About a month ago we traveled to the western highlands of Guatemala to visit one of our partners where we have a couple working with women and youth from one of the local indigenous groups.
It's fun to stop at many of the stands on the side of the road selling things.
It was a good time to buy local apples...
...and try new fruit.
We took our van with a bunch of youth (youth are usually defined as younger than 30 and unmarried) to one of the sites where our workers lead workshops and youth events.
It's always a guess to see how many people can cram into a micro-bus.
The event started with a warm-up game where groups tried to steal the "flag" hanging from a member of another group.
Watching from the sidelines. These two are only a few weeks apart.
The children love to pick up Hazel everywhere we go.
She's not the biggest fan.
While the youth were meeting, Ellie wanted to play outside with the young kids who were on a recess from the school nearby. Ellie wanted to play soccer with them but every time she came out they immediately stopped and refused to play.
Instead, they just stared.
The large group of kids were surrounding us so much that we were feeling trampled. It was a bit frustrating so I taught them some games. The first one was, "run all the way over to that tree, run around it, and come back."
(Kids running back from the tree, pictured above)
Hazel seemed to be fine with all her "shadows" following her everywhere, as long as they didn't pick her up.
Ellie, on the other hand, was a bit more overwhelmed. Finally, she figured out a strategy: pretend to be asleep on the ground. This group of girls thought this was funny and would try to pick her up and move her around. Ellie went with it and just stayed limp, smirking in her "sleep."
An impromptu game of soccer after the youth activity.
These kids were all fascinated by Hazel, although she had just stood up and moved right before this picture was taken, so it looks like these kids were interested in me. But it was all Hazel.
And then, the walk back to the van.
One thing I didn't mention was what happened during the youth workshop. I was in and out a bit since I was keeping the girls occupied, but part of the discussion I heard began with the group brainstorming toys they played with as a kid. Eventually it turned into a discussion about why many of the women were raised that it was not appropriate for them to play soccer, which continued into a discussion about gender equality issues. It was a great activity to give the women space to voice their opinions, and for the men to think about their role in reinforcing gender inequality. In these indigenous communities women often have no rights, have very low self-esteem, and the male-dominated culture reinforces these.
No comments:
Post a Comment