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| Pablo and David |
By Anthony Messina
Today started off with a bang… literally. My host family set off fire crackers at 6:30
am right outside my room to wish me a happy birthday. After this short birthday celebration, we
went down to the work site to do some work.
We flattened the ground a bit and laid bricks for the retaining wall… at
least we tried to. The workers made
these tasks look easy but we quickly found out that it wasn’t. The Guatemalan workers had to help us out
quite a bit with these tasks. After we
laid the bricks, we got to hang out with the kids a little bit, but that’s when
something truly special happened. We met
with Pablo.
Last year, David Ives and the delegation from 2012 met Pablo
and found out that he suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome. With some help from the occupational therapy and
physical therapy students traveling with David, Pablo learned some exercises to
improve his strength. This year Pablo is
able to walk without crutches. Because
of this disease, Pablo has been out of school for a few years. But today was a huge step forward for Pablo,
both literally and figuratively. With
the help of mostly David, Pablo was reenrolled in school. Pablo, his sister, and his aunt were all
brought to tears with this news. His
life became so much better because of this small change because he will be
treated just like all the other kids his age.
As a future teacher, this is something that really touched me because
now Pablo has the opportunity to get an education and be just like all the
other kids his age. I believe that each
and every child has the right to receive a proper education.
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| Anthony's Birthday Celebration |
After we met with Pablo, we had a small goodbye ceremony
that was held on my behalf at my host family’s house. Little did I know that this was all a hoax
when Constantino showed up with a cake singing “Feliz Cumpleaños”. After we ate cake, we went to the school
where the actual ceremony was held. A
group of students sang two songs to us and then we left to go to the Biltmore
in Guatemala City.
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| Children from the school at our goodbye ceremony |
At the hotel, we had a meeting with Rigoberta Menchú. We had the opportunity to ask her questions
and get a small look into the life of a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. One thing that she talked about that really
caught my attention was that she wanted the people to vote based on their views
as opposed to accepting bribes from candidates.
This was interesting because it shows how people are selfish and only
care about personal gain. Meeting with
Rigoberta was a really interesting part of the day. Learning about how she came from nothing and
because a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate gives us all the ability to be the best we
can be.
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| The 2013 Guatemala Delegation with Rigoberta Menchu |
After this meeting, we had dinner at a Peruvian restaurant
which was delicious. Overall, today was
one of my favorite days of this trip. I
am glad I had the opportunity to spend my birthday like this.
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