CEDEPCA – Centro Evangelico de Estudios Pastorales en Centro America (www.cedepca.org).
YOUNG ADULT VOLUNTEER: Katharine Curles
LOCATION: Quetzaltenango (a.k.a. Xela, pronounced “shela”), about 4 hours west of Guatemala City. See
http://www.xelapages.com/ for some touristy but nonetheless helpful information.
DATES OF SERVICE FOR VOLUNTEER:
(START DATE) August 30, 2010 (END DATE) August 2, 2011
POSITION:
Your first responsibility and role is to be in relationship with the people of Quetzaltenango, especially the community in Zone 3 of Quetzaltenango where the school is located. You’ll become involved in community life and the life of a local church. You'll work during the week at the Miguel Angel Asturias Academy (
http://www.asturiasacademy.org/), which is a private nonprofit school striving to provide a higher quality of education for children of scarce economic resources. You'll teach elementary school English classes, use your skills and interests to provide other elective classes for elementary or junior high level, and be involved in the efforts of the school in the local community, possibly helping with programming for activities with parents.
In addition, you’ll be invited to participate in some events at Cedepca during the year, and you may be invited to help accompany and later in the year translate (as you’re comfortable) for groups from U.S. churches.
These are basic guidelines to get you started, but you may get involved in other things in addition to these areas as you meet people and develop relationships with people.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS DESIRED IN A VOLUNTEER:
The most important ways to develop a great relationship with your Guatemalan community are:
- Be proactive in speaking to people. When you enter a room, greet each person, and gradually try to ask them about themselves and their activities.
- Before judging what’s good and bad about people’s lifestyles, religious practices, culture, etc, try to understand the causes of why things are how they are.
- Strive to know yourself, your gifts, and what you love to do. Even simple things you like to do like painting, playing an instrument, leading icebreakers, listening empathetically, etc, are things you can share with others.
- Put effort into continually improving your Spanish.
- Try to share your vulnerabilities with Guatemalans – when things are hard for you or when you’re struggling with something in your life, when appropriate talk to Guatemalans about them instead of only calling home or other YAVs. As Guatemalans see your vulnerability, they’ll share theirs and more meaningful relationships will follow.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLACEMENT SITE CONTEXT:
Quetzaltenango is a city of about 300,000 people, the second largest in Guatemala, located along a major highway 4 hours west of Guatemala City. Many volunteers have been based from this city in the past. The climate is cool all year round - most of the year it gets cool at night (50s and sometimes colder at night) and warming up into the 60s or 70s during the day, and for a few months of the year it can fall below freezing overnight and not get much above 60 during the day. You will want almost all long sleeves and long pants or long warm skirts and only a few short sleeve shirts – imagine late September weather in D.C. with no indoor heating. You’ll want clothes to layer and a fairly warm jacket. The population of Xela is a combination of ladinos (people who don’t identify themselves as Mayan), and Maya Quiche people. The rainy season is from May – November, which often just means that there is a strong afternoon shower. Xela has the commodities of a small city - internet cafes, supermarkets, movie theater, etc; as well as traditional things like open-air markets, etc.
