New York City and Guatemala

Dutch street names everywhere, buildings higher then you can imagine, friendly and helpful people, good coffee, easy-to-understand subway system, cupcakes, crazy suburbs, fantastic skyline, sushi, not-so-impressive statue of liberty, to many museums to visit, street & subway performers everywhere and the constant buzz of an energy that is impossible to describe… NEW YORK!!

At first sight, this crazy city is not as shocking or ‘different’ as I had imagined. It almost feels familiar and I expected Carry, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte or Spiderman to come (flying) around the corner any moment… but then, after a couple of seconds, you feel the unstoppable, inevitable, all embracing energy buzz flowing through your body. It’s a true feast for all your senses to be in the middle of Manhattan!

Coming to the city frankly unprepared, my friend since many years Loes and I sat down to have coffee first, before tumbling into the fast NYC life. It was great to catch up together and it also gave us a good understanding of the kind of people that live in New York: they are proud of their city, more then willing to help and give advice, friendly and welcoming. With many interesting conversations to come, with a wide variety of random New Yorkers, this sure was a good start!

Through Couchsurfing I found a great host (Lenny) to spend the first nights with in Brooklyn (Williamsburg). If you’re not familiar with the concept, definitely check it out: www.couchsurfing.com for I truly believe this is a initiative that can help the world become a better place, by sharing, exchanging and connecting people from all over the world. Our first host gave great evidence of the trust and hospitality that is fortunately still to be found in this world: without knowing us he left his keys under the doormat, writing us to make ourselves feel at home, since he was going to be home a day later then our arrival. How awesome!!
Friday night after dropping Loes off at the train station for her travels back to Florida, I stayed at another place in Brooklyn, which was a completely different experience. Saturday I moved all my stuff again to spend my last days at a second couchsurfing (CS) host, Sandeep (from India). We met Sandeep at a couchsurfing meeting on thursday (a regular drink organized by the active New York CS group) and he invited me to stay with him at Jersey City (right across the river from Manhattan). It’s so great to be chilling at a comfortable apartment instead of a busy and expensive hostel! Even better are the insights Sandeep and his Indian roommate are giving me into their culture, by cooking an Indian meal and telling me about life and customs in India. Of course I also gave them a glimpse of ‘my world’ by baking Dutch pancakes! In order to make this culinary delight I found myself getting lost once again in a typical American supermarket… Man! Do you really need so many choices for everything? Finding yet another aisle completely filled with 1000 kinds of cereals inspired me to run out of the shop immediately ;)

New York, New York… I came to love the town and was delighted by the insights I got from talking to some residents in their natural habitat. As I wrote before, they all love this city that never sleeps. However, most of them also mention the flip side of living in Manhattan right away: the fast and energetic life is inescapable and at times experienced as pressuring and tiring. New Yorkers wouldn’t trade this city for anything else, but they also like to get out of it every now and then, to catch their breath.

Loes and I got ourselves into a pleasant sequence of quite random and decent touristy things. This included seeing an off-broadway (The Fantastics) and on-broadway (Chicago) show; chatting with the very hot & steamy (or should I say McDreamy) bandit from The Fantastics show; walking a LOT; taking many subways; enjoying cupcakes like the Sex and the City ladies did @ Magnolia Bakery (in the fun Meatpacking District); discovering that all suburbs have a completely different feel and vibe; shooting manymanymany pictures; exploring a M&M shop (they exist!); checking out Brooklyn’s bars, restaurants and a life-music venue with our host Lenny and later also with Sandeep; looking for a stroller (kinderwagen) to push at Central Park; enjoying a sunset on the Manhattan skyline from the Staten Island Ferry; meeting a young comedian who gave me his phone-nr. at Times Square; observing and vastly appreciating everything that came to my senses; discovering that Manhattan appears surreal when you look at it from a distance – walking on the Brooklyn Bridge made the high buildings look like randomly piled up shiny Lego blocks; visiting the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art); doing a free historic tour guided by an eccentric and funny balding man and more!

After Loes left I’ve been slowing down, trying to catch up on some sleep before I continue my travels. Sandeep took me to the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday evening, because every first Saturday of the month they have free entrance and many activities. First of all it was awesome to drive through Manhattan, thereby seeing more suburbs and feeling like being in a movie once again :) We enjoyed ourselves greatly with watching a movie, visiting the exhibitions and watching little kids dance like crazy at the dance party in the great hall of the museum. After going for drinks with two other CS-girls I finally got to sleep loooong… Aah what a pleasure to give my feet some rest! :)

I’m really happy that I had the chance to experience this wonderful city and I’m ready and really looking forward to move on, because… I’m flying to Guatemala Wednesday evening!!!

The best part is this: I found an amazing project where I’ll start volunteering as soon as I traveled down from Guatemala City (Airport) to Puerto Viejo, a tiny village at the Pacific coast of Guatemala, next to Iztapa and close to San Jose.
It’s a free and mobile classroom, called IT’SKOOL and located right at the beach! It offers alternative interactive education in remote locations and is run by the organization Korakor, founded by a French guy named Keveen.
As soon as I came across the website I got really enthusiastic and excited to learn more about the project and contribute myself, as the philosophy (spreading the love) and approach really appealed to me. It connects strongly with the things I’ve been working on and thinking about at Option and joining It’Skool really feels as the perfect next step on my journey. I’d like to tell you more about it, but let me safe this for when I got to experience everything myself. For now, you can check out this website and the information below: http://www.korakor.org/en/itskool/.

Watching the “Manifesto” movie will give you a good idea of the Korakor’s philosophy. It’s also fun to watch the “Newsletters” of January and February 2011, since they’re short, funny, informative and all about It’Skool in Guatemala. This little movie is definitely worth watching too and will probably make you want to come with me to It’Skool :)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkNmPp3_8WY

I’d love to involve all of you in my volunteering experience, so if you have any great, fun, crazy, interactive and/or creative ideas about activities that I can do with the kids: Let me know!!

You’re in my mind and my heart, I’m taking you everywhere I go, so enjoy the ride! :D
- The only limits are the ones we create.

Love,
Rianne

It’Skool – Methodology

Participative and Experimental -- Flexible & Adaptable -- Non-Imposing -- Analytical -- Evolving -- Non-Eurocentric – Intergenerational

IT’SKOOL is a non-academic program, our goal as facilitators is to provide new references, introduce new perspectives and share the techniques that we know. Upon this basis we sow and nurture the seeds of versatile creative capacities. An accent is placed on guiding children as they connect with their bodies, their imaginations, their community and the earth through creative play and practical work. Also an essential part of our work is to respect and include the customs, traditions, cultures and world views of our participants.

With our encouragement, participants are invited to take time to observe, study, question and eventually come up with an answer. By learning to express themselves constructively and recreationally, the participants develop their own method of understanding (stimulating the different intelligences). They then have the opportunity to translate their acquired findings into an art form (photography, drawing, mime…) before being able to translate what they experienced into a new language (English).