Dear friends and sponsors of the Bella Vista children
Another school year has finished, the rainy season is coming to an end and the coffee harvest starts now in Guatemala. The older children help their families picking coffee beans at the big Fincas, on the high hillsides of the San Pedro volcano or collect fire-wood in the mountains.
Along the paths of the coffee plantations young men are carrying the heavy coffee sacks down to the weighing stations of San Pedro. Behind them the small boys follow with fire-wood on their bent backs.
They have come through a very hard time: a rainy season almost without employment and this year also almost without rain! Maize, their basic food, could not been planted on time and it is getting more expensive, the same as for black beans. The Mayas have to buy these things on the market, as they do not possess land.
Many young families with little children do not have enough food during these times. So how helpful is the breakfast for every pupil. The children stand in a row and are looking forward to this meal.
Beans with eggs or cornflakes with milk and bananas are still their favourites!
On 1st October, the day of children in Guatemala, we had a special lunch: chicken with rice and tomato sauce!
Every year I receive letters from the school director who says thanks also in the name of all the mothers for the meals.
The Bella Vista children still have no equal rights in the Guatemalan society, but with a warm breakfast in the morning their day starts well, as with an empty stomach it is hard to study!
This meal is a little piece of balancing justice!
So please help us/help me also for this year to make it possible for all the coffee pickers' children to get their breakfast in 2015 or also to buy new water filters. Clean water is not guaranteed in Guatemala and without these filters the children often were ill.
Breakfast for the whole school year 2015 costs 100 Euro, one water filter costs 15 Euro.
Middle of January I will be in Bella Vista again and report on the latest issues concerning the school.
I wish you all the best and say a hearty thank you in the name of the Bella Vista children,
Yours
Jutta Christmann