SYSK's Guatemalan Adventure, Part One

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my friend? No, it wasn't. Clearly that was the booming voice of our buddy that we met down there, who had such an impressive voice for radio. We said, we've got to get this guy to record our podcast intro if we can use it. Yeah, he's ah. He works at one of the schools we went to and he was m seeing an event and we're like, holy cow, he's the the Guatemalan meltor matvelvet. Yeah, and this is a very special pair of podcasts, right, Chuck, Absolutely our

Guatemalan Adventures. Yes, our Guatemala not there. Yeah, so um Chuck and I and Jerry went down to Guatemala. As many of the listeners, no team s y Chuck Um, and our eyes were open quite a bit, you could say that, Yeah, we were originally going to go down. Uh, we should probably tell the back story. Do you want to take it? Chuck? Chuck loves emailing people back, especially when they say, do you want to come to Guatemala with this? Will take exactly? That's pretty much out went down.

We got an email from a fan name and Dempsey our buddy now yes, and she emailed us so, I don't know last year last fall and said, hey, I worked for this nonprofit called Cooperative for Education and we do work in Guatemala supplying school books and uh computer centers for rural indigenous poor people in Guatemala. And check out our video and our website and we'd love it if you guys came down we'll we'll sponsor you to come down on this trip and see what you think

about it. No strings attached, of course. We just think you would enjoy it and you know, having a great experience. Right, it's pretty much out happened, and we're like, what's the catch and what's your what's your game here? Right? And she really was like, no, really, we just want you to see. I mean, if you guys want to mention this on the podcast or something, that'd be awesome because they are donor driven organization like all nonprofits exactly. Um,

because nonprofit can't turn a profit yeah, um. And uh So we went down there initially with the idea of like, okay, we can't just completely throw to this organization, let's do one on can education alleviate poverty? Can it actually happen? Because that's what CoA does well. Originally she just asked for us to come down, and then we were like, wait a minute, why don't we bring Jerry and then we can record down there and do our first like on the road, live recording type of deal. That was

your idea. I think I was snacking while you were thinking of your way down with it though. Yeah, so Chuck, we never go anywhere unprepared, or I should say, we never do anything. I don't put on my pants without doing a little research first to find out if overnight while I was sleeping, somebody figured out a better way to do it. And that is true. Um, so we did some research on Guatemala, and UM, I actually have

a little story for you. The night before we left, I secretly wrote a note to my dear Yumi, telling her that I love her in case anything happens to me. I really wanted to make sure she knew that I went down thinking that there's a chance I was going to lose my life in Guatemala. Yeah, here's a little tip.

If you guys are going to travel in some country that's not you know, like France or Italy, don't go to the State Department website and that where you found it to read like the travel warnings and all, because you got to some of these countries that are a little off the beaten path, and they do they make it sound like you will be lucky if you come back alive. Yeah, and that's exactly what I thought. Um

there's about eighteen paragraphs. You're scared that detail kidnappings, Ransom's beheadings. Um, straight up murder. Uh. Just it sounds like the country is just overrun with criminals and disease, all manner of disease. We got shots at the yin Yang. What do we get? We got lockjaw, Yeah, I got a It wasn't dip ted, it was ted something like that. I don't know what they shot me full of. I just hold my arm

out when somebody presents me at the storringe. Jerry got sick actually, um from the shots ahead of time and a little bit of foreshadowing. A little chucky got sick on the way back. Yeah, I think I ingested some ice from a rum drink or two. Yeah, there's last there's some precautions you have to take. Oh and to finish my story, you we found the secret note within hours of us leaving, so that worked out well. Yeah,

it's great, Um, all right, Chuck. We also did some background on the country, and one of the first things you find out about Guatemala when you look into it is that it had a pretty serious civil war. Yeah, for about thirty years thirty six, my friend. Yeah, that's why I said about Actually that's about forty years. But sure, internal conflict. Uh formerly end in that's a long time to be under a civil war. Yeah. And actually, um, guatemala Is is is kind of this very put upon Latin

American state. Um. It was run by a dictator in the up to the forties when there was a I don't know if it was a bloodless revolution, but I think it was one of the softer revolutions. And there were some liberals running the show for about ten years, and Guatemalan still referred to it as uh ten years of Spring, right, Chuck. They referred to everything in regards to spring. It's the land of eternal spring. The spring is like the spring spring. Yeah. Um. It's so they

had this great this area this time of peace. Um. And part of that was involved taking land from the United Fruit Company, which owned a bunch of land it wasn't using, and redistributing it to uh farmers, right. And the United Fruit Company didn't like this, went to the CIA and said, hey, you know, you've got some lefties

in your backyard. You should probably supply or to qu CIA back to coup end of the ten Years of Spring in the beginning of the civil war, which they did not refer to you as ten years of summer that followed the spring. No, No, it was pretty bad. And we'll get into a couple of stories. We've got a couple of stories while we were down there. Yeah,

a couple of like bad massacres that happened. Yeah, there were, um I think a hundred thousand killed and a hundred thousand disappeared is what they called them, which meant killed that they didn't find your body, um, and they A later Truth Commission report concluded that of the atrocities committed in that in the civil war were done by government soldiers and actually oftentimes they disguise them like to make it look like the guerrillas had done it, to drum

up um resentment antipathy towards them. Yeah, it was a It was a bad thirty six years for Guatemala, and like you said, it ended in so they're still kind of coming out of this right, very much. So. I think more than half of Guatemalans are direct descendants of the mind people, and they some of them, like you said, speaking the mind tongue, still church. Some of them don't speak Spanish, right, many of them, right, Yeah, I mean, if if you run into a Guatemalan who speaks Spanish.

Likely they're bilingual because they speak their indigenous mind tongue and Spanish as well. Right, they are one of the most populous Central American countries. Most of their population is rural and fifties six percent live below the poverty line. And that's Guatemala's poverty line. Yeah. Well, that's a very important thing to point out. None Americans very different and they are mainly agricultural, uh, labor industry, services industries only

about Yeah, they're their economy. The top three um segments of their economy are agriculture, remittances, and tourism. Yeah, let's Remit says this. People that leave the country to go make a decent wage and then send money back home. And that's the number two segments of their economy. And uh with them tourism as well, it's it's number three, but it's not entirely enormous. I think it makes up a pretty decent portion, but it's not that big of

a money maker. Again because of things like the State Department website and the fact that the civil war only ended fourteen years ago. Yeah, and I tell you, despite uh, except for Antigua, which we'll get into, that was the end of our trip. We didn't see any spurs where we went. No, we went definitely off the beaten pathway. Yeah, way in in country, weren't We weren't like hanging out on the beach or anything like that. And check the

educational scene in't exactly happening down there. Yeah, which is why we went and why ed is there clearly right? And uh, you mentioned Anne, So here's a clip of and explaining, Um, a couple of a stat that we found a little staggering. We know that in rural indigenous villages in guatemal Uh, three out of four students who start first grade will drop out of school before they complete sixth grade. So of the four of us standing here, only one of us would actually complete sixth grade. That

would be Josh exactly. But that's good to know, Josh, that you would have been the one to stay in school. It's possible. I think you're the clear winner. I appreciate that and seem to get a kick out of it. Yeah, and um, most students who live in Guatemala, she also told us during that interview, UM, don't learn to read until maybe third grade. And um, the teachers don't really feel it's a problem because they think that kids can't learn to read until that age, so they don't teach them.

They're finding, thanks to groups like co ED that oh wait, well kids can actually start to learn to read in the first grade if they have books, right, which is a big deal. So that's why they're there, the whole thing that all of this hinges on. Yeah, but that's one of their big programs. We'll break that down load a little bit later, right, Yeah, So that's why co Ed's there, that's why we got invited to see the

stuff firsthand. And so we begin our trip. So, Josh, we meet the three of us early early at Heartsfield Jackson. So early. What a bonus for us is there's a direct flight to Guatemala from Atlanta, just scant what was it like three hours maybe three hours? Three hours and likes for air fair round trip. Yeah, it was a pretty good deal. So we get on the plane, Jerry and I are we sit together, Josh, Alex not to sit with us, because I love the quote you gave

me when I was like, what's up with that? You said you'd like to leave it to the gods. I'd like to leave it to fate to determine whether I'm going to die in an air or not. So Josh is behind us, and a funny nickname came out of this. Josh I turned around at one point because we all know from previous podcasts you don't love to fly. It's not your favorite thing in the world. No, it's not. So you actually put the black blanket that kid you.

Jerry is so cracking up right now, the black blanket that they give you over your entire body and head. And I was like, Jerry, check it out. And we started calling you, what the black ghost of the sky, black Ghost of the skies. Yeah. I went to sleep. I needed to sleep because I don't like to fly. It was so funny. Um, and I had um taken a painkiller right so that that did you right, right. I didn't wake up until we landed. I think that was pretty And I remember I, um when we did

land I actually woke up right before we landed. And as we were coming in to the runway. Um, right as we were touching down, I noticed there was like a line of airplanes that had apparently been stripped for parts. Yeah, it runway, and I just thought, you've got to be kidding me because I thought I was going to die. Remember sure you probably thought that when we took off from the same airport, but that I was gonna die.

Well not from the heading, no, but we're just reminded when you say like, hey, we need a tire, go get one off that plane. It was hilarious. So we get there. The first like ten minutes in the airport is literally like a three Stooges episode. We're just kind of like walking in circles. We know we have to go through uh and shore our passport, we know we need to exchange some money Combio, we need to go to Cambio. We eventually get outside and this is when

this is when co Ed shines. They really I can't stress enough because we're gonna try and get some of you people out there to go on one of these trips. On these tours, they're so they really take care of you, so there's no need to be worried about going to a foreign scary land. Like the second we got out to the airport, they had the signs and the bus waiting for us. We met our cohorts and got on the bus and went to Guatemala City. Yeah, and Chuck,

I think all three of us. I was um still groggy, uh, and we we decided that we needed to kind of um create some intro in the field that we could use and um. We started drinking gaios, which is the the national beer of Guatemala, and actually you can get Guyo here. Guyo is uh rooster, right, yeah, it means rooster. Um, so they call it famosa here, but it's the exact same beer, right. Well. Coed hit the ground running, though, remember they when we first got there. Oh yeah, Holly awesome.

Holly met us at the hotel and it was like, here's the subway sandwich. We gotta go to our first school. Do you guys want to go? It's your option, And we're like, uh, we we want to like record an intro here, so you guys go ahead and we'll meet up later. So so that was time well spent because we were thinking about what to record while we were drinking gios, and eventually we got to the point where

everything we recorded was just kind of useless. So I wish we could include some of that because it's really funny. Jerry was so frustrated with us because we just we were we were doing a good job. Yeah. So, um, but it wasn't just that. It was also we didn't really have a conception yet of what co Ed did and um, that was about to change actually because we remember we were still going down on the premise that we were going to record a podcast, can uh Education

Alleviate Poverty? Um? And and this was about I think it was in Guatemala City that night where the turning point began and our eyes started to open more and more like Holy cow at dinner, at dinner. Yes, So they took us. They got back. I was setting us up for a clip. We don't have a clip for that, okay, so take it sounded very much like an MPR set up, Thank you. Uh so yeah, we met up. They came

back to the hotel. We um had a couple of beers at that point and failed miserably with our intro and they all said, hey, let's uh walk down the street here to this restaurant and we can talk a little bit. And I thought, are we going to be kidnapped at any point during this walk? Yeah? But we weren't. No, we weren't. And we ended up hanging out with Joe can I mention real quick our our kidnapping plan that Jerry and I hatched, Yeah, because we we came up

with a plan. If the three of us were kidnapped, then we were to tell them that Josh was a a prince or a very rich man in the United States, and that we worked for him, we were mere servants. And I figured that probably would have gotten us off. Yeah, it would have gotten you too off. Thank you for the Prince, Josh. Yes. Um, so we hung out with Joe. Yeah, Joe Burninger is one of the founders, along with his brother Jeff. Yeah, and they Joe and Jeff used to

go down to Guatemala for spring break, right. Yeah, they were going down there having a good time. But they kind of they come from this like fairly uncommon family where like they had tons of like values instilled in them. So they're going down hanging out, and it was I felt like a piece of trash. Jeff was telling us all about his parents. I was like, wow, yeah, it

sounds like really great people. Yes, so much so that, Um, I guess they kind of led to the to Joe and Jeff being inspired to actually go back to Guatemala and live there, right, to help this country and and they've done it in a very clever way. Do you like all this like um teasing that we're doing right? Right? People like, what did they do? Exactly? Yeah, I told

you it hinges on books. It does. So we had this awesome dinner Joe and Holly give us this really really great rundown to where we finally feel like, all right, we got a really good idea what's going on here, and we're not ready to share that with you yet. We're not ready to share that. We go to sleep. We go Betty by, I watch a little uh Spanish language signfeld. I watched Um, I think Law and Order in English was on down there, and I was like, oh,

thank god. So we awake in our was the Radisson at Guatemala City, and we they have a couple of busses arranged for us. So it's like Mercedes, the small sprinter busses, and I know they are not yeah, not the huge chicken busses, although we saw plenty of those. Those are rat They're brightly colored and a little aside. Do you know why chicken busses are painted brightly, vividly

and differently? I do, but you should say so it's because a significant amount of the Guatemalan population who used those busses can't read where it's going, so they just know, oh, this red bus with the Tasmanian devil on it is going to and that's where I need to go, and I'm going there. Pretty cool, nice little factive attention. So

we actually that's where we went. We went to uh Santiago, Yeah, which is where Lake Atiflan is beautiful and actually you should check out the coolest stuff on the planet, um cast on lake. Yeah, footage that Jerry took while we were down there. So we arrived there and it's like I think it was a few hours by bus. We got to see some of the countryside, tobacco farms, coffee, coffee, bananas, bananas, agriculture,

poor poor towns. Yeah. So we arrived there at the lake and this is a volcanic formed a long long time ago from a volcano, and I think three volcanoes are surrounded, right, Yeah, those are dormant, but on the way up we saw a couple of volcanoes that are um active had smoke coming out of them. Yeah, the first time for me ever, Yeah, me too, um and yeah, I t line. I think was formed about eighty thousand years ago. I learned from the coolest stuff cast Um.

And it was actually ridiculously polluted for many, many years, which is kind of screwy because it's a major tourist destination for Guatemala. So they actually bioremediated it and they said it's all good now. Yeah. I saw people swimming in chuck and I didn't. We thought maybe after a couple more years of buyo remediation getting in it. But it was gorgeous, man, unbelievable, and people um canoe standing up. Yeah, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Very good balance. Yeah,

so we're at this idyllic scene. We go to this little uh place that this run by this hippie ex pat American next bat, which is my dream to do this one day. Yeah, you're jealous of that guy. Yeah, it going on. And actually there was the resort that we stayed at was around in the sixties I think, and it was taken over by the army and they had to evacuate. The guy's mom had owned it originally, right, And to call it a resort is like kind of

overstating things. It was really awesome, but there were little huts like like stone cabanas, kind of peppered, like ten or twelve of them peppered on the property. It was called Pasada de Santiago. Yeah, and it was awesome. And this was that we should point out. This is the first first time on the trip and only time and probably only time in our history, that we will all stay in the same place. We had to share, not a room. Jerry luckily had could close the door and

had her own room. But you and I were there like New Hampshire, Vermont, on those little twin beds. Right. And apparently Chuck confirms something that I've I've been told before, or that snore really really really loud. Oh wow, yeah, it's kind of a problem. Actually it sounded like a sow being murdered with a spoon. Weird. It was bad, you know. The first person who said that the room was awesome though a little fireplace was very cool. So we get there, we set up and had an awesome lunch.

All the food was great the whole trip. It's gonna get old saying we had an awesome meal because it was so delicious. Well, I noticed that in the in the rundown you noted every single one of them. So those things really stub good. You didn't, I'm all about the awesome meal mentioned this, so U. One of the first things we did was we went out. They took us out for a little tour of the of the main square in town. I saw a church from like seventeen thirty or something, the church where Um the lead

I guess, priest, the head priest Um was murdered. He was an American priest down there, and he was murdered in the civil warrant. That was kind of a big deal. Yeah, very big deal. And remember they had like the carpet made of flowers from the from the doorway to the altar, which had to be at least fifty sixty yards. And it wasn't we should say, it wasn't just flat. We're gonna put pictures of all this on the website, by the way, so you can check it all out. It

wasn't just flowers. It was an intricate design made of flower petals the entire way. It was astounding, actually, and we found that it was It's considered, um, a very gracious way to welcome people by putting down evergreen straws. And then you got flowers over there like higher up. But if you put down evergreen, then your guests feet never touched the ground. Yeah, and they every school we went to, they did that for us. And it was I don't know, I've never had anyone do that before. No,

but I started doing it around my house. Yeah. I felt very unworthy if I did that. Damily should be I pick all that stuff up? What kind of invest is this? So we take a tour around the main town there, and then they set us up with a visit to the home of a girl that had been um, one of the co ed students and still is I think at the Taxiquoi family. Yeah, and they invited us into their home. And we've got a clip for this one.

But yeah, today um, we went, um, we did kind of a tour of the town here, which is very poor, to say the least. Yeah, very eye opening for guys like us. And we met a family actually who's daughter had has benefited from the from the co ed program. Yeah, Maria, Maria, and they invited us into their home. Yeah. It's a very small home. You walk in half of it maybe

is roofed. Yeah, we went. We all assembled in this one room and we found out that it was the room they sleep in, so I mean, it was obviously

a really big deal for them. They straightened everything up for these gringo guests to come gawk and take pictures and ask questions about them, but that you could tell them, they're very, very grateful, so welcoming to Yeah, and and the dad too, I mean, to put all of his kids through school, and he's doing it at his own detriment because he actually could use these kids to be productive money makers for the house, but instead they're off

at school, not making any money. And yet this guy was dedicated, and he didn't look like it to look at him, he just looked like some normal Guatemalan guy. But there was something in him that said, you know, when I'm I'm going to stop this with this generation, I'm going to send all of my kids to school. And he has, Yeah, he wants, and that's kind of the whole thing. And he wants his kids to exceed their own expectations, even and what do they say, they

the kids want to exceed themselves, exceed themselves. I'm not sure what that is in Spanish that it sounds a lot better than that, but the only way to do. That we're learning is to be educated, because if you don't have an education in Guatemala and really anywhere, your option are extremely limited, and here more so than than most places probably, So that was a real eye opener. Yeah, it really was. And I just I can't get over the dad. He was about three ft tall, all smiles.

I don't think he's did they speak Spanish or did they speak now they're speaking Spanish because we were had the translation going Okay, I thought was being translated into like chichiko, wasn't I think I could just be making that up. But yeah, this guy lives in abject poverty. They actually rented the house that we visited them, and they rented a couple of rooms. The whole thing wasn't

even there. Um and instead of like having his kids go work to to support the family like every other Guatemalan family, he's making sure all three of his kids go through school. Yeah, it's it's just really once it sinks in, you know, the guy is the guy. What the guy is doing is really amazing. Yeah. That was very touching. Yeah, and very gracious, actually, book, I like, yeah, and he hugged you back. It's very nice. So after that we go back to the main town. They have

set up some we we should set this up. They have what they haven't Guatemala, these little tiny little Toyota pickup trucks, the little ones, and they have these little A frames, wide open A frames built in the beds of the trucks so they can carry around like twelve people back there standing up and you just kind of hold on standing up to this little A frame. So

that they set us up with these trucks. Coed did so we could go out a little bit on the outskirts of town and see a couple of cool things. And it was that's like I felt like it was a real adventure. Yeah, it was. I mean like we had the wind blowing our faces and that we were you know, hip to hip, Yes, hip to hip and the sexiest camp but well one of the sexiest cap

ris I've ever been. That sounds good. Uh. And we went to uh the first place we saw we went to was to see this and I'm gonna let you set this up because this obviously been a lot to you. But we went to see someone or something called mushymn right, and um, we had a choice. We could have either gone shopping or going to see Mashiman rights, well, Mashimon. We went to see him actually, because it turns out he's my patron saint. He is um called the man in black at the Crossroads or the black Man at

the Crossroads papal Legba and Western African culture. But basically he's this guy, he's the god of vice. And actually this is hilarious because I went and I didn't know this at the time, but they keep him locked up and every uh definitely every year, but I think like every couple of months they have a kind of a ceremony in his honor um and it moves from it's every year, and it moves from house to house, and you never really know where Mashamon is. And they keep

him locked up because his sexuality is too much. He's like the Antonio banderis of like uh gods, Yeah, so um what what what? What service he offers to his flock. Me included is that you can come bring him sacrifices and he'll help alleviate your vices. So we bought some or Josh paid what like twenty cents for a half pint of the local swell. They called it rum. No, it was like sugarcane moonshine. Yeah, but they the local guys called it rama. That was no wrong. It was

called I looked it up. It's called Guaro. It's actually Costa Rican. But there's a sugarcane rum, sugarcane moonshine down there is serious stuff. And actually, so I buy it, and I'm like, well, Chuck, we should probably try this. Jerry declined. Chuck and I both tried it. Chuck shuttered. I didn't, which I think I think made it all the more reason I should dry out a little bit, because shutter from you got some cereal? I can pour

this over. So I I I offer a cigarette to Mashamona is a sacrifice, and the guy takes it from me and puts it in mashamones off and lights it. And I'm like, yes, I just knocked the cigar out of his mouth, and now my cigarettes in there, right, that's gonna be good for me. And then I go and get the liquor and then go in there. And you have to be very quiet. This is quite sincere, and I was like I was very sincere too. I was mocking in any ways in perform like I was

really help me. But it's it's this dark, strangely lit barn, tiny barn you can put maybe a donkey and a half in it, and there's this acrid incense burning I think it was frankincense, and this crowded with sweaty people, and a couple of guys are running the show, and people are on their knees and like just praying before manshamone and he's just carved probably three and a half four ft tall figure pretty much all right, and um so they put the cigarette in his in his mouth,

and then when I brought the whiskey or the moonshine, they they actually put a funnel in his mouth, held a little bandana underneath his carved lip, and it into his mouth and they didn't pour at all. And another reason why I know that I needed Mashmon's help was because I waited around to see if they gave me the rest of the bottle back and they did not. Well, that's part of the little not a wank you get as they take it very seriously. They also collect a

lot of liquor in the process. Yeah, I imagine if you're running the Mashamone ceremony, you get pretty lit yes, yeah, probably, so that was a pretty big experience. Yeah, we're gonna have pictures of that up to Yeah, and um we left there and that was pretty cool. Yeah, very cool because I was doing that because I want to be a debt and I need to get in better health, you know. So it was cool. I felt good. And then we go straight to one of the most depressing

places I've ever been in my entire life. Yes, Josh, the mudslides, uh from Hurricane stand in two thousand five, devastating to this small town. But yeah, villa, like four hundred of the people who lived there, people, holy cow died. Wait and just just the village, Well, now that's all over.

That's an all of Guatemala from the hurricanes. I think this village is the worst hit though, because it was like five people that the four d people that died, and the people in the whole country died from it, right they recorded they recovered only seventy seven corpses, and three hundred people are still missing and presumed dead. Basically where we were standing was what they say, like fifteen feet higher than it used to be, and below us was a mass grave of bodies, a village and a

lot of people were um sleeping. It was pretty early in the morning, and you could actually look up the mountain and see still the trees hadn't fully grown back. It was like a swath cut where the mud came. They came right down right over the village and just covered it. Man uh. And it was pretty um sobering because one of the kids that we were talking to h well, we weren't, but our group was um was

in or whose family was beneath his feet somewhere. And then to the right there was an old school police station in hospital and they're gutted and abandoned, but you could still see the high mud mark. And this kid, I mean, he was he was all by himself. He lost all his brothers and sisters and his parents, and he was now taking care of these other kids. And he looked to be about like seventeen. I remember they said, like, no,

he's like thirteen. And he lost his parents when he was like eight, and he's been taking care of these kids ever since. Unbelievable. It really was very sad, Yes, And actually so was the next place we visited to, Yes, Josh. The next sight we went to was the site of a massacre that happened during the Civil War in nineteen ninety, the Guatemalan army opened fire on an unarmed crowd of between two thousand and fourth the four thousand protesters that

had finally kind of had enough. Yeah, the army had had a garrison in um Lin, and like just about every other town over the population of ten thousand and um they used to just basically abuse the population. And one night these soldiers got drunk beat up some guys that at a bar started breaking into people's houses and

just basically being jerks and right. So this guy who was injured in the bar fight, um I guess, went and told the mayor something and and everybody got woken up and went to the army garrison demanded that they stopped abusing the population, and so the the UM I guess one of the the guys who was heading the garrison said well, what do you have to say, and somebody shot into the air, and somebody else just started firing into the crowd. They ended up killing fourteen people

and the age range from ten to fifty three. Twenty one others were wounded, and uh, we visited there and they literally have a sort of a little open plaza in the woods and they have a little memorial at each spot where each person was killed. Yeah, they have the original steps that were there. Yeah, and and you know there's it's pretty again so brink. They have harry players um I think once a month or something. Yeah,

and they still do have mass there. But the good news is out of all that, two weeks later, as a result of the pressure and outcry over this, the army vacated the garrison there at least, and Atitlan became one of the few communities that um didn't have a military base. Right. Yeah, this one, for some reason, just stirred up, you know, the anger and resentment of everybody in Guatemala. Even the people who are running the military

turned down the military for this one. Right. So at this point we are like in Guatemala, I mean, we are really feeling like we gotta handle on what's going on here? After this day, do you remember we were walking around a Titlan and I was like, look, you know, like ten twenty years ago there were guerillas sitting here with a K forty seven shooting it out with Moliss.

Like where we're walking right now, you could feel it's still had left some sort of impression on the Yeah, it was very creepy and those little tight alleyways and I was just trying to like wrap my head around coming around a corner and seeing a gorilla with a gun and uh, you know, kids everywhere. It was just awful. But at the same time it was a really really nice town too. Oh yeah, you know, like it was

this kind of dual experience. Well, yeah, because Late Alan is a place where Greeno tourists go because so gorgeous, it's it was a little weird. So we get back to the place that our little hippie cabana and I have a little happy hour by the lake, which was one of the other great things about these tours is they believe in unwinding at the end of the day and fellowshipping with each other and having a cold one

called gayo. So it was just gorgeous setting. We have a great dinner once again, and we were able to get co founder Jeff Burninger in the cabin afterward for a little We lured him in. We lured him in there with a fire and beer and said come in here and speak to us. And we got to talk to him a little bit more about co Ed and we have a clip here of his thoughts on his initial inspiration to start this nonprofit. What when did the first seed of UM I see a need here and

part of me wants to do something about it. When did that first here? That started? When I was looking for a volunteer opportunity. I think a lot of us, you know, we come down and we see a beautiful country, we backpack, we try to learn a language, and we see the poverty. So what can I do to help? Right? Well, what I found out was that with my level of Spanish, there was very little I could do to help so

except maybe teach English. And I found a school that I was willing to allow me to come in and teach English. It was a volunteer opportunity and it was something I thought I could do. Well. Of course I learned that later that I learned later that I was not um really cut out for teaching. But what what I learned in the classroom was that the kids didn't

have books. And the way that started was since I didn't know how to teach, I thought, well, the simplest way to teach would be just to get the book and follow it. You know, starting chapter one and go to chapter two, chapter three, UM. But since there was no books, I'm like, well, you know, I've got to find books. I'll ask the math teacher and the science teacher where they get their books, because obviously they being

with books. It's just span speaking country. Well, I found out the math and science teachers didn't have books either. I'm like, well, this is an outscite. You know, how do you teach? So, Josh, Here's how the textbook program works. And I know you know this, but pretend that I'm telling you for the first time, everybody in podcast land. Here's how it works. What they do is it's a

really cool program because it is self sustaining. They realized at some point that early on that dropping things off and leaving they called the dropping go that's not the way to go. I'm sure that people need supplies and things like that, but in the end they feel like, uh, just to have something dropped and leaving isn't really doing them a lot of good. Well, it's not sustainable. And that's the exactly that's the point of the textbook UM

program is that it is sustainable. Starting out with the first bit of seed money, exactly. So what happens is, um, they are able to buy books really cheap in bulk textbooks, deliver them to these students, and these students, actually these very very poor poor students, actually pay money to rent these textbooks for the year. Right and we should probably say, um, right here, it's like two bucks a year per student,

per student, per book, per book. So what happens is these kids they rent the books, that money goes into what they call revolving fund, an escrow account, and in five years, the money, the collective money has uh grown to the point where they can now replace the original set of textbooks, right or if they they we co ed takes these books to these schools. There's a program. A part of it is taking care of your textbook, right, So these kids are taking care of their textbooks. And

we'll hear why in a second. But um, it's so if their books, if say the math books are in really good shape still, they can use that money instead of replacing those they can get another subject or they will replace those books and then the use textbooks become part of their used textbook program and can go to some of the scholarship kids who can't even afford the two bucks, so it's a self sustaining program. Once these kids uh rent into the program, they've got textbooks for

life basically or for their entire run of education. And here's Jeff talking about why he's found the program works. Many people have told us that it did, it would never work. They won't return the books. Um. And that's actually a key piece of the of the of the reason why that there's a the fee program works because we've seen it the school principles tell us that this is the case that when someone has to pay, even if it's a small fee, that they that they respect

what they receive a lot more. If someone hands you something in the street, a piece of paper, a small publication for free, the likelihood of you keeping it or valuing it versus tossing in the garbage can it is much higher, and it's much higher that you will not read it because you've not put anything into it. But if you have to pay a small fee for it, it's much more likely that you're going to read it

or keep it and chuck um. Two bucks two bucks a year per books, say three books six bucks a year. It's paltry, but at times how many kids sometimes though, right, But but you want to make sure that you're not thinking it as an American like, is it really paltry? So just said that coed Um did his study to find out how expensive it was to these families. Yeah, whether or not they could actually afford it. They struggle with that for a long time. That's the question we've

been asking ourselves for for the last twelve years. And we started by simply asking the school officials, and they said the principle and the and the teachers and everything,

and they clearly believe that yes they can. But we're concerned about that because some people in the development community believe that if there's any cost to education or the benefit that someone's receiving, that it becomes a barrier of entry into education, that you're keeping kids out of school because you're raising the costs of them going to school. But we've we've actually found that not to be the case. With textbooks. We've gone so far as to interview the students.

UM we've through a third party organization through one of the universities in Clatamala City. UM interviewed the students receiving the textbooks after they graduated from the program and asking them on a simple scale, I'm one to five, are they are the books very affordable? Kind of affordable, mediocre ex sense of you know, on that scale and and basically the results came back saying that the books were either either cheap or or or affordable. So that's good news.

They put a lot of work into researching this, and they did find that, you know, they were validated and that the parents can't afford it, and that they believe in paying for it. And that's what really blew me away about this whole thing is that something earned is much more important than something given to you, right, And

then that's why the program has been so successful. Chuck, So what we found this is this is when our eyes were really starting to open to Jerry's too, Like she was walking around there's like a little crusty drool on the cydber mouth, Like she's like, what is going on here? But what we found is this group that we're with UM goes down to Guatemala. They rustle up American money. By they identify schools that say, yes, we

want to be part of your textbook program. It's contractual, UM, and they buy these books, take them down to donate them, and uh, the kids rent these books. All this money is putting in an escrow account for the school, and then after X number of years they can replace the books or add new books, and it's self sustaining because those new books are rented and rented and rented and rented. So this bit of seed money that buys these two books at first ends up spreading um throughout the community.

And you know what, I just want to go ahead and say, now, five dollars is what it costs to buy textbooks for one kid for a full school year. And you will have your opportunity to give just five dollars later on little teaser. You are going to take over after Jerry Lewis retires for the telephone. Yeah I should. Uh. So we had a great talk with Jeff. It was awesome, filled us, filled us in and we were really felt

like we knew what we were in in for. At the end of day two, our first really big day out and uh, we had a up some more gayos and tumbled into slumber and it was time to go to sleep, and it was time to go to sleep. So the next morning, dude, we wake up and uh, we have a boat ride in store for us across the lake, which we're pretty excited about because, you know, just being on a boat on an awesome lake's exciting

for me. Like a seat line which we described, and actually no one has any idea how deep it actually is. Oh really yeah, yeah, I think some say it's like as deep as it is at its widest point, but it's like loer it sounds like lor right, so we uh, take off in the lake is actually much bigger than what we were seeing from our our little cabania there. So it's like a thirty minute boat ride to a village called h I know we're gonna butcher this one.

You're gonna butcher this one. I'm not even trying pan panah nice. I think that's it. That's we're gonna go Pana. And you pointed out that it looked like the little village in the movie Popeye. And if you look on the internet under this, if you google that P A and A J A C H E L, I think you might agree. Yes, it was very cool looking. Yeah it was. And we disembarked. We disembarked. Uh, that wasn't actually where we were going. That was just where we landed.

Now I get the impression they just kind of wanted to show off because we we went across the lake by boat and then got off and then got on buses. Yeah, so I think they're just like, hey, the factor. Yeah, well it work And it did work for sure. And we took pictures on the boat. Those will be up on the website as well. Uh, we load up on the buses again and we set out for the peach

abaj Cooperative School. Yeah, because we were talking about how they come down with the textbooks to to donate to a school that agreed to enter into this program, and uh, we got this is our first donation we got to see because they make up big to do out of it. Oh yeah, it's like that's that's the main point of these tours that you go on, is you got to the different school rules and they you know, you're welcome

with open arms, you're welcome with dance and song. And uh we danced with you know, some of the little girls there, they would come and grab our hands and dancing. It's a lot of fun, but you really feel special and they really roll out the in this case evergreen carpet. I guess for you and at this school we were able to learn about the Corpse program, the culture of Reading program right in Chuck. First, let me say this was the poorest of the poor as far as the

schools in the areas we saw. There wasn't a discernible town because this is like the highest highlands that we entered into, and it was like road mountain stepped farming on the mountain, which is really cool. Exactly, there wasn't really a town. It was all along this road. It was wide rather than condensed in any way. UM. But the people were very very gracious and very very happy to see us. Yeah. So when we say poor school,

let's set up a mental image. I think, uh, cender block rooms, kind of this rantid smell in the air, dust everywhere, dust everywhere. Uh, desks that look like they were donated from like you know, some of the atomic experiments in New Mexico in the forties. Yeah, and uh, it's just like beyond poor what you would think of as poor. It is. But again, the people came from

all over the community for this this UM donation. UM and the kids actually were with the young kids in the early hours, and we were also there for when class is transferred because it's young kids in the same school. Young kids in the morning, older kids in the afternoon. And it's because number one, they only have one school, but number two because the older kids get up and work in the fields in the morning and then go

to school. And when we say in the morning, they get up at like four am to make the tortillas and then to work in the fields so they can attend school. Yeah, unbelievable. Uh. The kids we got to give out and pencils, which Jerry also brought some like stickers and things. But she brought like seven stickers. I remember, like a hundred kids off the I said, off the

day loose. Yeah. I grabbed one of the kids and pointed and then pointed to like what Jerry was holding, and she just went over and all of a sudden, they all just flocked. Jerry was hilarious. She took to it though she was kind of like trying to instill some order. She was like, all right, all right, everyone calmed down, let's let's get this done. Which is funny too because a lot of these kids are a mono

lingual and just spoken their Mayan dialects. So Jerry is sitting there speaking broken Spanish to them, and even if they spoke in Spanish, they wouldn't know what she was saying. That they definitely had note to what she was saying, and yet they still formed a line. Yeah, they did

the universal language line up. So uh. But I just on a personal note, to see these kids clamoring over these pens and pencils like it was a an xbox made me want to slap American kids a little bit, to be honest, what the kids are playing with these things? That's what they're playing with, or that the p S three, I don't know the iPhone, but they were treating these pins and pencils like they were, you know, precious and

then they are. So they had a little ceremony like they did at all the schools, a little traditional symbolic dancing and uh performing of uh you know what kind of ceremony did there was the corn dance that they preferred. The corn dance. Yeah, it was about how the corn was given to them by the gods, right, and it's pretty cool. And actually by the last school we went to, Chuck, Jerry and I could have performed the corn dance every

single one. Yeah, I think I could probably roughly perform it, yea, but you should uh. And then we got to meet a lady named Caroline Johnson. She's in Portland, Maine's pretty cool lifelong educator, principal school principle that went on a co ed tour and went back and said, I'm going to quit my job. I'm gonna go to Guatemala because they're not snotting. Those little brats, they don't have apreciate things down there. This, this is the experience of Guatemala,

really alled you to disdain American kids. Didn't. Now that's not true, but um, Caroline obviously didn't say anything like that. She's like one of the sweetest ladies I ever met. She's very kind and soft spoken, but with it and sharp. Actually went down on a tour like we were on and joined up and actually ended up creating an entirely new program that co had institutes right, And we asked her what you know inspired her to leave her life behind and go to Guatemala. And here's what she had

to say. I think the thing that that really that really spoke to me. And we went to an elementary school just to deliver some some pencils and books and miscellaneous kinds of things, and the principal found out that I was also a principal in the US and came up to me and said, can you help the teachers don't know how to teach reading. Um, we appreciate all

this stuff, but we don't know what to do. So I started talking to Joe and Jeff and they said, oh, we've looked into getting into education all kinds of things, but BASI, we're not educating or something. We need somebody to help us. So I started volunteering with them, and at one point decided, you know, working down here and working with these kids would be a lot more fun than continue to be a school administrator in the United States. And so here I am. So how awesome was she?

She's very cool, very cool lady doing great work. And how cool did the little birds in the background sound? Yeah, you could actually kind of hear how beautiful a day it was thanks to the birds. That wasn't sound designed by Jerry, although it could have been. It could have been. So she works with the court the Culture of Reading program, and we why don't we get her to tell us about what CORE is instead of us doing it? So what does um, CORP stand for and what we are

the basic fundamentals of the program corpus Culture of Reading program. UM. That culture of reading was something really important to us. We we came to the schools and we saw that if you gave a second grader a third grader of a short piece of text, they could read the words off the page. They essentially had no comprehension. They the words didn't have meaning. And without books in their homes, without books in those schools, reading is not something they

do for enjoyment, and it's not something they see as valuable. UM. They don't see picking up a newspaper as as something that will help them, that will assist them, or going to look for information and texts. So developing that culture of reading, so we want the kids not only to be able to read and develop those critical thinking skills, we want them to want to read. The want them to see that reading is something you do for pleasure and it's something that you do that will enrichually. So Chuck.

What Caroline and UM the Cooperative for Education figured out was that UM teachers were teaching kids to read basically just writing their assignments on the board and then kids had to scribble them down real quick before they were erased, and there was no comprehension whatsoever. So the court program that Carolyn created UM is part teaching kids to read, but it's also a part teaching teachers how to teach

kids to read. So instead of just standing there and reading very quickly from a book, it involves like reading in a very big voice and like like you read to kids, and then showing them the pictures so they're comprehending. There's not just a string of letters. There's comprehension to the word. Sure. I mean, I wasn't any impression. It's

more for the teachers because they had never seen books either. Well, no, it's part for the kids too, because remember the books get translated into a UM a picture book, and then a play and then I think another big book. So technically this one book that they start off with, by the end of the week they have three books and they've made a play out of it. So they have a book down flat in in in a week. Pretty awesome. Again. So that's the end of part one of S Y

s K is Guatemalan Adventure. Uh, the exciting conclusion is coming up on Thursday, and stick around after these words to hear how you can buy student textbooks for life with just a five dollar text donation. This episode of Stuff you should know. It's brought to you by go to Meeting, the affordable way to meet with clients and colleagues for your free thirty day trial is it go

to meeting dot com slash stock. Okay, folks, if you like what you've heard so far about the co Opera for Education and you want to support them, you can do so with just a five dollar text donation. And here's how it works. Just text the words stuff stuff to two zero two to two and you will donate five dollars to help put a textbook into the hands

of a Guatemalan child. You will receive a text back asking you to confirm the donation and just reply with the word yes to complete the donation, and you will see a one time five dollar charge on your wireless bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Message and data

rates may apply. And if you st up and change your mind before confirming the donation, which you shouldn't do, you can reply the word s t O P stop the two zero two two two, or if you need help, reply with the Word Help h e LP donations are collected by the Mobile Giving Foundation. For more info, you can call eight six six eight one oh one two zero three or go to h m g F dot org slash t so tune in Thursday for for the conclusion the exciting conclusion of s Y s k's Guatemalan adventure. Audios.

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