A very crowded classroom in San Pablo

It turned out to be quite a different weekend than we had planned. Brenda and I both came down with a cold, probably courtesy of our time at Senor Pablo´s house last week. So it was a very restful weekend with homemade soup, teas and vitamins. Thankfully, Brenda being a nutritionist, came armed with lots to fix us up and I had a good supply also so between the two of us, we are on the mend.

It meant that this morning I headed to San Pablo on my own as Brenda was recovering and finishing up work that didn´t get done on the weekend as her husband comes in tomorrow.

Senor Pablo and I headed up to the school and left the remainder of the school supplies with the director to hand out to children in need. As the school has an attendance of about 1,500 students, there is plenty of need.

We headed back to his house and today the temporary school right behind his house was open. This picture is half of a very crowded classroom in a school that has several rooms. It´s actually a large house that is for sale and Senor Pablo´s dream is to have it function as a school permanently. Anyone want to buy a school in Guatemala?

I have learned a few things about Senor Pablo. He´s smart, he´s determined and he thinks big. He may live in absolute poverty but there is nothing poor about the way he presents himself. I am constantly in awe at what he brings to the table and the vision he has for his village. He´s definitely pushing me to think bigger about how I can do more. Brenda paid for four of his children to complete their basic education so that was another project completed and one of her employee´s sons donated $25 which went to extra food for Senor Pablo´s family.

Our next project is how we can help Juan, Senor Pablo´s oldest son, complete his University education so he can become the school teacher he dreams to be. He works Monday through Friday to support his wife and 3 children and goes to University on Saturday. I gave him the tuition for this month´s fees today and Brenda and I will see that he gets to complete his education. It´s just far too important to let his dream go by the wayside and knowing how passionate Senor Pablo is about changing the future for his grandchildren, I have every confidence it is money well spent. Juan seems to have inherited his father´s good sense about things.

Today we talked about Coca-Cola and the detrimental effect the soda pop has on the children´s health here. Unfortunately, the local people see anything that comes from North America as good. There is this notion, albeit untrue, that if North Americans eat it, drink it, smoke it or have it, then it is a desirable commodity.

Of course, it is an absolute illusion that the North American diet is superior, but try to explain that to a group of people who see you as rich, successful and healthy. I have been up to my eyeballs in research for my next book on breast health so I explained to them today that 1 in 2 men in North America will get cancer and 1 in 3 women so we´re not as healthy as we think we are. I personally blame much of that on the North American diet, which includes a diet that is heavy in sugar including soda pop.

So Senor Pablo and Juan sat with me and discussed acidity and alkalinity and I told them that cancer thrives in an acid environment which is exactly what drinking soda pop produces. My Spanish was definitely stretched to the max with that new vocabulary and we all got a good laugh when I mixed up the word for body cells and the word for a cell phone! But in the end, they both understood how much damage they were doing to the children by allowing them to drink Coca-Cola. They simply had no idea and they acknowledged their ignorance with such humility, it was truly remarkable.

The North American influence isn´t always good and this is one example. It breaks my heart to see them spend their precious little money on snack food imported from developed countries and see their far superior diet go by the wayside. The pervasiveness of the American diet into other cultures is definitely not something I encourage nor am I pleased to see it. It has created massive problems with garbage, plastic and health issues that could so easily be avoided. I just love seeing the children eating a piece of watermelon or an orange. The little bags of chips and bottles of Coke literally make me shudder.

It was also thrilling to see Senor Pablo´s wife walking through the village as I arrived. She is looking radiant and is now able to get out and about as the pain in her joints is diminishing. That success alone made Brenda and I cry when I got home and told her about the day´s activities. Out hearts are dancing with joy at what we have accomplished here in the last week…while our noses run!

We will have a busy couple of weeks at the lake now that Brenda´s husband Adrian is arriving tomorrow. There is lots to see and show them and many new things I have been waiting to do until they arrived.

I look forward to sharing them with you!

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