2022 DCIS Guatemala Service Adventure

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Blog 3

Written by Kayla

On our 6th day we worked on the mural and on the 7th day we woke up at 4:30 to go see the sunrise and get a good view of Lago Atitlan, then we had breakfast and went to school to finish our mural. We spent most of the day finishing the mural and worked till 6:30pm. On Monday we got to meet the students for the first time and get to interact with them. Some of us got to go into classrooms to help and interact with the students. While painting the mural, a ceremony was held so the school could show us their appreciation for making a mural for them by giving us bracelets and thanking us for all our work. We then thanked our artists who helped us with the mural. After that, we got ready and went to our cultural dinner. At the dinner we met up with the artists (Gaspar and Manuel who helped with the mural) and his family who have a band, performed for us. His family then introduced us to traditional Guatemalan/Mayan Music of their music they make. They performed for us for about 45 minutes while teaching us about their hand made instruments and how they work. After that they also taught us a ritual and cultural dance. On our 8th day we had breakfast then headed to San Marcos to explore the town, relax and celebrate Rose’s birthday. We had dinner then surprised the birthday girl (Rose) with a piñata and ended the night with cake and presents for her!

Project and Nim Chefs

Written by Ben
Our 4th day in Guatemala began with a wake up at around 7:00, giving us time to travel to the restaurant that we will eat at for breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the day. After an hour or so of eating, we walked over to the school to begin our project. We began by taping some select areas to create a background containing multiple colors, as well as dividing into two teams to work on each wall. We also began to sketch out some maraca children’s toys, as they’re traditional in Guatemala.
We finished our work for the day by adding some detail and color to the maracas, as well as paining white in the spaces where we had taped between the colors in the background.
On our 5th day, we began with a talk about living in the moment and embracing the community around us, then going out to shop for ingredients for the meal we were going to create later on. We interacted with the 3 women that acted as our “nim chefs” (gran chef) and got to know them as we shopped and later on cooked. After shopping, there was a long period of waiting until we were able to make dinner. Once we were, we made pollo campero (basically breaded chicken with tortrix chips) and ended our night by serving those who had provided for us these past few days.

Blog 1

Hello parents!

Today was our first full day in Guatemala, and it was beyond amazing. On today‘s list of activities, we did salsa lessons, ate lots of food, lots of shopping, made and leaned about chocolate making, and walked around A LOT and learned about the amazing history of the beautiful Antigua, Guatemala! First on our day of wonders was breakfast at Hotel Convento Santa Catalina! We had pancakes, beans, fruit, potatoes, and much more!! We then walked around Antigua and made our way downtown. We learned about Guatemalan history and architecture. We saw a beautiful fountain inspired by the one is Bolonia, Italy! We also learned about the history of the Mayans and their beautiful temples. We had a bit of trouble at the bank but didn’t let it ruin our day. Next we headed to salsa dancing classes. It was definitely a challenge but was so much fun and we all did AMAZING! We learned some basic salsa steps. We had lunch at the restaurant there and got to meet so many cute caterpillars and butterflies! We did some more walking, shopping, and learning before heading to learn all the secrets of chocolate making. After getting a tour of the place, we got to mix the chocolate on a table to temper it. We then filled a few molds and had a delicious snack. We will pick the final product tomorrow before we leave to the community we are doing our project in. After our sweet adventures we got to do some more shopping. We had dinner at an amazing restaurant called Guatelaria! We all had some version of stew! It was AMAZING! After regrouping at the hotel before bed we all talked about our favorite parts of the day! And everyone LOVED the food! So much love to all the parents!

Maddie and Rose <3

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