Guatemala received a lot of rain from tropical storm Agatha. For a hint of the damage, check out this frightening sink hole. The heavy rains caused flooding, more than a hundred deaths, and significant crop loss. More info here.
The government of Guatemala is canceling school this week and the GVI schools, where I am teaching, will be following that guidance. A lot of the kids are getting exposed to viruses and bugs because of the flooding, cold weather, lack of clean drinking water, etc.
We were told that one student in one of the schools lost his father and three siblings in the flooding. I don't know any more than that, but it seems so unimaginable and avoidable, this kind of loss. I really can't comprehend it. We were also told that many of the students' families crops have been ruined. Most of these kids have parents who own (or use) plots of land and grow corn and other crops. They don't make much money from this, but it's all they can do to earn money.
What do you do when you lose you're only source of money? It's simple, really. You don't eat. Many of these kids deal with starvation on a daily basis. Again, I can't imagine it.
As depressing as these pictures, anecdotes, and thoughts are, they are part of the reality of many of the world's children. And they help explain the context with which I will be teaching in very shortly (hopefully).
This podcast, from the NPR show "This American Life," profiles the situation in Haiti and the efforts of NGO's and local people to escape poverty. A lot of the same things apply to the situation here in Guatemala. It has really informed my view of the difficult decisions involved with alleviating poverty in developing countries.
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