Today (Wednesday) we did not have Spanish class. A few of us took advantage of a later meeting time this morning to go to a Yoga class. I found that my body is much more flexible in the afternoon or evening after a full day of moving about then immediately after running.
We met up at the school at 9am to go to a presentation about the Peace Accords, which officially ended the armed conflict. The Acuerdos de la Paz are actually 13 different agreements around reducing the army, recognizing indigenous populations, redistributing land, and making compromises. This process took 11 years and included many parties – the government, the guerrillas, the private sector, NGOs, the UN, and others. Although these passed, they were not enforced. Currently 21 people die in Guatemala every day from violence, disease, etc. and only 11 died a day during the armed conflict. Obviously, peace has not been found.
Our presentation was given by a professor of philosophy from the public university San Carlos and he worked for the human rights campaign during the peace accords. He is definitely the type of well-spoken, passionate, left-ist who could swoon a girl into revolution – I was captivated.
The organization PEILE – Proyecto Educativo Integral Libertad Ensenyanza (Project for Integration of Education and Learning) – is a nonprofit that builds schools, educates women, and does whatever other education, health, or social reform projects that are necessary for the community. This is one of the possible volunteer locations for later in the program. We were invited to come and teach a lesson about anything or participate in a day project. I am not really interested in teaching at this point but health education is especially important to me. I would like to teach a single-sitting lesson about common health problems here or preventative care. I think for my volunteer commitment I will be looking for a more patient/medical focus.
http://www.peile.org/
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