My Guatemala - my motivation

Guatemala! ... why do I write an blog called my Guatemala?
Well, let me give you a short introduction to what lies ahead of me as I am at the moment more or less changing my life.

I was a child when I heard the name „Guatemala“ for the first time. I was enchanted by it as it sounded very mysterios, exotic and promising to me. So I was about eight years old when I made the plan to travel to GUATEMALA. But as it goes with childhood dreams, some are hard to realize when you are small (and have no money) and therefore my trip had to be postponed to a time when my resources would allow me to explore the world on my own.

Some (very) few years have passed by and in 2006 I was finally presented the right chance to take more than only 2 or 3 weeks off. I was eligible for my sabbatical. I did not have to think much about what I wanted to do with this extra month of vacation. My plan was to finally see Guatemala, improve my Spanish and, to make this a really great experience for me, to go to volunteer for a social aid organization. (Well I have originally studied Geography and Anthropology as I dreamt about saving the world when I grew up.)

So on June 27th 2006 I took a plane to Guatemala City and from there traveled on to Quetzaltenango, where I would spend 4.5 weeks studying Spanish and volunteering.
I was not sure what to expect and took it all in as it came.
At first it took me quite some time to adjust to the height as Xela (more frequently used Mayan name for Quetzaltenango) lies at about 2'500 meters. In the first two weeks, when I also had a quite unpleasant encounter with amebas who invaded my stomach, I was mainly brought up to speed on Guatemala’s history, social economy, politics and everything else I needed to know to be able to go out and start my volunteer work. As I only had 2 weeks left, the only place where I could really add value was in the social aid department working with kids, in so called “Hogares Comunitarios” (for clarification check out www.inepas.org).
What this means is mainly that in my afternoons I was looking after a bunch of about 10 little kids between 1.5 and 4 years. I tell you I am used to work with people now that I’ve worked in HR for some years, but well, usually I work with adults who mostly (really you would not believe it) also behave like adults… so I was fully unprepared to go out and take care of 10 little wild creatures, and actually all in Spanish!
After my first afternoon I thought that I would never go back there again, that I was a big failure and that I would never be able to teach these kids the smallest thing. Well I underestimated myself and the kids. After two weeks we were totally inseparable and I even succeeded in teaching them a little bit of discipline.

Well I really fell in love with these kids, with Xela and with the whole thought of doing something really meaningful (yes let me believe that it is so).

Therefore I will go back to Guatemala and spend 4 to 6 months in Xela where I will not only look after my “amorcitos” but will also have the chance to have a look into the administration and organization of INEPAS and will mainly work as International Coordinator (for clarification check out www.inepas.org).

So you see, I am at the moment digging out my roots.
You won't belive it but I was living in the same town and the same house for 12 years now, so well, it feels a bit scary but also liberating!

Coming back to my first question, I think I can only explain it this way:
You may have your own way how to change and find yourself and what you want to do with this life you have, I think me for myself I found "my Guatemala".

Stay tuned for more info as my adventure starts on October 30th but I will surely add some sidenotes before this date :)