Educacíon Bilinguë

Early yesterday morning, I had the chance to take a microbus (read: minivan) to a bilingual school about 40km outside of Xela in an especially rural, agricultural part of Guatemala. The two languages: Español and Mayamam, one of the many Mayan languages still spoken by families in rural parts of the country.

It was at once a fascinating, uplifting, and troubling experience. Fascinating in part because of the drive itself--about an hour and a half over primarily dirt roads (with the occasionally intervening paved strech that seemingly popped out of nowhere!), including one especially narrow, especially muddy bridge that left me grateful to live in a country where guardrails are required!--and fascinating in part because of the school itself--a formerly clandestine operation, now approved by the government of Guatemala and funded by the government of Japan. It was uplifting for many of the reasons one might suspect: Happy children are infectious; it is wonderful to see opportunities being created both to preserve a language and culture and to increase the odds that children in a rural area might go to college.

It was troubling to know how few of the students would actually make it there: Only one in 200 would finish university. Despite that and limited funds--or perhaps because of it--all of us who showed up were treated like kings! The students put on performances; some folks in the community cooked us an enormous meal; the teachers brought us a giant bottle of rum. (Drinking rum at 1:00 in the afternoon, in a school, with teachers, before going to talk to students about dental hygiene in spanish, is not an experience I expect to have often!) Being here, much like being in Mississippi, reminds me of how great an influence the accident of birth has on life. It also reminds me that, regardless of birth, there are happy people everywhere.

Some of the Mam students at the school.