As far as curiosity about me…there has been almost none. For these people, including the kids, this is much more of a job than anything fun…so no they don’t have much curiosity about me or about the US. They are curious about a few things, however…how big my family is and how close we are…and how much stuff costs for me…those are engaging topics of conversation.

As far as US foreign policy, we haven’t talked much about it…but it’s no secret here that the US supported some really horrible governments here for a long time…but people seem much more concerned about their own country than other countries…including other Latin American countries…I’ve found, for example that I know more about movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Bolivia…and even the Zapatistas who are actually quite close…than even my teachers…so far. It’s interesting that I don’t see a lot of that sort of internationalism, global struggle kind of sentiment that I’ve seen expressed in the ideas of other Latin American social movements…here, mostly I think because of how recent the war was and how specific the context of Guatemala is, I see people being much more focused on local and national politics than international stuff…except, of course, that everyone knows Bush and hates him!

Now, in terms of isolation, the adults in the villages that I talked to didn’t have much of a sense of the world situation at all…in fact I don’t even know if the adults can read…although the kids can. Adults I talked to, for example, didn’t have a sense of world geography…or even of religions beyond Catholics and Evangelicals…

As for the relationship between the school and the towns…yes, I think it is sustainable…if you think about it as an industry…tourism…which is has its fluctuations just like any other industry…but is actually much more stable than coffee right now, for example. From what I saw in my two weeks, asking everyone I could…the school is relatively healthy for these towns…because it provides needed resources, stable income, and a context for the young people to get some mostly respectful worldly connections…however, and I want to write about this as an actual blog post…these women are still EMPLOYEES of the school…they don’t run it or anything…so I think it would be a much, much better situation if the school was directly owned and controlled by the communities and was less of a charity project…which in its charity aspects is kind of gross.

Thanks for these great questions!

Are people curious at all about your background? Your life here in the US? US foreign policy? How isolated is it from world affairs? Does the relationship between the school and the towns seem sustainable?