Oliva Lopez is twenty-four and she comes from Santa Catarina Palopo on the shores of Lake Atitlan. She is the eldest of eight children in her family; the youngest is only three. All are students. Oliva is single, though most Guatemalans marry very young.
The large Lopez family moved to Panajachel to earn a living from the active tourist industry there. All the family help in their small business making typical Maya textiles to sell on Calle Santander to visiting tourists.
Oliva is enrolled at Rafael Landivar University in Quetzaltenango in the seventh level of a Marketing degree. She needs two and a half more years to graduate. She gets no income from the tiny family business.
Every Saturday she is up at 4 a.m. catch the bus and ride 40 minutes to the university to spend all day at her studies; she does not get home until nine or ten at night. Even the cost of food and transportation to attend Saturday school classes is difficult for such a large family.
Oliva hopes her degree in Marketing (which will require six years) will help to improve life for her family. Oliva is painfully aware of the difficulties for other Maya and Guatemala children. She wants in the future to help other children throughout her country.
Diego Pazan is a 26 years old student from San Juan, Quiche, the only son in his family. He needs two more years to complete his studies in Mathematics at the Universidad del Valle in Solola, Guatemala. He wishes teach upper levels of mathematics. Currently he is teaching in a private school in Panajachel and studying part time to finish his degree. His monthly salary is so meager (about $100) that just supporting himself is difficult.
He has other responsibilities as well, however. Last year his only sister died leaving a baby girl. Diego will provide for and raise his niece. Diego’s parents are divorced; his mother lives in Quiche; his father and new wife live in Panjachel.
Diego is typical of his generation. He has made many personal sacrifices for his education; he wants to help others in his community achieve a better life; he assumes responsibility for helping family.
He is keenly interested in education and especially in mathematics.
Diego is single.
Juan Tiney Ixtulul at his home in Santiago Guatemala
Juan Tiney has three and a half years of medical school. He needs two more to finish.
Like many other Guatemalan Maya, he hit a stone wall. He had to come home to earn money to help send his younger brothers and sisters to school. There are nine in his family.
Maya families make big sacrifices to pay school tuitions because Guatemala has only 6 years of state funded education.
Juan Tiney is 25 years old, an indigenous Maya Tzutujil and already he is a leader.
He and his father Domingo bring bags of oranges and limes by bus and boat from the Pacific coast to sell to restaurants in the tourist town of Panajachel.
The Tiney family lives in a two-room house in Santiago, a city of 45,000 in Central Guatemala. They do have electricity and running water, but his mother cooks outside on an open wood fire, -no chimney.
The mayor of Santiago Manuel Reanda Pablo writes that he has “demonstrado sus cualidades: responsabilidad, honradez, relaciones humanas y deseos of superacion…”
Juan is both an athlete, and a student. He has spent three years in junior high, two more in computer studies, three further in a seminary studying philosophy and theology, and now 3 ½ years in the Latin America Medical School in Havana, Cuba.
Juan’s family cannot help him finish school. His tuition is paid, but still he needs books, clothing, travel, and food. At the Cuban school there was rarely ever meat or fish. He got only eggs for 18 months. Telephone, mail and Internet are all expensive, so keeping connected with his family was difficult.
It costs hundeds of thousands in Ontario to educate a doctor, but only a couple of hundred dollars a month will allow Juan Tiney to complete medical school.
- Dolores, Juan’s mother, in her kitchen
- Rodolfo Perez
Rodolfo Perez is studying tourism.
He lives in Panajachel with his wife Norma Elizabeth and their little daughter Enma.
Rodolfo comes from a very poor family, but he is detemined to advance his education. Currently he is studying English. His marks are all in the 80s and 90s. He has completed three semesters, and needs one more year to graduate.
