Asociación de Mujeres de Peten Ixqik y ¡Hola México!

After running around for a couple hours I was finally able to find El Asociación de Mujeres de Peten Ixqik, a womens cooperative ProLiteracy used to support. I just swung by to see the good work they are doing. And it is quite good...

Ellas son en el segundo piso de este edificio.

They have existed since 1997 teaching the women of Peten and beyond about womens rights, violence in the home, and adult basic literacy. Their main program teaching local teachers about womens rights and violence in the home so that teachers can then teach their students this valuable information.

Partidos por los niños en las escuelas

They hold frequent meetings for local women about womens rights and violence in the home as well as basic literacy classes. Women involved often bring much of what they learned back to their own communities.

I was blessed to spend a few hours with the women of Ixqik. They had no idea I would be stopping by and due to my poor poor spanish, it took some time to explain to them about ProLiteracy and the past partnership; but regardless, they treated me like a son. It was a very neat experience. Google search Asociación de Mujeres de Peten Ixqik for more info (I cant copy and paste...)

Anyway, that allowed me to head to Mexico City (DF) a bit early. So after a sleepless night in the hostel I headed out and caught a 5 AM bus to Palenque, Mexico, about two hours North of the Guatemalan border.

Small technical difficulties on route to Palenque...

¡México!

I got to Palenque around one in the afternoon. The bus to DF was an overnight that did not leave until six. So I checked emails and walked around the city a bit. However I met a fella named Esteban. Esteban was crippled and headed on a bus to Cancun to visit family. He had no wheelchair and moved by literally sliding around on the floor. After talking to him for some time he took our a small paper with several parables from the Bible. He handed it to me and asked me to read them. He then told me how lucky he is to have the chance to go to Church each and everyday. That floored me. It was a very humbling and thought provoking conversation that I certainly will not forget for sometime...

Me gusta la efuerza...

The bus ride to DF was very comfortable. I had a Greyhound bus style row to myself and I was sitting across from two nuns who work with womens cooperatives all over the country. They were unbelievably nice and super patient with my Spanish. I told them about my Great Aunt Marie and the work that I doing these upcoming months. It was quite nice. A great alternative to the horrendously violent and gory movie the bus was showing...

So I got into DF this morning at 630 and checked into a small hotel so that I could take a quick nap and shower. (It had been like three days since my last one, yikes!) Then I walked around a bit of DF. I cannot wait to see more of it!

This is the Zocolo, the main plaza in DF. It is quite busy and it is only South Africa vs. Uruguay. Tomorrow Mexico is playing France... Its going to be great

¡Adiós todos!