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SYSK's Guatemalan Adventure, Part One · Stuff You Should Know

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1:07
Speaker 1: And what the heck was that? That was not you,
1:10
Speaker 1: my friend? No, it wasn't. Clearly that was the booming
1:13
Speaker 1: voice of our buddy that we met down there, who
1:15
Speaker 1: had such an impressive voice for radio. We said, we've
1:19
Speaker 1: got to get this guy to record our podcast intro
1:21
Speaker 1: if we can use it. Yeah, he's ah. He works
1:23
Speaker 1: at one of the schools we went to and he
1:27
Speaker 1: was m seeing an event and we're like, holy cow,
1:30
Speaker 1: he's the the Guatemalan meltor matvelvet. Yeah, and this is
1:36
Speaker 1: a very special pair of podcasts, right, Chuck, Absolutely our
1:39
Speaker 1: Guatemalan Adventures. Yes, our Guatemala not there. Yeah, so um
1:45
Speaker 1: Chuck and I and Jerry went down to Guatemala. As
1:50
Speaker 1: many of the listeners, no team s y Chuck Um,
1:54
Speaker 1: and our eyes were open quite a bit, you could
1:58
Speaker 1: say that, Yeah, we were originally going to go down. Uh,
2:01
Speaker 1: we should probably tell the back story. Do you want
2:03
Speaker 1: to take it? Chuck? Chuck loves emailing people back, especially
2:07
Speaker 1: when they say, do you want to come to Guatemala
2:09
Speaker 1: with this? Will take exactly? That's pretty much out went down.
2:13
Speaker 1: We got an email from a fan name and Dempsey
2:17
Speaker 1: our buddy now yes, and she emailed us so, I
2:21
Speaker 1: don't know last year last fall and said, hey, I
2:25
Speaker 1: worked for this nonprofit called Cooperative for Education and we
2:29
Speaker 1: do work in Guatemala supplying school books and uh computer
2:33
Speaker 1: centers for rural indigenous poor people in Guatemala. And check
2:38
Speaker 1: out our video and our website and we'd love it
2:41
Speaker 1: if you guys came down we'll we'll sponsor you to
2:44
Speaker 1: come down on this trip and see what you think
2:46
Speaker 1: about it. No strings attached, of course. We just think
2:49
Speaker 1: you would enjoy it and you know, having a great experience. Right,
2:52
Speaker 1: it's pretty much out happened, and we're like, what's the
2:54
Speaker 1: catch and what's your what's your game here? Right? And
2:57
Speaker 1: she really was like, no, really, we just want you
2:59
Speaker 1: to see. I mean, if you guys want to mention
3:01
Speaker 1: this on the podcast or something, that'd be awesome because
3:04
Speaker 1: they are donor driven organization like all nonprofits exactly. Um,
3:10
Speaker 1: because nonprofit can't turn a profit yeah, um. And uh
3:15
Speaker 1: So we went down there initially with the idea of like, okay,
3:18
Speaker 1: we can't just completely throw to this organization, let's do
3:23
Speaker 1: one on can education alleviate poverty? Can it actually happen?
3:28
Speaker 1: Because that's what CoA does well. Originally she just asked
3:30
Speaker 1: for us to come down, and then we were like,
3:32
Speaker 1: wait a minute, why don't we bring Jerry and then
3:34
Speaker 1: we can record down there and do our first like
3:37
Speaker 1: on the road, live recording type of deal. That was
3:40
Speaker 1: your idea. I think I was snacking while you were
3:43
Speaker 1: thinking of your way down with it though. Yeah, so Chuck,
3:45
Speaker 1: we never go anywhere unprepared, or I should say, we
3:48
Speaker 1: never do anything. I don't put on my pants without
3:51
Speaker 1: doing a little research first to find out if overnight
3:54
Speaker 1: while I was sleeping, somebody figured out a better way
3:56
Speaker 1: to do it. And that is true. Um, so we
4:00
Speaker 1: did some research on Guatemala, and UM, I actually have
4:04
Speaker 1: a little story for you. The night before we left,
4:07
Speaker 1: I secretly wrote a note to my dear Yumi, telling
4:12
Speaker 1: her that I love her in case anything happens to me.
4:14
Speaker 1: I really wanted to make sure she knew that I
4:17
Speaker 1: went down thinking that there's a chance I was going
4:20
Speaker 1: to lose my life in Guatemala. Yeah, here's a little tip.
4:23
Speaker 1: If you guys are going to travel in some country
4:25
Speaker 1: that's not you know, like France or Italy, don't go
4:28
Speaker 1: to the State Department website and that where you found
4:30
Speaker 1: it to read like the travel warnings and all, because
4:33
Speaker 1: you got to some of these countries that are a
4:35
Speaker 1: little off the beaten path, and they do they make
4:37
Speaker 1: it sound like you will be lucky if you come
4:40
Speaker 1: back alive. Yeah, and that's exactly what I thought. Um
4:42
Speaker 1: there's about eighteen paragraphs. You're scared that detail kidnappings, Ransom's beheadings. Um,
4:49
Speaker 1: straight up murder. Uh. Just it sounds like the country
4:53
Speaker 1: is just overrun with criminals and disease, all manner of disease.
4:57
Speaker 1: We got shots at the yin Yang. What do we get?
5:00
Speaker 1: We got lockjaw, Yeah, I got a It wasn't dip ted,
5:06
Speaker 1: it was ted something like that. I don't know what
5:08
Speaker 1: they shot me full of. I just hold my arm
5:11
Speaker 1: out when somebody presents me at the storringe. Jerry got
5:14
Speaker 1: sick actually, um from the shots ahead of time and
5:17
Speaker 1: a little bit of foreshadowing. A little chucky got sick
5:20
Speaker 1: on the way back. Yeah, I think I ingested some
5:23
Speaker 1: ice from a rum drink or two. Yeah, there's last
5:27
Speaker 1: there's some precautions you have to take. Oh and to
5:29
Speaker 1: finish my story, you we found the secret note within
5:31
Speaker 1: hours of us leaving, so that worked out well. Yeah,
5:35
Speaker 1: it's great, Um, all right, Chuck. We also did some
5:38
Speaker 1: background on the country, and one of the first things
5:40
Speaker 1: you find out about Guatemala when you look into it
5:43
Speaker 1: is that it had a pretty serious civil war. Yeah,
5:48
Speaker 1: for about thirty years thirty six, my friend. Yeah, that's
5:51
Speaker 1: why I said about Actually that's about forty years. But sure,
5:56
Speaker 1: internal conflict. Uh formerly end in that's a long time
6:02
Speaker 1: to be under a civil war. Yeah. And actually, um,
6:05
Speaker 1: guatemala Is is is kind of this very put upon Latin
6:09
Speaker 1: American state. Um. It was run by a dictator in
6:12
Speaker 1: the up to the forties when there was a I
6:15
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a bloodless revolution, but I
6:17
Speaker 1: think it was one of the softer revolutions. And there
6:20
Speaker 1: were some liberals running the show for about ten years,
6:23
Speaker 1: and Guatemalan still referred to it as uh ten years
6:25
Speaker 1: of Spring, right, Chuck. They referred to everything in regards
6:29
Speaker 1: to spring. It's the land of eternal spring. The spring
6:32
Speaker 1: is like the spring spring. Yeah. Um. It's so they
6:36
Speaker 1: had this great this area this time of peace. Um.
6:40
Speaker 1: And part of that was involved taking land from the
6:45
Speaker 1: United Fruit Company, which owned a bunch of land it
6:47
Speaker 1: wasn't using, and redistributing it to uh farmers, right. And
6:52
Speaker 1: the United Fruit Company didn't like this, went to the
6:55
Speaker 1: CIA and said, hey, you know, you've got some lefties
6:57
Speaker 1: in your backyard. You should probably supply or to qu
7:00
Speaker 1: CIA back to coup end of the ten Years of
7:03
Speaker 1: Spring in the beginning of the civil war, which they
7:07
Speaker 1: did not refer to you as ten years of summer
7:10
Speaker 1: that followed the spring. No, No, it was pretty bad.
7:13
Speaker 1: And we'll get into a couple of stories. We've got
7:15
Speaker 1: a couple of stories while we were down there. Yeah,
7:17
Speaker 1: a couple of like bad massacres that happened. Yeah, there were,
7:20
Speaker 1: um I think a hundred thousand killed and a hundred
7:23
Speaker 1: thousand disappeared is what they called them, which meant killed
7:27
Speaker 1: that they didn't find your body, um, and they A
7:30
Speaker 1: later Truth Commission report concluded that of the atrocities committed
7:37
Speaker 1: in that in the civil war were done by government
7:40
Speaker 1: soldiers and actually oftentimes they disguise them like to make
7:44
Speaker 1: it look like the guerrillas had done it, to drum
7:46
Speaker 1: up um resentment antipathy towards them. Yeah, it was a
7:51
Speaker 1: It was a bad thirty six years for Guatemala, and
7:53
Speaker 1: like you said, it ended in so they're still kind
7:57
Speaker 1: of coming out of this right, very much. So. I
8:01
Speaker 1: think more than half of Guatemalans are direct descendants of
8:05
Speaker 1: the mind people, and they some of them, like you said,
8:09
Speaker 1: speaking the mind tongue, still church. Some of them don't
8:12
Speaker 1: speak Spanish, right, many of them, right, Yeah, I mean,
8:15
Speaker 1: if if you run into a Guatemalan who speaks Spanish.
8:18
Speaker 1: Likely they're bilingual because they speak their indigenous mind tongue
8:22
Speaker 1: and Spanish as well. Right, they are one of the
8:24
Speaker 1: most populous Central American countries. Most of their population is
8:29
Speaker 1: rural and fifties six percent live below the poverty line.
8:34
Speaker 1: And that's Guatemala's poverty line. Yeah. Well, that's a very
8:37
Speaker 1: important thing to point out. None Americans very different and
8:40
Speaker 1: they are mainly agricultural, uh, labor industry, services industries only
8:48
Speaker 1: about Yeah, they're their economy. The top three um segments
8:53
Speaker 1: of their economy are agriculture, remittances, and tourism. Yeah, let's
8:59
Speaker 1: Remit says this. People that leave the country to go
9:02
Speaker 1: make a decent wage and then send money back home.
9:05
Speaker 1: And that's the number two segments of their economy. And
9:08
Speaker 1: uh with them tourism as well, it's it's number three,
9:11
Speaker 1: but it's not entirely enormous. I think it makes up
9:15
Speaker 1: a pretty decent portion, but it's not that big of
9:17
Speaker 1: a money maker. Again because of things like the State
9:20
Speaker 1: Department website and the fact that the civil war only
9:22
Speaker 1: ended fourteen years ago. Yeah, and I tell you, despite uh,
9:26
Speaker 1: except for Antigua, which we'll get into, that was the
9:28
Speaker 1: end of our trip. We didn't see any spurs where
9:31
Speaker 1: we went. No, we went definitely off the beaten pathway. Yeah,
9:34
Speaker 1: way in in country, weren't We weren't like hanging out
9:37
Speaker 1: on the beach or anything like that. And check the
9:39
Speaker 1: educational scene in't exactly happening down there. Yeah, which is
9:44
Speaker 1: why we went and why ed is there clearly right?
9:47
Speaker 1: And uh, you mentioned Anne, So here's a clip of
9:50
Speaker 1: and explaining, Um, a couple of a stat that we
9:55
Speaker 1: found a little staggering. We know that in rural indigenous
9:59
Speaker 1: villages in guatemal Uh, three out of four students who
10:02
Speaker 1: start first grade will drop out of school before they
10:05
Speaker 1: complete sixth grade. So of the four of us standing here,
10:09
Speaker 1: only one of us would actually complete sixth grade. That
10:14
Speaker 1: would be Josh exactly. But that's good to know, Josh,
10:18
Speaker 1: that you would have been the one to stay in school.
10:20
Speaker 1: It's possible. I think you're the clear winner. I appreciate
10:24
Speaker 1: that and seem to get a kick out of it. Yeah,
10:25
Speaker 1: and um, most students who live in Guatemala, she also
10:30
Speaker 1: told us during that interview, UM, don't learn to read
10:34
Speaker 1: until maybe third grade. And um, the teachers don't really
10:38
Speaker 1: feel it's a problem because they think that kids can't
10:40
Speaker 1: learn to read until that age, so they don't teach them.
10:43
Speaker 1: They're finding, thanks to groups like co ED that oh wait,
10:47
Speaker 1: well kids can actually start to learn to read in
10:49
Speaker 1: the first grade if they have books, right, which is
10:51
Speaker 1: a big deal. So that's why they're there, the whole
10:54
Speaker 1: thing that all of this hinges on. Yeah, but that's
10:56
Speaker 1: one of their big programs. We'll break that down load
10:58
Speaker 1: a little bit later, right, Yeah, So that's why co
11:01
Speaker 1: Ed's there, that's why we got invited to see the
11:03
Speaker 1: stuff firsthand. And so we begin our trip. So, Josh,
11:11
Speaker 1: we meet the three of us early early at Heartsfield Jackson.
11:16
Speaker 1: So early. What a bonus for us is there's a
11:18
Speaker 1: direct flight to Guatemala from Atlanta, just scant what was
11:21
Speaker 1: it like three hours maybe three hours? Three hours and
11:24
Speaker 1: likes for air fair round trip. Yeah, it was a
11:27
Speaker 1: pretty good deal. So we get on the plane, Jerry
11:30
Speaker 1: and I are we sit together, Josh, Alex not to
11:33
Speaker 1: sit with us, because I love the quote you gave
11:35
Speaker 1: me when I was like, what's up with that? You
11:37
Speaker 1: said you'd like to leave it to the gods. I'd
11:39
Speaker 1: like to leave it to fate to determine whether I'm
11:41
Speaker 1: going to die in an air or not. So Josh
11:44
Speaker 1: is behind us, and a funny nickname came out of this.
11:47
Speaker 1: Josh I turned around at one point because we all
11:49
Speaker 1: know from previous podcasts you don't love to fly. It's
11:52
Speaker 1: not your favorite thing in the world. No, it's not.
11:54
Speaker 1: So you actually put the black blanket that kid you.
11:59
Speaker 1: Jerry is so cracking up right now, the black blanket
12:01
Speaker 1: that they give you over your entire body and head.
12:05
Speaker 1: And I was like, Jerry, check it out. And we
12:07
Speaker 1: started calling you, what the black ghost of the sky,
12:10
Speaker 1: black Ghost of the skies. Yeah. I went to sleep.
12:13
Speaker 1: I needed to sleep because I don't like to fly.
12:16
Speaker 1: It was so funny. Um, and I had um taken
12:20
Speaker 1: a painkiller right so that that did you right, right.
12:24
Speaker 1: I didn't wake up until we landed. I think that
12:27
Speaker 1: was pretty And I remember I, um when we did
12:29
Speaker 1: land I actually woke up right before we landed. And
12:32
Speaker 1: as we were coming in to the runway. Um, right
12:36
Speaker 1: as we were touching down, I noticed there was like
12:39
Speaker 1: a line of airplanes that had apparently been stripped for parts. Yeah,
12:44
Speaker 1: it runway, and I just thought, you've got to be
12:47
Speaker 1: kidding me because I thought I was going to die.
12:50
Speaker 1: Remember sure you probably thought that when we took off
12:53
Speaker 1: from the same airport, but that I was gonna die.
12:55
Speaker 1: Well not from the heading, no, but we're just reminded
12:58
Speaker 1: when you say like, hey, we need a tire, go
12:59
Speaker 1: get one off that plane. It was hilarious. So we
13:03
Speaker 1: get there. The first like ten minutes in the airport
13:05
Speaker 1: is literally like a three Stooges episode. We're just kind
13:08
Speaker 1: of like walking in circles. We know we have to
13:11
Speaker 1: go through uh and shore our passport, we know we
13:13
Speaker 1: need to exchange some money Combio, we need to go
13:16
Speaker 1: to Cambio. We eventually get outside and this is when
13:20
Speaker 1: this is when co Ed shines. They really I can't
13:22
Speaker 1: stress enough because we're gonna try and get some of
13:24
Speaker 1: you people out there to go on one of these trips.
13:27
Speaker 1: On these tours, they're so they really take care of you,
13:30
Speaker 1: so there's no need to be worried about going to
13:32
Speaker 1: a foreign scary land. Like the second we got out
13:35
Speaker 1: to the airport, they had the signs and the bus
13:37
Speaker 1: waiting for us. We met our cohorts and got on
13:40
Speaker 1: the bus and went to Guatemala City. Yeah, and Chuck,
13:43
Speaker 1: I think all three of us. I was um still groggy, uh,
13:47
Speaker 1: and we we decided that we needed to kind of
13:50
Speaker 1: um create some intro in the field that we could
13:55
Speaker 1: use and um. We started drinking gaios, which is the
14:03
Speaker 1: the national beer of Guatemala, and actually you can get
14:06
Speaker 1: Guyo here. Guyo is uh rooster, right, yeah, it means rooster. Um,
14:13
Speaker 1: so they call it famosa here, but it's the exact
14:15
Speaker 1: same beer, right. Well. Coed hit the ground running, though,
14:18
Speaker 1: remember they when we first got there. Oh yeah, Holly awesome.
14:21
Speaker 1: Holly met us at the hotel and it was like,
14:24
Speaker 1: here's the subway sandwich. We gotta go to our first school.
14:26
Speaker 1: Do you guys want to go? It's your option, And
14:28
Speaker 1: we're like, uh, we we want to like record an
14:30
Speaker 1: intro here, so you guys go ahead and we'll meet
14:32
Speaker 1: up later. So so that was time well spent because
14:35
Speaker 1: we were thinking about what to record while we were
14:36
Speaker 1: drinking gios, and eventually we got to the point where
14:39
Speaker 1: everything we recorded was just kind of useless. So I
14:42
Speaker 1: wish we could include some of that because it's really funny.
14:44
Speaker 1: Jerry was so frustrated with us because we just we
14:47
Speaker 1: were we were doing a good job. Yeah. So, um,
14:50
Speaker 1: but it wasn't just that. It was also we didn't
14:53
Speaker 1: really have a conception yet of what co Ed did
14:58
Speaker 1: and um, that was about to change actually because we
15:01
Speaker 1: remember we were still going down on the premise that
15:03
Speaker 1: we were going to record a podcast, can uh Education
15:06
Speaker 1: Alleviate Poverty? Um? And and this was about I think
15:11
Speaker 1: it was in Guatemala City that night where the turning
15:14
Speaker 1: point began and our eyes started to open more and
15:16
Speaker 1: more like Holy cow at dinner, at dinner. Yes, So
15:20
Speaker 1: they took us. They got back. I was setting us
15:22
Speaker 1: up for a clip. We don't have a clip for that, okay,
15:24
Speaker 1: so take it sounded very much like an MPR set up,
15:27
Speaker 1: Thank you. Uh so yeah, we met up. They came
15:29
Speaker 1: back to the hotel. We um had a couple of
15:32
Speaker 1: beers at that point and failed miserably with our intro
15:35
Speaker 1: and they all said, hey, let's uh walk down the
15:37
Speaker 1: street here to this restaurant and we can talk a
15:39
Speaker 1: little bit. And I thought, are we going to be
15:42
Speaker 1: kidnapped at any point during this walk? Yeah? But we weren't. No,
15:45
Speaker 1: we weren't. And we ended up hanging out with Joe
15:49
Speaker 1: can I mention real quick our our kidnapping plan that
15:51
Speaker 1: Jerry and I hatched, Yeah, because we we came up
15:54
Speaker 1: with a plan. If the three of us were kidnapped,
15:55
Speaker 1: then we were to tell them that Josh was a
15:58
Speaker 1: a prince or a very rich man in the United States,
16:01
Speaker 1: and that we worked for him, we were mere servants.
16:04
Speaker 1: And I figured that probably would have gotten us off. Yeah,
16:06
Speaker 1: it would have gotten you too off. Thank you for
16:08
Speaker 1: the Prince, Josh. Yes. Um, so we hung out with Joe. Yeah,
16:15
Speaker 1: Joe Burninger is one of the founders, along with his
16:17
Speaker 1: brother Jeff. Yeah, and they Joe and Jeff used to
16:21
Speaker 1: go down to Guatemala for spring break, right. Yeah, they
16:24
Speaker 1: were going down there having a good time. But they
16:27
Speaker 1: kind of they come from this like fairly uncommon family
16:31
Speaker 1: where like they had tons of like values instilled in them.
16:35
Speaker 1: So they're going down hanging out, and it was I
16:38
Speaker 1: felt like a piece of trash. Jeff was telling us
16:41
Speaker 1: all about his parents. I was like, wow, yeah, it
16:43
Speaker 1: sounds like really great people. Yes, so much so that, Um,
16:45
Speaker 1: I guess they kind of led to the to Joe
16:49
Speaker 1: and Jeff being inspired to actually go back to Guatemala
16:52
Speaker 1: and live there, right, to help this country and and
16:56
Speaker 1: they've done it in a very clever way. Do you
16:58
Speaker 1: like all this like um teasing that we're doing right? Right?
17:00
Speaker 1: People like, what did they do? Exactly? Yeah, I told
17:03
Speaker 1: you it hinges on books. It does. So we had
17:06
Speaker 1: this awesome dinner Joe and Holly give us this really
17:09
Speaker 1: really great rundown to where we finally feel like, all right,
17:12
Speaker 1: we got a really good idea what's going on here,
17:14
Speaker 1: and we're not ready to share that with you yet.
17:16
Speaker 1: We're not ready to share that. We go to sleep.
17:19
Speaker 1: We go Betty by, I watch a little uh Spanish
17:22
Speaker 1: language signfeld. I watched Um, I think Law and Order
17:26
Speaker 1: in English was on down there, and I was like, oh,
17:28
Speaker 1: thank god. So we awake in our was the Radisson
17:48
Speaker 1: at Guatemala City, and we they have a couple of
17:51
Speaker 1: busses arranged for us. So it's like Mercedes, the small
17:54
Speaker 1: sprinter busses, and I know they are not yeah, not
17:56
Speaker 1: the huge chicken busses, although we saw plenty of those.
17:59
Speaker 1: Those are rat They're brightly colored and a little aside.
18:02
Speaker 1: Do you know why chicken busses are painted brightly, vividly
18:06
Speaker 1: and differently? I do, but you should say so it's
18:09
Speaker 1: because a significant amount of the Guatemalan population who used
18:14
Speaker 1: those busses can't read where it's going, so they just know, oh,
18:18
Speaker 1: this red bus with the Tasmanian devil on it is
18:21
Speaker 1: going to and that's where I need to go, and
18:23
Speaker 1: I'm going there. Pretty cool, nice little factive attention. So
18:27
Speaker 1: we actually that's where we went. We went to uh Santiago, Yeah,
18:32
Speaker 1: which is where Lake Atiflan is beautiful and actually you
18:36
Speaker 1: should check out the coolest stuff on the planet, um
18:38
Speaker 1: cast on lake. Yeah, footage that Jerry took while we
18:42
Speaker 1: were down there. So we arrived there and it's like
18:45
Speaker 1: I think it was a few hours by bus. We
18:47
Speaker 1: got to see some of the countryside, tobacco farms, coffee, coffee, bananas, bananas, agriculture,
18:54
Speaker 1: poor poor towns. Yeah. So we arrived there at the
18:58
Speaker 1: lake and this is a volcanic formed a long long
19:01
Speaker 1: time ago from a volcano, and I think three volcanoes
19:05
Speaker 1: are surrounded, right, Yeah, those are dormant, but on the
19:07
Speaker 1: way up we saw a couple of volcanoes that are
19:10
Speaker 1: um active had smoke coming out of them. Yeah, the
19:13
Speaker 1: first time for me ever, Yeah, me too, um and yeah,
19:16
Speaker 1: I t line. I think was formed about eighty thousand
19:18
Speaker 1: years ago. I learned from the coolest stuff cast Um.
19:22
Speaker 1: And it was actually ridiculously polluted for many, many years,
19:27
Speaker 1: which is kind of screwy because it's a major tourist
19:30
Speaker 1: destination for Guatemala. So they actually bioremediated it and they
19:34
Speaker 1: said it's all good now. Yeah. I saw people swimming
19:37
Speaker 1: in chuck and I didn't. We thought maybe after a
19:39
Speaker 1: couple more years of buyo remediation getting in it. But
19:42
Speaker 1: it was gorgeous, man, unbelievable, and people um canoe standing up. Yeah,
19:48
Speaker 1: it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Very good balance. Yeah,
19:52
Speaker 1: so we're at this idyllic scene. We go to this
19:54
Speaker 1: little uh place that this run by this hippie ex
19:58
Speaker 1: pat American next bat, which is my dream to do
20:02
Speaker 1: this one day. Yeah, you're jealous of that guy. Yeah,
20:07
Speaker 1: it going on. And actually there was the resort that
20:11
Speaker 1: we stayed at was around in the sixties I think,
20:15
Speaker 1: and it was taken over by the army and they
20:18
Speaker 1: had to evacuate. The guy's mom had owned it originally, right,
20:22
Speaker 1: And to call it a resort is like kind of
20:24
Speaker 1: overstating things. It was really awesome, but there were little
20:26
Speaker 1: huts like like stone cabanas, kind of peppered, like ten
20:31
Speaker 1: or twelve of them peppered on the property. It was
20:33
Speaker 1: called Pasada de Santiago. Yeah, and it was awesome. And
20:36
Speaker 1: this was that we should point out. This is the
20:37
Speaker 1: first first time on the trip and only time and
20:41
Speaker 1: probably only time in our history, that we will all
20:43
Speaker 1: stay in the same place. We had to share, not
20:48
Speaker 1: a room. Jerry luckily had could close the door and
20:51
Speaker 1: had her own room. But you and I were there
20:53
Speaker 1: like New Hampshire, Vermont, on those little twin beds. Right.
20:56
Speaker 1: And apparently Chuck confirms something that I've I've been told before,
21:00
Speaker 1: or that snore really really really loud. Oh wow, yeah,
21:04
Speaker 1: it's kind of a problem. Actually it sounded like a
21:06
Speaker 1: sow being murdered with a spoon. Weird. It was bad,
21:12
Speaker 1: you know. The first person who said that the room
21:16
Speaker 1: was awesome though a little fireplace was very cool. So
21:18
Speaker 1: we get there, we set up and had an awesome lunch.
21:22
Speaker 1: All the food was great the whole trip. It's gonna
21:25
Speaker 1: get old saying we had an awesome meal because it
21:26
Speaker 1: was so delicious. Well, I noticed that in the in
21:29
Speaker 1: the rundown you noted every single one of them. So
21:31
Speaker 1: those things really stub good. You didn't, I'm all about
21:34
Speaker 1: the awesome meal mentioned this, so U. One of the
21:38
Speaker 1: first things we did was we went out. They took
21:40
Speaker 1: us out for a little tour of the of the
21:42
Speaker 1: main square in town. I saw a church from like
21:45
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty or something, the church where Um the lead
21:49
Speaker 1: I guess, priest, the head priest Um was murdered. He
21:53
Speaker 1: was an American priest down there, and he was murdered
21:55
Speaker 1: in the civil warrant. That was kind of a big deal. Yeah,
21:59
Speaker 1: very big deal. And remember they had like the carpet
22:03
Speaker 1: made of flowers from the from the doorway to the altar,
22:08
Speaker 1: which had to be at least fifty sixty yards. And
22:12
Speaker 1: it wasn't we should say, it wasn't just flat. We're
22:13
Speaker 1: gonna put pictures of all this on the website, by
22:15
Speaker 1: the way, so you can check it all out. It
22:17
Speaker 1: wasn't just flowers. It was an intricate design made of
22:20
Speaker 1: flower petals the entire way. It was astounding, actually, and
22:24
Speaker 1: we found that it was It's considered, um, a very
22:28
Speaker 1: gracious way to welcome people by putting down evergreen straws.
22:32
Speaker 1: And then you got flowers over there like higher up.
22:35
Speaker 1: But if you put down evergreen, then your guests feet
22:38
Speaker 1: never touched the ground. Yeah, and they every school we
22:40
Speaker 1: went to, they did that for us. And it was
22:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've never had anyone do that before. No,
22:44
Speaker 1: but I started doing it around my house. Yeah. I
22:47
Speaker 1: felt very unworthy if I did that. Damily should be
22:50
Speaker 1: I pick all that stuff up? What kind of invest
22:53
Speaker 1: is this? So we take a tour around the main
22:58
Speaker 1: town there, and then they set us up with a
23:00
Speaker 1: visit to the home of a girl that had been um,
23:05
Speaker 1: one of the co ed students and still is I
23:07
Speaker 1: think at the Taxiquoi family. Yeah, and they invited us
23:10
Speaker 1: into their home. And we've got a clip for this one.
23:13
Speaker 1: But yeah, today um, we went, um, we did kind
23:17
Speaker 1: of a tour of the town here, which is very poor,
23:20
Speaker 1: to say the least. Yeah, very eye opening for guys
23:23
Speaker 1: like us. And we met a family actually who's daughter
23:28
Speaker 1: had has benefited from the from the co ed program. Yeah, Maria, Maria,
23:34
Speaker 1: and they invited us into their home. Yeah. It's a
23:37
Speaker 1: very small home. You walk in half of it maybe
23:40
Speaker 1: is roofed. Yeah, we went. We all assembled in this
23:44
Speaker 1: one room and we found out that it was the
23:46
Speaker 1: room they sleep in, so I mean, it was obviously
23:49
Speaker 1: a really big deal for them. They straightened everything up
23:52
Speaker 1: for these gringo guests to come gawk and take pictures
23:56
Speaker 1: and ask questions about them, but that you could tell them,
23:59
Speaker 1: they're very, very grateful, so welcoming to Yeah, and and
24:02
Speaker 1: the dad too, I mean, to put all of his
24:06
Speaker 1: kids through school, and he's doing it at his own
24:09
Speaker 1: detriment because he actually could use these kids to be
24:13
Speaker 1: productive money makers for the house, but instead they're off
24:17
Speaker 1: at school, not making any money. And yet this guy
24:19
Speaker 1: was dedicated, and he didn't look like it to look
24:22
Speaker 1: at him, he just looked like some normal Guatemalan guy.
24:27
Speaker 1: But there was something in him that said, you know,
24:30
Speaker 1: when I'm I'm going to stop this with this generation,
24:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to send all of my kids to school.
24:34
Speaker 1: And he has, Yeah, he wants, and that's kind of
24:36
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And he wants his kids to exceed
24:39
Speaker 1: their own expectations, even and what do they say, they
24:44
Speaker 1: the kids want to exceed themselves, exceed themselves. I'm not
24:47
Speaker 1: sure what that is in Spanish that it sounds a
24:50
Speaker 1: lot better than that, but the only way to do.
24:52
Speaker 1: That we're learning is to be educated, because if you
24:56
Speaker 1: don't have an education in Guatemala and really anywhere, your
24:59
Speaker 1: option are extremely limited, and here more so than than
25:03
Speaker 1: most places probably, So that was a real eye opener. Yeah,
25:09
Speaker 1: it really was. And I just I can't get over
25:11
Speaker 1: the dad. He was about three ft tall, all smiles.
25:17
Speaker 1: I don't think he's did they speak Spanish or did
25:20
Speaker 1: they speak now they're speaking Spanish because we were had
25:23
Speaker 1: the translation going Okay, I thought was being translated into
25:25
Speaker 1: like chichiko, wasn't I think I could just be making
25:29
Speaker 1: that up. But yeah, this guy lives in abject poverty.
25:32
Speaker 1: They actually rented the house that we visited them, and
25:35
Speaker 1: they rented a couple of rooms. The whole thing wasn't
25:37
Speaker 1: even there. Um and instead of like having his kids
25:41
Speaker 1: go work to to support the family like every other
25:44
Speaker 1: Guatemalan family, he's making sure all three of his kids
25:47
Speaker 1: go through school. Yeah, it's it's just really once it
25:50
Speaker 1: sinks in, you know, the guy is the guy. What
25:53
Speaker 1: the guy is doing is really amazing. Yeah. That was
25:55
Speaker 1: very touching. Yeah, and very gracious, actually, book, I like, yeah,
26:00
Speaker 1: and he hugged you back. It's very nice. So after
26:03
Speaker 1: that we go back to the main town. They have
26:06
Speaker 1: set up some we we should set this up. They
26:09
Speaker 1: have what they haven't Guatemala, these little tiny little Toyota
26:12
Speaker 1: pickup trucks, the little ones, and they have these little
26:15
Speaker 1: A frames, wide open A frames built in the beds
26:19
Speaker 1: of the trucks so they can carry around like twelve
26:22
Speaker 1: people back there standing up and you just kind of
26:25
Speaker 1: hold on standing up to this little A frame. So
26:28
Speaker 1: that they set us up with these trucks. Coed did
26:30
Speaker 1: so we could go out a little bit on the
26:32
Speaker 1: outskirts of town and see a couple of cool things.
26:34
Speaker 1: And it was that's like I felt like it was
26:36
Speaker 1: a real adventure. Yeah, it was. I mean like we
26:38
Speaker 1: had the wind blowing our faces and that we were
26:40
Speaker 1: you know, hip to hip, Yes, hip to hip and
26:44
Speaker 1: the sexiest camp but well one of the sexiest cap
26:46
Speaker 1: ris I've ever been. That sounds good. Uh. And we
26:48
Speaker 1: went to uh the first place we saw we went
26:51
Speaker 1: to was to see this and I'm gonna let you
26:53
Speaker 1: set this up because this obviously been a lot to you.
26:55
Speaker 1: But we went to see someone or something called mushymn right,
27:05
Speaker 1: and um, we had a choice. We could have either
27:07
Speaker 1: gone shopping or going to see Mashiman rights, well, Mashimon.
27:13
Speaker 1: We went to see him actually, because it turns out
27:15
Speaker 1: he's my patron saint. He is um called the man
27:19
Speaker 1: in black at the Crossroads or the black Man at
27:21
Speaker 1: the Crossroads papal Legba and Western African culture. But basically
27:25
Speaker 1: he's this guy, he's the god of vice. And actually
27:29
Speaker 1: this is hilarious because I went and I didn't know
27:31
Speaker 1: this at the time, but they keep him locked up
27:34
Speaker 1: and every uh definitely every year, but I think like
27:37
Speaker 1: every couple of months they have a kind of a
27:39
Speaker 1: ceremony in his honor um and it moves from it's
27:43
Speaker 1: every year, and it moves from house to house, and
27:46
Speaker 1: you never really know where Mashamon is. And they keep
27:48
Speaker 1: him locked up because his sexuality is too much. He's
27:53
Speaker 1: like the Antonio banderis of like uh gods, Yeah, so
27:58
Speaker 1: um what what what? What service he offers to his flock.
28:02
Speaker 1: Me included is that you can come bring him sacrifices
28:06
Speaker 1: and he'll help alleviate your vices. So we bought some
28:11
Speaker 1: or Josh paid what like twenty cents for a half
28:14
Speaker 1: pint of the local swell. They called it rum. No,
28:19
Speaker 1: it was like sugarcane moonshine. Yeah, but they the local
28:23
Speaker 1: guys called it rama. That was no wrong. It was
28:26
Speaker 1: called I looked it up. It's called Guaro. It's actually
28:29
Speaker 1: Costa Rican. But there's a sugarcane rum, sugarcane moonshine down
28:34
Speaker 1: there is serious stuff. And actually, so I buy it,
28:38
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, Chuck, we should probably try this.
28:40
Speaker 1: Jerry declined. Chuck and I both tried it. Chuck shuttered.
28:43
Speaker 1: I didn't, which I think I think made it all
28:46
Speaker 1: the more reason I should dry out a little bit,
28:49
Speaker 1: because shutter from you got some cereal? I can pour
28:52
Speaker 1: this over. So I I I offer a cigarette to
28:56
Speaker 1: Mashamona is a sacrifice, and the guy takes it from
28:58
Speaker 1: me and puts it in mashamones off and lights it.
29:01
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yes, I just knocked the cigar out
29:03
Speaker 1: of his mouth, and now my cigarettes in there, right,
29:04
Speaker 1: that's gonna be good for me. And then I go
29:06
Speaker 1: and get the liquor and then go in there. And
29:09
Speaker 1: you have to be very quiet. This is quite sincere,
29:12
Speaker 1: and I was like I was very sincere too. I
29:14
Speaker 1: was mocking in any ways in perform like I was
29:17
Speaker 1: really help me. But it's it's this dark, strangely lit barn,
29:23
Speaker 1: tiny barn you can put maybe a donkey and a
29:26
Speaker 1: half in it, and there's this acrid incense burning I
29:29
Speaker 1: think it was frankincense, and this crowded with sweaty people,
29:33
Speaker 1: and a couple of guys are running the show, and
29:35
Speaker 1: people are on their knees and like just praying before
29:38
Speaker 1: manshamone and he's just carved probably three and a half
29:42
Speaker 1: four ft tall figure pretty much all right, and um
29:47
Speaker 1: so they put the cigarette in his in his mouth,
29:50
Speaker 1: and then when I brought the whiskey or the moonshine,
29:53
Speaker 1: they they actually put a funnel in his mouth, held
29:57
Speaker 1: a little bandana underneath his carved lip, and it into
30:00
Speaker 1: his mouth and they didn't pour at all. And another
30:03
Speaker 1: reason why I know that I needed Mashmon's help was
30:06
Speaker 1: because I waited around to see if they gave me
30:07
Speaker 1: the rest of the bottle back and they did not. Well,
30:11
Speaker 1: that's part of the little not a wank you get
30:13
Speaker 1: as they take it very seriously. They also collect a
30:16
Speaker 1: lot of liquor in the process. Yeah, I imagine if
30:18
Speaker 1: you're running the Mashamone ceremony, you get pretty lit yes, yeah, probably,
30:23
Speaker 1: so that was a pretty big experience. Yeah, we're gonna
30:26
Speaker 1: have pictures of that up to Yeah, and um we
30:30
Speaker 1: left there and that was pretty cool. Yeah, very cool
30:33
Speaker 1: because I was doing that because I want to be
30:34
Speaker 1: a debt and I need to get in better health,
30:36
Speaker 1: you know. So it was cool. I felt good. And
30:39
Speaker 1: then we go straight to one of the most depressing
30:43
Speaker 1: places I've ever been in my entire life. Yes, Josh,
30:45
Speaker 1: the mudslides, uh from Hurricane stand in two thousand five,
30:49
Speaker 1: devastating to this small town. But yeah, villa, like four
30:54
Speaker 1: hundred of the people who lived there, people, holy cow died.
31:00
Speaker 1: Wait and just just the village, Well, now that's all over.
31:03
Speaker 1: That's an all of Guatemala from the hurricanes. I think
31:06
Speaker 1: this village is the worst hit though, because it was
31:08
Speaker 1: like five people that the four d people that died,
31:12
Speaker 1: and the people in the whole country died from it,
31:14
Speaker 1: right they recorded they recovered only seventy seven corpses, and
31:19
Speaker 1: three hundred people are still missing and presumed dead. Basically
31:23
Speaker 1: where we were standing was what they say, like fifteen
31:27
Speaker 1: feet higher than it used to be, and below us
31:30
Speaker 1: was a mass grave of bodies, a village and a
31:33
Speaker 1: lot of people were um sleeping. It was pretty early
31:36
Speaker 1: in the morning, and you could actually look up the
31:39
Speaker 1: mountain and see still the trees hadn't fully grown back.
31:43
Speaker 1: It was like a swath cut where the mud came.
31:46
Speaker 1: They came right down right over the village and just
31:48
Speaker 1: covered it. Man uh. And it was pretty um sobering
31:52
Speaker 1: because one of the kids that we were talking to
31:56
Speaker 1: h well, we weren't, but our group was um was
31:59
Speaker 1: in or whose family was beneath his feet somewhere. And
32:03
Speaker 1: then to the right there was an old school police
32:06
Speaker 1: station in hospital and they're gutted and abandoned, but you
32:10
Speaker 1: could still see the high mud mark. And this kid,
32:14
Speaker 1: I mean, he was he was all by himself. He
32:16
Speaker 1: lost all his brothers and sisters and his parents, and
32:18
Speaker 1: he was now taking care of these other kids. And
32:22
Speaker 1: he looked to be about like seventeen. I remember they said, like, no,
32:24
Speaker 1: he's like thirteen. And he lost his parents when he
32:27
Speaker 1: was like eight, and he's been taking care of these
32:29
Speaker 1: kids ever since. Unbelievable. It really was very sad, Yes,
32:33
Speaker 1: And actually so was the next place we visited to, Yes, Josh.
32:36
Speaker 1: The next sight we went to was the site of
32:40
Speaker 1: a massacre that happened during the Civil War in nineteen ninety,
32:44
Speaker 1: the Guatemalan army opened fire on an unarmed crowd of
32:49
Speaker 1: between two thousand and fourth the four thousand protesters that
32:53
Speaker 1: had finally kind of had enough. Yeah, the army had
32:56
Speaker 1: had a garrison in um Lin, and like just about
33:02
Speaker 1: every other town over the population of ten thousand and
33:05
Speaker 1: um they used to just basically abuse the population. And
33:09
Speaker 1: one night these soldiers got drunk beat up some guys
33:12
Speaker 1: that at a bar started breaking into people's houses and
33:16
Speaker 1: just basically being jerks and right. So this guy who
33:21
Speaker 1: was injured in the bar fight, um I guess, went
33:24
Speaker 1: and told the mayor something and and everybody got woken
33:27
Speaker 1: up and went to the army garrison demanded that they
33:32
Speaker 1: stopped abusing the population, and so the the UM I
33:37
Speaker 1: guess one of the the guys who was heading the
33:39
Speaker 1: garrison said well, what do you have to say, and
33:42
Speaker 1: somebody shot into the air, and somebody else just started
33:46
Speaker 1: firing into the crowd. They ended up killing fourteen people
33:51
Speaker 1: and the age range from ten to fifty three. Twenty
33:54
Speaker 1: one others were wounded, and uh, we visited there and
33:58
Speaker 1: they literally have a sort of a little open plaza
34:01
Speaker 1: in the woods and they have a little memorial at
34:03
Speaker 1: each spot where each person was killed. Yeah, they have
34:05
Speaker 1: the original steps that were there. Yeah, and and you
34:08
Speaker 1: know there's it's pretty again so brink. They have harry
34:13
Speaker 1: players um I think once a month or something. Yeah,
34:16
Speaker 1: and they still do have mass there. But the good
34:18
Speaker 1: news is out of all that, two weeks later, as
34:20
Speaker 1: a result of the pressure and outcry over this, the
34:24
Speaker 1: army vacated the garrison there at least, and Atitlan became
34:28
Speaker 1: one of the few communities that um didn't have a
34:30
Speaker 1: military base. Right. Yeah, this one, for some reason, just
34:33
Speaker 1: stirred up, you know, the anger and resentment of everybody
34:37
Speaker 1: in Guatemala. Even the people who are running the military
34:40
Speaker 1: turned down the military for this one. Right. So at
34:42
Speaker 1: this point we are like in Guatemala, I mean, we
34:46
Speaker 1: are really feeling like we gotta handle on what's going
34:49
Speaker 1: on here? After this day, do you remember we were
34:50
Speaker 1: walking around a Titlan and I was like, look, you know,
34:53
Speaker 1: like ten twenty years ago there were guerillas sitting here
34:57
Speaker 1: with a K forty seven shooting it out with Moliss.
34:59
Speaker 1: Like where we're walking right now, you could feel it's
35:02
Speaker 1: still had left some sort of impression on the Yeah,
35:05
Speaker 1: it was very creepy and those little tight alleyways and
35:08
Speaker 1: I was just trying to like wrap my head around
35:10
Speaker 1: coming around a corner and seeing a gorilla with a
35:12
Speaker 1: gun and uh, you know, kids everywhere. It was just awful.
35:16
Speaker 1: But at the same time it was a really really
35:19
Speaker 1: nice town too. Oh yeah, you know, like it was
35:23
Speaker 1: this kind of dual experience. Well, yeah, because Late Alan
35:26
Speaker 1: is a place where Greeno tourists go because so gorgeous,
35:30
Speaker 1: it's it was a little weird. So we get back
35:32
Speaker 1: to the place that our little hippie cabana and I
35:36
Speaker 1: have a little happy hour by the lake, which was
35:40
Speaker 1: one of the other great things about these tours is
35:42
Speaker 1: they believe in unwinding at the end of the day
35:44
Speaker 1: and fellowshipping with each other and having a cold one
35:47
Speaker 1: called gayo. So it was just gorgeous setting. We have
35:50
Speaker 1: a great dinner once again, and we were able to
35:54
Speaker 1: get co founder Jeff Burninger in the cabin afterward for
35:59
Speaker 1: a little We lured him in. We lured him in
36:01
Speaker 1: there with a fire and beer and said come in
36:03
Speaker 1: here and speak to us. And we got to talk
36:06
Speaker 1: to him a little bit more about co Ed and
36:09
Speaker 1: we have a clip here of his thoughts on his
36:11
Speaker 1: initial inspiration to start this nonprofit. What when did the
36:15
Speaker 1: first seed of UM I see a need here and
36:19
Speaker 1: part of me wants to do something about it. When
36:21
Speaker 1: did that first here? That started? When I was looking
36:24
Speaker 1: for a volunteer opportunity. I think a lot of us,
36:27
Speaker 1: you know, we come down and we see a beautiful country,
36:31
Speaker 1: we backpack, we try to learn a language, and we
36:33
Speaker 1: see the poverty. So what can I do to help? Right? Well,
36:37
Speaker 1: what I found out was that with my level of Spanish,
36:40
Speaker 1: there was very little I could do to help so
36:43
Speaker 1: except maybe teach English. And I found a school that
36:46
Speaker 1: I was willing to allow me to come in and
36:48
Speaker 1: teach English. It was a volunteer opportunity and it was
36:52
Speaker 1: something I thought I could do. Well. Of course I
36:53
Speaker 1: learned that later that I learned later that I was
36:55
Speaker 1: not um really cut out for teaching. But what what
37:00
Speaker 1: I learned in the classroom was that the kids didn't
37:03
Speaker 1: have books. And the way that started was since I
37:07
Speaker 1: didn't know how to teach, I thought, well, the simplest
37:10
Speaker 1: way to teach would be just to get the book
37:13
Speaker 1: and follow it. You know, starting chapter one and go
37:15
Speaker 1: to chapter two, chapter three, UM. But since there was
37:18
Speaker 1: no books, I'm like, well, you know, I've got to
37:20
Speaker 1: find books. I'll ask the math teacher and the science
37:23
Speaker 1: teacher where they get their books, because obviously they being
37:25
Speaker 1: with books. It's just span speaking country. Well, I found
37:29
Speaker 1: out the math and science teachers didn't have books either.
37:32
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, this is an outscite. You know, how
37:35
Speaker 1: do you teach? So, Josh, Here's how the textbook program works.
37:39
Speaker 1: And I know you know this, but pretend that I'm
37:41
Speaker 1: telling you for the first time, everybody in podcast land.
37:44
Speaker 1: Here's how it works. What they do is it's a
37:45
Speaker 1: really cool program because it is self sustaining. They realized
37:49
Speaker 1: at some point that early on that dropping things off
37:53
Speaker 1: and leaving they called the dropping go that's not the
37:56
Speaker 1: way to go. I'm sure that people need supplies and
37:59
Speaker 1: things like that, but in the end they feel like, uh,
38:04
Speaker 1: just to have something dropped and leaving isn't really doing
38:07
Speaker 1: them a lot of good. Well, it's not sustainable. And
38:09
Speaker 1: that's the exactly that's the point of the textbook UM
38:13
Speaker 1: program is that it is sustainable. Starting out with the
38:16
Speaker 1: first bit of seed money, exactly. So what happens is, um,
38:20
Speaker 1: they are able to buy books really cheap in bulk textbooks,
38:24
Speaker 1: deliver them to these students, and these students, actually these
38:27
Speaker 1: very very poor poor students, actually pay money to rent
38:31
Speaker 1: these textbooks for the year. Right and we should probably say, um,
38:34
Speaker 1: right here, it's like two bucks a year per student,
38:38
Speaker 1: per student, per book, per book. So what happens is
38:42
Speaker 1: these kids they rent the books, that money goes into
38:45
Speaker 1: what they call revolving fund, an escrow account, and in
38:49
Speaker 1: five years, the money, the collective money has uh grown
38:53
Speaker 1: to the point where they can now replace the original
38:56
Speaker 1: set of textbooks, right or if they they we co
39:00
Speaker 1: ed takes these books to these schools. There's a program.
39:04
Speaker 1: A part of it is taking care of your textbook, right,
39:08
Speaker 1: So these kids are taking care of their textbooks. And
39:10
Speaker 1: we'll hear why in a second. But um, it's so
39:13
Speaker 1: if their books, if say the math books are in
39:16
Speaker 1: really good shape still, they can use that money instead
39:18
Speaker 1: of replacing those they can get another subject or they
39:23
Speaker 1: will replace those books and then the use textbooks become
39:26
Speaker 1: part of their used textbook program and can go to
39:29
Speaker 1: some of the scholarship kids who can't even afford the
39:31
Speaker 1: two bucks, so it's a self sustaining program. Once these
39:35
Speaker 1: kids uh rent into the program, they've got textbooks for
39:40
Speaker 1: life basically or for their entire run of education. And
39:42
Speaker 1: here's Jeff talking about why he's found the program works.
39:47
Speaker 1: Many people have told us that it did, it would
39:49
Speaker 1: never work. They won't return the books. Um. And that's
39:53
Speaker 1: actually a key piece of the of the of the
39:56
Speaker 1: reason why that there's a the fee program works because
40:00
Speaker 1: we've seen it the school principles tell us that this
40:03
Speaker 1: is the case that when someone has to pay, even
40:06
Speaker 1: if it's a small fee, that they that they respect
40:08
Speaker 1: what they receive a lot more. If someone hands you
40:12
Speaker 1: something in the street, a piece of paper, a small
40:14
Speaker 1: publication for free, the likelihood of you keeping it or
40:20
Speaker 1: valuing it versus tossing in the garbage can it is
40:25
Speaker 1: much higher, and it's much higher that you will not
40:27
Speaker 1: read it because you've not put anything into it. But
40:32
Speaker 1: if you have to pay a small fee for it,
40:35
Speaker 1: it's much more likely that you're going to read it
40:37
Speaker 1: or keep it and chuck um. Two bucks two bucks
40:41
Speaker 1: a year per books, say three books six bucks a year.
40:44
Speaker 1: It's paltry, but at times how many kids sometimes though, right,
40:47
Speaker 1: But but you want to make sure that you're not
40:50
Speaker 1: thinking it as an American like, is it really paltry?
40:53
Speaker 1: So just said that coed Um did his study to
40:55
Speaker 1: find out how expensive it was to these families. Yeah,
40:59
Speaker 1: whether or not they could actually afford it. They struggle
41:01
Speaker 1: with that for a long time. That's the question we've
41:04
Speaker 1: been asking ourselves for for the last twelve years. And
41:09
Speaker 1: we started by simply asking the school officials, and they
41:12
Speaker 1: said the principle and the and the teachers and everything,
41:15
Speaker 1: and they clearly believe that yes they can. But we're
41:18
Speaker 1: concerned about that because some people in the development community
41:21
Speaker 1: believe that if there's any cost to education or the
41:26
Speaker 1: benefit that someone's receiving, that it becomes a barrier of
41:29
Speaker 1: entry into education, that you're keeping kids out of school
41:33
Speaker 1: because you're raising the costs of them going to school.
41:36
Speaker 1: But we've we've actually found that not to be the case.
41:39
Speaker 1: With textbooks. We've gone so far as to interview the students.
41:43
Speaker 1: UM we've through a third party organization through one of
41:46
Speaker 1: the universities in Clatamala City. UM interviewed the students receiving
41:50
Speaker 1: the textbooks after they graduated from the program and asking
41:53
Speaker 1: them on a simple scale, I'm one to five, are
41:54
Speaker 1: they are the books very affordable? Kind of affordable, mediocre
41:59
Speaker 1: ex sense of you know, on that scale and and
42:03
Speaker 1: basically the results came back saying that the books were
42:05
Speaker 1: either either cheap or or or affordable. So that's good news.
42:11
Speaker 1: They put a lot of work into researching this, and
42:13
Speaker 1: they did find that, you know, they were validated and
42:17
Speaker 1: that the parents can't afford it, and that they believe
42:20
Speaker 1: in paying for it. And that's what really blew me
42:23
Speaker 1: away about this whole thing is that something earned is
42:27
Speaker 1: much more important than something given to you, right, And
42:30
Speaker 1: then that's why the program has been so successful. Chuck,
42:33
Speaker 1: So what we found this is this is when our
42:36
Speaker 1: eyes were really starting to open to Jerry's too, Like
42:39
Speaker 1: she was walking around there's like a little crusty drool
42:41
Speaker 1: on the cydber mouth, Like she's like, what is going
42:43
Speaker 1: on here? But what we found is this group that
42:46
Speaker 1: we're with UM goes down to Guatemala. They rustle up
42:51
Speaker 1: American money. By they identify schools that say, yes, we
42:56
Speaker 1: want to be part of your textbook program. It's contractual, UM,
43:00
Speaker 1: and they buy these books, take them down to donate them,
43:05
Speaker 1: and uh, the kids rent these books. All this money
43:08
Speaker 1: is putting in an escrow account for the school, and
43:10
Speaker 1: then after X number of years they can replace the
43:12
Speaker 1: books or add new books, and it's self sustaining because
43:16
Speaker 1: those new books are rented and rented and rented and rented.
43:19
Speaker 1: So this bit of seed money that buys these two
43:22
Speaker 1: books at first ends up spreading um throughout the community.
43:27
Speaker 1: And you know what, I just want to go ahead
43:29
Speaker 1: and say, now, five dollars is what it costs to
43:32
Speaker 1: buy textbooks for one kid for a full school year.
43:36
Speaker 1: And you will have your opportunity to give just five
43:39
Speaker 1: dollars later on little teaser. You are going to take
43:42
Speaker 1: over after Jerry Lewis retires for the telephone. Yeah I should. Uh.
43:47
Speaker 1: So we had a great talk with Jeff. It was awesome,
43:50
Speaker 1: filled us, filled us in and we were really felt
43:52
Speaker 1: like we knew what we were in in for. At
43:55
Speaker 1: the end of day two, our first really big day
43:57
Speaker 1: out and uh, we had a up some more gayos
44:01
Speaker 1: and tumbled into slumber and it was time to go
44:04
Speaker 1: to sleep, and it was time to go to sleep.
44:15
Speaker 1: So the next morning, dude, we wake up and uh,
44:19
Speaker 1: we have a boat ride in store for us across
44:22
Speaker 1: the lake, which we're pretty excited about because, you know,
44:25
Speaker 1: just being on a boat on an awesome lake's exciting
44:27
Speaker 1: for me. Like a seat line which we described, and
44:30
Speaker 1: actually no one has any idea how deep it actually is.
44:33
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, yeah, I think some say it's like
44:35
Speaker 1: as deep as it is at its widest point, but
44:37
Speaker 1: it's like loer it sounds like lor right, so we uh,
44:42
Speaker 1: take off in the lake is actually much bigger than
44:44
Speaker 1: what we were seeing from our our little cabania there.
44:47
Speaker 1: So it's like a thirty minute boat ride to a
44:51
Speaker 1: village called h I know we're gonna butcher this one.
44:54
Speaker 1: You're gonna butcher this one. I'm not even trying pan
44:56
Speaker 1: panah nice. I think that's it. That's we're gonna go Pana.
45:00
Speaker 1: And you pointed out that it looked like the little
45:03
Speaker 1: village in the movie Popeye. And if you look on
45:05
Speaker 1: the internet under this, if you google that P A
45:07
Speaker 1: and A J A C H E L, I think
45:10
Speaker 1: you might agree. Yes, it was very cool looking. Yeah
45:12
Speaker 1: it was. And we disembarked. We disembarked. Uh, that wasn't
45:16
Speaker 1: actually where we were going. That was just where we landed.
45:18
Speaker 1: Now I get the impression they just kind of wanted
45:20
Speaker 1: to show off because we we went across the lake
45:23
Speaker 1: by boat and then got off and then got on buses. Yeah,
45:26
Speaker 1: so I think they're just like, hey, the factor. Yeah,
45:29
Speaker 1: well it work And it did work for sure. And
45:32
Speaker 1: we took pictures on the boat. Those will be up
45:33
Speaker 1: on the website as well. Uh, we load up on
45:36
Speaker 1: the buses again and we set out for the peach
45:39
Speaker 1: abaj Cooperative School. Yeah, because we were talking about how
45:43
Speaker 1: they come down with the textbooks to to donate to
45:47
Speaker 1: a school that agreed to enter into this program, and uh,
45:50
Speaker 1: we got this is our first donation we got to
45:52
Speaker 1: see because they make up big to do out of it.
45:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like that's that's the main point of
45:57
Speaker 1: these tours that you go on, is you got to
45:59
Speaker 1: the different school rules and they you know, you're welcome
46:03
Speaker 1: with open arms, you're welcome with dance and song. And
46:07
Speaker 1: uh we danced with you know, some of the little
46:09
Speaker 1: girls there, they would come and grab our hands and dancing.
46:12
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun, but you really feel special
46:14
Speaker 1: and they really roll out the in this case evergreen carpet.
46:17
Speaker 1: I guess for you and at this school we were
46:20
Speaker 1: able to learn about the Corpse program, the culture of
46:25
Speaker 1: Reading program right in Chuck. First, let me say this
46:27
Speaker 1: was the poorest of the poor as far as the
46:29
Speaker 1: schools in the areas we saw. There wasn't a discernible
46:33
Speaker 1: town because this is like the highest highlands that we
46:36
Speaker 1: entered into, and it was like road mountain stepped farming
46:40
Speaker 1: on the mountain, which is really cool. Exactly, there wasn't
46:43
Speaker 1: really a town. It was all along this road. It
46:45
Speaker 1: was wide rather than condensed in any way. UM. But
46:50
Speaker 1: the people were very very gracious and very very happy
46:52
Speaker 1: to see us. Yeah. So when we say poor school,
46:54
Speaker 1: let's set up a mental image. I think, uh, cender
46:57
Speaker 1: block rooms, kind of this rantid smell in the air,
47:03
Speaker 1: dust everywhere, dust everywhere. Uh, desks that look like they
47:07
Speaker 1: were donated from like you know, some of the atomic
47:10
Speaker 1: experiments in New Mexico in the forties. Yeah, and uh,
47:16
Speaker 1: it's just like beyond poor what you would think of
47:19
Speaker 1: as poor. It is. But again, the people came from
47:22
Speaker 1: all over the community for this this UM donation. UM
47:26
Speaker 1: and the kids actually were with the young kids in
47:29
Speaker 1: the early hours, and we were also there for when
47:32
Speaker 1: class is transferred because it's young kids in the same school.
47:35
Speaker 1: Young kids in the morning, older kids in the afternoon.
47:39
Speaker 1: And it's because number one, they only have one school,
47:42
Speaker 1: but number two because the older kids get up and
47:44
Speaker 1: work in the fields in the morning and then go
47:47
Speaker 1: to school. And when we say in the morning, they
47:48
Speaker 1: get up at like four am to make the tortillas
47:52
Speaker 1: and then to work in the fields so they can
47:54
Speaker 1: attend school. Yeah, unbelievable. Uh. The kids we got to
47:59
Speaker 1: give out and pencils, which Jerry also brought some like
48:03
Speaker 1: stickers and things. But she brought like seven stickers. I remember,
48:07
Speaker 1: like a hundred kids off the I said, off the
48:11
Speaker 1: day loose. Yeah. I grabbed one of the kids and
48:14
Speaker 1: pointed and then pointed to like what Jerry was holding,
48:16
Speaker 1: and she just went over and all of a sudden,
48:18
Speaker 1: they all just flocked. Jerry was hilarious. She took to
48:21
Speaker 1: it though she was kind of like trying to instill
48:23
Speaker 1: some order. She was like, all right, all right, everyone
48:25
Speaker 1: calmed down, let's let's get this done. Which is funny
48:27
Speaker 1: too because a lot of these kids are a mono
48:29
Speaker 1: lingual and just spoken their Mayan dialects. So Jerry is
48:32
Speaker 1: sitting there speaking broken Spanish to them, and even if
48:36
Speaker 1: they spoke in Spanish, they wouldn't know what she was saying.
48:39
Speaker 1: That they definitely had note to what she was saying,
48:41
Speaker 1: and yet they still formed a line. Yeah, they did
48:44
Speaker 1: the universal language line up. So uh. But I just
48:48
Speaker 1: on a personal note, to see these kids clamoring over
48:50
Speaker 1: these pens and pencils like it was a an xbox
48:55
Speaker 1: made me want to slap American kids a little bit,
48:57
Speaker 1: to be honest, what the kids are playing with these things?
48:59
Speaker 1: That's what they're playing with, or that the p S three,
49:01
Speaker 1: I don't know the iPhone, but they were treating these
49:04
Speaker 1: pins and pencils like they were, you know, precious and
49:06
Speaker 1: then they are. So they had a little ceremony like
49:10
Speaker 1: they did at all the schools, a little traditional symbolic
49:13
Speaker 1: dancing and uh performing of uh you know what kind
49:17
Speaker 1: of ceremony did there was the corn dance that they preferred.
49:20
Speaker 1: The corn dance. Yeah, it was about how the corn
49:24
Speaker 1: was given to them by the gods, right, and it's
49:27
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And actually by the last school we went to, Chuck,
49:33
Speaker 1: Jerry and I could have performed the corn dance every
49:36
Speaker 1: single one. Yeah, I think I could probably roughly perform it, yea,
49:40
Speaker 1: but you should uh. And then we got to meet
49:43
Speaker 1: a lady named Caroline Johnson. She's in Portland, Maine's pretty
49:47
Speaker 1: cool lifelong educator, principal school principle that went on a
49:51
Speaker 1: co ed tour and went back and said, I'm going
49:54
Speaker 1: to quit my job. I'm gonna go to Guatemala because
49:58
Speaker 1: they're not snotting. Those little brats, they don't have apreciate
50:00
Speaker 1: things down there. This, this is the experience of Guatemala,
50:03
Speaker 1: really alled you to disdain American kids. Didn't. Now that's
50:06
Speaker 1: not true, but um, Caroline obviously didn't say anything like that.
50:10
Speaker 1: She's like one of the sweetest ladies I ever met.
50:12
Speaker 1: She's very kind and soft spoken, but with it and sharp.
50:15
Speaker 1: Actually went down on a tour like we were on
50:19
Speaker 1: and joined up and actually ended up creating an entirely
50:23
Speaker 1: new program that co had institutes right, And we asked
50:27
Speaker 1: her what you know inspired her to leave her life
50:30
Speaker 1: behind and go to Guatemala. And here's what she had
50:31
Speaker 1: to say. I think the thing that that really that
50:35
Speaker 1: really spoke to me. And we went to an elementary
50:37
Speaker 1: school just to deliver some some pencils and books and
50:40
Speaker 1: miscellaneous kinds of things, and the principal found out that
50:45
Speaker 1: I was also a principal in the US and came
50:47
Speaker 1: up to me and said, can you help the teachers
50:49
Speaker 1: don't know how to teach reading. Um, we appreciate all
50:53
Speaker 1: this stuff, but we don't know what to do. So
50:55
Speaker 1: I started talking to Joe and Jeff and they said, oh,
50:58
Speaker 1: we've looked into getting into education all kinds of things,
51:00
Speaker 1: but BASI, we're not educating or something. We need somebody
51:03
Speaker 1: to help us. So I started volunteering with them, and
51:07
Speaker 1: at one point decided, you know, working down here and
51:09
Speaker 1: working with these kids would be a lot more fun
51:11
Speaker 1: than continue to be a school administrator in the United States.
51:14
Speaker 1: And so here I am. So how awesome was she?
51:18
Speaker 1: She's very cool, very cool lady doing great work. And
51:21
Speaker 1: how cool did the little birds in the background sound? Yeah,
51:23
Speaker 1: you could actually kind of hear how beautiful a day
51:26
Speaker 1: it was thanks to the birds. That wasn't sound designed
51:28
Speaker 1: by Jerry, although it could have been. It could have been.
51:31
Speaker 1: So she works with the court the Culture of Reading program,
51:35
Speaker 1: and we why don't we get her to tell us
51:38
Speaker 1: about what CORE is instead of us doing it? So
51:40
Speaker 1: what does um, CORP stand for and what we are
51:42
Speaker 1: the basic fundamentals of the program corpus Culture of Reading program. UM.
51:48
Speaker 1: That culture of reading was something really important to us.
51:50
Speaker 1: We we came to the schools and we saw that
51:53
Speaker 1: if you gave a second grader a third grader of
51:55
Speaker 1: a short piece of text, they could read the words
51:58
Speaker 1: off the page. They essentially had no comprehension. They the
52:04
Speaker 1: words didn't have meaning. And without books in their homes,
52:07
Speaker 1: without books in those schools, reading is not something they
52:09
Speaker 1: do for enjoyment, and it's not something they see as valuable. UM.
52:13
Speaker 1: They don't see picking up a newspaper as as something
52:17
Speaker 1: that will help them, that will assist them, or going
52:20
Speaker 1: to look for information and texts. So developing that culture
52:23
Speaker 1: of reading, so we want the kids not only to
52:25
Speaker 1: be able to read and develop those critical thinking skills,
52:28
Speaker 1: we want them to want to read. The want them
52:30
Speaker 1: to see that reading is something you do for pleasure
52:33
Speaker 1: and it's something that you do that will enrichually. So Chuck.
52:37
Speaker 1: What Caroline and UM the Cooperative for Education figured out
52:40
Speaker 1: was that UM teachers were teaching kids to read basically
52:45
Speaker 1: just writing their assignments on the board and then kids
52:49
Speaker 1: had to scribble them down real quick before they were erased,
52:51
Speaker 1: and there was no comprehension whatsoever. So the court program
52:55
Speaker 1: that Carolyn created UM is part teaching kids to read,
52:59
Speaker 1: but it's also a part teaching teachers how to teach
53:02
Speaker 1: kids to read. So instead of just standing there and
53:05
Speaker 1: reading very quickly from a book, it involves like reading
53:08
Speaker 1: in a very big voice and like like you read
53:11
Speaker 1: to kids, and then showing them the pictures so they're comprehending.
53:15
Speaker 1: There's not just a string of letters. There's comprehension to
53:18
Speaker 1: the word. Sure. I mean, I wasn't any impression. It's
53:20
Speaker 1: more for the teachers because they had never seen books either. Well, no,
53:23
Speaker 1: it's part for the kids too, because remember the books
53:26
Speaker 1: get translated into a UM a picture book, and then
53:31
Speaker 1: a play and then I think another big book. So
53:35
Speaker 1: technically this one book that they start off with, by
53:38
Speaker 1: the end of the week they have three books and
53:40
Speaker 1: they've made a play out of it. So they have
53:42
Speaker 1: a book down flat in in in a week. Pretty awesome. Again.
53:52
Speaker 1: So that's the end of part one of S Y
53:54
Speaker 1: s K is Guatemalan Adventure. Uh, the exciting conclusion is
53:58
Speaker 1: coming up on Thursday, and stick around after these words
54:01
Speaker 1: to hear how you can buy student textbooks for life
54:05
Speaker 1: with just a five dollar text donation. This episode of
54:09
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know. It's brought to you by go
54:11
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54:17
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54:23
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54:25
Speaker 1: for Education and you want to support them, you can
54:28
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54:31
Speaker 1: here's how it works. Just text the words stuff stuff
54:36
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54:39
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54:42
Speaker 1: of a Guatemalan child. You will receive a text back
54:46
Speaker 1: asking you to confirm the donation and just reply with
54:48
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54:51
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54:54
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54:58
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55:00
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55:04
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55:07
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55:09
Speaker 1: reply with the Word Help h e LP donations are
55:12
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55:15
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55:18
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55:22
Speaker 1: org slash t so tune in Thursday for for the
55:27
Speaker 1: conclusion the exciting conclusion of s Y s k's Guatemalan adventure. Audios.
55:37
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