Susie's Travel Tales: In the Beginning...

On September 15th, I boarded a plane from San Francisco to Guatemala with twelve 18-year-olds I had never met before and another 20-something counterpart who is apparently as insane as I am. Our mission: traveling together through the wilds of Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica for the next three months.

I've been gainfully employed by an incredible organization outside of San Francisco called LeapNow, whose thing for the past 12 years has been getting students away from the comforts of home and out of the classrooms they've been in for over half their lives to experience life through the eyes of the developing world. And along the way, the idea is that the outer journey will be a tool to help these teenagers make that oftentimes murky and tumultous inner journey from adolescence into the exciting world of independent, responsible adulthood. (As I'm still experiencing major difficulties with that myself, I'm sure many of you are scratching your head in wonder at how in the world I'm qualified to assist in such a process. I am too, but don't tell my employers that.) My co-leader, Nate, likes to call it the A.D.D. program, as over the next few months we'll be doing everything from studying Spanish to working with endangered turtles to volunteering in orphanages to scuba diving to studying at a yoga/meditation retreat center where we will attempt to discover the meaning of life and reach nirvana. I could go on and on about the program and it's hard to put proper words to the entire scope of LeapNow, but it's a phenomenal organization and I'm a lucky girl to have scored such a sweet gig.

So, from the bustling burbs of DC, back to Central America I go again. Two weeks of training in the ninja arts of conflict resolution and relationship building in California, armed with a med kit and $30,000 in travelers checks, they annointed me a trip leader and we were off. We are now three weeks into the adventure and my co-leader Nate and I and our students have been having a blast and getting on fabulously, a small miracle when you consider the insanity of throwing 12 different teenage personalities together at random and asking them to travel together for three months in such intense conditions. We have definitely been blessed with a solid group of students.

The crew in Chimaltenango about to embark on our first chickenbus adventure

It would be easy to maintain a fairly "gringofied" experience here...quaint colonial towns, private

shuttle buses, nice restaurants, etc. But one of the things I love about LeapNow is their commitment to having the students experience "real Guatemala", which means chicken buses (where you will quite likely be sharing a bench with a Guatemalan family of six...and their family of chickens...look closely at photo, no lie) and the back of pickup trucks for transportation, a meager food allowance, living with families that perhaps serve rice and beans for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, and rice and beans for dinner, and staying in towns that might not be the most attractive places you've ever seen. Sounds like fun, you might be saying to yourself with a hint of sarcasm. But actually, somehow it is tons of fun. It's here in the dust of the dirty streets and exhaust fumes belching forth from the chicken buses where you discover the layers beneath Guatemala...layers that can be difficult, uncomfortable, beautiful, stimulating and amazing life teachers. There is something so life-giving about learning to live simply and you can't be here and live with these people and live out of a backpack for three months and not be challenged by that.

So our first stop on the trip landed us in a mountain town called Huehuetenango (good luck pronouncing that one) for two weeks, studying Spanish, volunteering in a wonderful local orphanage, and living with Guatemalan families. At first glance, Huehue seems only noteable for the dirty streets, dilapidated buildings, and the abundance of stray dogs. The "friendly" Guatemalan men are always eager to practice their English with the ladies as we pass by ("Hey-low bay-bee! I lof u!") Not a seemingly very exciting place to be at first. But after a couple of weeks there, I was really proud of my students being able to see below the surface to the people, the history, the way of life, and most said they actually would have stayed a bit longer if they could have.

With the folks from our Spanish school

LEAPNow posterchildren

Partying at the orphanage

Do you think I would get in trouble if I smuggled her back with me in my backpack?

Meals with a Guatemalan homestay are always hit or miss (e.g. the chicken gizzard stirfy I was served the other night...emmmm), therefore my guilty pleasure in Huehue was a few

cherished trips to Pollo Campero, a fast food fried chicken restaurant you can find in every noteable Guatemalan town and is the pride and joy of every Guatemalan, as it should be. It puts KFC to shame. To gauge a trip to Pollo Campero on the fine-dining-experience-o-meter for the average Guatemalan, think dinner at Pollo Campero = Morton's Steakhouse. And it's the only multi-national Guatemalan company that I'm aware of, recently opening its doors in Northern Virginia in Herndon and Arlington, as a matter of fact. Keep your eyes peeled for the sign and promise me you'll stop in if you happen upon one. There will likely be a long line of illegal Guatemalan immigrants out the door waiting expectantly for a little taste of home, but it's worth the wait.

The scars from the civil war that took place in this region of Guatemala from the 60s through the 80s are much more evident and deep here than in most places I've spent time. During that period a quarter million indigenous people were killed by government army troops, a peaceful majority caught between a right-wing regime and a left-wing guerilla force. My Spanish teacher Erwin, a 60-year-old retired teacher, lived through this period and we had some fascinating political conversations during our 4 hours a day of 1-on-1 time.

Opportunities for advancement here if you're outside of the old boys club who almost exclusively hold the wealth and power is almost non-existent. Most everyone would give their right arm to get to the United States to be able to earn el dollar and the biggest industry in Huehue is the coyote business (people who help smuggle people into the US). Here being "mojado" (which translates into the derogatory "wetback" of American slang) is a badge of honor and most everybody has a brother or cousin in "El Norte" already. Indeed, most all of the modernizations one sees in Huehue is due to dollars being sent back here from relatives and pumping it back into the economy. It gives a lot more color to the immigration debate going on in the U.S. right now. It makes me thankful for almost endless opportunities I have always known being from the U.S. and at the same time frustrated knowing the history that U.S. government intervention has had in this country (and all of Central America) that has ot always been the most positive, to put it lightly. Considering the very politically diverse community that is probably reading this, I will be diplomatic and leave it at that :).

Right now we are working on a cooperative coffee finca called Nueva Alianza that has a really amazing story behind it. Until two years ago, this finca (farm) was a very conventional place, owned by a large land-owner and worked by generation after generation of the same indigenous families for extremely low wages and little-to-no opportunity for advancement and investment in the business, the typical lot of most poor Guatemalans. Several years ago the business started to go downhill, the workers were not paid for over a year, and the padrino (owner) finally declared bankruptcy and tried to surreptitiously pass the title on to another big landowner. Thanks to the strong leadership of a few of the workers, they organized themselves into an alliance of 40 families and through a long and arduous legal battle and some aid from Guatemalan and foreign NGOs, managed to collectively gain the title to the land and are now working the land as cooperative owners instead of menial laborers.

I've been on other more conventional fincas before and you can feel it in the air and see it on the faces of the workers that this place is different. This place is theirs. A lot changes when you reap the benefits of your own hard work, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. And resourceful, they have been. In the two years since legally gaining control of the finca, they've developed several other profitable small businesses, including a water purification plant, a small dairy farm, and macademia nut production. Energy for the entire finca is run off of a bio-diesel generator run off of recycled vegetable oil purchased second-hand from restuarants, and they are working on a hydro-electric plant. It's a fascinating hybrid of communism and capitalism at work here, as everyone earns the same wage no matter their position (and the proudly displayed Che Guevara banner is hard to miss), yet their success is fueled by private ownership and small business.

Learning about the coffee-making process

We spent the past couple mornings picking coffee, which puts quite a new perspective on ordering a cup of coffee at Starbucks. The process from start to finish is an extremely complex and fragile one to get those little coffee beans from a rural Guatemalan hillside and readied to perfection for the espresso machine at your local Starbucks. It's extremely difficult for these guys to make a profit on their coffee at this level, the market for raw coffee has fallen dramatically and the profits are usually reaped by the middle-man at the exportation level. Therefore, the greatest hope for these fincas is to gain fair-trade certification, cut out the middle-man, and start doing business directly with the retailer abroad for a fair wage. It's a really inspiring place, and it's so refreshing to see a story of success and progress instead of the oftentimes relentless stories of oppression and despair that are much more readily found here.

At play in the waterfalls

Coffee Finca High: Picking oranges for breakfast from the tree just outside our rooms.

Coffee Finca Low: Discovering mid-bite at breakfast two days later that all aforementioned oranges were teeming with tiny, almost-invisible maggots.

And on that appetizing note, I'll sign off for now. Stay tuned for future installments of The Real World: Central America. Would love to hear from you all anytime! susie@thegaskins.com

And check out the blog that the students are keeping at leapnow.blogspot.com.