless at the conditions in which these children live, play, and breathe. Despite it all, children still run up and down the streets freely, meanwhile a Pepsi truck is being unloaded and guarded by a man holding an automatic rifle. Describing this as a merely humbling experience would not be doing it justice. There are no words. 

After orientation, I was assigned to the 4th grade class and I was ready to adopt them as my own hijos. In the class I helped students with their homework and was able to identify the ones that were behind. Darwin, who is 9 years old, was one of the students that I saw facing difficulty in his reading. After asking him to read a headline of a magazine article, I soon realized that he barely knew the alphabet so I asked him to write the entire alphabet in Spanish. Everyday after that I persuaded him to practice his reading and gave him encouraging reminders to not give up. I could see the yearning in Darwin's eyes to be able to read but his frustration quickly took away that glistening. Patience and confidence were two words that I reminded him of often.
 
“Perdóname” by La Factoría and Eddy Lover became the soundtrack to my time in Guatemala. I was happily never able to escape the song. In the bus ride to the city, in the markets, and at Camino the song played. My kids approached me daily and the first words that they muttered were “Seño, seño cante la canción.” Then after protesting, I squealed “que si alguna vez, sentiste algo lindo por mi perdóname, perdóname ya”. Although all I knew that the song I was singing was about a man was pleading to a woman and that it was probably somewhat inappropriate for fourth graders to be singing about relationships and cheating, it formed one of the bonds between me and the kids for which I am forever grateful.  Singing songs to the kids in a not so pleasant voice, giving abrazos, and telling them that they can do division problems or read a book is what these kids welcome, cherish, and need in their lives!

Teaser for Part II: Still wondering what in the world a chicken bus is... come back for more of "Un Viajecito on a Chicken Bus to Guate, Guate"