Saturday, October 15, 2011

Presents for some of the students and their families

We brought some things for Odilia and her daughters.  We met them during our first trip, when Odilia was very sick and it was hard for her to work. Her husband was very abusive but he had died a couple of years earlier and Odilia was the sole provider of her 3 daughters. They are doing better than before but they still struggle every day.  Odilia is still buying produce for a restaurant located on the other side of the lake and she sells cheese in towns around Panajachel.


Students are required to learn to type on a mechanical typewriter.  We got one for Astrid.

Water filters and a mattress

On this visit we bought a water filter and a mattress for Chabeli. I had told Don that Chabeli and her children were sleeping on the floor, on top of some old cardboard and he went to the furniture store, all by himself, and bought a box spring and mattress and got them delivered to Chabeli's house.



Here is Chabeli, taking the cardboard that used to be their bed, out of the room



Angelica and Cristina liked the mattress!

Chabeli's children were happy to see we had brought some blankets in our boxes and they asked us if we could give them one. They were very excited when we told them yes.

 
Some of the presents we had sent in our boxes.  Some of the things were new, some were donated by friends and family and some I bought at Goodwill.





On my second visit to Tierra Linda, I brought a mattress for the old lady I had seen a couple of days earlier.  She was sleeping on a piece of wood.  She really needed a bed but I was not sure if we would be able to transport it to her house.  The road was still blocked.  Fortunately, we found this man when we were about to start carrying the mattress.  It was very heavy and I did not think we were going to be able to get it all the way up.  I was with a group of volunteers from Iowa but I did not want them to get hurt by carrying.  This man carried it all by himself, without stopping.  It turned out to be the son of the old lady so he was happy to do it.  I also had a pillow and a sheets.  I am hoping to get her a bed as soon as the road gets better.




We bought a water filter for senora Herlinda from Tierra Linda. Her house if falling down.  We hope to get her an Onil stove and a mattress soon.  We are also hoping to fundraise to help her build a new house in a safer part of town.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Giving out donations in Guatemala


 Sorting donations at our hotel
 


These were the bags we brought with donations.

When we arrived in Panajachel, Sharon told us they had decided not to open the boxes we had sent earlier and that they had held them for us to distribute the donations.  We were happy to see all of our stuff there.  We love Medrano Express. They pick up the boxes from our house and deliver the boxes at Mayan Families in Guatemala. We paid approx. $260 USD per box but it is worth it since most of the stuff inside are donations we get from family and friends. We sorted these donations first and later we brought the stuff we had brought in our suitcases. We gave us jackets and raincoats to some people as soon as we opened the boxes. 





I cannot turn these picture!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tierra Linda

We arrived in Panajachel on Saturday and soon it started to rain.  It rained all day Sunday and when we woke up on Monday we saw that it was cloudy once again.  It was an inconvenience for us, only because we would need to wear our raincoats and the kids were not going to be able to use the hotel pool.  What I did not imagine was the misery it really brings to some people here.

I met some employees from Mayan Families early on Monday morning and we left Panajachel to deliver food and supplies to the preschools that Mayan Families runs in San Jorge, El Barranco and Tierra Linda. On the way to San Jorge we saw that there had been a huge mudslide earlier in the day and huge boulders were blocking one lane.  Some municipals workers were trying to clear the road but it was obvious it would take a long time and  more equipment to move all those huge rocks.  Buses were not allowed on the road, only smaller vehicles.  I am sure that affected a lot of people that were counting on the buses to transport them.

When we arrived in Tierra Linda we delivered the supplies and then left to visit some families, guided by the preschool teacher.  She brought us to the most remote homes in the village.  The road was blocked by a fallen tree and we had to walk.  It was extremely muddy but it got worse once we took the small pathways and it started to rain.  We first visited the home of Rolando, a sponsored student by Mayan Families.  He was taking a bath next to a tank where they collect water.  It was cold and he was trying to do it quickly.  We visited his home and I was shocked to see the state of the walls.  They were made of mud bricks and there were cracks all over.  The floor was made of dirt and it was starting to get get.  I am sure it would soon turn to mud. It was a very small room. There were two small beds and only one had a thin mattress.  They showed us another room where the grandmother and the two smaller kids slept.  It was just wooden boards on top of some blocks and it did not have a mattress. They only had a couple of blankets.

We visited other homes nearby and they seemed to be even worse.  I have been to Guatemala 4 times but these were the worst living conditions I had ever seen.  The houses were made of mud brick that was falling apart.  The walls had pieces of mud missing in some places and the owners had put plastic to try to cover the holes but you could still see light coming through them. These homes seemed like they could fall down any minute.  Some of them were right on the edge of the clif and they were in danger of falling down all the way to the bottom of the mountain. There rooms were very dark and some homes did not have electricity connected so they would stay that way day and night. Some had Onil stoves donated by Mayan Families and their supporters and thankfully, there was no smoke in the rooms. There was mud everywhere and most of the kids were barefoot. I felt like crying and I was mad.  I could not believe those were their homes and they had to be there every day.

I thought I had seen the worst and then we got to the home of Rudy, Yesica and Josue, also sponsored to attend school. The mother was boiling some water and there was smoke all over the room they use as kitchen. They showed us the rest of the house, a room with space for a small cot and a small bed. The cot did not have a mattress and a very thin blanket of top. You could feel the wires and I could not imagine having to sleep on top of that. The other bed did not have a mattress either. The walls were covered with plastic in some places to cover the holes on the mud brick. It looked like it could fall any minute. The mother told us the husband had left 3 weeks before and she did not have any money to buy food for her children. She had only been able to get a couple of jobs cleaning onions but it was very difficult to find jobs. There was no food at the home and I mean nothing, not one potato or beans, or corn. I felt so powerless. I looked in my pockets and I only had 25 quetzals to give her. I had forgotten to exchange money and I had nothing else to give her. She was very grateful and said she would buy corn flour to make tortillas for her children. It was raining very heavy, the closest store was in the center of town which meant she either had to leave the kids home alone while she tried to walk in the mud and rain or one of children would have to make the trip to buy the flour.


We had to leave but promised to try to do something for her. She was crying saying she was desperate, that she wished she could take poison to end it all. It broke my heart to hear her say that because her children where right there. All the way down the mountain I was mad and I stayed mad all day. Life is so unfair to some people. I don't understand why and it makes me mad. I just hope I will stay mad long enough to do something for her and the other families.









Saturday, June 11, 2011

Magic Tree House Books for sale

One of my neighbors donated some books for the Mayan Families cause.  Since they are in English, I think it will be better to sell them together and use the money towards Claudia and her grandmother's house.

They are the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne.  They are paperback, the Scholastic edition, and we have 25 of them.  My kids love them and they have read most, if not all of them.

#2 The Knigh at Dawn
#3 Mummies in the Morning
#4 Pirates Past Noon
#9 Dolphins at Daybreak
#10 Ghost Town at Sundown
#11 Lions at Lunchtime
#12 Polar Bears Past Bedtime
#13 Vacation Under the Volcano
#14 Day of the Dragon King
#15 Vikings Ships at Sunrise
#16 Hour of the Olympics
#18 Buffalo Before Breakfast
#19 Tigers at Twilight
#20 Dingoes at Dinnertime
#22 Revolutionary War on Wednesday
#25 Stage Fright on a Summer Night
#26 Good Morning Gorillas
#27 Thanksgiving on Thursday
#28 High Tide in Hawaii
#33 Carnival at Candlelight
#34 Season of the Sandstorms
#35 Night of the New Magicians
#36 Blizzard of the Blue Moon
#38 Monday with a Mad Genius
#40 Eve of the Emperor Penguin

The books are in excellent condition.  I am asking for a donation of $35 or more. This will include  postage.  Please email me at carmiewest@comcast.net if you are interested in buying them.

Thank you,
Carmen

Friday, June 10, 2011

Shoes and lots of things to bring to Guatemala!!!

We have been busy collecting donations, shopping and packing for our fourth trip to  Guatemala.  Some teachers from Sunrise Park gave us more donations and we have been sorting them.  There are so many nice things that are going to make people happy in Guatemala. We are mainly bringing general donations and a few small gifts for some families we know and the people that work for Mayan Families. We are also bringing some money to buy food and beds while we are there.


 Titi decided to bring collars, leashes and flea shampoo for the dogs that are rescued by Mayan Families.

 We brought lots of shoes that we collected these past weeks.  I also got some flip flops at Wal Mart and they were a hit.  Next year I need to bring more.
 We travelled with Taca Airlines and they allowed us 2 bags per person plus a carry-on and a small bag.  The 8 big bags contained donations and gifts and we put our clothes in the carry-on bags. I packed and repacked many times to have 50 lbs. in each bag.

Lisa Goodman and her family gave us lots of great shoes for Guatemala!!!  Some of them are new!  We are very thankful to them.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Donations to Guatemala


A month ago we sent 3 big boxes of donations to Mayan Families via Medrano Express.  Lots of things are for general donations but we sent some bags for specific families that we have met during our trips. We cannot wait to see the pictures of the kids receiving their bags!  We wish we could send them only toys but they always need clothes and shoes so we have to send that.  They are happy with whatever we give them and I always feel happy when I am shopping for them.  Not everything we give them as presents is new but they appreciate it a lot.  Most of the things we send come from the donations that family and friends give us, most of the things are used but sometimes they give us brand new shoes or clothes.  I am always thrilled to find clothes with tags in the donations.  I also shop the clearance racks at Target or Wal Mart and if I have time I go to Goodwill, and many times I find really good things there.