Dear friends of the Bella Vista kids,
every year it is an arduous trip over the mountains down to Lake Atitlan and to San Pedro. The last part
consists of a heavily eroded road, the little shuttle bus is shaken wildly when taking the narrow hairpin curves.
Then the first sight of the lake and a sigh of relieve: arrived at last.
Every year again the lake offers me this idyllic view. But the real life on its shores is quite different.
And way up on the flanks of the San Pedro volcano? The men still do not earn more than 6 to 8 $ per day
and the women sell herbs from the mountains, tortillas and fish on the market to buy food from the proceeds.
That way they just make ends meet for their families.
The older kids work during the coffee picking season and all continue to sleep on wooden planks and do not have
enough blankets for the cold nights.
The breakfast served at Bella Vista school is a blessing for these children and all of their circumstances make me
want to go every year again. To provide one nutritious warm meal a day, to buy more blankets , (the new
Preschool children get them as a present ), to buy books for the new school year and provide safe drinking water
with the yearly renewed water filters.
What changed this year and it's like a miracle for the poorest sector of San Pedro, the Bella Vista children got their new school building . It is over and done with the old provisional building, the mildew on the walls and the leaking roofs in the rainy season.
The new school has enough space and light to offer a good learning environment. The families celebrated the move
with food, singing and dancing.
I will be there the coming January and February, with your help so much was possible so far and I can't thank you enough
for your trust and support ! Please help again to provide a school breakfast, it's not easy to get it together for around 80 to 90 kids !
Also to maintain the water filter program, the children are so much healthier ! Or to help with a blanket or a book.
A breakfast costs 100 $ for the school year, a warm blanket, book or water filter costs 10 $.
I THANK YOU so much for your trust and support and I hope, that you can help me again to provide for this kids
a better life !
Only through learning and an education they will have a better future !
More than 30 students are individually sponsored, some have finished and working now as a seamstress, a cashier or as a Preschool teacher, others continue in College.
Yours,
Jutta Christmann
PS. For a donation, write your cheque to: Jutta Christmann and mail it for deposit in the Bella Vista account direct
to the RBC BANK, Att.Betty Malloy,
Lockeport , NS
B0T 1L0
