Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala

Preparing for a visit from our child sponsors always creates a flurry of excitement at the Mayan Center—laying in food and water, sweeping out the cobwebs from the volunteer cabin, making a list of the tasks at hand, planning trips to visit the children.

Last month, Gary Owen, sponsor of two children, made the trip with his good friend, Roy Krausen.  Our visitors, both from California, have always enjoyed traveling to places off the beaten track where they can immerse themselves with a different culture and authentic adventures. We were delighted when they offered to volunteer their valuable construction skills in order to complete the kitchen at the new Nutrition Center.

Gary had learned about Adopt-a-Village five years ago while on a previous trip to Guatemala; this current trip would be his third time to volunteer for Adopt-a-Village.  The two friends spent 10 days building shelving, counter-tops, and roof-beam supports, as well as installing a plywood floor.  Apart from work, they hiked through a magnificent rainforest where the endangered Resplendent Quetzal nests, viewed the water-holes built for the wild animals during dry season, enjoyed a swim at Lake Maxbal, the pristine limestone-sink lake near

the school’s property, and learned about edible rainforest plants, like momon, (so called by the Maya) a wild herbaceous perennial plant. (The crunchy, tangy stalk-like vegetable, tasting like a mix of celery and ginger, is added to soups, scrambled eggs, and stir-fries at the school kitchen).

We have to think that by making this bone-jarring trip through rugged mountain terrain three times indicates that time spent with the Maya at our rainforest retreat is definitely worthwhile!   Perhaps Gary’s friend, Roy, echoes his thoughts when he says, “… if we accomplished just a little bit at the school, it pales to the great experience and fun of working there.”  Giving back, having fun—a great combination for a great vacation!

 

We welcome volunteers with skills in sustainable gardening, nutrition, carpentry, mechanics, teaching, and more.  Contact us at guatvillage@aol.com.

The Venice, Florida, Interact Club, a group of 40 high school students, is working with Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala by supporting a scholarship for an indigenous student at our Mayan Center for Education and Development.

The club’s goal is two-fold—alleviate hunger by supporting a scholarship in sustainable agriculture.  In the remote indigenous villages in Guatemala, little opportunity exists to gain an education past 6^th grade, due to the extreme poverty of the region.  First, the Interact scholarship will put a Mayan student in an accelerated program, enabling him to complete three years of schooling in just two. A diploma opens doors to university studies, professional training, or management of a small business.  Second, the scholarship, by providing specialized training in sustainable food production, will benefit hundreds of indigenous children with nutritious food, thus helping to stem the severe malnutrition in the region.

Jane Mendola, Lead Interact Advisor and Rotarian of the Venice/Nokomis Rotary Club, says, “By training one student, our Interact Club is clearly helping to combat malnutrition of Guatemalan children.  The country suffers from the worst level of chronic child malnutrition in Latin America and the fourth highest level in the world.   Chronic malnutrition limits physical growth with the result that children’s bodies are stunted and highly vulnerable to disease and illness. It causes irreversible brain damage—leaving them unable to function well in school or in later life”.

 

Imparting one student’s expertise in growing food sustainably can positively impact at least 100 villagers.  Every student at the Mayan Center of Education is required to share his/her training in how to produce “super foods” (for instance, vegetables with the highest nutritional values). From “growing” soil (using green composting methods)—to using special planting techniques, to harvesting seeds for the next year’s crops—parents can change the health of their children for the better.

The motto “Train a student, transform a village,” is being marched out to the Venice and Nokomis communities where Interacters are selling hundreds of hand crafted Guatemalan key chains to raise funds.  Their one-of-a-kind international project just hit its midway funding mark last month, thanks to the enthusiastic participation of club members.  Their final goal—raise $2,000 for the annual scholarship.

Mendola says, “our Venice Interact Club is not just helping one student, it is helping entire villages—they are doing something vitally important that is improving the lives of many.  The Interact Club has really taken this project to heart and our facilitators at Rotary and Faculty Advisor at the Venice high school are very proud of them.”

If you belong to a group that would like to support a student, please Frances Dixon guatvillage@aol.com. 

 

Previously, we wrote that several graduates, including Juan Diego, would be interviewed and assessed for a coveted internship at the Mayan Center for Education and Development. 

When the Guatemalan Civil War ended in 1996, Juan Diego was seven years old.  He would grow up in a time of hope that the Peace Accords would bring better health, education, and economic times to his people—but, sadly, he would reach manhood to realize the failure of that hope.  Today, his people are hungrier than they were 50 years ago when the war began.  Now, chronic malnutrition threatens to destroy a generation.

As the main breadwinner of his family, young Juan Diego had certainly known hunger.  But those were in the days before staples such as corn and beans had not doubled, tripled and quadrupled in price.  A year ago, six tortillas could be purchased for 12 cents.  Today, one cannot get more than three or four for the same price.  Juan has neighbors who cannot afford to eat beans.  Rice is a luxury—meat, eggs, and cheese don’t show up on a Mayan family’s table in this distant corner of northwestern Guatemala.

The future of this current generation is clearly threatened.  Chronic malnutrition deprives bodies of vital proteins, stunting physical growth.  Without sufficient nutrients, brain capacity diminishes, sometimes up to 40%.  Willem van Milink Paz, a representative for the World Food Program in Guatemala, calls chronic malnutrition a “life sentence” that condemns generation after generation.

How to turn the tide of this tragedy when poverty is so extreme that parents can’t afford to buy even sufficient food staples?  With a small plot of land and a hand up from Adopt-a-Village, self-help gardens can produce food.  We believe that using sustainable agricultural practices in villages is the best way to combat chronic malnutrition—starting small—mother by mother, father by father, village by village —teaching, encouraging, empowering.  From the first step in building nutrient-rich soil in family plots through the interim steps that produce highly nutritious food, our Mayan friends can create an ongoing cycle of food—a cycle of life.

Who better to lead such a movement than a Maya who first-hand understands his people’s plight—their hunger, their deprivation, their need to work hard to survive?   Who better than one of our own graduates armed with specific knowledge in sustainable agriculture?  Who better than a young person known to be responsible, resourceful, a leader?   Juan Diego, of course!

Juan was awarded the coveted internship and took his place alongside the small but growing contingency of Mayan teachers at the Center.  He will teach the incoming students the basic elements of sustainable gardening; and he will train families in outlying communities, empowering them in the art of growing nutritious food.

Adopt-a-Village embraces 2012 with a two-fold goal:  First, expand the number of villages currently receiving training; and second, introduce a community training program at the Mayan Center where parents can learn advanced techniques in gardening and nutrition.  The Mayan Center’s Nutrition Center and demonstration garden will serve as the base where courses in organic pest and disease control will be taught.   Parents will learn how to choose the principal vegetables for nutritional value and how to preserve nutrients when cooking the food, as well as seed harvesting techniques and food storage methods.  With these skills, they can return home, using this knowledge to build a foundation of health for themselves and their children

Through a simple but effective plan of harnessing the educational resources of the Adopt-a-Village Mayan Center, chronic child malnutrition can be combated.  Families have already demonstrated that they are eager to learn these new skills that can restore their health, vigor and dignity.  Self-help gardens, not food handouts, can help them to attain this goal.    Join us in this unique partnership—your help in purchasing seeds and tools and supporting the training of young Mayans like Juan Diego can make a powerful and positive impact in their future.

Twenty mothers from  Santa Elena, a Q’anjoba’l Mayan village just south of the Mexican border, received their first batch of vegetable seedlings for the New Year from Adopt-a-Village.  This self-help program empowers villagers to learn the techniques of sustainable gardening so that they can be assured of ongoing food for their children.

Non-hybrid seeds that can be harvested and grown successfully for future plantings are provided from the Mayan Center of Education, the Adopt-a-Village unique school that trains indigenous students in academics and sustainable agriculture.  A major goal of the school is to combat the chronic child malnutrition in the region.

In our last post, we wrote that Juan Diego’s grandfather asked Adopt-a-Village to consider his grandson for a scholarship at the Mayan Center for Education and Development…

The Mayan Center, located on a mountaintop, isolated from the distractions and pollution of population centers, is a very desirable facility at which to study for several reasons. Foremost, the school offers a two-year accelerated curriculum that puts a student on a fast track to a high school diploma, thus saving time and money to enter higher education or begin working.  That prized certificate, possessed only by a small percentage of Mayan youth, opens the doors to university advancement, professional training, or managing a small business.  Additionally, the Center’s students receive 30% more class time than what is offered at “in town” schools (classes run all day, not half days as in other schools).  Individual use of computers and Internet service are provided.  In other schools, groups of six or more students must share one computer during lessons; and, they must pay for computer time at Internet cafes in order to complete homework assignments.  The Mayan Center boasts a large library, a rarity in any level of school in rural Guatemala.  Ready access to books and computer equipment provides an enhanced opportunity to learn more and thus gain better grades that assist them in gaining entry to university or employment.

A feature important to parents is the school’s 18-day intensive study timetable that gives a student the ability to spend the remainder of the month at home working to help to help sustain the family.  To win a scholarship, Juan would have to demonstrate certain attributes—speak a Mayan language, demonstrate leadership skills, produce records of good grades, and be financially unable to pay tuition and boarding costs.  He easily demonstrated these requisites.

Juan was awarded a scholarship and lived on the rustic mountain campus with his fellow students for two years.  He studied hard and fulfilled of all his academic obligations. In addition to class time, the school requires that students take part in managing and maintaining the campus with the purpose of building leadership skills.  Work involves keeping the school and campus clean and orderly, tending the student’s vegetable garden, feeding the chickens and cleaning their coop, daily grinding the corn for tortillas and helping to prepare mails, and performing other tasks that support a well-run educational facility.

In addition to a heavy load of academic classes, Juan received intensive training in sustainable organic agriculture.  A component of the training is that students use their skills to help impoverished families in nearby villages.  During their practicum, they work alongside family members, teaching them how to prepare soil, produce green compost, transplant seedlings, use water-saving techniques, and harvest seeds for the next planting.  Juan excelled in the sustainable gardening course. He confided to the school director that his long-term goal was one day to pass along this specialized education to young people by teaching at a high school.

A few weeks ago, Juan Diego graduated as valedictorian of his class.  His long years of struggling during his childhood had given him the needed determination to succeed in winning his high school diploma.  He had clearly shown himself to be a hard worker, responsible, and resourceful.

What would be his next step?  He knew that the school administration was offering an internship to a graduate.  The internship would provide an opportunity to study and teach under senior teachers at the Mayan Center, offer advanced organic agricultural training, and gain paid work experience in nearby villages by teaching sustainable food production.   In its assessment of Juan, the administration noted not only did Juan’s skills meet a challenging set of needs, but also his background could made him ideal and very important candidate for the work he would undertake.  He could be empathetic to the extreme level of poverty the Maya suffer.  He spoke the Q’anjob’al language—the dominant Mayan language of the region.  And he had proved himself to be a dependable leader.

Several graduates would be interviewed and assessed for this desirable position.

To be continued….

 

 

 

Guatemala is one of 20 priority countries that the American government plans to help cut poverty and overwhelmingly high chronic child malnutrition rates.  On the other hand, the Peace Corps announced last week that it has canceled plans to send a contingency of new volunteers to Guatemala next month.  What a loss!  Peace Corps hands-on technical training helps rural families attain low-cost sustainable development from the ground up that can fight poverty and malnutrition.

Kristina Edmunson, a Peace Corps spokeswoman in Washington, said the move stemmed from “comprehensive safety and security concerns.”  Guatemala is one of the Central American countries that is used as a staging point by drug cartels to ship cocaine to the United States from South America.  The escalating drug and organized-crime violence in Guatemala has had much press lately. The country has one of the highest per capita murder rates in Latin America at 42 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.   (On a comparative level, the murder rate in Mexico is reported to be at 15 per 100,000).

Peace Corps technicians and others like Adopt-a-Village volunteers have the background to teach a variety of skills to empower rural people in improving their lives.  With the rate of chronic child malnutrition in Guatemala now at the 4^th highest level in the world, Adopt-a-Village has focused on teaching sustainable agriculture— soil improvement through no-cost green composting, (instead of using expensive chemical fertilizers that leach and eventually exhaust the soil), multi-cropping, correct water usage, and seed harvesting for the next planting—all viable techniques that an impoverished people can use at virtually no financial cost to help themselves out of the grip of ever-worsening hunger.

Although Peace Corps support has been cut to Guatemala, USAID is assisting this “focus country” with another style of foreign aid.  In a recent meeting at which current food security policies were discussed with a USAID official in Guatemala City, Adopt-a-Village representatives were told that USAID does not “support subsistence farming programs,” (perhaps not understanding the difference between “subsistence” and the “sustainable” methods AAV uses).  Rather, the USAID view is that some of the most promising opportunities to lessen poverty and chronic child hunger lie in non-traditional agriculture, horticulture, and coffee exports.  USAID programs have engaged thousands of small-scale coffee growers in the highlands to develop production and participate in the global market. (Some would argue that land would be better used to grow food for hunger-stricken local people).  Additionally, USAID has forged an alliance with the multinational giant, Walmart, which recently bought out Guatemala’s largest family-owned chain of grocery markets. Whereas this government/corporate agricultural partnership provides jobs for some, most of the food grown is exported to other countries in Central American and to the United States. (Google “Feed the Future” program for details on this alliance).

Crime and corporate agricultural goals aside, Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala is committed to staying and continuing to make a difference in the lives of malnourished children.  Come January, we will enter our 21^st year of service in northwestern Guatemala.  If you are the adventurous sort, we welcome you to come and volunteer with us—we are especially looking for people with organic gardening skills, carpenters, and Spanish language teachers.  (Fluency in Spanish is a Ministry of Education requirement in schools.  However, our students have been raised speaking one of the Mayan languages and need help in mastering Spanish).

Your support, as always, strengthens our resolve.  As we have stated, our foremost goal is to stem the current devastation of stunted growth and minds of Mayan children permanently impaired by chronic malnutrition.  To achieve this, our progressive school, the Mayan Center for Education, is creating a network of Mayan villages where nutritious food is being grown—but this goal needs your help in order to succeed.

In this time of giving thanks, I want to extend my most heartfelt thanks to you for your past and present commitment to the Maya of Guatemala.   Together we are helping to empower them to make important and meaningful changes in their lives.

 

Juan Diego lived in a clapboard shack on a mountainside in abject poverty but had the good fortune to be able to enjoy a magnificent view of the mighty Ixcán River in the valley far below.  Tranquil and peaceful during the dry period, the river broils up muddy and angry during the months of heavy rains.   More than one imprudent man and his mule attempting to cross it have been pulled down to a watery grave in the clutches of its powerful rapids.

The river flows from its source in the Cuchumatanes mountains, drops into the lowland jungle valley near the Mexico border and continues northward into that country.  For all its past and present acts of treason against the Maya, it nevertheless guided thousands of frenzied families as they fled on dark nights from the infamous Ixcán massacres in the early ‘80’s.   Their pathway still exists today.  Walking it, one can imagine the terror of those times—mothers running, babies in sarapes tied on their backs, fathers with toddlers on their shoulders and others grasping their hands—and the older children, barefooted, rushing, desperate not be left behind.

Those were the worst days of the genocide.  Rios Montt, an army general, had just wrested presidential power through a coup d’etat in1982.  He became known as the most violent dictator in Latin America in modern times.

Juan Diego was born a few years later, but it wasn’t until he turned seven that the effects of the civil war caught up with him.  Tragically, it was just after the Peace Accords were signed that his father made the fatal mistake of picking up an abandoned grenade.  His foolish act not only instantly ended his life, but also forever changed the course of his first son’s life.

As the eldest son of four children (Juan’s mother was then pregnant with his little brother), his days changed from childhood play to hard labor in the fields.  His solitary companion was his father’s machete.

Despite the long and lonely work, the lack of food and clothing, the mud floor he slept on under the leaky roof, Juan Diego managed to continue his schooling.  Sometimes, he dropped out for a year when the family’s supply of corn shrunk to a few kernels and it became obvious that the family wouldn’t eat if he didn’t go back to work.

At age 19, he left for the sprawl and grime of Guatemala City in the hope of finding work.  Even though he’d reached adulthood, his culture decreed that his family obligations had not ended.  As the eldest, he was expected to continue to support his mother and younger siblings.

One day, Juan’s grandfather, upon realizing that Adopt-a-Village was about to open the Mayan Center for Education and Development, approached the organization.  If he could locate his grandson (his namesake) in the city, he asked, would we interview him and give him a chance to win one of our scholarships?

To be continued…

 

There are few schools in the world that can be found on top of a remote mountain, (less one that boasts a resident jaguar as does the Adopt-a-Village Mayan Center).  I know of one distant school in the Chilean mountains, just across the border from Argentina.  It’s on the way to a ski resort, so I’m not really sure that it qualifies. Other educational boarding facilities tout their remoteness, such as another one in the Nevada desert, but really, it’s only half an hour drive to pick up a burger and a six-pack, even though the school administration frowns on the idea.

The Mayan Center for Education is situated in a pristine rainforest four hours north from a bone-jarring drive over four-wheel roads of Huehuetenango’s northernmost supply town of Santa Cruz Barillas.  Even their inhabitants don’t really know where it is and as most are non-aficionados of the wilderness, really don’t wish to know.  Nevertheless, Mayan youth who were born in isolated mountain villages call it home for two years as they live, study, and work on campus to earn their accelerated two-year diploma.  Once in hand, they can choose one of several paths—begin university studies, train in a professional facility, or even start a small business.

In addition to academic classes (where students receive 30% more class time than “city” schools), intensive training is provided in sustainable organic gardening.  Guatemala suffers from the worst level of chronic child malnutrition in Latin America and the fourth highest level in the world, according to United Nations statistics.  Every student graduates with the ability to provide his family and village the help they desperately need to produce sustainable food to stem the staggeringly high rates of child malnutrition from which they suffer.

Mateo Ordoñez, pictured here with his father, Pascual Ordoñez, and the school director, Osman Casteñada, has already introduced to his community the unique methods of soil preparation, green composting and multi-crop planting.  His father, an enthusiastic of the Center’s sustainable organic growing techniques, has volunteered to head up village committees to encourage others in these methods of food production.

 

 

Our first graduation!  What better way to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Adopt-a-Village?

Only the country’s violent October tropical storms threatened the schedule.  Three days before the ceremony, president Alvaro Colom issued a plea for people not to travel the flooded highways—many of them destroyed by landslides, and mountainsides still collapsing with the heavy rains.  “Travel only in an emergency,” was the edict.  AAV’s director, Frances Dixon, determined that attending the first graduation of the Mayan Center for Education definitely required travel, and after 3 ½ arduous days of re-routing and skirting blocked highways, she reached the isolated mountain school, drenched and muddy.

Strains of the marimba music lifted spirits (although not the rain) and signaled that the festivities were about to begin. The school’s colors, green for the mountains and gold for the jaguar that lives nearby, festooned the hall; students proudly presented themselves in their forest-hued shirts and gold satin cummerbunds; and all proudly posed for keepsake photos garbed in a traditional cap and gown.

The ceremony climaxed with smiles and tears as parents rose and stepped forward to embrace their children.  What were they thinking?  Long-held dreams were coming true for them in those joyful moments.  Education had been denied parents in their youth when they found themselves trapped in refuge for years in Mexico during the Guatemala civil war, but in these moments they could rejoice, watching their first children graduate.

Two years of dusk-to-dawn days spent by staff and students living and studying in a remote rainforest mountain campus had paid life-size dividends.   New doors were opening—some students were continuing on to university, others were taking jobs or preparing to begin small businesses, and a top student had won a teaching internship at the Center.

Best of all, students would be sharing their knowledge in their home villages.  Indeed, they had already introduced sustainable organic gardening skills to their families and neighbors, and seven nearby communities had benefited from the students’ instruction during school service projects.  “Train a student, transform a village”—this school motto had born fruit with the first graduation!  Their education had empowered them to create a powerful surge of change in their communities—a change ensuring nutritious food for a people suffering from one of the world’s highest rates of chronic child malnutrition.

Please share these joyful times with us.  You can assure the continuation of a better future for the Maya by giving a scholarship to a deserving student for the 2012 school year.

Give Now

Two extraordinary events occur when you give an Adopt-a-Village scholarship.  First, you change the course of one child’s life.  And then, you change the course of a community.

Our Mayan Center for Training and Education benefits worthy and impoverished students to improve their lives.  Additionally, through students’ community service, it benefits entire villages.  A scholarship is the key that opens doors to employment, professions, or university enrollment for a student.  But more—it is the key that empowers parents to transform their children’s debilitating hunger to good health.  By teaching our unique sustainable gardening methods, families are being helped to stem the chronic malnutrition rampant in their communities.

Guatemala has the 4th worst level of chronic child malnutrition in the world.  Lack of food impedes children from gaining a normal height and from growing strong and disease-resistant bodies; worst of all, it destines them to suffer irreversible brain damage.

Our training center is one of only three in Guatemala that offers accredited courses in sustainable organic vegetable-growing.  With a demonstration mini-farm fully operational and a nutritional health center under construction, we are now sending cadres of teachers and students to train families in surrounding villages.

Please become part of this life-giving force that will stop the chronic malnutrition and its deadly consequences for Mayan children.  Give the gift of education and help turn the tide for an impoverished and hungry people.  Your scholarship will provide the opportunity for one student to help train hundreds of his neighbors.  It will empower Mayan families to become self-sustaining in food production.  It will insure that parents can raise healthy children—children with strong bodies and strong minds—a new generation that can build a better future for their people.

Clayton Dunnaway, a Boy Scout with the Highlands Ranch Troop 665 in Colorado, has inspired four international organizations to join him in his quest to help poor Mayan women in Guatemala—and at the same time, earn the coveted Eagle Scout ranking for his project.

The Boy Scout Troop; Finding Freedom Through Friendship in Lexington, Kentucky; Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala and the Rotary Club of Palmetto, (both located in Florida); joined the team project that would bring aid to Mayan mothers—two international borders away and some 5,000 miles from Clayton’s home town.  It is unlikely that he could have realized the heartwarming impact his project would have upon them.

Guatemala has one of the highest rates of maternal and child mortality in the world.  Mayan mothers suffer from malnutrition, as well as with severe anemia, parasitic diseases and other untreated infections, making them vulnerable to life-threatening complications during pregnancy.  Prenatal care is rare. Babies are birthed by a village midwife, who, often as not, has little training and no equipment.

Clayton’s inspiration centered on helping these mothers.  He and his fellow Scouts sought donations of newborn clothing, hand-knitted baby caps, cotton diapers, and baby blankets, and raised funds for partial transportation costs.  He partnered his Scout troop with Finding Freedom through Friendship, an organization that helps single mothers with food, staples, and safe housing. which added midwifery equipment and prenatal vitamins to the donations, who shipped the jam-packed duffle bags to Palmetto, Florida.  The third partner, the Rotary Club of Palmetto, arranged for shipment from Florida to Adopt-a-Village headquarters in northwestern Guatemala.

That organization, led by president Frances Dixon, made the final leg of the journey—a five-hour bone-jarring trip in a four-wheel drive vehicle over a rugged mountain track to the village of San Juan Tutlac.  There, grateful mothers received their gifts, while the village’s two midwives practiced with the stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs.  San Juan Tutlac is the first village of several that are receiving supplies.  It is estimated that 170 newborns will benefit from this project.

The gift of prenatal vitamins, more perhaps than any other, was met by quiet awe from mothers.  Such vitamins are highly prized—but  completely beyond their reach.  A one-month supply would mean a month’s work in the fields, and other necessities are seen as more pressing.

The village gathering included mothers and their curious children, the midwives, the village health aide, and community leaders.   Diego Pedro, the health aide, spoke, imploring the mothers to try to better feed themselves, not only for their sakes, but for the sake of their unborn children.  He told them that without adequate nourishment in the earliest years of life, their children would be destined to suffer from stunted growth, brain damage, disabilities, diseases and infection.  And that malnutrition would lead to diminished educational achievement.

Attacking chronic child malnutrition is at the forefront of Adopt-a-Village goals. Recently, the organization launched its boldest program ever—a sustainable organic mini-farming program to stem the debilitating hunger of the region’s children.  Guatemala has the highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in the Americas, and the fourth highest in the world, according to United Nations statistics.  In this remote region of Guatemala, hunger is the standard for indigenous children. Some, notably those of widows and single mothers, eat only every other day.

In time, and with the help of volunteers and donors, AAV hopes to reach dozens of villages and schools and initiate sustainable food production.  Creating improved nutritional health will be the cornerstone for wellbeing of the future generations of the Maya.

The sole support of these fatherless children is their widowed mother. She has no schooling, speaks no Spanish, and the little work she can find is picking coffee during the harvest season. Harvesting is done now and there is no work for another five months. We ask you to consider sending a small donation to help us purchase food for Easter for this family and others like them.

Dominga Pedro of Santa Elena happily holds her basket of vegetable seedlings, ready to plant in her prepared garden bed.  She is one of 15 mothers who is participating in the Adopt-a-Village bio-intensive garden project in her community.  César Garcia, agronomist and specialist in bio-intensive agriculture, spent the day completing the second level of training with the mothers.  This takes us another step closer to confronting the severe food crisis in Guatemala.

Originally posted at http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/2323

MARCH 16, 2011
by Altschuler-Corrales
Authors: Daniel Altschuler and Javier Corrales

Sometimes in an election, voters have to choose the lesser evil. Democracy is imperfect, and so are candidates. But the two apparent front-runners for Guatemala’s upcoming presidential election in September are worse than imperfect candidates; they reflect deeply troubling trends in Latin American politics—the Iron Fist and conjugal continuismo.

The front-runner, Otto Pérez Molina, signals a frightened population’s willingness to cede power back to a military that devastated the country. Pérez’s rise seems predicated on the promise of resuscitating coercive means of the past in response to crime in the present.

The second candidate, First Lady Sandra Torres de Colom, represents the trend of sitting presidents seeking to extend their reign. Since the 1990s, many Latin American presidents have tried to relax or abolish term limits. They try various strategies. The current Guatemalan president’s chosen method for circumventing term limits is conjugal continuismo–nominate his wife as his chosen candidate.

Both candidacies are troublesome for democracy. Mr. Pérez, a retired army general, played a central role in Guatemala’s armed conflict, in which state forces killed as many as 200,000 people. Pérez once led the notorious military intelligence unit and has been implicated, though never charged, in conspiring in the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi. In his last presidential campaign, he used his strong man image to launch a platform of mano dura, a clenched fist, to combat crime. In Latin America, at the moment, not just in Guatemala, there is demand for more heavy-handed responses to crime, undoubtedly one of the region’s most serious urban problem. But when this demand occurs in a country the military remains fairly unaccountable, the result could be a serious deterioration of civilan control of the military.

Pérez’s candidacy represents more than just a call to end crime; it raises the specter of ongoing impunity and the military’s political return. His unabashedly pro-military stance will make it even harder to bring military leaders to justice for crimes during the armed conflict.

Moreover, an Iron Fist policy could expand the military’s policing role, which would likely produce excesses of military power in the name of security. Plagued by gangs and organized crime, Guatemalan voters understandably want a strong response. But the prospect of Mr. Pérez’s election raises serious concerns about the military’s political resurgence.

Currently, the First Lady appears to be Mr. Pérez’s principal challenger, offering a more social democratic platform. Since coming to office, she has overseen President Alvaro Colom’s flagship human development programs. Popular spouses working on social programs, a la Laura Bush or Michelle Obama, can benefit politicians and voters. But promoting your spouse as a candidate is a crass method of using the incumbent’s advantage to circumvent term limits.

In Latin America, the incumbent’s advantage is peculiarly strong. Since the 1980s, only two incumbents allowed to run have lost. Even ex-presidents have a huge advantage: one in every two elections in Latin America that allow ex-presidents to run has featured an ex-president, and they often win. (In fact, ex-President Alvaro Arzú has announced his intention to run in Guatemala, as well, though it’s unclear that he can legally run). Term limits have been a useful way to check the power of sitting and former presidents.

Latin America’s tradition of constitutionally-mandated term limits and rules against political nepotism exist for a reason. Latin Americans suffered for generations under the power of all-powerful strongmen who favored their inner circles. Term limits have helped inject some rotation at the top of the political establishment.

Many incumbents and their followers hate term limits. They thus try different tricks to overstay their welcome, including referenda, co-opting the courts, and spending their way into popularity. Colom’s conjugal continuismo represents the latest trick.

Conjugal continuismo is an Argentine export. In the mid 2000s, then-President Néstor Kirchner selected his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, as his successor. This was a clever ruse to achieve continuity by keeping power within the same bedroom, while arguing that Mrs. Kirchner offered political renewal. But rather than renewal, conjugal continuismo brings repetition: As happened in Argentina, the new first husband likely remains the de facto president—or that is how the people will perceive things.

Either case—a de facto or a perceived ghost president—augurs poorly for democracy. Under conjugal continuismo, power is kept behind the scenes and official authorities’ credibility remains questionable. Such a nebulous power structure creates obscurity at the top, while undermining the democratic aim of maximizing transparency. Moreover, it blocks leadership renewal across the political system.

Torres’s candidacy will face a legal challenge given a current prohibition against relatives of the president running to fill that office. But, whatever the outcome, this Kirchner-like push from the First Couple is noxious. If voters want to change re-election rules, they should hold an open public debate, and the leading parties should negotiate concessions. But using one’s spouse to perpetuate power reduces the credibility of the process.

On its face, conjugal continuismo may seem less threatening than the military’s possible return. After all, Latin American militaries killed many hundreds of thousands of people in recent decades, and sending generals back to the barracks was the principal victory for Latin American democracies in the 1980s and 1990s.

But the Iron Fist and conjugal continuismo actually exemplify the same vicious cycle: unhealthy institutions breed unhealthy politics, which in turn further damage institutions. Perez’s candidacy shows how weak institutional capacity to contain crime spurs demand for a more coercive apparatus, which can further weaken civilian control of the military. Torres’ candidacy shows how weak institutions of checks and balances allow for an over-concentration of power in the executive. This, in turn, further undermines checks and balances, makes the ruling party more obsequious, and polarizes government-opposition relations.

Democracies require renewal of leadership, else they go stale. In Guatemala, where a former military leader and the president’s wife will likely dominate the election, such renewal has become deeply improbable.

*Daniel Altschuler is a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College and a doctoral candidate in Politics at the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. *Javier Corrales is professor of Political Science at Amherst College and author of Presidents Without Parties: the Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s.

The new village bio-intensive gardening project begun by Adopt-a-Village last month focuses on growing more food in less space.  Using a precise measuring technique, based on an octagonal format, our teacher shows demonstrates how to multi-crop up to five vegetables in a small area.  Companion plants (those that grow well in close proximity to others), that require varying lengths of  time to mature, are correctly spaced, and as a consequence the garden can provide up to five times more food than using single row crops.

Stephen Lowery, third-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine  has volunteered to teach at the Mayan Center for Education and Training this month.

Stephen began volunteering in Guatemala in 2008, returning in 2010 to study the effects of chronic malnutrition on childhood development at Las Obras Sociales de Hermano Pedro Hospital.  He is currently offering his time at a rural clinic outside Quetzaltenango with the Primeros Pasos, an organization committed to reducing malnutrition among communities of the Palajunoj valley.

Adopt-a-Village is also strongly committed to combating malnutrition in the northwestern region of Guatemala, and provides course work in bio-intensive sustainable gardening both at the center and in outlying villages. One of Stephen’s primary interests is in studying how malnutrition affects the neurological development of a child—thus his classes with our students will tie directly to our curriculum.  It is well know that tens of thousands of Mayan children are stunted both physically and mentally due to the effects of malnutrition.  Stephen’s insights will be an invaluable addition to the students’ knowledge.

Bryan, youngest of all our Adopt-a-Village volunteers, is a six-year old Guatemalan-born boy who lives with his American family in South Carolina. Though small in size, he is big in raising funds to help impoverished children in his birth country, recently raising $974 by selling Mayan handicrafts and baked goods at a local fair.

It all began with the annual “international peace project,” an educational program at his Montessori school intended to build awareness of poverty and need in developing countries. Bryan decided he wanted to sponsor a boy his age through Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala.  It would be up to him to raise the funds.  And raise the funds he did!  He not only earned the $225 fee, but an additional $749.

As with millions of Guatemalan children suffering from chronic malnutrition, Bryan, too, knew hunger and poverty as a toddler.  His donation will go directly to combating malnutrition in a remote region of northwestern Guatemala.  His monies are being designated to Adopt-a-Village’s bold new initiative—a regional bio-intensive garden program. Families, with the aid of our organization, will grow organic calorie crops (grains and root vegetables, such as sweet potatoes) to offset the extreme hunger in the area. Guatemala has the highest level of malnutrition in the Americas, and fifth highest in the world, according to United Nations statistics.  In this region, hunger is the standard for most indigenous children.  They suffer from low daily nutritional intake to outright malnutrition which stunts them physically and mentally.  Some, notably orphans and children of widows and single mothers, eat only every other day.

And for Bryan, he now has a new little Guatemalan friend, José.  Through their friendship, he will stay connected to his Guatemalan heritage.  The two boys will exchange photos and drawings, and later write to one another when they are older.

Bryan, you are amazing, and thank you!

A group of volunteers from the Palmetto Rotary Club traveled to the Adopt-a-Village agro-forestry training center located at Jaguar Mountain to offer construction aid and training in emergency medical care.

Allen Langford, past president of the club who worked a medical assistant in his youth, put some of his experience to work by teaching students at the Mayan Center for Education and Training the life-saving techniques of CPR (cardio-pulmonary respiration) and the Heimlich maneuver.

As some of you know, AAV’s center is the only facility of its kind in the vast area of northwestern Guatemala that borders Chiapas, Mexico.  In addition to its distinctive agro-forestry specialty, it is one of three experimental stations in the country in which bio-intensive agricultural methods are being taught.  The program is managed by agronomist César García Linneo, a professor at the San Carlos University in Guatemala with the aim to help Mayan families create sustainable gardens in which they can produce calorie foods (example, grains and root crops such as sweet potatoes) and vitamin and mineral crops to offset the extreme hunger in the area.

Guatemala has the highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in the Americas, and the fifth highest in the world, according to United Nations statistics.  In this remote region of Guatemala, hunger is the standard for most indigenous children.  They suffer from low daily nutritional intake to outright malnutrition which stunts them physically and mentally.  Some children, notably those of widows and single mothers, eat only every other day.

The Center, built by Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala, a small, independent nonprofit based in south Florida, is an educational hub in a sprawling region of 250 villages that stretches north to the Mexico border and south to the neighboring department of Quiché.  It is the only educational facility offering classes that qualify students for university, advanced agronomy and forestry training, and entrance to nursing and business schools.

Rotary International and District 6960 have provided support to Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala organization since 1991, funding school construction, libraries, furnishings and materials, building homes and roads, water systems, and helping to build the Mayan Center.

We are currently seeking teachers and people with construction skills who would like to volunteer.  For more information, email Adopt-a-Village at guatvillage@gmail.com.

From PBS NewsHour:
Senior correspondent Ray Suarez, just back from a reporting trip, describes Guatemala as a land of exquisite beauty, but also of exquisite agony. Violence against women is systemic and widespread – part of an overall pattern of violence that the citizens of Guatemala, who have endured several civil wars in the last 50 years, are suffering. The country is also hard hit with malnutrition and has one of the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in the hemisphere.

Ray spoke with Hari Sreenivasan about his trip and the challenges Guatemalans faces on a daily basis.

On March 7-8, the global health unit will air two stories from Guatemala on the NewsHour, focusing on family planning and maternal health and violence against women. The NewsHour will also air follow-up discussions with representatives of NGO groups working in Guatemala and government officials. President Obama will visit Central America in mid-March as part of a three-nation trip.

Original post here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/preview-picturesque-guatemala-overwhelmed-by-violence-poverty.html

Thirty enthusiastic students from the Venice High School in Florida, members of the school’s Interact Club, are raising funds to further a student’s education in Guatemala. Interact, a youth service club sponsored by local Rotary clubs, undertakes an international humanitarian project each year as well as helping local charities in their fund raising efforts. This Interact Club is sponsored by the Venice/Nokomis Rotary Club.

The Interactors’ ambitious goal is to raise $2,000 to support a full scholarship for a Mayan student attending the Adopt-a-Village training center in a remote Guatemalan rainforest. The school, the only one of its kind in northwestern Guatemala, focuses on building leadership skills and providing agricultural and forestry training. Students are participating in a major bio-intensive mini-farming project that is helping local communities combat the high level of malnutrition in the region. With the country confronting a food crisis—United Nations statistics show that Guatemala has the fourth highest level of malnutrition in the world—the Interact Club will ultimately bring aid to more than just a single student through this specialized training.

The Interact students are selling Mayan handicrafts at local Venice events to raise funds for the scholarship. Theirs is a gift that will keep giving—it will benefit many communities and most importantly, through increased food production, ensure that fewer children go hungry.

Let us tell you how Adopt-a-Village will begin to celebrate our 20 years of service in Guatemala!

We are excited to tell you that we have attracted noted agronomist, César Linneo Garcia Contreras from the San Carlos University in Guatemala City, to provide training at our Mayan Center for Education and Development.

César Linneo is a professor in the Department of Agronomy who specializes in organic agriculture.  In addition to his degree in agronomy earned at the university, he has studied bio-intensive agriculture in the United States, Mexico and several countries in Central and South America.

On Saturday, he and I will make the long mountain drive to our Mayan Center.  We arrive on Sunday when he will begin his seminars in bio-intensive mini-farming.

What is even more exciting–his training will extend beyond our school doors.  César will be visiting some of our sponsorship villages to teach.  Last year, Adopt-a-Village introduced the concept of family gardens to various communities. Now, with a highly trained technician in bio-intensive mini-farming at our side, our work will be expanded and strengthened.  As healthy gardens succeed, we will continue to increase our reach to dozens of communities.  Our ultimate objective—create conditions for self-sufficient food production.  More food and improved nutrition gives us valid hope that the all-too-high rate of chronic child malnutrition in this area is going to drop.

A few days ago, Adopt-a-Village found Suleidi, Nelson, Breieda, Elmer, and Deneisi.  Their father died two years ago when his wife was pregnant with Deneisi.  With no breadwinner in the family, their poverty is extreme.  The children were walking to school barefooted—their mother has been unable to afford to buy shoes for them.  Adopt-a-Village responded immediately with school clothes and shoes.  Now, going to school can be a happy event, not one of shame because they cannot dress as other children.

We are hoping that someone out there will want to help them.  A 100 lbs. of corn for $25 will insure that have tortillas.  Or you can sponsor one (or two!) of them.  Happily Breseida has been taken into the care of Leigh and her adopted Guatemala daughter, through sponsorship. We would love to see others offer that same compassion to Breseida’s brothers and older sister. Please email us at guatvillage@gmail.com.

School kids have just finished their three-month stint laboring in the coffee fields and are now back in school.  Picking coffee means more that taking the bean off the bush.  It means keep a wary eye on the ground at the same time for poisonous snakes.   And it means hauling heavy loads of produce on young backs to the scales before they can receive a few pennies for their hard day’s labor.  I remember as an 11-year-old, picking raspberries and strawberries for pay during my school break.  It didn’t kill me, but neither did I have to carry 100-lbs sacks of produce on my back or hope that a lethal snake-bike wouldn’t finish me off, like these kids do.

The stark fact is, child labor proliferates in this region of Guatemala much as it did in the Dickens-era, 200 years ago. In fact, one particularly unethical farmer, who owns a large coffee farm in an Adopt-a-Village sponsor village—gotten by ill gains, as the story goes—pays children $1.20 to work from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (about one-sixth the national minimum wage). He gets away with it (and has for decades) because there is no government entity or children’s rights organization to protect children from his illegal practices.  Moreover, parents, desperate to see their families survive, need every quetzal in order to keep their children fed and thus encourage them to work these long hours.

These harsh demands on children make them become adults way too quickly.  It is for this reason, I am so grateful to our child sponsors.  I feel that those children who are lucky enough to have sponsors enter their lives, stay a little younger, a little longer.  Sponsors, through their caring letters and small gifts and occasional visits, remind them that they are indeed still children, not adults in child-size bodies.  I sincerely thank all of you who offer such children kindness and care through sponsorship

Last week, the 10-day United Nations-led Climate Conference met at Cancun, Mexico, bringing together 25,000 delegates from 194 nations.  The Convention creates national strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions, including the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries.   However, it wrapped up leaving representatives from Central America disappointed with the results.  Some leaders were of the opinion that no significant agreement had been reached on important issues such as lowering carbon emissions in the developed world.

President Alvaro Colom was among Central American leaders who emphasized his country’s vulnerability and asked for better conditions for dealing with climate disasters.  In his speech at the conference, he exhorted nations “to think of the agreement as saving lives, not reducing emissions, in order to speed agreement.”

Disagreement had arisen over signing a second commitment period on the Protocol.  “Without agreement,” Colom continued, “we are burying the dead in every river,” referring to recent floods across Latin America. “Today it is in Colombia and Venezuela, a week ago it was in Costa Rica, two months ago it was in Honduras and in El Salvador, and in May it was in Mexico and Guatemala.”

He said that the whole of human civilization is at risk, not just the 10 most vulnerable nations. The Inter-American Development Bank has identified Guatemala as among the top 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Additionally, Guatemala is the fourth most susceptible nation to natural disasters and suffers the fifth highest incidence of childhood malnutrition in the world, according UNICEF.  Perhaps no other country in the world shares Guatemala’s dubious distinction of achieving a top 10 ranking on all three lists.

In a little over 10 years, Guatemala has suffered the wrath of Hurricanes Agatha (2010), Stan (2005), and Mitch (1998), which collectively killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans homeless, in addition to inflicting substantial and widespread damage to the country’s infrastructure and agriculture.  Unfortunately, Guatemala has experiences its wettest rainy season in the last 60 years due to continuing tropical storms, such as Alex, that have killed 235 people and left almost 210,000 Guatemalans homeless.  Many scientists and others attribute these natural disasters in part to climate change.

Carlos Mancilla, the head of the Climate Change Unit at the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry (MARN) of Guatemala, has recently stated that “[c]limate change is exacerbating the conditions of poverty and extreme poverty in the country, and above all is complicating the lives of the most vulnerable.”

Although in recent years Guatemala has suffered significant death and destruction as a result of extreme weather phenomena partially linked to climate change, ironically the country itself contributes an insignificant amount of the total global greenhouse-effect gases that are compromising the planet’s environment.  The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) determined that all the Central American countries combined contribute less than 0.5 percent of global greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.  By comparison, China produces the most total emissions of these gases, followed by the United States.

In his closing remarks at the global climate summit, U.S. ambassador Gerald Feierstein stated, “The United States is delivering on our fast start commitment to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.  The United States is also working hard to reduce its own emissions and transition to a clean energy economy”.

Perhaps the Guatemalan people can draw hope from his statement?

An adventurous young woman from Kentucky, Talena Sanders, recently contacted Adopt-a-Village with a request to assist her investigative work in Mayan hand-loomed textiles.

The majority of the Maya we help are Q’anjob’al and weaving is not part of their traditions.  However, Mam women are noted weavers, so we would take Talena to Nuevo San Ildefonso village, a small community of Mam who pioneered the area 13 years ago.

Everything worked liked clockwork (unusual in Guatemala)!  Talena and I hooked up in the town of Barillas and traveled two hours over dry bedrock roads to the mountainside village. Mothers weave striking indigenous costumes, each one an original bearing unique designs and colors.  Moreover, they continue to teach their young daughters the art of back-strap loomed weaving from the early age of six and onward.

Talena is an interdisciplinary artist who uses a wide range of media including film photography, digital video, live digital video mixing, moving image film, social practice work, and curatorial projects to explore the extraordinary ways human express individual and collective identities.

She says, “I have remained impressed by Maya people who have managed to maintain their cultural heritage.  They have continued to make and wear their traditional indigenous dress, despite the hardships they faced during the civil war and influence from the influx of foreign tourists.

I spent one month in Guatemala conducting research, interviews, and photo shoots to document dress and culture of the contemporary Maya of Guatemala.  During this time, I met amazing people and heard incredible personal stories of both the Maya people and of the people from organizations who work to help them.”

Thank you, Talena, for helping us to tell people about the extraordinary skills of these Mayan women.

Frances

They’ve never seen a book?” one of the students asked me incredulously. “How can that be possible?”

I was giving a presentation to a group of Interact students in Venice, Florida. I had explained that believe it or not, some of our high school students at the Adopt-a-Village Mayan Center had gone through primary and middle school without ever having read a book. How did they learn? Copy down in their notebooks what the teacher wrote on the blackboard. Needless to say, such impoverished education brings acute remedial problems once students begin studies at our school. But it is the reality and one we have to deal with and work to resolve.

I explained to the Florida high school students some of the differences between their school and the Mayan Center school—like our lack of educational supplies and materials, no heating or air conditioning in the school or dormitory cabins, no proper kitchen, no running water, no toilets and only cold showers. My audience continued to be attentive but clearly remained incredulous.

When I described how our Mayan kids are responsible for a daily work program requiring them to be up at 5:00 a.m. to work on a variety of jobs, I received some puzzled looks. I explained how students must make, from scratch, 300 corn tortillas on an open pit fire every morning. The group grew quieter still. (From scratch requires carrying a big pot of cooked corn on a student’s head up the mountainside to the motorized grinder, grinding the corn into masa (dough) and then hiking back to the small rustic kitchen where the dough is expertly hand-formed to the size and shape of a cue ball, then flattened in a press, and cooked on a comal (a flat iron pan). During the tortilla ritual, other students cook a breakfast of porridge or eggs in the tiny kitchen on a wood stove by candlelight. Work duty is serious, but not without humor. Laughter abounds, even at the early hour.

Whereas each student receives a full scholarship that includes board and lodging, he/she must participate in maintaining and managing the campus based on the organization’s self-help philosophy and guidelines. A student council schedules the rotation of daily duties—cleaning the goat stables and collecting the precious manure for their school garden; tending the chickens, including learning how to apply parasite medicine and inject their vaccinations; and maintaining and cleaning the showers, latrines, and dormitory cabins. It’s been a lot of years since my son was in high school, but I can tell you that he definitely didn’t have to hit the bricks at 5:00 a.m. for work duty just to get some breakfast! This program is unique to our school. It was designed so that students can better understand the value of work and the value of their scholarship.

The remote rain forest mountain campus site has many distinctive and unique features. The area was chosen to give students the benefit of a tranquil and inspirational environment for their studies. The school community is self-contained with its own housing, food production, water supply, solar power, and a satellite system that allows the outside world to enter, when desired. In other words, it is self-sustainable.

We offer 30% more class time than traditional schools. Small eight-person interactive tutorial groups are the norm instead of the overcrowded 60-student classrooms in town where students endlessly copy their lessons written on the blackboard. At this time of writing we provide one computer for two students, until we are able to secure additional funding to provide a computer for each student. In other schools, the average is one computer to six students.

The Center’s 18-day study schedule provides students with concentrated uninterrupted study and after, the opportunity to spend the rest of the month in their villages helping their parents earn enough to keep the family fed.

And whereas many students entered our school without ever knowing a book, they do now. Through the efforts of two stalwart Adopt-a-Village supporters, Fran and Sue Lenski, their families, friends and others, the school has an impressive starter library with textbooks, reference books, encyclopedias, manuals, and a good selection of literature by well known Latin authors. I would venture to say that this small library is second to none of any other school in the department of Huehuetenango.

I am happy to say that the Venice Interact students are looking forward to communicating with our Mayan students. It will be a great learning opportunity for both groups and one that will lead to new international friendships.

Bryan, a six-year old Guatemalan-born boy, lives in South Carolina with his American family. For such a small tyke, he has big ideas. His vision—raise money to sponsor a boy in Guatemala through the sale of baked goods. But cakes and cookies are not all. He intends to expand his sales by offering Mayan crafts. Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala is sending him some of our colorful items—animal backpacks, traditionally-dressed dolls, coin purses, fanny packs, beaded Christmas ornaments, and more.

It all began with an annual “international peace project” at his Montessori school. Bryan determined that his project would be to sponsor a child. As with millions of Guatemalan children today, Bryan too, knew extreme hunger as a toddler. Now, even at his young age, he has the ability and compassion to lessen the suffering of another child.

There is a grander vision here. Bryan will have an opportunity to stay connected to his Guatemalan culture through a friendship with a child from his birth country. The two boys will begin their contact through photos and drawings, and later through letters when they both learn how to write.

Along with selling baked goods and Mayan crafts, he will be promoting the Adopt-a-Village child sponsorship program, encouraging others to sponsor too. Bryan, you are amazing!

Frances