Proyecto Amistad

So on Sunday I had what’s called a Proyecto Amistad – aka a “Friend Project.” Some of the children at the home don’t have brothers/sisters/cousins/ etc., so instead of having Proyecto Familiar, they have Proyecto Amistad. One child gets to pick the other child/children that they want to spend time with that they may not get to see all that often. It definitely makes for an interesting time…

Sunday I was scheduled to have my project with Pedro Pablo, who currently lives in the bachillerato (the high school in Chimaltenango) and Jose Luis (who is here at our home) from 10-12. Beforehand I had asked the boys what they wanted to do and Jose had said he wanted to go to Chimaltenango, a town about 30 minutes away from the home, and eat pizza. Sounded perfect.

On Sunday I headed over to Jose Luis’s section to get him around 9:30 to start our travels. Of course he wasn’t in the section. I tracked down some of the boys in his section only to find out he WAS in fact in the section. Long story short, 20 minutes and A LOT of searching later, we were on our way. Luckily, we were given a ride to Chimal in a pickup truck from NPH that was already headed there – thank heaven we didn’t have to take a camioneta (chicken bus)! It took us half the time to get there and we were quickly on our way. After walking for another 20 minutes we arrived at the bachillerato to collect Pedro Pablo…who wasn’t home. WHAT?!? That’s what we were told. FORTUNATELY, we were told to wait and another 10 minutes later he came downstairs. After starting at 9:30, now going on 10:30, we were FINALLY ready to START our project! WHEW!

I asked the boys what they wanted to do…to which they replied…
Boys: “I dunno…what do you wanna do?”
Me: “this isn’t my project – you don’t have ANY idea what you want to do?”
Boys: “no, you can pick…”

OK! What to do what to do? We decided to go to the park and kick around the soccer ball I had brought from home for a while. We proceeded to walk for another 20 minutes, talking about life and school, etc. (Pedro just received a FULL 4 year scholarship from a private donor in the US to attend University here in Guatemala starting in January!) Anyway! We arrived at the park only to find out that the grass was completely fenced in and you couldn’t walk on it. FOR REAL???

Me: “what do you want to do now?”
Boys: “we don’t know, what do you want to do?”

After a LOT more of this, we decided to go get some pizza, Jose Luis’s other request. The boys then lead me out of the park in the direction of town. We walked for a solid 30 more minutes before we arrived at the pizza place the boys wanted to eat at: Domino’s Pizza. I should have known. Now it was around 11:30 and project should have been coming to a close…but of course it was just getting started.

I looked at the prices at Domino’s and was APPALLED. We are given 5Q per child for activities to be done during a project…aka 65 cents a kid. The prices at Domino’s were the same as in the states!! How was I going to buy a pizza for $1.30?? After contemplating for a solid minute in Domino’s, I decided it had to be done. I sucked it up and bought the pizza…and how DELICIOUS it was. I don’t remember Domino’s EVER being that good in the states, but man, ham and cheese pizza was exactly what the doctor ordered!! Vale la pena…SO worth it.

After downing an entire pizza, I taught the boys how to play two of my favorite card games – Egyptian Rat Screw (my all time favorite) and Rummy. After about 30 minutes of cards, we decided to call it quits and head back home. Pedro lead us to the bus stop and Jose Luis and I got home 30 minutes later…right about at 1:30…QUITE a long day, but fun to say the least :)

Jose Luis and Pedro Pablo on the streets of Chimal