Clifford the Dog

''Ok, so I want you to shut your eyes and imagine something. I want you to imagine your future, I want you to dream of where you would like to be one day, and what you would like to be doing. When you are ready, open your eyes and draw. Draw that place, that time, that dream....''

So, when I am subsequently faced with fifteen pictures of Clifford the Dog, I am semi-disappointed. Fifteen pictures of Clifford the sodding dog. I asked for hopes, dreams and aspirations but what I actually got was a giant red canine. Multiple copies thereof. Oh, and sketches of cartoon students wearing graduation outfits.

Funnily enough, illustrations of both Clifford the Dog, and the wide-eyed animated alumnus can be found on the walls of Salon 3 . It seems that, if there is something within a 10 foot radius which can be replicated by my students in favour of using their respective noggins, they will almost invariably opt to copy. And by 'almost' invariably, I mean, invariably.

A similar thing happened last week, when a perfectly intelligent and talented friend of mine was absolutely taken aback when his planned lesson - a university style seminar type shebang, where we would all talk openly about our feelings in relation to music, probably, according to his rather unrealistic imagination, sipping tea with our shoes and socks off - bombed:

''What do people think of XXX song? [silence] Has anyone ever written a song? [silence] What is your favourite musician? [silence]". This cycle of questioning and aggressive non-answering went on for a period of time before the whole thing was finally aborted in favour of fashioning maracas out of plastic cups.

From these examples, can we then safely that the kids at the project are devoid of taste and opinion? That they don't have ideas? That they lack creativity? Hm...It seems more likely that they don't the confidence to voice their thoughts in an open forum, or to say 'this is what I think, this is what I like'. I have found that you almost have to trick them into it expressing themselves, disguising choices and thinking activities as instructions and formal lessons, it is then you uncover a wealth of imagination and talent. It's all there.

And that's when that old chestnut, cultural context, becomes absolutely relevant.

Just one contributing factor must be that the traditional educational framework here in Guate is based on a system of rote learning and regurgitating information. It is categorically not based on giving the students the tools with which to think for themselves (unless you consider printing 27 pages on the origin of football according to Wikipedia to be a useful activity for the children of the Basurero community).

This country is also only recently emerging from a period of extremely violent and oppressive conflict, where to know anything, to have information about something or someone was extremely dangerous. Although most of the kids in Guatemala are too young to have been directly personally affected by the war, this sense of fear and mistrust is deeply ingrained in the community psyche, fed by ongoing violence and gang activity. And the problem is especially noticeable with the girls who are struggling to breath in a overtly machismo society.

On that note, I'm off to buy some veggies...

What are you doing to me Guate?

If you’d have asked me when I first got to Antigua how I felt about Guatemala, I would have told you that I’d found heaven on earth. For the first two months, the sun shone, I learnt the present tense in Spanish and drank Moza on the roof of Cafe Sky. I climbed some volcanoes, swam in some lakes and generally ‘did some good’, volunteering with a local NGO.

But this is exactly it. I anxiously admit to having perhaps romanticized a world about which I have really had very little understanding. After crashing out of the whole new country honeymoon phase thing, the past four or five months have been a process of trying to get my head around the reality of poverty, desperation, and actual stomach-wrenching fear; of quietly reassessing my well-rehearsed arguments relating to ‘the developing world’ and grappling with a creeping resentment and suspicion towards a country which before had been a benign Eden of natural beauty, Mayan textiles and precious cultural difference.

Since I got back from mincing around Mexico and other such exotic locations over the summer, I have once again failed in quite spectacular, although now trademark fashion, to blog. I am perhaps rather predictably going to blame the fact that I have been busy, but it's definitely more to do with not knowing where to start.

I am currently working in a organization based in Zona 3 of Guatemala City, and it's tough... I’m not gonna lie to you, it's tough. And it smells of Methane. All the time. ALL the time.

That's because Camino Seguro, or 'Safe Passage', serves the Basurero community; the people who live and work on the rubbish landfill - the largest in Central America where, for over half a century, over 500 tons of waste has been dumped daily.

Every day, about 650 kids and women attend the project, an educational reinforcement center set up in 1999 in a bid to create opportunity and hope within a desperate area, providing a secure environment for the most at-risk youth and addressing issues such as malnutrition, illiteracy and mental health problems.

There aren’t many days that go past without a shooting/rape/robbery/horrendously terrifying incident in the neighborhood, yet, within the inoffensively pastel tinted walls of the organization, it is possible to forget exactly where the children who attend Camino Seguro are coming from and how old they really are. As inner city kids living in a slum, growing up in a culture of gang violence, they are tough guys and cool dudes, all ‘Que onda voz’ this and ‘hey sexy’ that, giving you enough crap to make you doubt your ability to execute some of the most basic of human functions, let alone someone capable of imparting any sort of usable information to anybody else.

It's only when you see them ambling their way homeward through a post-apocalyptic landscape of grey concrete and carefully sifted garbage, or sitting on the side of the road next a father who has just drowned his second bottle of Quetzaltecca, or a recurring black eye that just refuses to be masked under a layer of crudely applied makeup, that you remember their vulnerability, that you remember the desperate sadness of a youth rudely stolen.

Before I left home, an incredibly wise lady said to me: ''Guatemala: It's wonderful, it's terrible, it will capture you and it will break your heart.''

I had no idea how absolutely and completely this statement would resonate with me. From the climate, to the security issues, to the scenery, to emotions, everything seems to operate more intensely and with greater significance here. I change how I feel about Guatemala on an almost hourly basis. I love this place whilst simultaneously hating it, I want to stick my neck out and scream and stamp my feet, but I also want to shove my head in the sand and admit defeat. I have experienced moments of such intense joy and beauty, brought into relief by a sense of incredible sadness.

Ah Guate, Guate, Guate...Tomorrow is another day.