2021 Report to the Conexions Family
Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and support from great distance this year. We know many of you have followed the Conexions Instagram with updates over the last few months, but we wanted to give you a more detailed friends-and-family story-behind-the-photos.
Dr. Francisco has continued to serve his patients and community amidst the pandemic, and this last September was the most difficult with COVID case counts and deaths locally. We have continued to bring medical supplies with the few people who have traveled south, but not in the quantities needed. A couple of bribe-seeking inspectors confiscated some supplies, but we will continue packing and shipping, thanks to Fern and volunteers. With the pandemic, medical students from Kansas State have still not returned either, so it has been a very difficult time. Francisco tested positive a few months ago, and also overcame some heart issues including surgery, but has recovered. The medical situation in Guatemala seems to have stabilized. After 2 years of paperwork, he finally has an X-ray machine in place, and we are partnering to provide an ultrasound now as well. With travel/transfer for patients extremely complicated with pandemic concerns, being self-sufficient and self-contained has become even more valuable.
The theme of English House 2021 became about overcoming fears. After two years of school sort-of-online, families afraid, and many deaths in September, fear and isolation were consistently the story with student after student, so we decided to focus on it head-on. And for the second year in a row, we had an entire English House without one COVID case. Our family had Delta just prior, and Omicron just after, but nobody was sick during English House. What incredible protection. The Wiens and Driedger families pushed hard to be there, so we had our full complement of teachers. Some of the Alberta crew braved the travel complexity, and came for a few days, so we had visitors as well, despite the odds.
For last year’s beginners, we still haven’t met most of their parents, or visited their homes. As you can know back home, all our normal patterns of helping our friends have been disrupted, and we grow fatigued trying to find creative ways around that. Add on poverty, lack of resources, uneducated families, and chaotic Guatemalan rules, and people are dulled, just waiting for someone to say this is all over. Maybe we can all relate. Candelaria and Gregorio have been tireless, continually encouraging students to not give up...and then even choosing new ones. They inspire us all.
Fear is darkness, but the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. In our classes and discussions, we confronted fears head-on, and the students discovered that their secret fears were commonly shared by all: fear of speaking in public, fear of failure, fear of family making fun of them, fear of shame at school, fear of not finding a job, fear of being thought stupid, and many more.
In November, I was teaching a class with last year’s graduates, since some of them are still really struggling to overcome those fears. We talked about how fears are like mushrooms: if you keep them hidden in the dark and feed them fertilizer (lies) all day, they grow. But if you take them out into the light and throw them away, you realize…it’s just a mushroom. Carlos threw away his fear of rejection…and won a job interview at a local hostel the next week. Angelica confidently spoke in public. Several of them applied for the Legacy student loan program, and are now starting into university on weekends. All of them shared presentations in front of all of English House, and talked openly about the fears they were throwing away.
Second-year student Dulce arrived not speaking English, and then “put it together” into conversation in the first few weeks. She’s never known a “normal” English House, but this was far different than getting dropped off last October for six weeks as a twelve-year-old, masked up, hugging her mom goodbye, and then immediately distancing from her strange Canadian teachers.
The week before, we had been over at the hotel Jardines del Lago, and I had noticed they now rent out homemade fibreglass kayaks. I explained to the worker that we teach an English program, and that we’d like to rent them for the students to overcome their fears…and he said “English House?” Surprised, I asked him how he knew about English House. He choked up, and said “I’m Dulce’s father.” I hugged him like it was a reunion, since with the pandemic situation last year, I had never met him. He explained to me how Dulce had come home last year as a totally different person, inspired, helping her siblings, and focused on her future.
For the boys especially, they fight to overcome their fear of speaking in public. The men in their life are often stoic and determined, but rarely speak confidently in front of others. We realized that even speaking in front of two others at a dinner table felt like “speaking in public,” let alone a presentation in front of group. Normalizing and overcoming that fear is essential…because soon, they want to be overcoming the fear of failure in an interview.
We practiced hot-seat interviews and rapid-fire questions. Chris and Kevin had their class research organizations rapidly, then present about them. Carlos David, maybe the most afraid-to-speak of all, wanted to speak for the video. Vivian started to find her voice, ask questions, and literally was a different person than the melting-in-fear girl from last year.
Edgar freezes when speaking in public, near-stuttering, and avoiding conversation. Many of the students admitted that instead of confronting fears, they had quietly taken their plates to the far end of the dinner table, as far away from a Canadian as possible…because they were afraid of not knowing what to say. But Edgar showed up this year ready to volunteer and answer first every time.
When confronting layers and layers of fears on top of fears, compounded by the isolating effects of a pandemic, we have to start with little steps. We had six new beginners start in November, all fresh from finishing their sixth grade. Typically, a new English House student comes in after completing their seventh grade year, including one year of Saturday tutorials with Candelaria, some English workshops, and interaction with the other scholarship students. This time, students like Matilde were chosen on Saturday, and arrived at English House on Monday morning. We felt that they couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
What we realized is in their two years of “online” school during the pandemic, when they were supposedly completing grades 4 and 5, they have missed out academically and socially…so we found we had fourth-graders in a remedial Spanish class, not seventh-graders in a beginner English class. We added Vilma as a Spanish teacher, and all of our Canadian kids as conversation partners one-on-one, attempting to rescue the beginners from the educational disaster that they have endured. This week, Guatemala has returned to red-zone classification with Omicron, so if 3% of students in a school test positive, the whole school shuts down again. We anticipate a chaotic on-again off-again year ahead, and so donations towards Internet for students at home will be absolutely essential again too. In Costa Rica recently, the leaders declared a national educational crisis, as they are noting that graduating students are simply not adequately prepared. We are seeing this too, but with English House filling in the gap for language, mathematics, physics, and accounting, our graduates have the help they need to keep going.
Olga graduated in November 2020, and you may remember that she overcame her fears, and won an interview with Scout Technology on the last day of the six-week English House bubble. She went home that weekend, and told her mom that she could leave her $100/month tortilla-making job, and stay home to care for Olga’s sister with special needs. Olga has worked tirelessly this year online for Scout, providing for her family, and during English House, she worked all day, then came over to teach accounting classes at night.
Tono started with Scout a few months later, and has been a project coordinator for new clients moving to Microsoft 365 and Teams. A major reason he chose the Scout opportunity was the chance to be close to the students, supporting and training them. He spent virtually every non-working moment at English House, helping with everything from English to Spanish to technology training.
Vilma and Nayeli continue to live in the little room over the storage locker at Villas, and medical school continues to be online for the foreseeable future. Their room is plastered with anatomical drawings, and they study fifteen hours a day…but passed all their classes.
Evelyn, Mayra, and Mayrita are sharing a little house in Antigua, a short walk from the Torrent Consulting offices. Mayra and Mayrita are emerging from the apprenticeship program, preparing to be Salesforce analysts, and are working hard on certifications and client projects. Evelyn was just promoted to senior analyst, in recognition of how far she has come. She will celebrate her five-year Torrent anniversary on February 1. Alvaro works more in the technical support side of Salesforce, and Miguel on the sales side. All five have found it to be a great work family, and it continues to be a consistent-earning situation that helps them provide for their families, keep their siblings in school, and build towards a future. They were all back at English House, encouraging students, teaching workshops, and building confidence.
Donis continues teaching Spanish at Jabel Tinamit, and is studying systems engineering at university. Florinda works with Olga at Scout, supporting helpdesk calls from clients. Brian, son of Candelaria and Gregorio, works with them too, on the sales side, along with Aura, another Walton Scholarship graduate, so there are five in the little Scout office - which is in Candelaria and Gregorio’s old apartment at the Spanish school.
Alvaro, Evelyn, Tono, and Miguel have joined our leadership group to review applications for the Legacy university-student-loan program, and have been incredible. As candidates like Angelica have been approved, a veteran alumna like Evelyn takes on the role as their coach, helping guide them through course selection, budgeting, and decisions...literally paying it forward.
Rodolfo and Mayerli were our only graduates this year, and no graduations were allowed at schools again, so we held our own. Both of them successfully interviewed with UrbanTec Property Management from Calgary, and won jobs: Rodo in project research and technology, Mayerli in administrative and accounting support. Along with Karen Carrera, another Walton Scholar, they started their jobs in January, living and working from their office-apartment at Villas. With up to 40-40 fibre-optic now available in Panajachel, working online is completely possible.
Eimy and Silvia came back from Chicago at Christmas, just in time to join us for the last few days of English House. They are studying on nearly-full scholarship at Wheaton Academy high school, and averaging 95% with significant campus involvement. Silvia graduates this June, and is seeking scholarships to study university in the USA. Tomasa and Angela are studying at Selkirk College in Nelson, BC on partial scholarship as well, and while the winter and weather have been a hard adjustment, they are enjoying the adventure of living with Kevin and Sue and family too. Thanks for your help over these past years to help make studies possible for all these students.
Every student with a job is genuinely breaking the cycle of poverty, because then they become independent. They are fishing, not waiting for someone to bring them fish. This happens when they have education, access to laptops and internet, English, and confidence in themselves. In our luggage this year, we carried 64 refurbished laptops from Canada, thanks to the good people at Scout.
Microsoft is making 365 and Teams licences available for our students for free, and we will start training them this year on this, as well as continuing to learn other digital platforms like Salesforce and Google Workspace. With the help of our graduates who have pioneered those first jobs on these platforms, the doors will be open for others, and we can see clear career-tracks for those who wish. Since these roles are often Monday-Friday for Canadian and American companies remotely, they give the graduate flexibility and income to choose to study university on the weekends.
Tono, Vilma, Nayeli, Candelaria, Gregorio, Chris, Calum, Kevin, Zane, Nathan, and I hiked up Volcan Atitlan in November, overcoming our fears as well. You hike all night, arriving at the summit at sunrise. It is exhausting but exhilarating…like any overcoming of a fear. You look across at Volcan Acatenango near Antigua, since both peaks are 4000 metres. Tono and Alvaro then climbed Acatenango with our family on Christmas Day. When you start overcoming fears, it becomes a new habit, and even an identity. This is our prayer for the students, and as we look ahead to climbing Atitlan with more of them in 2022, we hope that it models for them that really, it’s difficult, but not impossible.
We cannot thank you all enough for not giving up on the students in their darkest times. It would have been easy for all of us to retreat into our basements, but stay-home stay-safe only works if you work online, and can pay someone to bring you food. In poverty, you’ve got to keep going out to work, or you starve. Risk is just reality, as it’s always been. They know that you have stood with them, even if you haven’t been able to hug them in person for far too long. We will not give up, and in fact, maybe the work-online that emerges from the pandemic will be the poverty-cycle-breaking-tool that we have sought for so long.
Candelaria and Gregorio already have children's tutorials going already, and as we look ahead to another Guatemalan school year with mostly online studies, thanks for helping us continue with internet costs and bringing more used laptops.
Looking forward to sharing a coffee at the English House tables. We are committed to making it happen again in 2022, regardless of viruses, travel tests, masks, or anything else. Those are details we’ll forget, but we are called to run toward crises, not away from them. That’s what we’ll remember: that in the time of need, we pulled together for those who needed it most. Thanks for being in this together. May you be a light against fear today, wherever you are.
This is the English House video we made with the students: may it encourage you today.
6-minute short version: https://vimeo.com/677480478
24-minute full version: https://vimeo.com/660291839
Thanks so much,
Dave and Danaya, on behalf of Chris and Laura, Kevin and Sue, Stan and Grace, all of the Conexions group, and all of the Guatemala Conexions family
