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You
are here: Central America Diary
by Greg Tuke
This is a series of letters to family, friends and education partners, as I travel about Central America to learn about education here, with hopes of some kind of future school partnerships across international boundaries -- the author
Dear Travel Partners,
Trust. I walk home late at night after another day of intense Spanish lessons.
I have now been in Guatemala three weeks, studying Spanish and learning about work being done here with public schools. I saunter along the nearly empty, narrow cobblestone streets of Quetzaltenango Guatemala, streets with few sidewalks and so narrow only one car can squeeze by. I walk with my back to the on-coming cars and trust that they will leave me the remaining 12 inches and not turn me into road-kill, as they whiz by at 25 miles an hour.
Trust. To live requires daily trust. Trust that tall buildings will not break, that our eyes and ears will continue to operate. Trust that most people will play by the rules and that we are safe around our neighbors, even if they have guns in their homes.
That trust was shattered for many of us in the US one morning not too long ago when two planes were driven, by design, into two office towers full of thousands of people going about their daily business. People who trusted that their place of work, like their homes, were safe from madness.
Trust was similarly shattered 25 years ago in Guatemala when the government unexpectedly sent troops to small villages in the countryside, to massacre thousands of unarmed men, women and children with the sole purpose of terrorizing those that remained alive into fear and submission. Over 150,000 people were killed here during a decades-long civil war, only recently has that trust with government forces begun to heal. Yet that growing trust in government is again being tested in the upcoming election next month here. The general who led the massacres, Rios Montt, is running for the presidency and by December, some predict, could be the new president here.
I am here in Central America to learn. For the past 12 years I have worked with public schools in Seattle, helping schools design strategies to create great learning environments for every child, especially in schools most challenged by poverty. I began work with schools in part because I believe they are the single most important community institution for improving society. Its where kids who haven¹t got a break in life can get a chance to dig out and succeed. It¹s where we, as a society, have a real shot at helping us all to figure out how to make a better world, and equip us with the intellectual and emotional tools to do so.
We in America may understand what makes our own country tick, but we are in a barren desert when it comes to uncovering the perspectives held by other cultures around the world. If we didn't know that before, we got a real wake up call on the morning of September 11.
"I want a school here because I want my child to have a better life than me" -Juan, President of parents committee in small village outside Quetzeltango
Nearly 80% of families are in poverty here in Guatemala, and most kids drop out of school by the sixth grade to work. Girls in rural areas are lucky to get beyond 3rd grade. The countryside village I visited this week had no school at all 5 years ago until a local organization called Fundap helped them to organize and finally get a school going. While there are huge differences in cultures, as we all know, some things remain the same. We want a better life for our children.
Getting a school in Guatemala up and going, to make that dream for a better life a reality, may not be what you think. This school, typical in many rural villages, is a one room classroom, about 12 feet by 14 feet. The 20-30 kids going to school here do have some desks, resting on a dirt floor, in a building constructed entirely of sheets of tin for the roof and all sides. No windows. If you wanted to build an effective sauna, you could find no better equipment than this.
There is both good and bad news here. The good news is that the community has now, with the help of this local organization, secured enough money to get the cement blocks to build a new classroom, using the sweat equity of the parents to put it together. It has a cement floor, a large window for ventilation, and running water and electricity. It opens next week. The bad news: in December of last year, schools like this one, and 97 others like it around this part of Guatemala no longer can be helped by Fundap because the government demanded that the teachers Fundap trains for the schools must make giving out propaganda in support of the current party in office part of the curriculum, and Fundap refused.
After seeing another school almost identical to this one, but larger, in a nearby community, we visit another project where young girls are being trained in cooking pastries, sewing and hair cutting. The girls are all teenagers, learning a trade, and an older women walks in to greet us. Turns out she is the mother of two of the 50 girls receiving this 6 month training. I learn that she heard through her church about the good work of this organization, and donated her house to make it possible for girls in her community to get training. She is a woman of very modest means, and lives in a smaller, attached structure around back. I am blown away at the generosity of this woman. While not dirt poor by Guatemalan standards, she lives very frugally, judging by her home we sit in and have tea.
I walk home after this day of travels in the countryside, my back again to the cars As they whiz by and let the day's film in my mind be replayed. I watch the 9 year old boy greet me in the sauna-school and re-hear him sing solo to me his country's national song. What can we learn from these families about how to find happiness? among grinding poverty? I hear the voice of Juan, the current president of the parents group tell me how his small community is able to grow all the food they need for their own community, and marvel at their ability to be self-sufficient.
I think about the generosity of this woman who gave her home up to improve the lives of girls in her community. And I wonder: of what value is there to be found in a partnership with a school in America by the teacher in this one room, dirt-floor school house? A teacher who has too few textbooks, but a caring community that wants the best for its children. A community full of families that will build a school, but may have to take their own children out of it next year to work the fields or demand that their nine year old son find a job in construction so the family can meet its basic needs. This teacher has to decide how to integrate political propaganda into the curriculum, so where is there room for pen pals, interchanges among teachers across international borders, and sharing curriculum with students in a classroom in America? What does make sense for this teacher, and would form the basis of a deep, lasting partnership of mutual benefit? I hope to find out. I trust that my brain will somehow make room for another language despite being filled with other important data, like the lifetime batting average of Roger Hornsby. I trust that my eyes, organs that require a visual aid already to work, will somehow make another huge adjustment and see that the world has more than one reality. And I trust that I can keep track of my passport for another 2 months so the authorities wont toss me in jail for the next decade. If they do, at least you all will know where to find me.
Warmly,
Greg
Dear travel partners,
Antigua, Guatemala. Monday, October 27th, 2003Its 5am, the sun is just getting up and so am I. Our van leaves for Volcan Picaya in one hour, one of three still active volcanoes among 33 others in Guatemala, and I need to still execute the still-dark cobblestone streets, marked by only occasional signage, to find the store that the van is to leave from. Its a small group of vagabonds I finally find, looking dazed, numbering just 7. You could add up all their ages and still barely reach mine, I think. We hop aboard this mini-van, circa 1980.
The sun is now casting its soft, hazy light through the morning dust, and I think I can see clearly now the road ahead. My tea bounces wildly in my Styrofoam cup, and by the time we are three blocks through this town of streets made from chunks of volcanic rock, my cup is but a shell of its former self, mangled and nearly empty. It looks like I had a serious accident down my left leg. Not a good way to kick off the day.
The van is too noisy to converse so I talk to myself again. The elections are drawing nearer, and at times I think I am getting a good feel for what is happening. A critical election, but the international community has rallied and hundreds of folks have been getting training in election observation and poll monitoring. Lots of Spanish school students tell me they are planning to be official observers to help out as well. There are posters of candidates everywhere, and lots of trucks with loud speakers cruising the streets in each city I visit. It is beginning to feel like a lively, yet democratic and peaceful election.
And yet. I talk with one free lance reporter from England who has been here a few months. She tells me that the problem is not the day of the election. There probably wont be a lot of voter fraud on election day. Because all the monkey business is happening before the election. Yesterday, in a confirmation of the above, I am told by the director of a local education non-profit that the paper just reported that 33 communities have recently had all of their town records burned. The towns no longer know who is a voter, who is age elgible, thus creating a real nightmare to know which votes to count. 2 political leaders have also been shot and killed. No one claims responsible for any of this, but the current party in power, the infamous FRG, is the top suspect.
Our van putters along across several small hills toward our destination. At the base of the volcano, we begin to climb steeply to a small town called San Francisco, our drop off point. 3 miles from the town, our van sputters to a halt, supposedly due to cheap, bad gas. Our driver excuses himself, and begins walking through the jungle toward some town, as he walks away he waves and says "Regresso in diez minutos", but some of compatriots are not convinced. We wait on this lonely road, the two oldest among us calming the others, saying all is cool. Yea, like we really know.
A small herd of cows pass by, an old man bicycling this awesome hill, a few more mountain people-types and then 25 minutes later, a truck comes down the hill, filled with 3 members of the national police. They examine the situation, and then instruct us to hop in the pickup and they will take us the rest of the way. Great. We are saved by the national police, part of the infrastructure of the present right wing government. I choose not to practice my espanol with them, about things like the upcoming elections and all. I think I am becoming what some of you call "a seasoned travel, como no?"
In the 80´s many young men were forced to serve in a police force, of sorts, patrolling their own villages supposedly for their own village's safety from the guerrila opposition. This after the government had massacred tens of thousands. This supposedly "volunteer" conscription was resented by many, yet nearly impossible to avoid. Some ended up identifying with those in power and went on to terrorize others as well. Today, some tell us, these folks number nearly half an million (called ex-PAC civil patrols) and they are mad as hell because they have never been paid for their service, and the current government, in an attempt to win more votes, promised them payment. This past week, I read a group of ex-pacs have kidnapped 1 politician and 6 journalists, and are holding them until they get paid. This too, I decline to bring up with our newly-acquired police amigos.
We finally get to our jump off point, and unravel our legs. We start up the very steep mountain, through dense underbrush. Our guide points out the beautiful fauna, and tells us that Marimbas are made from the tree we now look at, a Armigo tree, I believe. Several young local children, the oldest no more than eight years old, are in another group right in front of us, and headed up the mountain as well.
Scbools are out for two months right now, but I still have been able to meet with several more folks, including parents, teachers, and NGO non profit leaders to discuss schools and see the physical structures. This is such a young country of 11 million people or so (no one has decent data in this country, so much of everything, including illiteracy and poverty rates are estimates), and most of those are under the age of 18. In one small town, the parent leader tells me of the 500 people in her village of San Marcos, fully 60% are under the age of 12. Most kids go to first and second grade, but of 500 kids, only 26 made it to 6th grade this year at this small village grade school.
Teachers hired by the government generally get paid about $250 a month, an OK wage for here. But I am told, up to half the teachers are on contract, year to year, and get paid just over half that amount. What is worse, it is quite common that the contract teacher needs to personally pay the mayor or a supervisor who decides on their annual renewal at the school of their choice. Those who dont get dumped and are sent to towns far away, making for some pretty long walks to school, or else no employment. I think the Seaattle Teachers Union might oppose this procedure?!
Schools in the rural areas are diverse, but in a different way than what you might imagine. Because the country is 60% Maya, they speak a wide variety of Indian languages, none of which are Spanish, the national language. So they are taught in Spanish from day one, adding one more tough step in their climb to an education. The Peace Accords signed in 1996 call for teachers to be bilingual, but most have just high school educations and its lucky to have a teacher who speaks the local dialect as well as Spanish. Most some NGO's are working hard on to expand these kind of teachers.
I think about all this, as Julio and his sister, the two grade school kids who have befriended me, now challenge me to race up the mountain against them. Never one to shy away from a competitive gig, I take a big bite of my powerbar, a swig of my gatorade, tighten up my well fitted "New Balance" hiking shoes, and the race is on. When we reach the top, a spirited race won handily by these two veterans, I see they have no water, or food, just big smiles. We share the spoils in my fanny pack, talk in broken Spanish (mine, not theirs), and I think more about the race we have just waged and its accurate analogy to education here and there.
We take a few steps to the edge of the volcano, and look down through the rapidly rising plume of yellow smoke, down into the entrance to hell, or at least as I imagine it. (I hope this is not a predecessor of things to come!) The steam is very warm, but it is a sunny, slightly windy day at the top of this mountain giant, and we can see the pineapple fields miles below, and across to Volcan Fuego, also sending up a big fume of smoke. Infamous Guatemala city, the capital and center of the currrent corrupt government is also below, looking like the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz. More layers of reality that create such a contrasting, incomplete picture here.
Upon the recommendation of our guide, we end the day by literally skiing in reckless abandon down the mountain side volcanic rubble, in under 5 minutes. A distance that took 1 hour to climb. Its straight down the volcanic scree, and we take it like Olympic downhill racers, hopping from side to side. (Juilio and his sister wisely choose not to challenge me on the descent. They sensed the fire in my belly, I suspect, after the crushing defeat they had meted out to me only minutes before. Only my most competive tennis partners know this dastardly quality all too well. . . )
We reached the new replacement van an hour later and headed home. As the newer model van wrestled with the hills, I reflected on what strategies we refined at Powerful Schools might apply to the school communities I had seen so far. I am surprised at the number of things that seem like they might make sense here. Tying local communities to schools seems possible, and I see examples of some of this in the schools I have been told about. There is not a lot of parent and community involvement, but the schools are open to it, and some community folks do get involved, sharing talents.
Although there is little infrastructure here of local foundations, there is some efforts being made successfully to raise money from individuals, local businesses, and certainly international aid groups. Lots of parallels to Powerful Schools funding base. Schools however use almost exclusively a rote memory approach to learning, very little creative thinking skills being exercised, several leaders tell me. There are a couple groups doing some beginning teacher training in some of the schools I have looked at, but it is incredibly thin, and little is done directly in a teacher's own classroom.
On the way home the van breaks down 4 times, too weak to pull us up the hills, so we walk along the side of the highway, when the road gets too tough for our van. We arrive home by 2:30pm and I am exhausted, hungry, dirty, and sleepy. I fill up on two more meals before nightfall, take a nap and later head out into the cool night air, just perfect for a light long sleeved shirt. I relax in Park Central, surrounded by buildings designed 3 centuries ago, and still standing, thanks to the low-ceiling, flexible construction, called "earthquake architecture"used here. There is a fountain in the middle of the park, water spewing forth from the ample breasts of lovely women statues. It reminds me of Italian and Greek art I saw years ago with a similar senses of humor. The square is mainly filled with beautiful Maya women selling their weavings and other native artifacts, while their young children help sell with them, the smaller niños nestled in the breasts of the real woman in the plaza, drawing forth the mom's life-sustaining milk. Its 11pm and the family's here are still selling. I am exhausted and I head home to sleep.
Warmly,
Greg
PS. Please send me your comments, ideas, questions on any of this. And if any of you are crack auto mechanics, send me your best ideas for solving auto problems. Since we dont get The Car Guys here in Guate, I need all the help I can get.
Subject: 3rd letter from Guatemala
by Greg Tuke
(This is the 3rd letter to family, friends and colleages, as I travel in Central America. Please send me your thoughts, ideas and reactions. The longer I am here, the crazier I may be getting. . . !).
"On the same spot I sit today others came, in ages past, to sit. One thousand years, still others will come. Who is the singer, and who is the listener? -Nguyen Long Jru
It is a steamy, overcast morning in Copan, Honduras. I sit atop one of the most magnificent Maya temples, listening to the wonderous musical talk of free McCaw birds nearby. The rains begin and my guide points out to me the stone irrigation system below, now drawing water away from the temples as it has for over 1500 years. In a land torn by earthquakes, volcanoes, ravaged by war and surrounded by a hungry jungle that eats everything in its path, these irrigation ditches give new meaning to "it takes a beatin´, but keeps on tickin.´ "
Yesterday, my new backpack, bought in the Mercado two weeks ago, went belly-up, the zipper splitting apart like a piece of rotton fruit. I have bought 4 new pens here and they all leak. A soft-brush toothbrush is not to be found here, only hard-brushes the eat your gums, all of the above the victims of goods sent here that are the hand-me-downs and rejects of other countries. Everyday I see someone toss their empty bottles and wrappers out windows of the local busses. But before I become too incensed at the useless pollution of this magnificent countryside by natives here, I remind myself that our country is dumping its waste here too. The backpack, 4 pens, and hardbrush toothbrush I bought this past month are just the tip of a huge stream of damaged goods shipped here and added to the unburied wastestream. Which is of the greatest scale, causing greatest harm, I wonder? If humans could build a virtually indistructable irrigation system 1500 years ago, surely we can do better than this.
The Mayas today, who make up the majority of people in Guatemala, have a spiritual belief system that also sheds new light on old things for me. Like some eastern philosophies, and other Native American beliefs, they believe everything-the Gods, those passing on to the Underworld, and material things and events- each carry both good and evil in them. This is quite unlike the other major religion here, Catholicism, whereby all things are divided into good or evil. When you look at the world in this new way, at least for me it is new, it provides a fresh perspective on nearly everything. Even defecting backpacks.
This morning I catch the headlines in the local La Prensa and learned that 49 people were killed in Instanbul. I feel a jolt from this unexpected unleashing of hate, as I stand on the street corner of this humble town, something like the first shakes of an earthquake under your feet. Uncontrollable, unexplainable. And I wonder, "how will we respond, what will we learn from this, where is the good that lies within this?". Somedays, its hard to find.
But we do live in a new world. The Maya culture was brought to its knees by wars that ultimately left only ruins covered by jungle, and questions about why, with such a highly developed culture, it had to be so. Will we carve a new path with this new knowledge? Will we use the incredible potential of US might, wealth and wisdom to do what no other civilization has done before us? Is that the potential good that could reside in this mountain of evil?
I wonder how we construct an education system that can serve this end. More school for kids seems an obvious answer, especially when students here from rural areas typically go up to 3rd grade, then quickly drop out. And Guatemalan schools, while it lasts 180 days, is only 3 hours a day. I met an Austrian women this week who tells me in her country education is fully paid for through college, for everyone! Why can´t we do that in the US? Or, as some argue, at least get every kid off to a good start by providing fully funded pre-kindergarten.
But is more education really the answer? Do we become a smarter, more caring nation with more education? Does a wealthier nation become a more generous nation?
"The Devil himself must have a perverted fascination with this country, I think sometimes that he can corrupt anybody. Not even a fine education guarentees protection . . . " -"The Long Night of the White Chickens", (from a novel, set in Guatemala, I now read)
In Guatemala everyone complains of corruption in government, and in Honduras I find the same thing. Yet, on the chicken busses, those brightly painted busses that serve as the backbone of the transportation system throughout Central America, a little different picture emerges. I meet a woman way out in the countryside who is training poor women to start and run their own businesses, and providing micro-loans to them to get started. The program now operates in nearly every part of the country, and was initiated by the wife of the current supposedly corrupt President in Guatemala. In Honduras, while I am shaking off the last vestiges of food that did not quite make it "successfully across the cross-cultural divide", I read of an education program in Honduras that seems brilliant in its simplicity; to provide free annual medical examinations and healthcare, and one good meal a day to all children that attend primary school. As I ask around, locals tell me the program seems to be a good incentive to keep kids in school longer. Again, a program started by the wife of the currently corrupt government. I begin to see the wisdom in this Maya perspective of good and evil. (yea, yea, I know, its the wives coming up with this stuff, not the Presidential husbands, and Maria Shriver is going to keep Arnold in check too. . . but maybe its more than just that, verdad?)
This is all good and well, but after we learn to read and write, what critical skills do we need to create more caring people and more caring nations? As I talk with other international folks on the chicken busses, I am told that the same education battle being waged in the States, the battle over testing and content, is being fought in their countries as well. So this is no small thing, this tug between learning technical skills and learning how to think creatively, critically, and caringly.
The chicken bus is such a good environment to ponder these questions, questions I have had too little time to think about before. You sit in busses, with sometimes 9 people across (yes, if you fit it tight enough-and everyone does-the middle people dont need seats. The pressure coming from both sides on your shoulders is strong enough to keep you afloat, despite the grinding bumps). And you have lots of time to think. Lots of time, as the busses stop everywhere, door to door service when you know the driver and his money-collecting buddy.
I have yet to get the definitive answer on how the Chicken bus got its name however. It is true that people bring everything on these busses; 200 pound sacks of maize, crates of vegetables, and of course woven sacks of live chickens. The chickens are quite calm, but I know not why. They are busy creatures as you watch them hunt and peck all day in the yards. And Lord knows, the roosters hardly sleep, even at night, judging by their regular crowing starting at midnight and ceasing around 5am, just the time when I rise. (Those of you who sleep with snorers have nothing to complain about, I now realize). The bus´ name, I believe, may come instead from the way the busses play chicken with on-coming trucks and cars, on narrow mountain roads no less. One such bus "bought the farm" last week, with 6 dying in the head on collision. I try to ride somewhere in the middle, sort of like using human seat cushions. Not exactly egalitarian behavior, I realize.
Somehow having your life hang from such a narrow thred helps you focus on the big questions of life. . .
This all may sound a bit sobering, but their is much good news to report. In Montericco, a small, very poor coastal town, they are saving the lives of turtles every week, bringing them back from extinction, and have been carrying out this hurculean task as volunteers since 1977, despite a 35 year civil war. There are US Peace Corps volunteers everywhere I go, doing amazing community development work with little resources but their brains and their hands, making me feel proud to be part of a country that makes this possible. There are hotsprings here that cascade down mountains, forming hot waterfalls crashing into clear streams that take your breath awa when you stand beneath them and where you can taste a bit of heaven without having to die first. There are people here who greet you on the street with joyful looks, happy to say hello with their eyes, instead of looking away, in fear of being accosted.
And despite the poverty, and maybe, just maybe because of the lack of material wealth, their is an underlying sense of well-being most people seem to exhibit here. It is hard to know. Getting underneath the first cover of a new culture is tough, and I never quite feel like I know if I am there or not.
There is so much we can learn from each other, I do know that. And thankfully, there are thousands of people running around this country, from many parts of the globe, learning the language and meeting the people here in Guatemala, and doing volunteer work, all in search of ways to make themselves and this world, a little better place.
You wonder, one thousand years from now, what will people think as they sift through our rubble and what will they say about this time of human existence? Will we have more to show for ourselves of lasting value than the nuclear waste sitting in barrels in the Yucca flats? Will the banjos they find finally be in tune? Another thing to ponder on the next Chicken bus ride . . .
Warmly,
Greg
Notes from Central America, letter #4
To my Travel Partners;
" . . . death conquers only those who are not surprised by it; life as well." -Carlos Fuentes, from the book "Distant Relations"
I walk in the direction of the chanting voices of the crowd, past the McDonalds, Pizza Hut and other recognizable outlets. The sound grows, a loud and rapid call and response, and seems to be coming from the nearby plaza. Nearly 3000 people fill the streets, with colorful banners. As I survey the local crowd, I begin to spot men in small groups, dressed in freshly pressed blue and gray camouflage uniforms lurking in shaded stairwells and in the corners surrounding the plaza. More soldiers, maybe another 100, dressed in the traditional green camouflage are grouped elsewhere on the outskirts of the plaza and on nearby streets. All are packing large guns. Many carry riot gear. The last time I had seen anything like this was in Seattle for the first WTO conference.
It seems that on my way to the local art museum here in the state capital of Honduras I have stumbled upon yet another surprise. Once again. While my Spanish is improving now, I still cannot understand the cries beyond "la lucha" (the struggle). Luckily, a local organizer circulates with a handout that I quickly scan. As I read the article protesting cuts in teacher pay and drastic economic changes, familiar sounding words begin to filter in. . . . "Estadas Unidos y Norte Americano" sound vaguely recognizable. I then spot the red, white and blue colors of the upside down prop, a very large top hat, placed on top of the truck carrying the mike and speakers. I began to sense that this might not be the very best spot for the sole gringo here to be. I could become the next prop. Organizers are always looking for that kind of thing . . . I decide to blend. Past the militia, past the growing crowd joining in who are getting off work, and down a side street.
In talking later that day with a local teacher and several others, by nightfall I learn more about the roots of the rally. The day before, the Honduran Congress had passed legislation approving the next phase of agreement with the International Monetary Fund, to ensure a better rate for Honduras on their foreign debt, hopefully resulting in more trade with multinationals around the world, (and more US chain stores on every block.) All this in exchange for making cuts in the Honduran national budget. And the IMF has targeted teacher salaries as one of many areas of bloat in the current budget.
From talking with local educators here, I have learned that teachers in Honduras earn about the same as Guatemalan teachers, about $200 a month, with Nicaraguan teachers being the poorest paid, at about $70 a month. Class sizes range widely. Yesterday I met an elementary school teacher with a class of 47.
In Seattle schools, we have a new financing device that is touted as very innovative, called a student weighted formula, with dollars following students to the schoolhouse. In Nicaragua, I learned this week, they have a similar thing. Our student weighted formula has around $3,000 a yr following each kid. In Nicaragua, its $45 a yr. "High school students who get scholarship support to cover only books and supplies get paid more per month than the teacher," one principal tells me on Monday.
Principals also don't have it easy here. They not only fill all the usual principal roles of supervisor, leader, custodian and financial oversight, they often have an additional task of having to go collect the cash each month at the local bank, sometimes hours away, where the government sends the money. That in itself brings added danger to the role. The principals then pay the teachers-in cash- their meager monthly salary. Yet what can a developing country do in the face of such demands for cuts in education and social services? Refuse to pay the debt and receive the draconian economic sanctions that would rain down upon them? Even those activist travelers I have met on the road here who attended the WTO Cancun conference this fall are short on models for alternative responses by developing nations. And so in Honduras, a school system that is already failing the country, could fall further into hopelessness, this time spurred by the policies of foreign governments.
Yet, so much can be done here with so little. This week I have visited over a dozen schools on Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua. Over 40 public schools have been helped here through a voluntary partnership with its 15 yr old sister-island association with Bainbridge Island. I see dozens of school classrooms that have been built across the island, with the voluntary labor of student delegations, and with the money that comes from the profits of coffee that is grown by a farm cooperative here, and sold in Seattle. School libraries are now finally equipped with books, thanks to the donations from this island partnership, around $20,000 a yr. Schools that just a couple years ago looked like the dirt floor schools of Guatemala now have concrete floors, roofs, and fenced playgrounds to protect the children from the road. Some Ometepe students graduated this week from the university, some of the first to graduate from the island , thanks to the many scholarships that have been provided to make it finally possible. Many lives are being changed here, with just a little support.
That night, following the protest, I have dinner at the Don Quijote restaurant, a local favorite that sits high atop a hill overlooking the Honduran capital. I watch the sun set, streaming an orange sherbert streak across the sky, and then the stars come out, dancing around the mountains far below. I am but one of four people at the restaurant, and I have the recommended specialty, Sangria with paella. The waiter comes over and I get in a conversation about what I experienced in the plaza down below. I show him the handout, and he quickly tells me not too worry. "They protest all the time, close down the streets, and are all just lazy anyway," he tells me. Turns out when he is not assisting at the restaurant, he is a teacher in the local international school, a private high school for local and foreign students. I pay my bill, walk home to my hotel, and proceed to get slightly lost on these dark, winding streets. Another proper ending to day forty-six in Central America.
Greg
Please write me with your ideas, your reactions to any and all of the above. I really enjoy hearing from you, and have appreciated each letter many of you have written. Although you all have been weak, I must say, in ideas for fixing stranded busses. . . .
Dear Travel Partners,
The snow continues to pile up outside my window this morning, and I see kids calling their parents out to play on this clean white pallet, the perfect place on which to perform their artistic magic, building snowmen, angels and snow forts. It's quite a switch from the mornings of Guatemala, where roosters and monkeys start calling you out to play in the tropical morning breeze, starting at around 2am.
It's good to be back. I return with a reinvigorated spirit, new insights, and an unknown parasite, which I hope the doctor will handle today! I also made it back without losing my passport, maybe the biggest feat of all. These 3 months of traveling through Central America allowed me to learn a new language a little better, and learn about many other cultures a lot better.
I had hoped that by traveling to Central America I could also gain insights into the educational systems there, and test out some ideas developed over the past decade at Powerful Schools about building strong communities and schools. I went with a vague notion of how we might develop deep, lasting and effective partnerships between school communities in the US and school communities in Central America. I return with a much clearer sense of how this can work effectively, and an increased enthusiasm for creating such a venture here in the Northwest.
I think the timing to do this kind of work, creating a way for large numbers of young people in the US to deepen their understanding of people around the globe, may be right. Our country is deeply divided now over how to respond to the world around us, and I think we are looking for ways to respond effectively, and ways that will bring long term security to all of us. The world outside the US is more accessible to us than every before. For a few hundred dollars and 9 hours of a plane flight, you can be meeting face to face with community leaders and students in rural Guatemala. For just a few dollars, you can be having voice to voice conversations, complete with live video on a desktop computer for an hour or more with kids in Managua. For a few pennies an hour, you can have live, real-time, email conversations between students. This technology is available in many of the most remote parts of poor Central America, even now. One day while hiking in Nicaragua, a local who was living deep in this jungle (and his family had for generations) told me that Saddam Hussein had just been captured hours earlier. I didn't even think the guy knew where Iraq was, let alone had access to CNN! So we are all a lot more connected than what we might imagine! While technology will never replace face to face experiences and living in another culture, it can be a great complement, if we can just figure out ways to do it well.
Two big questions I had when I went down were:
1). Can you create tight links between the local community and schools to help schools take advantage of the local strengths? (a key concept with the Powerful Schools model). While there is not as much linkage now between schools and the local community as you find in many US schools, it is not a totally foreign concept, and in many ways, the local rural community of parents are even more linked to schools than here, as are some business but in more informal and relationship-connected ways. This gave me great hope for some real possibilities.
2). Can schools that are dealing with such basic necessities as getting a decent teacher (who is paid regularly!), and books/supplies have any real desire to forge a partnership with US schools, or is it seen as just a nice luxury? In this, the answer I found is more mixed and complex. Like here, the vision needs to be there from the start with the principal or head teacher, or else it will never fly. But, based on what I saw in operation, if it is there, and there is a strong existing community organization already connected to the school to provide on-going support (again, much like Powerful Schools has done for schools here), and if a lot of up front time is spent with the leadership from US schools and the possible Central American schools to define what both partners have to offer and what both need, then some real cross-cultural learning that is life changing will take place.
The lack of basic materials in many Central American schools is daunting, as is the high drop out rates, beginning in 3rd grade. And from my experience recently in US schools, the focus on narrow testing is driving teachers away from considering learning opportunities like this that are ultimately deeper and more far reaching for educating America's populace. But I do sense we are at a place in this country where the timing may be right to create these kinds of world partnerships. And I am excited to join others in just such an adventure.
We may not decide to exchange their monkeys, pigs, and roosters for our snow and Starbucks outlets (that has already been tried in the past with pretty ugly results), but the exchange of people and ideas sounds pretty good to me. (Although the three Nicaraguan teachers from Ometepe that are on Bainbridge this month may have a different view of exchanging people with this white stuff on the ground)!
Well, gotta go. Someone has to ski to the store for milk. Greg
Greg Tuke has worked in the social sector for the past 25 years in the Northwest, as a community organizer and Director of several non profits and philanthropic organizations. Most recently, Mr. Tuke served for 12 years as the founding Executive Director of Powerful Schools, a nationally recognized school change organization committed to improving public education in urban schools. He currently is traveling for 3 months in Central America to meet with education leaders and activists to learn more about education in this part of the world. Through such exploration, he hopes to develop deep partnerships between schools in Central America and the US that are mutually beneficial to the students, staff and local communities. These letters are his reflections on what he is learning during these travels. You can contact Greg at gtuke@earthlink.net.
© March 2004 Greg Tuke
Posted with permission of the author by New Horizons for Learning
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