Peace Corps encourages volunteers to participate in the World Wise Schools Correspondence Match program where you are a pen pal to a class of students back in the U.S.  You have the option of choosing your own teacher if you know someone, or they can randomly match you.  I’m very excited to be a pen pal to the 1st grade class of my friend Kate Zopp, formerly Kate Loveless, in Richmond, VA.  I just sent them my first letter, along with a couple of photographs.  I was happy to learn that they have computers in their classroom and that we will be able to correspond by e-mail, especially since my post office box here in Toto does not appear too reliable (I am still awaiting 2 packages that my aunts were so kind to send me about a month ago…).  Anyways, I had fun writing the letter and hope I described and explained things in a way that a first grader will understand.

Hello Mrs. Zopp’s First Grade Class!

My name is Elizabeth Trenga and I am excited to be your pen pal for this school year!  First of all, welcome to 1st grade!  I know you are going to have a fabulous year with your new and wonderful teacher Mrs. Zopp.  Mrs. Zopp is a very dear friend of mine.  We met in pre-school and have been friends ever since.  I’m sure you all too have already made friends who will be your friends for the rest of your life.

I’d like to tell you a little about myself.  I was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, but I am currently living in Guatemala.  Guatemala is a small country about the size of Tennessee located in Central America, just south of Mexico.  Hopefully you can take a look at a map and see exactly where I live!

My job here is as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  The Peace Corps is run by the United States government.  The way it works is the U.S. sends people from America to work helping other people in countries all around the world.  Volunteer means every person working for the Peace Corps wants to be where they are, doing what they do, and that they get paid very little money.  Volunteers are sent to help in places where there is a need for better education or medical services or farming.  There are Peace Corps Volunteers like me all over the globe – in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Every volunteer lives in a foreign country for two years.  I arrived in Guatemala in April and will be here until the year 2012.

In Guatemala, like most of Latin America, everyone speaks Spanish.  I studied Spanish in college so being able to speak to people has not been too difficult, but I am still working on improving my language skills and am very grateful that people here are very kind and patient.

The type of work I do here is teaching.  I work in four different middle schools, teaching life skills.  Life skills are things like how to make good decisions, being responsible and honest, having good self-esteem, and how to be a leader.  One way that school here is very different is that students are in school only a few hours a day.  Kids your age only go to school from about 8 or 9 in the morning until about 12 noon.  Middle schoolers and high schoolers attend classes in the afternoon from about 1 to 6 PM.  Now, I bet some of you are thinking how lucky these kids are to only be in school in the morning and have almost the whole day to play!  But it is not like this at all.  Most kids can only attend school for a few hours because they have to work.  Many of my students are farmers and work in the fields with their parents and brothers and sisters.  Some go to the market with their parents to sell their fruits, vegetables, or breads.  Some of the boys are being trained as carpenters or to work with metals.  Many of the girls farm or work in the house cooking and cleaning.  Families are normally very large here with at least 5 or 6 kids.  Laundry is all done by hand.  So there is a lot of housework to be done.

The school year is different from yours as well.  Whereas you are just starting your school year, here we are just ending.  The school year here begins in January and ends the first weeks of October.  During October, November, and December, I will be running camps.  They will be like summer camps, but are in the winter.  The place I live in Guatemala is called Totonicapán and is in the western part of the country in the mountains.  It is chilly here year round.  It is never so cold that is snows, but never warm enough to swim outside.  Right now it is the rainy season and it rains every single day!  Other parts of Guatemala have very different weather.  In the south on the coast of the Pacific Ocean it is very hot and humid, much like Virginia in the summer, but it is like that the whole year.

Right now my town is celebrating its Feria.  A Feria is like a festival or a carnival and every town in Guatemala celebrates one.  Every town’s feria is at a different time of year.  The date of the Feria is the feast day of the town’s saint.  Most people here are very religious.  Most are Catholic, although there are many Evangelical Christians as well.  The town of Totonicapán where I live is very big, with at least 100,000 people who live here.  Therefore, our Feria is a huge celebration!  For several days the streets are clogged with people constructing and setting up booths and rides and stages.  The Feria starts off with an enormous parade that all the kids from all the elementary, middle, and high schools walk in with their teachers and classmates. The school marching bands play and there is lots of dancing.  Afterwards, there is no school for a whole week and there are all kinds of carnival games and rides like ferris wheels, roller coasters, and carousels.  There is lots of delicious food like cotton candy, pizza, tacos, French fries, fried chicken, nuts, popcorn, and lots of foods we don’t have in the U.S.  One of my favorite snacks is plantains.  Plantains look a lot like bananas, but are bigger and not as sweet.  They are cooked several different ways.  You can thickly slice and fry them and then eat them with sugar and cream.  Or (my favorite), cut them very thinly and bake or fry them into chips with salt.  They are a lot like potato chips but even better!  There are lots of different sweets and homemade candies here as well.  Many are bright neon colors and made of pure sugar, but my favorites are round cookies made of coconuts, and nuts cooked in sugar and sesame seeds.

Now you have a little introduction to me and the place where I live.  I am very excited to share more with you about myself, Guatemala, and my students.  I am equally eager to hear from all of you about your lives, school, and interests.  Please let me know if you have any questions and I would be happy to answer them.  Thank you for being my pen pals and I look forward to writing you again soon!

Best of luck with your school year.

Your friend,

Elizabeth