Cobán

On Thursday afternoon we got a call asking us to give the Career Workshop in Cobán. Thankfully we didn’t have any big plans for the weekend. We left on a bus out of Quetzaltenango at 4:30am Friday morning, about fifteen hours after we found out we were taking the trip. There isn’t a road that connects Quetzaltenango with Cobán, so we took a 4 hour bus to Guatemala City and then rode another 4 hours from Guatemala City to Cobán. Cobán is a different world than Xela. It’s located in a mountain range where the cold northern wind meets the warm ocean breeze and the result is perpetual warm rain. It’s not exactly rain forest—it’s a little too high for that, but it’s a whole lot greener than the arid altiplano we see most of the time. In the department (like a county) of Alta Verapaz, there are more than 600 species of orchids. We didn’t have time to get out and see them all, but we did enjoy the beautiful change of scenery and climate. Before we left Xela, we tried to find out details about the workshop that was planned for Cobán (how many people would be there, would they be stake employment specialists, what days and how long would the workshop be, etc.). Our answers varied, so we thought optimistically and brought 20 manuals with us. When we got to the Center in Guate, they suggested we bring at least 30 manuals, so we grabbed 10 more, still not knowing exactly what to expect. The Stake President picked us up from the hotel and helped us set up at the church. We were stunned when he pulled out a bag of nice tablecloths to use. We have never had such decorations at any of our previous workshops! We expressed our surprise to the President and he told us that if we treat the participants like they are invited to participate in an important, professional training, they’ll begin to feel important themselves. From the looks of the room, the participants would have never guessed that this was a last minute trip for us. The President’s theory not only applied to the students. We also felt very important and were excited to teach the group. We had to adjust the room and add more tables after the first five minutes. The turnout was pretty amazing. It was a good thing we got more manuals in Guate. Later, we found out that some of them had traveled 7 hours on buses from their mountain villages to get there. The workshop didn’t go exactly as we had planned. We faced some new challenges and weren’t exactly prepared to handle them. We have dealt with a participant here or there who doesn’t speak Spanish as a first language. It was difficult, but with some time and a small group we were able to deal pretty well with the situation. Out of the 26 people in the workshop, 25 spoke Kek’chi. Many of them also speak Spanish very well, but others speak very little, if any. There were two participants who were willing to translate, but it became very difficult to keep up the translation through all of the activities, especially while trying to do the activities themselves. Going right along with the division in language was an enormous educational difference. While some of the participants were in college, others had not advanced past first or second grade and couldn’t read or write. Helping these humble, soft-spoken people who barely understand Spanish to identify their achievements required individual attention, which took quite a bit of time. Meanwhile, those who had completed more schooling and were literate finished quickly and had to wait for the group. There were of disparate ages as well. Most of the participants were young people (18-25) but there were also a few adults, including a branch president and district president. To top it all off, the workshop normally lasts 12 hours. We have done it in 10 hours, we have done it in 8 hours, but we had never imagined having to do it all in 4.5 hours, but that was the time that was allotted and we couldn’t change it, so we did our best. Of course we wanted to do all of the activities, but there just wasn’t time. It was hard to leave them with just a taste of what we wanted to share. We learned a lot about the possible complications in a workshop. We hope that some of the participants learned something better than that. Happily, the workshop wasn’t the only reason they had come. The stake and outlying district had a mini-conference for the youth and the workshop was just the first activity. In the evening Elder Altamirano from the Area Presidency came and talked to nearly 200 young people from all over northern Guatemala. After the fireside, there was a formal dinner for all the participants, and all of the returned missionaries from Cobán Stake and Chulac district spoke and each shared an experience from their mission. The conference would conclude with an early morning testimony meeting on Sunday, after which, everyone would return to their homes, however near or far away they were.