Volunteering and Living with an Indigenous Family

After discarding the plan to do Workaway because most volunteers are looking for a minimum of 1 month, we accidentally come across an advertisement in a café in Antigua from a school in San Andres Itzapa, 13 km away from Antigua. The initiative Nuevo Amanacer sounds interesting, so I contact Vicky. 2 hours later, we meet her at the café and in the evening we are already with her family!

Vicky's father started the initiative years ago and established a school in his own house to support children from disadvantaged families and prepare them for a self-determined future. Today, Vicky and her sister teach approximately 30 children of different age groups in the afternoons from 2 pm to 4:30 pm.

The 5 days were a unique and very intensive experience that I wouldn't want to miss, even if it was sometimes very exhausting. On the one hand, we had the opportunity to make a contribution with our work. On the other hand, we were able to experience the lives of the indigenous people up close.

Most importantly, I was able to greatly improve my Spanish during these days. Not only in conversations with Vicky and her family, but especially while teaching and playing with the children. Teaching English with Spanish as the base language is a real challenge, by the way. Unfortunately, my brain didn't have any resources left in the short time to learn a few words in the Kaqchikel language Kaqchikel, which is spoken in Itzapa :D