Guatemalan Driving Is Fun!

I would like to give a big shout-out to my buddy Ryan Frith who was somehow able to successfully make my state-of-the-art, 250GB hard drive �smoke� while I sit here hopelessly, thousands of miles away about to cry over my precious storage device fry like a chicken nugget at McDonalds. I am at a lost for words. I guess, I have to look on the bright side. Thank you Frith, for not frying my sister instead. Had you done such a thing, there would undoubtedly be animosity between us, but alas, there are no worries, for the top-of-the-line 250GB hard drive was merely a material thing. Frith made up for the shortcoming by sending his precious iPod down here to Guatemala with some files I desperately needed from home. That was quite the sacrifice, my friend.

So the first official week of school here at Shalom is almost complete. It has been really enjoyable. These kids are quite amazing. Most of these kids have never touched a computer and have never been on the Internet before. Shalom is located in the pinnacle of poverty in Guatemala, so it�s one of the last places on earth that would receive high-speed Internet access. That is � unless God is on your side. By the end of next week, Shalom will probably have high-speed Internet access. That is all God. I knew that it would take years before Shalom would have broadband Internet access, but God changes things for His glory.

We had the first �workshop� class today. Workshop classes are classes that focus on a specific area that would not normally be focused on in school. I am teaching two workshops, �Computer Programming� on Tuesdays and �Graphic Design� on Thursdays. Last Tuesday we had all the students come into the sanctuary to register for the workshops that they wanted to go to. When I got there, the students (several hundred of them) were already in the room. I looked at the sign up for my workshops and I only saw four names. �That�s not very many students who want to learn computer stuff,� I thought, but what I didn�t know was that the students weren�t supposed to signup yet and these four students had �illegally signed up� prematurely. As I stood up front with all the teachers, they said something in Spanish that basically meant, �Ok, come and sign up for your workshops!�

Suddenly, Antonio and I are being pressed against the stage as scores of students come running to us and pushing us trying to get signed up for the workshop. We had a limit of 30 kids for one workshop and 27 for the other. As more kids signed up, the more it seemed came and wanted to sign up. After we had maxed out on the signups, there were about 100 more students who walked away sadly when they got the news that we were maxed out. Some looked like they were about to cry and seeing that, it made me want to say, �Wait! We are having 2 more workshops!!� But I know that that would be impossible.

The first workshop we had was �Graphic Design� where I am teaching them Adobe Photoshop. These kids are amazing. The computer lab has only 9 working computers and 30 students per class. This means that there has to be 3 kids per every computer. Well, not all the computers have Adobe Photoshop installed on them, so I get one of the only computers with Photoshop on it and put it in the middle of the class and all the students gathered around me as I tried to explain Photoshop to them. Now, normally I would have Antonio with me to translate, but he had to go translate for another guy who speaks no Spanish. So not only do I barely speak Spanish, but the version of Adobe Photoshop is in English; making the learning curve for these students just that much higher. When I broke the news that the versions of Photoshop we had were in English, thus making the class that much harder, the response from the students was something like, �Bring it on!�

Oh yeah! I have a car here in Guatemala now! I have experienced true Guatemalan driving! For those of you that have been here before, you know what driving here is like. It�s actually kind of fun. I swear, when driving with Mark, it�s reminds me of driving with my mom before I got my licence. He is like all freaking out and holding on for dear life as I �drive like a Guatemalan.� This is totally opposite of Mark�s chilled-out mood he is normally in. Of course, when driving with Andrea, she is just completely relaxed and will occasionally say, �Honk your horn at this guy, he�s being a jerk,� and she reaches over to honk my horn for me. It�s like night and day, but it�s all hilarious.

I have been telling the students that God will provide 30 new computers for Shalom. I have no idea how He is going to provide them, I just know that He will. This is something we have been praying for for quite some time now. I also know He will provide 10 tables that are 8 feet in length and 2 feet across, 10 power strips with at least 6 outlets on them, and two projectors. This may seem like a whole lot, but remember that everything is God�s.

I have more to say but have to go now. I will try to proof-read this later. HAHA! Don�t make fun of my gammer and sppeelling erors. HAHA!

Comments

Post A Comment