¡Hola a todos!

It has been a while but CANDELA is still alive and kicking so it’s time for another update on recent developments in San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala.

First of all, we would like to thank Felipe, who has now officially retired as director of CANDELA, for everything he has done over the past years: without you CANDELA would not have been here and many disabled persons around Lake Atitlán would be living very different lives. You have not only saved a lot of individuals but also created more awareness among the local people. Muchísimas gracias por todo, the kids will never forget you! CANDELA is now run by its Guatemalan staff members, Victoria Yotz, Manuel Ixcayá and Regino Cox, and things are going really well! o:p>

One of the most important achievements of the past months has been that, thanks to the Unitarian Church of Davenport Iowa, CANDELA now has a regular physiotherapy service. Once a month, an expert physiotherapist from Guatemala City comes to San Juan to examine the kids and adults and to set up therapy programs. These are being applied by Domingo Sosof, a physio aid from the ADISA centre for in Santiago Atitlán, who has agreed to work in CANDELA every morning on weekdays. Apart from being a very kind man and being incredibly good with the kids, he has the advantage of being able to speak to them and their parents in Tz´utujil. We are therefore very happy to have him. By not being completely dependent on the stay of physio volunteers anymore, this regular service enables us to guarantee more continuity in treatment programs. Of course volunteer physiotherapists are still very much needed to be able to offer everybody the time and attention they deserve.

In the same effort of trying to make CANDELA a more professional organization, we are at the moment working on setting up a regular speech therapy service together with the Spanish NGO Senderos de Maiz. A speech therapist from Guatemala City would be able to come to CANDELA once a week to work with kids like Lucas, Fabiola, Juan José or Cristián, but of course this does not come for free. Hopefully we can find the financial means and start working soon.

Otherwise, there have been some very interesting developments here in San Juan regarding the construction of a new centre for disabled persons. As you may know, CANDELA´s aim has always been to construct its own facilities, not just to stop wasting valuable resources on rent, but also to be able to create a building especially designed to fit the needs of the children. So far the funds CANDELA has raised have not been sufficient to realise this dream but help has come from an unsuspected source: Dr. Israel from Belize who arrived in San Juan with the specific purpose to build a school for disabled children. His goal is to build it for and with the Community of San Juan, but in close cooperation with CANDELA. The Padres y Madres de Familia seem to finally have realised the importance of their participation in the care and education of their children and have united themselves in a Committee that has played an important role in the developments so far.

The municipality of San Juan has been generous enough to donate a pretty big plot of land towards the construction of the new centre (for those of you who have been here, it is located at your left hand side when exiting San Juan in the direction of San Pablo, underneath the hill with the cross on top). The site is amazingly beautiful, tranquil and with a lot of trees, but still easily accessible from the road. There is plenty of space to build a multiple classroom school with physiotherapy facilities, a kitchen and dining hall, a big garden to play in and with a Solar Pool for hydrotherapy, etc.

On Saturday the 13th of March we organized a big meeting to start cleaning the land and over 50 people showed up, parents as well as volunteers.

After the hard physical labour came the more official part of the reunion. The Committee of Parents was formally approved as the Directive of the new centre by the assembly of parents present. There was also a vote held to decide on a name for the centre. Unfortunately, our plea in favour of continuing to use the name CANDELA did not receive enough support since a lot of parents wanted this really to be a fresh start and therefore insisted on choosing a new name. In the end the suggestion that received the vast majority of the votes was Centro Maya Xe’kiyaqasiiwaan, referring to a local legend that took place on the hill overseeing the plot. Although we regret the fact that the name CANDELA might disappear from San Juan La Laguna, we appreciate the benefits that the new centre could bring to “our kids” and all the other special kids in the Lake Atitlán region.

But so far the new centre is still in the development phase. In a joint effort between CANDELA, its volunteers, and the Committee of Parents we have installed water on the plot but now we are waiting for the architects to finish the plans so the actual construction can start. But this is Guatemala and it may take many months before the Centro Maya will actually open, so for the time being CANDELA WILL CONTINUE TO HELP AS MANY KIDS AS POSSIBLE!

And we have quite a lot of kids coming in on a regular basis at the moment. Juan Diego and Juan Isaías (currently also known as “the Juanes”) are back: although Juan Isaías continues to chew on everything in sight, including volunteers fingers, thanks to the physiotherapy he is starting to walk again. Juan Diego’s favourite word is still NO but enough female attention has made him smile on several occasions. Rosalía is still brought in every morning and although we don’t always know what she is laughing about, maybe the crazy volunteers who are trying to speak Tz´utujil to her, she seems happy enough to be with us. Martita from San Pedro continues to give us her shy little smiles and is now able to cross a room without holding on to anything, and Víctor our little Don Juan, continues to wrap all the female volunteers around his fingers. We have Lucas, our silent man and pride and joy of CANDELA in local church events, and Fabiola who, once she gets a hold of it, will not let go of your hand anymore when she likes you. Manuel, who is now learning English and doing mathematics writing with his foot, and Micaela, who always comes on Wednesdays for the cooking but who never eats. Griselda, who loves to bring at least half a dozen girlfriends, and Romeo, who still doesn’t seem to know the colours but who did learn to ride the bike. And then there is Juan José, Luís, Teresa, Erwin, Flavio, Domingo, Efraín, Delfina, Amilcar, María, Pedro, Miguel, and all the others that come in more or less on a regular basis. They are the ones we are doing this for, and they deserve all the love and attention we can give them!

Thanks once more for the financial donations over the last three years without you we simply would not have survived and been in our current healthy position so on behalf of the kids a heart felt thanks….. Of course we can still use all the help we can get to provide more and better services to the disabled adults and children around Lake Atitlán. If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in dedicating some time to come and volunteer at CANDELA, please check out the new Volunteers Frequently Asked Questions at the website www.candelaguatemala.tk or contact us directly at candelaguatemala@yahoo.com. For those of you who would like to help but have more money than time, don’t hesitate either to contact one of our fundraisers via the above email address.

Hopefully we’ll be in touch with more exciting news soon!

Love from everybody at CANDELA,
Victoria, Manuel, Regino, Rivka and Adam