Stories by Guatemalan school children (September 2015)
Each month, young Guatemalan school children write stories about their lives and experiences. We ask you to vote for the best one, and then we donate our own funds to the winning school.
For September, congratulations to Claudia Suceli Vasquez Ramirez – a young student from Caserio Chanshenel school – who was voted first by our own students and readers of our blog! Claudia writes about the hardships faced by many in her community and her hopes for the future. For the prize, we will be donating funds towards her school’s chosen item of school desks.
Community Improvement (Comunidad en Superación)
By Claudia Suceli Vasquez Ramirez
(English translation at the bottom)
Before there used to be no cars and the people used horses. For the children, there was no school. The village was sad and poor and there was not much in the Barrancas. When the parents or young needed something or to eat they used to walk to get to the marker in San Juan Ostuncalco. This was very far. Many people did not have money to buy their alimentations and would die of hunger and the women did not have anything to give their children.
There was also no water and the people would walk very far in order to wash their clothes in the river and carry water back home. There was also no energy, electricity and no telephones to communicate. Some people had families in other places or in the United States and there was no way of communication. The famillies were worried because they could not find out how the people were. However, now there is a school to study in and cars, and now we have water and electrical energy and telephones. Before there were no shops, but now there is.
The land used to be sold for 10 centavos and now one block of land costs 10,000 quetzales.
Thanks to the people that went to the United States because our community has grown and there are more opportunities to keep on studying because our parents help us.
We like to study and various teachers help us to do things well and thanks to them, we can do many things and with the help of our parents we are going to achieve more.
If you would like to be a judge in voting for the winning entry each month, please sign up here!