Bienvenidos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At long last, after 2 months on the road in the western US selling posters, and 2 more adventuring through Mexico, Alyssa and I have made it safe and sound to our destination, the incomparable, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Here we are/will be doing development work for a non-profit school, El Colegio Miguel Angel Asturias, in the coming year, as well as teaching a few sections of 4th, 5th and 6th grade English enrichment.

The school is a truly inspirational place, founded by an indigenous Guatemalan named Jorge Chojolan, it aims to do no less than transform the Guatemalan educational system through the creation of a network of progressive nonprofit schools throughout the country. The school we're working at, which is in Quetzaltenango (aka Xela- pronounced Shay-lah), is the pilot school in the network and has been a great success. Many of our seniors this year will be the first in their families to have graduated high school (and are committed to continuing their education at the university level...a real rarity here)!

Anyway, this year will surely be a huge learning experience and we're both extremely excited to keep you all abreast of things via this blog, which we will both be posting to regularly. Stay tuned for updates about our awesome 4th, 5th and 6th grade English classes we're teaching, our development work for the school, weekend travels, musings on la nueva vida guatemalteca and much much more.

Oh yeah, one more thing...being the first post and all, I suppose an explanation of the blog title is in order. Does the name Antonio Cipriano Jose Maria y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz ring a bell? No? Well he's better known as Antionio Machado , a Spanish poet whose best known work includes the stanza :

Caminante, no hay camino
se hace el camino al andar

which is to say:

Wanderer, there is no road
the road is made by walking

I was first presented with this poem in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast while spending a week in the Zapatista village of Oventic, and upon further reflection have come to realize some of the tremendous significance contained within these two lines. Hopefully in the coming months, through the thoughts and experiences shared here by Alyssa and I, we all might come to understand the wanderers within ourselves a bit better...

hasta la proxima,
Chris (aka Profe Cris)