Save this woman from falling off the planet !!

  The Greatest Little Dirty City in the World, Guatemala
Sunday, November 16, 2008

Buenos dias!!

Hola amigos!  Saludos from Guatemala once again!  Yeah, I'm still here! Learning how to live life.  Seems like I'm wrong about it a thousand times a week...there's always something new to learn here.  And I always seem to be forgetting the lesson I learned last month.   HOW can a people with little or no education know so much more than someone with a university degree?!?

My favorite lunch -- preparation 2

They do...they know so very much more. 

For example, if you were mired in extreme poverty ... Would you still be able to LAUGH DAILY  and GIVE THANKS TO GOD like the people here are able to?  And ingenuity? Hard work?  Ha!  It's either that or you don't eat.  Good motivation.

I really wanted you all to meet Doņa Santos and her family (shown in the picture below)...Doņa Santos is in danger of FALLING OFF THE PLANET,

"So what's at the other end of the ocean anyways?"

  and I was hoping you could help us with that!...but we'll get to that in a minute...


A lot's been going on THERE and HERE since I last wrote!  I heard we have a new president??  (JK, of course I requested my absentee ballot) ...and I think I heard something about some economic problems?  Well, I hope you're all remebering to remain calm and level headed and this is the time when your FAITH needs to kick in  (who needs faith in the good times? It's easy to have faith when everything is going well).

Pond close to our house in La Garrucha

Life down here is full of ups and downs, too, I can relate.

Here my work has continued...Mostly I've still been working on the construction of the potable water project in La Garrucha, trying to help get some other water projects off the ground, ...and still plugging along trying to RAISE FUNDS for the construction of a school!  And guess what??

The burro n Walter

We're halfway to building a new school!!! 
We've hit the 25% mark (and passed it a little bit)...which means...we're HALFWAY to having the funds to build the FIRST school!

I'm really excited...this is great progress...I've been in touch with the Development Committee of El Zapote, where we'll build the first school, and they are motivated to start sweating!

She liked lunch, too

Sure, there has been a downturn in the fundraising process since the news of the economy became item #1 in every newspaper, news show, and 2 minute news byte in between Must-See TV (do they still HAVE Must-See TV these days?  I so must brush up on my pop culture!)  But I would like to especially thank the few brave souls who were not scared of the economic downturn, but took the opportunity to show that they have faith that things will work out; knew that the Universal Spirit takes care of those who take care of others; and who recognized that no matter how bad things are for you at any point in time, well, they're worse for somebody else out there.

Both of us were entertained - Hello? Hello??

      So THANK YOU to EVERYONE who has contributed so far to get us halfway to the first school!


Getting back to Doņa Santos and her family...

"So what's at the other end of the ocean anyways?"

SHE is a perfect example of WHY these schools are so necessary.  Doņa Santos lives in La Garrucha, a community I've been living with down here for a few months, and she stopped by the house to chew the fat one day.  Well, we talked about everything and anything,...if I was married (always question #1); what the U.S. is like (almost always question #2); the fact that we don't eat corn tortillas there (which just SHOOK her world)...
Well she asked how I had gotten to Guatemala, and I told her I got there by plane. 
Then she asked if I had flown over the ocean to get there, and yes, of course I had.
"Is the ocean pretty big?" she asked me.      
"Oh, yeah it is," I told her, "The ocean is the biggest!"
"Wow," she sighed...and kindof disappeared into her imagination for awhile.  Then, with the deepest look of questioning in her eyes she looked at me and asked, "And what's at the other end of the ocean?"
"Huh?" I responded, not quite understanding her question...maybe I got the translation wrong...
"Well...what's at the other end of the ocean, the other side...what's there?" And as I continued to look at her quizically she said most seriously, "Well, does it just drop off or what?!?"
I was floored... this woman of 35 years who barely ever left her village except on rare occasions to go to town didn't even have the concept of the rest of the world in her mind.  Of course, she had never been to SCHOOL when she was young, and all of the world that she knew was the county of San Jose Poaquil she lives in.  

Watching Independence Day activities

I guess this is part of what I'm trying to get at with this school building project.  Give as many kids as possible an equal chance to go to school and find out that the world is round!  So they don't take a boat out to sea and end up falling off the planet cause they get to the end of the ocean!

If you're interested in DONATING to the project, or to see the fundraiser's progress visit:  www.firstgiving.com/katiebovitz

If you'd like to see an awesome VIDEO of my time in Guatemala, visit:  http://helpbuildaschool.info/

For fantastic PHOTOS, I've posted a whole bunch in the photo album in this web blog and there are more at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/katiebovitz/