FINALE + FOOTNOTES

Today marks one week since returning to life sans chicken buses, one hundred degree temperatures, four dollar coffees, regular routines, drinkable tap, toilet paper that goes into the toilet,  and your regular assortment of first world problems (like not yet having internet at the house you just moved into). One month working with these kids was simply not enough, but I’ll take what I had, and feel compelled to pay forward my gratitude to everyone that helped me make the project a success. Success is an arbitrary term in this instance. To be quite blunt, most of the photos are quite less than astonishing. I’m still going through the negatives (the kids kept all their prints), and there are some gems, but most are rather mundane snapshots of the children with their friends. No artistic virtuosos were discovered in the short span of a month, and no gallery is going to beg me to show the more prominent images, which I do plan to compile and show on this blog in short time. That said, there is not an ounce of disappointment in how things proceeded. The kids had an AMAZING time with the project – most had never used a camera other than the cheap cell phone cameras (which  only a few of the oldest boys possessed), and all were ecstatic when they got their prints back.  The cameras quickly became a bargaining chip to get the kids to pay attention during the English classes we were teaching, and all the younger children who weren’t part of the project incessantly whimpered and begged me to include them in the camera class (wasn’t easy to say ‘Tal vez cuando tenga mas edád’). Since there were four extra cameras in the end, the last week was a photo contest in which the person with the ‘best’ photo won the remaining cameras. That turned into a tough-to-decide four way draw, with two girls and two boys each getting a camera, respectively. After all the cameras and prints had been doled out, I found that I still had some additional funds, so on my last day with the kids I arranged two shuttles to pick them up from the school and bring them to Antigua, where we visited the art galleries within the Spanish embassy. This was particularly special, as many of the kids had never been to Antigua, despite living only about 30 miles away. After we left the galleries (where we were given a spontaneous private tour by a very friendly woman there!) we gorged ourselves on ice cream and banana bread, the kids descended on a coffee dispenser in a nearby building, and we all said our goodbyes. Please feel free to watch the video below, which includes our ‘field trip’ to Antigua. In finale, thanks again to everyone that donated, thanks to Ricardo Armas who created the program, and thanks to the kids for making this guy feel like a million bucks.

PURO DIVERTIDO

More photos of the kids at Proyecto Genesis, circa de Chimaltenango, Guatemala. Today they get their last set of photos back, and we’ll decide the winner of what has become a photo ‘contest’. 3 days til I head back to the states, and back to reality. Mixed feelings are in abundance.

GHOST DOGS

Photos of street dogs in Antigua, Chimaltenango, Panajachel, San Pedro de la Laguna, and elsewhere in Guatemala.

 

BIENVENIDOS A PROYECTO GENESIS

Welcome to Proyecto Genesis. It was started by Ricardo Armas, a local from Antigua (pictured with his daughter above), who ferries us volunteers every day in the back of a pickup that belongs to his father in law. As I’ve been told, the idea for the project came about after his wife inherited a piece of land in a small village outside of Chimaltenango. After visiting the area, he was affected by the amount of children who weren’t attending school, and despite having very little financial means to do so, he decided to start an ‘after school project’; a title which is somewhat misrepresentative, as only about half of the kids attend school. In its initial stages, only about five kids were attending – now, about forty to fifty attend on a daily basis, ranging from about 5 to 16  years old. The kids are taught English, basic computer skills, and are given various exercises in arts & crafts (and photography, at present!), as well as a daily dose of a vitamin infused beverage.

Regarding my photography project – it’s going very well. The kids are super psyched on the cameras, and are about to receive their second set of prints back. More on that to come.

LAKE ATITLAN

Not much needs to be said about this place. There’s a reason people flock to Lake Atitlán from all over the world. The place is simply ethereal. The highlight of the trip was waking up at 3:30AM to hike up to a mountain peak (Nariz de Indio) to watch the sunrise over the lake. Being incessantly asked if you want to buy drugs while walking through the villages is a bit annoying, but you get used to it – even to the point that you may find yourself being a little offended when a whole day passes and no one asks.

GUATEMIDOINGHERE.

Greetings from Antigua, Guatemala. I found myself here after seizing the opportunity to work in an after school program outside of town. While we’re mostly teaching English, I’m also teaching a basic photography class (in Spanish) to a small group of the kids, which I’ve been able to do thanks to the generous donations from friends, family, and strangers. Monday through Friday, we ride in the back of a pickup truck for about 45 minutes from Antigua, past Chimaltenango, to a tiny pueblo in the foothills. There’s not much around other than a minimum security prison which apparently houses thieves and such. If it rains, we get wet. It’s the rainy season right now. The school house is a tiny casita which belongs to a very generous woman from the community. The kids are fantastic – more on them later. Tomorrow they get their first set of photos back, which is very exciting. Forgive me for the brevity – I have to run to eat dinner with my host family!

Wine & Wind

Bike ride from Budapest to Etyek in early March, graciously hosted by our friends Bea & Agnes. First real sunny day we’d had since winter’s passing. First real bike ride we’d had since our trip through the Northwestern states, and probably windier than any day we’d had on the aforementioned trip. Needless to say, my ass could hardly keep up with these ladies. Etyek has evidently been a producer of white wines since the 18th century, and is apparently known best for its sparkling wines. Regardless, near the end of our ride we all opted for beer instead.

VESTIGIAL CHARACTERISTICS

Undeniably, the greatest allure of European cities to the foreigner is the civic architecture – the ubiquitous monuments to fallen civilizations and bygone eras. But it’s not only the cathedrals, palaces, castles, and narrow cobbled streets that we romanticize, but the ornateness of the even humblest tenement buildings that represent a time when craftsmanship took precedence over profit margins. It’s difficult to not be constantly impressed in a city with so much amazing architecture, with styles ranging from Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, Ottoman, Classical, Baroque, Romantic, and Art-Nouveau. As I walk through these streets so alive with history, I can’t help but wonder if the U.S. will ever be a place of enduring symbols of our civic past, or if the repeated neglect and careless replacement of our finest buildings and structures is a pattern from which we’ll never escape. Happy Tuesday!!

“Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.”

– “Farewell to Penn Station,” New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963

MIKEY, HUNGARIAN DOG.

This entire post is dedicated to Mikey. Earlier this winter, while battling the throes of S.A.D., we heard of a local rescue dog organization run by some amazing Norwegian veterinary students, and decided to take in an orphaned dog. BEST DECISION EVER. Mikey has now moved on to bigger and better things with his new adopted family in Oslo, Norway; and while he’s no longer with us, he and his copious amounts of hair will remain in our hearts and home forever.

‘I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you’ve dreamed of.
And I wish to you, joy and happiness.
But above all this, I wish you love.’

WINTER GAMES

As John Keats famously wrote in his poem On The Grasshopper and Cricket, “On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, what else is there to do other than lose money at the racetrack and take a dip in a steamy thermal bath!” Actually, I doubt Keats would’ve gone anywhere near a race track, especially after his father fell off a horse and died when he was 8, but I’m sure a thermal bath would’ve done his tuberculosis some good. Anyway, Kincsem Park is a racetrack on the eastern outskirts of Budapest, named after some dead racehorse. The maximum bet you’re allowed is about 2000Huf [10 bucks], and the beer is cheap. Stay away from the forralt bor [mulled wine] though, unless you like the taste of liquid hotdogs. Seriously, we don’t call it hotdog wine for nothing.

The St. Gellért Bath is one of the more modern bathhouses. Originally opened in 1918, and attached to the St. Gellért Hotel, it has a variety of  pools at various temperatures, a small coed section, and separate male and female baths. Unfortunately, I could only take photos of the main pool, as photography isn’t allowed in the mens-only section, though I doubt most of you are anxious to see how the forces of gravity affect old naked men.