Orientation Day in Guatemala

Yesterday, all of the people who will be working at the camp came to meet for a training in La Limonada (pictured above), the community where the children we will be working with and teaching next week. There are 29 adults along with 94 children from La Limonada who will be at the camp called EL Faro located in Puerto Barrios, Punta De Palma. Out of the 29 adults there are a mixture of artists from Buildabridge who have come as Artists on Call, long term missionaries who are living in Guatemala, Guatemalan residents, and some teachers who grew up in La Limonada and now work at the school.

This is BuildaBridge’s fourth year in Guatemala, and the team here developed the theme of UNITY for this week. Unity is needed in their community. Why Unity? The children in La Limonada are growing up in the midst of gangs who oppose one another, neighborhoods that are separated, daily trauma, and families that are divided. Many of the children are daily suffering from mental, physical, or sexual abuse. The injustice and corruption of the government and police in Guatemala City affects this community harshly. Consequently, BuildaBridge and Plantio De Jehova see that the need for hope, healing, and unity in this community is great.

"Estamos Unidos..." (We are united) Those are the words the artists and teachers are singing above. Yesterday the artists, teachers, camp leaders, and cabin counselors for the camp experienced unity through art-making at the orientation. When we all first walked into the room, the US artists were sitting on one side and the Guatemalan artists on the other. In order to experience the new curriculum, the teachers and artists broke into six groups, each group was given an objective of the unity curriculum, and an art form to share that objective with the rest of the group. As they developed songs, dances, drama, and human sculpture to convey their curriculum objective together, the room was quickly filled with a mixture of Spanish & English and laughter. The beauty of the arts is that through the art making process the team became more unified. Some of the artists in Guatemala are new to the Buildabridge Classroom and model and are soaking it in and working hard on their curriculum.

Tita has been working in La Limonada for 15 years and has started the two schools where the children will be coming from next week (Plantio de Jehova & Lemonade International). On the way to and from the training today we packed many people into Tita’s small van and stopped along the way to drop people off and pick people up. The spirit of the group shown through as we stopped along the way to give a man some “papa fritas” (french fries), a woman a banana, and to help some others push a car that died off of the street. The energy of the packed van, full of artists & teachers was joyful and inclusive. The people we are partnering with are dedicated to serving the community of La Limonada where there is much poverty and brokenness.

I cannot even begin to explain how much the laughter, the joy, and the excitement for this week’s camp and upcoming art classes is a privilege to be a part of with these groups! It is a blessing to be able to come and work with such gifted and loving people in the midst of a community of great need.