I spent the next few days in Guatemala City. Humid like Ontario during a smog warning, no air conditioning & too hot to sleep with blankets at night. I know no Spanish. I arrive by myself. Eighteen years old. Black Volcom backpack on my back.

All I knew as I left the airport is that I needed to get to the Barcelo Hotel. In my mind I was thinking, “How do I find the shuttle?” “Of course you don’t speak English…” “I’m the only non-Guatemalan here.” “What if the shuttle never comes?” “Man, I’m really hot in my jeans.” 20 minutes later, the shuttle arrived. My trip began into the city.

Checked in, luggage parked, TOMS slid off my feet. Priority one? Nap time. I left Spanish soap operas playing on the television set in my room as I took a nap. It brought on some pretty dramatic dreams. In and out of sleep, somewhere around dinner I decided it was time to leave the hotel and go exploring on my own.

Guatemala City is a strong contrast between rich and poor. They have a KFC, Dominos, Pizza Hut and billboards for Payless Shoe Source next to run down businesses and homes. Basically, there are no road rules. Or even garbage cans. Or a safe sidewalk. Old school buses from the states have been painted over and decorated to look like a mean racing machine. Dozens stopped along each block of the road I walked along, looking for people to pick up. The crowds of people on the broken sidewalks are men loading the buses to go back home from a busy work day.

I got lost on foot looking for a market I had been to once before. Unlike previous ideas that were brainstormed with James H. on what I should do while I’m in Guatemala City, I saw no mopeds to rent and no trouble to get myself in to. Sorry James, maybe next time.

For real, I received so many weird looks from men. They were probably wondering why like little white girl with big nerdy glasses was walking the streets of Guatemala City all by herself. I saw no other tourists. No Volcom backpacks. No big nerdy glasses. One man whistled to me, trying to call me into the back room of a building. Other men yelled what most likely were sexual comments to me in Spanish. This would never happen in Canada and it makes a person feel very uncomfortable. Things didn’t feel so welcoming on those streets. I stood out big time.

I ended up back at my hotel when I couldn’t find the market and the sun was going down. I watched the Latin American version of VH1 that likes work out videos that include men in gorilla costumes, Olivia Newton-John, and hot dog “mind game” training. Strangely, my hotel had a Japanese restaurant, a sports bar, and served me Italian for dinner. I was unsuccessful at this point to escape the food I already ate, especially since Japanese is a staple in my Vancouver diet and Italian is a staple in my Thorold diet. For breakfast, I was served papaya juice, black beans with my omelet and guacamole on top. Salsa & red sauce was complimentary. This is where I had to confront my fears of guacamole after eating too much of it the last time I was in Guatemala and now I live with a fear and disgust of the food.

A few days after leaving for Guatemala, Ted from Wells of Hope showed up to take me to camp. For those of you from my high school, you know that Ted is Mr. Vanderzalm, one of the teachers at the high school. For those of you not from Denis Morris, Ted is one of the most incredible people you could ever meet.

Back in the day, Ted quit university with only one semester left before completing his degree to do community development work in Tanzania. It’s there that he met Myriam, who was from Italy and on her way to becoming a nun. There they fell in love, married, and had their first daughter named Sara who is now in grade 12. When they returned to Canada, Ted finished his degree, became a teacher, and Myriam took care of the children. Skip a few years & three more kids later, the family was just chillin’ back in Canada when 2 medical professionals who were visiting Canada from Guatemala track Myriam and Ted down after hearing about the incredible work they did in Africa. These two men ask Myriam and Ted to do the same thing for Guatemala.

The decision they made was to take their four kids with them to Guatemala for 6 months and to travel the country. They lived out of tents for the entire 6 month period while raising a family and spent 2 weeks at a time in a different community to assess the level of need. They found Jalapa, a place 2 hours east of Guatemala City, to have the most need out of the entire country.

That’s where Wells of Hope gets it’s origins. Now they have 5 children, have a camp building on top of a mountain in Jalapa, a whole organization operating out of Niagara, and have helped so many people. They have built schools, drilled clean water wells, taught English, brought in doctors to run mobile health clinics, supplied school supplies and have done so so so much more. This is all in less than ten years.

Ted would take the second semester of high school off every year and his children would complete school through correspondence from camp. They live in Guatemala from February to May every year. This year a co-op program started in the Niagara Catholic District School Board that brought down a hand full of students to complete high school credits while living and working in Jalapa during the second semester.

Ted truly is one of the coolest guys I have ever met. He’s a dad, a teacher, a man running an organization, a hope-giver, and constantly lives positively every single day. He could most likely lift a car with one hand, he knows how to play a good game of keep away in the pool, and he knows how to uplift an entire community. Wells of Hope is the real deal.

Part Four of my trip to Guatemala will be posted over the next week.