Dear Friends:

Author and journalist Susan Swartz (www.juicytomatoes.com) wrote this marvelous piece in honor of International  Women's Day coming on March 8th.  Susan was with me in Guatemala in January.  Her column is called:

The Beauty of Plastic

Thank you so much, Susan

In the tiny village of San Marcos on Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands there are houses built out of plastic bottles. Yes, those same awful water bottles, the scourge of environmentalists everywhere, have found new value because of a German woman who started out in fashion and ended up in garbage.
With International Women’s Day coming up on March 8, a day to celebrate the contributions of women around the world, I thought of Susana Heisse and how she’s made a surprising difference.

In this small lakeside village where Susana moved 10 years ago there are a lot of plastic bottles because there are many people who live here and visit who can’t drink the water. Even someone with a Northern California sensitivity to all things plastic is relieved to find a bottle of water waiting in the hotel room so you can brush your teeth or quench your thirst with something besides Coca Cola, Gallo beer or Chilean wine.

San Marcos and other small villages have no trash pick-up. There are no giant green trucks to go through neighborhoods once a week and pluck various bins of sorted garbage from the sidewalk. Plastic bottles end up being tossed into the magnificent lake or burned with other household waste. When Susana came to San Marcos she was horrified to see all that plastic going up in toxic smoke. Germans were savvy about recycling and household pollution long before most Americans.

Some still call her that “crazy gringa.”

So Susana started her own campaign which she calls Project Pura Vida (www.puravidaatitlan.org) to introduce the villagers on the difference between good garbage and bad garbage. She wrote a book about recycling and distributed it to villages all around the lake. And then she took on the piles of plastic bottles along with other discarded plastic in the form of candy wrappers and chip bags.
She did some research and discovered that plastic bottles, because they seemingly last forever, could be used as insulation in construction. She taught some of the townspeople to compact clean, dry plastic trash and put it into used plastic bottles to make what she calls “plastic bricks” and convinced a few local builders to try them.

Today in San Marcos you can see houses and fences and walls built from plastic bottles which are stuffed with plastic bags. Sometimes there’s a peek-hole in a wall so that you look in and marvel at all that plastic inside.
The bottles are stacked inside the wall like conventional insulation, sealed in place with chicken wire and then covered with cement. Susana says the walls are cheaper than those built with cement blocks. And they’re less rigid, too, in case of earthquakes which Guatemala has to worry about. When Hurricane Stan wiped out part of the town, a wall made out of plastic bottles survived.

Tall, curly-haired Susana in bright beaded earrings and gauzy skirt used to be a fashion designer in Germany. When she’s not mucking around with plastic she creates and sells necklaces and bracelets made from recycled jewelry.She told our visiting women studies group that when she moved to Guatemala she fell in love with its beauty. But she couldn’t enjoy it without helping to preserve it.

Some people still think her ideas are wild, she said, and call her “that crazy gringa.” But in a world looking for ways to save itself, Susana has devised her own style of stimulus package. Little kids bring her their old candy wrappers. She gives them a marble or another toy. Then she makes a brick.

What am I going to do for the rest of my life?  I've asked myself that question so many times -- certainly, after each of my three retirements!  I have finally figured out that it's the wrong question.  What I need to ask is "What am I going to do NOW?"

The Next Activity -- TESOL or TEFL

I recently figured out my next phase.  I was searching for something I could do when I go back to Guatemala -- something other than lead a women's group.  I can't give inoculations or help the Mayan weavers but I can teach!  And the people in San Marcos definitely need some English if they want to be involved in the tourist industry.

I hunted around for an ESL course and discovered some wonderful, quite expensive courses in Buenos Aires or Seville.  What I needed was a course I could do at home.  I didn't want to go to my local junior college (the parking is horrendous), so I checked out online courses.  I didn't check far because I found a company that seems highly professional and only charges $295 for the basic course plus tutor.

I suspect the company is British since they use the term TEFL rather than TESOL.  Also they use words like "appropriacy" which is not in an American dictionary.  Nonetheless-- even if I have to learn to speak British, the course so far is excellent

Doing TEFL

I have completed about a third of the units in the course.  The units seem to be divided between pedagogy (interesting) and grammar (boring but obviously necessary).  I am learning a lot about reaching lower level students to prepare for the people in San Marcos, Guatemala.  At some point I make take Business English and seek out Chinese business people but right now I'm happy with the lower level challenges.

My tutor, David, lives and works in Phuket, Thailand.  I think the trials of correcting student submissions must be outweighed by snorkeling in the Andaman sea.

Try It -- You'll Like It and Learn Something Useful!

So far I am quite satisfied with TEFL.  I spend a couple of hours or a bit more per unit, so I should finish 20 units in about 50 hours.  I have already sought out -- for experience -- a school here in Santa Rosa that has many non-English speaking students.  I hope to start working with them while I dream of being back on Lake Atitlan.

Who knows?  If I really get involved in this work, I might try for David's job in Phuket.  That's one place my Thai-speaking and cooking husband might agree to go!

For more information on my course: www.teflonline.net

My second godchild is a Mayan boy, Lucas, who is 12 years old and lives in San Marcos La Laguna, the village on Lake Atitlan that I wrote about in my previous blog.  (My first godchild, a Greek young woman, Katerina, is known to many readers through my memoir about our relationship entitled NONA, which is available by emailing me for a copy). 

Meeting Lucas

I met Lucas a year ago when I first went to his village.  He was serving and clearing tables at the retreat center where I was holding a workshop.  I fell in love with his crooked smile (one front tooth is askew), his gentle manner, and his conscientious manner of putting down and picking up dinner plates.  I spoke with him in my limited Spanish and, somehow, we communicated.

After a few days getting to know Lucas, I decided I wanted to do something for him.  After consultation with him and his parents, I ended up sponsoring him at a private, evangelical school in a nearby village on Lake Atitlan.  Lucas loves the school and graduated to the next grade.  I noticed the change in him -- greater self-confidence and openness to me.  This year, when I returned to Lake Atitlan, I wanted to see the school and check out Lucas' performance with his teachers.

The Bethel Colegio

With Jim and Lucas' father, Juan, and younger brother, Fito (Lucas couldn't come), we took the public boat, the lancha, to San Pedro to visit the Evangelico Colegio Bethel School, a mission project of the Faith Community Church in Alaska.  The school is an impressive, three-story building that looks like an American school and offers a fine education in Spanish and many extra-curricular activities to Mayan children of the area.  The cost is very reasonable.  Please check out http://fccmissions.org/associated-ministries/guatemala.  I, a Jewish woman from Manhahattan, would never would have expected to be involved with an evangelical school in Guatmeala, but I was incredibly impressed with the mission's work and recognize that the school provides far more than what is available in the public schools of the area.

At Bethel School, we had the good forune to meet with Pamela, an American teacher, and we learned about Lucas' progress.  A good student, Lucas is an even better athlete.  We were prevailed upon to buy him a good pair of sneakers.  Once Lucas finishes "basico" (grade nine), he will either go back home to san Marcos or he will have the opportunity to go to a vocational school program with all expenses paid by the Guatemalan government.  Pamela has worked hard to set up these opportunities for her students.  Of course, I hope Lucas will go on with his education and be trained for something more than farming or fishing.  I'm not worrying about this right now since graduation is still four years away.

When Jim, Juan, Fito and I left Bethel School, we had to walk down a very steep hill to the dock.  Fito reached up for Jim's hand and I had a charming view of a tall norteamericano walking downhill with a tiny Mayan boy.  Despite being already committed to Lucas, Jim said to me at the bottom of the hill, "We may be involved with this family for years to come."

Godmothering

I greatly enjoy being a madrilena, godmother in Spanish.  Getting to know Lucas and his family has given me a connection to Lake Atitlan that goes way beyond tourism.  Teresa, Lucas' mother, gave me a beautiful hand-woven huipil, poncho, when I left.  A friend asked her how long it took to make and she replied, "a year."  For me, that huipil is worth far more than the funds I put into Lucas' education.