Money isn’t everything… but sometimes it makes things a hell of a lot easier.
Last week when I went to Antigua, I volunteered for a couple days with the God’s Child Project. The Antigua that most foreigners know has cobblestone streets that intersect each other perpendicularly. It has lots of European looking churches and lots of European looking people. There are police on almost every corner and traffic laws are actually enforced. There are no street dogs and there is no street food. Every other store is a travel agency. It feels like more Guatemala, Disney Epcot style than actual Guatemala.
The God’s Child Project, however, is situated away from the cobblestone streets and away from the eyes of most foreigners. You have to walk up a winding dusty street with a few corner shops, a cantina or two, and some small houses. It is bleak. It is certainly not a road people would walk down for the sake of walking down. The entrance to GCP is modest enough – just a gate and a small mural on the brick wall outside. Once you walk through the gate, however, you enter into a completely different world. To your right, there are medical and dental clinics offering low-cost (oftentimes free) services to the poor families in the area. The building is made of stone – not brick or cinderblocks – and has full windows overlooking the rest of the property. In the same two-story building, there are classrooms that are nicer than many in the States and spacious offices with people wearing button-down shirts and dresses working on new computers. Everywhere you look – on the walls, lining the walkways, and designated patches on the ground – there are flowers, beautifully colorful and exotic. If there aren’t kids running around cheerfully, you can hear the soothing sounds of fountains gently running. On the opposite side, there is another classroom building, made of the same ornate stone. A deliberately spacious stone staircase leads you upstairs where the ceiling is comprised of panels colored by the local kids. There are playgrounds. There is a large cafeteria. There are well-groomed mini-soccer fields. There is a huge outdoor theater with a stage as big as Nova’s auditorium. There are more offices. It’s almost impossible to believe that everything there has been made possible through donations.
When I first stopped in, hoping to catch my friend Meg and her Villanova service group, I was given a full tour by an old man named Frank. Frank was a bit shorter than me, and his long eyelashes made him look younger than his white hair and aging skin. He gave me a tour of the entire compound – and yes, it was a veritable compound – and told me all about its history. It was started about twenty years ago (I believe) by a man who everyone reverently refers to simply as Patrick. Patrick bought the land – a former garbage dump – years and years ago with the intention of creating a paradise for the poorest of the poor children in Antigua. His dream was to give them a place that would inspire them to reach beyond what the world told them they were meant to be. Over the course of some twenty years, he turned a garbage dump into the dream world he envisioned. Now it educates 170 kids between the ages of kindergarten and high school. As an incentive for the parents to send the kids to school – and not send them out to work – it offers low-cost health and dental coverage, food for the families, and even firewood every week (provided that the kids show up to school regularly). When volunteer groups come down, they help build safer one-room houses for some of the families. There is even an office devoted to tracking down children who are victims of child trafficking (not so much sex slavery in Guatemala as much as labor slavery).
As I walked around the GCP, I thought about El Nahual. Every week, our director Jaime gives a “platica” (or a little talk) on a given subject. Three weeks ago, he talked to us about El Nahual’s history. He told us of his days as a younger man and his dream to create a safe place for the most-endangered children of Guatemala. He envisioned a place where they could come to learn and grow; a place that would be a safe haven for them; a place that would give them food, give them friends, and give them purpose. Soon after the civil war ended in Guatemala, Jaime started on his dream. He rented a tiny building with several rooms that would serve as classrooms. He managed to scrap up some desks, some whiteboards, some benches, and so on. Before long, the Manos de Colores (colored hands… think finger-paint covered kids hands) after school program got going to provide free reinforcement classes for kids every afternoon. They started a Spanish school to earn money for the school’s projects and also to invite volunteers to give what they could, when they could. Eventually, Jaime extended El Nahual’s reach to three other schools –
El Nahual, however, struggles every month. They are constantly in the reds with their budget. They can only afford to pay a couple full-time employees; the rest – including Jaime who works there full time – work for free. Teaching and office supplies – even the most basic things like tape and paper – are always highly calculated purchases. Volunteers come and go frequently. While most that I’ve met are great people, I’ve realized that it’s impossible to make real, positive, life-changing connections with students in two hours in two weeks. The staff at El Nahual realize this as well, but they lack the resources to offer any incentives to volunteers – free room and board, health benefits, etc – to stay longer. With so much turnover, things can get very disorganized very quickly as well. It is a struggle, but the dream remains kindled.
As I walked around with frank, through the stone tunnels and giant playgrounds, I saw Jaime’s dream come to life. The God’s Child Project, however, has had some twenty years in the making; El Nahual opened a mere five years ago. GCP has already learned to run, but El Nahual is still struggling to find its footing.
Right now, however, there is a light in the distance. El Nahual has almost finished constructing its new school on property that it owns completely. This means that, when El Nahual moves to this new school, they will no longer have to pay rent every month. They will have that much more money to use to better their projects, to grow, and to finally stand strongly on its own two feet.
Now, I’m going to do something out of the ordinary here. About a month ago, the volunteer staff at El Nahual asked us all to e-mail our family and friends and ask them to give what they could to help finish the new school. They need to buy doors, tiles for the floor, pay the workers every day, etc. When they first asked this, I was skeptical. I was not about to ask my friends and family to give money to something if I did not fully believe in that something. After just over a month of being here, I can wholeheartedly say that I believe in El Nahual and its potential to be the sanctuary that far too many kids need here. At the GCP, I’ve seen what can be done when you combine good intentions with the generosity of strangers. It is a beautiful thing. I am now asking you all to give one minute of your time and to click this link http://www.languageselnahual.
Thank you so much. And don’t worry. This will be the last time I ask you all for money while I’m down here (When I get back home and have none it will be a different story).
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